[N39]. The Roman Martyrology contains the Names of such Saints as may be publicly worshiped, and of the Places where they died, with a succinct Account of the most remarkable Feats which they are supposed to have performed. I said, who are publicly worshiped; for in private every one is allowed to honour, worship, and invoke whom they please, provided they have sufficient Grounds to believe them in a State of Happiness, or in the Way to it, that is, in Heaven, or in Purgatory; for the Souls in Purgatory may be privately worshiped and invoked; nay, most of the Popish Divines are now of Opinion, that even a canonized Saint may be still in Purgatory. When Learning began to revive, many gross Mistakes were discovered in the Roman, as well as in the other Martyrologies, some being placed among the Saints, and consequently worshiped as Saints, who had been notorious Sinners; and others daily invoked, who had never existed. That the Church therefore might be no longer misled in her Worship, Gregory XIII. thought it necessary to interpose his infallible Authority; and, having accordingly, ordered Baronius to revise and correct the Roman Martyrology, he confirmed, by a special Bull, dated the 14th of January 1584. all the Emendations, Additions, Corrections, &c. which Baronius had been pleased to make, threatening with the Indignation of the Almighty God, and of his Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, all who should presume to make any further Alterations. And yet many Alterations have been made since Gregory’s Time; and that many more might and ought to be made, has been sufficiently shewn by many Protestant, and some Roman Catholic, Divines.
Jerom and Ruffinus quarrel.
Jerom and Ruffinus had lived several Years in close Friendship, and great Intimacy; but, falling out in the Year 393. their former Friendship was turned at once into an open and avowed Enmity. What gave Occasion to this Breach I shall relate hereafter, and only observe here, that Jerom not only quarreled with Ruffinus, but with all the Friends of Ruffinus; nay, and with those too, who, professing an equal Friendship for both, would not break with either, or any-ways interfere in the Quarrel. Among these was the celebrated Roman Matron Melania, so frequently spoken of, and so highly commended, by Austin, by Paulinus, and, above all, by Jerom himself, who has filled his Letters with her Praises, proposing her as a true Pattern of every Virtue becoming her Sex.
Jerom quarrels with all the Friends of Ruffinus, especially with Melania.
Melania had retired with Ruffinus to Jerusalem, Twenty-seven Years before, and continued there practising, under his Direction, those Works of Charity, which Jerom so often admires and extols. It could not therefore be expected that she should discard the Partner of her holy Life, and all her good Works, as Paulinus styles him[[1341]], the Minute the other was pleased to dislike him, or, indeed, that she should take any Part at all in the Quarrel. And yet, because she prudently declined taking Part, but continued to shew the same Affection and Esteem for Ruffinus, which she had done before; Jerom, forgetful of the Regard that was due to a Matron of her Birth and Piety, and of the high Encomiums which he had himself bestowed on her, began to inveigh with no less Bitterness against her, than against Ruffinus himself. |His Conduct towards
her.| In one of his Letters, still extant[[1342]], after finding Fault with one of Ruffinus’s Friends, thought to be John Bishop of Jerusalem, he adds; “But, after all, he is not so much to blame as his Instructors Ruffinus and Melania, who, with a great deal of Trouble and Pains, have taught him to know nothing.” Ruffinus tells us, that Jerom, finding that Melania, who was a Matron of great Judgment and Penetration, did not approve of his Actions and Conduct, thereupon spitefully erased out of his Chronicle, what he had there written in her Praise[[1343]]. But he did not, nor was it, perhaps, in his Power to make such an Alteration in all the Copies; for what he is said to have cancelled, is still remaining in all the printed, as well as manuscript Copies of that Work, which have reached our Times. Melania lived Eighteen Years after, steadily pursuing the same Course of Life, for which Jerom had once proposed her as a Pattern to her whole Sex[[1344]]. She died at Jerusalem in the Year 411. and died poor, having spent an immense Estate in relieving the Needy and Indigent, not only of the Countries where she lived, and through which she passed, but those too of the most distant Provinces of the Empire. For Persons in Poverty and Distress, whether in Persia or Britain, says the Author of her Life[[1345]], were alike the Objects of her Charity, and felt alike the Effects of her Generosity and Good-nature. She died, but with her did not die the Rancour and Spleen which Jerom had for so many Years harboured in his Breast against her. For, carrying his Resentment even beyond the Grave, while the Poor were every-where bemoaning, with Tears, the Loss of so generous a Benefactress, while the Writers were paying the deserved Tribute of Praise to the Virtues of so pious a Matron, Jerom, instead of joining the rest in the common Grief, strove to dry up their Tears, to drown their Praises, by throwing out several peevish and ill-natured Reflections on the Memory of the Deceased. As the famous Pelagius had inscribed a Book to her before he broached his Opinions, Jerom, in the Letter which he writ to Ctesiphon against the Pelagians, could not forbear bringing her in, and observing on that Occasion, with a malignant Quibble, that the very Name of Melania bespoke (in the Greek Tongue), and sufficiently declared, the Blackness of her Treachery and Perfidiousness[[1346]].
Syricius not to be condemned on the bare Authority of Jerom.
Such was the Conduct of Jerom towards that illustrious Matron, in her Life-time, and after her Death. From this Conduct I leave the Reader to judge, whether the Authority of so prejudiced a Writer ought to have been of such Weight with Baronius as to make him exclude her, as well as Syricius, from the Roman Martyrology, or the Calendar of Saints. Should we grant Ruffinus to have really held the Errors which Jerom charged him with, it must still be owned, that Melania acted, as became a Person of her Wisdom, Piety, and Experience, in suspending her Judgment, and not breaking with Ruffinus, till she was otherwise convinced, than by the Invectives of his Antagonist, equally levelled against herself, that he was no longer worthy of her Friendship and Regard. As for Syricius, Jerom rather commends than blames him, even where he complains of his Kindness to Ruffinus. For he only says, that Ruffinus abused the Simplicity of Syricius, who judged of the Spirit of others from his own[[1347]]; which was saying, in other Words, that he was a good Man, but mistaken in his Judgment, or not infallible: so that his only Crime, according to Jerom, was want of Infallibility. However, upon the Authority of that Father, Baronius not only condemns the Conduct of Syricius, but, rashly prying into the inscrutable Secrets of Providence, pretends his Days to have been shortened for the Countenance he gave to Ruffinus, and the Remissness he shewed in suppressing the Errors, with which he was charged. It is certain, that Ruffinus was well received, and entertained, in a very hospitable manner, by Syricius, during his Stay at Rome; and that, upon his leaving that City, he received from him Letters of Communion. Now, if Syricius did not know, or did not believe, that Ruffinus held those Errors, how unjust is it to blame him for the Kindness he shewed to a Man of Ruffinus’s Character! If he did know, and yet gave him Letters of Communion, how will Baronius be able to clear Syricius from the Imputation of holding the same Errors[[N40]]?