|
[1] — |
The place of St. Rumold’s death is contested.
According to certain Belgic and other Martyrologies, he
was of the blood royal of Scotland (as Ireland was then
called) and bishop of Dublin. This opinion is ably
supported by F. Hu. Ward, an Irish Franciscan, a man
well skilled in the antiquities of his country, in a work
entitled Dissertatio Historica de Vita et Patria
S. Rumoldi, Archiepiscopi Dubliniensis, published at
Louvain in 1662, in 4to. The learned pope
Benedict XIV. seems to adjudge St. Rumold to
Ireland, in his letter to the prelates of that kingdom
dated the 1st of August, 1741, wherein are the
following words: “Quod si recensere voluerimus
sanctissimos viros Columbanum, Kilianum, Virgilium,
Rumoldum, Gallum, aliosque plures qui ex Hibernia in alias
provincias catholicam fidem invexerunt, aut illam per
martyrium effuso sanguine collustrarunt.” (Hib. Dom.
Suppl. p. 831.) On the other hand, Janning the
Bollandist undertakes to prove that St. Rumold was an
English Saxon. See Janning and J. B. Sellerii Acta
S. Rumoldi, Antverp, 1718; also F. Ward,
and Ware’s bishops, p. 305. |
|
[2] — |
St. John Damascen. Serm. de Transfig.
Dom. |
|
[3] — |
Gildas, c. 8. |
|
[4] — |
Bede, Hist l. 1. c. 7. |
|
[5] — |
The second kingdom of Burgundy was begun in 890, by
Ralph, nephew to Bozon, whom the emperor Charles the
Bald, king of France, had made king of Arles
in 876, giving him Provence and part of Dauphiné.
This second kingdom of Burgundy comprised Provence,
Savoy, the Viennois, and the county of Burgundy. The
duchy of Burgundy had its duke at the same
time. |
|
[6] — |
It is nine leagues from Mans. Childebert in the charter
says that the land had been already given to the saint
by Clovis his father. (Marten. Amp. Coll. tom. 1,
p. 1.) This is also attested by Nicholas, Ep. ad
Episc. Gall. and is likewise insinuated by Siviard in
his life of St. Calais. |
|
[7] — |
Salus in the Syriac signifies foolish. |
|
[8] — |
St. Tho. 2, 2. |
|
[9] — |
Imit. of Chr. b. 1, c. 20. |
|
[10] — |
Phil. iii. 29. |
|
[11] — |
From the word joy used by the evangelist on this
occasion, and from the unanimous consent of the fathers,
it is manifest that the holy infant anticipated the use
of reason, and that this was not a mere natural motion,
as some protestants have imagined, but the result of
reason, and the effect of holy joy and
devotion. |
|
[12] — |
Phil. iv. 20. |
|
[13] — |
Nero reigned the first five years with so much clemency,
that once when he was to sign an order for the death of
a condemned person, he said: “I wish I could
not write.” But his master Seneca and Burrhus the
prefect of the prætorium, to whom this his moderation
was owing, even then discovered in him a bent to
cruelty, to correct which they strove to give his
passion another turn. With this view Seneca wrote and
inscribed to him a treatise On Clemency, which we still
have. But both Seneca and
Burrhus connived at an adulterous intrigue in which he
was engaged in his youth: so very defective was the
virtue of the best among the heathen philosophers. If
the tutors imagined that by giving up a part, they might
save the rest, and by indulging him in the softer
passions they might check those which seemed more fatal
to the commonwealth, the event showed how much they were
deceived by this false human prudence, and how much more
glorious it would have been to have preferred death to
the least moral evil, could paganism have produced any
true martyrs of virtue. The passions are not to be
stilled by being soothed: whatever is allowed them is
but an allurement to go farther, and soon makes their
tyranny uncontrollable. Of this Nero is an instance.
For, availing himself of this indulgence, he soon gave
an entire loose to all his desires, especially when he
began to feel the dangerous pleasure of being master of
his own person and actions. He plunged himself publicly,
and without shame or constraint, into the most infamous
debaucheries, in which such was the perversity of his
heart, that, as Suetonius tells us, he believed nobody
to be less voluptuous and abandoned than himself, though
he said they were more private in their crimes, and
greater hypocrites: notwithstanding, at that very time,
Rome abounded with most perfect examples of virtue and
chastity among the Christians.
There is a degree of folly inseparable from vice. But
this in Nero seemed by superlative malice to degenerate
into downright phrenzy. All his projects consisted in
the extravagances of a madman; and nothing so much
flattered his pride as to undertake things that seemed
impossible. He forgot all common rules of decency,
order, or justice. It was his greatest ambition to sing
or perform the part of an actor on the stage, to play
on musical instruments in the theatre, or to drive a
chariot in the circus. And whoever did not applaud all
his performances, or had not the complaisance to let him
carry the prize at every race or public diversion, his
throat was sure to be cut, or he was reserved for some
more barbarous death. For cruelty was the vice which
above all others has rendered his name detestable. At
the instigation of Poppæa, a most infamous adulteress,
he caused his mother Agrippina to be slain in the year
58, and from that time it seemed to be his chief delight
to glut his savage mind with the slaughter of the
bravest, the most virtuous, and the most noble persons
of the universe, especially of those that were nearest
to him. He put to death his wife Octavia after many
years ill usage, and he cut off almost all the most
illustrious heads of the empire. |
|
[14] — |
On account of the murder of St. Stanislas, slain by
Boleslas II. |
|
[15] — |
Serm. v. de Laz. t. 1, p. 765. |
|
[16] — |
St. Chrys. l. 1, ad Vid. Junior. t. 1,
p. 341. |
|
[17] — |
According to the Registers of Landaff, quoted by Usher,
St. Oudoceus was son of Budic II. prince of
Cornwall, in Armorica; and was committed to the care of
St. Theliau, when he removed to Armorica. But Usher
is mistaken, as he dates this fact at 596. For we learn
from St. Gregory of Tours that Thierri, son of
Budic, was made prince of Cornwall in 577, and that his
father was dead a long time before. |
|
[18] — |
P. 178, ed. Combefis. |
|
[19] — |
Not. ib. t. 2, p. 704, Op.
St. Chrys. |
|
[20] — |
T. 2, ed. Ben. p. 704. |
|
[21] — |
The abbey of Kemperle is three leagues from Port-Louis
and eight from Quimper. |
|
[22] — |
In Latin Berti Cramnus, Bertrannus: not
Bertrandus. |
|
[23] — |
Lugo in Decal. See Less. l. de
Valetud. |
|
[24] — |
Jos. ix. 14. |
|
[25] — |
See these laws in Spelman, Conc. t. 1, and Wilkins,
Conc. Brit. t. 1. |
|
[26] — |
Cent. 10. |
|
[27] — |
Extant in Monast. Anglic. App.,
vol. 1. |
|
[28] — |
The Welch laws of Howel Dha, that is, Howel the Good,
are published by Dr. Wotton, in folio,
1735. |
|
[29] — |
See Inett, History of the Church of England,
t. 1. |
|
[30] — |
Rosweide, Vit. Patr. l. 5, lib. 4,
n. 38. |
|
[31] — |
Ibid. l. 6, lib. 2, n. 14. |
|
[32] — |
Cotelier, Monum. Gr. p. 675. |
|
[33] — |
Cotelier, ib. p. 670, Rosweide, l. 3,
p. 103. |
|
[34] — |
Cotelier, ib. p. 672. |
|
[35] — |
Rosweide, Vid. Patr. l. 5, lib. 15,
n. 47. |
|
[36] — |
Rosweide, Vit. Patr. l. 5, lib. 1,
n. 17. |
|
[37] — |
Rosweide, Vit. Patr. l. 5, lib. 15,
n. 44. |
|
[38] — |
Ibid. n. 46. |
|
[39] — |
Ibid. l. 5, lib. 8, n. 15. |
|
[40] — |
Ibid. l. 6, lib. 9, n. 5. |
|
[41] — |
Cotelier, ibid. p. 669. |
|
[42] — |
Rosweide, Vit. Patr. l. 5, lib. 4, n. 39,
et l. 6, lib. 3, n. 6. |
|
[43] — |
Cotelier, p. 671. |
|
[44] — |
Rufin. ap. Rosw. l. 3, n. 162. |
|
[45] — |
Rosweide, Vit. Patr. l. 5, lib. 16,
n. 10. |
|
[46] — |
Cotelier, t. 1, p. 678. |
|
[47] — |
The monastery of Blangy was founded in 686. Having been
destroyed during the incursions of the Normans, it was
rebuilt in the eleventh century, and given to the
religious of the Order of St. Benedict. It is still
in being. |
|
[48] — |
She was widow of Guy of Chatillon, count of
St. Pol, brother to Maud. |
|
[49] — |
St. Cypr. l. de Oper. et Eleem. |
|
[50] — |
L. 1, de Offic. c. 30. |
|
[51] — |
The abbé Ma-Geoghegan, in his history of Ireland,
published in Paris in 1758, asserts that the Scots were
originally Scythians, or properly Celto-Scythians, of
Spanish original. Foreign writers of repute bear witness
to this extraction: the native historians of Ireland
have at all times been unanimous in recording it, and
have adduced testimonies in support of it, which cannot
be easily overthrown, as some moderns, who made the
attempt, have experienced. The ancient Fileas of Ireland
have indeed (like the old poets of all other European
nations) shrouded real facts in a veil of pompous
fables. Thus they pretended the leaders of this Spanish
colony were the descendants of a celebrated Breogan, and
that a grandson of this Breogan was married to an
Egyptian heroine named Scota, from whom the Irish took
the name of Kinea-Scuit or Scots, as they took the
appellation of Clan-Breogan or Brigantes, from the
former. But such inventions, acceptable to the credulity
and flattering to the pride of nations, cannot discredit
any fact otherwise well attested. The British Brigantes
were probably descendants of the Irish Brigantes, as the
Scots of Britain were certainly descendants from those
of Ireland. Tacitus, in the first age of the Christian
era, has thought from the difference of complexion and
frame of body observable among the British tribes of his
time, that some were of Spanish original; and an earlier
writer, Seneca, in his satire on the emperor Claudius,
makes mention of the Scuta-Brigantes, which Scaliger, by
needless correction, makes Scoto-Brigantes, as the Irish
wrote Scuit and Scoit indifferently. This testimony of
Seneca is a proof that the name Scots or Scuits, was
known to some Roman writers so early as the first
century; and the Irish appellations of Kinea-Scuit and
Clan-Breogan plainly point out the proper country of
those Scuta-Brigantes in the time of the emperor
Nero.
Mr. Geoghegan looks upon the Irish to be a mother
tongue; and it may justly be so denominated,
notwithstanding the adoption of some foreign terms, and
some variations of construction introduced by time in
all languages, before they arrive at their classical
standard. Some writings of the fifth century show that
this language was at its full perfection before the
introduction of the gospel by Roman missionaries in the
fourth and fifth centuries. The notion that this
language is a dialect of the modern Biscayan is
undoubtedly groundless. The latter tongue owes its
original to some nation of those barbarians who settled
in Guipuscoa and other parts of the Pyrenean regions, on
the decline of the Roman empire, nor are the few words
common in the Basque and Irish tongues any proof that
the one is descended from the other. This observation
will hold good relatively to the Welsh and Irish
languages. They differ entirely in syntax, and show that
the two nations speaking those tongues have different
Celtic originals.
Bollandus says that St. Patrick taught the first
alphabet to the Irish: he means the Roman alphabet, and
should not forget that it was taught very near an age
before, by earlier missionaries in the parts of Ireland
which they converted to the faith. In the antecedent
times the Fileas or ancient Irish writers, inscribed
their ideas on tablets of wood, by the means of
seventeen cyphers, of which their ancestors learned the
use before their arrival in Ireland; nor is this fact
obscured, but is rather enlightened by a fable of the
Fileas, setting forth that some of those ancestors were
instructed in letters by a celebrated Phenius, famous
for literary knowledge in the East. Through this
poetical veil we plainly discern the Phenicians, who
first instructed the Europeans (the Greeks, Lybians,
Italians, and Spaniards particularly) in the use of
letters and other arts. Spain, according to Strabo, had
the use of letters in a very early period; and that a
colony from that country should import into, and
cultivate also, those elements of knowledge in Ireland,
is not improbable: the perfection of the Irish language
before the introduction of Christianity is an
incontrovertible proof of the fact.
The Scots are represented as a rude and barbarous people
in the fourth and fifth ages, even by some eminent
ecclesiastical writers. But these as well as other
foreign historians have not, if at all, been resident
long enough in Ireland to pronounce the natives
barbarous, if those writers took that epithet in the
worst sense it can bear. St. Jerom avers that when
an adolescentulus, he saw a Scot in Gaul feeding upon
human flesh, but the child, in this case, might impose
upon the man, or if otherwise, a nation is not to be
characterised from the barbarity of an individual, or
even of a single tribe in an extensive country. That
some barbarous customs prevailed in Ireland during the
ages mentioned, cannot be denied; and that some prevail
at this day in most of the modern states of Europe,
called enlightened, is a matter of fatal experience. In
the documents still preserved in the native language of
the ancient Irish, we learn that after the reform made
of the order of Fileas in the first century, houses and
ample landed endowments were set apart for those
philosophers, who, in the midst of the most furious
civil wars, were by common consent to be left
undisturbed; that they were to be exempt from every
employment but that of improving themselves in abstract
knowledge, and cultivating the principal youths of the
nation in their several colleges; that in the course of
their researches they discovered and exposed the corrupt
doctrines of the Druids; and that an enlightened monarch
called Cormac O’Quin took the lead among the Fileas in
the attack upon that order of priests, and declared
publicly for the unity of the Godhead against
Polytheism, and for the adoration of one supreme,
omnipotent, and merciful Creator of heaven and earth.
The example of that monarch, and the disquisitions of
the Fileas relating to religion and morality, paved the
way for the reception of the gospel; and as the
doctrines of our Saviour made the quickest progress
among civilized nations, the conversion of Ireland in a
shorter compass of time than we read of in the
conversion of any other European country, brings a proof
that the natives were not the rude barbarians some
ancient authors have represented them to
be. |
|
[52] — |
Antiq. Brit. Eccl. c. 16,
p. 408, 412. |
|
[53] — |
Prosp. Contra Collat. c. 44. |
|
[54] — |
See the note on the life of St. Patrick in this
work; also Ware’s Antiq. by Harris, with his remarks on
Dempster, c. 1, p. 4. |
|
[55] — |
Usher, p. 418. |
|
[56] — |
Certain ancient principal Scottish saints are
commemorated in an ancient Scottish calendar published
by Mr. Robert Keith, as follows:
Jan.
8. St. Nethalan, B. C.
An. 452.
21. St. Vimin, B. An. 715.
29. St. Macwoloc, B. An. 720.
30. Saint Macglastian, B. An. 814.
Feb.
7. St. Ronan, B. C. An. 603.
March
1. St. Minan, archdeacon, C.
An. 879. Also St. Marnan, B.
An. 655.
4. St. Adrian, B. of
St. Andrew’s, M. He was slain by the Danes in
874, and buried in the isle of Man.
6. St. Fredoline, C. An. 500.
11. St. Constantine, king of Scotland, a monk
and M. An. 556.
17. St. Kyrinus or Kyrstinus, surnamed
Boniface, B. of Ross, An. 660.
April
1. St. Gilbert, B. of Caithness,
An. 1140.
12. St. Ternan, archbishop of the Picts, ordained
by Saint Palladius, about the year 450.
16. St. Manus or Mans, M. in Orkney,
An. 1104.
19. Translation of St. Margaret’s body to
Dunfermline.
July
6. St. Palladius, apostle of Scotland.
August
10. St. Blanc, B. C.
27. St. Malrube, hermit, martyred by the Danes, in
Scotland, in 1040.
September
16. St. Minian, B. C. in 450, or according to
some, a whole century later.
22. St. Lolan, B. of Whithern or Galloway.
October
25. St. Marnoc, B. C. died at Kilmarnock in
the fourth or fifth century.
November
2. Saint Maure, from whom Kilmaures is named,
An. 899.
12. St. Macar, B. of Murray, M. 887.
St. Germanus, B. C. said to have been
appointed bishop of the isles by St. Patrick. Under
his invocation the cathedral of the isle of Man is
dedicated. St. Macull or Mauchold, in Latin
Macallius, bishop in the same place from 494 to 518. In
his honor many churches are dedicated in Scotland, and
one in the isle of Man. He is honored on the 25th of
April. St. Brendan, from whom a church in the isle
of Man is called Kirk-Bradan, was bishop of the isles in
the ninth century.
N. B. The isle of Man has had its own bishop from
the time it came into the hands of the English in the
days of Edward I. of England, and David II. of
Scotland. It was anciently subject to the bishop of the
Isles, who always resided at Hy-columbkill till the
extinction of episcopacy in Scotland, in 1688. The
bishops both of the isles and of Man took the title of
Episcopus Sodorensis; which Mr. Keith (p. 175)
derives (not from any towns), but from the Greek word
Soter or Saviour, because the cathedral of Hy-columbkill
is dedicated to our Saviour. See Mr. Robert Keith,
in his new Catalogue of bishops in Scotland, printed at
Edinburgh, in 4to. An. 1755.
Le Neve supposes with Spotiswood that the isle of Man
had its bishops after Amphibalus, who lived in the
fourth age, that they were called bishops of Soder from
a village of that name in the island, and that the title
was transferred to the island of Hy-columbkill in the
eighth age, when the two sees were united into one. But
the succession of bishops in the isle of Man is not
sufficiently clear.
Matthew Paris says that Wycomb was first bishop of Man,
in the twelfth age, and that he was consecrated by the
archbishop of York. See Le Neve. Fasti
Anglic. |
|
[57] — |
Hect. Boet. l. 7, fol. 128. |
|
[58] — |
Sozom. l. 3, c. 14. |
|
[59] — |
Rufin. b. 5, c. 10. |
|
[60] — |
Socrates, in all things he said, used to add this form
of speech, “By my Dæmon’s leave.” And just upon the
point of expiring, he ordered a cock to be sacrificed to
Esculapius (Plato’s Phædo sub finem). And in his trial
we read one article of his impeachment to have been a
charge of unnatural lust. Thales, the prince of
naturalists, being asked by Crœsus what God was, put off
that prince from time to time, saying, “I will
consider
on it.” But the meanest mechanic among the Christians
can explain himself intelligibly on the Creator of the
universe. Diogenes could not be contented in his tub
without gratifying his passions. And when with his dirty
feet he trod upon Plato’s costly carpets, crying that he
trampled upon the pride of Plato, he did this, as Plato
answered him, with greater pride. Pythagoras affected
tyranny at Thurium, and Zeno at Pyrene. Lycurgus made
away with himself because he was unable to bear the
thought of the Lacedæmonians correcting the severity of
his laws. Anaxagoras had not fidelity enough to restore
to strangers the goods which they had committed to his
trust. Aristotle could not sit easy till he proudly made
his friend Hermias sit below him; and he was as gross a
flatterer of Alexander for the sake of vanity, as Plato
was of Dionysius for his belly. From Plato and Socrates
the stoics derived their proud maxim, “The wise man is
self-sufficient.” Epictetus himself allows “to be proud
of the conquest of any vice.” Aristotle (Ethic. ad
Nicom. l. 10, c. 7) and Cicero patronize
revenge. See B. Cumberland of the Laws of Nature,
c. 9, p. 346. Abbé Batteux demonstrates the
impiety and vices of Epicurus mingled with some virtues
and great moral truths. (La Morale d’Epicure, à Paris,
1758.) The like blemishes may be found in the doctrine
and lives of all the other boasted philosophers of
paganism. See Theodoret. De curandis Græcor.
affectibus, &c. |
|
[61] — |
King Ina ruled the West-Saxons thirty-seven years with
great glory, from the abdication of Ceadwalla who died
at Rome. Ina vanquished the Welsh, several domestic
rebels, and foreign enemies; made many pious
foundations, and rebuilt in a sumptuous manner the
abbey of Glastenbury. Ralph or Ranulph Higden in his
Polychronicon, and others say this king first
established the Rome-scot or Peter-pence, which was a
collection of a penny from every house in his kingdom
paid yearly to the see of Rome. By considering the
vanities of the world and moved by the frequent
exhortations of the queen his wife, he renounced the
world in 728 in the highest pitch of human felicity, and
leaving his kingdom to Ethelheard his kinsman, travelled
to Rome, was there shorn a monk, and grew old in that
mean habit. His wife accompanied him thither, confirmed
him in that course, and imitated his example: so that
living not far from each other in mutual love, and in
the constant exercises of penance and devotion, they
departed this life at Rome not without doing divers
miracles, as William of Malmesbury and
H. Huntingdon write. In 696 Sebbi, the pious king
of the East-Saxons, preferred also a private life to a
crown, took the monastic habit with the blessing of
bishop Whaldere, successor to St. Erkenwald in the
see of London, after bestowing a great sum of money in
charity, and soon after departed this life in the odor
of sanctity. See Bede b. 4,
c. 11. |
|
[62] — |
Spelman Conc. Brit. t. 1. |
|
[63] — |
B. 5, ch. 19. |
|
[64] — |
Bede, p. 3, c. 6. |
|
[65] — |
On St. Edelburga see Solier the Bollandist, ad
diem 7 Julij, t. 2, p. 481. She is
called in French St. Aubierge. See on her also Du
Plessis, Hist. de Meaux. |
|
[66] — |
Published by Dom. Martenne, Anecdot.
t. 4. |
|
[67] — |
Urban VIII. Constit. 58. Cum sicut.
An. 1626, Bullar. Roman. t. 5,
p. 120. |
|
[68] — |
Grotius and others demonstrate the Greek language to
have been, in the first ages of Christianity, common in
Palestine; but this cannot be extended to all the
country people, as this passage and other proofs clearly
show. Hence Eusebius wrote his Acts of the Martyrs of
Palestine in Syro-Chaldaic, but abridged the same in
Greek, in the eighth book of his Church
History. |
|
[69] — |
The old Latin Acts write his name Flavian, and some
Fabian, by mistaking the Syriac name, which is written
without vowels. |
|
[70] — |
Anglia Sacra, t. 1, p. 613, published by
Wharton. |
|
[71] — |
Ibid. p. 606. |
|
[72] — |
Sozom. l. 3, c. 16. |
|
[73] — |
T. 3, p. 23. |
|
[74] — |
On this genuine work see Assemani, Op. t. 1,
p. 119, ib. Proleg, c. 1, et t. 2,
p. 37. Item Biblioth. Orient. t. 1,
p. 141. The disciples of St. Ephrem committed
to writing this same history, as they had often heard it
from his mouth. Hence we have so many relations of it.
One formerly published by Gerard Vossius, is
republished by Assemani (t. 3, p. 23). But
the most complete account is that given us in the
saint’s confession, extant in the new Vatican
edition. |
|
[75] — |
See Appendix on St. Ephrem’s Works, at the end of
the life. |
|
[76] — |
Serm. Ascetic. 1, p. 4. |
|
[77] — |
In encomio Basilij, t. 2. |
|
[78] — |
From his conversing with St. Basil by an
interpreter it is clear that St. Ephrem never
understood the Greek language. The old vicious
translation of the life of St. Basil, under the
name of St. Amphilochius, pretends that
St. Basil obtained for him miraculously the
knowledge of the Greek tongue, and ordained him priest.
But this is a double mistake, though the latter was
admitted by Baillet. Saint Jerom, Palladius, and other
ancients always style him deacon, never priest. Nor
does Pseudo Amphilochius say, that St. Basil raised
St. Ephrem, but only his disciple and companion to
the priesthood, as the new translation of this piece,
and an attentive inspection of the original text,
demonstrate. |
|
[79] — |
T. 4, b. 1, ed. Vaticanæ. |
|
[80] — |
Necrosima, can. 81, p. 335,
t. 6. |
|
[81] — |
St. Ephrem in Testam. p. 286, 395, and
St. Greg. Nyss. p. 12. |
|
[82] — |
Testam. t. 2, p. 230, &c. |
|
[83] — |
Greg. M. Moral. l. 23, c. 21. |
|
[84] — |
Cant. ii. 12. |
|
[85] — |
John Oosterwican was director to a convent of nuns of
the same order in Gorcum; he was then very old, and
often prayed that God would honor him with the crown of
martyrdom.
The names of the eleven Franciscans were Nicholas Pick,
Jerom, a native of Werden, in the county of Horn,
Theodoric of Embden, native of Amorfort, Nicaise
Johnson, native of Heze, Wilhade, native of Denmark,
Godfrey of Merveille, Antony of the town of Werden,
Antony of Hornaire, a village near Gorcum, Francis
Rodes, native of Brussels. These were priests and
preachers. The other two were lay-brothers, namely,
Peter of Asca, a village in Brabant, and Cornelius of
Dorestate, a village now called Wick, in the territory
of Utrecht.—The three curates were Leonand Vechel,
Nicholas Poppel, and Godfrey Dunen. This last was a
native of Gorcum, who having been rector of the
university of Paris, where he had studied and taught,
was some time curate in Holland near the French
territories, but resigned his curacy and lived at
Gorcum.
The other martyrs were John Oosterwican mentioned above;
John, a Dominican of the province of Cologne, curate of
Hornaire; Adrian Hilvarenbeck, a Norbertin of
Middleburge, who served a parish at Munster, a village
near the mouth of the Meuse; James Lacop of the same
order and monastery, an assistant in a neighboring
parish to Munster; and Andrew Walter, a secular priest,
curate of Heinort, near Dort. |
|
[86] — |
Julij, t. 2, p. 823. |
|
[87] — |
De Canoniz. lib. iii. cap. 12. |
|
[88] — |
The reader will observe that this word is used in the
Saints’ writings in the sense of elevated, and almost
ecstatic, union with God, in prayer and
contemplation. |
|
[89] — |
Pius VI. Decree approving the virtues of the Ven.
Veronica Giuliani. April, 1796. |
|
[90] — |
Ceillier and some others think this emperor to have been
M. Aurelius Antoninus Philosophus, who was a
persecutor, and reigned with Lucius Verus; the latter
was absent from Rome in the Parthian war from 162 to
166; on which account, say these authors, he did not
appear in this trial. See Tillemont, t. 2,
p. 326. But that these martyrs suffered under
Antoninus Pius, in the thirteenth year of his reign, of
Christ 150, we are assured by an old inscription in
several ancient MS. copies of their acts mentioned by
Ruinart. That this emperor put several Christians to
death whilst he was governor of Asia before his
accession to the empire, Tertullian testifies (ad
Scapul.). And that towards the end of his reign,
notwithstanding his former mildness towards them, he
again exercised the sword and torments on them, we have
an undoubted proof in the genuine epitaph of
St. Alexander, martyr, produced by Aringhi,
Diss. 2, l. 3, c. See Berti in
Sæc. 2. |
|
[91] — |
Quæ in viduitate permanens Deo suam voverat castitatem.
Ruin. Act. Sincer. p. 21. |
|
[92] — |
Omnes qui non confitentur Christum verum esse Deum, in
ignem æternum mittentur. Ruin. p. 23. |
|
[93] — |
In Cyclum Pasch. p. 268. |
|
[94] — |
Nisibis was the Assyrian name of this city, which was
called by the Greeks Antiochia Mygdoniæ, from the river
Mygdon, on which it was situated, which gave name to the
territory. The ancient name of this city was Achar or
Achad, one of the seats of the empire of Nimrod. “He
reigned in Arach, that is, Edessa, and in Achad, now
called Nisibis,” says St. Jerom. (qu. in Gen.
c. 10, n. 10). St. Ephrem had made the
same observation before him. “He reigned in Arach, which
is Edessa, and in Achar, which is Nisibis, and in
Calanne, which is Ctesiphon, and in Rehebot, which is
Adiab.” St. Ephrem, Comm. in Gen. See Sim.
Assemani, Bibl. Orient. t. 2, Diss. de
Monophysitis. |
|
[95] — |
Philoth. seu Hist. Relig. c. 1,
p. 767. |
|
[96] — |
F. Cuper thinks the account of this event in
Theodoret’s Religious History to be an addition inserted
from other places, t. 4. Jul. in Comment. prævio ad
Vitam, S. Jacobi, n. 12
et 17. |
|
[97] — |
Philost. Hist. l. 3, c. 23. |
|
[98] — |
Chron. Alex. p. 287, S. Hieron. In Chron. and
Theophan. p. 28. See Le Beau, Hist. du Bas Empire,
l. 6, n. 11, t. 2,
p. 22. |
|
[99] — |
Wisdom xvi. 9. |
|
[100] — |
Theodoret, Hist. Relig. in vit. S. Jacobi, et in
Hist. Eccl. l. 2. c. 30. Philost. l. 3,
c. 32. Theophan. p. 33. Chron. Alex. Zozim.
l. 3. Zonar. t. 2, p. 44. Le Reau,
l. 7, p. 127, t. 2. |
|
[101] — |
Tillemont, Hist. des. Emp. t. 4, p. 674,
places the second siege of Nisibis to 346, and the third
in 350. But the dates above mentioned are more agreeable
to history, and adopted by the suffrage of most modern
critics. |
|
[102] — |
The two elder Assemani place the death of St. James
in 338, soon after the first siege of Nisibis, of which
they understand the circumstances which are usually
ascribed to the second siege; for Theodoret confounds
them together, as Garnier, (in hunc Theodoreti locum),
Petau, (in Or. l. Juliani) Henricus Valesius, (in
Hist. Eccl.). Theodoret, Ammian. Marcell. l. 18.
Pagi, Tillemont, and others observe. Simon Assemani
confirms this chronology by the express testimony of the
authors of two Syriac Chronicles, that of Dionysius,
patriarch of the Jacobits, and that of Edessa. See Simon
Assemani, Biblio. Orient. t. 1, c. 5,
p. 17, and Stephen Evodius Assemani in Op.
S. Ephrem, t. 1. But neither of these
Chronicles seems of sufficient authority to
counterbalance the testimony of the Greek historians,
and the circumstances that persuade us that
St. James survived the second siege of Nisibis,
upon which Tillemont, Ceillier, &c., place the death
of St. James in 350; and Cuper the Bollandist
between the years 350 and 361, in which Constantius
died. |
|
[103] — |
Ammian. Marcelli. l. 18, c. 7. Zonaras,
t. 2, p. 20. Monsignor Antonelli in vit.
St. Jacobi, p. 26. |
|
[104] — |
See on him Galanus in parte 1. Historiali Concil.
Armen. cum Roman. p. 239, and F. James
Villotte, S. J. in serie Chronol. Patriarcharum
Armeniæ, printed in the end of his Latin-Armenian
Dictionary. |
|
[105] — |
These are extant, addressed not to St. Gregory the
apostle of Armenia, surnamed the Illuminator, as some
copies have mistaken, but probably to his nephew,
another St. Gregory, who, being consecrated bishop
preached the faith in Albania, a province of Greater
Armenia, near the Caspian sea, where he was crowned with
martyrdom among the infidel barbarians in the very
country where Baronius places the Martyrdom of the
apostle St. Bartholomew. See Galanus, Hist. Eccl.
Armenorum, c. 5, et Not. ib. Also Antonelli, not.
in ep. S. Gregorii ad S. Jacobum Misib.
p. 1. |
|
[106] — |
These eighteen discourses of St. James are
mentioned by Gennadius, who gives their titles,
(t. 2, p. 901, Op. S. Hier. Veron.
an. 1735,) commended by St. Athanasius (who
calls them monuments of the simplicity and candor of an
apostolic mind. Ep. encyclic. ad episcopos Egypti et
Lybiæ) and by the Armenian writers quoted by Antonelli,
who demonstrates from the discourses themselves that
they are a work of the fourth century.
St. James, in the first, On Faith, demonstrates
this to be the foundation of our spiritual edifice,
which is raised upon it by hope and love, which render
the Christian soul the house and temple of God, the
ornaments of which are all good works, as fasting,
prayer, chastity, and all the fruits of the Holy Ghost.
He commends faith from the divine authority of Christ,
who everywhere requires it, from its indispensable
necessity, from the heroic virtues which it produces,
the eminent saints it has formed, and the miracles it
has wrought. The subject of his second discourse is
Charity, or the Love of God and our Neighbor, in which
the whole law of Christ is comprised, and which is the
most excellent of all virtues, and the perfection of all
sanctity, admirably taught by Christ both by word and
example; the end of all his doctrine, mysteries, and
sufferings being to plant his charity in our hearts. In
the third discourse he treats on fasting, universal
temperance, and self-denial, by which we subdue and
govern our senses and passions, die to ourselves, and
obtain all blessings of God, and the protection of the
angels, who are moved to assist and fight for us, as he
proves from examples and passages of holy writ
(pp. 60, 61, 62). In his fourth he speaks on
Prayer, on which he delivers admirable maxims, teaching
that its excellence is derived from the purity,
sanctity, and fervor of the heart, upon which the fire
descends from heaven, and which glorifies God even by
its silence. “But none,” says he, “will be cleansed
unless they have been washed in the laver of baptism,
and have received the body and blood of Christ. For the
blood is expiated by this Blood, and the body cleansed
by this Body. Be assiduous in holy prayer, and in the
beginning of all prayer place that which our Lord hath
taught us. When you pray, always remember your friends,
and me a sinner, &c.”
His fifth discourse, On War, is chiefly an invective
against pride, in vanquishing which consists our main
spiritual conflict. The sixth discourse is most
remarkable. The title is, On Devout Persons, that is,
Ascetes. The Armenian word Ugdavor signifies one
who by vow has consecrated himself to God. From this
discourse it is manifest that some of these Ascetes had
devoted themselves to God in a state of continency by
vow, others only by a resolution. The saint most
pathetically exhorts them to fervor and watchfulness,
and excellently inculcates the obligation which every
Christian lies under of becoming a spiritual man formed
upon the image of Christ, the second Adam, in order to
rise with him to glory. He inveighs against some Ascetes
who kept under the same roof a woman Ascete to serve
them: a practice no less severely condemned by
St. Gregory Nazianzen (Carm. 3, p. 56,
and Or. 43, p. 701). St. Basil
(Ep. 55, p. 149). St. Chrysostom, the
council of Nice, that of Ancyra, &c. St. James
was himself an Ascete from his youth, St. Gregory,
to whom he sends these discourses, was also one, and it
is clear from many passages in St. Gregory
Nazianzen, St. Basil, and others, that they were
very numerous in Cappadocia, Pontus, and Armenia before
St. Basil founded there the monastic life. See
Antonelli’s note, ib. p. 203. Saint James, in his
seventh discourse, On Penance, strongly exhorts sinners
to confess speedily their crimes; to conceal which
through shame is final impenitence. He adds, the priests
cannot disclose such a confession (p. 237). The
infidels and several heretics in the first ages of the
Church denying the general resurrection of bodies,
St. James proves that mystery in his eighth
discourse, On the Resurrection of the Dead. His ninth,
On Humility, is an excellent eulogium of that virtue, by
which men are made the children of God, and brethren of
Christ; and it is but justice in man, who is but dust.
Its fruits are innocence, simplicity, meekness,
sweetness, charity, patience, prudence, mercy,
sincerity, compunction, and peace. For he who loves
humility is always blessed, and enjoys constant peace;
God, who dwelleth in the meek and humble, abiding in
him.
The tenth discourse, On Pastors, contains excellent
advice to a pastor of souls, especially on his
obligation of watching over and feeding his flock. In
the eleventh, On Circumcision, and in the twelfth, On
the Sabbath, he shows against the Jews, that those laws
no longer oblige, and that the Egyptians learned
circumcision from the Jews. In the thirteenth, On the
Choice of Meats, he proves none are unlawful of their
own nature. In the fourteenth, On the Passover, that the
Paschal solemnity of Christ’s resurrection has abolished
that Jewish festival: he adds that the Christian, in
honor of Christ’s crucifixion, keeps every Friday, and
also, at Nisibis, the fourteenth day of every month. In
the fifteenth he proves the Reprobation of the Jews. In
the sixteenth the Divinity of the Son of God. In the
seventeenth the Virtue of holy Virginity, which both the
Ascetes and the clergy professed, and which he defends
against the Jews only; for he wrote before the heretics
in the fourth age calumniated the sanctity of that
state. In the eighteenth he confutes the Jews, who
pretended that their temple and synagogue would be again
restored at Jerusalem.
The long letter to the priests of Seleucia and Ctesiphon
against schisms, and dissensions, when Papas, the
haughty bishop of those cities, had raised there a fatal
schism, is in some MSS. ascribed to St. James; but
was certainly a synodal letter sent by a council held on
that occasion, nine years after the council of Nice: on
which see the life of St. Miles, and the notes of
the archbishop of Apamea, Evodius Assemani, ib. Act.
Mart. Orient. t. 1, p. 72, and Jos. Assemani
Bibl. Orient. t. 1, p. 86, &c.
Among the oriental liturgies, one in Chaldaic, formerly
in use among the Syrians, bears the name of
St. James of Nisibis. Gennadius mentions twenty-six
books written by this holy doctor in the Syriac tongue,
all on pious subjects, or on the Persian persecution.
They were never translated into Greek.
The letters of St. James and St. Gregory are
published by Assemani, Bibl. Orient. t. 1,
p. 552, 632. |
|
[107] — |
Ps. xxxiii. 16, Prov. iii. 23, Zach.
ii. 8, Gen. xv. 1, Lev.
xxxvi. 3. |
|
[108] — |
S. Chrys. Hom. 51, in Act. Hom. 15, in
Rom. et 91, in Matt. |
|
[109] — |
Ose. i. 2, Zach. xi. 9, Isa.
v. 5. |
|
[110] — |
Amos ix. 4. |
|
[111] — |
Molanus in Auctario Martytol. Menard, in Martyr. Bened.
Bucelin, &c. |
|
[112] — |
Some have imagined that St. Hidulph was only
chorepiscopus or vicar, probably with episcopal orders,
for the administration of part of the diocess. But the
most judicious critics agree with the original writers
of his life, that he was himself archbishop of
Triers. |
|
[113] — |
Sulpic. Sever. Dial. 1, c. 26, ol. 18,
p. 94, ed. nov. Veron. an. 1741. |
|
[114] — |
Heraclides ap. Cotel. Monum. Eccl. Gr. t. 3,
p. 172. See St. Chrys. contra oppugn. vitæ
monast. t. 1. S. Gr. Naz.
St. Basil, &c. |
|
[115] — |
Among the heathen emperors of Rome, Titus, the two
Antonines, and Alexander deserved the best of their
subjects, and the three last gained a great reputation
for moral virtue. The Antonines were eminent for their
learning, and devoted themselves to the Stoic
philosophy. Arrius Antoninus, who had distinguished
himself by his moderation and love of justice in several
magistracies, was adopted by the emperor Adrian in 138,
and upon his death in the same year ascended the
imperial throne. He was truly the father of his people
during a reign of twenty-two years, and died in 161,
being seventy-seven years old. He obtained the surname
of Pius, according to some, by his gratitude to Adrian;
but, according to others, by his clemency and goodness.
He had often in his mouth the celebrated saying of
Scipio Africanus, that he would rather save the life of
one citizen than destroy one thousand enemies. He
engaged in no wars, except that by his lieutenants he
restrained the Daci, Alani, and Mauri, and by the
conduct of Lollius Urbicus quieted the Britons,
confining the Caledonians to their mountains and forests
by a new wall. Yet the pagan virtues of this prince were
mixed with an alloy of superstition, vice, and weakness.
When the senate refused to enrol Adrian among the gods,
out of a just detestation of his cruelty and other
vices, Antoninus, by tears and entreaties, extorted from
it a decree by which divine honors were granted that
infamous prince, and he appointed priests and a temple
for his worship. He likewise caused his wife Faustina to
be honored after her death as a goddess, and was
reproached for the most dissolute life of his daughter
Faustina the younger, whom he gave in marriage to his
adopted son, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
Xiphilin writes that the Christians shared in the
mildness of his government. Yet though he did not raise
by fresh edicts any new persecution, it is a notorious
mistake of Dodwell and some others, who pretend that no
Christians suffered death for the faith during his
reign, at least by his order. Tertullian informs us
(l. ad Scapul. c. 4), that Arrius Antoninus,
when he was only proconsul of Asia, put in execution the
old unjust rescript of Trajan; and having punished some
Christians with death, dismissed the rest, crying out to
them, “O wretches, if you want to die, have you not
halters and precipices to end your lives by?”
St. Justin, in his first apology, which he
addressed to Antoninus Pius, who was then emperor,
testifies that Christians were tortured with the most
barbarous cruelty without having been convicted of any
crime. Also St. Irenæus (l. 3, c. 3),
Eusebius (l. 4, c. 10), and the author of an
ancient poem which is published among the works of
Tertullian, are incontestible vouchers that this
emperor, whom Capitolinus calls a most zealous
worshipper of the gods, often shed the blood of saints.
By the acts of St. Felicitas and her sons, it
appears what artifices the pagan priests made use of to
stir up the emperors and magistrates against the
Christians. At length, however, Antoninus Pius, in the
fifteenth year of his reign, of Christ 152, according to
Tillemont, wrote to the states of Asia, commanding that
all persons who should be impeached merely for believing
in Christ, should be discharged, and their accusers
punished according to the laws against informers,
adding, “You do but harden them in their opinion, for
you cannot oblige them more than by making them die for
their religion. Thus they triumph over you by choosing
rather to die than to comply with your will.” See
Eusebius, l. 4, c. 26, where he also mentions
a like former rescript of Adrian to Minutius Fundanus.
Nevertheless, it is proved by Aringhi (Roma Subterran.
l. 3, c. 22), that some were crowned with
martyrdom in this reign after the aforesaid rescript,
the pusillanimous prince not having courage always to
protect these innocent subjects from the fury of the
populace or the malice of some governors. |
|
[116] — |
St. Minias was a Roman soldier who suffered
martyrdom at Florence under Decius. See Mart. Rom.,
13 Oct. |
|
[117] — |
In Luc. l. 7, c. 13. |
|
[118] — |
Though Pliny and Procopius pretend that the Vandals were
of the same extraction with the Goths, the contrary is
demonstrated by the learned F. Daniel Farlati
(Illyrici Sacri, t. 2, p. 1308, Venetiis
1753), and by Jos. Assemani (in Calend. de Orig. Slavor.
par. 2, c. 5, t. 1, p. 297). And
their language, manners, and religion, were entirely
different. The same arguments show that they differed
also from the Slavi, Huns, and original Winidi or
Venedi, this last being a Sarmatian, and the two others
Scythian nations. The Vandals are placed by Jornandes
and Dio (l. 55) on the German coast of the Baltic
sea, in the present Prussia and Pomerania; they thence
extended themselves to the sources of the Elbe, in the
mountains of Silesia. They were afterward removed near
the Danube, in the neighborhood of the Marcomanni, in
the reigns of Antoninus, Aurelian, and Probus. In the
fifth century they made an excursion into Gaul; and
being there repulsed, crossed the Pyrenæan mountains
with the Alani, who were the original Massagetæ from
mount Caucasus, and beyond the Tanais, as Ammianus
Marcellinus testifies. About the year 400, in the reign
of Honorius, the Alani settled themselves in Lusitania,
and the Vandals under king Gunderic, in Gallicia (which
then comprised both the present Gallicia and Old
Castile), and in Bætica, which from them was called
Vandalitia, and corruptly Andalusia. (See St.
Isidore and Idatius, in their chronicles, Salvian,
l. 7, p. 137, St. August. ep. 3, ad
Victor.) The Vandals were baptized in the Catholic faith
about the time when they crossed the Rhine; but were
afterward drawn into Arianism, probably by some alliance
with the Arian Goths, and out of hatred to the Romans.
Idatius says, that common fame attributed the Arian
perversion of the Vandals to king Genseric, who
succeeded his brother Gunderic in 428, and was a man
experienced in all the arts of policy and war. Count
Boniface, lieutenant of Africa, seeing his life
threatened by Aëtius (who, with the title of Magister
Militiæ, governed the empire for the empress Placidia,
regent for her son Valentinian), invited the Vandals out
of Spain to his assistance. Genseric, with a powerful
army, passed the strait which divides Africa from Spain,
in May, 429, and though Boniface was then returned to
his duty, the barbarian everywhere defeated the Romans,
besieged Hippo during fourteen months; and though he was
obliged by a famine to retire, he returned soon after
and took that strong fortress. The emperor Valentinian,
in 435, by treaty yielded up to him all his conquests in
Africa. Genseric soon broke the truce, and in 439 took
Carthage, and drove the Romans out of all Africa. In
455, being invited by the Empress Eudoxia to revenge the
murder of Valentinian on Maximus, he plundered Rome
during fifteen days. Though that city had been ravaged
by Alaric the Goth in 400, whilst Honorius was emperor,
the Vandal found and carried off an immense booty; and
among other things, the gold and brass with which the
capitol was inlaid, and the vessels of the Jewish temple
at Jerusalem, which Titus had brought to Rome. These
Justinian, when he had recovered Africa, caused to be
brought to Constantinople, whence he caused them to be
removed and placed in certain churches at Jerusalem, as
Procopius relates. Rome was again twice plundered by
Totila, in 546 and 549. The Vandals, by their
transmigrations into Spain and Africa, soon after ceased
to be a nation in Germany, as Jornandes and Procopius
testify. Euricus, king of the Visigoths, in Languedoc,
in 468, invading Spain, conquered most of the
territories which the Romans still possessed there, and
all the provinces which the Vandals had seized. So that
by the extinction of the empire of the Vandals in Africa
under Justinian, the name of that potent and furious
nation was lost: though Frederic, the first king of
Prussia, in 1701, was for some time very desirous rather
to take the title of king of the Vandals. The cavalry of
the ancient Vandals fought chiefly with the sword and
lance, and were unpractised in the distant combat. Their
bowmen were undisciplined, and fought on foot like the
Gothic. See Procopius. |
|
[119] — |
Tinuzudæ tempore quo sacramenta Dei populo
porrigebantur, introeuntes cum furore (Ariani) Corpus
Christi et Sanguinem pavimento sparserunt, et illud
pollutis pedibus calcaverunt. St. Vict. Vitensis,
l. 1, p. 17. |
|
[120] — |
Qui nobis pœnitentiæ munus collaturi sunt, et
reconciliationis indulgentiâ obstrictos peccatorum
vinculis soluturi? A quibus divinis sacrificiis
ritus est exhibendus consuetus? Vobiscum et nos libeat
pergere, si liceret. S. Victor Vit. l. 2,
p. 33. |
|
[121] — |
Scribam ego fratribus meis ut veniant coëpiscopi mei,
qui vobis nobiscum fidem communem nostram valeant
demonstrare, et præcipue ecclesia Romana, quæ caput
est omnium ecclesiarum. Victor Vit. l. 2,
p. 38. |
|
[122] — |
In it the Catholics appealed to the tradition of the
universal Church. “Hæc est fides nostra; evangelicis et
apostolicis traditionibus atque auctoritate firmata, et
omnium quæ in mundo sunt Catholicarum ecclesiarum
societate fundata, in qua nos per gratiam Dei
omnipotentis permanere usque ad finem vitæ hujus
confidimus.” Victor Vit. l. 3,
p. 62. |
|
[123] — |
L. 5, p. 76. |
|
[124] — |
Æneas, Gaz. Dial. de Animarum Immortaliiate et Corporis
Resurrectione, p. 415. |
|
[125] — |
Procop. de Bello Vandal. l. 1,
c. 8. |
|
[126] — |
Hist. Franc. l. 2, p. 46. |
|
[127] — |
Ruin. Hist. Persec. Vandal. part. 2, c. 8,
Notit. Afric. |
|
[128] — |
Hæc sunt linteamina quæ te accusabunt cum majestas
venerit judicantis. Vict. Vit. l. 5,
c. 78. |
|
[129] — |
He closes this work by the following supplication to the
angels and saints: “Succor us, O angels of my God;
look down on Africa, once flourishing in its numerous
churches, but now left desolate and cast away.
Intercede, O patriarchs; pray, O holy
prophets; succor us, O apostles, who are our
advocates. You, especially, O blessed Peter, why
are you silent in the necessities of your flock? You,
O blessed apostle Paul, behold what the Arian
Vandals do, and how your sons groan in captivity.
O all you holy apostles, petition for us. Pray for
us though wicked; Christ prayed even for his
persecutors,” &c. Adeste angeli Dei mei, et videte
Africam totam dudum tantarum ecclesiarum cuneis fultam,
nunc ab omnibus desolatam, sedentem viduam et
abjectam—Deprecamini patriarchæ; orate sancti prophetæ;
estote apostoli suffragatores ejus. Præcipue tu Petre,
quare siles pro ovibus tuis?—Tu S. Paule, gentium
magister, cognosce quid Vandali faciunt Ariani, et filii
tui gemunt lugendo captivi. Victor Vit. Hist. Pers.
Vandal. sub finem. The history of St. Victor is
written with spirit and correctness, in a plain
affecting style, intermixed with an entertaining
poignancy of satire, and edifying heroic sentiments and
examples of piety. The author is honored in the Roman
Martyrology among the holy confessors on the 23d of
August, though the time and place of his death are
uncertain. He flourished in the middle of the fifth
century. His history of the Vandalic persecution has run
through several editions: that of Beatus Rhenanus at
Basil in 1535, is the first: Peter Chifflet gave one at
Dijon in 1664: but that of Dom. Ruinart at Paris, in
1694, is the most complete. It was published in English
in 1605. The best French translation is that of Arnau
d’Andilly. |
|
[130] — |
L. de. Glor. Conf. c. 13. |
|
[131] — |
The Roman provinces, in Africa, soon after sunk again
into barbarism and infidelity, being overrun in 668 by
the Saracens from Arabia and Syria, who in 669 took also
Syracusa, and established a kingdom in Sicily and part
of Italy. They planted themselves in Spain in 707.
Muhavia, a general of the Sultan Omar, having routed
Hormisdas Jesdegird, king of Persia, in 632, translated
that monarchy from the line of Artaxerxes to the
Saracens. This Omar conquered Egypt in 635. He was
second caliph after Mahomet, and successor of Abubeker;
and from his time the caliphs of Bagdat or Babylon were
masters of Syria, Persia, and Egypt, till the two latter
revolted; but notwithstanding various revolutions, all
those countries still retain the Mahometan superstition.
The Mahometans in Egypt shook off the yoke of the
caliphs of Bagdat, and set up their own caliphs at Cairo
in 870, to whom the Moors in Africa adhered till the
Turks became masters of Egypt. |
|
[132] — |
2 Peter i. 9. |
|
[133] — |
S. Ambros. in Ps. 40. |
|
[134] — |
L. 3, de Virgin. See S. Aug. Serm., 38.
de Temp. |
|
[135] — |
Hebr. x. 34, xi. 37. |
|
[136] — |
The exact number of years that some of the popes sat
before Victor in the year 200, cannot be determined with
any degree of certainty, partly on account of faults of
copies and the disagreement of later pontificals. (See
Pagi, the Bollandists, Tillemont, Orsi, Berti, &c.)
St. Peter sat twenty-five years; St. Linus
seems to have held the see about eleven years,
St. Cletus twelve years, St. Clement about
eleven years, and St. Anacletus nine, dying about
the year 109. The tradition and registers of the Roman
church show Anacletus and Cletus to have been two
distinct popes, as is manifest from the Liberian
Calendar and several very ancient lists of the first
popes quoted by Schelstrate (Diss. 2, Ant. Eccl.
c. 2.) and the Bollandists (ad 26 Apr.) from
the old poem among the works of Tertullian, written
about the time that he lived; from the very ancient
Antiphonaries of the Vatican church, published by
cardinal Joseph Thomasius, and the old Martyrology which
bore the name of St. Jerom, and was printed at
Lucca by the care of Francis-Maria-Florentinius, a
gentleman of that city; which original authorities were
followed by Ado, Usuard, &c. The pontificals call
Cletus a Roman by birth, Anacletus a Grecian, and native
of Athens. |
|
[137] — |
Baillet in S. Bonav.
Wadding, &c. |
|
[138] — |
Haymo, who had taught divinity at Paris, and been sent
by Gregory IX. nuncio to Constantinople, was
employed by the same pope in revising the Roman breviary
and its rubrics. He is not to be confounded with Haymo,
the disciple of Rabanus Maurus, afterward bishop of
Halberstadt, in the ninth age, whose Homilies, Comments
on the Scriptures, and Abridgment of Ecclesiastical
History are extant. His works are chiefly Centos,
compiled of scraps of fathers and other authors patched
and joined together; a manner of writing used by many
from the seventh to the twelfth age, but calculated to
propagate stupidity and dullness, and to contract, not
to enlarge or improve the genius, which is opened by
invention, elegance, and imitation; but fettered by
mechanical toils, as centos,
acrostics, &c. |
|
[139] — |
Alexander of Hales, a native of Hales in
Gloucestershire, after having gone through the course of
his studies in England, went to Paris, and there
followed divinity and the canon law, and gained in them
an extraordinary reputation. He entered into the Order
of Friars Minors, and died at Paris in 1245. His works
discover a most subtle penetrating genius; of which the
principal is a Summ or Commentary upon the four Books of
the Master of the Sentences, written by order of
Innocent IV. and a Vumm of Virtues. |
|
[140] — |
Specul. Discipi. p. 1, c. 3. |
|
[141] — |
Gerson, Tr. De libris quos religiosi legere
debent. |
|
[142] — |
Gerson, l. de Examine Doctrinar. |
|
[143] — |
See Du Pin, Biblioth. Cent. 13, p. 249,
t. 14. |
|
[144] — |
Soliloqu. Exercit. 4,
c. 1, 2. |
|
[145] — |
The psalter of the Blessed Virgin is falsely to scribed
to St. Bonaventure, and unworthy to bear his name.
(see Fabricius in Biblioth. med. ætat. Bellarmin and
Labbe de Script. Eccl. Nat. Alexander, Hist. Eccl. Sæc.
13.) The Vatican edition of the works of
St. Bonaventure was begun by an order of
Sixtus V. and completed in 1588. It consists of
eight volumes in folio. The two first contain his
commentaries on the holy scriptures: the third his
sermons and panegyrics: the fourth and fifth his
comments on the Master of the Sentences: the sixth,
seventh, and eighth, his lesser treatises, of which some
are doctrinal, others regard the duties of a religious
state, others general subjects of piety, especially the
mysteries of Christ and the Blessed Virgin. Most of
these have run through several separate editions. All
his works have been reprinted at Mentz and Lyons; and
in 4to. in fourteen volumes at Venice,
in 1751. |
|
[146] — |
B. Giles was a native of Assisio, and became the
third companion of St. Francis in 1209. He attended
him in the Marche of Ancona, and made a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, whither he was sent by St. Francis to
preach to the Saracens; but upon their threats of
raising a persecution he was sent back to Italy by the
Christians of that country. He afterward lived some time
at Rome, some time at Reati, and some time at Fabriano;
but the chief part of the remainder of his life he spent
at Perugia, where he died in the night between the 22d
and the 23d of April, in the year 1272, not in 1262, as
Papebroke proves against the erroneous computation of
certain authors. (p. 220, t. 3, Apr.) Wading
and others relate many revelations, prophecies, and
miracles of this eminent servant of God; his tomb has
been had in public veneration at Perugia from the time
of his death, and he was for some time solemnly honored
as a saint in the church of his order in that city, as
Papebroke shows; who regrets that this devotion has been
for some time much abated, probably because not judged
sufficiently authorized by the holy see. The public
veneration at his tomb and the adjoining altar
continues, and the mass is sung, on account of his
ancient festival, with great solemnity, but of
St. George, without any solemn commemoration of
this servant of God. Nevertheless, from proofs of former
solemn veneration, Papebroke honors him with the title
of Blessed.
None among the first disciples of St. Francis seems
to have been more perfectly replenished with his spirit
of perfect charity, humility, meekness, and simplicity,
as appears from the golden maxims and lessons of piety
which he gave to others. Of these Papebroke has given us
a large and excellent collection from manuscripts: some
of which were before printed by Wading and others.
A few will suffice to show us his
spirit.
B. Giles always lived by the labor of his hands.
When the cardinal bishop of Tusculum desired him always
to receive his bread as a poor man an alms, from his
table, B. Giles excused himself, using the words of
the psalmist: Blessed art thou, and it shall be well
with thee, because thou shalt eat by the labor of thy
hands. Ps. cxxvii. “So brother Francis taught
his brethren to be faithful and diligent in laboring,
and to take for their wages not money, but necessary
subsistence.” (Papebroke, p. 224.) If any one
discoursed with him on the glory of God, the sweetness
of his love, or Paradise, he would be ravished in
spirit, and remain so great part of the day unmoved.
Shepherds and children who had learned this from others,
sometimes for diversion or out of curiosity, cried out
after him, Paradise, Paradise; upon hearing which, he
through joy fell into an ecstasy. His religious brethren
in conversing with him took care never to name the word
Paradise or Heaven for fear of losing his company by his
being ravished out of himself. (ib., p. 226, and
Wading.)
An extraordinary spiritual joy and cheerfulness appeared
always painted on his countenance; and if any one spoke
to him of God, he answered in great interior jubilation
of soul. Once returning to his brethren out of close
retirement, he praised God with wonderful joy and
fervor, and sung,—“Neither tongue can utter, nor words
express, nor mortal hearts conceive how great the good
is which God hath prepared for those who desire to love
him.”
Pope Gregory IX., who kept his court at Perugia
from 1234 to autumn in 1236, sent one day for the holy
man, who, in answer to his holiness’s first question
about his state of life, said,—“I cheerfully take
upon me the yoke of the commandments of the Lord.” The
pope replied,—“Your answer is just; but your yoke is
sweet and your burthen light.” At these words
B. Giles withdrew a little from him, and, being
ravished in spirit, remained speechless and without
motion till very late in the night, to the great
astonishment of his holiness, who spoke of it to his
cardinals and others with great surprise.
This pope on a certain occasion pressed the holy man to
say something to him on his own duty; Giles after having
long endeavored to excuse himself said, “You have two
eyes, both a right and a left one, always open; with the
right eye you must contemplate the things which are
above you; and with the left eye you must administer and
dispense things which are below.”
On humility, the following maxims are recorded among his
sayings: “No man can attain to the knowledge of God but
by humility. The way to mount high is to descend; for
all dangers and all great falls which ever happened in
the world, were caused by pride, as is evident in the
angel in heaven, in Adam in Paradise, in the Pharisee
mentioned in the gospel; and all spiritual advantages
arose from humility, as we see in the Blessed Virgin,
the good thief, &c. Would to God some great weight
laid upon us obliged us always to hold down our heads.”
When a certain brother asked him; “How can we fly this
cursed pride?” he answered; “If we consider the benefits
of God, we must humble ourselves, and bow down our
heads. And if we consider our sins, we must likewise
humble ourselves, and bow down our heads. Wo to him who
seeks honor from his own confusion and sin. The degrees
of humility in a man are, that he know that whatever is
of his own growth is opposite to his good. A branch
of this humility is, that he give to others what is
theirs, and never appropriate to himself what belongs to
another; that is, that he ascribe to God all his good
and all advantages which he enjoys; and acknowledge that
all his evil is of his own growth. Blessed is he who
accounts himself as mean and base before men as he is
before God. Blessed is he who walks faithfully in
obedience to another. He who desires to enjoy inward
peace, must look upon every man as his superior, and as
better and greater before God. Blessed is he who knows
how to keep and conceal the favors of God. Humility
knows not how to speak, and patience dares not speak,
for fear of losing the crown of suffering by complaints,
in a firm conviction that a person is always treated
above his deserts. Humility dispels all evil, is an
enemy to all sin, and makes a man nothing in his own
eyes. By humility a man finds grace before God, and
peace with men. God bestows the treasures of his grace
on the humble, not on the proud. A man ought always
to fear from pride, lest it cast him down headlong.
Always fear and watch over yourself. A man who
deserves death, and who is in prison, how comes it that
he does not always tremble? A man is of himself
poverty and indigence; rich only by the divine gifts;
these then he must love, and despise himself. What is
greater than for a man to be sensible what he owes to
God, and to cover himself with confusion, self-reproach,
and self-reprehension for his own evils? I wish we
could have studied this lesson from the beginning of the
world to the end. How much do we stand indebted to him
who desires to deliver us from all evil, and to confer
upon us all good.” Against vain-glory he used to
say;—“If a person was sunk in extreme poverty, covered
all over with wounds, half-clad in tattered rags, and
without shoes; and men should come to him, and saluting
him with honor say: ‘All admire you, my lord; you are
wonderfully rich, handsome, and beautiful; and your
clothes are splendid and handsome;’ must not he have
lost his senses, who should be pleased with such a
compliment, or think himself such, knowing that he is
the very reverse?”
The servant of God was remarkable for his meekness and
charity, and he used to say, “We can appropriate to
ourselves our neighbor’s good, and make it also our own;
for the more a person rejoices at his neighbor’s good,
the more does he share in it. If therefore you desire to
share in the advantages of all others, rejoice more for
them all; and grieve for every one’s misfortunes. This
is the path of salvation, to rejoice in every advantage
and to grieve for every misfortune of your neighbor; to
see and acknowledge your evils and miseries, and to
believe only good of others; to honor others, and
despise yourself. We pray, fast, and labor; yet lose all
this if we do not bear injuries with charity and
patience. If we take so much pains to attain to virtue,
why do not we learn to do what is so easy? you must bear
the burdens of all, because you have no just reason of
complaint against any one, seeing you deserve to be
chastised and treated ill by all creatures. You desire
to escape reproaches and condemnation in the next world,
yet would be honored in this. You refuse to labor or
bear anything here, yet desire to enjoy rest hereafter.
Strive more earnestly to vanquish your passions, and
bear tribulations and humiliations. It is necessary to
overcome yourself, whatever you do. It avails your soul
little to draw others to God unless you die to
yourself.”
On prayer, which this servant of God made his constant
occupation and delight, he used to say,—“Prayer is the
beginning and the consummation of all good. Every sinner
must pray that God may make him know his miseries and
sins, and the divine benefits. He who knows not how to
pray, knows not God. All who are to be saved, if they
have attained the use of reason, must set themselves to
pray. Though a woman were ever so bashful and simple, if
she saw her only son taken from her by the king’s orders
for some crime, she would tear her breasts, and implore
his mercy. Her love and her son’s extreme danger and
miseries would make her never want words to entreat
him.”
The fruits and graces of perfect prayer he summed up as
follows: 1. “By it a man is enlightened in his
understanding. 2. He is strengthened in faith and
in the love of all good. 3. He learns to know and
feel his own miseries. 4. He is penetrated with
holy fear, is humble and contemptible in his own eyes.
5. His heart is pierced with compunction.
6. Sweet tears flow in abundance. 7. His heart
is cleansed. 8. His conscience purged. 9. He
learns obedience. 10. Attains to the perfect spirit
of that virtue. 11. To spiritual science.
12. To spiritual understanding. 13. Invincible
fortitude. 14. Patience. 15. Spiritual wisdom.
16. The knowledge of God, who manifests himself to
those who adore him in spirit and truth. Hence love is
kindled in the soul, she runs in the odor of his sweet
perfumes, is drowned in the torrent of his sweetness,
enjoys perfect interior peace, and is brought to
immortal glory.” |
|
[147] — |
Vita B. Ægidii apud Papebroke, t. 3, Aprilis
ad diem 23, p. 236. |
|
[148] — |
Conc. t. 11, p. 237. |
|
[149] — |
The emperor Michael dying in 1283, his son Andronicus
renewed the schism, and restored the deposed patriarch
Joseph. |
|
[150] — |
Possevin. Apparatus sacer, t. 1,
p. 245. |
|
[151] — |
Gerson calls St. Bonaventure both a cherub and a
seraph, because his writings both enlighten and inflame.
His order makes his doctrine the standard of their
schools, according to a decree of pope Pius V. To
the works of St. Bonaventure these divines add the
double comments of Scotius on Aristotle and the Master
of the Sentences.
Peter Lombard, a native of Novara in Lombardy, was
recommended by St. Bernard (ep. 366) to
Gilduin, first abbot of the regular canons of
St. Victor’s at Paris, performed there his studies,
professed that order, and was one of those who, by an
order of abbot Suger, king Louis VII. and pope
Eugenius III. in 1147, were sent from
St. Victor’s to St. Genevieve’s in place of
the secular canons. Eudes or Odo, one of this number,
was chosen first regular abbot of St. Genevieve’s,
on whose eminent virtues see the pious F. Gourdan,
in his MS. history of the eminent men of
St. Victor’s, in 7 vols. folio, t. 2,
p. 281. Peter Lombard taught theology at
St. Genevieve’s, till in 1159 he was made bishop of
Paris. Gourdan, ib. t. 2, p. 79 and 80.
He died, bishop of that city, in 1164. He compiled a
body of divinity, collected from the writings of the
fathers, into four books, called Of the Sentences, from
which he was surnamed The Master of the Sentences. This
work he is said by some to have copied chiefly from the
writings of Blandinus his master, and others. (See James
Thomasius De Plagio literario, from sect. 493
to 502.) Though it be not exempt from inaccuracies,
the method appeared so well adapted to the purposes of
the schoolmen that they followed the same and for their
lectures gave comments on these four books of the
Sentences. Among these, St. Thomas Aquinas stands
foremost. The divines of the Franciscan Order take for
their guides St. Bonaventure and John Duns Scotus.
This latter was born in Northumberland, and entered
young into the Order of St. Francis at Newcastle.
He performed his studies, and afterward taught divinity
at Oxford, where he wrote his Commentaries on the Master
of the Sentences, which were thence called his Oxonian
Commentaries. He was called to Paris about the year
1304, and in 1307 was appointed by his Order, Regent of
their theological schools in that University, where he
published his Reportata in Sententias, called his Paris
Commentaries, which are called by Dr. Cave a rough or
unfinished abstract of his Oxford Commentaries. For the
subtilty and quickness of his understanding, and his
penetrating genius, he was regarded as a prodigy. Being
sent by his Order to Cologne in 1308, he was received by
the whole city in procession, but died on the 8th of
November the same year, of an apoplexy, being
forty-three, or as others say, only thirty-four years
old. The fable of his being buried alive is clearly
confuted by Luke Wading, the learned Irish Franciscan,
who published his work, with notes, in twelve tomes,
printed at Lyons in 1636. Natalis Alexander, a most
impartial inquirer into this dispute, and others, have
also demonstrated that story to have been a most
groundless fiction. Wading, Colgan, &c., say that
Duns Scotus was an Irishman, and born at Down in Ulster.
John Major, Dempster, and Trithemius say he was a
Scotchman, born at Duns, eight miles from England. But
Leland, Wharton, Cave, and Tanner, prove that he was an
Englishman and a native of Dunstone, by contraction
Duns, a village in Northumberland, in the parish of
Emildun, then belonging to Merton-hall in Oxford, of
which hall he was afterward a member. This is attested
in the end of several manuscript copies of his Comments
on the Sentences, written soon after the time when he
lived, and still shown at Oxford in the colleges of
Baliol and Merton. That he was a Scotchman or an
Irishman, no author seems to have asserted before the
sixteenth century, as Mr. Wharton observes. (See
Cave, t. 2, Append. p. 4. Wood, Athen. Oxon.
Sir James Ware de Script. Hibern. c. 10,
p. 64. Tanner de Script. Brit. V. Duns.
Wading, in the life of Scotus, prefixed to his
works.)
William Ockham, a native of Surrey, also a Grey Friar, a
scholar of Duns Scotus at Paris, disagreeing from his
master in opinions, raised hot disputes in the schools,
and became the head or leader of the Nominals, a sect
among the schoolmen who in philosophy explain things
chiefly by the properties of terms; and maintain that
words, not things, are the object of dialectic, in
opposition to the others called Realists. Ockham was
provincial of his Order in England in 1322, and
according to Wood (Hist. et Ant. l. 2, p. 87)
wrote a book On the Poverty of Christ, and other
treatises against Pope John XXII., by whom he was
excommunicated. He became a warm abettor of the schism
of Louis of Bavaria, and his antipope, Peter Corbarius,
and died at Munich in 1347. He is said also to have
favored the heresy of the Fratricelli, introduced by
certain Grey Friars in the marquisate of Ancona, who
made all perfection to consist in a seeming poverty,
rebelled against the Church, and railed at the pope and
the other pastors. Flying into Germany, they were
favored by Louis of Bavaria, and in return supported his
schism. They at length rejected the sacraments as
useless. Akin to these were the Beguards and Beguines,
an heretical sect formed by several poor laymen and
women, who, some by an ill-governed devotion and a love
of a lazy life, others out of a spirit of libertinism,
would needs imitate the poverty of the Friars
Mendicants, without being tied to obedience, or living
under superiors. They at length fell into many
extravagant errors, and became a society of various
notions and opinions, which had nothing common but the
hatred they bore to the pope and other prelates, and the
affectation of a voluntary poverty, under which they
covered an infinite number of disorders and crimes. Such
are the baneful fruits of self-conceit. |
|
[152] — |
St. Bonav. Specul. Novit. p. 2,
c. 2. |
|
[153] — |
Tit. de Aleatoribus tam in Digesto quam in
Codice. |
|
[154] — |
See St. Bonav. in 4, dis. 14.
St. Raymund. St. Antonin. Comitolus,
l. 3, 7, 9, p. 348, &c. Aristotle
(l. 4, Ethic. c. 1.) places gamesters in the
same class with highwaymen and plunderers.
St. Bernardin of Sienna (Serm. 33,
Domin. 5, Quadrag. t. 4), says they are worse
then robbers, because more treacherous, and covering
their rapine under seducing glosses. |
|
[155] — |
Job ii. 4. |
|
[156] — |
On the methods of varying every day these acts, see
Polancus, De modo juvandi morientes; Joan. a
S. Thoma. Card. Bona. &c. |
|
[157] — |
Apoc. xii. 12. |
|
[158] — |
Cicat. l. 2, c. 1, p. 446. |
|
[159] — |
This observation of St. Camillus has been since
confirmed by many instances of persons who were found to
have been buried alive, or to have recovered long after
they had appeared to have been dead. Accounts of several
such examples are found in many modern medical and
philosophical memoirs of literature which have appeared
during this century, especially in France and Germany;
and experience evinces the case to have been frequent.
Boerhaave (Not. in Instit. Medic.) and some other men
whose names stand among the foremost in the list of
philosophers, have demonstrated by many undoubted
examples, that where the person is not dead, an entire
cessation of breathing and of the circulation of the
blood may happen for some time, by a total obstruction
in the organical movements of the springs and fluids of
the whole body, which obstruction may sometimes be
afterwards removed, and the vital functions restored.
Whence the soul is not to be presumed to leave the body
in the act of dying, but at the moment in which some
organ or part of the body absolutely essential to
life is irreparably decayed or destroyed. Nor can
any certain mark be given that a person is dead till
some evident symptom of putrefaction commenced appears
sensible.
Duran and some other eminent surgeons in France, in
memorials addressed, some to the French king, others to
the public, complain that two customs call for redress,
first, that of burying multitudes in the churches, by
which experience shows that the air is often extremely
infected; the second is that of which we speak. To
prevent the danger of this latter, these authors insist
that no corpse should be allowed to be buried, or its
face close covered, before some certain proof of
putrefaction, for which they assign as usually one of
the first marks, if the lower jaw being stirred does not
restore itself, the spring of the muscles being lost by
putrefaction. See Doctor Bruhier, Mémoire présenté au
Roi, sur la Nécessité d’un Règlement Général au Sujet
des Enterments et Embaumements, in 1745; also
Dissertation sur l’Incertitude des Signes de la Mort, in
1749, 2 vols. in 12mo.; and Dr. Louis, Lettres
sur la Certitude des Signes de la Mort, contre Bruhier,
in 1752, in 12mo.
The Romans usually kept the bodies of the dead eight
days, and practised a ceremony of often calling upon
them by their names, of which certain traces remain in
many places from the old ceremonial for the burial of
kings and princes. Servabantur cadavera octo diebus, et
calida abluebantur, et post ultimam conclamationem
abluebantur. Servius in Virgilii Æneidon, l. 8,
ver. 2, 8. The corpse was washed whilst warm,
and again after the last call addressed to the deceased
person, which was the close of the ceremony before the
corpse was burnt or interred; and to be deprived of it
was esteemed a great misfortune. Corpora nondum
conclamata jacent, Lucan. l. 2, ver. 22. Jam
defletus et conclamatus es. Apuleius, l. 1, Metam.
et l. 11, ib. Desine, jam conclamatum est. Terent.
Eunuch. 2, 3, ver. 56. St. Zeno of
Verona, describing a wife who immoderately laments her
deceased husband, says: Cadaver amplectitur conclamatum.
St. Zeno, l. 1, Trac. 16, p. 126,
nov. ed. Veron. This ceremony, trivial in itself, was
of importance to ascertain publicly the death of the
person. |
|
[160] — |
The empire of the West, which had been extinguished in
Augustulus, was restored in the year 800, in the person
of Charlemagne, king of France, who extended his
conquests into part of Spain, almost all Italy, all
Flanders and Germany, and part of Hungary. The imperial
crown continued some time in the different branches of
his family, sometimes in France, sometimes in Germany,
and sometimes in both united under the same monarch.
Louis IV. the eighth hereditary emperor of the
Franks, was a weak prince, and died in the twentieth
year of his age, in 912, without leaving any issue.
These emperors, in imitation of the Lombards, had
created several petty sovereigns in their states, who
grew very powerful. These princes declared that by the
death of Louis IV. the imperial dignity was
devolved on the Germanic people; and excluding Charles
the Simple, king of France, the next heir in blood of
the Carlovingian race, elected Conrad I. duke of
Franconi: and after him Henry I. surnamed the
Fowler, duke of Saxony, who was succeeded by three
Othos of the same family of Saxony. After
St. Henry II. several emperors (the following
Henries, and two Frederics in particular) were of the
Franconian family. Rodolph I. of the house of
Austria was chosen in 1273. There have been four dukes
of Bavaria emperors, five of the house of Luxemburg,
three of the old Bohemian royal house, &c. But in
1438, Albert II. duke of Austria and marquis of
Moravia, was raised to that supreme dignity, which from
that time has remained chiefly in that family. The
ancient ducal house of Saxony was descended from
Wittekind the Great, the last elected king of the
Saxons, who afterwards sustained a long obstinate war
against Pepin and Charlemagne, submitted to the latter,
and being baptized by St. Lullus in 785, was
created by Charlemagne, first duke of Saxony.
St. Henry II. was the fifth Emperor of the
Saxon race, descended from Wittekind the
Great. |
|
[161] — |
On the authenticity of this diploma of Henry II.
and also of those of Pepin, Charlemagne, and
Otho I. see the Dissertation of the Abbé Cenni,
entitled, Esame de Diploma d’Ottone è S. Arrigo,
printed at Rome in 1754.
That the see of Rome was possessed of great riches, even
during the rage of the first persecutions, is clear from
the acts of universal charity performed by the popes,
mentioned by St. Dionysius of Corinth, and after
the persecutions by St. Basil and St. John
Climacus. From the reign of Constantine the Great, many
large possessions were bestowed on the popes for the
service of the Church. Conni (Esame di Diploma di
Ludovico Pio) shows in detail from St. Gregory the
Great’s epistles, that the Roman see, in his time,
enjoyed very large estates, with a very ample civil
jurisdiction, and a power of punishing delinquents in
them by deputy judges, in Sicily, Calabria, Apulia,
Campania, Ravenna, Sabina, Dalmatia, Illyricum,
Sardinia, Corsica, Liguria, the Alpes Cottiæ, and a
small estate in Gaul. Some of these estates comprised
several bishoprics, as appears from St. Gregory,
l. 7, ep. 39, Indict. ii.
The Alpes Cottiæ that belonged to the popes included
Genoa and the sea-coast from that town to the Alps, the
boundaries of Gaul, as Thomassin (l. 1, de Discipl.
Eccl. c. 27, n. 17.) takes notice, and as
Baronius (ad an. 712, p. 9.) proves from the
testimony of Oldradus, bishop of Milan. And Paul the
deacon writes, that the Lombards seized the Alpes
Cottiæ, which were the estates of the Roman see.
“Patrimonium Alpium Cottiarum quæ quondam ad jus
pertinuerant apostolicæ sedis, sed a Longobardis multo
tempore fuerant ablatæ.” (Paul. Diac. l. 6,
c. 43.) Father Cajetan, in his Isagoge ad Historiam
Siculam, points out at length the different estates
which the Roman see formerly possessed in Sicily. The
popes were charged with a great share of the care of the
city and civil government of Rome. St. Gregory the
Great mentions that it was part of their duty to provide
that the city was supplied with corn, (l. 5,
ep. 40, alias l. 4, ep. 31, ad Maurit.)
and that he was obliged to watch against the stratagems
of the enemies, and the treachery of the Roman generals
and governors. (l. 5, ep. 42, alias l. 4,
ep. 35.) And he appointed Constantius a tribune to
be governor of Naples. (l. 2, ep. 11, alias
ep. 7.) Anastasius the Librarian testifies that the
popes Sisinnius and Gregory II. both repaired the
walls of Rome and put the city in a posture of
defence.
From these and other facts Thomassin observes that the
popes had then the chief administration of the city of
Rome and of the exarchate, made treaties of peace,
averted wars, defended and recovered cities, and
repulsed the enemies. (Thomass. da Benefic. 3,
part. l. 1, c. 29, n. 6.) When the
Lombards ravaged and conquered the country, the emperors
continued to oppress the people with exorbitant taxes,
yet being busy at home against the Saracens, refused to
protect the Romans against the barbarians. Whereupon the
people of Italy, in the time of Gregory II. in 715,
chose themselves in many places leaders and princes,
though that pope exhorted them every where to remain in
their obedience and fidelity to the empire, as
Anastasius the Librarian assures us: “Ne desisterent ab
amore et fide Romani imperii admonebat.”
Leo the Isaurian, and his son Constantine Copronymus
persecuted the Catholics; yet Zachary and
Stephen II. paid them all due obedience and respect
in matters relating to the civil government. Leo
threatened to destroy the holy images and profane the
relics of the apostles at Rome. At which news the people
of Rome were not to be restrained, but having before
received with honor the images of that emperor,
according to custom, they, in a fit of sudden fury,
pulled them down. Pope Stephen II. exhorted the
emperor to forbear such sacrileges and persecutions, and
at the same time gave him to understand the danger of
exasperating the populace, though he did what in him lay
to prevent by entreaties both the profanations
threatened by the emperor, and also the revolt of the
people: “Tunc projecta laureata tua conculcarunt—Aisque:
Romam mittam, et imaginem S. Petri confringam.—Quòd
si quospiam miseris, protestamur, tibi, innocentes sumus
a sanguine quem fusuri sunt.” On the sacrileges and
cruelties exercised by the Iconoclasts in the East, see
the Bollandists, August ix. To prevent the like at
Rome, some of the Greek historians say that pope
Gregory II. withdrew himself and all Italy from the
obedience of the emperor. But Theophanes and the other
Greeks were in this particular certainly mistaken, as
Thomassin takes notice. And Natalis Alexander says:
(Diss. 1, sæc. 8.) “This most learned pope was
not ignorant of the tradition of the fathers from which
he never deviated. For the fathers always taught that
subjects are bound to obey their princes, though
infidels or heretics, in those things which belong to
the rights of the commonwealth.”
The case was, that when the emperors refused to protect
Italy from the barbarians, the popes in the name of the
people, who looked upon them as their fathers and
guardians, and as the head of the commonwealth, sought
protection from the French, as Thomassin observes
(p. 3, de Benef. l. 1, c. 29.) The
continuator of Fredegarius seems to say, that
Gregory III. and the Roman people created Charles
Martel Patrician of Rome, by which title was meant the
protection of the Church and poor, as De Marca (De
Concordiâ, l. 3, c. 11, n. 6.) and Pagi
explain it from Paul the deacon. At last pope
Stephen II. going into France to invite Pepin into
Italy, conferred on him the title of Patrician, but had
not recourse to this expedient till the Eastern empire
had absolutely abandoned Italy to the swords of the
Lombards. Pope Zachary made a peace with Luitprand, king
of the Lombards, and afterward a truce with king Rachis
for twenty years. But that prince putting on the
Benedictin habit, his brother and successor Astulphus
broke the treaty. Stephen II. who succeeded Zachary
in 752, sent great presents to Astulphus, begging he
would give peace to the exarchate; but could not be
heard, as Anastasius testifies. Whereupon Stephen went
to Paris, and implored the protection of king Pepin, who
sent ambassadors into Lombardy, requiring that Astulphus
would restore what he had taken from the church of Rome,
and repair the damages he had done the Romans. Astulphus
refusing to comply with these conditions, Pepin led an
army into Italy, defeated the Lombards, and besieged,
and took Astulphus in Pavia; but generously restored him
his kingdom on condition he should live in amity with
the pope. But immediately after Pepin’s departure he
perfidiously took up arms, and in revenge put every
thing to fire and sword in the territories of Rome. This
obliged Pepin to return into Italy, and Astulphus was
again beaten and made prisoner in Pavia. Pepin once more
restored him his kingdom, but threatened him with death
if he ever again took up arms against the pope; and he
took from him the exarchate of Ravenna, of which the
Lombard had made himself master, and he gave it to the
holy see in 755, as Eginhard relates: “Redditam sibi
Ravennam et Pentapolim, et omnem exarchatum ad Ravennam
pertinentem, ad S. Petrum tradidit.” Eginhard, ib.
Thomassin observes very justly that Pepin could not give
away dominions which belonged to the emperors of
Constantinople; but that they had lost all right to them
after they had suffered them to be conquered by the
Lombards, without sending succors during so many years
to defend and protect them. These countries therefore
either by the right of conquest in a just war belonged
to Pepin and Charlemagne, who bestowed them on the
popes; or the people became free, and being abandoned to
barbarians had a right to form themselves into a new
government. See Thomassin (p. 3, de Beneficiis,
l. 1, c. 29, n. 9).
It is a principle laid down by Puffendorf, Grotius,
Fontanini, and others, demonstrated by the unanimous
consent of all ancients and moderns, and founded upon
the law of nations, that he who conquers a country in a
just war, nowise untaken for the former possessors, nor
in alliance with them, is not bound to restore to them
what they would not or could not protect and defend:
“Illud extra controversiam est, si jus gentium
respiciamus, quæ hostibus per nos erepta sunt, ea non
posse vindicari ab his qui ante hostes nostros ea
possederant et amiserant.” (Grotius, l. 3, de Jure
belli et pacis, c. 6, 38.) The Greeks had by
their sloth lost the exarchate of Ravenna. If Pepin had
conquered the Goths in Italy, or the Vandals in Africa
before Justinian had recovered those dominions, who will
pretend that he would have been obliged to restore them
to the emperors? Or, if the Britons had repulsed the
Saxons after the Romans had abandoned them to their
fury, might they not have declared themselves a free
people? Or, had not the popes and the Roman people a
right, when the Greeks refused them protection, to seek
it from others? They had long in vain demanded it of the
emperors of Constantinople, before they had recourse to
the French. Thus Anastasius testifies that pope
Stephen II. had often in vain implored the succors
of Leo against Astulphus. “Ut juxta quod ei sæpius
scripserat, cum exercitu ad tuendas has Italiæ partes
modis omnibus adveniret.” The same Anastasius relates,
that when the ambassadors of the Greek emperor demanded
of Pepin the restitution of the countries he had
conquered from the Lombards, that prince answered, that
as he had exposed himself to the dangers of war merely
for the protection of St. Peter’s see, not in favor
of any other person, he never would suffer the apostolic
Church to be deprived of what he had bestowed on it.
Pepin gave to the holy see the city of Rome and its
Campagna; also the exarchate of Ravenna and Pentapolis,
comprising Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Senigallia, Ancona,
Gubbio, &c. He retained the office of protector and
defender of the Roman church under the title of
Patrician. When Desiderius, king of the Lombards, again
ravaged the lands of the church of Rome, Charlemagne
marched into Italy, defeated his forces, and after a
long siege took Pavia, and extinguished the kingdom of
the Lombards in 773, on which occasion he caused himself
to be crowned king of Italy, with an iron crown, such as
the Goths and Lombards in that country had used, perhaps
as an emblem of strength. Charlemagne confirmed to pope
Adrian I. at Rome, the donation of his father
Pepin. The emperor Charles the Bald and others ratified
and extended the same. Charlemagne having been crowned
emperor of the West at Rome, by pope Leo III. in
800, Irene, who was then empress of Constantinople,
acknowledged him Augustus in 802; as did her successor
the emperor Nicephorus III. The Greeks at the same
time ratified the partition made of the Italian
dominions. This point of history has been so much
misrepresented by some moderns, that this note seemed
necessary in order to set it in a true light. See
Cenni’s Monumenta Dominationis Pontificiæ, in 4to. Romæ,
1760. Also Orsi’s Dissertation on this subject; Cenni’s
Esame di Diploma, &c. and Jos. Assemani, Hist. Ital.
Scriptores, t. 3, c. 5. |
|
[162] — |
In the partition of the empire between Charlemagne and
Irene, empress of Constantinople, Apulia and Calabria
were assigned to the Eastern empire, and the rest of
Naples to Charlemagne and his successors. Long before
this, in the unhappy reign of the Monothelite emperor
Constans, about the year 660, the Saracens began to
infest Sicily, and soon after became masters of that
island, and also of Calabria and some other parts of
Italy. Otho I. surnamed the Great, drove them out
of Italy, and laid claim to Calabria and Apulia by
right of conquest. The Greeks soon after yielded up
their pretensions to those provinces by the marriage of
Otho II. to Theophania, daughter of Romanus,
emperor of the East, who brought him Apulia and Calabria
for her dowry. Yet the treacherous Greeks joined the
Saracens in those provinces, and again expelled the
Germans. But in 1008, Tancred, a noble Norman, lord of
Hauteville, with his twelve sons, and a gallant army of
adventurers, went from Normandy into Apulia, and had
great success against the Saracens and their
confederates the Greeks. From this time the Normans
became dukes of Calabria, and counts and dukes of
Apulia. Robert Guiscard, the most valiant Norman duke of
Apulia, augmented his power by the conquest of Sicily,
Naples, and all the lands which lie between that city
and Latium or the territory of Rome. In 1130, Roger the
Norman was saluted by the pope, king of both
Sicilies. |
|
[163] — |
This Robert loved the Church, and was a wise,
courageous, and learned prince. He wrote sacred hymns,
and among others that which begins “O Constantia
Martyrum;” also, as some say the “Veni Sancte Spiritus,
Et emitte cœlitus” &c., sung in the mass for
Whitsuntide. |
|
[164] — |
At the entry of the cloister of St. Vanne at
Verdun, is hung a picture in which the emperor Saint
Henry is represented laying down his sceptre and crown,
and asking the monastic habit of the holy abbot Richard.
The abbot required of him a promise of obedience, then
commanded him to resume the government of the empire,
upon which a distich was made, in which it is said: The
emperor came hither to live in obedience; and he
practises this lesson by ruling. |
|
[165] — |
Baronius and some others call St. Henry the first
emperor of that name, because Henry I. or the
Fowler, was never crowned by the pope at Rome; without
which ceremony some Italians style an emperor only king
of Germany or emperor elect; though Charles V. was
the last that was so crowned at Rome. St. Henry on
his death-bed recommended to the princes Conrad the
Salic, duke of Franconia, who was accordingly chosen
emperor, was crowned at Rome in 1027, reigned with great
piety and glory, and was buried in the cathedral church
at Spire, which he had built near his own palace. He was
succeeded by his son Henry the Black
or III. |
|
[166] — |
S. Fulgent, ep. 6. |
|
[167] — |
N. 11, p. 69. |
|
[168] — |
Critic. Hist. Chron. ad an. 734,
n. 4. |
|
[169] — |
Our saint’s colleague St. Wiro (in Irish Bearaidhe)
is honored on the 8th of May. By the Four Masters he is
styled abbot of Dublin; but with the Irish annalists,
bishop and abbot are generally synonymous terms. He died
in 650. See Ware.
St. Plechelm’s other fellow-missionary,
St. Otger, is honored on the 10th of September; he
is always styled deacon, by which it appears that he was
never promoted to the priesthood. From his name and
other circumstances it is thought he was an
English-Saxon, though from the North, probably the
southern parts of Scotland anciently subject to the
kings of the Northumbers. Being desirous to accompany
SS. Wiro and Plechelm to Rome, and in their
apostolic missions into Germany, when Pepin gave the
Mount of St. Peter or of St. Odilia to
St. Wiro, the three saints settled there together
and ended their days in that monastery. Whether
St. Otger outlived St. Plechelm is uncertain.
All three were buried in the monastery of Berg, or of
Mount St. Peter or St. Odilia; and their
bodies remained there till, in 858, that monastery was
given by king Lothaire to Hunger, bishop of Utrecht,
when the greatest part of these relics was translated to
Utrecht. Part still remained in the church of Berg, till
with the chapter of canons it was removed to Ruremund.
These relics were hid some time in the civil wars for
fear of the Calvinists, but discovered in 1594, and
placed again above the high altar. The portion at
Utrecht was also hid for a time for fear of the Normans;
but found and exposed to public veneration again by
bishop Baldric. See the life of Saint Otger, with notes
by Bollandus, and the additional disquisitions of
Stilting ad 10 Sept., t. 2,
p. 612. |
|
[170] — |
The barbarians who inhabited the northern coasts of the
Baltic were called by one general name Normans; and the
Sclavi, Vandals, and divers other nations were settled
on the southern coast, as Eginhard, Helmold, and others
testify. |
|
[171] — |
The authorities produced by Tho. Rudburn, a monk of the
Old Monastery in Winchester, in 1450, to prove
St. Swithin to have been some time public professor
of divinity at Cambridge, are generally esteemed
suppositions. See Rudburn, l. 3, c. 2, Hist.
Maj. Wintoniensis, apud Wharton, Anglia Sacra, and the
History of the University of Cambridge. |
|
[172] — |
Hearne, Teat. Roffens, p. 269. |
|
[173] — |
See Ingulph. Asser. Redborne. |
|
[174] — |
The value of a mancuse is not known; it is thought to
have been about the same with that of a
mark. |
|
[175] — |
Caslen and B. Nicholson falsely call this the life of
St. Swithin, and it appears from Leland that
Lantfred never wrote his life, which himself
sufficiently declares in the history of his miracles.
The contrary seems a mistake in Pits, Bale, and Thomas
Rudburn, p. 223. Rudburn manifestly confounds
Wolstan with Lantfred. |
|
[176] — |
Hist. Major Winton. p. 223. Vita metrice
S. Swithuni per Wolstanum monachum Winton.
ib. 2. |
|
[177] — |
At the east end of this cathedral is the place which in
ancient times was esteemed most sacred, underneath which
was the cemetery or resting-place of many saints and
kings who were interred there with great honor. At
present behind the high altar there is a transverse
wall, against which we see the marks where several of
their statues, being very small, were placed with their
names under each pedestal in a row; “Kinglisus Rex.
S. Birinus Ep. Kingwald Rex. Egbertus R. Adulphus
(i. e. Ethelwolphus) R. Elured R. filius
ejus. Edwardus R. junior Adhelstanus R. filius ejus
(Sta. Maria D. Jesus in the middle). Edredus R. Edgarus
R. Alwynus Ep. Ethelred R. Cnutus R. Hardecanutus R.
filius ejus,” &c. Underneath, upon a fillet were
written these verses:
“Corpora Sanctorum hic sunt in pace sepulta;
Thursday, July 30, 2015 6:03:30 PM
Ex Meritis quorum fulgent miracula multa.”
At the foot of these, a little eastwards, is a large
flat grave-stone, which had the effigies of a bishop in
brass, said to be that of St. Swithin. See Lord
Clarendon, and Samuel Gale, On the Antiquities of
Winchester, p. 29, 30. |
|
[178] — |
Hist. Arian. ad Monachos, p. 346. |
|
[179] — |
Conc. Nicæn. Can. 15. |
|
[180] — |
That prelate had been educated at Cæsarea, where he
studied with St. Pamphilus the martyr, whose name
he afterward added to his own. He suffered imprisonment
with him for the faith about the year 309, but recovered
his liberty without undergoing any severer trial, and
was chosen archbishop of Cæsarea in 314. When Arius, in
320, retired from Alexandria into Palestine, having been
deposed from the priesthood by St. Alexander the
year before, Eusebius of Cæsarea and some other bishops
were imposed upon by him, and received him favorably.
Hereupon Arius wrote to Eusebius of Nicomedia, whom he
calls brother to the other Eusebius of Cæsarea. Eusebius
of Nicomedia was at that time of an advanced age, and
had great interest with Constantine, who after the
defeat of Licinius kept his court some time at Nicomedia
as other emperors had done before him since Dioclesian
had begun to reside in the East. This prelate was crafty
and ambitious; his removal, procured by his intrigues,
from his first see of Berytus to Nicomedia seems to have
given occasion to the canon of the Nicene council, by
which such translations were forbidden. Notwithstanding
which, in defiance of so sacred a law, he afterwards
procured himself to be again translated to the see of
Constantinople, in 338, in the beginning of the reign of
Constantius. The Council of Sardica, in 347, confirmed
the above-mentioned Nicene canon under pain of the
parties being deprived even of lay communion at their
death; but this arch-heretic died in 342. He openly
defended not only the person, but also the errors of
Arius; subscribed the definitions of the Nicene council
for fear of banishment: but three months after, being
the author of new tumults, he was banished by
Constantine, and after three years recalled, upon giving
a confession of faith in which he declared himself
penitent, and professed that he adhered to the Nicene
faith, as Theodoret relates. By this act of
dissimulation he imposed upon the emperor, but he
continued by every base art to support his heresy, and
endeavored to subvert the truth. Eusebius of Cæsarea
held that see from 314 till his death in 339. He was
always closely linked with the ringleaders of the
heresy. Nevertheless, the learned Henry Valois, in his
Prolegomena to his translation of this author’s
Ecclesiastical History, pretends to excuse him from its
errors, though he often boggled at the word
Consubstantial. He certainly was so far imposed upon by
Arius, as to believe that heretic admitted the eternity
of the Divine Word; and in his writings many passages
occur which prove the divinity, and, as to the sense,
the consubstantiality of the Son, whatever difficulties
he formed as to the word. On which account Ceillier and
many others affect to speak favorably, or at least
tenderly of Eusebius in this respect, and are willing to
believe that he did not at least constantly adhere to
that capital error. Yet it appears very difficult
entirely to clear him from it, though he may seem to
have attempted to steer a course between the tradition
of the Church and the novelties of his friends. See
Baronius ad an. 380, Witasse Nat. Alexander, and the
late Treatise in folio, against the Arian heresy,
complied by a Maurist Benedictin monk. Photius, in a
certain work given us by Montfaucon (in Bibl. Coisliana,
p. 358), roundly charges Eusebius with Arianism and
Origenism.
Eusebius, whose conduct was so unconstant and equivocal,
shines to most advantage in his works, especially those
which he composed in defence of Christianity before the
Arian contest arose. The first of these is his book
against Hierocles, who, under Dioclesian, was a
prosecuting judge at Nicomedia, and afterward rewarded
for his cruelty against the Christians with the
government of Egypt. In a book he wrote he made
Apollonius Tyanæus superior to Christ. But Eusebius
demonstrates the history of this magician, written by
Philostratus, when he taught rhetoric at Rome, one
hundred years after the death of that magician, to be
false and contradictory in most of its points, doubtful
in others, and trifling in all. About the time he was
made bishop he conceived a design of two works, which
showed as much the greatness of his genius, as the
execution did the extent of his knowledge. The first of
these he called The Preparation, the other The
Demonstration of the Gospel. In the first he, with great
erudition, confutes idolatry, in fifteen books, showing
that the Greeks borrowed the sciences and many of their
gods from the Egyptians, whose true history agrees with
that of Moses; but the fictions of their theology are
monstrous, impious, and condemned by their own learned
men; that their oracles, which were only a chain of
impostures and frauds, or the responses of devils, never
attained to any infallible knowledge of contingencies,
and were silenced by a power which they acknowledged
superior. He also shows the Unity of God, and the truth
of his revealed religion as ancient as the world. In his
Demonstration of the Gospel, in ten books, he shows that
the Jewish law in every point clearly points out Christ
and the gospel. These books of Evangelical Preparation
and Demonstration furnish more proofs, testimonies and
arguments for the truth of the Christian religion than
any other work of the ancients on that subject.
Eusebius’s two books against Marcellus of Ancyra, and
three On Ecclesiastical Theology, are a confutation of
Sabellianism. His topography or alphabetical explication
of the places mentioned in the Old Testament, is most
exact and useful. It was translated into Latin, and
augmented by St. Jerom. Eusebius’s useful comments
on the Psalms were published by Montfaucon (Collect.
Nova Script. Græc. Paris, 1706). His fourteen
Discourses, or Opuscula, published by F. Sirmond
(Op. Sirmond, t. 1), are esteemed genuine, though
not mentioned by the ancients. His discourse on the
Dedication of the Church at Tyre, rebuilt after the
persecution in 315, contains a curious description of
that ceremony and of the structure. By his letter to his
Church of Cæsarea, after the conclusion of the council
of Nice, he recommended to his flock the definitions and
creed of that assembly. His panegyric of Constantine was
delivered at Constantinople in presence of that prince,
who then celebrated the thirtieth year of his reign by
public games. The praises are chiefly drawn from the
destruction of idolatry; but study reigns in this
composition more than nature, and renders the discourse
tedious, though the author took some pains to polish the
style. His four books of the life of Constantine were
written in 338, the year after that emperor’s death. The
style is diffusive, and the more disagreeable by being
more labored. Phocius reproaches the author for
dissembling or suppressing the chief circumstances
relating to Arius, and his condemnation in the council
of Nice.
The Chronicle of Eusebius was a work of immense labor,
in two parts; the first, called his Chronology,
contained the distinct successions of the kings and
rulers of the principal nations from the beginning of
the world; the second part, called the Chronicle or the
Rule of Times, may be called the table of the first, and
unites all the particular chronologies of different
nations in one. The second part was translated into
Latin, and augmented by St. Jerom. The first part
was lost when Joseph Scaliger gathered the scattered
fragments from George Syncellus, Cedrenus, and the
Alexandrian chronicle; but Scaliger ought to have
pointed out his sources; and has inserted many things
which certainly belong not to Eusebius.
Our author’s name has been rendered most famous by his
ten books of Church History, which he brings down to the
defeat of Licinius, in 323, when he first wrote it,
though he revised it again in 326. He collected the Acts
of the martyrs of Palestine, an abstract of which he
added to the eighth book of his History. Rufinus
elegantly translated this work into Latin, reduced to
nine books, to which he added two others, wherein he
brings down his history to the death of Theodosius.
Eusebius copied very much Julius Africanus in his
chronicle; and in his History, St. Hegesippos (who
had compiled a History from Christ to 170) and others.
This invaluable work is not exempt from some mistakes
and capital omissions; nor was the author much
acquainted with the affairs of the Western Church. See
Ceillier, t. 4, p. 258, &c.
Christophorson, bishop of Chichester, elegantly
translated this History into Latin, but changed the
manner of dividing the chapters. The translation of the
learned Henry Valesius is most accurate. Eusebius was
one of the most learned prelates of antiquity, and a man
of universal reading; but he did not much study to
polish his discourses, which is the common fault of
those that make learning and knowledge their chief
business. |
|
[181] — |
Theodoret, l. 1, c. 20, 21.
S. Hier., l. 3, in
Rufin., &c. |
|
[182] — |
Eus., l. 4, de Vit. Constant., c. 61,
p. 518. |
|
[183] — |
Sozom., l. 2, c. 19, p. 469. |
|
[184] — |
See Tillemont, Ceillier, Cave, Hist. Littér.,
p. 187, t. 1, and Solier, the Bollandist,
Hist. Patr. Ant. c. 24, p. 36. |
|
[185] — |
Theodoret, l. 1, c. 20. Theodorus Lector,
l. 2, c. 1, p. 547. Theophanes,
p. 114. See Tillem, note 4,
p. 653. |
|
[186] — |
St. Jerom (ep. 126, p. 38) calls
St. Eustathius a loud sounding trumpet, and says he
was the first who employed his pen against the Arians.
The same father admires the extent of his knowledge,
saying that it was consummate both in sacred and profane
learning (ep. 84, p. 327). His just praises
are set forth by St. Chrysostom in an entire
panegyric; and Sozomen assures us (l. 1, c. 2)
that he was universally admired both for the sanctity of
his life, and the eloquence of his discourses. The
elegant works which he composed against the Arians were
famous in the fifth century, but have not reached us.
But we have still his Treatise on the Pythonissa or
Witch of Endor, published by Leo Allatius, with a
curious Dissertation, and reprinted in the eighth tome
of the Critici Sacri. In it the author undertakes to
prove against Origen that this witch neither did nor
could call up the soul of Samuel, but only a spectre or
devil representing Samuel, in order to deceive Saul. He
clearly teaches that before the coming of Christ the
souls of the just rested in Abraham’s bosom; and that
none could enter heaven before Christ had opened it; but
that Christians enjoy an advantage above the patriarchs
and prophets, in being united with Christ immediately
after their death if they have lived well. This treatise
is well written, and justifies the commendations which
the ancients give to this great prelate and eloquent
orator. Sozomen justly calls his writings admirable, as
well for the purity of his style as for the sublimity of
thought, the beauty of the expression, or the curious
choice of the matter. Nothing more enhances his virtue,
than the invincible constancy and patience with which he
suffered the most reproachful accusation with which his
enemies charged him, and the unjust deposition and
banishment which were inflicted on him. |
|
[187] — |
Gr. 22, p. 548. |
|
[188] — |
“Qui sunt libri quos adoratis, legentes? Speratus
respondit: Quatuor evangelia Domini nostri Jesu Christi,
et epistolas S. Pauli apostoli, et omnem divinitus
inspiratam scripturam.” Acta apud Ruinart, p. 78,
et Baron. ad an. 202. |
|
[189] — |
“Consummati sunt Christi martyres mense Julio, et
intercedunt pro nobis ad Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum,
cui honor et gloria cum Patre et Spiritu Sancto in
sæcula sæculorum.” Acta apud Baronium, ad
an. 202. |
|
[190] — |
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus is commonly known
by the last name. His father was a centurion in the
proconsular troops of Africa, and he was born at
Carthage about the year 160. He confesses that before
his conversion to the Christian faith he, in his merry
fits, pointed his keenest satire against it (Apol.,
c. 18), had been an adulterer (De Resur.
c. 59), had taken a cruel pleasure in the bloody
entertainments of the amphitheatre (De Spectac.
c. 19), attained to a distinguishing eminency in
vice (De Pœnit. c. 4), “Ego præstantiam in delictis
meam agnosco,” and was an accomplished sinner in all
respects, (ib. c. 12. “Peccator omnium notarum cum
sim,”) yet having his head marvellously well turned for
science, he applied himself from his cradle to the study
of every branch of good literature, poetry, philosophy,
geometry, physic, and oratory; he dived into the
principles of each sect, and both into the fabulous and
into the real or historical part of mythology. His
comprehensive genius led him through the whole circle of
profane sciences; above the rest, as Eusebius tells us,
he was profoundly versed in the Roman laws. He had a
surprising vivacity and keenness of wit, and an uncommon
stock of natural fire which rendered him exceeding hot
and impatient, as himself complains (l. de Patient.
in init.) His other passions he restrained after his
conversion to Christianity; but this vehemence of temper
he seems never to have sufficiently checked. The motives
which engaged him to embrace the gospel seem those upon
which he most triumphantly insists in his works; as the
antiquity of the Mosaic writings, the mighty works and
wisdom of the divine lawgiver, the continued chain of
prophecy and wonders conducting the attentive inquirer
to Christ, the evidence of the miracles of Christ and
his apostles, the excellency of the law of the gospel,
and its amazing influence upon the lives of men; the
power which every Christian then exercised over evil
spirits, and the testimony of the very devils themselves
whom the infidels worshipped for gods, and who turned
preachers of Christ, howling, and confessing themselves
devils in the presence of their own votaries, (Apol.
c. 19, 20, 23, &c. &c.) also the
constancy and patience of the martyrs (l. ad
Scapul. c. ult.) &c.
Being by his lively and comprehensive genius excellently
formed for controversy, he immediately set himself to
write in defence of religion, which was then attacked by
the Heathens and Jews on one side, and on the other
corrupted by heretics. He successfully employed his pen
against all these enemies to truth, and first against
the Pagans. The persecution which began to rage gave
occasion to his Apologetic, which is not only his
masterpiece, but indisputably one of the best among all
the works of Christian antiquity. This piece was not
addressed to the Roman senate, as Baronius and several
others thought, but to the proconsul and other
magistrates of Africa, and perhaps to all the governors
of provinces and magistrates of the empire, among whom
he might also comprise the Roman senators; for the title
of Presidents only, agreed to these provincial
governors, and he names the proconsuls; (ch. 45)
speaks of Rome as at a distance: (c. 9, 21, 24,
35, 45) says they practised at home (at Carthage),
the bloody religious rites of the Scythians; (c. 9)
and by those words, “in ipso fere vertice civitatis
præsidentes,” he seems to mean the Byrsa of
Carthage; certainly not Rome, which he always calls
Urbs, not civitas.
In the first part of this work he clears Christians from
the calumnies of incest and murder thrown upon them, and
demonstrates the injustice of punishing them merely for
a name, and exposes the absurdity of Trajan’s order
commanding them to be punished if impeached, yet not to
be sought after. He mentions that Tiberius, and after
his miraculous victory, Marcus Aurelius, were favorable
to the Christian religion. He then proceeds to confute
idolatry; asks, if Bacchus was made a god for planting
vines, why did not Lucullus attain to the same honor,
because he first brought cherry-trees from Pontus to
Rome? Why Aristides the Just, Socrates, Crœsus,
Demosthenes, and so many others who had been most
eminent, were not admitted to share divine honors with
Jupiter, Venus, &c.? He explains the chief articles
of our faith, and speaking of the origin and false
worship of the demons he inserts the most daring
challenge, which Saint Cyprian (ep. ad Demetrianum),
Lactantius (De Just. l. 5, c. 21) and other
primitive fathers repeat with the same assurance,—“Let a
demoniac be brought into court,” says Tertullian, “and
the evil spirit that possesses him be commanded by any
Christian to declare what he is, he shall confess
himself as truly to be a devil as he did falsely before
declare himself a god. In like manner let them bring any
of those who are thought to be inspired by some god, as
Æsculapius, &c. If all these do not declare
themselves in court to be devils, not daring to lie to a
Christian, do you instantly put that rash Christian to
death.”
The apologist mentions the submission of Christians to
the emperors, their love of their enemies, and their
mutual charity, horror of all vice, and constancy in
suffering death and all manner of torments for the sake
of virtue. The heathens called them in derision
Sarmentitians and Semaxians, because they were fastened
to trunks of trees, and stuck about with faggots to be
set on fire. But Tertullian answers them: “Thus dressed
about with fire, we are in our most illustrious apparel.
These are our triumphal robes embroidered with
palm-branches in token of victory (such the Roman
generals wore in their solemn triumphs), and mounted
upon the pile we look upon ourselves as in our triumphal
chariot. Who ever looked well into our religion but he
came over to it? and who ever came over to it but was
ready to suffer for it? We thank you for condemning us,
because there is such a blessed discord between the
divine and human judgment, that when you condemn us upon
earth, God absolveth us in heaven.”
Tertullian wrote about the same time his two books
Against the Gentiles, in the first confuting their
slanders, in the second attacking their false gods. An
accidental disputation of a Christian with a Jewish
proselyte engaged him to show the triumph of the faith
over that obstinate race, who seemed deaf to all
arguments. His book Against the Jews is just, solid, and
well supported, a model of theological controversy,
which wants but a little clearness of diction to be a
very finished piece. Hermogenes, a Stoic philosopher,
and a Christian, broached a new heresy in Africa,
teaching matter to be eternal. Tertullian shows it to
have been created by God with the world, and unravels
the sophistry of that heresiarch in its book Against
Hermogenes. That Against the Valentinians is rather a
satire and raillery, than a serious confutation of the
extravagant sentiments of those heretics. His excellent
book Of Prescription against Heretics was certainly
written before his fall; for in it he lays great stress
on his communion with all the apostolic churches,
especially that of Rome, and confutes by general
principles all heresies that can arise.
His design in this little treatise is to show, that the
appeal to scripture is very unjust in heretics, who have
no claim or title to the scriptures. These were
carefully committed in trust by the apostles to their
successors, and he proves, that to whom the scriptures
were intrusted, to them also was committed the
interpretation of scripture. He promises that heresies
are the very pest and destruction of faith, but no just
cause of scandal or wonder, any more than fevers which
consume the human body; for they were predicted by
Christ, and the necessary consequence of criminal
passions. He says, as if it had been to anticipate or
remove the offence which he afterward gave by his fall:
“What if a bishop, a deacon, a widow, a virgin, a
teacher, or even a martyr, shall fall from the faith;—Do
we judge of the faith by the persons or of persons by
their faith? No man is wise who holds not the faith.”
(c. 3.) He says: “We have no need of a nice inquiry
after we have found Christ, or of any curious search
after we have learned the gospel. If we believe we
desire nothing further than to be believers.”
(c. 7.) He adds, some heretics inculcate as a good
reason for eternal scruple and searching, that it is
written: Seek and ye shall find. But he takes
notice those words only belonged to those Jews who had
not yet found Christ, and cannot mean, that we must for
ever seek on. But if we are to seek, it must not be from
heretics who are estranged from the truth, who have no
power to instruct, no inclination but to destroy, and
whose very light is darkness. Christ laid down a rule of
faith, about which there can be no cavils, no disputes
but what are raised by heretics; and an obstinate
opposition to this rule is what constitutes a
heretic.
He inveighs against too curious searches in faith, as
the source of heresies. Then coming close to the point,
he will not have heretics admitted to dispute about the
scriptures, to which they have no claim; and in such a
scriptural disputation, the victory is precarious and
very liable to uncertainty. All then is to be resolved
into what the apostles have taught; which apostolical
tradition is the demonstration of the truth, and the
confutation of all error and heretical innovation. Our
perfect agreement, and general consent and harmony with
the apostolic churches which live in the unity of the
same faith, is the most convincing proof of the truth,
against which no just objection can possibly be formed.
(c. 21, 22.) He urges that Marcion, Apelles,
Valentinus, and Hermogenes were of too modern a date,
and proved by their separation and pretended claim of
what was ancient, that the Church was before them; they
ought therefore to say, that Christ came down again from
heaven and taught again upon earth, before they can
commence apostles. “But,” says he, “if any of these
heretics have the confidence to put in their claim to
apostolic antiquity, let them show us the original of
their churches, the order and succession of their
bishops, so as to ascend up to an apostle,” &c. He
is for having the heretics prove their mission by
miracles, like the apostles. (c. 35.) He writes:
“To these men the Church might thus fitly address
herself: Who are ye? When, and from whence came ye? What
do ye in my pastures, who are none of mine? By what
authority do you, Marcion, break in upon my enclosures?
Whence, O Apelles, is your power to remove my
land-marks? This field is mine of right, why then do you
at your pleasure sow and feed therein? It is my
possession; I held it in times past; I first
had it in my hands; my title to it is firm and
indisputable, and derived from those persons whose it
was, and to whom it properly belonged; I am the
heir of the apostles; as they provided in their
testament, as they committed and delivered to my trust,
as they charged and ordered me, so I hold.”
(c. 37.) He takes notice that in the Pagan
superstitions the devil had imitated many ceremonies
both of the Jewish and Christian religion; and that
heretics in like manner were bad copies of the true
Church. (c. 40.) He appeals to the manners and
conversation of the heretics which are vain, earthly,
without weight, without discipline, in every respect
suitable to the faith they profess.
(c. 41, 43.) “I am very much mistaken,”
says he, “if they are governed by any rules, even of
their own making, since every one models and adopts the
doctrine he has received according to his fancy, as the
first founder framed them to his, and to serve his own
turn. The progress of every heresy was formed upon the
footsteps of its first introducers; and the same liberty
that was assumed by Valentinus and Marcion, was
generally made use of by their followers. If you search
into all sorts of heresies, you will find that they
differ in many things from the first authors of their
own sect. They have few of them in any Church; but
without mother, without see, without the faith, they
wander up and down like exiled men, entirely devoid of
house and home.” (c. 42.)
Among his other works, the most useful is the book On
Penance, the best polished of all his writings; in the
first part, he treats of repentance at baptism; in the
second, on that for sins committed after baptism. He
teaches here that the Church hath power to remit even
fornication, which he denied when a Montanist. He
insists much on the laborious exercises of this penance
after baptism.
A book On Prayer, explaining in the first part the
Lord’s Prayer; in the second, several ceremonies often
used at prayer. An exhortation to Patience, in which the
motives are displayed with great eloquence. An
exhortation to Martyrdom, than which nothing can be more
pathetic.
He wrote a book On Baptism, proving in the first part,
its obligation and necessity; in the second, treating on
several points of discipline relating to that
sacrament.
As to his other works, in his first book to his Wife,
written probably before he was priest (see Ceillier,
p. 375, and 391), he exhorts her not to marry
again, if she should survive him; and mentions several
in the Church living in perpetual continency. In the
second, he allows second marriages lawful, but if the
woman be determined to engage a second time in the
married state, insists that it is unlawful to marry an
infidel. He alleges the impossibility of rising to
prayer at night, giving suitable alms, visiting the
martyrs, &c. with a pagan husband: “Can you conceal
yourself from him,” says he, “when you make the sign of
the cross upon your bed or your body?—Will he not know
what you receive in secret, before you take any food?”
that is, the eucharist, (l. 2, c. 5.) He
concludes with an amiable description of a Christian
holy marriage: “The Church,” saith he, “approves the
contract, the oblation ratifies it, the blessing is the
seal of it, and the angels carry it to the heavenly
Father who confirms it. Two bear together the same yoke,
and are but one flesh, and one mind: they pray together,
fast together, mutually exhort each other, go together
to the church, and to the table of the Lord. They
conceal nothing from each other, visit the sick, collect
alms without restraint, assist at the offices of the
Church without interruption, sing psalms and hymns
together, and encourage each other to praise God.”
In his treatise On the Shows, he represents them as
occasions of idolatry, impurity, vanity, and other
vices, and mentions a woman who, going to the theatre,
returned back possessed with a devil: when the exorcist
reproached the evil spirit for daring to attack one of
the faithful, it boldly answered: “I found her in
my own house.” In his book On Idolatry, he determines
many cases of conscience, relating to idolatry, as that
it is not lawful to make idols, &c., but he says, a
Christian servant may attend his master to a temple: any
friend may assist at an idolater’s marriage, &c. In
two books On the Ornaments or Dress of Women, he
zealously recommends modesty in attire, and condemns
their use of paint. In that On veiling Virgins, he
undertakes to prove that young women ought to cover
their faces at church, contrary to the custom of his
country, where only married women were veiled. In that
On the Testimony of the Soul, he proves that there is
only one God from the natural testimony of every one’s
soul. In his Scorpiace, written against the poison of
the Scorpions, that is, Gnostics, especially a branch of
those heretics named Cainites, he proves the necessity
of martyrdom, which they denied. In his Exhortation to
Chastity, he dissuades a certain widow from a second
marriage, which he allows to be lawful, though hardly
so; and the harshness of his expressions show that he
then leaned toward Montanism.
Tertullian was a priest, and continued in the Church
till the middle of his life, that is, to forty or
upwards, when he miserably fell. Montanus, an eunuch in
Phrygia, set up for a prophet, and was wonderfully
agitated by an evil spirit, and pretended to raptures in
which he lost his senses, and spoke incoherently, not
like St. Quadratus and other true prophets. He was
joined by Prisca, or Priscilla, and Maximilla, two women
of quality, and rich, but of most debauched lives. These
had the like pretended raptures, and many were deceived
by them. Montanus, about the year 171, pretended that he
had received the Holy Ghost to complete the law of the
gospel, and was called by his followers the Paraclete.
Affecting a severity of doctrine, to which his manners
did not correspond, he condemned second marriages, and
flight in persecution, and ordered extraordinary fasts.
The Montanists said that, beside the fast of Lent
observed by the Catholics, there were other fasts
imposed by the Divine Spirit. They kept three Lents in
the year, each of two weeks, and upon dry meats, as
necessary injunctions of the Spirit by the new
revelations made to Montanus, which they preferred to
the writings of the apostles; and they said these laws
were to be observed for ever. (See Tert. de Jejun.
c. 15, also St. Jerom, ep. 54, ad
Marcellam, et in Aggæ, c. 1), which is the reason
why the Montanists, even in the time of Sozomen, kept
their Antepaschal fast confined to two weeks, which the
Catholics at that time certainly observed of forty days.
For, as bishop Hooper (of Lent, p. 65), remarks,
those great fasters would hardly have been left behind,
had they not been restrained by the pretended
institution of the Spirit, to which they punctually
kept; and this circumstance rendered these facts
superstitious. Pepuzium, a town in Phrygia, was the
metropolis of these heretics, who called it Jerusalem.
The bishops of Asia having examined their prophecies
and errors, condemned them. It is said, that Montanus
and Maximilla going mad, hanged themselves. See
Eusebius.
Tertullian’s harsh, severe disposition fell in with this
rigidness. His vehement temper was for no medium in any
thing; and failing first by pride, he resented some
affronts which he imagined he had received from the
clergy of Rome, as Saint Jerom testifies; and in this
passion deserted the Church, forgetting the maxims by
which he had confuted all heresies. Solomon’s fall did
not prejudice his former inspired writings. Nor does the
misfortune of Tertullian destroy at least the justness
of the reasoning in what he had written in defence of
the truth, any more than if a man lost his senses, this
unlucky accident could annul what he had formerly done
for the advancement of learning.
Tertullian is the most ancient of all ecclesiastical
writers among the Latins. St. Vincent of Lerins,
who is far from shading the blemishes of this great man,
says, “He was among the Latins what Origen was among the
Greeks—that is, the first man of his age. Every word
seems a sentence, and almost every sentence a new
victory. Yet with all these advantages, he did not
continue in the ancient and universal faith. His error,
as the blessed confessor Hilary observes, has taken away
that authority from his writings which they would have
otherwise deserved.” St. Jerom in his book against
Helvidius, when his authority was objected, coolly
answered, “That he is not of the Church,” “Ecclesiæ
hominem non esse.” Yet he sometimes speaks
advantageously of his learning. Lactantius calls his
style uncouth, rugged, and dark, but admires his depth
of sense; and he who breaks the shell will not repent
his pains for the kernel. Balsac ingeniously compares
his eloquence to ebony, which is bright and pleasing in
its black light. The great master of eloquence,
St. Cyprian, found such hidden stores under his
dark language, that he is reported never to have passed
a day without reading him; and when he called for his
book, he used to say, “Give me my master.”
We find this once great man, who expressed in his
Apologetic (cap. 39) the most just and fearful
apprehension of excommunication, which he there called,
The anticipation of the future judgment, afterward
proud, arrogant, and at open defiance with the censures
of the Church. And this great genius seems even to lose
common sense when he writes in favor of his errors and
enthusiasm, as when, upon the authority of the dreams of
Priscilla and Maximilla, he seriously disputes on the
shape and color of a human soul, &c. He lived to a
very advanced age, and leaving the Montanists, became
the author of a new sect called from him Tertullianists,
who had a church at Carthage till St. Austin’s
time, when they were all reconciled to the Catholic
faith. Tertullian died towards the year 245.
The works which he wrote after his fall are, a book On
the Soul, pretending it to have a human figure, &c.
Another On the Flesh of Christ, proving that he took
upon him human flesh in reality, not in appearance only.
One on the Resurrection of the Flesh, proving that great
mystery. Five books Against Marcion, who maintained that
there were two principles or gods, the one good the
other evil; that the latter was worshipped by the Jews,
and was author of their law; but that the good god sent
Christ to destroy his works. Against this heresiarch,
Tertullian proves the unity of God, and the sanctity of
the Old Law and Testament. In his book Against Praxeas
he proves excellently the Trinity of Persons, and uses
the very word Trinity (c. 2), but he impiously
condemns Praxeas, because coming from the East to Rome
he had informed pope Victor of the errors and hypocrisy
of Montanus; on which account he says, he had banished
the Paraclete (Montanus) and crucified the Father.
“Paracletum fugavit, Patrem crucifixit,” (c. 1.)
For Praxeas, puffed up with the title of confessor,
broached the heresy of the Patripassians, confounding
the three Persons, and pretending that the Father in the
Son became man, and was crucified for us. His apology
for the Philosophers’ Cloak, which he continued to wear
rather than the Toga, for its conveniency, and as an
emblem of a severer life, seems only writ to display his
wit. His apology to Scapula, proconsul of Africa in 211,
is an exhortation to put a stop to the persecution,
alleging that “a Christian is no man’s enemy, much less
the emperor’s.” In his book On Monogamy he maintains
against the Psychici (so he calls the Catholics) that
second marriages are unlawful, which was one point of
his heresy. One of his arguments is, the duty of a widow
always to pray for the soul of her deceased husband.
(c. 10.)
He writ his book on Fasts, to defend the extraordinary
fasts commanded by the Montanists; but shows that
certain obligatory fasts were observed by the Catholics,
as that before Easter, since called Lent, in which they
fasted every day till vespers or evening-service: that
those of Wednesday and Friday till three o’clock, called
stations, were devotional. Some added to these
Xerophagia or the use only of dried meats, abstaining
from all vinous and juicy fruits; and some confined
themselves to bread and water. The Montanists kept three
Lents a year, and other fasts always till night, and
with the Xerophagia.
Tertullian wrote also his book On Chastity, against the
Catholics, because they gave absolution to penitents who
had been guilty of adultery or fornication. For the
Montanists denied that the Church could pardon sins of
impurity, murder, or idolatry. In this book he mentions
twice, that on the sacred chalices was painted the image
of the good shepherd bringing home the lost sheep on his
shoulders. Scoffing at a decree made by the bishop of
Rome at that time, he writes, “I am informed that
they have made a decree, and even a peremptory one; the
chief priest, that is, the bishop of bishops, saith;
I remit the sins of adultery and fornication to
those who have done penance.” (c. 1.) He calls him
apostolic bishop, c. 19, and blessed pope,
c. 13, ib. His book On the Crown was written in
235, the first year of Maximinus, to defend the action
of a Christian soldier who refused to put on his head a
garland, like the rest, when he went to receive a
donative. Tertullian says these garlands were reputed
sacred to some false god or other. He alleges that by
tradition alone we practise many things, as the
ceremonies used at baptism, yearly oblations (or
sacrifices) for the dead, and for the festivals of
martyrs, standing at prayer on the Lord’s day, and from
Easter to Whitsuntide, and the sign of the cross “which
we make,” says he, “upon our foreheads at every action,
and in all our motions at coming in or going out of
doors, in dressing or bathing ourselves; when we are at
table or in bed; when we sit down or light a lamp, or
whatever else we do.” (De Corona, c. 3 and 4.)
His book On Flight, was written about the same time to
pretend to prove against the Catholics that it is a
crime to fly in time of persecution.
The most correct edition of Tertullian’s works is that
of Rigaltius, even that of Pamelius being ill pointed,
and abounding with faults; though Rigaltius’s notes on
this and some other fathers want much
amendment. |
|
[191] — |
Tert. l. ad Scapul. c. 3. |
|
[192] — |
L. 7, Ep. 8. |
|
[193] — |
Euchar. |
|
[194] — |
Ennod. l. 8, Ep. 24, ad Faust. |
|
[195] — |
Magisteriani were officers under the Magister
Officiorum, who held one of the first dignities in the
imperial court, and had a superintendency over the
Palatines, inferior officers of the court, the schools
or academies of the court, and certain governors. See Du
Cange, Glossar. |
|
[196] — |
This ceremony was much more ancient. Alcuin and
Amalarius ascribe its institution to pope Zosimus; but
others make it of older date. At Rome the archdeacon on
Holy Saturday blessed wax mingled with oil, particles of
which having a figure of a lamb formed upon them were
distributed among the people. Hence was derived the
custom of Agnus Deis made of wax sometimes mixed with
relics of martyrs, which the popes blessed in a solemn
manner. See Saint Gregory of Tours, de Vit. Patr.
c. 8. The Rom. Order, Alcuin, Sirmond, Not. In
Ennod., &c. |
|
[197] — |
That a pretended woman called Joan interrupted the
series of the succession between Leo IV. and
Bennet III., is a most notorious forgery. Lupus
Ferrariensis, ep. 103, to Bennet III. Ado in
his Chronicle, Rhegino in his Chronicle, the annals of
St. Bertin, Hincmar ep. 26, pope
Nicholas I. the successor of Bennet III.
ep. 46, even the calumniators of the holy see,
Photius l. De Process. Spir. Sti. and Metrophanes
of Smyrna, l. de Divinitate Spiritus Sancti, who
all lived at that very time, expressly testify, that
Bennet III. succeeded immediately Leo IV.
Whence Blondel, a violent Calvinist, has by an express
dissertation demonstrated the falsity of this fable.
Marianus Scotus, at Mentz, wrote two hundred years
after, in 1083, a chronicle in which mention is first
made of this fiction; from whence it was inserted in the
chronicle of Martinus Polonus, a Dominican, in 1277,
though it is wanting in the true MS. copy kept in the
Vatican library, as Leo Allatius assures us, and in
other old MS. copies, as Burnet (Nouvelles de la Rep.
des Lettres, Mars, 1687), Casleu (Catal. Bibl. reg.
Londin, p. 102), &c., testify. Lambecius, the
most learned keeper of the imperial library at Vienna,
in his excellent catalogue of that library,
vol. ii. p. 860, has demonstrated this of the
oldest and best manuscript copies of this chronicle;
also of Marianus Scotus. Her name was foisted into
Sigebert’s Chronicle, written in 1112; for it is not
found in the original MS. copy at Gemblours,
authentically published by Miræus. Platina, and the
other late copies of Martinus Polonus and Sigebert,
borrow it from the first forger in the copy of Marianus
Scotus, probably falsified; certainly of no authority
and inconsistent; for there it is said that she sat two
years five months, and that she had studied at Athens,
where no schools remained long before this
time.
As to the porphyry stool shown in a repository belonging
to the Lateran church, which is said to have been made
use of on account of this fable, it is an idle dream.
There were two such stools; one is now shown to
travellers. It is certainly of old Roman antiquity,
finely polished, and might perhaps be used at the baths
or at some superstitious ceremonies. The art of cutting
or working in porphyry marble was certainly lost long
before the ninth age, and not restored before the time
of Cosmus the Great of Medicis; this work is still
exceeding slow and expensive. On this idle fable see
Lambecius, Blondel, Leo Allatius, Nat. Alexander,
Boerhave, &c. |
|
[198] — |
The emperor Adrian, nobly born at Italica, near Seville,
in Spain, was cousin-german to Trajan; and having been
adopted by him, upon his death ascended the imperial
throne in 117. He was extremely inquisitive, and
fond of whatever was surprising or singular, well
skilled in all curious arts, mathematics, judiciary
astrology, physic, and music. But this, says Lord Bacon,
was an error in his mind, that he desired to comprehend
all things, yet neglected the most useful branches of
knowledge. He was light and fickle; and so monstrous was
his vanity, that he caused all to be slain who pretended
in any art or science to rival him; and it was accounted
great prudence in a certain person that he would not
dispute his best with him, alleging afterward that it
was reasonable to yield to him who commanded thirty
legions. The beginning of this prince’s reign was
bloody; yet he is commended in it for two things: the
first is mentioned by Spartian, that when he came to the
empire he laid aside all former enmities, and forgot
past injuries: insomuch that, being made emperor, he
said to one who had been his capital enemy: “Thou hast
now escaped.” The other is, that, when a woman cried to
him as he was passing by: “Hear me, Cæsar;” and he
answered, “I have not leisure.” The woman replied:
“Then cease to reign.” “Noli ergo imperare.” Whereupon
he stopped and heard her complaint. |
|
[199] — |
St. Paulin. ep. 11. ad Sever. |
|
[200] — |
St. Hieron. ep. 13. ad Paul. |
|
[201] — |
Adrian became more cruel than ever towards the end of
his life, and without any just cause put to death
several persons of distinction. At last he fell sick of
a dropsy at his house at Tibur. Finding that no
medicines gave him any relief, he grew most impatient
and fretful under his lingering illness, and wished for
death, often asking for poison or a sword, which no one
would give him, though he offered them money and
impunity. His physician slew himself that he might not
be compelled to give him poison. A slave named
Mastor, a barbarian noted for his strength and boldness,
whom the emperor had employed in hunting, was, partly by
threats, partly by promises, prevailed upon to undertake
it; but instead of complying, was seized with fear, and
durst not strike him, and fled. The unhappy tyrant
lamented day and night, that death refused to obey and
deliver him who had caused the death of so many others.
He at length hastened his death by eating and drinking
things contrary to his health in his distemper, and
expired with these words in his month, “The multitude of
physicians hath killed the emperor.” “Turba medicorum
Cæsarem perdidit.” (See Dio et Spartian in Adr.) He died
in 138, being sixty-two years old, and having reigned
twenty-one years. |
|
[202] — |
A sette Frate, in the villa of Mafiei, nine
miles from Rome. See Aringhi, Roma Subter. l. 3,
c. 14. |
|
[203] — |
Ado, Usuard; Mart. Rom. cum notis Baronii et
Lubin. |
|
[204] — |
The best editions of St. Philastrius’s book De
Hæresibus, are that printed in Hamburg in 1721, by the
care of Fabricius, who has illustrated it with notes;
and that procured by Cardinal Quirini at Brescia in
1738 together with the works of
St. Gaudentius. |
|
[205] — |
St. Aug. Pref. l. de hæres. |
|
[206] — |
Utrecht was an archbishopric in the time of
St. Willibrord, but from his death remained a
bishopric subject first to Mentz, afterward to Cologne,
till, in the reign of Philip II. Paul IV.
in 1559, restored the archbishoprics of Utrecht and
Cambray, and erected Mechlin a third with the dignity of
primate. To Utrecht he subjected the new bishoprics of
Haerlem, Middleburg, Deventer, Lewarden, and Groeningen;
to Mechlin, those of Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, Ipres,
Bois-le-Duc and Ruremond; to Cambray, those of Arras
and Tournay, with two new ones, St. Omer and
Namur. |
|
[207] — |
He also gave him Austrasia, great part of which from
that age has been called Lorrain, either from this
Lothaire or rather his younger son of the same name,
whom he left king of that country. |
|
[208] — |
Louis left to her the management of all affairs, made
her elder brother Rodolph Guelph, governor of Bavaria,
and her younger brother, Conrad, governor of Italy, and
destined the best part of the kingdoms of Germany and
France to Charles the Bald, the son which she
bore him; to which dominions the sons by the first wife
thought they had a prior claim. They, by an
unjustifiable breach of their duty, twice took up arms
against their father; first in 830, when the
empress Judith was banished to a nunnery in Gascony, and
the emperor imprisoned; but he was soon released by the
Germans, and recalled Judith and her two brothers. In
the second rebellion, in 833, Lothaire, the eldest
son, banished Judith to Verona in Italy, and shut up her
son Charles in the abbey of Pruim, near Triers, and the
weak emperor himself in the abbey of St. Medard’s
at Soissons, after he had in an assembly of the states
at Compeigne, basely confessed himself justly deposed
from the empire, and guilty of the crimes which were
laid to his charge. He was afterward sent to the abbey
of St. Denys near Paris, and there clothed with the
habit of a monk; but soon after delivered by his two
younger sons, Pepin and Louis, and restored to his
throne. Judith after all these disturbances so
dexterously managed him that, at his death in 840,
he left to her son Charles the monarchy of
France. |
|
[209] — |
P. 204. |
|
[210] — |
L. 1, de gestis Pontif. Angl.
p. 197. |
|
[211] — |
Hist. Episcop. Ultraj. |
|
[212] — |
Chron. |
|
[213] — |
Ubbo Emmius, Rerum Frisic. l. 3,
p. 74. |
|
[214] — |
The works of St. Bruno of Segni, or of Asti, with
a preliminary dissertation of Dom. Maur Marchesi were
printed at Venice in 1651, in two vols. folio, and
in the Bibl. Patr. at Lyons in 1677, t. 20.
They consist of comments on several parts of scripture,
one hundred and forty-five sermons, several dogmatical
treatises, and letters; and a life of
St. Leo IX. and another of St. Peter,
bishop of Anagnia, whom Paschal II. canonized.
This latter the Bollandists have published on the 3d of
April. |
|
[215] — |
Collet, t. 1, b. 1,
p. 66, 71. |
|
[216] — |
This book of Jansenius was condemned by Urban VIII.
in 1641, and in 1653 Innocent X. censured
five propositions to which the errors contained in this
book were principally reduced. Alexander VII.
in 1656 confirmed these decrees, and in 1665
approved the formulary proposed by the French clergy for
the manner of receiving and subscribing them. Paschasius
Quenel, a French oratorian, published in 1671 his
book of Moral Reflections on the Gospels, which he
afterward augmented, and added like reflections on the
rest of the New Testament, which work he printed
complete in 1693 and 1694. In it he craftily
insinuated the errors of Jansenius, and a contempt of
the censures of the Church. Clement XI. condemned
this book, in 1708; and in 1713 by the
Constitution Unigenitus, censured one hundred and one
propositions extracted out of it. These decrees were all
received and promulgated by the clergy of France, and
registered in the parliament of that kingdom that they
might receive the force of a law of the state; and they
are adopted by the whole Catholic Church, as cardinal
Bissy, Languet, and other French prelates have clearly
demonstrated.
The Jansenian heresy is downright Predestinationism,
than which no doctrine can be imagined more monstrous
and absurd. The principal errors couched in the doctrine
of Jansenists are, that God sometimes refuses, even to
the just, sufficient grace to comply with his precepts;
that the grace which God affords man since the fall of
Adam, is such that if concupiscence be stronger, it
cannot produce its effect; but if the grace be more
powerful than the opposite concupiscence in the soul, or
relatively to it victorious by a necessitating
influence, that then it cannot be resisted, rejected, or
hindered; and that Christ by his death paid indeed a
price sufficient for the redemption of all men, and
offered it to purchase some weak insufficient graces for
reprobate souls, but not to procure them means truly
applicable, and sufficient for their salvation; which is
really to confine the death of Christ to the elect, and
to deprive the reprobate of sufficient means to attain
to salvation. The main-spring or hinge of this system is
that the grace which inclines man’s will to supernatural
virtue, since the fall of Adam, consists in a moral
pleasurable motion or a delectation infused into the
soul inclining her to virtue, as concupiscence carries
her to vice; and that the power of delectation, whether
of virtue or vice, which is stronger, draws the will by
an inevitable necessity as it were by its own
weight.
The equivocations by which some advocates for these
erroneous principles have endeavored to disguise or
soften their harshness, only discover their fear of the
light. A certain modern philosopher is more daring
who, in spite not only of revelation, which he
disclaims, but also of reason and experience, openly
denies all free-will or election in human actions,
pretending to apply this system of a two-fold
delectation to every natural operation of the will. (See
Hume’s Essay on Free-Will.) Those who obstinately oppose
the decrees of the Church in these disputes, without
adopting any heretical principle condemned as such by
the Church, but found their unjust exceptions in some
points of discipline, or any other weak pretences,
cannot be charged with heresy: nevertheless, only
invincible ignorance can exempt them from the guilt of
disobedience though they should not proceed to a
schismatical separation in communion. |
|
[217] — |
See F. Honoré Addit. sur les Observ. p. 241,
&c. Languet ep. Pastor, &c. |
|
[218] — |
Honoré, ibid.
p. 245, 253, &c. |
|
[219] — |
See Collet’s life of St. Vincent, l. 3,
t. 1, p. 260, and Abelly, l. 2,
ch. 12. |
|
[220] — |
L. 9. |
|
[221] — |
This consists in a prolapse both of the gut and the
omentum or caul together. |
|
[222] — |
T. 2, p. 546. |
|
[223] — |
“Fuge, tace, quiesce; hæc sunt principia salutis,”
Rosweide, Cotelier, et Saint Theod. Stud. Vit.
S. Arcen., c. 1, n. 7. |
|
[224] — |
A small Egyptian measure of vegetables made of
palm-tree leaves, as the word implies. See Cotelier,
Mon. Gr. t. 4, not. p. 748, and Du Cange,
Gloss. Græc. v. θάλλιν. |
|
[225] — |
St. Chrys. l. de Virginit. t. 1,
p. 321, ed. Ben. |
|
[226] — |
St. Aug. in Ps. 128. |
|
[227] — |
St. John Clim. Grad. 7,
p. 427. |
|
[228] — |
Gr. 27, n. 65. |
|
[229] — |
Conc. t. 4, p. 1286. |
|
[230] — |
Ennod. Apol. p. 342, ed. Sirmond. Item, l. 1,
ep. 5. Cassidor. in Chron. et Anast. in
Pontific. |
|
[231] — |
Conc. t. 4, p. 1287. |
|
[232] — |
Ib. p. 1223. |
|
[233] — |
Dial. l. 4, c. 40. See Baron. ad an. 498,
et Benedict XIV. l. de Canoniz.
Sanctor. |
|
[234] — |
T. 15, ch. 23, p. 352,
Vie de Paschase. |
|
[235] — |
Symmach. Apol. t. 4, Conc.
p. 1298. |
|
[236] — |
Ib. p. 1301. |
|
[237] — |
Act. i. 20. |
|
[238] — |
Hom. 3, in Act. |
|
[239] — |
Eus. Hist. l. 3, c. 39. |
|
[240] — |
L. 2, de Prædest. |
|
[241] — |
John Cassian, priest and abbot of the great monastery
of St. Victor’s at Marseilles, was a native of
Lesser Scythia, then comprised under Thrace. He inured
himself from his youth to the exercises of an ascetic
life in the monastery of Bethlehem. The great
reputation of many holy anchorets in the deserts of
Egypt induced him and one Germanus, about the
year 390, to pay them a visit. Being much edified
with the great examples of virtue they saw in those
solitudes, especially in the wilderness of Sceté, they
spent there and in Thebais several years. They lived
like the monks of that country, went bare-foot, and so
meanly clad that their friends would have been ashamed
to meet them, and they gained their subsistence by
their work, as all the rest did. (Col. 4,
c. 10.) Their life was most austere, and they
scarce ate two loaves a day each of six ounces.
(Col. 19, c. 17.) In 403 they both went
to Constantinople, where they listened to the spiritual
instructions of St. Chrysostom, who ordained
Cassian deacon, and employed him in his church. After
the banishment of that holy prelate, Cassian and
Germanus travelled to Rome with letters from the clergy
of Constantinople to defend their injured pastor as
Palladius informs us. Cassian was promoted to the order
of priesthood in the West, and retiring to Marseilles,
there founded two monasteries, one for men, and another
for virgins, and wrote his spiritual Conferences and
other works. He died in odor of sanctity soon after the
year 433. His very ancient picture is shown in
St. Victor’s at Marseilles, where his head and
right arm are exposed in shrines on the altar, by the
permission of pope Urban V., the remainder of his
body lies in a marble tomb which is shown in a
subterraneous chapel. That abbey, by a special grant,
celebrates an office in his honor on the 23d of
July.
His works consist, first of a book On the Incarnation,
against Nestorius, written at the request of
St. Leo, then archdeacon of Rome. Secondly, Of
Institutions of a Monastical Life, in twelve books. In
the four first he describes the habit that was worn,
and the exercises and way of living that were followed
by the monks of Egypt, to serve as a pattern for the
monastic state in the West. He says, their habit was
mean, merely serving to cover their nakedness; having
short sleeves which reached no further than their
elbows; they wore a girdle and a cowl upon their heads,
but used no shoes, only a kind of sandals which they
put off when they approached the altar; and they all
used a walking-staff, as an emblem that they were
pilgrims on earth. He observes that the monks forsook
all things, labored with their hands, and lived in
obedience; he describes the canonical hours of the
divine office consisting of psalms and lessons. He
mentions that whoever desires to be admitted into a
monastery, must give proofs of his patience, humility,
and contempt of the world, and be tried with denials
and affronts; that no postulant was allowed to give his
estate to the monastery in which he settled; that the
first lesson which is taught a monk is, to subdue his
passions, to deny his own will, and to practise blind
obedience to his superior. Thus he is to empty himself
of all prevalence in his own abilities, learning, or
whatever can feed any secret pride or presumption.
Cassian observes, that young monks were allowed no
other food than boiled herbs, with a little salt; but
that the extraordinary austerities of the Oriental
monks in eating are not practicable in the
west. In the eight last books of this work he
treats of eight capital vices, prescribing the remedies
and motives against them, and explaining the contrary
virtues. He shows (l. 6, Inst. c. 5, 6),
that chastity is a virtue which is not to be obtained
but by a special grace of God; which must be implored
by earnest prayer, seconded by watchfulness and
fasting. He everywhere advises moderate fasts, but
continual, (l. 5, p. 107, &c.). He
observes (l. 11, c. 4), that vain-glory is
the last vice that is subdued, and that it takes
occasion even from the victory itself to renew its
assaults. This seems the best and most useful of
Cassian’s writings, though the reading of his
Conferences has been strongly recommended to monks by
St. Bennet, St. John Climacus,
St. Gregory, St. Dominic, St. Thomas,
and others.
In the book of his Conferences he has collected the
spiritual maxims of the wisest and most experienced
monks with whom he had conversed in Egypt. This work
consists of three parts; the first contains ten
Conferences, and was written in 423; the second
comprises seven Conferences, and was compiled two years
later; the third was finished in 428, and contains
seven other Conferences. Cassian, in this work, teaches
that the end to which a monk consecrates all his labors
and for which he has renounced the world, is, the more
easily to attain the most perfect purity or singleness
of heart, without which no one can see God in his
glory, or enjoy his presence by his special grace in
this life. For this he must forsake the world, or its
goods and riches; he must renounce or die to himself,
divesting himself of all vices and irregular
inclinations; and thirdly, he must withdraw his heart
from earthly or visible things to apply it to those
that are spiritual and divine. (Collat. 1
and 3.) He says, that the veil of the passions
being once removed, the eyes of the mind will begin, as
it were naturally to contemplate the mysteries of God,
which remain always unintelligible and obscure to those
who have only eyes of flesh, or whose hearts are
unclean, and their eyes overclouded with sin and the
world. (Coll. 5.) This purgation of the heart is
made by the exercises of compunction, mortification,
and self-denial; and the unshaken foundation of the
most profound humility must be laid, which may bear a
tower reaching to the heavens; for, upon it is to be
raised the superstructure of all spiritual virtues.
(Coll. 9.)
To gain a victory over vices he strenuously inculcates
the advantages of discovering all temptations to our
superior, for when detected, they lose their force; the
filthy serpent being by confession drawn out of his
dark hole into the light and in a manner exposed,
withdraws himself. His suggestions prevail so long as
they are concealed in the heart. (Coll. 2,
c. 10, 11, and Instit. l, 9,
c. 39.) This he confirms by the example of
Serapion, cured of an inveterate habit of stealing
bread above his allowance in the community, by
confessing the fault. (Coll. 2, c. 11.) But
he teaches that these exercises are but preparations;
for the end and perfection of the monastic state
consists in continual and uninterrupted perseverance in
prayer, as far as human frailty will permit. This is
the conjunction of the heart with God. But this spirit
of prayer cannot be obtained without mighty contrition,
the purgation of the heart from all earthly corruption
and the dregs of passion, and the illumination of the
Holy Ghost, whose purest rays cannot enter an unclean
heart. He compares the soul to a light feather which by
its own levity is raised on high by the help of a
gentle breath; but if wet by the accession of moisture,
is depressed down to the very earth. The mind can only
ascend to God when it is disburdened of the weight of
earthly solicitude and corruption. (Coll. 9.)
He inculcates the use of frequent aspirations,
recommending that of the Church, “Deus, in adjutorium
meum intende,” &c.; and says, the end of the
perfection of the monastic state is, that the mind be
refined from all carnal dust, and elevated to spiritual
things, till by daily progress in this habit all its
conversation may be virtually one continual prayer, and
all the soul’s love, desire, and study, may be
terminated in God. In this her union with him by
perpetual and inseparable charity, she possesses an
image of future bliss, and a foretaste or earnest of
the conversation of the blessed. Inveighing against
lukewarmness in devotion he makes this remark
(Coll. 4, c. 19): “We have often seen souls
converted to perfection from a state of coldness, that
is, from among worldlings and heathens; but have never
seen any from among tepid Christians. These are
moreover so hateful to God, that by the prophet he bids
his teachers not to direct any exhortations to them,
but to abandon them as a fruitless barren land, and to
sow the divine word on new hearts, among sinners and
heathens: ‘Break up the new or fallow ground, and sow
not upon land that is overrun with thorns.’” (Jer.
iv. 3.) He exceedingly extols the unspeakable
peace and happiness which souls enjoy in seeking only
God, and the great and wonderful works which he
performs in the hearts of his saints, which cannot be
truly known to any man except to those who have
experience of them. (Coll. 12, c. 12, and
Coll. 14, c. 14.) Cassian, in the thirteenth
Conference, under the name of the abbot Cheremon,
favors the principles of the Semipelagians, though that
error was not then condemned, it being first proscribed
in the second council of Orange in 529. Whence
St. Prosper himself, in his book against this
discourse, never names him, but styles him a catholic
doctor. (l. contra Collatorem, p. 828.)
Cassian’s style, though neither pure nor elegant, is
plain, affecting, and persuasive. His works were
published with comments by Alard Gazæus or Gazet, a
Benedictin monk of St. Vaast’s at Arras, first at
Douay in 1616; and afterward with more ample notes
at Arras in 1618. They have been since reprinted
at Lyons, Paris, and Francfort. See Dom. Rivet, Hist.
Lit. t. 2, p. 215, and Cuper the Bollandist,
ad 23 Julij, t. 5, p. 458,
ad 482. |
|
[242] — |
See the most edifying history of the eminent and holy
men of this monastery of St. Victor’s at Paris
compiled by F. Simon Gourdan, in seven volumes
folio, kept in MSS. in the curious public library of
that house, t. 1,
p. 128, &c. |
|
[243] — |
Among the great men which this abbey produced in its
infancy, the most famous are Hugh and Richard of
St. Victor. Hugh, a native of the territory of
Ypres in Flanders, became a canon regular in this
monastery in 1115, was made prior, and taught
divinity there from the year 1130 to his death
in 1142. His works are printed in three vols.
folio. In the first we have his literal and historical
notes on the scripture; also mystical and allegorical
notes on the same by some later author of this house.
In the second tome are contained his spiritual works;
the soliloquy of the soul, the praise of charity, a
discourse on the method of praying, a discourse on love
between the Beloved and the Spouse, four books on the
vanity of the world, one hundred sermons, &c. The
third tome presents us his theological treatises, of
which the principal are his two books on the
sacraments. He was called a second Augustin, or the
tongue of that great doctor, whose spirit, sentiments,
and style he closely follows. His notes on the rule of
St. Austin, in the second tome, are excellent:
also those on the Decalogue. The book De claustro animæ
is very useful for religious persons, and shows the
austere abstinence and discipline then observed in
monasteries; but is the work of Hugh Foliet, a most
pious and learned canon of this order, who was chosen
abbot of St. Dionysius’s at Rheims, though he
earnestly declined that dignity, in 1149. See
Mabillon, Analecta, t. 1, p. 133, and Annal.
l, 77, p. 141. Ceillier, t. 22,
pp. 200, 224. Martenne, t. 5. Anecdot.
p. 887.
Richard of St. Victor, a Scotsman, regular canon
of St. Victor’s at Paris, scholar of Hugh, chosen
prior of that abbey in 1164, died in 1173.
His works have been often reprinted in two vols. folio;
the best edition is that given at Rouen in 1650.
His comments on the scripture are too diffusive: his
theological tracts are accurate, his writings on
contemplation and Christian virtues, though the style
is plain, are full of the most sublime rules of an
interior life. The collection of spiritual maxims of
these holy men which F. Gourdan has compiled from
their writings and sayings, demonstrates their heavenly
wisdom, lights and experience in spiritual things, and
in the perfect spirit of all virtues to which they
attained by an admirable purity of heart, and spirit of
penance, prayer, and divine love. |
|
[244] — |
Luke vii. |
|
[245] — |
Mention is made in the gospels of a woman who was a
sinner (Luke vii.), of Mary of Bethania, the sister
of Lazarus (John xi. 2, xii. 1, Mark
xiv. 3, Mat. xxvi. 6.), and of Mary Magdalen,
who followed Jesus from Galilee, and ministered to him.
Many grave authors think all this belongs to one and the
same person; that she fell into certain disorders in her
youth, and in chastisement was delivered over to be
possessed by seven devils; that she addressed herself to
Jesus in the house of Simon the pharisee, and by her
compunction deserved to hear from him that her sins were
forgiven her; and in consequence was delivered from the
seven devils: that with her brother Lazarus, and her
sister Martha, she left Galilee and settled at Bethania,
where Jesus frequently honored their house with his
presence. (See Pezron, Hist. Evang. t. 2,
p. 350.) St. Clement of Alexandria,
(l. 2, Pædag. c. 8.) Ammonius,
(Harmon. 4, Evang.) St. Gregory the Great,
(hom. 25 and 33, in Evang.) and from his time
the greater part of the Latins down to the sixteenth
century adopt this opinion; though St. Ambrose,
(lib. de Virgin. et l. 6, in Luc.) St. Jerom,
(in Mat. xxvi. l. 2, contr. Jovin. c. 16,
Præf. in Osee et ep. 150.) St. Austin,
(tr. 49, in Joan. n. 3.) Albertus Magnus, and
St. Thomas Aquinas leave the question undetermined.
The two last say the Latins in their time generally
presumed that they were the same person, but that the
Greeks distinguished them. Baronius, Jansenius of Ghent,
Maldonat, Natalis Alexander, (in Hist. Eccl.
Sæc. 1, Diss. 17.) Lami, (Harmon. Evang. et
epist. Gallicâ.) Mauduit, (Analyse des Evang.
t. 2.) Pezron, Trevet, and strenuously Solier the
Bollandist, t. 5, Julij, p. 187, and others
have written in defence of the opinion of
St. Gregory the Great.
Others think these were distinct persons. This sentiment
is adopted by the Apostolic Constitutions, (l. 3,
c. 6.) St. Theophilus of Antioch, (in
4 Evang.) St. Irenæus, (l. 3, c. 4.)
Origen, (hom. 35, in Mat. et hom. 1,
or 2, Cant.) St. Chrysostom, (hom. 81, in
Mat. 26, et hom. 61, in Joan.)
St. Macanus, (hom. 12,) and by almost all the
Greeks. Among the modern critics Casaubon,
(Exercit. 14, in Baron.) Estius, (Or. 14,)
three Jesuits, viz., Bulanger, (Diatrab. 3,
p. 15,) Turrian, (in Consens. l. 3,
c. 6,) and Salmeron, (t. 9, tr. 49,) also
Zagers, a learned Franciscan, (in Joan. 11.)
Mauconduit, Anquetin, Tillemont, (t. 2, p. 30,
et 512.) Hammond, and many others, strenuously
assert these to have been three distinct women.
Some, whose sentiment appears most plausible to Toinard
and Calmet, distinguish the sister of Lazarus and
Magdalen; for this latter attended Christ the last year
of his life, and seems to have followed him from Galilee
to Jerusalem, when he came up to the Passover, (see Mat.
xxvii. 56, 57, Mark xv. 40, 41, Luke
xxiii. 49,) at which time the sister of Lazarus was
with her brother and Martha at Bethania, (John
xi. 1.) Moreover, these two women seem distinctly
characterized, the one being called Magdalen, and being
ranked among the women that followed Jesus from Galilee,
the other being everywhere called the sister of Lazarus;
and though she might have possessed an estate at
Magdalum in Galilee, and have come originally from that
country, this constant distinction of epithets naturally
leads us to imagine them different persons; but
St. Irenæus, Origen, St. Chrysostom, &c.,
nowhere distinguish the penitent and Magdalen: and
St. Luke having mentioned the conversion of the
sinful woman (at Naim) in the next chapter, subjoins,
that certain women who had been delivered by him from
evil spirits and infirmities, followed him; and among
these he names Mary Magdalen, out of whom he had cast
seven devils; whence it may seem reasonable to conclude
that the penitent and Magdalen are the same person.
This disputation, however, seems one of those debateable
questions which are without end, nothing appearing
demonstrative from the sacred text, or from the
authority of the ancients. In the Roman Breviary the
Penitent is honored on this day under the name of Mary
Magdalen, and for our edification the history of all
these examples of virtue is placed in one point of view,
as if they belonged to one person, conformably to the
sentiment of St. Gregory and others; but the
offices are distinct in the Breviaries of Paris,
Orleans, Vienne, Cluni, and some others. |
|
[246] — |
Job xx. 11. |
|
[247] — |
“Quâ spe? quâ fiduciâ? quâ confidentiâ? Quâ spe? illâ
quâ Pater est. Ego perdidi quod erat filii: ille
quod Patris est non amisit. Apud patrem non intercedit
extraneus: intus est in Patris pectore qui intervenit et
exorat, affectus. Urgentur Patris viscera iterum
genitura per veniam,” &c. St. Peter Chrysolog.
Serm. II. |
|
[248] — |
The ancient Jews did not sit down on carpets spread on
the floor to eat, as the Arabs, Turks, and other
inhabitants of the countries about Palestine do at this
day. Their tables were raised above the ground. Exod.
xxv. 24, Jud. l. 7, Mat. xv. 27, Luke
xvi. 21. Neither Hebrews, Greeks, nor Romans used
napkins or table-cloths. Their ancient custom was to sit
at table, as we do now. Prov. xxiii. 1. But after
Solomon’s time the Jews leaned or lay down on couches
round the table. Amos, (iv. 7.) Toby, (xi. 3.)
and Ezekiel (xxiii. 41.) speak of eating on beds or
couches; but this custom was not general. It was become
very frequent in our Saviour’s time, who ate in this
manner not only on the present occasion, but also when
Magdalen anointed his feet, Mat. xxvi. 7, and at
his last supper, John xiii. 23, so that it seems to
have then been the ordinary custom of that country. The
Jews seem to have learned it from the Persians, Esth.
i. 6, vii. 8. They took two meals a day from
the times of the primitive patriarchs; but never ate
before noon, Eccles. x. 16, Isa. v. 11, Acts
ii. 15. And their dinner was usually rather a small
refreshment than a meal; on fast-days the Jews never ate
or drank till evening. See Calmet, Dissert. sur le
Manger des Hebreux. Fleury, Mœurs des Israelites et
Mœurs des Chrétiens. Also Alnay, sur la Vie Privée des
Romains. |
|
[249] — |
S. Aug. Serm. 99, c. 6, ed. Ben.
olim 23, ex. 50. |
|
[250] — |
Ferrarius, Daniel, Sanson, Calmet, and Monsieur Robert
agree in placing the castle of Magdalum near the Lake of
Genesareth, called the sea of Galilee. |
|
[251] — |
Luke viii. 2 |
|
[252] — |
Some take Mary Magdalen to be the sister of Martha and
Lazarus, of whom mention is made in the life of
St. Martha. When Jesus, six days before his
passion, supped in the house of Simon surnamed the
Leper, whilst Martha waited on him, and Lazarus sat at
table, Mary anointed his feet and head with precious
ointment which she had brought in an alabaster box. The
Greeks and Romans practised the same custom of using
sweet scented ointments at banquets. Judas Iscariot
murmured at this action out of covetousness, pretending
the price of the ointment had better been given to the
poor; but Jesus commended Mary’s devotion, said that her
action would be a subject of admiration and edification
wherever his gospel should be preached, and declared
that she had by it advanced the ceremony of embalming
his body for his burial. Though Christ has substituted
the poor in his stead, to be succored by us in them; yet
he is well pleased when charity consecrates some part of
our riches to his external worship, to whom we owe all
that we possess. But nothing can be more odious than for
ministers of the altar, with Judas, to cover avarice
under a cloak of zeal. See John xii. 1, 2, 3,
Mat. xxvi. 6, Mark xiv. 3. |
|
[253] — |
Mark xvi. 2, Luke xxiv. 1,
John xx. 1. |
|
[254] — |
St. Leo Serm. 2, de Ascens. |
|
[255] — |
John xx. Calmet, Vie de. J. C,
ch. 37. |
|
[256] — |
Mat. xxvii. 9, Luke xxiv. 10. |
|
[257] — |
Certain Greeks, writers who lived in the seventh or
later ages, tell us, that after the ascension of our
Lord, St. Mary Magdalen accompanied the Blessed
Virgin and St. John to Ephesus, and died and was
buried in that city.This is affirmed
by Modestus, patriarch of Jerusalem in 920,[258]
and by St. Gregory of Tours. St. Willibald, in
the account of his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, says, that
her tomb was shown him at Ephesus. Simeon Logotheta
mentions that the emperor Leo the Wise caused her relics
to be translated from Ephesus to Constantinople, and
laid in the church of St. Lazarus, about the year
890. But these modern Greeks might perhaps confound Mary
the sister of the Blessed Virgin, or the sister of
Lazarus, or some other Mary among those that are
mentioned in the gospel with Mary Magdalen. The relics
shown in the monastery at Vezelay in Burgundy, ten
leagues from Auxerre in the diocess of Autun, may be a
portion of the body of St. Mary Magdalen, or of
some other Mary mentioned in the gospel. This famous
ancient monastery of Vezelay was secularized
in 1537; and the church, which is longer than that
of our Lady at Paris, is now served only by ten
canons. |
|
[258] — |
Hom. in Marias Unguenta ferentes. |
|
[259] — |
See Nat. Alex., sæc. 1, and Solier the Bollandist,
Julij, t. 5, who confirms the tradition of the
inhabitants of Provence, p. 213, § 14, and
rejects that of Vezelay in Burgundy, whither some
pretend that her body was translated out of Provence,
ib. § 11, 12, 13, p. 207. |
|
[260] — |
These are the fruit of his pious meditations in the
chapel of the Magdalen, the favorite retired place of
his devotions, in which an excellent marble statue of
this great man on his knees, is erected in the church of
his Carmelite nuns at Paris. See his Works, p. 369
to p. 405. |
|
[261] — |
Serm. 128. |
|
[262] — |
Mab. Iter. Italic. p. 41. |
|
[263] — |
Famæ negociator, et vitæ. Tertul. Apol.
c. 46. |
|
[264] — |
Philosophus gloriæ animal, et popularis auræ vile
mancipium. S. Hieron. ep. ad Julian. |
|
[265] — |
Lactant. l. de Origine Erroris,
§ 3. |
|
[266] — |
B. 6, ep. 1. |
|
[267] — |
Spicileg. t. 5, p. 579. |
|
[268] — |
Exod. xxxii. 10. |
|
[269] — |
Sanctorum precibus stat mundus. Ruffin. Præf. in Vitas
Patrum. |
|
[270] — |
Some derive the pedigree and names of the Muscovites
from Mosoch, the son of Japhet, who, with his brothers
Magog, Thubal, and Gomer, and their children peopled the
northern kingdoms. (Ezech. xxxviii. 6, &c.)
These are reputed the patriarchs of the Cappadocians,
Tartars, Scythians, Sarmatians, &c. See Bochart,
Phaleg. l. 3, c. 12, and Calmot. It seems not
to be doubted, that the Moschi, mentioned by Strabo and
Mela, and situated between Colchis and Armenia, near the
Moschici Montes, were the descendants of Mosoch. As the
Scythians from the coasts of the Euxine and Caspian seas
afterward penetrated more northwards in Asia and Europe,
and as the Cimmerii, who were the sons of Gomer,
afterward settled about the Bosphorus and Mœotis, so
some authors pretend that the Moschi passed into Europe,
and settled near them on the borders of the Scythians
and Sarmatians. But the Muscovites evidently take their
name from the city of Moscow, built about the year 1149,
so called from a monastery named Moskoi (from Mus or
Musik, men, q. d. the Seat of Men), not from
the river Moscow, which was anciently called
Smorodina.(See J. S. Bayei,
Orig. Russiæ, t. 8, Acad. Petrop. p. 390.) For
the name of Muscovites was not given to this tribe of
Russians before the beginning of the fourteenth century.
It was assumed on the following occasion: In 1319,
Gedimidius, great duke of Lithuania, having vanquished
the Russian duke of Kiow, the archbishop Peter removed
his see to Moscow, and from that town these Russians
began then to be called Muscovites; for the duke John,
son of Daniel, soon followed the archbishop, and
transferred thither the seat of his principality from
Uladimiria: though the archbishop of Kiow continued to
take the title of Metropolitan of all Russia. See
Herbersteinus (Chorographia Principatus Ducis Moscoviæ;
also, in Rerum Muscovitarum Commentar.) and more
accurately Ignatius Kulczynski, in Latin Kulcinius, a
Basilian monk at Rome. (Specimen Ecclesiæ Ruthenicæ,
printed at Rome in 1733, also Catalog. archiepisc.
Kioviensium; and Series Chronol. Magn. Russiæ seu
Moscoviæ Ducum.) Hence the name of Muscovites first
occurs in Chalcocondylus and other Greek historians
about that time. We are informed by these authors, and
by Herbersteinius, that these Russians were tributary to
the Tartar king of Agora in Asia from 1125
to 1506. But since they shook off that yoke they
have subdued the Russians of Novogorod and other places
in Europe, and have extended their dominions almost to
the extremity of Asia in Great Tartary. See Bayer, Diss.
de Russorum primâ expedit. Constantinopolitana,
t. 6, Comm. Acad. Petrop. et Orig. Russiæ, ib.
t. 8. Also Jos. Assemani, De Kalend. Univ.
t. 1, par. 2, c. 4, p. 275.
The name, Russi or Rossi, seems not to be older than the
ninth century. Cedrenus and Zonarus speak of them as a
Scythian nation inhabiting the northern side of Mount
Taurus, a southern region of Asiatic Scythia, now Great
Tartary. They are a nation entirely distinct from the
Roxolani, the ancient Sarmatians near the Tanais, though
these Russians afterward became masters of that country,
and took their name either from that of Roxolani
abridged, or from Rosseia, which in their language
signifies an assemblage of people. Constantine
Porphyrogenetta tells us, that the language of the
Russians and Sclavonians was quite different; and the
monk Nestor, in the close of the eleventh century, the
most ancient historian of Russia, in his chronicle
assures us, that the Russians and Sclavonians are two
different nations; but the great affinity of the present
Russian language with the Sclavonian shows that the
Russians, mixing with the Sclavonians, learned in a
great measure their language.
It is well known that, anciently, the southern parts of
Muscovy were inhabited by Goths, whom the Huns or
ancient Tartars from Asia, expelled in the fourth
century. Also that the northern part was peopled by
Scythians, whom the Muscovites still call by the same
name Tscudi, i. e. Scythians, and the lake
Peipus, Tschudzhoi. We learn from Constantine
Porphyrogenetta (l. De administ. Imper. c. 9,)
that the name of Russia was given in the tenth century
to the country of which Kiow was the capital, and which
comprised also Czernigov, Novogorod, &c. Snorro
Sturleson (Hist. regn. Septentr. t. 1, p. 6)
says these people called their ancient capital, situated
towards the gulf of Finland, Aldeiguborg or Old-Town, in
opposition to which Novogorod or New-Town, took its
name. The Waregians, invited by the Russians to defend
them against the Khosares, who lived near the Black or
the Euxine Sea, crossing the Baltic, settled among the
Russians, it is uncertain in what age. See T. S.
Bayer de Varegis, t. 4, Comment. Acad. Scient.
Petrop. p. 275. Er. Jul. Biæner, Sched. Hist.
Geogr. de Varegis heroibus Scandinianis et primis Russiæ
Dynasts at Stockholm, 1743. Arvid. Mulleris De
Varegia, 1731. Algol. Scarinus de Originibus priscæ
gentis Varegorum, 1743.
We know not in what age the Sclavonians obtained
settlements in the northern parts of Russia. They are
first named in Procopius and Jornandes, were part of the
Venedi, and with them from Sarmatia travelled into
Germany; where they settled for some time on the coast
of the Baltic, afterward in the centre of Germany near
Thuringia, and in Beheim or Bohemia, where they long
ruled and left their language. In the reign of Justinian
they crossed the Danube, and conquered part of Pannonia
and Illyricum, where a small territory, fifty German
miles long, of which Peter-waradin is the most
considerable place, between the Danube, the Drave, and
the Save, is still called Sclavonia: it was conquered by
the kings of Hungary, and is still subject to the house
of Austria. The Slavi fell everywhere into so miserable
a servitude, that from them are derived the names of
Slavery and Slaves. The Sclavonian language is used in
the divine office in Illyricum, &c. according to the
Latin rite; in Muscovy, &c. according to the Greek
rite. (See on SS. Cyril and Methodius,
22 Dec.) The Muscovites have no Russian Bibles; but
with very little study can understand the Sclavonian,
says Brusching.
In the year 892, Rurik, Simeus, and Tyuwor, three
brothers from the Warengi on the other side of the
Baltic, came by invitation into Russia, and ruled the
Sclavonians and Russians united into one nation. Rurik
survived his brothers, and became sole sovereign. The
Runic inscriptions in the northern Antiquities are not
of an older date.
Rurik fixed his seat near the lake Ladoga. His son Igor
transferred his court from Novogorod to Kiow. His widow
Olga received the faith, and was baptized at
Constantinople. Their son Suatoslas died an idolater;
but his son Wladimir the Great married Anne, a Grecian
princess, received baptism, and was imitated by his
subjects. He built the city which from him is called
Wladimiria, which under his grandson, Andrew Bogolikski,
became the ducal residence. Wladimir I. is honored
in the Muscovite Calendar. Kiow still has its dukes.
Jaroslas, son of Wladimir, was succeeded there by his
son Wsevolod I. in 1078, in whose reign
Ephrem, metropolitan of Kiow, established in Russia,
pursuant to the bull of Urban II. the feast of the
translation of the relics of St. Nicholas to Bari,
on the 9th of May, never known in the Greek church;
which shows their obedience to the pope, and their
connection with the Latin church. The Greeks also were
then Catholics. George duke of Russia at Wladimiria
recovered Kiow, and in 1156 built the city of
Moscow. Jaroslas II. succeeded his brother
George II. in the great dukedom of Russia
in 1238, and resided in Wladimiria. In his reign
in 1244, the Russians were reunited to the see of
Rome, part having been a little before drawn into the
Greek schism. His son Alexander, in his father’s
life-time prince of Novogorod, with his brother Feodor
or Theodor, gained great victories over the Tartars, who
had long oppressed the Russians, and succeeded to the
great dukedom in 1246. He is surnamed Newski or of
Newa, from a great victory which he gained in 1241
on the banks of the Newa, over the Poles and the
Teutonic knights in Livonia. Those knights, who by
victories over the idolaters had made themselves masters
of Livonia, had their own high master at Riga, who soon
made himself independent of the grand-master of the same
order in Prussia. This order, which was dismembered from
the Knights Hospitallers, or of Jerusalem (afterward of
Rhodes and Malta), to defend the Christians in Germany
against the inroads of the barbarous northern infidel
nations, long produced many incomparably great heroes,
and models of all virtues. But enriched by great
conquests, their successors, by pride, luxury, and
continual intestine wars, gave occasion to several
scandals. At length, Albert, marquis of Brandenburg,
grand-master in Prussia, turned Lutheran, and received
from the king of Poland the investiture of ducal
Prussia. The knights expelled by him retired to
Mariandhal in Franconia, and there chose a new
grand-master. He is chosen by the twelve provincial
commanders. William of Furstenburg, Heer-meister of
Livonia, also declared himself a Lutheran, and
in 1559 resigned his dignity to his coadjutor
Gotthard Kettler. He also being a Lutheran, ceded part
of Livonia to the Danes, and the chief part to the
Poles, receiving from the latter the investiture of
Courland and Samogitia as secular dukedoms; Livonia fell
under the power of Charles XI. of Sweden, but was
added to the empire of Muscovy by Peter the Great.
To return to the grand duke Alexander Newski, he
received an embassy from the pope in 1262, the
contents of which are not recorded. He died crowned with
glory at Gorodes near Nischui-Novogorod in 1262, on
the 30th of April, on which day his festival is kept in
Muscovy, and he is honored as one of the principal
saints of the country. The tczar Peter the Great built,
in his honor, a magnificent convent of Basilian monks on
the banks of the Newa in Livonia, not far from his new
city of Petersburg, the archbishop of which city resides
in it. The empress Catharine instituted, in 1725,
the second Order of Knighthood in Russia under his name.
Their daughter the empress Elizabeth caused his bones to
be put in a rich shrine covered with thick plates of
silver, placed at the foot of a magnificent mausoleum in
this monastery. The Muscovites relate wonderful things
of his eminent virtues, and miracles wrought at his
tomb. Pope Benedict XIV. proves that, upon due
authority, all this may be admitted even of one who had
died in a material schism, or with inculpable ignorance.
But this prince lived and died in communion with the see
of Rome, though he has never been placed in the
Calendars of the Catholic Church.
Daniel, fourth son of Alexander, left by his father duke
of Moscow, after the death of an uncle and three
brothers became Grand Duke; and from his reign
in 1304, Moscow became the ducal residence, till
Peter I. gave a share in that honor to his new city
of St. Petersburg.
In the reign of Basil or Vasili II. in 1415,
Photius, metropolitan of Russia, residing at Kiow,
having espoused the Greek schism, was deposed by the
council of Novogrodek, under the protection of Alexander
Vithold, grandduke of Lithuania. Retiring into Great
Russia he there exceedingly promoted the schism.
Gregory, who succeeded him at Kiow, assisted at the
council of Constance. Iwan or John IV. is the first
who took the title of Tczar in 1552. This word in
the Russian language signifies king. In the Russian
Chronicles that title is given to the Greek emperors. In
their Bibles it is used for king, both in the Russian
and Sclavonian language.
In Feodor or Theodore ended, in 1598, the race of
Rurik. After two others who had been chief ministers and
two false Demetriuses, in 1613, Michael, of the family
of Romanow, allied to that of the preceding tczars was
chosen great duke. The third of this family was Peter
the Great, founder of the Russian empire. |
|
[271] — |
Possev. L. De Rebus Moscoviticis. |
|
[272] — |
Præf. ad Ephemer. Græco-Moschas, n. 11,
p. 3. |
|
[273] — |
Dissert. de Russorum Conversione et Fide apud Acta
Sanctor. t. 41, seu vol. 2,
Septembris. |
|
[274] — |
Constantine Porphyrogenetta succeeded Leo the Wise in
the empire in 911; in 919 he associated in the
throne his Drungar or admiral Romanus Lecapenus, whose
daughter Helena he had married. Romanus reigned in the
year 944; from which time his covetous daughter
Helena had a great share in governing the empire.
Constantine was buried in his studies, and dying
in 959, fifty-four years old, left the empire to
his impious son Romanus II., who is said to have
poisoned him, and who died in 963, leaving the
empire to Nicephorus Phocas, his valiant general, who
had often defeated the Russians and Saracens. His
daughter Anne was married to Wladimir, duke of Russia.
Constantine Porphyrogenetta (l. de Cœm. Aulæ
Byzant. l. 2, c. 15) relates, that on
Wednesday, the 9th of September, 946, Olga,
princess of Russia, was received with great pomp at
Constantinople by Constantine (himself) and Romanus,
emperors; and describes her different receptions at
their court, the banquets which they prepared for her,
the presents in money which they made to her uncle of
thirty miliaretia (each of which contained two ceratia,
each ceratium twelve folles, of which five hundred made
a pound of silver), eight to her priest Gregory and to
each of her friends, to herself five hundred miliaretia
in a gold dish studded with diamonds and precious
stones. At each other entertainment like presents were
distributed. The dessert of sweetmeats was served on a
little gold table, in dishes made of or studded with
precious stones. |
|
[275] — |
See the Annals of the Russians in Hebersteinius, in
Rerum Muscovit. Comment. and Jos. Assemani, in
Calend. Univ. t. 2, p. 265, and
t. 3. |
|
[276] — |
Syn. Zamosciania, tit. de Jejun. et Fest. p. 121.
Jos. Assemani, de Calend. Univ. t. 4,
p. 65, t. 6, p. 497. |
|
[277] — |
The United Russians, who, renouncing the schism,
embraced the communion of the Roman Church, are chiefly
subject to Poland, and ever since Clement VIII.
have a metropolitan of Kiow (since Kiow was conquered by
the Muscovites these have established there their schism
with a metropolitan of their communion), an archbishop
of Plosco, and bishops of Kelma, Presmilia, Liceoria,
and Leopold, with several convents of Basilian monks,
who all follow the Greek rites; though several Russians
in the Polish dominions still adhere to the Greek
schism. See Urban Cerri’s (secretary to the Propaganda)
Relation, p. 56, and Mamachi, Orig. et Antiquit.
Christ. l. 2, c. 17, t. 2, p. 180.
Papebroke, Not. in Ephemer. Græc. Mosch. t. 1, Maij
Bollandiani, p. 54, &c.
The metropolitan of Moscow was declared patriarch of all
the Russian schismatics by Jeremy, patriarch of
Constantinople in 1588, and was acknowledged in
that character by the other Oriental patriarchs. But the
czar Peter I. having learned from the experience of
above a hundred years that the patriarchs made use of
their great influence and authority in matters of state,
after that dignity had been vacant nineteen years,
caused it to be abolished, and an archbishop of Moscow
to be chosen in 1719. For the government of the
church of Muscovy, and receiving appeals, he appointed a
council of eleven bishops and other clergymen, the
president of which the czar nominates. See John Von
Strahlenburg (Historical and Geographical Description of
Russia and Siberia, an. 1738) and Le Quien. (Oriens
Christianus, t. 1, p. 1296.) Some Catholics
enjoy the exercise of their religion in several parts of
Muscovy. Kulcinius observes that many saints have
flourished in this nation since it has been engaged in
schism. Possevinus and Papebroke take notice that the
Greeks since their schism have been reunited to the
Latin church fourteen times. The latter of these learned
authors also remarks, that even when the archbishops
were most turbulent schismatics, no one will say that
all the people were involved in the same guilt; even
ignorance might excuse many, as Baronius answered, with
regard to monks who lived under a schismatical abbot (ad
an. 1036). As for Polish Russia, F. Kulesza, a
learned Polish Jesuit, in a book entitled, Fides
Orthodoxa, printed at Vilna, assures us, that all the
archbishops of Kiow have been Catholics, except two,
Photius and Jonas II., till in 1686 it was
given up to the Muscovites. By the intrigues of this
Photius, in the middle of the fifteenth century, the
Greek schism was propagated through all
Muscovy. |
|
[278] — |
See Jos. Assemani in Calend. t. 6, p. 480, on
the 15th of July, et t. 4, p. 34,
to 52. |
|
[279] — |
See Jos. Assemani in Calend. p. 471, t. 6,
ad 10 Julij. |
|
[280] — |
Id. ad 5 Julij, p. 462, et t. 1,
p. 21, 29. |
|
[281] — |
Ardmore (so called from its situation on an eminence)
stands on the sea-coast, not far from the mouth of the
river now called Broad-water or Black-water. The see was
united to that of Lismore after the arrival of the
English in Ireland; and this again to Waterford. See
St. Carthag’s life, 14 May. |
|
[282] — |
Mat. iv. 22. |
|
[283] — |
Luke v. 11. |
|
[284] — |
Luke ix. |
|
[285] — |
Julij, t. 6, p. 69. See on the same the
learned F. Flores, in his España Sagrada,
t. 3, c. 3, de la Predicacion de San Jago in
España, p. 39, and his answers to F. Mamachi, the
Roman Dominican, prefixed to his sixth tome. The mission
of St. James in Spain is defended at large by the
learned Jesuit F. Farlat, Illyrici Sacri Prolegom.
part 3, t. 1, p. 252. See also Card.
d’Aguirre, t. 1, Conc. Hisp. p. 140, upon the
words of St. Jerom in Isaiæ c. 34,
p. 279, t. 3. |
|
[286] — |
Diss. de Divisione Apost. ante t. 4, Julij,
et in vita S. Jacobi, t. 6,
p. 71. |
|
[287] — |
Agrippa the Elder was a worldly man, addicted to
pleasures, yet attached to the Jewish religion. Of this
he gave a remarkable proof when the emperor Caligula
ordered a statue of Jupiter to be set up in the temple
of Jerusalem. The Jews opposed the attempt with tears
and remonstrances, and throwing themselves prostrate on
the ground at the feet of the Roman governor, protested
they were ready rather to suffer death. But the
murderers of the Son of God were unworthy to die in so
good a cause. Agrippa exposed himself to the danger of
losing the tyrant’s favor, and by a strong letter, which
he wrote to him on that occasion, obtained that the
order should be superseded at that time. When that
emperor was attempting to renew it his death delivered
the Jews from the danger. |
|
[288] — |
Eus. Hist. l. 2, c. 9. |
|
[289] — |
Agrippa was the first prince that persecuted the Church.
After having put to death St. James, he imprisoned
St. Peter, but God delivered him out of the
persecutor’s hands. Nor was it long before this king
felt the effects of divine vengeance. After the feast of
the passover he returned to Cæsarea to exhibit there
public games in honor of Claudius Cæsar, and was
attended thither with a numerous train of the must
considerable persons, both of his own and of the
neighboring nations. He appeared early on the second
morning of the shows at the theatre, in a costly robe of
silver tissue, artfully wrought, and so bright that the
sunbeams which darted upon it were reflected with such
an uncommon lustre, as to dazzle the eyes of the
spectators who beheld him with a kind of divine respect.
He addressed himself in an elegant speech, to the
deputies of the Tyrians and Sidonians, who were come to
beg his pardon for some offence for which they had been
some time in disgrace with him. Whilst he spoke, the
ambassadors and some court sycophants gave a great
shout, crying out that it was the voice of a god and not
of a man. The king, too sensible of the people’s praise,
and elated with pride, seemed to forget himself, and to
approve, instead of checking the impious flattery. But
at that instant the angel of the Lord smote him with a
dreadful disease, and he felt himself seized with a
violent pain in his bowels. Perceiving his distemper to
be mortal, he rejected the flattery of his sycophants,
telling them that he whom they called immortal was
dying. Yet still full of false ideas of human grandeur,
though he saw death inevitable, he comforted himself
with the remembrance of the splendor in which he had
lived. So true it is that a man dies such as he lives.
After lingering five days in exquisite torments, under
which no remedy gave him any ease, being eaten up by
worms, he expired in all the miseries that can be
expressed or imagined. This account is given us by
Josephus (Antiq. l. 19, c. 7), and by
St. Luke (Acts xii. 23). He died in the
fifty-fourth year of his age, and the seventh of his
reign. The most learned Mr. Stukely in his medallic
history of Carausius, t. 2, c. 1, p. 72,
will have it that Agrippa was smitten four days after he
celebrated the Roman festival, in which the people made
vows for the emperor’s health and safety, marked in the
ancient Roman Calendar which he has published on the 4th
of January. It was, indeed, the festival of the emperor
Claudius, but after the passover, which happened that
year on the 10th of April, the equinoctial new moon
falling on the 28th of March. Herod Agrippa left a son
of his own name, who was then at Rome with Claudius,
only seventeen years old. The emperor would willingly
have given him his father’s dominions; but his freemen
and counsellors represented to him that an extensive
kingdom was too great a burden for so young a prince to
bear. Whereupon Judæa was again reduced into the form of
a Roman province, and Cuspius Fadus appointed the first
prefect or governor. |
|
[290] — |
See on the Translation of the body of St. James to
Compostella, F. Flores, the learned and inquisitive
Austin friar, rector of the royal college at Alcala, in
his curious work entitled España Sagrada (of which the
first volume was printed in 1747), t. 3, App.
p. 50 and 56. |
|
[291] — |
“Christophore, infixum quòd cum usque in corde
gerebas,
Pictores Christum dant tibi ferre
humeris,” &c.
Vida, Hym. 26, t. 2,
p. 150. |
|
[292] — |
Procop. de Ædif. Justin. l. 1,
c. 2. |
|
[293] — |
Julij, t. 6, p. 250. |
|
[294] — |
2 Tim ii. 5. 1 Tim.
v. 4. |
|
[295] — |
Plutarch l. de Educand. liberis. |
|
[296] — |
Hist. Episc. Antisiodor. See Messieurs De
Ste. Marthe, in Gallia Christiana. |
|
[297] — |
Prosp. in Chron. et l. contra Collat.
c. 21. |
|
[298] — |
Bede Hist l. 1, c. 17, Constant. in vita
S. Germani. |
|
[299] — |
Vita S. Genevevæ. |
|
[300] — |
Hist. Episcop. Antisiod. |
|
[301] — |
Bede, Hist. l. 1, c. 1. Gildas ep.
p. 17, 18. Constantius in vitâ
S. Germani. Carte,
p. 184, 185. |
|
[302] — |
Antiq. Brit. c. 11, p. 179, 180. Carte,
t. 1, p. 288. |
|
[303] — |
Carte, p. 184, 186, thinks the Alleluiah victory gained
over the Picts and the Saxons, and the other
transactions of St. Germanus in Wales, happened in his
second mission. For SS. Dubricius and Iltutus, whom he
ordained bishops, lived beyond the year 512, according
to some until 527 or even 540. Sir Henry Spelman and
Wilkins (Conc. Brit. t. 1, p. 1), on this account place
the synod of Verulam held by St. Germanus against
the Pelagians in 446. |
|
[304] — |
Bede, Hist. l. 1, c. 21. Bollandus and
Henschenius in vitâ S. Theliau ad
9 Februarij, &c. |
|
[305] — |
Stillingfleet, Orig. Britan. p. 349. |
|
[306] — |
Or. 3, de Imag. |
|
[307] — |
Ecclus. xxxviii. 1, 2. |
|
[308] — |
4 Kings xx. 7. See Syn. Critic. and Mead, De
Morbis Biblicis, c. 5. |
|
[309] — |
Serm. 22, in Ps. 118. |
|
[310] — |
Regul. fus. explic. |
|
[311] — |
Ep. 345, ol. 321, p. 316, et in
Cant. |
|
[312] — |
See Estius in Eccli. xxxviii. |
|
[313] — |
Ephes. v. 29, Aug. ep. 130, ol. 121, ad
Probam. |
|
[314] — |
2 Paral. xv. 12. |
|
[315] — |
Paulin. Nat. 9, or Carm. 24. |
|
[316] — |
Horat. l. 1, od. 3. |
|
[317] — |
Pueri. See Diss. de SS. 7, Dormient.
c. 18, p. 65, et c. 6, p. 11. The
Menology of the emperor Basil, printed at Rome
in 1727, &c. |
|
[318] — |
Spon, Voyage d’Italie et du Levant, t. 1, l 3,
p. 327. |
|
[319] — |
St. Paulin. Carm. 24, and ep. 12. On the
relics of St. Nazarius at Milan, see the life of
St. Charles Borromeo, by Guissiano, in the new
Latin edition, l. 5, c. 9. p. 435, and
the notes of Oltrocci, ibid. |
|
[320] — |
S. Bas. hom. de S. Gordio. |
|
[321] — |
S. Epiph. Hær. 54. Eus. l. 5, c. 28.
Conc. t. 1. Theodoret, Hæret. Fabul. l. 2,
c. 5. |
|
[322] — |
Eus. l. 5, c. 17. St. Hier. ep. 54,
ad Marcel. Tert. l. de Fugâ, de
Pudic., &c. |
|
[323] — |
Tert. l. adv. Praxeam. |
|
[324] — |
S. Epiph. Hær. 46. S. Iren. l. 1,
c. 31. Clem. Alex. Strom. l. 3,
p. 465. |
|
[325] — |
Tatian’s Oration against the Greeks is extant. In it he
displays much profane erudition, showing that Moses was
older than the Gentile philosophers, who borrowed the
sciences from the patriarchs. He wrote this piece after
the death of Saint Justin, but before his separation
from the Church: for in it he proves one God the Creator
of all things, and seems to approve the state of
matrimony. It wants method; but the style is elegant
enough, though exuberant, and not very elaborate. This
piece is often published at the end of the works of
St. Justin. We have an accurate separate edition,
printed at Oxford in 1700, with notes and
dissertations, by the care of Mr. William Worth,
archdeacon of Worcester. P. Travasa in his learned
history of heresiarchs, demonstrates against Massuet,
&c., that Tatian’s Oration against the Gentiles is
not orthodox; and that in it the author teaches that the
human soul is of its own nature mortal. See Travasa
Storia Critica delle vite degli eresiarchi, t. 2,
at Venice, 1760. |
|
[326] — |
Ἀκοενωνησίαν ἑπέϛειλεν. |
|
[327] — |
Monti, Cler. Reg. S. Pauli, S. Th. Prof.
Mediolani, Dissertationes Theologico-historicæ tres,
quarum prima propugnat gratiam per se efficacem; Secunda
agit de Canonibus vulgò apostolicis; Tertia versatur
super dissidio de opportuno Paschatis celebrandi
tempore. Papiæ, 1760. |
|
[328] — |
Mem. Eccles. t. 3, p. 112. |
|
[329] — |
From this example, it is manifest, that the African
bishops referred greater causes, at least those of faith
to the holy see, and in them always allowed appeals to
it; though at that time they carried on a contest with
the popes Innocent, Zosimus, and Celestine, against
appeals being made in lesser causes of personal facts,
which it is often difficult to carry on in remote
courts, and which, if too easy and frequent, are a bar
to the speedy execution of justice. Yet such appeals or
revisions of causes are sometimes necessary to hinder
crying injustices and oppressions. Whence the regulation
of the manner of restraining appeals in smaller
ecclesiastical causes is a point of discipline; but the
general council of Sardica, which was an appendix of the
council of Nice, declared, that appeals must be allowed
from the whole world to the bishops of Rome; and in this
discipline the Africans soon after
acquiesced. |
|
[330] — |
St. Aug. Serm. 131, n. 10. |
|
[331] — |
Dole in the old British language signifies a low
fruitful plain. |
|
[332] — |
Tours, which was the metropolis of the province of
Armorica under the Romans, enjoyed, from the time of
St. Martin, the metropolitical jurisdiction over
Mans, Angers, and the nine bishoprics of Brittany.
Sampson the elder, bishop of York, being expelled by the
Saxons, came into Armorica, and founded the see of Dole,
in which he exercised a metropolitical jurisdiction,
which king Howel or Rioval obliged him to assert,
because these Britons were an independent people,
separate from the Gauls. Sampson’s two successors,
St. Turiave and St. Sampson, enjoyed the same.
The contest between Tours and Dole was not finished till
Innocent III. In 1199, declared Dole and all the
other bishoprics of Brittany subject to the archbishop
of Tours. See D. Morice, Hist. de Bretagne,
p. 17, &c. |
|
[333] — |
Luke x. 38. |
|
[334] — |
Ibid. |
|
[335] — |
Cant. ii. |
|
[336] — |
3, p. 9, 40, a. l. ad 2 et 3.
Item 2, 2dæ. q. 182, art. 1 et 2, in
corp. |
|
[337] — |
L. de Perfect. Religios. |
|
[338] — |
Mat. xxvi.; John xii. |
|
[339] — |
Unicum mihi negotium est; aliud non curo quam ne curem.
Tert. l. de Pallio, c. 5. |
|
[340] — |
See the Chronicle of Norway by Snorro Sturleson, first
magistrate in the republic of Iceland
in 1240. |
|
[341] — |
Scot and lot are originally Swedish or
Teutonic words, signifying tax. Romescot is a tax for
Rome, and Scot-Konung, the king’s tax. See baron
Holberg, and Mess. Scondia illustrata,
t. 1. |
|
[342] — |
Aringhi Roma Subterranea, l. 1,
c. 25. |
|
[343] — |
Noris, Diss. 3, de Epochis
Syro-Macedonum. |
|
[344] — |
Apol. c. 21. |
|
[345] — |
Plato in Phædo. |
|
[346] — |
Act. ii. |
|
[347] — |
Act. xvi. 26. |
|
[348] — |
Constantine Cajetan, a Benedictin of the Congregation of
Mount Cassino, pretends this book to have been first
written by Gracias Cisneros or Swan, a Benedictin abbot
of Montserrat. But the work of that pious and learned
abbot is a very different piece, as is evident to every
one that will compare the two books, and as Pinius
demonstrates. That of Cisneros is indeed full of unction
and spiritual knowledge; but compiled in a scholastic
method, and runs into superfluous subdivisions. The
meditations of St. Ignatius are altogether new, and
written upon a different plan. He appoints, for the
foundation of these exercises, a moving meditation on
the end for which we are created, that we fully convince
ourselves that nothing is otherwise to be valued,
sought, or enjoyed, than as it conduces to the honor and
service of God. The meditations on the fall of the
angels and of man, on the future punishments of sin, and
on the last things, show us the general effects of sin.
To point out the particular disorders of our passions,
and to purge our hearts of them, he represents to us the
two standards of Christ and the devil, and all men
ranging themselves under the one or the other, that we
may be moved ardently to make our choice with the
generous souls that follow Christ. Then he proposes what
this resolution requires, and how we are to express in
ourselves the perfect image of our Saviour, by the three
degrees of humility, by meditating on the mysteries of
Christ’s life, and by choosing a state of life, and
regulating our employments in it. By meditating on
Christ’s sufferings, he will have us learn the heroic
virtues of meekness and charity, &c., he taught us
by them to fortify our souls against contradictions; and
by those on his glorious mysteries, and on the happiness
of divine love, he teaches us to unite our hearts
closely to God. See Bartoli,
l. 1, &c. |
|
[349] — |
Exerc. Spir. Max. 2, 3. |
|
[350] — |
Ego vobis Romæ propitius ero. See F. Bouhours,
b. 3. |
|
[351] — |
There is another religious Order, very famous in Italy,
established for the education of youth, called the
Regular Clergy of the Schola Pia. The founder was
F. Joseph Cazalana, a nobleman of Arragon. He took
priestly orders in 1582, and, going to Rome,
devoted himself with great fervor to the heroic practice
of all good works, especially to the catechising and
teaching of children. To propagate this design, he
instituted a congregation of priests, approved by
Paul V. in 1617, and declared a religious
Order with ample privileges, by Gregory XV.
in 1621. These religious men bind themselves by a
fourth vow, to labor in instructing children, especially
the poor. The holy founder died in 1648, on the
25th of August. |
|
[352] — |
He appointed no other habit than that used by the clergy
in his time, the more decently and courteously to
converse with all ranks of people, and because he
instituted an order only of regular clerks. He would not
have his religious to keep choir, because he destined
their time to evangelical functions. He ordered all,
before they are admitted, to employ a month for a
general confession and a spiritual exercise. After this,
two years in a novitiate; then to take the simple vows
of scholars, binding themselves to poverty, chastity,
and obedience, which vows make them strictly religious
men; for by them a person in this Order irrevocably
consecrates himself to God on his side, though the Order
does not bind itself absolutely to him, and the general
has power to dismiss him; by which discharge he is freed
from all obligation to the Society, his first vows being
made under this condition. These simple vows are only
made in the presence of domestics. The professed Jesuits
make these same vows again (commonly after all their
studies) but publicly, and without the former condition;
so that these second are solemn vows, absolutely binding
on both sides: wherefore a professed Jesuit can be no
more dismissed by his Order, so as to be discharged from
his obligations by which he is tied to it. In these last
is added a fourth vow of undertaking any missions,
whether among the faithful or infidels, if enjoined them
by the pope. There is a class of Jesuits who take the
other vows, without this last relating to the missions;
and these are called spiritual coadjutors. So this Order
consists of four sorts of persons; scholars or Jesuits
of the first vows; professed Jesuits or of the last or
four vows; spiritual coadjutors, and temporal
coadjutors.
No particular bodily mortifications are prescribed by
the rule of the Society; but two most perfect practices
of interior mortification are rigorously enjoined, on
account of which Suarez (t. 3, de Relig.) who
treats at length of the obligations of their Order,
calls it the most rigorous of religious Orders; the
first is, the rule of Manifestation, by which every one
is bound to discover his interior inclinations to his
superior; the second is, that every Jesuit renounces his
right to his own reputation with his superior, giving
leave to every brother to inform immediately his
superior of all his faults he knows, without observing
the law of private correction first, which is a precept
of fraternal charity, unless where a person has given up
his right.
The general nominates the provincial and rectors; but he
has five assistants nominated by the general
congregation, who prepare all matters to his hands, each
for the province of his assistency; and these have
authority to call a general congregation to depose the
general if he should evidently transgress the rules of
the Society. Every provincial is obliged to write to the
general once every month, and once in three years
transmit to him an account of all the Jesuits in his
province. The perfect form of government which is
established, the wisdom, the unction, the zeal, and the
consummate knowledge of men, which appear throughout all
these constitutions, will be a perpetual manifest
monument of the saint’s admirable penetration, judgment,
and piety. He wrote his constitutions in Spanish, but
they were done into Latin by his secretary, father John
Polancus. It is peculiar to the Society, that the
religious, after their first vows, retain some time the
dominion or property of their patrimony, without the
administration (for this later condition is now
essential to a religious vow of poverty), till they make
their renunciation.
St. Ignatius forbade the fathers of his Society to
undertake the direction of nunneries on the following
occasion. In 1545, Isabel Rozella, a noble Spanish
widow, and two others, with the approbation of pope
Paul III. put themselves under St. Ignatius’s
direction, to live according to his rule; but he soon
repented and procured from his Holiness, in 1547,
the abovesaid prohibition, saying, that such a task took
up all that time which he desired to dedicate to a more
general good in serving many. When certain women in
Flanders and Piedmont afterward assembled in houses
under vows and this rule, and called themselves
Jesuitesses, their institute was abolished by
Urban VIII. in 1631, the end and exercises of
this society not suiting that sex. |
|
[353] — |
See his edifying life by Raderus and
Sacchini. |
|
[354] — |
Bouhours, l. 4. Orlandin. Hist. Soc. l. 7,
c. 25. |
|
[355] — |
The value of this treasure is enhanced by the elegant
dress by which it is set off in the French translation
of the abbé Regnier des Marais, three volumes in 4to.
four in 8vo. and six in 12mo. The devout abbé Tricalet
gave a good abridgment of this excellent work, printed
in 1760. The translation of Rodrigues made by the
gentlemen of Port-Royal is faulty in several places,
particularly, Tr. 1, c. 10. |
|
[356] — |
Orland. Hist. Soc. l. 16. |
|
[357] — |
Extant to Bartoli, l. 4, p. 372. |
|
[358] — |
L. 4, n. 29, 355. |
|
[359] — |
Bayle makes exceptions to the miracles of
St. Ignatius because Ribadeneira, in the first life
of this saint, which he wrote in 1572, inquires why
his sanctity was not equally attested by wonderful
miracles as that of the founders of some other Orders.
“Quamobrem illius sanctitas minus est testata
miraculis,” &c. But in this very edition, in the
last chapter, p. 209, he writes: “Mihi tantum abest
ut ad vitam Ignatii illustrandam miracula deesse
videantur, ut multa eaque præstantissima judicem in
mediâ luce versari.” He then recapitulates some facts
which he had before related, and which he esteems
miraculous, as a rapture in which the saint continued
for eight days; so many wonderful, heavenly
illuminations and revelations; the restoration of
F. Simon, who lay dangerously sick, to his health,
pursuant to his prediction; the wonderful deliverance of
a demoniac; the cures of several sick persons; the
foretelling many particular things to private persons,
&c. The author republished this life in 1587,
with some additions. He afterwards wrote a Latin
abstract of this first life, in which he inserted many
miracles. This he calls “Alteram breviorem vitam, sed
multis ac novas miraculis auctam.” In this he tells us,
that he had before been more cautious in relating
miracles, because they had not yet been examined and
approved; but that he chose some which were esteemed
miraculous, not in the opinion of the common people, but
in the judgment of prudent persons. See this remark also
in the Spanish abstract of this life, published
in 1604; and in the Latin abstract reprinted at
Ipres in 1612. In his Spanish life of
St. Ignatius, among his lives of saints, printed
in 1604, he writes thus: “Though, when I first
printed his life in 1572, I knew of some
miracles of the holy father, I did not look upon
them to be so verified (averiguados) as to think that
I ought to publish them, which afterward, by the
authentical informations taken for his canonization,
were proved true by credible witnesses; and the Lord,
who is pleased to exalt him, and make him glorious on
earth, works daily such miracles on his account as
oblige me to relate part of them here, taken from the
original juridical informations which several bishops
have made, and from the depositions made upon oath by
the persons on whom the miracles were wrought,” &c.
Ribad. Spanish lives, p. 1124. Moreover,
Ribadeneira mentions in his first and second edition of
this life, prophecies, revelations, visions, and the
like miraculous favors, and he expressly distinguishes
these from the gift of miracles, by which he means
miraculous cures and the like, though the former may be
justly placed in the general class of miracles. If the
works of Ribadeneira on this subject be all carefully
perused, it will be easy to discern the scrupulous
accuracy of the author in this point; and the candid
reader will be convinced how much some have
misrepresented his testimony. Nor was he allowed to
publish miracles before they had been approved, as the
Council of Trent severely ordained. (Sess. 25, de
Inv. Sanct.) See on it Julius Nigronius (Disp. Hist.de
SS. Ignatio et Cajetano, n. 57) and Pinius the
Bollandist in his confutation of this slander.
In the relation made in the secret consistory before
Gregory XV. of miracles which had been examined and
approved by the cardinal à Monte and other commissaries,
are mentioned the supernatural light shining on his face
at prayer, upon the testimony of St. Philip Neri
and F. Oliver Manerius. That St. Ignatius, by
his blessing and prayer, cured one Bastida of the
falling sickness, and the hand of a cook miserably
burnt; delivered Pontanus from most violent temptations
with which he had been grievously molested for two
years, &c.: but the miracles which are chiefly
attended to in a canonization, are those which have been
performed after the person’s death. Of such, many
manifest ones were approved, first by the Auditors of
the Rota, and afterward by the Congregation of Rites.
Among these are mentioned the following: Isabel
Rabelles, a nun of Barcelona, sixty-seven years old,
in 1601, had broken her thigh-bone; and being
attended by a physician and surgeon during forty days,
and under grievous pains and a violent fever, was
expected to die that night, and given over as to all
natural remedies; when by applying a relic of
St. Ignatius, and saying the Lord’s Prayer and Hail
Mary, with an invocation of this saint, the swelling of
the thigh and leg went down, she found herself able to
stir both, and without any pain; and calling for her
clothes she got up, walked perfectly, and with ease, and
felt no more of her complaint, not even at new moons or
in the dampest seasons. Anne Barozellona, at Valladolid,
almost sixty years old, was cured of a desperate palsy
by invoking St. Ignatius, with a vow to perform a
novena. A widow who had lost her sight in both her
eyes, recovered it by recommending herself to the
prayers of Saint Ignatius, and touching her eyes with a
relic, &c. F. Jos. Juvency (Hist. Soc. Jesu,
l. 15, part 5, § 9) has selected and
related many like miracles of St. Ignatius.
F. Daniel Bartoli, in his life of this saint, has
given a history of a hundred such miracles (l. 5).
See also the great collection made by F. Pinius,
the continuation of Bollandus.
Though cardinal Pole thought circumstances did not allow
him to make any settlement for Jesuits in England, as
the author of the Monastic History of Ireland and others
take notice, that great and holy man highly esteemed
St. Ignatius and his Institute. See a letter of
Saint Ignatius to cardinal Pole dated at Rome, 24th of
January, 1555, and that cardinal’s answer to him
from Richmond, 8th of May; and another from London, 15th
of December the same year; also his letter of condolence
to F. Lainez upon the death of St. Ignatius,
dated at London, 15th of November, 1556, published
among the letters of cardinal Pole collected by cardinal
Querini at Brescia, t. 5, p. 117, 118, 119,
120, 121. |
|
[360] — |
The Jesuats of St. Jerom were at first all lay
brothers, and practised pharmacy; but, in 1606,
obtained leave of Paul V. to study and take holy
orders. The houses of the friars being reduced, they
were suppressed by Clement IX. in 1668; but some
nunneries of this Order still subsist in Italy. See the
life of this saint, and those of other illustrious
persons of this Order, written by Moriggia, a pious
general of the same, who died in 1604. Also the
Bollandists and Helyot. |