Curiosities of Christian History Prior to the Reformation

by James Paterson

THE HOUSE OF ST. MARK.

Jeremy Taylor says that “the house of John, surnamed Mark (as Alexander reports in the life of St. Barnabas), was consecrated by many actions of religion: by our Blessed Saviour’s eating the Passover; His institution of the Holy Eucharist; His farewell sermon; and the Apostles met there in the octaves of Easter, whither Christ came again, and hallowed it with His presence; and there, to make up the relative sanctification complete, the Holy Ghost descended upon their heads in ‘the Feast of Pentecost’; and this was erected into a fair fabric, and is mentioned as a famous church by St. Jerome and Venerable Bede; in which, as Andrichomius adds, ‘St. Peter preached that sermon which was miraculously prosperous in the conversion of three thousand; there St. James, brother of our Lord, was consecrated first Bishop of Jerusalem; St. Stephen and the other were there ordained deacons; there the Apostles kept their first council and compiled their Creed.’”

PARTICULARS OF ST. LUKE THE EVANGELIST.

St. Luke was a native of Antioch, was well educated, and studied and became eminent as a physician. Some think he was converted by St. Paul, and he attached himself to that apostle. He wrote the gospel in 57, four years before his final arrival at Rome. He attended St. Paul to Rome in 61. After the martyrdom of St. Paul, he preached in Italy, Gaul, and Macedonia. It is thought he was crucified at Elæa, in the Peloponnesus, on an olive tree, at the age of eighty-four. His bones were, by order of the Emperor Constantine, in 357 removed from Patras, in Achaia, and deposited in the Church of the Apostles at Constantinople, together with those of St. Andrew and St. Timothy. Some of his relics went to Brescia, some to Nola, some to Findi, and some to Mount Athos. The head of St. Luke was brought to Rome, and laid in the church of the monastery of St. Andrew. Old manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke represent him as surrounded with instruments of writing.

PARTICULARS AS TO ST. BARTHOLOMEW.

There have been differences of opinion as to the identity of St. Bartholomew, some being of opinion that he was the same Nathanael whose simplicity and guilelessness were commended. He was chosen one of the Twelve, and was a witness of the Resurrection. He went after the Ascension as an apostle to the Indies and Persia. He was afterwards in Phrygia, and Lycaonia, and Great Armenia, in which last place he was crucified. Some say he was first flayed alive. In 508 the Emperor Anastasius removed his relics to the city of Duras, in Mesopotamia. Soon after they were translated to the Isle of Lipari, near Sicily, in 809 to Benevento, and in 983 to Rome, and are deposited under the high altar in the Church of St. Bartholomew, in the Isle of Tiber. An arm of the apostle’s body was sent to Edward the Confessor by the Bishop of Benevento, and it was put in Canterbury Cathedral. A fine statue of the apostle is in the cathedral at Milan, representing him flayed alive. The characteristic quality of St. Bartholomew was zeal.

PARTICULARS AS TO ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE.

St. Thomas was a Galilean fisherman, and was made an apostle in 31. He was rather slow in understanding, but of great simplicity and ardour. He offered to go to Jerusalem and die with Christ, when the priests and Pharisees were contriving His death. After the Crucifixion Thomas refused to believe the report of the Resurrection until he actually saw the prints of the nails and felt the very wound in Christ’s side; and Christ, in His condescension to this weakness, allowed him to satisfy himself, whereupon Thomas was prostrated with compunction. After the descent of the Holy Ghost, Thomas went to preach in Parthia, and laboured in Media, Persia, and Bactria, as well as India. He is said to have suffered martyrdom at Meliapor, or St. Thomas’s, on this side the Ganges, on the coast of Coromandel, where his body was discovered pierced with lances. The body was carried to the city of Edessa, and deposited under the great church there with veneration. St. Chrysostom said, in 402, that the sepulchres of only four of the Apostles were then known—namely, Peter, Paul, John, and Thomas. John III., of Portugal, ordered the body of St. Thomas to be searched for at Meliapolis, and when digging there in 1523 a deep vault was discovered, containing the bones of the saint, and part of the lance with which he was slain, and a vial tinged with his blood. The apostle’s body was put in a chest of porcelain adorned with silver. The Portuguese built a new town about this church, and called it St. Thomas’s.

PARTICULARS AS TO ST. SIMEON.

St. Simeon, son of Cleophas or Alphæus and of Mary, sister of the Virgin, and cousin-german of Christ, was about nine years older than Christ. He succeeded his brother St. James the Less as Bishop of Jerusalem in 62. The Christians having been warned to leave Jerusalem, St. Simeon and they departed before Vespasian, general of the Romans, entered and burnt the city. Heresies grew up in the Church before the death of St. Simeon. He was crucified at the age of 120, having governed the Church at Jerusalem about forty-three years.