LETTERS OF A YOUNG IRISHWOMAN TO HER SISTER.
FROM THE FRENCH.
September 12, 1868.
René has sent you a minute account of our 8th of September, to which I will add nothing, except that I understand better than ever the words of the Gospel, “Mary has chosen the better part!”
Since then we have seen Lizzy and Isa’s mother, who is marvellously consoled, and is recovering the activity of her youth, in order to occupy herself with the works of her daughter. How truly does God order all things well! “O blessed journey!” repeated Isa. “O well-inspired friend!” Dear Kate, it is you to whom all thanks are due. You it is who ever taught me to occupy myself in making others happy. But this is already a thing of the past, and another case for self-devotion presents itself. Edith L—— has come back from Australia with three children. The establishment set on foot by her husband did not succeed, and she returns a widow and poor. Her first thought was of us. With what eagerness I received the poor exile! How she has expiated her fault—that marriage, contrary to her aunt’s wishes! I was young then, but I still seem to hear your exclamation of sorrowful astonishment at Paris on hearing the news, and of the departure for a land then almost unknown. Poor Edith! I have installed her at the châlet; our numbers made her afraid. Her children also are a little wild, and it required all the amiability of the Three Graces to persuade them to speak. What shall we do? I do not at all know as yet; inspire me, dear Kate. Edith is grave and sad, she has suffered so much! I have surrounded her with every possible comfort. Only think: she arrived here on the 8th, and was received by Marcella, who had the greatest difficulty in the world to induce her to remain. Her son, the eldest child, is eight years old; he is very tall and strong, and of an indomitable nature. The two little girls are like wild fawns, and cling together
at a distance from their mother, who seems to me severe towards them. René has been very kind and compassionate, and has left me free to act as I think well. Edith is embarrassed with me. Why are you not here to console this dear, afflicted one? She ought not to reckon upon her Scotch relations, who have entirely cast her off; and she is utterly without resources. Ah heavens! what distress. She sold her jewels to pay her passage: “But I would not die without seeing Ireland again!” Poor, poor Edith, whom my mother loved! I wish to stand towards her in the place of my mother and of you, dear Kate.
September 22, 1868.
Beloved sister, your kind letter is here before my eyes, and I will answer it before this day ends. Edith fell ill on the 13th. A fictitious energy sustained her up to that time, and then she had a fainting fit which lasted two hours. Marcella was alone with her; I was in the park with the dear Australiennes, as Picciola calls them. I heard a cry of anguish. My first impulse was to hasten to send for the doctor. He came. Edith, returning to animation in a state of delirium, made our hearts bleed by her sorrowful revelations. She was in this condition for three days. Now she is better, but so pale! The good doctor has pronounced the terrible verdict of an affection of the lungs. She needs constant care, and that her mind should be interested and free from any anxieties.
Your intentions are the same as mine, dear Kate. I give Edith an indefinite freedom of the châlet, where nothing will be wanting to her. Reginald will be her steward, Arabella and Françoise will be in her service; and as she needs a
companion to whom she can entrust the education of her girls, Mistress Annah offered herself of her own accord, and Margaret has consented. And thus everything is settled, and Edward will accompany us to France. Edith breathes again, and thanks me so fervently that I weep with her. Admirable simplicity, nobleness of soul, and great tenderness of heart—this is her portrait. She has accepted my offers with the same generosity with which I made them. I told you that I thought her severe towards her children; I ought to have said towards her daughters only, and this, she has owned to me, because she has learned by experience how much harm it does children to spoil them. Our good priest has promised me to watch over his new parishioner; but, thank God! I myself will watch over her also, for we shall wait until November before returning to Brittany. My mother desires whatever pleases me. René approves of all our arrangements. He has had a sort of miniature park made round the châlet. Edward already loves him, and follows him about without speaking. Strange child! I can discover nothing in him but an intense love for his mother, and fear, therefore, that we shall not be able to take him away. René, to whom I am talking while I write, proposes to leave him here, where the priest will attend to him, and so also will the wise Mistress Annah. How grateful I am to the dear old lady! Margaret is a little displeased at not giving the half of Edith’s dowry. Lord William has promised to appease her. You know how ardent she is.
Write to us again, dear Kate. It is in your name that I have been acting. You are the good angel of Ireland.
We had such an alarm yesterday! There was a grande battue: René and Lord William at the head, with our brothers and all the gentry of the neighborhood. We were in carriages: my mother with Lucy and Gertrude; Berthe and the Three Graces; Johanna and her girls; Marcella, Edith and I; Margaret with Mary and Ellen. We were quietly following the chase, which became more and more distant, when a cry from Edith made us start. Edward had just passed like lightning, proudly seated on a large horse. Only think—a child of eight! Profiting by the absence of the grooms, he had managed matters all by himself. He looked beautiful thus, but it was frightful. Edith trembled. We took her home and sent off the coachman for the child; but his search was fruitless, and Edward did not return until evening, when he came in breathless, but proud and happy. “Only see,” said Edith, “how he is already master! This child will be the death of me!” René gave him a moral admonition, but this son of Australia is for liberty. His black eye sparkled, and when René said to him, “Your mother might die in consequence of any strong emotion,” some tears fell, but not a word escaped from his compressed lips. You see that your first plan was the best. Impossible to leave him with Edith—the poor mother feels this; we shall therefore place him with the Jesuits. You would say he was twelve years old. He is accustomed to the free life of the woods; he has constantly to be scolded, and never yields.
Margaret is sent for by her mother-in-law, who is keeping her room with the gout. She takes with her Marcella, Anna, Lucy, and
Edouard. We shall all go and take leave of her before quitting Ireland. O Kate! if you were not in France, I could not leave my mother’s house for any place but heaven.
Margaret has stolen a poor woman from me, to revenge herself, she says. It is old Ludwine, a stranger from we know not whence, and who has all the appearance of a saint. She knows very well how to rock a cradle, and it is under the title of cradle-rocker that Margaret has persuaded her to accompany them. Kind Margaret!
Lord William admires his wife as much as he loves her. They are going to found a hospital, a crèche or day-nursery, and an ouvroir (to provide work for women and girls). What would not riches be worth, if they only helped always to do good!
We are now in comparative solitude; for Margaret is to every one like a ray of sunshine.
God alone—he alone suffices to the soul. It is in him that I love you.
October 8, 1868.
Long walks with René all this week among our good farmers. Made presents everywhere. Held at the font a little flower of Ireland whom I named Kate. Old Jack is very ill, without any hope of cure. All the tribe of Margaret send us most affectionate letters almost daily. In the evenings, under the great trees, Adrien reads to us St. Monica, by the Abbé Bougaud, while the children play at a little distance. What say you to this page: “The perfection of sacrifice, and the extremity of suffering, is to give up the life of those whom one loves. The greatest martyrdom, to a mother, is not to sacrifice herself for her child: it is to sacrifice even the very life of her child; it is so highly to
prize truth, virtue, honor, true beauty of soul, the eternal salvation of her child, that, rather than see these holy things fade and wither in his soul, she would see him die.” Edith listened nervously to these words, and then said: “This sacrifice may be required of me!” Poor mother! “St. Augustine,” writes M. Bougaud, “passionately loved his mother, and constantly spoke of her. Almost all the writings which have issued from his pen are embalmed with the memory of her. More than twenty years after her death, when he had become aged by labors yet more than in years, and had attained the time when it seems that the love of God, having broken down every embankment and inundated the heart, must have destroyed within it every other love, the name and memory of his mother never recurred to him, even when preaching, without a tear mounting from his heart to his eyes. He would then abandon himself to the charm of this remembrance and allow himself to speak of it to his people of Hippo, and even in the sermons where one would scarcely expect to find them we meet with words of touching beauty in which breathe at the same time the faith and grateful piety of the son and the double elevation of the genius and the saint”—noble and beautiful words which delight me. To love one’s mother—is not this one of the happinesses of this earth, where so few are true? M. Bougaud is admirable, whether in defining eloquence, “the sound given by a soul charmed out of herself by the sight of the good and true,” or in speaking of the complaint of Job, “this song of death which we all sing, and which makes us better, even when we have but wept its first notes—this
song of two parts, the first sad, where all passes, all fades away, all dries up from the lips of those who wish to drink and slake their thirst; the first song which does good to the soul, even when we know but this one note, and cast on the world only this sorrowful look. What is it, then, when we rise to a loftier height, to the second part of this song of death, where sorrow is absorbed in joy? Yes, everything passes away, but to return; everything fades, but that it may bloom again; everything dies, to return to life transfigured.” Kate, in the beauty of this book there is to me incomparable splendor. Would you like a few more fragments from it—precious pearls which I would enshrine in my heart and memory, there to ruminate upon and enjoy them? I will send you the definition of Rome: “That delectable land full of holy images and tranquil domes, whither one goes in order to forget the world and rest the soul in the memories and associations which are there alone to be found.” Again, this about the second age of life: “In which, after having tasted every other love, we return to that of our mother; and seeing the years which accumulate upon her venerable head, not venturing to contemplate the future, desiring still to enjoy that which remains of a life so dear, we feel in ourselves the renewal of an indescribable affection which rises in the soul to something akin to worship.” Or this portrait of Plato: “There was in ancient times, in the palmiest days of Greece, a young man of incredible loftiness of mind, and of a beauty of speech which has never been surpassed; the disciple of Socrates, whom he immortalized by lending him his own wings; and the master of Aristotle,
whose power he would have tripled could he have communicated to him some of his own fire!”
A letter from Isa, a Nunc Dimittis. She would like us to be present when she takes the veil. Will it be possible? Oh! how much it will cost me to quit my own Ireland—our lakes, mountains, and mists, all the poetry of our green Erin. Where shall I find it in France?
Adieu and à Dieu, dear sister of my life.
October 12, 1868.
Margaret’s mother-in-law is better, and all the dear tribe will arrive this evening. Impossible to live apart when the ocean is not between us!
The expectation and preparations please the twins, who are placing bouquets everywhere. Poetry, youth, and flowers go together. I did not tell you that René had brought Margaret the volumes which have appeared of the Monks of the West. Dear Kate, all our memories of Ireland there find a voice. Do you recollect the touching manner in which our mother used to relate the story of St. Columba? I have been this week with René on a pilgrimage to Gartan. “The love of Ireland was one of the greatnesses and one of the passions of Columba. Even in the present day, after so many centuries, they who fear to be unable to do without their native air ask help from him who required special assistance from God to be able to live far from Ireland, her mountains and her seas.” These are the words of a French writer quoted to me by René. And we looked at the salt sea and the sea-gulls, and spoke of the stork, which is not forgotten by the sailors of the Hebrides.… Delightful journey! My mother had advised us to take it alone. However much I enjoy the lively gambols
of the children, I have still more enjoyed this, our intimate solitude, together. Thus I am delivered from the fear of nostalgia. It was this terrible home-sickness which undermined the health of Edith. Thanks to prompt treatment, we shall save her, I trust. Already she is less pale, more cheerful and resigned. She has been making some projects on the score of her talents as an artist, but all her scruples of obligations have been forced to yield to my solicitations. She is not and cannot be here otherwise than as my mother’s friend, and as such she ought to be treated.
The two Australiennes are gradually becoming civilized, and consent to take part in the lessons with the twins. The good abbé herborizes with great enjoyment, takes long walks, makes acquaintances among the clergy of the country, makes himself a doctor to the poor, and announces his intention of settling near Gartan, against which we protest loudly.
Let me quote you a few more pages from St. Monica, this perfectly beautiful book, which you will not read, since it is for mothers; but the passages I take from it are good for all souls possessed by the only veritable love.
When, immediately after his conversion, St. Augustine retired to Cassiacum with his mother and so select an assemblage of friends, it was at the close of summer. “The autumn sun shed its warm rays over the campagna. The leaves were not yet falling, but they were already beginning to take those glowing tints of red and yellow which in the month of September give the country so rich a splendor. It was the moment when the whole of nature appeared to clothe itself in something
more grave and almost sad, as though preparing to die. There are certain states of soul in which one finds an infinite charm in contemplating nature at such a time.” Have we not felt this charm, dear Kate, a hundred times in our own Ireland, and also in the Roman Campagna and at Sorrento?
Listen to this admirable comparison between the disciple of Socrates and the son of St. Monica: “Plato and Augustine are two brothers, but of unequal ages. The first, at the dawn of life, in his sweet and poetic spring, has more flowers than fruits; he dreams of more than he possesses. He has glimpses of a sublime ideal, which fill him with enthusiasm, but he does not attain it. He seeks the way, he sees and describes it, but knows not how to enter; and he dies without bearing in his soul the fruit of which his youth had the flowers. The second, after painful struggles, after years of toil and courage, enters resolutely on the road which the former had pointed out. Plato had said: ‘To be a philosopher is to learn to die’; and again: ‘What is needful in order to see God?—to be pure and to die.’ Augustine studied this great art; he put it in practice at Cassiacum, and the light, like a river whose embankments have been broken down, flooded his vast intellect. What Plato hoped for and conjectured he saw. That which passed in the rich imagination of the philosopher as a confused though sublime presentiment existed with clearness and precision in the luminous intelligence of the saint, and sprang forth from his heart in accents such as Plato never imagined. He who would know Augustine when first trying his wings, before his full strength of flight, should study the
conversations and conferences of Cassiacum. There is in these a first flower of youth which is not to be found again; something softened in the light, like that of the dawn of day; a freshness of thoughts and sentiments, a tranquil enthusiasm, and a gentle gayety. His mind, imprisoned until then, had recovered its powers, and with a joyous elasticity mounted upwards to the true, the good, and the beautiful.”
May God keep you, my best beloved!
October 23, 1868.
Margaret, René, and Marcella have written to my dear Kate, and Georgina has been absorbed in her cares as mistress of the house. We shall certainly not leave before December. Isa is to take the veil on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. My mother forgets herself for us. Adrien and Raoul set out at once for Brittany, where they will act on behalf of all, and return here to fetch us.
Edith and Mistress Annah get on together as well as possible. Dear Edith laments her own helplessness. Our worthy friend replaces her everywhere and for everything. The handsome little savages (is there a feminine?) are become radiant with health, and are greatly in love with Margaret, who loads them with presents. Marcella pays frequent visits to Edith. No need to say that old Homer is sadly neglected. We prefer the poetry of Ireland!
Anna had another of her feverish attacks while with Margaret. The air of Ireland suits her better. Oh! what eyes she has.
René and Lord William have decided on an excursion into Scotland, declaring that the French owe this to the memory of Mary Stuart
and the noble royal family which sheltered its misfortunes beneath the sombre, vaulted roofs of Holyrood. A thing decided is a thing accomplished. Every one is ready, and we set out to-morrow. Reginald is amazed at this perpetual movement, the coming and going of our colony. We have persuaded Edith that this journey would be of use to her children, so we shall form a veritable caravan. Before starting I will once more give you a quotation from M. Bougaud.
Notice how well he comments upon these beautiful words of Adeodatus: “No soul is truly pure but she who loves God and attaches herself to him alone.”
“Nothing human, nothing terrestrial, suffices to the soul. She can only be happy in the possession of God; and the only means of possessing him here below, as well as above, is to love him. For love laughs at distance and makes light of space; unites souls from world to world, and, in uniting, beatifies and transfigures them. Moreover, if it be true that, even in attaching itself to finite beings, love renders the soul indifferent to fatigue, pain, and privation; if it communicates to it a peace, security, and strength invincible; if it fills the soul not only with joy, but even with ecstasy—what, then, must be the love which attaches itself to God? Thus the saints have always been happy, even upon the cross; and if the world sees their joy without comprehending it, the reason is that it does not know what it is to love. Purity and love have, towards God, lofty flights which genius would envy. The works of God have all proceeded from his heart. They who love most will understand them best. St. Augustine said: ‘The soul is made for
God. The soul is an open eye which gazes upon God. The soul is a love which aspires after the infinite. God is the soul’s native land.’ Deep and noble words! And this cry which he was constantly repeating: ‘Let us live here below in an apprenticeship for our immortal life in heaven, where all our occupation will be to love.’ St. Augustine called death ‘the companion of love—she who opens the door by which we enter and find Him whom we love.’”
Dearest Kate, I have given you here the fairest flower in the basket, but the whole basketful is superb. Good-by for the present, dearest; you will hear next either from the Highlands or the Lowlands, or the borders of the lakes. How much I enjoy travelling! My mother is delighted at the idea of making acquaintance with Scotland; and I sing her its ballads.… Send us the angel Raphael, my Kate!
October 31, 1868.
We are, then, in Scotland—a beautiful country, picturesque and charming, full of old memories and legends, and where the mountaineers have a very noble air, proudly draped in their many-colored plaids. Yesterday we met with a MacGregor. The shade of Walter Scott seemed to rise at our side. This brave Highlander did the honors of the country, and expressed himself with an antique grace that is indescribable. On leaving us he kissed the hands of the ladies, pressed those of the lords, and kissed all the young misses. Was it not fine? But we found better still—a white-haired bard, “with trembling gait and broken voice,” who gave us his benediction with all the majesty that could be desired. Every rock has its legend, every ruin its tradition,
every lake its spectre. But there is no need for me to describe Scotland to you, my learned sister; you know its exact portrait better than I. This wandering life, these encampments in the woods, these steeple-chases, have their charm, and are of great interest to Edith. I fear she may miss us too much later on. Dear Kate, Reginald sent your last letter after me. I enjoyed reading it in the country of Mary Stuart.
Quick!… I slip this note into Réne’s packet. Always union of prayers.
I have still a few minutes. We are seeking here the traces of the martyr-queen, the beautiful and unfortunate Mary Stuart. There was, then, no more pity in France? Was the chivalrous enthusiasm which breathes in the old songs of the Gesta merely a poet’s dream, or was it crouching in the oubliettes of the past when England’s axe severed that royal head on which had shone the crown of France?
Who, then, will sing as they deserve the youthful victims cut off in their flower—Stuart, Grey, the gentle Jane who did not wish to be made queen, Elizabeth of France, Joan of Arc, Mme. de Lamballe, Marie Antoinette, and all the legion of martyrs whose blood cries for vengeance?
Where are the snows of Antan? where are the personages of Walter Scott? where are Rob Roy, Flora MacIvor, and so many others? Marcella just now pointed out to me a singular individual who must be, she insists, my father’s son.
Will the day ever come when the triumphant cross of the Coliseum will surmount, with its beauty and its love, the crown of the United Kingdom? O my own Ireland! what heart could forget thee?
Let us pray for her, dear sister of my life, dear daughter of Erin!
November 5, 1868.
Our All Souls’ day was sad and sweet. We all have losses to deplore. My mother loved her Brittany at this anniversary. How maternal this mother of my René is towards your Georgina! How gracious and tender her daily greetings! All our friends feel the charm of her elevated nature. Edith loves to be with her. Dear Edith! She said to me yesterday: “Thus far all is well; how I trust that it may so continue! In the depth of my soul I have that inexorable sadness of which Bossuet speaks; I feel it hourly. For a time I thought that I should die of a broken heart, but you have revived me. I feel that in Heaven alone all sorrows will be for ever consoled, and, like the Alexandrine whom you have described to me, I love, hope, and wait!” Oh! how sweet it is, dear Kate, to belong to God. How could we live without feeling that we were of use, without giving ourselves up, devoting, spending ourselves in the service of God and of souls? Isa writes to Margaret: “M. l’Abbé Lagrange speaks admirably of virginity in his St. Paula; it is like reading a page of Mgr. Dupanloup: ‘How beautiful in the church are those forms of devotedness to which the Christian virgin is called, whether she silently immolates herself in solitude and prayer, consumed by the flames of the noblest love which a creature can possess, a pure victim whose sacrifice is profitable to us, whatever we are, by the communion of saints of which we are taught by the church; whether she gives a sister to the sick, a daughter to the aged, a mother to orphans, or a
friend to the poor, the consoler here below in every neglect and every infirmity, and taken for these works in the spring-time of her life and the flower of her youth—taken away from all maternal sweetnesses, from the joys of home, from future hopes, for ever! Doubtless the mother also devotes herself; does Christianity ignore it? But it must be allowed that the devotion of a mother is at the same time her duty and her happiness, whilst these sublime sacrifices of themselves for the relief of every kind of ignorance and sorrow are entirely voluntary and disinterested, without other compensation here below than the love of God; and it is true that this is worth all the rest.
“‘Christian virginity is a state of intimate union with Jesus Christ, in which, in spotless love and the perfection of purity, souls here below consume themselves for God, whom they call into themselves, and are the fragrance of earth and the delight of heaven. The Gospel, knowing human nature, makes not a precept of this celestial ideal, since it would surpass the ordinary strength of mankind; but it gives a counsel for those who have the courage to follow it, because it feels that there are chosen souls who have this strength, and because this marvel of virtue, this life of angels in a mortal frame, while it embalms the world, is, in the church, one of the most evident and touching marks of her divine origin.’”
How beautiful it is! What a pen of gold! Dear Kate, all this is very suitable for you!
Met Lady Cleave and her nice children at Edinburgh. Spoke of Kate—a thing as natural to me as singing is to the bird. Had a delightful conversation yesterday evening
with Margaret and Marcella, both of whom are as clever as they are saintly, and love each other like old friends, keeping for me, they say, a throne of honor in their hearts. No one appreciates more than I do the charm of a pure and intellectual friendship. This will assuredly be one of the joys of eternity, since on high all souls will be united in the plenitude of intelligence, purity, and love.
It is very cold. We are making some happy people. Picciola is charming in the exercise of charity.
Good-night, dear Kate, it is eleven o’clock.
November 18, 1868.
From the window of an ancient Scottish castle I am watching for the return of the abbé and his pupils from a walk of beneficence. But, like “Sister Anne” in the old story, I see nothing come, and have not even the compensation of beholding the “sun’s golden sheen and the grass growing green,” any more than I am in the same peril as that inquisitive châtelaine. We are intending simply to do honor in Scotland to my mother’s fête, one of her names being Elizabeth. It was René’s idea, and applauded by all. Edith herself, with her fairy fingers, has made a charming bouquet from the flowers in the conservatories. Marcella is practising on the piano, Edouard singing; Lucy has undertaken to keep Mme. de T—— out of the way for a few hours. I hear joyous voices; goodby until this evening.
Evening.—Superb, dear Kate! A scene of ancient times, and, moreover, in a romantic dwelling, where Walter Scott has been, and where kings have displayed their splendor. The effect produced by
the voices of René, Edouard, Marcella, and Margaret is unique. Our mother, surprised and touched, was only able to answer by her tears; and just now, when I was accompanying her to her room, she said: “Dear Georgina, I regretted Hélène!” Ah! this is the ever-open wound, the ineffaceable regret!
God keep you, my Kate! Your spirit accompanies me everywhere, my beloved companion, my invisible guardian; and how sweet a nest your love has made me!
This will be the last sheet that I shall date from Scotland; we are far from the post. I shall not send it until the moment of our departure.
November 25.—News from Paris, and of every kind; the best comes always from you. Adrien and Raoul will arrive in Ireland at the same time as we do.
It will be a day of rejoicing to me to return to our own house. Long live home, my country, the place of many memories! I have taken some views, and bought quantities of things for Lizzy, Fanny, and all our friends there. These good mountaineers regret our departure. O Ireland, Ireland! Marcella has set to music the poetry of the sweet and terrible Columba; impossible to hear it without tears. Decidedly, I must go on another pilgrimage to Gartan.
The Three Graces, dressed in the tartans of which I have made them a present, have a Scottish appearance which is charming. They send kisses to Mme. Kate.
A thousand loving messages to you, my beloved sister. May all the blessed angels be with you!
December 9, 1868.
Dear Kate, with what joy we find ourselves in Ireland again!
Adrien and Raoul have brought with them quantities of books. I must give you some quotations from the Life of the Saints by MM. Kellerhove and de Riancey—a splendid volume, presented by Gertrude to Margaret—and a remarkable work by the Comtesse Olympe de Lernay: “Born with the century, and dying on the 30th of March, 1864, she realized in her admirable life the high ideal of the truly Christian woman. Her existence wholly of faith, labor, and love was visited by the heaviest trials, but her resignation was profound. She said: ‘The triumph of self-renunciation over enthusiasm will not be without fruit with reference to the eternal future; and when God’s day of reckoning shall come, I will say to him, Father, I wished to labor at thy vine with my golden pruning-knife, but this was not thy will; and therefore is it that, instead of adorning its summit, I have remained at its foot.’” Do you not find in this a finished beauty? “To glorify God and gain hearts to him was the supreme desire of this saintly and amiable woman, who, endowed with artistic, poetic, and literary talents, as varied as they were remarkable, worked as one prays, and prayed as one sings.”
Adrien is reading us fragments of the Mahâbhârata—“the book of the people which has meditated most.” How much more sublime than ever does the Bible appear after this reading! No; outside of the love of God there is nothing completely beautiful or great.
Immense party this evening; sixty invitations! The preparations are complete, except that much is still going on in the region of the kitchen. And I, the happy giver of the invitations, tranquilly seated at my
writing-table of island-wood, am chattering like a school-girl in the holidays. Dear Kate, it is because I have been making all diligence, and because I have before me your thrice welcome pages, so charming and affectionate, and which appear to me to breathe a perfume of our native land. Yes, truly, the sweetest is there—this fragrance of delightful and unalloyed affection which comes to me from you!
Jack is still in a distressing state, suffering incessantly. He yesterday received our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, the sovereign Comforter, and, resting lovingly on the adorable Heart which gave itself for him, he has promised to love the cross. Poor old man! His children have the evil of the age—the loss of respect. René prepared him for the visit of his Saviour, and I went later to arrange everything; on entering I heard the sick man speaking with animation, and paused involuntarily. “I suffer too much, your honor.” “My friend, say with me: O Life of my soul, O most sweet and merciful Saviour, put into my heart much indulgence, patience, and charity.” “But then I am so often thrown back! Ten years of suffering; and what have they brought me? Oh! how my loneliness weighs upon me. I am left so much alone!” “My poor brother, dear privileged one of our Lord, say with me: My God, I accept these sufferings in union with thy Agony and Crucifixion. Pardon me my involuntary murmurings; accept my daily torments as an expiation. Eternity is near! My God. I will all that thou willest.” Jack repeated the words with docility.
After communion he appeared happy. The doctor wonders that he can endure so much suffering and live. “Will the good God grant me to die before you go?” the poor man asked of René. Oh! how sad it is to die thus—to become the outcast in the home of which one had been the life.
Kate dearest, let us pray for all in their agony.
TO BE CONTINUED.
TESTIMONY OF THE CATACOMBS TO THE PRIMACY OF ST. PETER.
In our former article[139] the evidence which we adduced as to the testimony of the Catacombs on a disputed point of Catholic doctrine was drawn almost exclusively from their inscriptions; and that evidence was very abundant, because the doctrine in question was precisely that on which we should look to tombstones for information. It was only natural that, in writing the last earthly memorial of their departed friends, the survivors should spontaneously—one might almost say unconsciously—give utterance to the thoughts that were in their mind as to the present condition and future prospects of those to whom they had now paid the last offices. The subject now before us is of a very different kind. We are going to inquire of the Catacombs whether they can tell us anything as to the idea entertained in primitive times about the position held in the Christian hierarchy by St. Peter and his successors; and we think most persons would consider it very strange indeed if we should elicit any answer to this inquiry from the inscriptions upon gravestones. Mr. Withrow, however, is of a different opinion; he thinks that if in those early days the bishops of Rome enjoyed any superior dignity over other bishops, it ought to have been, and probably would have been, mentioned on their epitaphs; and, accordingly, he chronicles as items worthy of being noted in the
controversy such facts as these: that “the tomb of the first Roman bishop bore simply the name Linus” (p. 507), and that in the papal crypt, or chamber where the popes of the third century were buried, they are only honored with the title of bishop, and even that appears in a contracted form, ΕΠΙ or ΕΠΙΚ (p. 508). The Dean of Chichester seems to entertain a somewhat similar opinion; only, as he has formed a higher estimate of the episcopal dignity, this opinion shows itself in him in a different form. He thinks the extremely “curt and unceremonious” character of these papal epitaphs almost a conclusive argument against their authenticity.
Mr. Withrow further adds (p. 509), that the word Papa or pope does not occur in the Catacombs till at least the latter part of the fourth century, when it is found, applied to Pope Damasus, in the margin of an inscription by that bishop in honor of one of his predecessors, Eusebius. Even with reference to this, however, he insinuates that, as this inscription in its present condition is “admitted” by De Rossi to be a badly-executed reproduction, of the sixth or seventh century, of a previous inscription, “this title may very well belong to that late period.” Our first impression upon reading this was a grave doubt, which we cannot even now altogether suppress, whether Mr. Withrow had ever read either what De Rossi or his English epitomizers have written on the subject of this monument. Certainly, he cannot have
appreciated the curious and interesting story they have told of this stone; or, if we may not call in question his intelligence, we shall be obliged to accuse him of wilful misrepresentation. One of the most striking features in the story, now lippis et tonsoribus notum, is that the ignorant copyist, so far from being capable of forging a link in the chain of evidence for the papal supremacy, was only able to transcribe the letters actually before his eyes, and even left a vacant space occasionally where he saw that a letter was missing from the mutilated inscription before him, which, however, he was quite incompetent to supply. We are afraid, therefore, that Mr. Withrow must be content to acknowledge that this obnoxious title of pope was certainly given to a Bishop of Rome before the close of the fourth century. At the same time we offer him all the consolation we can by pointing out that it was given to him only by an artist, an employé of his, and one of his special admirers—he calls himself his cultor atque amator—and perhaps, therefore, Mr. Withrow may suggest that the title was here used in a sense in which he is aware that it was originally employed—viz., as an expression of familiar and affectionate respect rather than of dignity.
But we must go further, and, in obedience to the stern logic of facts, we must oblige Mr. Withrow to see that the title was used of the Bishop of Rome some seventy or eighty years before Damasus. If he had ever visited the cemetery of San Callisto, he might have seen the original inscription itself in which the title is given to Pope Marcellinus (296-308); and this time not by a layman, an artist, but
by an ecclesiastical official—in fact, the pope’s own deacon, the Deacon Severus, who had charge of that cemetery:
Cubiculum duplex cum arcisoliis et luminare
Jussu PP. sui Marcellini Diaconus iste
Severus fecit.…
Observe that the title is here abridged into the compendious formula PP., as though it were a title with which Roman Christians were already familiar, just as in pagan epigraphy the same letters stand for præpositus or primopilus, and those words are not written at full length, because everybody interested in the matter would know at once from the name and the context what was to be supplied.[140] So, then, it seems impossible to determine when the title was first used of the bishops of Rome; it is at least certain that it occurs in the Catacombs a century earlier than Mr. Withrow imagined, and that even then it was no novelty. However, we do not care to dispute the facts, to which he attaches so much importance, that the title of pope was in those ancient days neither “peculiar to the Bishop of Rome,” nor, so far as we know, first applied to him. Moreover, we cannot even accept, what Mr. Withrow in his ignorance is ready to concede, that “the name of the Bishop of Rome was used as a note of time in the latter part of the fourth century”—a distinction, however, which he contends “was also conferred on other bishops than those of Rome.”
Again, we must observe that this remark seems to indicate an entire ignorance in its author of all that De Rossi has written on the same subject. Of course Mr. Withrow is referring to the two epitaphs which conclude with the words sub Liberio
Episcopo, sub Damaso Episcopo; but he gives no sign of being acquainted with the history of those pontiffs, and with the reasons which De Rossi has so carefully drawn out,[141] wherefore there might have been special mention of their names on the tombs of persons who died during their pontificates.
We have now noticed, we believe, all Mr. Withrow’s observations upon the testimony of the Catacomb inscriptions with reference to the papal supremacy; it remains that we ourselves should make one or two observations upon it which he has not made. And, first, it seems to have escaped his notice that there is a title given to the popes by one of themselves on three or four of these monuments—a title stronger and of more definite meaning than Papa, and quite as unwelcome to Protestant ears. Pope Damasus calls Marcellus, one of his predecessors, Veridicus Rector, or the truth-speaking ruler or governor, in the epitaph with which he adorned his tomb. Two others of his predecessors, Eusebius and Sixtus II., he simply calls Rector, without any qualifying epithet at all. And next we would ask Mr. Withrow and all who sympathize with his objection what title they would suggest as possible for the tombstones of the earliest bishops of Rome, even supposing their position in the Christian hierarchy to have been at that time as clearly defined and fully developed as it is now. Do they think it would have been either seemly or possible for a Christian bishop in the first three centuries to assume the highest official religious title among pagans, and to be addressed as Pontifex Maximus? It is true, indeed, that this title has been given to them in modern
epigraphy since it was moulded on the classical type—i.e., ever since the Renaissance. But nobody could dream of such a title as compatible with the relative positions of paganism and Christianity during the period that the Catacombs were in use for purposes of burial. Nevertheless, it is well worthy of note that even at a very early period of the third century, when Tertullian wished to jeer at a decree which he disliked, but which had been issued by the pope, he spoke of him in mockery, as though he were Pontifex scilicet maximus et episcopus episcoporum, thereby intimating pretty clearly what position in the Christian hierarchy the bishops of Rome seemed to assume.
And now, taking our leave of all discussions about mere titles and verbal inscriptions, let us inquire whether any other evidence can be produced from the Catacombs bearing upon the question before us—the question, that is, of St. Peter’s position under the New Law. Let us inquire of the paintings and sculpture, and other similar monuments, as explained and illustrated by contemporary writings. And we ask our adversaries to deal fairly with the evidence we shall adduce; not to weigh each portion of it apart from the rest, but to allow it that cumulative weight which really belongs to it, interpreting each separate monument with the same spirit of candor and equity which they claim on behalf of any evidence which the Catacombs afford for doctrines which they themselves accept. Take, for instance, the doctrine of the Resurrection. We saw in our last article that Mr. Withrow’s assertion that this doctrine was everywhere recorded throughout the Catacombs rested virtually upon the existence of certain oft-recurring paintings there—paintings
of the story of Jonas and of the raising of Lazarus; that it was not supported by any contemporary sepulchral inscriptions, but that certain more explicit inscriptions of a later date undoubtedly contain it. In other words, Mr. Withrow (and we might add Mr. Burgon, Mr. Marriott, and the whole race of Protestant controversialists who have entered this arena at all) can recognize, when it suits his purpose, the justice of reading ancient monuments in the light of more modern and explicit statements of Christian doctrine, and of interpreting the monuments of Christian art in one age by their known form and meaning in another. Let them not deny the privilege of this canon of interpretation to others besides themselves. We shall use it as occasion may require in our examination of the monuments which to all Catholic archæologians seem to bear testimony to the exceptional position of St. Peter in the Apostolic College.
A subject represented from very early times, and frequently repeated both in paintings and in sculpture, is that of Moses striking the rock in the wilderness, and the waters gushing forth for the refreshment of the children of Israel in their passage through the wilderness. What does this subject mean? The stories of Jonas and of Lazarus were meant, we are told, as types of the Resurrection, and are to be admitted as proofs of the belief of the early Christians in that great doctrine. What part of their belief is typified in this incident from the life of Moses? Let us first see how it was understood by the Jews themselves.
The Royal Psalmist refers to it more than once in accents of fervent gratitude as for a signal act of God’s mercy towards his people, and also
of lively hope, as having been typical and prophetic of further mercies. Isaias, in that magnificent prophecy wherein he recounts the marvels that shall happen in the world when “God shall come and save it,” recalls the memory of the same event, and makes use of it as a fitting image of the spiritual graces that should then be poured forth on the children of men. “God himself,” he says, “will come and will save you. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened; and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be free: for waters are broken out in the desert, and streams in the wilderness. And that which was dry land shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.”[142] At length the period so long looked for, so frequently promised, “in the fulness of time” arrived; Jesus was born and manifested among men, and, standing in the Temple on a great feast-day, he offered himself to all men as “a fountain of living waters.” “He stood, and cried, saying: If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that believeth in me, as the Scripture saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” And St. John, who has preserved to us this history, immediately adds, for the more certain interpretation of his words, that Jesus “said this of the Holy Spirit, whom they should receive who believed in him.” Finally, St. Paul comes to complete the explanation, and, in that chapter of his Epistle to the Corinthians which one may almost call the key to the history of the children of Israel, gives more clearly than any before him the mystical interpretation of the prodigy
of the rock. Taking the first and last links of the long chain of inspired writing about it, he couples the original physical fact with its far-distant spiritual interpretation in those words with which we are so familiar: “Our fathers all drank the same spiritual drink: and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ.”
It cannot be disputed, then, that the water represented as flowing from the rock struck by Moses in the wilderness was intended to be typical of the spiritual blessings which flow to the church from Christ. Was there anything typical also in the person striking the rock? Or was this a mere historical accessory of the scene, represented of necessity in order to the completeness of the story, but having no particular meaning of its own—merely the historical Moses, and nothing more? It might very well have been so; and everybody who suggests a mystical interpretation is bound to produce substantial reasons for departing from the literal sense. De Rossi then leads us into a chapel in the Catacomb of San Callisto, and bids us notice the marked difference between the two figures of Moses painted side by side on the same wall—in the one scene taking off his shoes before going up to the holy mountain; in the other, striking the rock. They cannot both be meant to represent the historical verity; it looks as though the distinction between them was intended to point out their typical or symbolical character, and we almost fancy we can discern a resemblance between one of the figures and the received traditional portrait of Peter. But we advance further into the same cemetery, and enter another chapel in which the same scene is again represented. This time there is no room
for doubt: the profile, the features, the rounded and curly beard, the rough and frizzled hair—are all manifest tokens of the traditional likeness of St. Peter, and we are satisfied that it is he who is here striking the rock. The same studied resemblance may be noted also in the figure of the man striking the rock on several of the sculptured sarcophagi. Still, we are not satisfied; we should be loath to lay the stress of any important argument upon any mere likeness which we might believe that we recognize between this and that figure in ancient painting or sculpture. It would be more satisfactory if we could find an inscription on the figure putting its identity beyond all question. And even this, too, is not wanting. In the Vatican Museum there are two or three specimens of this same subject on the gilded glasses that have been sometimes found affixed to graves in the Catacombs, and on them the name of Petrus is distinctly engraved over the scene. It is true that these glasses were probably not made till the fourth century; neither were the sarcophagi. But we argue with Mr. Marriott that “the existence of these later monuments can hardly be accounted for except on the supposition of their being reproductions of still older monuments.” In fact, in the present instance, these older monuments still exist; only their interpretation might have been disputed, had not the later monuments been found with the interpretation engraved upon them. With these glasses in our hands, showing indisputably that the Christians of the fourth and fifth centuries looked upon Moses in the act of striking the rock as a type of St. Peter, we feel confident that the Christians of the second and third centuries, who
continually represented the same scene, did so with the same idea. In a word, the evidence for the identification of St. Peter with Moses in the conceptions of the ancient Christian artists seems to be complete and convincing. Such, at least, is our own conclusion; we subjoin Mr. Withrow’s:
“In two or three of the gilded glasses which are of comparatively late date, the scene of Moses striking the rock is rudely indicated, and over the head or at the side of the figure is the word Petrus. From this circumstance Roman Catholic writers have asserted that in many of the sarcophagal and other representations of this event it is no longer Moses but Peter—‘the leader of the new Israel of God’—who is striking the rock with the emblem of divine power: a conclusion for which there is absolutely no evidence except the very trivial fact above mentioned” (p. 292).
Mr. Withrow’s observations suggest one or two additional remarks. First, he calls St. Peter “the leader of the new Israel of God,” but he omits to mention from whom he borrows this title or description of the apostle. They are the words of Prudentius, the Christian poet of the fifth century, who thus becomes an additional witness to the truth which we have been insisting upon—that the position of St. Peter under the New Law was analogous to that of Moses under the Old. Prudentius was in the habit of frequenting the Catacombs for devotional purposes, and he has left us a description of them. Perhaps in the line which we have quoted he was but giving poetical expression to a fact or doctrine which he had seen often represented in symbols and on monuments.
But, secondly, Mr. Withrow speaks of the rod in the hands of Moses as “the emblem of divine power.” And here it should be mentioned
that this rod is never seen on ancient monuments of Christian art, except in the hands of these three: Christ, Moses, and Peter—or should we not now rather say of two only, Christ and St. Peter?—and that these two hardly ever appear without it. Either in painted or sculptured representations of our Lord’s miracles he usually holds a rod in his hands as the instrument whereby he wrought them. Whether he is changing the water into wine, or multiplying the loaves and fishes, or raising Lazarus from the dead, it is not his own divine hand that touches the chosen objects of the merciful exercise of his power, but he touches them all with a rod. Even when he is represented not in his human form, but symbolically as a lamb—e.g., in the spandrels of the tomb of Junius Bassus, A.D. 359—the rod is still placed between the forefeet of the mystical animal, its other end resting on the rock, the water-pots, or the baskets. In one of the sarcophagi, belonging probably to the year 410 or thereabouts, we almost seem to assist at the transfer of this emblem of power from Christ to his Vicar. In the series of miracles in the upper half of the sarcophagus to which we refer it appears three times in the hand of Christ; in the lower series it occurs the same number of times in the hand of Peter. In the last of these instances, indeed, it may be said that it was necessary, as it was the scene of striking the rock; but in the other two it can hardly be understood in any other sense than as an emblem, and, if an emblem at all, we suppose all would admit that it can only be an emblem of power and authority. In the first of these two scenes we are reminded, by the cock at his feet, that our Lord is warning his apostle of his threefold denial, whilst we are
assured by the rod in the apostle’s hand that his fall would not deprive him of his prerogative, but that after his conversion it would be his mission to “confirm the brethren.” In the second scene the firmness of faith foretold or promised in the first is put to the test by persecution, which began from his first apprehension by the Jews and still continues, yet the rod or staff remains in his hands, no human malice having power to wrest either from himself or his successors that authority over the new Israel which he had received from his divine Master.
We are told that there was an ancient Eastern tradition that the rod of Moses, the ministerial instrument of his great miracles, had originally belonged to the patriarch Jacob, from whom it was inherited by his son Joseph; that upon Joseph’s death it was taken to Pharao’s palace, and thence was in due time given by the daughter of Pharao to her adopted son, Moses. Moreover, the same author mentions that in like manner when our Lord said the words, “Feed my lambs, feed my sheep,” he gave to Peter a staff significative of his pastoral authority over the whole flock; and that “hence has arisen the custom for all religious heads of churches and monasteries to carry a staff as a sign of their leadership of the people.” We do not in any way vouch for the authenticity, or even the antiquity, of this tradition. The only authority we have found for it does not go further back than the first years of the fifteenth century; but it aptly expresses the same truth which (we maintain) was clearly present to the minds both of Christian writers and Christian artists in the early ages of the church. We have seen
how it was illustrated by symbol in the monuments of the Catacombs; we have heard the language of Prudentius, calling St. Peter the leader of the new Israel; to these we must add the testimony of an Eastern solitary, the Egyptian St. Macarius, who lived some fifty years earlier, and who states the same thing more distinctly, saying that “Moses was succeeded by Peter,” and that “to him [St. Peter] was committed the new church and the new priesthood.”
We are far, however, from having done justice to the idea as it existed in the mind of the ancient church, if we separate the notion of Peter being a second Moses from that particular act in the life of the Jewish leader which we have seen specially attributed to the apostle—viz., the striking of the rock; and in our interpretation of this act we must be careful to take into account all that the ancient Fathers understood by it. Let us listen to the commentary upon it preached in a public sermon somewhere about the middle of the fifth century. Speaking in Turin on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, St. Maximus uses these words:
“This is Peter, to whom Christ the Lord of his free will granted a share in his own name; for, as the Apostle Paul has taught us, Christ was the rock; and so Peter too was by Christ made a rock, the Lord saying to him: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.’ For as water flowed from a rock to the Lord’s people thirsting in the wilderness, so did the fountain of a life-giving confession come forth from the mouth of Peter to the whole world wearied with the thirst of unbelief. This is Peter, to whom Christ, when about to ascend to his Father, commends his lambs and sheep to be fed and guarded.”
The doctrine which is here taught is plain and undeniable. Allusion
is clearly made to a twofold idea: first, Christ in his own nature is the shepherd of the sheep, and the rock whence flows the fount of living water in the desert; but by an act of his own sovereign will, by his own special appointment, when about to leave the world, he assigns the office of chief shepherd to Peter, and he communicates to Peter a share in his own attributes, so that he too from henceforth becomes a rock whereon the church is built, and from him flows the fount of heavenly doctrine and life-giving faith which was first revealed to him by the Father, and then by him proclaimed and preached throughout the whole dry desert of the world.
Did this thought originate with the Bishop of Turin? Was it a conceit of his own fancy, the fruit of a lively imagination? Or are his words only a link in the chain of ancient tradition, handing on to others the same truth which he had himself received from his forefathers?
One thing is certain: that the pope was preaching the very same thing in Rome about the same time. Each year, as the feast of SS. Peter and Paul—which was also the anniversary of his own consecration—came round, Pope Leo exhorted the bishops and others who heard him to lift up their minds and hearts, to consider the glory of the Prince of the Apostles, who was inundated (he said) by such copious irrigations from the fount of all graces that whereas there were many which he alone received, none passed to anybody else without his having a share in them. “The divine condescension,” he says again, “gave to this man a great and wonderful participation in his own power, so that, though he chose that some things should be common to him with the other
apostles, yet he never gave except through him what he did not withhold from the rest”; and then he goes on to interpret the words of Christ to Peter in this manner; he says: “The formation of the universal church at its birth took its beginning from the honor of Blessed Peter, in whose person its rule and its sum consist; for from his fountain the stream of ecclesiastical discipline flowed forth into all churches.” Twenty years earlier Pope Innocent praises an African council for having referred some question to Rome, “knowing what is due to the Apostolic See, since all we who occupy this place desire to follow the apostle himself, from whom the very episcopate and all the authority of this title spring; that nothing, even in the most distant parts of the world, should be determined before it was brought to the knowledge of this see; … that so all waters should flow from their parent source and the pure streams of the fountain should well forth uncorrupted throughout the different regions of the whole world.”
It may be said, perhaps, that these are mere figures of speech and rhetorical illustrations, and that there is no proof that the writers intended any reference whatever to the miraculous stream from the rock in the desert.
We cannot, in reply to this question, undertake to trace back an unbroken catena of authorities, from the fifth century to the first, clearly expressing the same idea; but we can say with truth that it is continually recurring in all writings which have occasion to speak of the unity of the church, especially in the controversies of the third century against the Novatians; that the types of the rock and the fount, symbols of the origin and unity of
the faith, of baptism, and of the church, seem then to have been inseparable in the minds of writers and preachers from the mention of St. Peter, on whom Christ had founded that origin and that unity; that those who impugned the validity of baptism administered by heretics considered that they urged an irrefragable argument against their adversaries as often as they invoked the prerogative of Peter and the undoubted unity of the rock whence alone all pure waters flowed; finally, that the earliest writer in whom we find the waters of baptism spoken of as flowing from the rock (Tertullian) was a frequent visitor at Rome about the very time when some of the most remarkable paintings in which they are so represented—those in the so-called sacramental chapels in the Catacomb of San Callisto—were being executed; i.e., at the very commencement of the third century.
We conclude, then, that the paintings and other monuments of ancient Christian art belonging to the Catacombs, when placed side by side with the language of contemporaneous and succeeding Christian writers, mutually explain and confirm one another; and that it is impossible not to recognize in the perfect agreement of these important witnesses the faithful echo of a primitive tradition—to wit, that to St. Peter was given the authority to draw forth the true living waters of sacramental grace from the Rock of ages, and to distribute them throughout the whole church.
There is yet one more incident in the life of Moses which ancient Christian art has reproduced, and with a distinct reference to St. Peter—viz., the receiving of the law from the hand of God. This is a subject very commonly repeated
on the sarcophagi of the fourth and fifth centuries, but there is not, so far as we know, any emblem attached to these sculptured representations which obliges us to refer them to the apostle. Other monuments, however, of the same or an earlier date, supply what is wanting. We find both paintings and ancient gilded glasses in which St. Peter receives from our Lord either a roll or volume, or sometimes (as if to make the resemblance more striking) a mere tablet with the inscription Lex Domini, or Dominus legem dat. Now, in pagan works of art the emperors were sometimes represented in the act of giving the book of the laws or constitutions to those officials whom they sent forth to govern the provinces, and the magistrates receive the book, for greater reverence, not in their bare hands, but in a fold of their toga. Compare with this a Christian sarcophagus, belonging to an early part of the fourth century, and published by Bosio. In it we see Christ, already ascended and triumphant, having the firmament under his feet, giving the book of the New Law to Peter, who in like manner has his hands covered with a veil, that he may receive it with due reverence. It is as though Christ were visibly appointing him his Vicar and representative upon earth, and making him the expounder and administrator of his law. And the same scene is represented, without any essential alteration, in a number of monuments of various kinds, frescoes, sculpture, glasses, and mosaics. By and bye, in some artists’ hands, it lost something of its precise original signification; at least, in two of the later monuments (one of them undoubtedly by a Greek artist) it is St. Paul who receives the law, instead of St.
Peter. But then there is, of course, a certain sense in which this might be as truly predicated of St. Paul, or of any other member of the Apostolic College as of St. Peter himself. Sometimes, also, all the apostles appear together with St. Peter when he receives the law—only he receives the volume opened; they stand each holding a closed roll in his hand. In some monuments, as in the mosaic of Sta. Costanza, the legend is Dominus dat pacem instead of legem. This, however, is hardly an essential difference. It is only through his law that Christ gives peace, and peace or unity of the church is a primary dogma of his law. Hence this interchange of the two words: the substitution of one for the other, or occasionally even their union, as on the cover of a Book of the Gospels at Milan, which is inscribed Lex et pax.
But it is time to draw this paper to a close. Let it be remembered that it is not an attempt to prove the papal supremacy by means of inscriptions or other monuments from the Catacombs, but an answer to an oft-repeated challenge upon
one point at least which lies at the root of that subject; and incidentally it throws light upon some other points also, more or less closely connected with it. And we claim to have established against these controversialists that there is evidence to be gathered from these subterranean cemeteries; that those who made and decorated them were conscious of a special pre-eminence belonging to St. Peter over the rest of the apostolic body; that they knew him to be in a certain singular manner the representative of his divine Master, whose rod of power or staff of rule he alone was privileged to bear; that it was his prerogative to be the head of the Christian church, its leader and its teacher, having received the law from the hands of Christ, and the commission to feed and govern his flock; that he had the special guardianship of the fountain and river of living waters, only to be found within the church, and special authority to draw them forth and distribute them throughout every region of the thirsty world.
[139] “Testimony of the Catacombs to Prayers for the Dead and the Invocation of Saints,” The Catholic World, Dec., 1876.
[140] R. S., ii. 307.
[141] Inscr. Christian., i. 80, 100.
[142] C. xxxv. 4-7.