Thus, we are informed in the Book of Theodoret, that St. James of Nisibe (who was afterwards made a Bishop) had voluntarily deprived himself, during his whole life-time, of the use of fire. He lay upon the ground; he never wore any woollen clothes, but only used goat-skins to hide his nakedness.
It is related in the same book, that St. Julian only ate bread made of millet, and that he abstained from the use of almost every kind of drink. St. Martianus never ate but once in a day, and that very sparingly too; so that he continually endured the tortures of hunger and thirst: this holy Man had, besides, a Disciple who never touched either bread or meat.
St. Eusebius used to wear an iron chain round his body; his continual fastings and other kinds of macerations rendered him so lean and emaciated, that his girdle would continually slide down upon his heels; and Publius the elder, voluntarily submitted to mortifications of the same kind.
Simeon only fed upon herbs and roots. St. Theodosius the Bishop used to wear a hair-cloth around his body, and iron chains at his hands and feet. St. Zeno never rested upon a bed, nor looked into a Book. Macedonius, during forty years, never used any other food than barley, and was not afterwards raised to the dignity of Priest, but against his own consent. Bishop Abrahames never tasted bread during the whole time of his being a Bishop, and carried his mortifications so far, as to forbear the use of clear water.
The same Theodoret, continuing to relate the life of the holy Hermits, says, that some of them used to wear iron shoes, and others were constantly burdened with cuirasses inwardly armed with points. Some would willingly expose themselves to the scorching heat of the sun in summer days, and to the nipping cold of winter evenings: and others (continues Theodoret) as it were buried themselves alive in caverns, or in the bottom of wells; while others made their habitations, and in a manner roosted, upon the very tops of columns.
Now, among all those numerous and singular methods of self-mortification which Theodoret describes as having been constantly practised by the above-named holy Hermits, we do not find, as hath been above observed, any mention made of flagellations: methods of doing penance, these, which it is hardly credible, Theodoret would have neglected to mention, if those holy Men had employed them[44].
FOOTNOTES:
[42] Our Doctor of the Sorbonne and Abbé Boileau (whose meaning is here faithfully laid before the reader) speaks with much confidence of the proofs he derives in support of his opinion, from the above Latin lines, which he adds he thinks he has done well and wisely to produce; and I have postponed to the end of his argument, to make any remark upon the subject, in order to let him enjoy his triumph a little longer. However, his whole reasoning is no more than a quibble on the sense of the word flagrum; which, indeed signifies a whip, but also signifies a lustful passion: both come from the verb flagrare, to burn; and flagrare amore, to burn with love: hence the word flagrans delictum, which is said of a Man who is caught in the act of debauching another Man’s wife, or as some Civilians express it, alienam Uxorem subagitans: from the above expression the French have made the words flagrant délit, which have the same meaning; and they say of a Man under the above circumstances, that he is caught en flagrant délit. The real meaning of the Latin lines above-quoted, is, therefore, that Christians ought to be free, not from every kind of flagellation, but from lustful passions. Those lines, it may be observed, together with the quibble contained in them, of which our Author has availed himself to support his private opinion, are in the same taste with the other productions of Monks, during the times of the middle age, and of the general decay of literature, when finding out quibbles and puns, and succeeding in composing acrostics, anagrams, and other difficiles nugæ, engrossed the whole ambition of Versificators: though, to say the truth, worse lines than the above have been written in that kind of style.
[43] Instances of revelations, like those of St. Bridget, concerning the person of Jesus Christ and his sufferings, are very frequent among Nuns; and, to say the truth, it is nowise surprising that they should, at times, have visions of this kind. As those Women who are destined to live in the condition of Nuns, are commonly, not to say always, made to take their vows at an early age, that is, at a time when their passions are most disposed to be inflamed, and when an object of love may be looked upon as one of the necessaries of life, this, together with the circumstance of their close confinement, induces a number of them to contract a real and ardent love for the person of Jesus Christ, whose pictures they see placed almost in every corner, who is, besides, expressly called their Husband, whose Spouses they are said to be, and to whom, at the final and solemn closing of their vows, they have been actually betrothed, by having a ring put on their finger. To the mind of such of those unfortunate young Women as have once begun to indulge fancies of this kind, the image of their beloved Spouse is continually present, under some one of the figures by which he is represented in the above-mentioned pictures; and his flagellations, and other hardships he was made to undergo, are, among other things, the objects of their tenderest concern: hence the numberless visions and revelations which Nuns, like St. Bridget, have at all times had upon those subjects: and several among them, whose love was more fervent, or who thought themselves intitled to some particular distinction from their Spouse, have even fancied, on certain occasions, that they had been favoured with a visible impression of his sacred Stigmats, that is, of the marks of the five main wounds which he received when he was put to death. The idea of those visible marks or Stigmats of Jesus Christ’s wounds, we may observe, was, in the first instance, a contrivance of St. Francis, who pretended that they had been impressed on his body during a vision he had in a remote place; and he prevailed upon his Monks, and other adherents, to consider them as emblems of a close affinity between him and our Lord, and as a kind of order of knighthood that had been conferred on him.