Footnotes
[1.] There is a remarkable passage of Celsus, on the impossibility of restoring a nature once thoroughly depraved, quoted by Origen in his answer to him. [2.] This is well shown by Pressensé in his Hist. des Trois premiers Siècles. [3.] See a great deal of information on this subject in Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church (Oxford, 1853), vol. v. pp. 370-378. It is curious that those very noisy contemporary divines who profess to resuscitate the manners of the primitive Church, and who lay so much stress on the minutest ceremonial observances, have left unpractised what was undoubtedly one of the most universal, and was believed to be one of the most important, of the institutions of early Christianity. Bingham shows that the administration of the Eucharist to infants continued in France till the twelfth century. [4.] See Cave's Primitive Christianity, part i. ch. xi. At first the Sacrament was usually received every day; but this custom soon declined in the Eastern Church, and at last passed away in the West. [5.] Plin. Ep. x. 97. [6.] The whole subject of the penitential discipline is treated minutely in Marshall's Penitential Discipline of the Primitive Church (first published in 1714, and reprinted in the library of Anglo-Catholic Theology), and also in Bingham, vol. vii. Tertullian gives a graphic description of the public penances, De Pudicit. v. 13. [7.] Eusebius, H. E. viii, 7. [8.] St. Chrysostom tells this of St. Babylas. See Tillemont, Mém. pour servir à l'Hist. eccl. tome iii. p. 403. [9.] In the preface to a very ancient Milanese missal it is said of St. Agatha that as she lay in the prison cell, torn by the instruments of torture, St. Peter came to her in the form of a Christian physician, and offered to dress her wounds; but she refused, saying that she wished for no physician but Christ. St. Peter, in the name of that Celestial Physician, commanded her wounds to close, and her body became whole as before. (Tillemont, tome iii. p. 412.) [10.] See her acts in Ruinart. [11.] St. Jerome, Ep. xxxix. [12.] “Definitio brevis et vera virtutis: ordo est amoris.”—De Civ. Dei, xv. 22. [13.] Besides the obvious points of resemblance in the common, though not universal, belief that Christians should abstain from all weapons and from all oaths, the whole teaching of the early Christians about the duty of simplicity, and the wickedness of ornaments in dress (see especially the writings of Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Chrysostom, on this subject), is exceedingly like that of the Quakers. The scruple of Tertullian (De Coronâ) about Christians wearing laurel wreaths in the festivals, because laurel was called after Daphne, the lover of Apollo, was much of the same kind as that which led the Quakers to refuse to speak of Tuesday or Wednesday, lest they should recognise the gods Tuesco or Woden. On the other hand, the ecclesiastical aspects and the sacramental doctrines of the Church were the extreme opposites of Quakerism. [14.] See the masterly description of the relations of the English to the Irish in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in Froude's History of England, ch. xxiv.; and also Lord Macaulay's description of the feelings of the Master of Stair towards the Highlanders. (History of England, ch. xviii.) [15.] See on the views of Aristotle, Labourt, Recherches historiques sur les Enfanstrouvés (Paris, 1848), p. 9. [16.] See Gravina, De Ortu et Progressu Juris Civilis, lib. i. 44. [17.]
“Nunc uterum vitiat quæ vult formosa videci,
Raraque in hoc ævo est, quæ velit esse parens.”
Ovid, De Nuce, 22-23.
The same writer has devoted one of his elegies (ii. 14) to reproaching his mistress Corinna with having been guilty of this act. It was not without danger, and Ovid says,
“Sæpe suos utero quæ necit ipsa perit.”
A niece of Domitian is said to have died in consequence of having, at the command of the emperor, practised it (Sueton. Domit. xxii.). Plutarch notices the custom (De Sanitate tuenda), and Seneca eulogises Helvia (Ad Helv. xvi.) for being exempt from vanity and having never destroyed her unborn offspring. Favorinus, in a remarkable passage (Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att. xii. 1), speaks of the act as “publica detestatione communique odio dignum,” and proceeds to argue that it is only a degree less criminal for mothers to put out their children to nurse. Juvenal has some well-known and emphatic lines on the subject:—
“Sed jacet aurato vix ulla puerpera lecto;
Tantum artes hujus, tantum medicamina possunt,
Quæ steriles facit, atque homines in ventre necandos
Conducit.”
Sat. vi. 592-595.
There are also many allusions to it in the Christian writers. Thus Minucius Felix (Octavius, xxx.): “Vos enim video procreatos filios nunc feris et avibus exponere, nunc adstrangulatos misero mortis genere elidere. Sunt quæ in ipsis visceribus, medicaminibus epotis, originem futuri hominis extinguant, et parricidium faciant antequam pariant.”
Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages (London, 1844), p. 121. Hecker in his very curious essay on this mania, has preserved a verse of their song:—
“Allu mari mi portati
Se voleti che mi sanati,
Allu mari, alla via,
Così m'ama la donna mia,
Allu mari, allu mari,
Mentre campo, t'aggio amari.”
“Quas vilitates vitæ dignas legum observatione non credidit.”—Cod. Theod. lib. ix. tit. 7. See on this law, Wallon, tome iii. pp. 417, 418.
Dean Milman observes, “In the old Roman society in the Eastern Empire this distinction between the marriage of the freeman and the concubinage of the slave was long recognised by Christianity itself. These unions were not blessed, as the marriages of their superiors had soon begun to be, by the Church. Basil the Macedonian (a.d. 867-886) first enacted that the priestly benediction should hallow the marriage of the slave; but the authority of the emperor was counteracted by the deep-rooted prejudices of centuries.”—Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. ii. p. 15.
The penalty, however, appears to have been reduced to two years' exclusion from communion. Muratori says: “In più consili si truova decretato, ‘excommunicatione vel pœnitentiæ biennii esse subjiciendum qui servum proprium sine conscientia judicis occiderit.’ ”—Antich. Ital. Diss. xiv.
Besides the works which treat generally of the penitential discipline, the reader may consult with fruit Wright's letter On the Political Condition of the English Peasantry, and Moehler, p. 186.
Milman's History of Latin Christianity, vol. vii. pp. 353, 354.
“Venit de Anglia virgo decora valde, pariterque facunda, dicens, Spiritum Sanctum incarnatum in redemptionem mulierum, et baptizavit mulieres in nomine Patris, Filii et sui. Quæ mortua ducta fuit in Mediolanum, ibi et cremata.”—Annales Dominicanorum Colmariensium (in the “Rerum Germanic. Scriptores”).
The three principal are the Historia Monachorum of Rufinus, who visited Egypt a.d. 373, about seventeen years after the death of St. Antony; the Institutiones of Cassian, who, having visited the Eastern monks about a.d. 394, founded vast monasteries containing, it is said, 5,000 monks, at Marseilles, and died at a great age about a.d. 448; and the Historia Lausiaca (so called from Lausus, Governor of Cappadocia) of Palladius, who was himself a hermit on Mount Nitria, in a.d. 388. The first and last, as well as many minor works of the same period, are given in Rosweyde's invaluable collection of the lives of the Fathers, one of the most fascinating volumes in the whole range of literature.
The hospitality of the monks was not without drawbacks. In a church on Mount Nitria three whips were hung on a palm-tree—one for chastising monks, another for chastising thieves, and a third for chastising guests. (Palladius, Hist. Laus. vii.)
Pratum Spirituale, lxxx.
An Irish saint, named Coemgenus, is said to have shown his devotion in a way which was directly opposite to that of the other saints I have mentioned—by his special use of cold water—but the principle in each case was the same—to mortify nature. St. Coemgenus was accustomed to pray for an hour every night in a pool of cold water, while the devil sent a horrible beast to swim round him. An angel, however, was sent to him for three purposes. “Tribus de causis à Domino missus est angelus ibi ad S. Coemgenum. Prima ut a diversis suis gravibus laboribus levius viveret paulisper; secunda ut horridam bestiam sancto infestam repelleret; tertia ut frigiditatem aquæ calefaceret.”—Bollandists, June 3. The editors say these acts are of doubtful authenticity.
Tartuffe (tirant un mouchoir
de sa poche).
“Ah, mon Dieu, je vous prie,
Avant que de parler, prenez-moi ce mouchoir.
Dorine.
Comment!
Tartuffe.
Couvrez ce sein que je ne saurois voir;
Par de pareils objets des âmes sont blessées,
Et cela fait venir de coupables pensées.”
Tartuffe, Acte iii. scène 2.
“Præter majorum cineres atque ossa, volucri
Carpento rapitur pinguis Damasippus et ipse,
Ipse rotam stringit multo sufflamine consul;
Nocte quidem; sed luna videt, sed sidera testes
Intendunt oculos. Finitum tempus honoris
Quum fuerit, clara Damasippus luce flagellum Sumet.”—Juvenal, Sat. viii. 146.
On the origin of Greek cock-fighting, see Ælian, Hist. Var. ii. 28. Many particulars about it are given by Athenæus. Chrysippus maintained that cock-fighting was the final cause of cocks, these birds being made by Providence in order to inspire us by the example of their courage. (Plutarch, De Repug. Stoic.) The Greeks do not, however, appear to have known “cock-throwing,” the favourite English game of throwing a stick called a “cock-stick” at cocks. It was a very ancient and very popular amusement, and was practised especially on Shrove Tuesday, and by school-boys. Sir Thomas More had been famous for his skill in it. (Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 283.) Three origins of it have been given:—1st, that in the Danish wars the Saxons failed to surprise a certain city in consequence of the crowing of cocks, and had in consequence a great hatred of that bird; 2nd, that the cocks (galli) were special representatives of Frenchmen, with whom the English were constantly at war; and 3rd, that they were connected with the denial of St. Peter. As Sir Charles Sedley said:—
“Mayst thou be punished for St. Peter's crime,
And on Shrove Tuesday perish in thy prime.”
Knight's Old England, vol. ii. p. 126.
“Quid meruere boves, animal sine fraude dolisque,
Innocuum, simplex, natum tolerare labores?
Immemor est demum nec frugum munere dignus.
Qui potuit curvi dempto modo pondere aratri
Ruricolam mactare suum.”—
Metamorph. xv. 120-124.
“Cujus
Turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos.”
Juvenal, Sat. vi. 7-8.
There is a little poem in Catullus (iii.) to console his mistress upon the death of her favourite sparrow; and Martial more than once alludes to the pets of the Roman ladies.
Compare the charming description of the Prioress, in Chaucer:—
“She was so charitable and so pitous,
She wolde wepe if that she saw a
mous Caught in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde.
Of smale houndes had she that she fedde
With rosted flesh and milke and wastel brede,
But sore wept she if one of them were dede,
Or if men smote it with a yerde smert:
And all was conscience and tendre herte.”
Prologue to the “Canterbury Tales.”
Durandus, a French bishop of the thirteenth century, tells how, “when a certain bishop was consecrating a church built out of the fruits of usury and pillage, he saw behind the altar the devil in a pontifical vestment, standing at the bishop's throne, who said unto the bishop, ‘Cease from consecrating the church; for it pertaineth to my jurisdiction, since it is built from the fruits of usuries and robberies.’ Then the bishop and the clergy having fled thence in fear, immediately the devil destroyed that church with a great noise.”—Rationale Divinorum, i. 6 (translated for the Camden Society).
A certain St. Launomar is said to have refused a gift for his monastery from a rapacious noble, because he was sure it was derived from pillage. (Montalembert's Moines d'Occident, tome ii. pp. 350-351.) When prostitutes were converted in the early Church, it was the rule that the money of which they had become possessed should never be applied to ecclesiastical purposes, but should be distributed among the poor.
Ruinart, Act. S. Perpetuæ. These acts, are, I believe, generally regarded as authentic. There is nothing more instructive in history than to trace the same moral feelings through different ages and religions; and I am able in this case to present the reader with an illustration of their permanence, which I think somewhat remarkable. The younger Pliny gives in one of his letters a pathetic account of the execution of Cornelia, a vestal virgin, by the order of Domitian. She was buried alive for incest; but her innocence appears to have been generally believed; and she had been condemned unheard, and in her absence. As she was being lowered into the subterranean cell her dress was caught and deranged in the descent. She turned round and drew it to her, and when the executioner stretched out his hand to assist her, she started back lest he should touch her, for this, according to the received opinion, was a pollution; and even in the supreme moment of her agony her vestal purity shrank from the unholy contact. (Plin. Ep. iv. 11.) If we now pass back several centuries, we find Euripides attributing to Polyxena a trait precisely similar to that which was attributed to Perpetua. As she fell beneath the sword of the executioner, it was observed that her last care was that she might fall with decency.
ἡ δὲ και θνήσκουσ᾽ ὅμως πολλὴν πρόνοιαν εἶχεν εὐσχήμως πεσεῖν,
κρύπτουσ᾽ ἂ κρύπτειν ὄμματ᾽ ἀρσένων χρεών.
Euripides, Hec. 566-68.
“Ille meos, primus qui me sibi junxit, amores
Abstulit; ille habeat secum, servetque sepulchro.”
Æn. iv. 28.
“Uxorem vivam amare voluptas;
Defunctam religio.”
Statius. Sylv. v. in proœmio.