Curiosities of Christian History Prior to the Reformation

by James Paterson

ST. JAMES, INTERCISUS (A.D. 421).

St. James was a Persian noble. The king declared war against the Christians, and the noble had not firmness to refuse. His wife and mother, however, being Christians, and shocked to see this, upbraided him, and wrote a letter that they renounced him for ever. This sank into his soul, and he withdrew from the Court, bewailing the crime he had committed; and the king, hearing of his change of views, was enraged, and, after calling the Council of Ministers, they all agreed that James should be hung on the rack, and his limbs cut off, joint after joint. The executioners, after entreating him in vain to recant, with their scimitars cut off his right thumb. The judge and bystanders, in tears, called out to him that it was enough, and he ought to surrender. But he exulted, and finger after finger was cut off; then the little toe of the left foot, and all the other toes. After fingers and toes and arms and feet left him only a trunk weltering in his blood, he continued to pray and speak cheerfully, till at last a guard severed the head from the body. This happened in 421. The Christians offered a large sum to obtain the relics, but were refused. They, however, watched an opportunity, and collected them by stealth, finding the limbs in twenty-eight different places. They were all buried in an urn, and in a place concealed from the heathen. The glory of this martyr was renowned in all the Persian, Syrian, Greek, and Latin Churches.

STEPHEN A MARTYR FOR IMAGE WORSHIP (A.D. 720).

During the controversy raised by the iconoclasts, when all the monks resisted the decrees against image worship, one monk, Stephen, a hermit who had lived thirty years in a cave at Sinope, greatly distinguished himself. The monks had flocked to the desert to watch in security over their tutelary images, and the most devout of the laity crowded round the cell of Stephen, who furiously denounced the iconoclasts. So many pilgrims resorted to him as their champion that the Emperor ordered him to be carried away from his cell, and shut up in a cloister at Chrysopolis. This act drove the other monks to frenzy. One named Andrew hastened from his dwelling in the desert and boldly confronted the Emperor in the church of St. Mammas, and sternly addressed him thus: “If thou art a Christian, why do you treat Christians with such indignity?” The Emperor commanded his temper, but after again ordering this monk into his presence, the latter was so violent and scornful that the Emperor ordered him to be scourged. Stephen, however, continued to thunder from his cell against the iconoclasts, and mounted a pillar to be better heard; and other monks flocked and built their cells round this pillar. But this did not satisfy Stephen, who returned to the city and openly denounced and defied the Emperor, and collected a large following. The Emperor ordered him to prison. His followers on hearing of his majesty’s annoyance at last rushed to the prison, dragged the old man into the streets and murdered him, and threw his body into the malefactors’ grave (as is elsewhere mentioned, ante, p. 134).

HUSS THE BOHEMIAN BURNT FOR HERESY IN 1415.

John Huss, who was a Luther a century too soon, was born in 1369, became a preacher, and soon began to see the impostures connected with relic worshipping and indulgences, and became known as a great admirer of Wicliff’s writings. He was soon marked out as a heretic, and worried with citations and excommunicated. When three young artisans publicly exclaimed against the sale of indulgences and were seized and condemned and executed, great excitement arose. Some friends dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood of the victims, a woman in the crowd offered white linen to enshroud them; the dead bodies were carried as saints with chanted hymns and anthems, and buried with great solemnity under the direction of Huss. Huss was summoned to answer for his many heresies, and he offered to defend himself before the Council of Constance, on condition of the Emperor securing him a safe conduct. The assurance was given, the Emperor Sigismund being at first thought favourable to the views of Huss. But the bishops craftily, on pretence of his attempt at escape, seized and imprisoned him. The Emperor acted weakly and with too much deference to the cardinals, who professed to give Huss a hearing, but took care that it should be only before themselves. His friends had early presentiment that Huss would be done to death by hook or crook. His faithful friend the Knight of Chlum stood always by his side, and protested vigorously against the breach of faith, in all the crafty steps taken, and by the imprisonments imposed before the hearing of the case. At one prison on the Rhine Huss was nearly killed by the noisome effluvia. He was next removed and imprisoned in a tower, and chained day and night. The usual result followed after a few hearings before the council, where he had no opportunity of meeting most of the charges, and where he was mocked and offered a period to recant, and then sentenced to be burnt as an incorrigible heretic. Seven bishops were appointed to see him clothed in priestly vestments, then stripped and degraded. A cap painted with devils was placed on his head and inscribed with the word “Arch-heretic.” He was placed on a pile of fagots, and chained to it by the neck. He sang hymns till the smoke and flames stopped him. When his body was burned the ashes were cast into the Rhine, so that nothing of him might be left to pollute the earth, as his murderers vainly imagined.

JOAN OF ARC, A MODERN PATRIOTIC MARTYR (A.D. 1430).

One consequence of William the Conqueror’s success was the long and bloody wars which lasted for three centuries. It was a misfortune that William Duke of Normandy, one of the great French vassals, should become King of England. From the eleventh to the fourteenth century—from Philip I. to Philip de Valois—this position gave rise between the two crowns and the two states to questions, to quarrels, to political struggles, and to wars which were a frequent source of trouble to France. The evil and the peril became far greater still when in the fourteenth century there arose between France and England—between Philip de Valois and Edward III.—a question touching the succession to the throne of France, and the application of exemption from the Salic law. Then there commenced between the two crowns and the two peoples that war which was to last more than a hundred years, was to bring upon France the saddest days of her history, and was to be ended only by the inspired heroism of a young girl, who alone in the name of her God and His saints restored confidence and victory to her king and country. Joan of Arc at the cost of her life brought to the most glorious conclusion the longest and bloodiest struggle that had devastated France and sometimes compromised its glory.

JOAN OF ARC BELIEVES SHE HAS A MISSION.