PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.
X.
THE STATE OF PROBATION—IT'S REASON AND NATURE—THE TRIAL OF THE ANGELS.
In our preceding number we have endeavored to show what is that order of regeneration or supernatural grace, in which rational nature, and through it all nature, attains the end of creation metaphysically final. The position we have taken is, that the creation returns to God as final cause through the hypostatic union of created nature with the divine nature in the person of the incarnate Word, and the participation in this union by angels and men who are elevated through grace to the rank of sons of God.
We have now another problem to deal with. The Catholic doctrine teaches that angels and men are not brought to their destined end, in view of which they were created, by an immediate, indefectible operation of divine power alone; but by a concurrence of this divine operation with the spontaneous, contingent, and defectible operation of their own free-will. Moreover, that in consequence of the contingent, defectible operation of the second cause which is concurrent with the first cause, a multitude of angels and men finally and irremediably fail to reach their destination.
This statement of the relation of the rational creature to God as final cause, involves a number of the most difficult and perplexing questions. The reason for placing creatures in a state of probation by which their eternal destiny is decided, the relation of divine foreknowledge to contingent events, the conciliation of the efficacy of grace with the liberty of the will, the nature of free-will itself, the reason for permitting the existence of evil, predestination, and similar vexed questions, start up at once to trouble and compound the feeble human intellect.
They are all summed up in the problem of probation. The creature is placed in a state where he is to decide in a certain brief span of time, by his own voluntary choice, his eternal destiny; this destiny including the alternative of the attainment or the forfeiture of supreme beatitude. What reason can be given for this? Why is the rational creature defectible or liable to fail of reaching his destination? Why does God place him in a state of probation, knowing his defectibility? Why is it that some fail and others do not fail to attain their destination?
A de-Christianised and de-Catholicised philosophy cannot get even a plausible solution of this great problem, and the problems arising out of it. It must either deny the problem, or throw out some ingenious guesses which satisfy no one. It is wholly at fault, always has been, and always will be. With those who deny the whole problem, by denying the whole supernatural order, we have nothing to do at present; for we cannot raise anew questions already discussed. We are concerned only with those who would admit the moral order of the universe; and these admit the existence of a period of probation, although some of them may extend the limits of this probation indefinitely, and doubt or deny some of its consequences.
The very notion of probation springs from the notion of a free will, permitted and even compelled to choose between good and evil. Now, why is the created will permitted and even compelled to exercise this prerogative which is too often the occasion of the greatest injury to its possessor?
A certain class of philosophers answer this question by asserting that it could not possibly be otherwise. They exaggerate beyond all measure this liberty of choice as something essential to all voluntary operation. They have no conception of any moral goodness, virtue, or sanctity, except that which is the product of this continual striving to make a right choice between two rival objects of desire, the good and evil. They even extend their notion so far as to include God; as if he were in a kind of infinite state of moral probation, amenable to a standard or law above himself, and only preserving his holiness by a continual effort of will to choose among various possible determinations that which is most perfectly conformed to this standard. Of course, then, when he created intelligent spirits like himself, he was obliged to leave them to their liberty of choice. They could not become holy or happy in any other way. Indeed, according to this system, they must remain in this state of moral probation for ever. There is no conceivable way of determining them to good without destroying the liberty of will which is essential to a rational nature. The only immutability of will possible is that which arises from a confirmed, long-continued habit of choice. Therefore God has not absolutely determined the wills of his rational creatures to good, because he could not. He has left them with the power and exposed to the risks of wrong choices because he could not help it.
This solution of the problem must be rejected as completely unsatisfactory. God is good, and is blessed, by his nature. The human nature of Christ is holy, impeccable, and beatified, by its hypostatic union with the divine nature. The Blessed Virgin was impeccable from the instant of her immaculate conception. The holy angels and just men made perfect have finished their moral probation, and are in an unchangeable state. The perfection of the intelligent nature, therefore, so far from implying, excludes liberty of choice between good an evil. If this be so, this liberty of choice is an imperfection. Why, therefore, did God create rational existences with this imperfection? Without doubt he could have given them impeccability. He could have elevated them to a state of perfection without requiring them to pass through any probation. He could have placed all rational creatures at once in the state of beatitude, and kept all sin an evil out of the universe. Why, then, is evil allowed to enter?
Moreover, whence and what is evil? How is it possible that there should be any evil? Extrinsic to the being of God which is the absolute good, nothing does or can exist, except that which God has created after the similitude of his own being, and which, therefore, participates according to its measure in his goodness. Besides, God has created all things in view of an end. Being infinitely wise, he [{291}] knows how to attain this end through his works, and being infinitely powerful, he is able to do it. Being also infinitely good, only good can terminate is volition. Therefore, if evil were possible, he could not will to actualize it; and if, by an impossible supposition, it could come into actual existence without him, he must will to destroy it. The superficial theology and philosophy which dates from the Reformation, is tied up here in a Gordian knot, which no skill can unravel. It contains two dogmas which are absolute contradictions: creation, and the substantive essence of evil. These two can never coexist in harmony. One or the other must be modified or given up. Either the dogma of creation must be so far given up as to admit of some eternal self-existent materia in which lies the essential principle of evil, or the substantive existence of evil must be denied. Those who deny or impair the first, have ceased to be Theists in the strict and proper sense of the word, and are already moving toward Pantheism. Those who deny the second, throw up with it the conception of a moral order in the universe, of a state of probation, strictly so called. There is no Theistic, Christian philosophy of any depth or comprehensiveness on these topics, except that which is included in the theology of St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and other great Catholic writers.
It is well known how completely the ancient philosophers were befogged in regard to the nature and origin of evil. Plato taught that the materia out of which God formed the universe is eternal, and that, from an inherent intractability in its essence, it is incapable able of perfectly receiving the of the divine ideas. The constructor of the universe was, therefore, hindered from realizing his ideal and fully executing his design by the defectiveness of his material. He was like an architect who has only soft, crumbling stone, or a sculptor with veined marble. From this source, according to Plato, is all the evil existing in the universe.
The Persians, whose great master was Zoroaster, resorted to the theory of two subordinate creators, both the offspring of the Supreme Being, one Ormusd, being good, and the other Ahriman, being evil. All that is good in the creation comes from the first, and all the evil from the second of these great master-mechanics. Ahriman is destined, however, to be eventually converted, with all his liege subjects, his botched workmanship will be repaired, and the universe will come all right in the end. This ingenious theory left out, however, one essential point; namely, how Ahriman came to have an evil nature, since he was created by the good God as well as Ormusd, and how he and his works could become good, if they were essentially evil.
Manes and the Manichaeans carried their dualism to a point of more complete consistency, and more absolute absurdity. They taught the existence of two eternal, self-existing principles, one good, the other bad, who are engaged in perpetual warfare. Spiritual existences proceed from the good principle, corporeal existences from the evil one. Human souls, having been in some way allured into corporeal forms, are polluted by them and involved in evil. It is necessary for the soul to disengage itself from matter, and it will then be fit to return to the supremely good being from whom it proceeded.
Any system which teaches that evil has anything essential or substantive, must give up the pure dogma of creation. For it is inconsistent with that dogma to suppose that God can create anything essentially evil, or that any creature can create anything, or that any substance essentially good can become essentially evil by corruption; since corruption produces no new substance, but modifies substance already existing.
Whence, then, and what is evil? What can there be as an alternative of good before the intelligence and will of a rational creature to form the material for a dilemma, and oblige him to exercise a faculty of choice? Where is the substratum of a state of probation?
Metaphysical evil, or that evil which is included in the metaphysical essence of all created things, is merely the limitation of their possible good. Simple being, ens simpliciter, is alone the absolute good in possibility and in act. Jesus Christ has said, "There is one good, God." [Footnote 62] In actual existences, evil is merely a recession from God. It is only relative, and negative, therefore, and expresses the absence of that good which exists in some other creature, or in God. In created existences, good is relative and positive, and evil, or the absence of good, is relative and privative. It is a mere deficiency, but nothing substantive, any more than darkness, cold, or vacuity are substantive.
[Footnote 62: St. Matt. xix. 17.]
If we can suppose, therefore, a certain good proposed to a rational creature as attainable by his free volition, with a power to the contrary, we have the necessary conditions of a state of moral probation. That is, the possibility is proved of a certain good being made contingent on the voluntary choice of rational creatures; and with it, the possibility of this good being forfeited by the deficiency of this choice. This answers the question whence and what is the possibility of evil as the concomitant risk annexed to a state of probation. It is only necessary, therefore, to show that we can make this supposition, by explaining how the will can be constituted in an equilibrium between this proffered good and some other object, with complete liberty to incline itself to either.
That other object cannot be an essentially evil object, for there is no such thing in existence. It must be, then, an inferior good. In the state of probation the will is inclined to all kinds of good indifferently, and capable of choosing any which the intellect judges to be best or most desirable. It is capable of making a false choice, because the intellect is capable of making a false judgment. Intelligent spirit has self-dominion where it is not determined by intrinsic necessity. It is lord over its own acts. It can determine its own judgments and volitions. And this makes it a proper subject of precept and moral obligation, capable of being placed in a state of probation.
It may appear very difficult to understand how this can be, but our own consciousness and practical experience give us an intimate sense of it's truth. Let us take, then, a familiar example in illustration.
A child is capable of appreciating the good of delicious fruit, the good of approbation and reward, the good of play and amusement, and the good of knowledge. His parents allow him to eat peaches under certain restrictions, and forbid him to eat them without their permission. They allow him to play at certain times and under certain conditions, and forbid him all other amusement and recitation. They require him to devote a certain time to study, and to apply himself to this study with diligence. It is plain that the will of the child is in equilibrium toward all the various kinds of good in respect to which he receives precepts from his parents, and is thus placed in a state of probation, the issue of which is in great measure left to the arbitration of his own free choice. He can determine himself to obey his parents for the sake of their approbation and rewards, or to disobey them for the sake of eating forbidden fruit. He can determine himself to study for the sake of knowledge, or to neglect it for the sake of play. When he determines himself to the inferior, sensible good, he does so by a false judgment, that in the particular instance the present sensible enjoyment is best for him for most desirable. Yet he has power to the contrary, and both can and ought to make a right judgment. He is determined to neither side by any [{293}] necessity, but determines himself and destroys the equilibrium of his will by a free choice, by virtue of his self-dominion. The necessity of exercising this self-dominion proceeds from imperfection of nature. It is easily conceivable that his nature, if it were rendered more perfect, would determine him always to prefer the approbation of parents, and of his own conscience, of the pleasure of eating fruit, and the pleasure of knowledge to that of play.
This illustrates our present point, and shows how the imperfection of an intelligent creature, which makes him capable of false judgments in regard to the eligibility of different objects of volition, renders him a fit subject of probation.
But why is he created in this imperfect state, and obliged to run the risks of a difficult and dangerous probation? It is evident that God might easily pour such a flood of light upon his intelligence that he would be incapable of making a false judgment, and communicate to him such a degree of felicity in the enjoyment of the true good, that his will would be rapt away without effort beyond all possibility of attraction from any inferior objects. He might communicate the beatific vision simultaneously with the first act of reason, as the does to those infants who are translated to heaven in their infancy. Thus he might secure the eternal beatitude of all intelligent creatures without placing any of them in probation.
It is evident that God must have a reason for establishing a state of probation, and that this reason must involve some great good to be attained by it. This reason is, also, in part intelligible to us. So far as we can understand it, it is, that God and the creature are more glorified through the elevation of created nature to supernatural beatitude, when the created nature concurs with God as First Cause, by its own activity, as Second con-creative cause, in the highest manner possible. It is the will of God that beatitude should be the prize of merit, and merit implies liberty of choice. Supernatural beatitude is a pure boon from God to the creature, not due to him as simply existing. Therefore, God may bestow it on whom he pleases, and upon any conditions he pleases to establish. As probation implies imperfection, and the creature is created for his proper perfection, when he attains it probation must cease. The period of probation must therefore be limited. It must be also a real, bonâ fide probation; that is, the attainment of beatitude must really depend on the right use of the term of probation. Consequently, when the term of probation has expired, those who have failed in it must be left to the eternal consequences of their own voluntary error. That species of virtue which makes an intelligent creature capable of attaining supernatural beatitude is itself supernatural, and therefore impossible without divine grace. When this grace is lost, there is no natural power to regain it. Sin is therefore in itself irreparable. It can be repaired only by a second supernatural grace. If this grace is not conceded, there is no second probation, but the sinner must remain perpetually in that state to which his sin has reduced him. If this grace is conceded, and the limits of probation are extended, those who fail finally and pass out of the fixed period of probation must also remain perpetually in that state to which they have reduced themselves by their own free and voluntary election.
Another great difficulty here presents itself, namely: it appears that the fulfilment of the divine purpose is left to the contingencies of second causes, and at the mercy of the arbitrary wills of creatures. God appears to be like one who makes his plans in the dark, without being able to know what their success will be, or to take efficacious measures for securing their success. For how can he foresee future events that are purely contingent on the free choice of created wills? How can he predetermine an end, to be infallibly accomplished, when this accomplishment is contingent on the free arbitration of the creature? [{294}] The Catholic doctrine teaches that a multitude of angels and men destined to supernatural beatitude finally fail of their destination. Does not this failure partially thwart the divine plan, mar his work, and deprive his universe of its perfection? Although the divine plan has a partial success, through the concurrence of a certain number of angels and men with the divine will, is not this success even due to hap-hazard? Must we not suppose that the divine plan ran the risk of a complete failure, so far as the co-operation of free-will is concerned?
It is evident that these suppositions are all incompatible with the essential attributes of God. He must necessarily have a perfect foreknowledge of all things that will ever come to pass. He must also have supreme dominion over his entire creation, and be able to accomplish all his purposes without any liability to be thwarted by his own creatures. He must have decreed from eternity whatsoever he does in time through his creative act.
Therefore some, overwhelmed by the difficulties which encompass the doctrine of the freedom of the created will, in its relation to the divine, have adopted the part denying it altogether. The denial of free-will, however, makes the state of probation, and the entire moral order of the universe, with its retributions, completely illusory and fantastic. It is a denial of a fact of universal human consciousness. Whoever makes it ought to become a pantheist at once, and maintain that all individual existences are mere emanations of the divine substance.
The Catholic doctrine distinctly proclaims both the divine foreknowledge and decrees, and also the liberty of choice in the created intelligent nature. A Catholic theologian, therefore, cannot dispose of the difficulty in the case, by summarily denying either side of the dogmatic truth. St. Thomas Aquinas, with those who follow his school strictly, endeavors to resolve the difficulty by the hypothesis of a physical premotion of the will, or an efficacious grace, which has an infallible connection with a right choice, but yet leaves the will to make this choice freely and with power to the contrary. God has therefore predestined, by an infallible decree, all those to whom he gives this efficacious grace, to the attainment of beatitude. His foreknowledge is also explained as the knowledge of his own determination through which all events, even contingent, are made certain.
This system has a certain hypothetical finish and completeness about it, and it appears to vindicate the supreme dominion of God over all contingent existences, second causes, and events taking place in time, more effectually than any other. It fails, however, to reconcile with the attributes of God the freedom of the created will and the state of probation. For, according to this system, the will, although in equilibrium, and intrinsically capable of motion to either side, cannot put itself out of equilibrium by its own self-determining power, but needs a previous, efficacious concurrence of the divine will, in order to pass from the potentiality of choice to the act of choice. All acts of the created will are, therefore, determined by the will of God as efficient cause. If this is consistent with the liberty which is necessary to the created will, that it may be second and con-creative cause in concurrence with the first cause to the effect of its own beatitude, God could infallibly determine all rational creatures to beatitude without infringing on their liberty. The creature could evolve into act all its causative activity, free-will could receive its fullest scope, the principle of merit and reward could be fully exemplified in the universe, without risking the eternal destiny of a single individual, or permitting even the smallest sin to be committed. It become very difficult, then, on this hypothesis, to explain the permission of sin, and the eternal loss of so many millions of rational creatures. The reason usually given, that sin is an evil incidentally necessary to a system of probation, [{295}] permitted on account of the greater good attained through the probation of free-will, falls to the ground, and we have never yet seen any other satisfactory reason substituted for it.
It may be true that, without this hypothesis, the foreknowledge of God and his supreme dominion over his creation are more incomprehensible. This is no decisive argument, however, provided that these divine attributes can be shown to be intelligible without thus said hypothesis.
First, in regard to the divine foreknowledge, it is argued that God cannot foresee that which is purely dependent on the created will, unless there is some cause or ground of certainty that there will shall actually place the effect which is foreseen. This cause or ground of certainty can only be the divine determination to concur efficaciously with the will, that it may infallibly place the foreseen act.
To this it is replied, that God foresees all contingent, future events, by a kind of knowledge called the super-comprehension of cause. Knowing completely all causes, he knows all there effects in them. This does not explain, however, his knowledge of the self-determining acts of the will, since in these the same cause is in equilibrium to opposite effects. It is better explained, we think, by the theory of Suarez, that God sees all things in their objective verity. He knows with certainty all that depends on the self-determining action of free-will, because he directly beholds the free-will determining itself. There is no succession in God. He coexists from eternity and in eternity to all the successive periods of created duration. What we call future is equally visible to God in eternity with the past. There is no more difficulty, therefore, in his knowing from all eternity all future contingent events, than there is in our knowing anyone of these events in the time of its taking place, or after it has happened.
But, it is further argued, if God knows the acts of his creatures by an immediate vision of them in their objective verity, he is perfected by the creature, which is incompatible with his essence. God is the adequate object of his own intelligence; therefore he knows all things in himself.
God is the adequate and sole object of his own intelligence in the act of simple intelligence in which his essential being in the Three Persons is constituted. Created existences are not included in this act, and the knowledge of them is not perfective of the being of God. God knows them in himself by the knowledge of vision, scientia visionis, and sees them in himself as in a mirror. This perfection of vision, by which God sees and knows all things which exist, is a perfection proceeding from his infinite intelligence, not given to him by the creature. The creature is its terminus, but the changes of the terminus affect itself alone, and do not make the essential attribute of God less immutable or infinite. The same objection might be made to the statement, that created existences are the terminus of the divine volition or love. The essential act of volition or love is completed in the act of God ad intra, or his infinite love of himself. Yet God loves the creature, delights in the love of the creature, wills the beatitude of the creature. That he may do this, the existence of the creature as the terminus of his volition is necessary as the conditio sine quâ non. It might be said, then, that the existence of the creature, and his act in loving God, is perfective of God. It is not. For it is altogether distinct from that which is the terminus of the divine act of love, in which the perfection of the being of God is constituted, viz.: from the essence of God itself. God has the plenitude of love in himself, and it remains the same whether more or fewer created existences are its recipients. So the infinite power of vision in God is the same, whether more or fewer created existences or acts of existing agents come within its scope. There is no objection, therefore, to the theory [{296}] respecting the science of God, which maintains that he knows all future contingents which depend entirely on his divine decree in that decree, all that depend on second causes determined of necessity to produce certain effects in his supercomprehension of cause, and all that depend on free-will in his foresight of the self-determination of free-will. The whole incomprehensibility of this foreknowledge is reduced to an identity with the essential incomprehensibility of God, as eternal and as coexisting to all the successive periods of time.
Secondly, as regards the divine supremacy over creation, and the ability of the Sovereign Creative Spirit to bring the universe to an end predetermined by himself.
It is argued, that if we reject the Thomist hypothesis, we reduce everything to the hap-hazard of capricious, eccentric, lawless free-will, which makes it impossible to suppose any plan regularly and infallibly carried out through the medium of second causes, in the universe.
This is not so. Free-will is not mere lawless caprice, directed by mere accident. It is directed by intelligence, and acts according to the law of motives. It must choose the good, and can never choose that which is evil, ratione mali. Since, by a law of its probation, the real chief good and the apparent chief good are presented before it in such a way as to leave it in equilibrium toward both, without any dominant or necessitating motive toward either, it makes the motive on one side preponderant by its exercise of self-dominion. This is not by chance or caprice. It is by the exercise of intellect, and through the impulse of powerful motives. Its circle of variability is restricted, and its determination is capable of being influenced by intellectual and moral considerations. It is perfectly evident that a man, even without the slightest power of exercising any determining influence on the wills of other men, can nevertheless, without infringing on their perfect liberty, reason them into a co-operation with himself in carrying out a plan, or persuade them into it by proving its advantages before them. Much more, then, is God able to bring a sufficient number of angels and men to a voluntary co-operation with himself to secure the success of his great design. It is in this way that God manifests his infinite wisdom and divine art, by arranging all things with such consummate and complex skill and harmony, and directing all things from end to end by such a wise far-reaching Providence, that he is able to bring out in the end the desired result, through the concurrence of free, con-creative second causes. It may be said that, since all angels were free to reject the beatitude proffered to them, God, in creating them and giving them this freedom, exposed his plan to the risk of being completely thwarted by their unanimous refusal to comply with the terms of their probation. The same might also be said of mankind.
We must understand, however, that, although Almighty God does not deliberate, change, modify, watch for results, make experiments, profit by experience, devise new expedients, like a man of creative genius, and although his creative art is one, simple, and from eternity, yet it includes in itself in an eminent mode all these operations of the finite intelligence. If by an impossible supposition, God had delegated creative wisdom and powered to a created spirit, such as Arians fancied the Logos, and others the Demiurgus, to be; and this mighty intelligence had proceeded to execute his task in the same manner, but on a grander scale, that men execute great undertakings, and we should endeavor to describe the way in which he accomplished his work, we should have a correct though imperfect representation of the actual operation of Almighty God in the execution of his works ad extra. The conceptions we are able to form of the operation of God are all analogical. We cannot transcend [{297}] these analogies. And although we know them to be imperfect and inadequate, yet we know also that they have all the verisimilitude necessary to give us true conceptions. In this way we understand that God knew all the risks to which his plan was exposed, and made provision for them. Wherever it was necessary, he protected his designs from the risk of failure through the non-concurrencc of second causes. For instance, having determined to create a heaven containing a multitude of beatified spirits, and foreseeing that a certain number of those who were destined to this high position would forfeit it by sin, he took this into the account in determining the number to be created, and the conditions of the trial through which they were to pass. A profound theologian, who was of the strict Thomist school, the late Bishop of Philadelphia, expressed to the author on one occasion the opinion, that only the lower orders of angels were made liable to sin. He thought that the higher orders received a grace incompatible with sin, though not with merit, and that Lucifer was therefore the chief, not of the Seraphim, but of the Archangels. On this supposition, the risk of sin was confined within narrow limits, so far as the angels were concerned. Whether this be a well-grounded hypothesis or not, it is evident that these pure and exalted spirits, possessing the highest natural intelligence, being impelled to good by their nature, having received the gift of supernatural grace, and having the prospect of a still greater glory before them, were very likely, speaking after a human mode of thought, to make the requisite act of concurrence with the divine will and thus secure their confirmation in grace. In other words, there appears to be an à priori probability that at least a great number of them would do so. We know that, in point of fact, a great number of them did, and, according to the common opinion, much the largest portion of the whole number who were tried.
Now, this to us apparent probability was a certainty to God, as clearly known before as after the fact. In view of this certainty he created them and placed them in the state of probation. He foreknew, also, how many would fail, and therefore, if his purposes required it, could easily create such a multitude that the angels who fell would not be missed from their ranks. Those who fell did indeed thwart the benevolent designs of God, so far as their own particular persons were concerned. But these designs were conditional, as respecting individuals, and were made in full view of the actual event. God could not be thwarted or disappointed in regard to his grand design, because this did not depend on any particular individuals.
So in regard to men. Jesus Christ as man, and the Blessed Virgin, on whom the fulfilment of the divine plan absolutely depended, were absolutely predestined, and rendered impeccable; Jesus Christ by nature, and the Blessed Virgin by grace. If any other particular individuals were placed in a position which required it, they too received a grace which gave them immunity from any liability to fail in their necessary concurrence with the divine will as second causes. A vast multitude of human beings are elevated to beatitude without running any of the risks of probation. Adam, it is true, was able to thwart the first design of God in regard to the mode of bringing the race to its destination. But he could not thwart God's ultimate design, because he was able to accomplish it by another mode. Particular men, in vast numbers, are able to thwart the designs of God toward themselves. But they cannot thwart his designs toward the race. For he is able to regulate and order times, events, and circumstances, and to continue creating generation after generation, until, by moral means alone, he has completed the number of his saints and peopled heaven sufficiently to fulfil his purpose. Moreover, if necessary, he can always [{298}] touch the springs of the will directly, and determine it to any act which he has positively decreed must be performed. He can also modify, restrict, alleviate, set aside, or shorten the risks of probation, according to his own good pleasure, in regard to any or all of men, with an infinite and infallible wisdom.
But it is again argued, that according to this view, God is not the absolute cause of all things, nor the absolute sovereign over all things. The created will has an independent sovereignty of its own, and God is dependent in certain things on his creatures, obliged to modify his plans and to condition his decrees to suit their determinations.
This is not a conclusive argument. It is a maxim of philosophy, that causa causae est causa causati; the cause of a cause is the cause of that which is caused; i.e., caused by this second cause. God is the creator of free-will, and his perpetual influx gives it always the power of choosing and acting. Free-will is not, therefore, an independent, but a delegated and dependent sovereign. God can deprive it of the opportunity of choosing, or frustrate its determinations. It is sovereign within a limited sphere, because God has chosen to create it and give it sovereignty.
If God is absolute sovereign, can he not concede to a creature the power to do his own will within a certain sphere, if it [is] his sovereign pleasure to do so? Can he not determine to do certain things on the condition that the creature uses his free-will in a certain way, if he pleases? He has pleased to do it. He has made his eternal decrees with a full view of all that his creatures would do before him. All the incidental and partial evil resulting from the misuse of free-will in the universe he has foreseen, and determined to permit. He has decided on his great plan, notwithstanding the incidental evil, in view of a greater universal good. Not that sin and evil are necessary means of the greatest good, or directly conduce to a greater good than that which could exist in a universe without sin; but that the concession of the liberty on a grand scale, the particular and incidental misuse of which occasions sin and evil, is the necessary means to that greater good. The greater good itself is the obedience, homage, love, service, and fidelity given to God by a multitude of creatures who have been left free to sin, and who have not sinned, or not sinned irremediably and finally.
We conclude, therefore, pace tantorum virorum who have maintained it, that the theory of the strict Thomists on this point is not conclusively established. To our mind, the theory which is in accordance with the philosophy of the great fathers before St. Thomas, with that of the Scotists in the middle ages, and with that of the most prevalent Catholic schools since the Jansenist controversy, is the more probable one. According to this theory, in a system of strict probation, a physical premotion, or a grace efficacious in se and ab intrinseco is not metaphysically necessary in order that free-will may actually concur with the divine will to secure the permanence of the creature in a supernatural state. Nothing is necessary beyond liberty of choice and the grace which gives power to elicit supernatural acts. When the angels passed through their probation, therefore, we cannot go behind the exercise of their liberty in choosing or rejecting the proffered boon of celestial glory, to seek a deeper cause, determining some to choose and not determining others. They were free to choose; and being free, some shows wisely and well, others foolishly and ill. So, also, with Adam. He might have stood, but he did not. He had the power to choose, and he chose wrongly. By the very same power he might have chosen rightly, without any additional Grace, The arbitrium mentis, the exercise of free self-dominion, is the only reason that [{299}] can be given. This prerogative is indeed mysterious and inscrutable. We do not pretend to have removed all difficulty of comprehending it. But it is incomprehensible to us in our present state of imperfect intelligence, because the soul itself is an inscrutable mystery. Its relation to the divine will and operation is a mystery full of inexplicable difficulties. But it is because of that ground mystery of mysteries, the coexistence of God and the creation, which was the insoluble enigma of all ancient philosophy. The great Aristotle saw the difficulty so clearly which is involved in the relation of a contingent world to the necessary being of God, that, unable to find an ideal formula which could unite the two terms by a dialectic relation, he denied all relation between them. He affirmed the existence of God and of the world. But he affirmed also, that the world exists independently of God, as self-existent, eternal, and necessary. Moreover, that God has or can have no knowledge of the world. For, he argued, God can have no knowledge of the world unless the world is the object or terminus of the divine intelligence. But if the world is the object of the divine intelligence, God is not perfect as intelligence in himself alone, but is conditioned and perfected by that which is inferior to his own being. Thus we see that the objection to the divine foreknowledge of the contingent in its objective verity which is found in scholastic theology, is one derived from Aristotle, and that the extremely subtle and acute reasoning of St. Thomas and the Thomists were directed toward a reconciliation of the Aristotelian philosophy with the Catholic dogmas. The difficulty lies in the creative act of God, which is a mystery not fully comprehensible by human reason, and, therefore, not fully to be explained by any hypothesis or theory of philosophy. The activity of free-will as concurrent, con-creative cause with God approaches the nearest of anything in creation to the creative act of God, and, therefore, is the most mysterious and incomprehensible fact of psychology. It is incomprehensible in itself, and it complicates still further the incomprehensibility of the creative act of God. It is not strange, therefore, that there should have been such a long and still unsettled controversy in the Catholic schools respecting this topic, since the church has hitherto abstained from deciding it. Still less can we wonder that non-Catholic schools, having no fixed dogmas or authoritative formulas of doctrine to check the spirit of private speculation, go round and round continually, involving themselves more hopelessly every day in entanglements from which they can never extricate themselves.
The explanation we have endeavored to set forth as the most probable will, we think, commend itself to the minds of most of our readers as the most intelligible and satisfactory which can be given. If a better one can be furnished by some one more competent to the task, we shall welcome it. Meanwhile, we leave what we have written to find what acceptance it may.
It will be seen at once, by those who are at all versed in these matters, that, according to the theory we have proposed, the predestination of those who attain eternal life as the term of a period of probation is consequent on the foresight of their fidelity and merit, at least as a general rule. It does not follow from this, however, that we reject the doctrine of efficacious grace. As this doctrine is immediately connected with the points we have been examining, we will give it a brief consideration now, in order to avoid returning to it hereafter.
In the Thomist theology, efficacious grace means a grace distinct in its own nature from sufficient grace. Sufficient grace gives the power to elicit a supernatural act, efficacious grace gives the act itself. It is therefore efficacious in se and ab intrinseco. [{300}] This notion of efficacious grace is derived from the philosophical notion of the previous and efficacious concurrence of the will of God with every act of free-will, in the exercise of the faculty of choice. According to this philosophy, it is impossible for this faculty, as it is for every second cause in potentia to its proper act, to pass from potentiality into act without a special movement from the first cause.
The contrary hypothesis, sustained by Molina, the great body of the Jesuit theologians, Thomassinus, and the generality of modern Catholic authors, is, that the grace which is auxiliary to the will in eliciting free supernatural acts, is not efficacious ab intrinseco, but is made efficacious by the concurrence of free-will. This implies a different notion of divine concurrence from the one just stated, according to which the influx of divine power into free, spontaneous, active second causes gives merely an aid which is indeterminate, leaving free-will to its own election among two or more terms upon which it can direct this indeterminate aid. When an artilleryman sights his gun, the divine power which supports and gives efficiency to all natural laws and forces must propel the ball. But this divine power stands ready at his disposal, and will propel the ball in whatever direction, toward whatever point, he selects. So it is with the choice of free-will.
We have already indicated our adhesion to this latter hypothesis. It is far more in accordance with the doctrine of the Fathers, Latin as well as Greek, including St. Augustine himself, than the other. The former one was wholly unknown to the Greek Fathers, and does not appear in the Latin Fathers before the Pelagian controversy. Even after this period it appears, in the writings of St. Augustine and others of his school, in an entirely different form from that which was given to it by St. Thomas. That is to say, it is applied to the case of fallen man, who is supposed to need an efficacious grace on account of the weakness of his will, and to receive it as a special gift of mercy through Christ. The perseverance of those angels who stood their trial successfully is attributed, not to a grace efficacious ab intrinseco, which was withheld from the other angels, but to a right use of the same grace which was equally conceded to all, and abused by some. So, also, the fall of Adam is attributed simply to his failure of concurrence with a grace which needed only his concurrence in order to become efficacious, but was frustrated of its effect by his abuse of his own free-will. Moreover, all that St. Augustine says about efficacious grace in fallen man is reconcilable with the doctrine of congruity and sometimes directly favors it, as is proved by Antoine and others who have written in vindication of his theology from Jansenist perversions. This doctrine of congruity has been introduced in order to explain more satisfactorily the perfect liberty of the will, without denying the existence of efficacious grace differing in actu primo, or antecedently to the consent of the will, from grace merely sufficient. Although the opinion that the actual efficacy of divine grace is to the sought exclusively in the consent of the will has not been condemned, it has nevertheless been received with disfavor and generally rejected. It is commonly taught that God confers, whenever he pleases, upon men, a grace which infallibly secures their co-operation, and their final perseverance. In our view, this doctrine can the sustained by ample and certain proofs from Scripture and Tradition, and is the only one which can be completely developed in consonance with the decisions of the church, especially those of the Council of Trent respecting final perseverance. [Footnote 63]
[Footnote 63: Si quis magnum illud usque in finem perseverantiae donum se certo habiturum, absoluta et infallibili certitudine dixerit, etc. A. S.
If any one shall say that he will certainly have that great gift of perseverance to the end, with an absolute and infallible certitude, etc.
Si quis dixerit, justificatum vel sine speciali auxilio Dei, in accepta justisia perseverare posse, vel cum eo non posse. A. S.
If any one shall say that the justified man either can, without a special aid of God, persevere in the justice he has received, or can not persevere with it, let him be under the ban. De Justif. Can. 16-22.]
The reason why certain graces are actually infallible in their effects is to be found in their congruity he to the character, disposition, and circumstances of the subject, and in their multitude. The necessity for them is not a metaphysical but a moral necessity. The fragility of our nature is such, that although a grace merely sufficient makes us metaphysically capable of persevering without sin, we are you sure to become wearied, and through fickleness, weakness of purpose, changeableness, etc., to break down somewhere. Our own consciousness and experience teach us that we need a divine and protecting arm to encompass us continually and secure us against ourselves, and they incline us to utter that prayer of the Divine Liturgy: "Compelle, Domine, rebelles voluntates nostras:" "Compel, O Lord, our rebellious wills." God, who knows human nature perfectly, can, in a thousand ways, by ordering the circumstances of life, shortening or prolonging it, regulating the influences which act on the character, alluring or terrifying the heart, illuminating the mind, impelling without coercing the will, and adapting his influences with infinite wisdom to the special state of the soul, convert whom he will, sanctify whom he will, give perseverance to whom he will, and still gain his point with the free consent and concurrence of the creature. "Non est volentis neque currentis, miserentis est Dei:" "It is not of him who willeth or of him who runneth, but of God who showeth mercy." The difficulty may still be raised, that God withholds these graces of congruity and the gift of perseverance from those who do not in the first instance accept the proffered Grace, or who do not finally persevere. But this is removed by the doctrine so ably and strenuously advocated by St. Alphonsus Liguori, that common grace is sufficient to enable one to pray fervently and do ordinary good acts; and that by prayer, with the use of other facile means, efficacious graces and the gift of perseverance may be infallibly obtained from God.
We may now return to our theme of the state of probation originally established by God for those who were made candidates for supernatural glory. We have endeavored to clear our track of difficulties impeding the clear view of the truth that God established this probation through goodness and love, or with the simple view of communicating the greatest good to the creature.
The principle questions respecting probation having been already discussed, there remains now but one, viz.: what was the precise and specific nature of the trial to which rational nature was subjected. This divides itself again into two, one respecting the trial of the angels and the other respecting the trial of man.
The angels, according to the doctrine of St. Thomas and theologians generally, were created at the summit of intelligent being, incapable of error or false judgment in their natural, intellectual operation, and therefore impeccable in the natural order. Supernatural grace was conferred upon them simultaneously with their creation, although, as F. Billuart holds, they may have concurred actively to the reception of this grace, by a spontaneous act preceding all deliberation. Grace made them capable of eliciting supernatural acts, but did not determine them to those acts without the free concurrence of their will. Their intelligence must have been, therefore, left in a certain obscurity as regards the supernatural object, in order that an error of judgment should be possible, or even an act of deliberation terminating in a free volition. What the precise object of deliberation and choice was cannot be certainly and precisely determined. It must in some way have presented the alternative of either eliciting a supernatural act by the aid of the obscure supernatural [{302}] light, or of falling back on the free, natural operation of intelligence. God must have exacted some act of homage to his sovereign will, disclosed some condition as the indispensable prerequisite to obtaining the crown of supernatural glory, which the natural intelligence of the angels could not see to be just and right without the aid of a supernatural light. This light was given, clear enough to enable the will, by a strong voluntary effort, to determine itself to act by this light, in preference to its natural light; dim enough to allow the will to turn from it voluntarily, and find in its natural light a plausible reason for withholding its submission to the supreme will. Certain passages of Scripture, and the common traditional Catholic doctrine, indicate that the angels who fell, fell through pride, and that Lucifer, in particular, their chief spirit, in some way aspired to a resemblance with God. Some have thought that he desired to become God. St. Thomas, however, says that this is impossible, because his intelligence was too perfect to permit him to conceive such a thought. He explains the sin of the angels to have consisted in a refusal to accept supernatural glory as a pure boon from God, and a wish to attain beatitude by the exertion of their own natural powers.
The most plausible supposition, in our view, is one that may be said to be contained under the more generic statement just given. It is, namely, that the angels were tried by the revelation of the Incarnation. The union of the Second Person of the Trinity with human nature, the elevation of human nature to divine glory and honor, the obligation of doing homage to Jesus Christ, as King, and to the Blessed Virgin, his mother, as Queen of Angels, was revealed, as the crucial test of the absolute obedience of the celestial spirits. According to their natural reason, and natural love of their own nature and kind, it would appear to them a violation of order and justice to pass them by, in order to assume an inferior nature partly corporeal and animal, into a hypostatic union with the Godhead; elevating this nature above their own, which was the highest in the natural order. Supernatural light suggested to them that God, as sovereign, had a right to bestow his supernatural gifts according to his own will, and, as infinitely wise, must have a secret reason for apparently inverting the order of nature in establishing the supernatural order of the universe. Those who voluntarily submitted themselves to the decree of God were rewarded by an illumination which disclose to them the wisdom and goodness of the decree of the Incarnation, and the glory which they themselves as well as the whole universe would receive from it; and thus became incapable for ever of erring in their judgment respecting the highest good, and consequently of swerving from it through sin. Those who fell turned their minds away from the supernatural light toward the consideration of their own private good, and the glory of their own persons and their own order. They revolted at the idea of being subordinated to human nature, and desired that the angelic nature should be the subject of the hypostatic union. Lucifer, in particular, as their chief, desired that he himself might be assumed into union with the Word, exalted to the throne of the universe, and deified. He and his associates demanded it from God as a right due to their natural dignity, and thus rebelled against his sovereign majesty, were cast out of the celestial sphere, and forfeited for ever the crown of supernatural glory. Hence their enmity to the Incarnate Word, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to the human race. Hence their efforts to establish their own supremacy over man, and the continual conflict which the holy angels and the children of God on earth must wage against them in the sacred warfare for the triumph of Christ's kingdom upon earth. This brings us to the consideration of human probation, a topic which must be reserved for a future number.
From the Dublin University Magazine
MISSAL-PAINTING.
[Footnote 64]
[Footnote 64: Authorities: Plinii Nat. Hist.; Cornel. Nepos; Giraldus Cambrensis; Anglia Sacra; Brompton's Chron.; Humphreys' Art of Illumination and illuminated Books of the Middle Ages; Sylvestre Paléographic Universelle (Sir F. Madden's edition); Muratori Antiq. Ital. Mediaevi; Lanzi Hist. of Painting; Baldinucci Notizie; Froissart's Chronicles; Mrs. Jamieson's Life of Our Lord; Cotton. MSS.—Claud. B iv.—Faustina, B vi.—Galba, A xviii.-Nero, C iv.—Tiber. A ii., C vi.—Vesp. A i.; Harleian MSS. 2904, 5102, 7026, 2900, 2846, 2884, 2853; Bib. Regia, 2 A xxii., 1 D i., 2 A xviii., and 2 B vii.]
The review of monastic literature which we can present in the limited space of a single paper must necessarily be a concise and condensed one, a mere skeleton of the superstructure, not exhaustive but rather suggestive of the sources where information may be found by others who may care to investigate the merits or demerits of a subject about which there have been such varying representations. A complete history of monastic literature would occupy as many volumes as this essay will pages, for it would not only necessitate a review of certain portions of the literature of every civilized country in Europe, but to a great extent at some periods of the whole of European literature. The materials of history, the hymnology of the church, the elements of science, art, and the very woof, as it were, of modern literature, were all handed down to us by that great institution, whose fate as it chanced in England we are endeavoring to delineate. We have hitherto striven to make this investigation a fair and impartial one, based upon facts not as represented by the biassed pens of Protestant historians, but upon facts gleaned almost entirely from the works of men who lived and died in the bosom of that church of which this institution was the cherished offspring. Still more unreasonable is the prejudice of many who refuse to award any meed of praise to the literary labors of monasticism, who look upon the monk as a lazy, sensual, selfish misanthrope, who have heard of the dark ages and are therewith satisfied that they must have been totally dark—intellectual obstinates who wilfully shut their eyes and maintain there is no light. We may have doctrinal prejudices, theological prejudices, social prejudices, against monasticism, but these things ought not to prevent a reasoning man from paying his homage to the genius which may be found in its works. Genius is universal; it is not confined to any doctrine, for it is found in all doctrines; it is not limited to any age, for it is common to all ages; it does not flourish merely under enlightened and free governments, for it has lived triumphant through the dull oppression of tyranny; riches cannot create it nor poverty crush it out: it is born in the hovel; it is nurtured on bleak mountains; it will flourish even under the weary training of indigence and wasting toil: like air, light, and beauty, it is the free, the unbought gift of God.
We have already in a former chapter described the scriptorium, or room adjoining the library, where books were copied and multiplied by monks chosen for that work. We will only add to that description what we glean from the rule of St. Victor—that no visitors were allowed to go into the scriptorium except the abbot, the prior, the sub-prior, and the precentor—that the abbot ordered what books were to be transcribed, and that the writers were appointed by him. At all periods it was a great ambition amongst the monks to be a [{304}] good transcriber and decorator of manuscripts. Not only was it a matter of distinction but a sure path to promotion; many who have worked well in the scriptorium were rewarded for their services with abbacies and bishoprics. In the thirteenth century a monk of the monastery of St. Swithin, at Winchester, was recommended for the vacant abbacy of Hyde, as being well versed in the glosses of the sacred text, a skilful writer, a good artist, and clever at painting initial letters.
In this scriptorium was cultivated and brought to perfection an art which has been the admiration of all subsequent ages, but which printing completely swept away, and failed to supply anything adequate in its place—that art is called illumination. It has a career of its own, and a value as a beautiful eloquent monument in the history of the church, and under these two phases we shall proceed to investigate this first part of the literary labor of monasticism.
The art of illuminating manuscripts was not, as has been supposed, originated by Christianity, though it was brought to perfection under its sway. There are two periods in its history, the first goes far back into the remote past, to the times of the Egyptian papyri, sixteen centuries before Christ, and the second period commences with the chrysography or writing in gold of the Greek manuscripts, between the fifth and eighth centuries after Christ. The more ancient rolls of Egyptian papyri are written in red, with a reed, decorated by rude drawings similarly traced, representing mystical scenes of the Egyptian mythology—some of these papyri, however, are of higher finish, being elaborately painted, gilded, and extending to the length of sixty feet. There is preserved in the museum of the Louvre a specimen of the plain style of papyrus, ornamented with illustrations, drawn in outline. It is said to be one of those rituals which are often found enclosed in mummy coffins; it is about forty feet in length, and is in a good state of preservation. There are directions on it for the illuminator, such as were adopted also by the Christian penmen. In the corner of the space left for illumination there was inserted a small sketch of the subject to guide the artist. The French recovered also a specimen of the superior kind of papyri at Thebes, in 1798. [Footnote 65]
[Footnote 65: Published entire by the Imperial Government, in a work called Description de l'Egypte, 1812.]
It consists of a number of religious scenes, comprising many figures of human beings and animals, drawn with a pen, and brilliantly colored. It is about forty-four feet in length, though imperfect. It is more than probable also that the Romans had some knowledge of the art of illustrating manuscripts. The passage usually quoted in support of this theory occurs in the Natural History of Pliny, [Footnote 66] where we are told that Varro wrote the lives of 700 Romans, which he illustrated with their portraits.
[Footnote 66: Marcus Varro benignissimo invento, insertis, voluminum suorum fecunditati non nominibus tantum septingentorum illustrium sed et aliquo modo imaginibus non passus intercidere figuras aut vetustatem aevi contra homines valere, inventor muneris etiam diis invidiosi, quando immortalitatem non solum dedit verum etiam in omnes terras misit ut presectes esse ubique et claudi possent.—PLINII: Nat. Hist. lib. xxxv., c. 2.]
But there is also an account of a similar work by Pomponius Atticus, recorded by Cornelius Nepos, who tells us that Atticus wrote about the actions of the great men of Rome, which descriptions he ornamented with their portraits. [Footnote 67]
[Footnote 67: Namque versibus qui honores rerumque gestarum amplitudine ceteros Romane populi praestiterunt exposuit: ita ut sub singulorum imaginibus facta magistratus qui eorum non amplius quaternis quinisve versibus discripserit.—CORN. NEP.: Atticus.]
It is impossible to fix the time when the art of Christian illumination sprung up, but most probably it occurred when the ancient fashion of rolled manuscripts gave way to something more like the present book form; that is, instead of one long narrow sheet of some forty or sixty feet, a number of square sheets placed upon each other, and sewn together at the back. The ancient manuscripts were rolled either [{305}] upon one or two rollers. The second roller was adopted for the convenience of the reader, who might roll off his manuscript as he read it from one to the other; thus one roller was placed at the end of the MS. round which it was rolled first, then a second roller was attached to the commencement of the MS., and upon this the reader rolled it off as he read; it was the duty of the librarians to roll it back again for the convenience of the next reader. As long as this mode prevailed there could be no elaborate painting or gilding of MSS., such as we are familiar with, and this is attested by the fact that the MSS. of this rolled form which were dug up from Herculaneum and Pompeii have no trace of decoration. But in the very earliest specimens of the book form which came into vogue early in the second century of the Christian era, there were decorations of various degrees of richness. The Discorides in the Vienna Library, and the celebrated Virgil of the Vatican, said to have been executed in the fourth century, are among the earliest specimens of illuminated MSS. Still the miniature prevailed in these, the decorations in the Discorides being very simple, but absent altogether in the Virgil, whilst the miniatures are large and clear. Decoration, however, was prevalent in that early time, for St. Jerome, who lived in the fourth century, complains of the abuse of this art of filling up books with ornamented capital letters of an enormous size. It is there for in this fourth century that we find a marked advance in the art of illumination. The most valuable books were written in gold and silver inks by scribes who were called chrysographi; the vellum was stained with rose colored or purple dye, to throw up the gold and silver letters. One of the most valued authorities on the text of the New Testament is the version by Ulphilas, the Gothic bishop, who lived in the early part of the fourth century. A copy of this in letters of silver, with the initials in gold, was executed in the fifth century, and is now preserved in the royal library at Upsal, under the well-known title of the Codex Atgenteus. Some of the MSS. of this period were written on a blue ground in silver, with the name of God in gold. This magnificent form of copying was devoted principally to the Gospels and Scriptures generally. To this succeeded as an influence of Byzantine luxury the style of writing on a gilded ground in letters of black. During these early periods miniatures formed the principal features of the ornamentation, but toward the seventh century, two centuries after the fall of Rome, a change came over the style of art, and miniatures gradually gave way to more elaborate decoration. In this age, too, the initial letter sprang up. In the most ancient manuscripts it was not distinguished from the text, but from the seventh to the eleventh century separate capital letters of a large size were the characteristics of the volumes most decorated. It is to this period that the origin of the various schools of illumination may be traced. Rome had succumbed to barbarian violence, and her arts, though decaying, still exerted an influence upon this new style of painting, then in its infancy. That influence was naturally stronger in Italy, and therefore the early illuminations of the Italian school bear traces of the old Roman style. In France the same influence was manifest, mixed up with national peculiarities, and this school was consequently called the Franco-Roman. Miniatures now were gradually displaced by intricate ornamentation, interlaced fretwork, or twining branches of white or gold, on a background of variegated colors. But far away in the distant west, in a country which had never been under Roman domination, and was therefore free from Roman influence, a style of art rose up of a purely original character. Historical research has placed it beyond question that in these remote times Ireland was far in advance of other nations in the scale of civilization. Her fame had extended over Europe, her monasteries were adorned [{306}] with men of great piety and learning, who were the trainers of the leading spirits of the age. She was the first to break through the dense darkness of the times, and as she gave Christianity to Scotland, so she also imparted to the Saxons the art of illumination. The very earliest mention we have in the history of our country of an illuminator is of Dagaeus, abbot of Iniskeltra, who lived in the early part of the sixth century, and died about 587. Adamnanus, the Saxon abbot of Iona, retained Genereus, who had taught illumination in the Irish monasteries, to impart that knowledge to the Saxons; and in the eighth century another Irish monk, Ultan, is mentioned as having a great reputation as an illuminator of MSS. Bede also confirms this fact of Irish civilization, for he asserts that it was the custom to send youths out of England into Ireland to study at her monasteries. It was from Ireland, then, that the Anglo-Saxons learned the art of illumination. [Footnote 68] Later in the tenth century, a style, peculiar and original, was started, it is said by Dunstan, who was a great illuminator, which consisted in a novel use of the foliage, quite distinct from all other styles. It prevailed to the end of the Saxon rule, and is known by the name of Opus Anglicum. One of the finest specimens of the Anglo-Saxon school is extant in the Cottonian library, in the shape of the Durham Book, or St. Cuthbert's Gospels; it was the work of Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne, in honor of St. Cuthbert; its execution extended from the year 698 to 721; it is peculiarly a Saxon piece of art, and belongs to that species known as "tesselated" Giraldus Cambrensis, who wrote in the twelfth century, speaks of having seen a similar MS. at Kildare, which was called The Evangelisterium. [Footnote 69]
[Footnote 68: Mr. Noel Humphreys, in is beautiful little work upon the Art of Illumination and Missal Painting, has given, as a specimen of this Anglo-Hibernian school, a page from the Gospels of Maelbrigid Mac Durnan, the MS. of which is preserved in the Lambeth MSS.]
[Footnote 69: Inter universa Kyldariae miracula nil mihi miraculosius occurrit quam liber (ut alunt) Angelo dictante conscriptus. Continet hic liber quatuor Evangelistarum juxta Hieronymum concordantiam: ubi quot paginae fere sunt tot figurae diversae variisque coloribus distinctissimae. Hic majestatis vultum videas divinitus impressum, hinc mysticas Evangelistarum formas: nunc senas nunc quaternas nunc binas alas habentes. Hinc acquilam, inde vitulum hinc hominis faciem inde leonis ailasque figuras pene infinitas. . . . Haec equidem quanto frequentius et diligentius intueor semper quasi novi obstupco semperque magis ac magis admiranda conspicio.—GIRALD CAMB.: Topogr. Hibern., lib., ii., c. 88.]
The finest specimen of English illumination of the tenth century is the Duke of Devonshire's celebrated Benedictional, by St. AEthelwald, bishop of Winchester, written and painted between 963 and 984. The first page is a magnificent picture of a number of glorified confessors; it was written by a monk, of whom we shall speak hereafter. Up to the twelfth century decorations were the peculiar characteristics of illumination, although some Saxon MSS. written during those periods have pictures drawn in outline; but the great point in all richly illuminated MSS. was the initial letter, and every effort of art was exerted to make that as rich and magnificent as possible. After that time we find these initial letters ornamented also with drawings of the human form, animals, birds, etc, in addition to the foliage which had hitherto predominated. The coloring of the period was richer also, and these MSS. so decorated with pictures were called "historiated," and led by degrees to the fine historical illuminations of subsequent centuries. Gradually these initial letters became larger and longer, until their tales reached nearly the whole length of the page. They were then carried round the bottom, until out of this progression of the initial letter arose what is called the "Gothic bracket"—and ornamentation like a clasp which ran round three sides of the page. During the fourteenth century miniatures were again introduced, and were improving and becoming more finished up to the middle of the sixteenth century. The Gothic bracket was also extended gradually, until it at last embraced the whole page, and became [{307}] one of the great features of of subsequent illumination—the "border." In these borders all kinds of subjects were crowded—foliage, flowers, birds, animals, and miniatures, and toward the end of the fifteenth century a background was added, first in parts, and ultimately entirely. A work which appeared in the thirteenth century exerted, however, a great influence over the art of illumination, even down to the time of its decline, three centuries later. It was a series of meditations on the life of Christ, known as St. Bonaventura, by John Fidenza, and the minute descriptions it gave of the various scenes of which it treated formed a sort of ideal, the influence of which may be traced in nearly all subsequent treatment of similar subjects, and accounts for their general uniformity. During the Byzantine period illuminating was confined to manuscripts of the Scriptures, the works of the fathers, and books for the services in the church. To these were then added volumes for private devotion, such as Horae, or prayers four hours and holy days, sometimes called Missals. Legends, history, and poetry followed, and in the fourteenth century the works of Chaucer and the Chronicles of Froissart opened a vast field to the illuminators for the delineation of battles, sieges, religious ceremonies, public events, and scenes of domestic life. Some copies of classical authors also were then illuminated, until by the end of the fifteenth century nearly every kind of formal document was illuminated, including charters, wills, indentures, patents of nobility, statutes of foundations, and mortuary registers. But the printing-press was looming in the distance, and the death-knell of this beautiful art began to toll. Its fall, which was inevitable, was, however, gradual. Men could not be weaned at once from these illuminated books, and a sort of temporary alliance between the two arts was effected. The earliest printed books were illuminated, spaces which had been formerly left by the copyist were now reserved by the printer, and the whole work when it left his hands was given over to the artist; then the subjects were engraven on wood, and transferred to the vellum by means of ink and the press; but the manuscript style was still preserved, and the closest imitation of written volumes was retained by the early printers, and with such dexterity that it is not an easy thing to detect some of the earliest printed books from manuscripts. Perhaps the last effort to illuminate a book by the printer's art to the extent of the older MSS., was an edition of the Liturgy, brought out in 1717 by John Short, entirely engraven on copper plates. The pages were surrounded by borders, and embellished with pictures and decorated initial letters. Even down to the early part of the present century books were printed with ornamental initial letters, and borders on the top and bottom of each page, both of which may be seen occasionally in the present day, more especially in books issued from presses which seek to revive the antique type and style. In concluding this portion of our sketch, we may mention another characteristic of early MS. writing which exists in some of our books in present use. If we take up an edition of a Greek classic printed some forty or fifty years ago, or even less, we shall find it almost unintelligible, from the number of contractions used in the printing; and if we go further back still, we shall find these contractions more numerous. It arose in the eighth or ninth century; the scribes introduced in the copying of Greek MSS. a system of contraction called tacygraphy, by which two, three, or more letters were expressed by one character, which was termed "nexus litterarum." The editors of the early period of printing adopted them in their type, and they continued in use down to the beginning of the present century.
As we have thus given a condensed review of the history and development of that most beautiful art of illuminating MSS., we shall proceed to describe the details of the work as it was carried on for centuries in the various monasteries in Europe. The parchment was cut into sheets of the required size, and prepared for the copyist in the following manner—They were first rubbed over with the powdered bone of the cuttle-fish, or with the ashes of a certain kind of bone or wood burned and pulverized; a wheel with sharp teeth at equal distances was then run down each side of the sheet, and lines ruled across from point to point between which the matter was to be written; it was then handed to the scribe, who began his work. In the ancient manuscripts there is to be found no paging or table of contents. The whole work was divided into packets of parchment sheets, each containing about four leaves; these packets were sometimes marked with a number temporarily on the first page, which was cut off when the whole was bound. At the end of each section of leaves the scribe wrote the word with which the next section should commence, a practice continued by printers under the title of "catch-words." If a manuscript contained several treatises on different subjects, a list of contents was appended, the initial word of each tract, and the number of sections. As soon as the copying was finished, the work of illustration commenced. The outlines were traced with a pencil made of silver, or brass with a silver point; then the metallic outlines were gone over with a fine quill pen, dipped in a preparation of lampblack and gum. There are many MSS. extant originally intended to be illuminated, but from some unknown cause have come down to us in this unfinished state of outline sketches. The next step was to wash in the shades with ink and water of three degrees of strength; at this point the gilding was done, in order that the burnishing might not interfere with the colors. The raised or embossed gold grounds were done first by laying the metal leaf on a thick smooth bed made of fine plaster, carefully ground; they were then burnished, and if it were intended to decorate these raised gold grounds with engravings or patterns cut in the metal, that was done as the next stage. After this the large masses of flat, painted gilding were added and the colors laid on with the utmost care as to the tint. The last process, which was intrusted only to superior hands, was that of diapering, pencilling, inserting brilliant touches of gold and white, and in fact finishing the whole work. These two forms of gold work, the embossed and the flat, are to be found in perfection in MSS. of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They prepared their gold with great care. In the fourteenth century the gold leaf was ground with honey carefully washed, and the powder mixed with gum water. In a treatise written by Theophilus, [Footnote 70] the pulverization of gold for painting forms a difficult process; he directs that the pure gold should be filed into a cup, and then washed with a pencil in the shell of a sea fish, after which it is to be milled in a mortar made of copper and tin, with a long pestle worked by a strap and wheel.
[Footnote 70: THEOP.: De Diversis Artibus.]
Then the gold filings are to be milled in water for two or three hours and gradually poured off. The powder thus produced was to be tempered with isinglass and laid on a ground of red lead, mixed with the white of an egg; after this it was burnished with a bloodstone, a shining horn tablet being placed under the gilded picture. The Anglo-Saxons used to rub gold filings in a mortar with sharp vinegar, and then dissolve them with salt and nitre. The principle colors used, according to Theophilus, were vermilion orpiment, Greek green, dragon's-blood, granetum carminium, saffron, folium, brunum, minium, white and black. After they had ground their colors on a slab of porphyry, they placed them in covered glass vessels under water, which not only only preserved them from dust, but [{309}] kept them always soft and ready for use. The old painters never touched their colors with iron, but used as a palette-knife a thin blade of wood. They made their own pencils and brushes, the pencils being made of minever tails, set in quills, and the brushes of the bristles of the white domestic pig, bound to a stick. When a manuscript had passed through all these stages of copying and illuminating, it had to be bound, a work also done in the scriptorium. The sacred MSS. at an early period were bound between two wooden boards, covered with engraved plates of gold and silver set off with crystals and rubies. But the usual binding of volumes for the services for the church was in the skins of deer, sheep, and calves, pieces of which were stretched over the boards, and the leaves were sewn together by the same material cut into strips. The ecclesiastics were forbidden to indulge in the pleasure of the chase, although the love of that sport was a universal passion, and it was with great difficulty they could be restrained from joining in such diversions; but Charlemagne granted permission to priests to hunt for the purpose of procuring deer-skins to bind books. Grants were made to monasteries by other sovereigns of a certain number of skins annually. The corners of the covers of large service-books were protected by plates and bosses of metal; there was a metal center with a large projected hemisphere on each side, and across the book were too strong loops of leather for the purpose of lifting it when closed. The service-books of the church were necessarily very large, because they were placed on a high sloping shelf, around which the choristers stood while the precentor, standing behind them, turned over the leaves with a staff from above their heads. Such are a few of the details of the art of illuminating manuscripts, which flourished in the monasteries from the eighth to the eighteenth centuries, when it died in Europe under Louis XIV. The schools of this art, which sprung up from its cultivation, may be enumerated by six denominations, as shown in the following table:
GREEK or BYZANTINE, from the eighth to the tenth century: the Irish-Saxon, Anglo-Saxon, Franco-Saxon, and the painting of Russia belong to this school.
EARLY ROMAN, tenth to the fourteenth century, which includes also the Anglo-Norman.
ITALIAN, fourteenth to sixteenth century, including the Spanish and Portuguese.
EARLY FRENCH, fourteenth to seventeenth century, under which may be ranged the later English.
FLEMISH, GERMAN, AND DUTCH, from the close of the fifteenth century.
LATER FRENCH, during the seventeenth eighteenth centuries.
We have already remarked that a genius for illumination and excellence in copying were at one time sure recommendations for promotion. The memory of men too who had spent their lives in this occupation were tenderly cherished; and two incidents preserved in history attesting the fact we shall mention. Baldinucci, in his History of Painting, gives an account of two brethren in the Camaldulan Monastery, Degli Angeli, at Florence, who were most indefatigable copyists. Dom Jacopo Fiorentino made his appearance at the Monastery of Degli Angeli, in the year 1340; he is described as a monk of holy manners who, when he was not engaged in monastic duties, spent all his time in copying. He acquired an extraordinary expertness and elegance in writing the peculiar character used in the books of the choir. His talents were appreciated, and Dom Jacopo was seldom idle. He wrote twenty massive choral books for his own monastery, the largest ever seen in Italy, and a great many others for Rome, Venice, and Murano. His fame spread abroad, and after his death the brethren of the order preserved [{310}] the right hand of this scribe, which had done so much good work, as a lasting memorial of his name. Dom Silvestro, another monk living in the monastery of Degli Angeli at the same time, excelled in miniature painting, and to his lot fell the decoration of those very books, as they issued from the facile pen of Dom Jacopo. His work was thoroughly appreciated by the great artists of the best ages of Italy. Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Leo X., his son, were pleased to accord their admiration. When he died his right hand was also embalmed. Although this work of copying and illuminating was carried on generally in the scriptorium of the monastery, yet occasionally a monk had a room to himself for the purpose, bearing the same name. Giraldus Cambrensis, in his Life of St. David, tells us that the great bishop commenced writing a copy of St. John's Gospel in gold and silver letters in his own scriptorium at Menevia:
"Scriptorium suum locumque laboris."
[Footnote 71]
[Footnote 71: Anglia Sacra, vol. ii., p.635.]
Many of the names of great illuminators are lost in oblivion, but some have been preserved. Of these, as our investigation is more particularly into the monachism of our own country, we shall dwell more largely upon those men who were born on British soil. We have already adverted to the peculiarly advanced state of the Irish monasteries in the very earliest times. There can be no doubt that both as missionaries and educators they took the lead in those remote periods. Muratori, the groat Italian historian of the middle ages, mentions Ireland as surpassing other nations in the west in the career of letters, [Footnote 72] and we have already quoted the testimony of Bede.
[Footnote 72: Muratori—Antiq. Ital. Medii AEvi, Dissert. 43.]
We shall therefore commence our review of the English art of illumination with the name of the Irish abbot already alluded to, as the first upon record, Dagaeus, abbot of Iniskeltra, who died about the year 587, and excelled not only in writing, but in binding and decoration. The next in order is the monk Genereus, an Anglo-Saxon, who had both studied and taught in the Irish schools; his services were retained by Adamnanus to teach the Saxon monks in the monastery of Iona; and the third, as we have before mentioned, is an Irish monk, Ultan, who, at the end of the eighth century, was renowned as an illuminator. The seed fell upon good soil, and bore abundant fruit, for we next read of Eadfrith and Ethelwold, both abbots of Lindisfarne, and bishops of Durham, who, early in the eighth century, wrote and illuminated the magnificent copy of the Gospels in golden letters, to the honor of St. Cuthbert, which is now preserved in the Cottonian Library at the British Museum, and known as the Durham Book. There is good reason to suppose that Dunstan excelled in illumination. In a manuscript in the Bodleian Library, there is a drawing purporting to be by his hand—a figure of Christ appearing to the prelate, who is prostrate at his feet. Godeman, whom we have also mentioned, was chaplain of Ethelwold, bishop of Durham, at whose instigation he undertook the task of writing and illuminating the celebrated Benedictional, which is preserved in the Duke of Devonshire's library. In return for this work, Ethelwold made him abbot of Thorney. He flourished about 970. Ervenius, a monk of St. Edmonsbury Abbey, was renowned as illuminator, about ten years later. In a life of Wulstan, Bishop of Winchester, written by William of Malmesbury, we are told that Ervenius was his tutor, and that young Wulstan was first attracted to letters by the beautiful illustrations of a sacramentarium and Psalter, from which he was taught. "Thus," says the biographer, "the youth Wulstan acquired, almost by miracle, the chief heads of the most precious things, for while those lustrous beauties entered in at the apertures of his eyes, he received the [{311}] knowledge of sacred letters into his very part." [Footnote 73]
[Footnote 73: Habebat tunc (Wulstan) magistrum Ervenium nomine, in scribendo et quidlibet coloribus effingendo peritum. Is libros scriptos Sacramentarium et Psalterium quorum principales literas auro effigiaverit puero Wulstano delegandos curabit. Ille preciosorum apicum captus miraculo dum pulchritudinem intentis oculis rimatur et scientiam literatum internis haurit medullis.—GULIEL. MALMS.: De Vita Wulstan, in Ang. Sacra, vol. ii., p. 224.]
A similar instance is recorded in the life of Alfred, who, when a child, was drawn toward books by the charm of the illustrations. In Brompton's Chronicle we are told that Osmund, the Bishop of Salisbury, in the year 1076, did not disregard the labor of writing, binding, and illuminating of books. [Footnote 74]
[Footnote 74: Ipse episcopus libros scribere, illuminare et ligare, non fastidiret.—Brompton Chron. ann. 1076.]
Eadwinus, a monk of Canterbury, in the middle of the twelfth century, has left a monument of his labors behind him, in the shape of an elaborate psalter, preserved in Trinity College, Cambridge. At the end of this psalter are two drawings, one of Christ Church and the monastery at Canterbury, and the other a full-length portrait of himself. In the same volume are many historical figures, with initial letters in gold, silver, and vermilion. We include in our list Matthew Paris, the historian, who, although he is supposed to have been a Frenchman, yet passed his life in St. Alban's monastery, wrote an English history, [Footnote 75] and may at least be taken as a naturalized, if not a born Englishman.
[Footnote 75: Or rather a continuation of one, the first part of it, from 1066 to 1235, is attributed to Roger of Wendover, who was in the same monastery. William of Rishanger continued it to the year 1273, from the point where Matthew Paris leaves off (1259), but the whole is frequently quoted as by Matthew Paris. The probabilities are greater in favor of his being an Englishman than the contrary. His works were admired by the early Reformers, for the bold and vigorous manner in which he wrote upon ecclesiastical affairs.]
He is reported to have had a good knowledge of painting, architecture, and the mathematics. The history which is called Historia Major, up to the year 1235, was in all probability the work of another. Matthew Paris wrote the continuation, and copied the whole as it is now in the British Museum, and illustrated it. The next English name rescued from the oblivion of the past, is that of Alan Strayler, who was also a monk of St. Alban's, about the year 1463. His work is contained in a volume called the Golden Register of St. Alban's, extant in the Cottonian library. [Footnote 76]
[Footnote 76: Cotton MSS.—Nero, D vii.]
It is a record of the benefactors of the monastery down to the year 1463. His own portrait is inserted as a benefactor, inasmuch as, according to the text, "he had given to the adorning of the present book very much labor, and had also remitted a debt of 3s. 4d. due to him for colors." Beneath his portrait are two lines in Latin, to the effect that—
"The painter, Alan Strayler, here is given.
Who dwells forever with the choir of heaven."
There are many other portraits of royal and noble personages, holding their respective donations. About thirty years afterward died an eccentric recluse, John Rous, called the hermit of Guy's Cliff. He was chantry-priest at a small chapel, founded by Guy, earl of Warwick, at Guy's Cliff, and from the austere solitary life he led there, acquired the appellation of the "hermit." He was an antiquary and an historian. He wrote a life of Richard Beauchamp, fourteenth earl of Warwick, and illustrated it with fifty-three large drawings, executed with a pen, which style of sketching in those days was called "tricking," or "drawing in trick." This MS. is still to be seen in the Cottonian collections. [Footnote 77]
[Footnote 77: Cotton MSS.—Julius, E iv. ]
Rous spent his time in the study of history and genealogy, and wrote and ornamented several manuscripts, one of which was a roll of the earls of Warwick. This is the last Englishman who is recorded to have attained to any excellence in the art of illumination. We must not omit some of the most prominent of foreign artists who distinguished themselves in this study, and in the thirteenth century Orderico, canon of Sienna, is mentioned as being one of the most renowned. Lanzi, in his History of Painting in Italy, [Footnote 78] gives a description of one of here's MSS., which is preserved in the library of the academy at Florence, decorated with initials, ornaments, and figures of animals, painted by him in 1213. The names of two celebrated illuminators are mentioned by Dante in his Divine Comedy.
[Footnote 78: Lanzi—Hist. of Painting, book ii., Siennese School.]
Oderigi d'Agubbio, whom Dante wrote of, was born at Agubbio, near Perugia, and died about the year 1300; he was the friend of Giotto and Dante at Rome. He was introduced by Giotto to Benedict VIII., for whom he illuminated many volumes. Francis of Bologna, the other mentioned by the poet, was also in the employ of Benedict, and executed many works for the Papal library. There is an account in Baldinucci of one Cybo, who lived in the fourteenth century, and is better known as the Monk of the Golden Islands, from his custom of retiring from his monastery at Lerino every spring and autumn to an island in the Mediterranean off the coast of France, for the wise purpose of the contemplation of nature. "He would walk abroad," we are informed, "not only to contemplate the beautiful prospects offered by the shores of those islands, the mountains, villages, and the sea itself, but also the birds, the flowers, the trees, the fruits, the rarer fishes of the sea, and the little animals of the earth, all of which he would draw and imitate in a wonderful manner." [Footnote 79]
[Footnote 79: Baldinucci—Notizie de' Professore del Disegno.]
Would that such an inspiration might steal over the minds of some of our modern artists! In 1433, according to Lanzi, flourished one Fra Giovanni da Fiesola, a Dominican friar, who attained to great fame as an illuminator. Then from the monastery of Degli Angeli came again another artist Dom Bartolommeo, abbot of St. Clement, who was a painter from youth. Vasari speaks of books and beautiful illustrations executed by him for the monks of Sante Flora and Lucilla in the Abbey of Arezzo, and in a missal given to Sixtus IV. Two great French illuminators come next up on the scene, one of whom, Andrieu de Beauneveu, is mentioned in the Chronicles of Froissart. [Footnote 80] One of his works, called Le Petit Psautier, was valued at eighty livres, about £120 of modern English money. Another of his works was The Great Hours of the Duke de Berri, fac-similes of which will be found in the works of Sylvestre and Noel Humphreys. [Footnote 81] He died in the year 1416, leaving a volume of Hours behind him unfinished, which was bought by the French government for 13,000 francs. The other French artist was Jean Foucquet, a native of Tours, who is spoken of as one of the glories of the fifteenth century. His principal works were the illumination of a book called L'Anciennrté des Juifs, and the Hours of Anne of Bretagne, two specimens of which may be found in Mr. Noel Humphrey's excellent work before alluded to. [Footnote 82] The greatest artist in the Italian miniature was Don Giulio Clovio, whose advent closes the history of the art in the fifteenth century. The incidents of his career may be found in Vasari; they are eventful; he was driven into a monastery in early life, when the Spaniards devastated Rome in 1527. He through up the cowl some years after by the Pope's permission, and went into the service of Cardinal Grimani, for whom he executed many of his best works. An office of the Virgin occupied him nine years in painting; it is still extant in the Musco Borbonico at Naples. He also illuminated a copy of Grimani's Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans: this is now in the Soane Museum. In Sylvestre's Palaeography, [Footnote 83] is a copy of one of Clovio's miniatures from the MS. of Dante's Vision, now in the Vatican.
[Footnote 80: Chroniques de Floissart, vol. iv., p. 71, Lyons.]
[Footnote 81: Paléog. Univ., plate 195: Madden, ii. 544-7. Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, plate xxi.]
[Footnote 82: Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, plates xxxi. and xxxii.]
[Footnote 83: Sylvester—Paléog. Univ.. plate 162.]
Another splendid relique of this artist consists of a large miniature of the crucifixion, executed for Gregory XIII.; it was brought from the Vatican during the campaigns in Italy, in the time of the French Revolution, by the Abbé Celotti. He was called the Michael Angelo of painters, and died in 1578, at the advanced age of eighty. His last days were spent in peace, as Vasari tells us "he does not study or do anything, but seek the salvation of his soul by good works, and a life spent wholly apart from mundane affairs." Godefroy and Dutillet were two distinguished French illuminators of the sixteenth century, and Johan Banzel of Ulm, is the one with whom Vasari concludes his anecdotes of painting. This list is scanty enough, and there can be no doubt that hundreds of names have sunk in the oblivion of the times; devotees to this beautiful art, and victims to the negligence with which the art-historians of the times treated their labors; they slumber in their unknown graves, but their works exist to the admiration and speculation of modern times. We have given a very cursory and rapid review of the rise and development of this most beautiful art; the most beautiful thing that mediaeval Christianity has bequeathed to us. We have endeavored also to give a few names of such of our countrymen who excelled in its exercise, and it only remains to say a few words upon its use, as a work of refined piety, before we proceed to glean a few historical lessons as to the doctrinal development of the church, to be drawn from these art expressions of different periods, for there is nothing upon which a nation or a community stamps the characteristics of its individuality more clearly than upon its art.
These illuminations have a great historical value, as evidences of the life of the times. Were it not for them the past as a life would be lost to us. We should be almost ignorant of the modes and manners of existence of our ancestors. We might have descriptive representations of the deeds they did, but their customs, their habits, their amusements, and their interior existence would have been lost to us forever. It is that which enables us to put as it were a soul into history, to revive a past life in our minds, to resuscitate it, and make it live again before us; all this, but for the preservation of illuminated MSS., would have been irretrievably lost. It is from them alone we can see the customs of the domestic life of our ancestors, their habits at home, at table, in the field, in society, for those pictures, though executed to represent a life of Eastern and Biblical incident, have this peculiarity about them, that the paraphernalia of the scenes are in keeping with the times of their execution; so that unconsciously these monks, when decorating their psalters and their missals, have handed down to us the very best illustration of the written history of their times. [Footnote 84]
[Footnote 84: I know of no better evidence of the value of these MSS. than the excellent and valuable work compiled by Mr. Thomas Wright, a great authority on Saxon antiquities, called The Domestic Manners and Sentiments of the Middle Ages in England. The work is compiled principally from these sources, the illustrations are copied from ancient MSS., and it contains a repertoire of nearly all that can be gleaned from them, forming a picture of the life of Saxons, Normans, and early English, as it was sketched by themselves—a most valuable work, both for the historian and general reader.]
We have hitherto reviewed this labor as a work of art, but we must not forget its higher and nobler motive. Art may be kindled by the fire of ambition or the love of gain, but the motive which inspired the monastic illuminator was a far higher one. Whatever we may think of what we sometimes call the folly of spending years in illustrating a gospel or a psalter, we must be driven to the conclusion that as these monks were situated, it was a work of devotion. No other feeling could prompt them to give their lives to such a labor, because it was labor unrequited. In our times, or in fact in all times, men will accomplish marvels for money, but these men were paid nothing for their labor, not even the flattery of admiration. In the [{314}] early periods of the art, it is true that in one or two cases an illuminator was made an abbot or a bishop, but those cases were so exceptional that scarcely half a dozen instances could be found in history of such honor being conferred upon an obscure monastic artist. The works over which they spent their long days and longer nights were sent into the church for use; gems of art they were, but exhibited to no public admiration, to no applauding critics; there they lay hidden in monastic libraries, in church vestries, in convent chests, to moulder in obscurity for the amusement and commercial speculation of an after age, when the life they embellished had died out in the world, and it should become impossible to ascertain the names of the men whose busy fingers were plied with such magic skill. Nothing but devotion could have prompted such labor as that, and how are we to say that in the eyes of the Almighty the devotion which could spend years lovingly over the embellishment of a gospel, to illustrate it with the choicest productions of genius, and to offer up to it all that was beautiful and good in thought, fancy, and execution—how are we to say that such an offering may not have been, under the circumstances in which they were placed, as acceptable in the eyes of God as the limited devotion of modern life, with its mechanical modes, its periodical days of worship, amid long intervals of sin? The devotion of modern times may sometimes manifest itself in the erection of hospitals and churches, but we are not always sure that such deeds are free from the taint of ostentation of wealth or jealousy of hated heirs—to flaunt the one or to balk the others; but the devotion which found vent in missal-painting and copying the scriptures by hand in the dark ages must have been pure; for we cannot, even by the most prejudiced investigation, discover any sordid or ambitious motive for it. Where there is no payment we may rest assured that labor is a labor of love. The best proof of the fact is the difficulty to get people to illuminate missals now. It was an exquisitely beautiful art, and ought not to have died out so completely. Latterly however, in the church, to the scandal of vigilant Protestants, there has been a sort of attempt at a revival of mediaevalism; it has become the vogue to appeal to the fathers to sing mediaeval hymns, and to decorate the corners of prayer-books and the interiors of churches with mediaeval art; but it has proved to be more a revival of mediaeval forms than mediaeval devotions. It has also become fashionable to study illumination—an elegant amusement for an idle hour—and many have tried it as an art, but it has failed both as an art and a work; as an art, even in these days of art excellence, it has failed, and as a work, it has not been pursued with that avidity to bring success, because the modern stimulant is wanting—it pays not; it is lifeless, automaton-like, a dead body galvanized, missal-painting without devotion. [Footnote 85] But in our admiration of the genius and piety of these monastic artists we must not overlook one great fact, that this art is not only a representation of the interior life of the nation, a representation of its manners, customs, and modes of existence, but it is also a reflection of the state of the church at each successive period. Chroniclers may differ in their accounts, historians may quarrel with each other, but the history which a church rights in its art and literature, in it's sculpture, painting, and poetry, is traced, as it were, by the events themselves, and graven by the very fingers of time.
[Footnote 85: It must be borne in mind that the author of this paper is a Protestant, and we believe a minister of the Church of England. —Ed. C. W.]
We take up a manuscript supposed to be written about the year 900. [Footnote 86]
[Footnote 86: Cotton MSS.—Tiberius, A H. ]
It is an evangeliarum. It contains a picture of St. Matthew, with his left hand resting upon a desk, and his right holding a pen. On the next page is the word "Liber," the beginning of the gospel written on a crimson ground in letters outlined in vermilion and gold; at page 72 there is a picture of St. Mark; all the evangelists are delineated, but no other figures. In a Psalter, [Footnote 87] written in the year 1000, the same simplicity prevails. It is written in capital letters, with an interlinear Anglo-Saxon version. The title-page contains the figure of Christ in the act of blessing, but the principal picture, which occupies a whole page, is a representation of David in his youth, playing on a lyre-shaped psalter, accompanied by six smaller figures, below which are two others dancing. In another Psalter [Footnote 88] of the same period there is a picture of the crucifixion, with Mary, the mother of Jesus, on the one side, and St. John the Baptist on the other. A Psalter of the year 1000, [Footnote 89] very fully illuminated, is a fine specimen of the purely Biblical nature of the illustrations of that period. The calendar at the beginning contains a representation of three persons at a table, and two kneeling attendants. On page 7 is a youthful Christ, holding a large scroll, upon which the word "vita" is written; also God the Father, as creator of the world, in the Mosaic type; the figure is hidden up to the face by a globe, and from the mouth issue two blue lines, representing streams of water, over one of which a dove hovers—one of the oldest specimens of this conception of the Almighty. Another representation, on the next page, is the figure of David tearing open the lion's jaws; then the temptation of our Saviour—the devil is represented as having a beaked nose and claws. On page 10 is the washing of the disciples' feet, with an angel descending from heaven with a cloth. Page 14, Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene. On page 18, the Last Judgment, in which Christ is most prominent, holding in one hand a horn, and in the other a cross; below him is the Book of Life open, and at his side are two large angels blowing trumpets. Page 30 contains David playing on the psalter; and on page 114 there is a large figure of Christ, holding in his left hand the Book of Life, in his right a sceptre, with which he is piercing the jaws of a lion beneath his feet, and a dragon at his side is biting the lion (see Psalm xci. 13).
[Footnote 87: Cotton MSS.—Vespasian, A i.]
[Footnote 88: Harleian MSS., 2904.]
[Footnote 89: Cotton MSS.—Tiberius, C vi.]
One of the most interesting specimens of the opening of the eleventh century (1006) is a manuscript called AElfric's heptateuch, in Anglo-Saxon. [Footnote 90] Its principal subjects of illumination are the fall of angels, the first person in the Trinity enthroned, Lucifer, the days of creation, the creation of Adam, the fail, and the expulsion from Paradise. But we wish to call attention to the close resemblance of the Saxon of that period to our modern English. We shall quote a passage from the Anglo-Saxon text, which might almost be translated by the same words in modern English. The passage is Genesis iv. 9, 10. The Saxon runs: "Tha cwoeth drihten to Caine, hwoer is Abel thin brothor? Tha answarode he and ewoeth, ic nat. Segat thu sceolde ic minne brothor healdon? Tha cwoeth drihten to Caine, hwoet dydest thu? thines brothor blod clypath up to me of eorthan." Which may be rendered in English by almost the same words, thus: "Then quoth the Lord to Cain, where is Abel thy brother? Then answered he and quoth, I know not Sayest thou should I hold my brother? Then quoth the Lord to Cain, What didst thou? thy brother's blood crieth up to me off the earth."
[Footnote 90: Cotton MSS.—Claudius, B iv.]
In the first half of the eleventh century, representations of the Virgin are multiplied in the MSS. of the period, though not yet as the predominant figure. In a Psalter of that date [Footnote 91] we have a representation of David in prayer; then Christ enthroned, with angels around him; below in a row are eleven heads; and below all, the Virgin and twelve Apostles in full-length figures.
[Footnote 91: Cotton MSS.—Galba, A xviii.]
In the representation of the ascension, Christ is the main figure borne up by two angels, and below are two other angels and the Virgin with her hands raised in prayer. In a picture Bible [Footnote 92] of this period, she is again introduced.
[Footnote 92: Cotton MSS.—Nero, C iv.]
Page 8 contains a representation of the root of Jesse—below lies Abraham, then David, and next the Virgin, above all is Christ; but at page 20, we have the death of the Virgin, and the Virgin enthroned in heaven. In the thirteenth century MSS., we find the Virgin taking the most prominent position, and Christ represented as a child; saints, too, creep into the illuminations, more especially Thomas à Becket, whose murder appears to have been always diligently inserted by the monks in their MSS., as we shall see. In a Psalter [Footnote 93] of the year 1200, among many other pictures, is a burial of a saint in his episcopal mitre; and the anointing of David is followed a few pages after by the murder of Thomas à Becket.
[Footnote 93: Harleian MSS., 5102]
In Matthew Paris's History of the English nation (died 1259), there is a picture of the Virgin enthroned as the queen of heaven, with Christ as a little child; she is bending her crowned head, with her hair flowing down, toward the child, pressing her cheek against his, while with her right hand she gives him a fruit. In a Psalter [Footnote 94] of the same period we find the annunciation of the Virgin, the visitation of the Virgin, and the Virgin crowned, with Christ again as a little child.
[Footnote 94: Biblia Regia, 2 A xxii]
In a copy of the Vulgate [Footnote 95] the fourth page is full of pictures; there is the Virgin, with Christ as a child, St. Peter on one side, and St. Paul on the other; below is St. Martin, above the crucifixion, with the Virgin and St. John; above that are two cherubim and quite above all, in the position formerly accorded to Christ, is a representation of the coronation of the Virgin.
[Footnote 95: MSS. Regia, 1 D i.]
In the fragment of a lectionary [Footnote 96] executed for Lord Lovell by one John Siferwas, a Benedictine monk, there is on the title-page a portrait of Lord Lovell looking at a book, upon the cover of which is a picture of the coronation of the Virgin; on the inner border of page 3, there is the Virgin as the queen of heaven, holding the child with her robe in the left hand, and a sceptre in her right.
[Footnote 96: Harleian MSS., 7026]
After three or four more representations of her, we meet with the presentation of the Virgin; in the centre is the Virgin crowned by the first person of the Trinity, who is represented as having a long white beard; another with the Virgin and child upon the moon, surrounded with rays; on page 23, the Virgin surrounded by the pope, bishops, and others, and on page 27, the birth of the Virgin. The office of the Virgin was confirmed by Pope Urban II, at the Council of Clermont There are several of these offices extant. In an office of the Virgin and prayers [Footnote 97] of the date 1420, we find pictures of John the Baptist, St. James of Compostello enthroned, St. Thomas Aquinas, also enthroned, and St. Francis of Assisi receiving the stigmata or wounds of Christ.
[Footnote 97: Bib. Regia 2 A xviii.]
On page 11, the Virgin and child seated on a bench with St. Anna; on page 13 St. Catherine, page 15 St. Margaret, and page 21 the annunciation. In another office of the Virgin, [Footnote 98] we find the evangelists, the annunciation and visitation of the Virgin, the murder of Thomas à Becket, St. Catherine, St. Margaret, the scourging of Christ, adoration of kings, and in the most prominent picture the coronation of the Virgin, in which she is represented as being supported by an angel while the Almighty is pointing with his right hand to a cherub who, accompanied by two angels is about to place the crown on her head.
[Footnote 98: Harleian MSS., 2900.]
At the conclusion there is a picture of the Virgin on a throne with the child Christ. There are several offices of the Virgin in the Harleian collection, [Footnote 99] but we shall only notice one more, which bears date from 1490 to 1500. [Footnote 100]
[Footnote 99: Harleian MSS., 2646, 2884, 2858, etc.]
[Footnote 100: MSS. Addit., 17012.]
On pages 20 and 21 are autographs of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., which will justify the supposition that it belonged to both. Its illustrations include, among other things, the murder of Thomas à Becket, St. George and the Dragon, St. Christopher, the Virgin and child, with St. Anna, St. Catherine, St. Barbara, and St. Margaret. There is a religious poem, illustrated with miniatures, and bearing date from 1420 to 1430, [Footnote 101] which elaborately delineates the intercessorial attributed to the Virgin.
[Footnote 101: Cotton MSS.—Faustina, B vi.]
The picture in which this is set forth is a remarkable one. In the lower part of it is a man dying on a bed, at the foot of which stands death, in the usual form of a skeleton, making ready to pierce the heart of the dying man with a spear, and there is a black demon, with a hook reaching toward him; at the head of the bed is an angel receiving his soul, which is represented as a naked infant; about is the Virgin, with a crown upon her head, baring her bosom to Christ, and imploring him, by the breasts which nourished him, to take pity upon the soul of the dying man. They are both kneeling before the Almighty, and Christ is represented in a red mantle as showing his wounds, in token of granting his mother's request. The Almighty is represented as seated upon a throne, robed in a blue mantle, and having the usual long white beard; he is lifting his hand in benediction. An idea was set on foot that the Virgin had fainted at the crucifixion; and in some of these later manuscripts she is represented in the act. In a Psalter [Footnote 102] Page 256, there is a picture of the crucifixion, with the Virgin in the act of fainting.
[Footnote 102: MSS. Regia, 2 B vii.]
Mrs. Jamieson in noticing this fact in her History of Our Lord as exemplified in Art, has remarked that it was condemned by Catholic writers themselves. Thomas Cajetani wrote of it as "indecens et improbabile;" and other writers are quoted by Molanus, who inveighed against it, and stigmatized it as a thing "temerarium, scandalosum et periculosum."
But it was at the period of the Reformation, and after then, that these treasures of art suffered, and the natural iconoclasm of human nature broke out. Men gazed around them upon gorgeous temples, decorated with splendid paintings, stained glass windows, marvellous sculpture, and to their zealous minds it was all idolatry; and they tore down frescoes, destroyed paintings, overturned altars, broke up statues, and burned sacred books to exterminate error if possible, not by the powers of truthful preaching and godly lives, but by the battle-axe and the bonfire; not by uprooting error itself, so much as by beating down and destroying its mere evidences.
It was in consequence of this iconoclasm that much of the art productions of Christianity has been lost to us; nay, much of literature and history also, for in the sack of a monastery little discrimination was used, save as to precious metals. We frequently read of valuable books and manuscripts being consigned to the flames, but the cups, chalices, the contents of the coffers, invariably found their way to the treasury. We must always remember this, that human nature was not wholly confined to Roman Catholics, but that there was a considerable amount of it among the Reformers. Still, in spite of iconoclasm, in spite of misguided zeal, sufficient has escaped destruction, and been preserved to our inspection, to convince us of the beauty of those arts which sprang up in the wake of Christianity, though they did ultimately become tainted with human error. And we may see in all this [{318}] painting and sculpture, poetry and music, the marvellous adaptability of Christianity as a regenerator and stimulant, how it takes up what is good in the world—genius, skill, love, devotion, and starts them into new channels, with increased vigor and nobler aim. It took up philosophy, purged it of its errors, and of philosophers made fathers; it took up science, and bid it labor to alleviate human suffering, and assuage the physical condition of humanity; it took up art, and not only embellished it, but gave it an inexhaustible realm of subjects—a realm in which it has been laboring ever since, and though improving advancing in each age, will never exhaust its treasures; it has been, as it's Founder declared it should be, the salt of the earth; it has rescued the world in moments of darkness and danger, aroused it from apathy and indifference, purged it, stimulated it, sent it on in the right way, and brought it back again when it had peevishly wandered; and not the least evidence of its purifying, elevating effects upon the fine arts is this, which we have been endeavoring to describe in the rise and development of missal painting, that beauty of cloistered: holiness.