Seeks on her pillow some repose to find,
And turns and turns as 'twere to parry pain.
The Church The Champion Of Marriage.
“There is nothing new under the sun,” least of all the continued crusade the church has headed and now heads against the enemies of Christian marriage. What marriage is, what duties it involves, what holiness it requires, what grace it confers, we leave to other pens more learned or more eloquent to define. What are the Scripture authorities and allowable inferences concerning the married state, its indissolubility and its future transformation in heaven, we leave to theologians to state. Those who may feel curious as to that part of the question, or as to the local and civil enactments concerning marriage and divorce, we refer to two able articles published in The Catholic World of October, 1866, and July, 1867.[216]
But as witnesses are multiplied when a strong case has to be made out in favor of some important issue, let us turn to the tribunal of history, and look over the record of the church's battles. Witnesses without number rise in silent power to show on which side the weight of church influence has ever been thrown—the side of the oppressed and weakly. Every liberty, from ecclesiastical immunities to constitutional rights, she has upheld and enforced, and it would be impossible that she, the knight-errant of the moral world, should have failed to break a lance, through every succeeding century, for the integrity of the marriage bond.
Take, for instance, the history of the new Frankish kingdom in the VIth century, at the time when the church was laboriously moulding pagan hordes into Christian and civilized nations. The times were wild and unsettled, the very laws hardly established, heathen license barely reined in by the threatening barrier of solemn excommunication. They were times of great heroism, it is true, but none the less of great abuses and of startling crimes. The bishops of the Christian church stood alone in the midst of the universal depravity, like mighty colossi, defying the civil power and rebuking royal license. S. Nicetus, the Bishop of Trèves, was one of these. The young King of the Franks, Theodebert, who was betrothed to Wisigardis, the daughter of the Lombard king Wakon, had, during a war against the Goths, taken a beautiful captive named Denteria. He made her his mistress, and, forgetful of his solemn betrothal, lived with her for seven years. The bishop never ceased boldly to admonish him and warn him, but to no purpose. After a while, his powers of persuasion failing to effect his charitable design, he resorted to the penalties of the church, and excommunicated him. But, instead of suspending his evil career, the king persuaded many of his courtiers to follow his example. The holy bishop excommunicated them all with calm impartiality. Despite the censures under which they lay, they insolently attempted to assist at High Mass one Sunday in the bishop's presence. S. Nicetus turned to meet the sacrilegious throng, and undauntedly announced that, unless those who were excommunicated left the church, the Mass would not be [pg 586] celebrated. The king publicly demurred to this, but a young man in the crowd, possessed by the devil, suddenly started up, and in impassioned language gave testimony to the holiness of the bishop and the vicious and debased character of the king himself. Four or five stalwart men got up to hold him, but were unable to do so; his strength defied their utmost efforts, and burning words of condemnation continued to fall from his lips. The king, abashed, was forced to leave the church, while S. Nicetus caused the young man to be brought to him. The touch of the holy bishop's hand, and his efficacious prayer breathed over him, cured him at once of the grievous affliction which had beset him for ten years. Finally, the displeasure of the Franks at the insult offered to the King of the Lombards and his daughter grew so serious that, with S. Nicetus at their head, they called a general meeting to denounce his conduct. He listened to their reproaches, and at last agreed to dismiss his mistress and fulfil his contract with the Lombard princess.[217]
An eminent French writer, De Maistre, says of the part played by the popes in the middle ages: “Never have the popes and the church rendered a more signal service to the world than they did in repressing by the authority of ecclesiastical censures the transports of a passion, dangerous enough in mild and orderly characters, but which, when indulged in by violent and fierce natures, will make havoc of the holiest laws of marriage.... The sanctity of marriage, the sacred foundation of the peace and welfare of nations, is, above all, of the highest importance in royal families, where excesses and disorders are apt to breed consequences whose gravity in the future none can calculate.”
In the early part of the VIIth century, S. Columbanus, the great Irish monk who founded the powerful monastery of Luxeuil in Burgundy, began that opposition to royal license which finally cost him his exalted position, and made him an exile and wanderer from his chosen abode. Queen Brunehault was practically reigning in Burgundy under the name of her grandson Theodoric. She connived at the young sovereign's precocious depravity, and herself furnished him with attractive mistresses, thereby preventing his marriage with a suitable princess, for fear of losing her own influence over him in public affairs. One day, as S. Columbanus, whose monastery the king had munificently enriched, came to see Theodoric on matters of importance, the queen rashly presented the king's illegitimate children to the saint, and begged him to bless them. Columbanus refused, turning away his eyes and saying sternly, “These children are the offspring of guilt, and they will never sit upon their father's throne.” Another time, after many vain threats and remonstrances, the saint again visited Theodoric, but, instead of accepting the hospitality of his palace, took up his quarters in a neighboring house. Brunehault and her grandson, keenly alive to the implied rebuke, and resenting the public slight thus put upon them before their court and subjects, sent some officers of their household with costly vases and golden dishes, full [pg 587] of delicacies from the royal table, to Columbanus, at the same time entreating him to come to them. The saint made the sign of the cross, and spoke thus to the messengers: “Tell the king that the Most High spurns the gifts of the unjust; heaven is not to be propitiated by precious offerings, but by conversion and repentance.” And as he spoke the vases fell to the earth and broke, scattering the food and wine that had been brought to bribe the servant of God. The king, afraid of the divine judgments, promised to amend, but did not fail to relapse into sin, upon which Columbanus wrote to him again, and finally excommunicated him. Theodoric then visited the monastery of Luxeuil, and in retaliation publicly accused the saint of violating his rule. Columbanus answered, “If you are come here to disturb the servants of God, and stir up confusion among them, we will relinquish all your aid, countenance, and presents, O Theodoric; but know that you and all your race shall perish.” The king retired, awed for this time into silence; but, being further incensed against Columbanus by his grandmother Brunehault, he had him exiled to Besançon. The saint's reputation was such that no one would venture to guard him, and he of his own accord soon returned to Luxeuil. Theodoric, growing more obstinate the firmer he saw his judge become, again ordered him to leave, even threatening force. Columbanus defied him, and announced that physical violence alone could drive him from his post; but, upon the persecution of the monastery continuing unabated, he judged it more perfect and charitable to exile himself for the peace of his community. Three years after, Theodoric and his children were all killed, and Clotaire, his relative and ruler of a neighboring kingdom, reigned in Burgundy in his stead.
The Byzantine Empire also was constantly torn by schisms and dissensions originating in the unbridled passions of its ignoble sovereigns. In the VIIIth century, Constantine VI., surnamed Porphyrogenitus, the son of the Empress Irene, married at his mother's instigation an Armenian woman of low birth but irreproachable morals, named Mary. It was not long, however, before he became enamored of one of his wife's attendants, Theodota, whereupon he proceeded to divorce the Empress Mary and force her to take the veil. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Tarasius, refused to dissolve the first marriage and perform the second, as required by the dissolute emperor, who then attempted to blind him by alleging that his wife had conspired to poison him. This the patriarch firmly refused to believe, and, moreover, represented to the emperor the scandal of his conduct, the infamy that would attach to his name in consequence, and especially the incalculable evil his bad example would cause among his not too chaste courtiers and people. Constantine lost his temper, and violently replied that he would close the Christian churches, and reopen the temples of the heathen gods. The patriarch threatened to refuse him the right of entering the sanctuary, and of assisting at the sacred mysteries; but when an unworthy priest, Joseph, the treasurer of the church of Constantinople, was found willing to celebrate between the emperor and Theodota an invalid “marriage” in one of the halls of the palace of S. Maurice, Tarasius hesitated to pronounce the excommunication. At this distance of time, it is not easy to point out the reasons and excuses which the unsettled state of things in [pg 588] the Byzantine Empire may have furnished for this act of seeming compromise; much less should we rashly condemn a holy and zealous bishop; but it is noticeable that such instances have never been repeated when it was the popes themselves who were directly appealed to.