THE CHRISTIAN LEGENDS.
Milman says: “That some of the Christian legends were deliberate forgeries can scarcely be questioned. The principle of pious fraud appeared to justify this mode of working on the popular mind; it was admitted and avowed. To deceive into Christianity was so valuable a service as to hallow deceit itself. But the largest portion was probably the natural birth of that imaginative excitement, which quickens its day-dreams and nightly visions into reality. The Christian lived in a supernatural world: the notion of the Divine power, the perpetual interference of the deity, the agency of the countless invisible beings which hovered over mankind was so strongly impressed upon the belief, that every extraordinary and almost every ordinary incident became a miracle, every inward emotion a suggestion either of a good or an evil spirit. A mythic period was thus gradually formed, in which reality melted into fable and invention unconsciously trespassed on the province of history. This invention had very early let itself loose in the spurious gospels or accounts of the lives of the Saviour and His Apostles, which were chiefly composed among or rather against the sects which were less scrupulous in their veneration for the sacred books. The lives of St. Antony by Athanasius, and of Hilarion by Jerome, are the prototypes of the countless biographies of saints, and with a strong outline of truth became impersonations of the feeling, the opinions, the belief of the time.”
HOW LEGENDS AND MIRACLES GROW.
Torquemada relates that a certain woman being desirous of rising a few hours before dawn, and not finding any fire under the ashes, sent her servant out with a candle to get a light. The servant going from house to house, nowhere found any fire. At length she perceived a lamp burning in a church. She called to the sacristan who was sleeping within, and he awoke and lighted her candle. Meanwhile the mistress, tired of waiting, had taken another candle, and had found a fire in a neighbour’s house, and came out with her light just as the servant was returning with another, and both were in white. At that moment a neighbour, while rising and looking out half asleep, seeing the two figures, thought they were phantoms. And next there went a rumour that there had been a procession of spirits that night round the church. On another occasion a solemn burial of a noble knight in a certain monastery in Spain was appointed to take place next day. A poor female idiot had strayed into the church, and remaining after the doors were closed, took shelter from the cold under the great velvet pall which covered the coffin. The monks coming into the choir to sing matins, the idiot awoke and made a noise which startled the religious men, who, however, continued to sing their matins, and then retired. The rumour soon ran of what had been heard and seen, each relater adding something, till at length the poor idiot grew into a supernatural being sent from the skies to add honour to the noble warrior.
THE THUNDERING LEGION.
When the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who died 180, warred against the Vandals, Salmatians, and Germans, his army was shut up in hot and dry places, where they had been without water for five days, and were much discouraged. The Emperor in a letter which he wrote said he had 975,000 men leagued against him, and he prayed to his national deities, but got no assistance. He had, however, some Christians in his army, who fell on their faces and prayed to a God unknown to him, when suddenly there descended from the sky on him and his troops a most cool and refreshing rain, but on the enemy hail mixed with lightning, insomuch that he at once perceived that a most potent God had interposed irresistibly in his favour. The enemy were put to flight. Wherefore he granted full toleration to these people called Christians, lest peradventure by their prayers they should procure some like interposition against him. And it was ordered that in future it should not be deemed a crime to be a Christian.
ST. MAURICE AND THE THEBAN LEGION.
In the time of Diocletian, who died 313, part of the Roman army consisted of a Theban legion, which was six thousand six hundred and sixty-six men strong, all Christians, and noted for discipline and piety. After marching towards Gaul on service against the Christians, they encamped on the Lake of Geneva; and when ordered to join in the sacrifices to the gods, the whole legion, with their commander Maurice, refused to obey or to fight against their fellow-Christians. The Emperor, being enraged, ordered them to be decimated, and they thought this the highest honour, and vied with each other in being selected as the first victims. Still refusing, they were ordered a second time to be decimated, and then a third time, with like results. Maurice at the third decimation spoke thus: “Noble Cæsar, we are thy soldiers, but we are also the soldiers of Jesus Christ. From thee we receive our pay; from Him we receive eternal life. To thee we owe service, to Him obedience. We are ready to follow thee against the barbarians, but we are also ready to suffer death rather than renounce our faith or fight against our brethren.”
THE DIVINING-ROD.