Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance

by P. L. Jacob

Probably few persons are aware that the real meaning of the word heresy, after its Greek origin (hairesis), means only opinion. Heresy consists in the pretensions to explain Holy Scripture after one’s own private judgment or personal opinion instead of receiving the interpretation given to the sacred text by the authority of the Church. Heretics have existed from the time of the apostles. St. Paul, speaking in reference to them, recommends a course which, unfortunately, has not always been followed. “If,” he says, “any man obey not our word, ... have no company with him; ... nevertheless, count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.” St. Peter, with his zealous ardour, exhorts the faithful, in language full of imagery, to be on their guard against the errors of the Gnostics (that is, the savants or the érudits): he calls them “wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest.” He then sums up the foundation of their doctrine in a few energetic sentences:—“For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.” We know that the Gnostics believed perfection to consist in science; they held that faith and virtuous living were only meant for the common people. Infatuated by their own learning, they even rejected the authority of Christ, whom they refused to recognise as their Lord and their God; for the doctrine concerning the angels they substituted a theory of divine emanations, and they recognised the ancient doctrine of the eternal antagonism between the good and the evil principle.

The Acts of the Apostles, in speaking of the success which attended the preaching of Philip the deacon to the inhabitants of Samaria, relate that there was in that city a magician named Simon, who exercised so great an influence over the people that they all took heed of what he said and called him “the great power of God.” But the miracles worked by Philip had greater influence than the sorceries of Simon, and the people came in crowds to be baptized, Simon himself becoming a disciple of Philip.

The remainder of the story told us in the Acts of the Apostles reveals the origin of a word which appears too often in the religious history of the Middle Ages for us to let slip the opportunity of here explaining it by a fact which, moreover, helps to show how it happened that Simon fell from sincere Christianity into heresy. The apostles at that time residing in Jerusalem, having heard of the conversion of Samaria, they came to lay hands upon—that is to say confirm—the newly baptized; and the latter, when they received the Holy Ghost, were visible partakers of His marvellous gifts, which were general in the primitive Church. The Scripture says, “And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.... Repent, therefore, of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.... Then answered Simon, and said, Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me.” It is because Simon was the first who attempted to buy for money a spiritual power that his crime was called simony, and that the epithet of simonist was applied to all who purchased ecclesiastical cures.

Fig. 306.—Babylon the Great (mulier super bestiam), represented as a woman holding a cup, and riding the beast spoken of in the Apocalypse.—Miniature from a “Commentaire sur quelques Livres de l’Ecriture,” a Manuscript of the Eleventh Century, in the National Library, Paris. From Count Bastard’s great work.

The repentance of Simon the heretic did not last long, for an author of the third century, whose account is confirmed by a passage in Suetonius, tells us that this neophyte having returned to his practice of magic, and being jealous of the influence which the apostles had acquired by their miracles, boasted that he would raise himself into the air in the presence of the emperor and the people. In order to humiliate St. Peter, who was in Rome at that time, he insisted that the apostle should be present to witness this triumph of his magical art. At first his endeavours seemed as if about to succeed—he was lifted high into the air amidst the applause of the crowd; but Peter invoked the aid of his Divine Master to confound the spirit of evil, and at his prayer the magician, suddenly abandoned by the demon who had been lending him his aid, fell to the ground and broke his leg so near to the spot where Nero was sitting, that, to quote Suetonius, the blood spurted on to the emperor’s mantle.

Amongst the heresiarchs of the first century must also be mentioned Cerinthus the Jew, who had become a Christian, but who was looked upon by the apostles as the corrupter of the religion of Jesus Christ. He taught, in fact, that Jesus was not the Son of God, and that Christ, coming down from heaven in the form of a dove, was only incorporated in him after his baptism in the waters of Jordan. Ebion, a disciple of Cerinthus, also denied the divinity of Christ, and was the founder of the sect of the Ebionites. Nicholas the deacon, in his attempt to make the law of the Gospel fit in with heathen customs, gave birth to the heresy of the Nicolaitans, who were afterwards merged in the Gnostics. This latter sect, to which we have already alluded, developed enormously in the second century; and its doctrine, as well as that of Manichæus, the originator of Manichæism—that redoubtable heresy which sprung from the admixture of the ancient religions of India with Christianity—constituted the basis of nearly all the heresies of the Middle Ages.

Fig. 307.—Orthodoxy surrounded by the Snares of Heresy.—Boniface Simoneta (1470 to 1500), Abbot of San Stefano del Corno (diocese of Cremona), “calling God to his aid in order that his work may be more efficaciously wrought, ... and desiring above all things to speak reason and equity.”—Fac-simile of a Wood-Engraving in the “Livre des Persécutions des Crestiens:” Paris, Antoine Verard, gothic 4to (no date).

The schools of philosophy of Byzantium, Antioch, and Alexandria pursued their career of scepticism and sacrilegious discussion concerning the divinity of Jesus Christ during the second and third centuries. After throwing doubt upon the divine essence of the three persons of the Trinity, others still more daring, such as Sabellius and Praxeas, attempted to show that these three persons in God were but three symbolic names given to the same substance. The Council of Alexandria (261) punished these culpable errors. Soon after, an Egyptian priest named Arius took them up and propagated them very widely, maintaining that Jesus Christ was a created being, perfect no doubt and almost like unto God, but not himself God. His doctrine also contained secret heresies which were condemned by the Œcumenical Council of Nice (325). Nevertheless this doctrine, known as Arianism, made great progress; it was adopted and supported by several emperors, it spread throughout Europe, and, in spite of the authority of councils, and the efforts of popes and bishops, it seemed destined to lay the foundation of a new Christianity in which the divinity of Christ was to find no place. But the most radical attack upon Christianity was undoubtedly the conspiracy of divergent sects under the leadership of the Emperor Julian (331–362), surnamed the Apostate because he abjured the Christian faith with the view of re-establishing paganism. His plan for arriving at this result was very skilfully conceived. Perceiving that it would be necessary to combine all the forces directed against the Church, he showed favour to the heresies and the schools of philosophy which, after obtaining a certain notoriety under Plotinus and Porphyrius, had lapsed into the ridiculous fancies of evocations and of demonology. But, under the protection of the emperor, matters assumed a different aspect, as is pointed out by M. Jules Simon in his “Histoire de l’Ecole d’Alexandrie.” This school, “humiliated by the triumphs of Christianity, reduced to silence and obscurity, without any fixed purpose, devoid of credit and influence, all at once took up a fresh attitude at the accession of Julian, and attempted to employ the sovereign power, with which one of its followers was clothed, for extinguishing Christianity.” The struggle was a terrible one, and the Church seemed to have lost all human means of defence. Her children implored for help from on high, and the premature death of Julian was attributed to the divine intervention. Ecclesiastical writers relate that St. Basilius the Great, while praying God to protect his Church against the persecutor, was transported in a dream: he saw Christ in heaven and heard him say to St. Mercurius (the martyr of Cesarea, in Cappadocia), “Go and smite the enemy of those who believe in me.” The holy martyr at once sped on his mission, and, returning in a short space of time, said to his Divine Master, “Your orders are executed, Julian is no more.” St. Basilius had this vision on the night of the emperor’s death. Several writers assert that the emperor, knowing whence came the blow which was to prove fatal to him, collected in the palm of his hand the blood which issued from the wound, and scattering it towards the heavens, exclaimed, “Thou hast vanquished, Galilean.” These stories, popularised by the Byzantine art (Fig. 308), testify to the importance attached by the Christians to the struggle in which they were engaged with Julian.