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presented  to 

Gbe  Xibran? 

of  tbe 

\Hniver0it\>  of  Toronto 

bB 
Joseph  McCulley,   Esq. 


I  ^^^H 


MfK 


WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 


LONDON  : 

PRINTED    BY    WEST,    NEWMAN"    AND    CO., 

HATTOX    GARDEN,    E.C. 


JUSTINIAN    AND    THEODORA. 

Drawn  by  Edward  Backhouse  after  the  Mosaics  in  the  Church  of  St.  Vitale  Ravenna; 
etched  by  W.  B.  Scott. 


H\Lcc\ 


WITNESSES   FOR  CHRIST 


MEMORIALS    OF    CHURCH    LIFE 


Jfrom  the  yavtvtb  to  the  Wntemth  GDwtitarii. 


EDWARD     BACKHOUSE 


CHARLES     TYLOR. 


V 


REVISED      AND      SOMEWHAT      ABRIDGED. 


LONDON: 
SIMPKIN,  MARSHALL,  HAMILTON,  KENT  &  CO,,  Limited. 

1894. 


'■  // 

That  very  religion  which  the  mercy  of  God  designed  to  be  free,  with  very  few  ceremonial 
sacraments,  and  of  the  plainest  kind,  is  oppressed  with  slavish  burdens,  so  that  the  condition  of 
the  Jews  is  more  tolerable,  who,  although  they  knew  not  the  time  of  their  deliverance,  are  yet 
subjected  to  the  yoke  of  the  law,  not  to  the  weight  of  human  assumptions. — Augustine. 

There  is  but  one  Divine  element  of  life  which  all  believers  share  in  common  ;  but  one  fellow- 
ship with  Christ  which  proceeds  from  faith  in  Him ;  but  one  new  birth.  All  who  possess  this, 
all  who  are  Christians  in  the  true  sense,  have  the  same  calling,  the  same  dignity,  the  same 
heavenly  blessings.— Jo  vinian. 


TO    THE    HEADER 


The  title  "  Witnesses  for  Christ "  was  originally  chosen  by  Edward 
Backhouse  for  the  entire  work,  of  which  these  volumes  form  the 
second  instalment.  It  seemed  however  more  appropriate  to  desig- 
nate the  former  volume,  the  second  edition  of  which  was  published 
in  1885,  Early  Church  History.  In  the  two  volumes  now  presented 
there  is  little  attempt  at  a  consecutive  history  of  the  Church,  and 
the  original  title  is  therefore  reverted  to. 

With  regard  to  the  authorship  of  these  volumes  it  should  be 
stated  that  the  idea  and  inception  of  the  whole  belong  to  the  late 
Edward  Backhouse,  who  had  collected  much  material  (extending 
even  to  the  seventeenth  century),  and  whose  artistic  taste  supplied 
many  of  the  illustrations.  For  the  remainder  of  the  work  Charles 
Tylor  is  responsible. 

1887.  

The  work  having  been  favourably  received,  it  is  thought  well  to 
issue  a  new  edition  in  a  cheaper  form,  so  as  to  place  it  within  the 
reach  of  a  larger  circle  of  readers.  The  whole  has  been  revised, 
and  a  few  chapters  which  were  less  closely  related  to  the  object  of 
the  writers  and  the  title  of  the  work,  have  been  either  entirely  or 
partially  omitted. 

1894. 


A  cordial  acknowledgment  is  due  to  several  friends  who  have  rendered  aid 
in  various  ways  in  the  preparation  of  this  work  ;  especially  to  Joseph  Bevan 
Braithwaite  and  Thomas  Hodgkin.  Valuable  assistance  has  also  been  received 
throughout  from  R.  Hingston  Fox. 


CONTENTS. 


PERIOD     I. 

From  the  Death  of  Constantine,  a.d.  337,  to  the  Death  of 
Augustine,  a.d.  430. 


The  Arian  Epoch 

Athanasius 

The  Cappadocian  Bishops 

Ulfilas        

Martin  of  Tours 

Ambrose 

Chrysostom 

Jerome 

Augustine 


CHAPTEE  I. 

CHAPTER  II. 

CHAPTER  HI. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

CHAPTER  V. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
CHAPTER  VH. 
CHAPTER  VHI. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

CHAPTER  X. 


The  Spirit  of  the  Age  : — 

I.   Public  Worship 
II.  Baptism  and  the  Eucharist 
IH.   Virginity 
IV.  Fasting 
V.   Almsgiving  . . 
VI.   Saint-Worship 
VH.  Relics 
VIII.   Monachism  . . 
IX.   The  Church  and  the  World 


CHAPTER    XI. 


Jovinian  and  Vigilantius 


PAGE 

3 
10 
15 
50 
58 
61 
71 
109 
130 


158 
161 
162 
165 
167 
167 
172 
173 
179 

182 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 


PERIOD     II. 

From  the   Death  of  Augustine,  a.d.  430,  to  the  Accession  of 
Pope  Gregory  the  Great,  a.d.  590. 

PAGE 

CHAPTER   I. 
The  Nestorian  Strife 201 

CHAPTER    II. 
Christian  Art  and  Mary-Worship         225 

CHAPTER    III. 
Benedict 235 


PERIOD     III. 

From   the    Accession   of    Pope   Gregory   the    Great,   a.d.    590, 
to  the  end  of  the  Tenth  Century. 

CHAPTER    I. 

Gregory  the  Great  245 

Note  on  the  Papacy 255 

CHAPTER    II. 
Christianity  in  Britain 257 

CHAPTER    III. 
The  Gospel  in  Northumbria 270 

CHAPTER    IV. 
British  Missionaries  to  the  German  Nations 294 

CHAPTER   V. 
The  Mohammedan  Conquest 303 

CHAPTER    VI. 
The  Paulicians 306 

CHAPTER    VII. 
Witnesses  from  the  Eighth  to  the  Tenth  Century 312 


CONTENTS.  IX 


PERIOD     IV. 

From  the  Tenth  Century  to  the  Termination  of  the   Crusade 

AGAINST    THE    AlBIGENSES,    A.D.    1229. 

PAGE 

CHAPTER    I. 
Monastic  Life  in  the  Middle  Ages — Cluny 333 

CHAPTER    II. 
Monastic  Life  in  the  Middle  Ages  (continued) — Citeaux      . .         . .         . .     344 

CHAPTER    III. 

Monastic  Life  in  the  Middle  Ages  (concluded) — Clairvaux,  and  Bernard  . .     352 

CHAPTER  IV. 
The  Paulicians  in  Western  Europe 369 

CHAPTER    V. 
The  Reformers  of  the  Twelfth  Century  378 

CHAPTER    VI. 
TheWaldenses 396 

CHAPTER    VII. 

The  Crusade  against  the  Albigenses     . .         . .         . .         . .         . .         . .     407 

Conclusion         . .         . .         . .         . .         . .  . .         . .         . .         . .     428 


Authorities  432 

Index         433 


ILLUSTKATIONS. 


Justinian  and  Theodora 


Episcopal  Chaie  of  Ambrose 

Doors  of  the  Basilica  of  St.  Ambrose 

Palace  of  Theodoric,  Eavenna 

Fac-simile  from  the  Durham  Book   .. 

Monkwearmouth  Church 

Sculpture  from  the  same 

Ornamentation  from  the  Durham  book 

Jarrow  Church 

Ceolfrid's  Farewell 

Bede's  Chair 

Death  of  Bede 

Baptismal  Vow,  Old  German 

Queen  Thyra's  Cup  and  Cross 

The  Jellinge  Stone,  Jutland;  Pagan  Face 

„        ■  ,,  Christian  Face 

„  ,,         Inscription 

Seal  of  Bernard  of  Clairvaux 

Waldensian  Candlestick  

Fac-simile  from  the  Troubadour's  Lay 


Frontispiece. 

PAGE 

61 

68 

225 

To  face    282 

286 


287 
287 
288 
289 
290 
292 
303 
321 
321 
322 
322 
341 
406 
422 


PERIOD  I. 


FROM  THE  DEATH  OF  CONSTANTINE,  A.D.  337, 
TO  THE  DEATH  OF  AUGUSTINE,  A.D.  430. 


CHAPTEE    I. 

The    Akian    Epoch. 

From  the  time  of  Constantino  the  history  of  the  Church  becomes 
the  history  of  the  world.  To  continue  the  subject  in  the  historical 
form  of  the  previous  volume  would  lead  us  far  beyond  our  limits. 
The  purpose  of  the  present  work  is  rather  to  seek  out  true 
Witnesses  for  Christ,  whether  amongst  those  upon  whom  the 
Church  has  bestowed  the  title  of  saint,  or  amongst  the  rejected 
and  proscribed,  whom  she  has  branded  with  the  name  of  heretic. 
The  former,  however  great  and  good,  were  for  the  most  part  con- 
tented with  the  Christianity  by  which  they  were  surrounded  ;  and 
if  they  made  any  attempts  at  reformation,  did  little  more  than  aim 
at  the  correction  of  abuses  in  discipline  and  manners.  They  left 
the  fungus  growth  of  superstition  untouched,  and  in  some  cases 
even  more  rank  than  they  found  it.  The  heretics,  such  of  them  as 
are  worthy  of  memorial,  are  those  who,  not  always,  it  is  true,  in 
its  completeness,  discovered  the  truth  through  the  mist  which  hid 
it  from  the  eyes  of  the  many,  and  who  ventured  loss  of  character, 
liberty,  and  life  in  order  to  persuade  others  to  embrace  it. 

At  the  close  of  the  first  century  we  found  Christianity  numbering 
but  few  followers,  little  known  and  despised,  yet  steadily  permeating 
the  great  Roman  Empire,  and  wherever  it  came  effecting  a  mar- 
vellous change  in  the  dispositions  and  conduct  of  men.  From  age 
to  age  the  Church  grew,  and  asserted  her  reality  and  her  power  in 
the  teeth  of  all  manner  of  calumny  and  opposition.  In  spite  of 
adverse  laws  and  cruel  edicts,  she  won  her  way,  step  by  step,  even 
before  the  days  of  persecution  ceased,  to  a  recognised  place  of 
influence  and  honour. 

When  Constantine  declared  himself  her  nursing-father,  a  new 
era  opened  before  her.  Suddenly  her  relations  with  the  world 
were  changed  :  her  implacable  enemy  was  cast  under  her  feet ;  she 
ceased  to  be  persecuted,  and,  alas  !  she  became  a  persecutor.  From 
this  time  we  look  upon  the  Eoman  Empire  as  no  longer  pagan,  but 
Christian  :  the  laws  are  Christian ;  the  magistrates  are  Christian  ; 


4  WITNESSES    FOB    CHRIST. 

the  Emperor  is  Christian.  Pagan  temples  and  sacrifices,  if  they 
do  not  at  once  disappear,  are  gradually  replaced  by  Christian 
churches ;  and  paganism  soon  begins  to  hide  itself  in  the  corners 
of  the  earth.1  The  wholesale  admission  of  the  people  into  the 
Church  after  the  accession  of  Constantine  brought  with  it  a  crowd 
of  abuses,  and  powerfully  accelerated  that  declension  which,  in 
spite  of  the  purifying  effect  of  persecution,  had  been  going  on  for 
several  generations. 

Another  point  of  difference  between  the  history  of  the  Church 
before  and  after  the  edicts  of  Milan  (a.d.  313,  314)  must  be  noticed. 
The  historic  materials,  which  before  were  scanty,  now  become 
abundant.  A  host  of  Church  writers  appear  at  once  upon  the 
scene.  Homilies,  orations,  lectures,  commentaries  on  Scripture, 
controversial  treatises,  confessions,  epistles,  histories,  biographies 
of  saints  and  hermits,  hymns,  poems,  are  poured  forth  in  such 
volume  that  only  a  few  amongst  modern  scholars  have  patience 
enough  to  master  the  folios  in  which  they  are  preserved.  This 
brilliant  era  of  Christian  literature  lasted  but  little  more  than  a 
century ;  it  did  not  survive  the  irruption  of  the  barbarian  hordes. 
After  the  Goths,  Vandals,  Franks,  and  Huns  had  swept  over  the 
empire,  trampling  down  civilisation,  the  lamps  of  knowledge  became 
few  and  dim,  and  were  soon  all  but  extinguished. 

It  will  be  convenient  to  divide  the  present  work  into  chrono- 
logical epochs,  the  first  of  which  will  embrace  the  period  from  the 
death  of  Constantine  in  337,  to  that  of  Augustine  in  430.  A  brief 
outline  of  events  between  these  two  eras  may  serve  as  an  intro- 
duction to  our  biographies  of  the  Witnesses  of  this  age. 

On  Constantine's  death  he  was  succeeded  by  his  three  sons,  who 
divided  his  empire  between  them.  Constantine  II.  received  the 
"Western  provinces,  Constantius  the  Eastern,  and  Constans  had 
Illyricum,  Italy,  and  part  of  Africa,  for  his  share.  Constantine, 
whilst  invading  the  dominions  of  Constans,  was  killed  in  battle, 
a.d.  340.  Constans  was  slain  a.d.  350  by  one  of  his  generals,  who 
was  in  turn  overcome  by  Constantius,  in  353.  Constantine  and 
Constans  favoured  the  Catholic  or  orthodox  party ;  Constantius, 
like  his  father  in  his  later  days,  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Arians, 
but  with  a  more  blind  zeal  and  greater  intolerance.  The  nature  of 
the  Arian  error  has  already  been  set  forth  in  Early  Church  History. 
Arius,  whilst  ascribing  to  our  Lord  divine  honour,  taught,  contrary 
to  the  plain  testimony  of  Scripture,  that  He  had  a  beginning,  and 

1  The  name  pagan  is  derived  from  the  Latin  pagus,  a  canton  or  country  dis- 
trict, because  it  was  there  the  old  idolatry  survived  the  longest.  In  like  manner, 
heathen  signifies  one  who  lives  on  the  heath,  that  is,  in  the  open  country. 


ARIANISM.  5 

is  not  of  the  same  substance  or  essence  (homo-onsion)  as  the 
Father.  Partly  from  the  Oriental  love  of  speculation,  partly  from 
an  honest  dread  of  sensuous  ideas  and  unscriptural  terms,  a  great 
portion  of  the  Eastern  Church  became  his  followers.  The  chief 
opponent  of  Arius  was  Athanasius.  The  whole  life  of  this  remark- 
able man  was  devoted  to  the  defence  of  our  Lord's  proper  deity,  the 
cardinal  truth  which  it  was  the  object  of  the  Council  of  Nicaea  to 
settle  and  confirm.1 

We  have  seen  that  at  the  death  of  Constantine  the  Great, 
Arianism  was  in  the  ascendant.  That  Emperor,  in  the  part  which 
he  took  in  theological  controversies,  never  lost  sight  of  the  interests 
of  the  State.  It  was  otherwise  with  his  son  Constantius,  who 
entered  the  polemical  lists  as  if  he  had  been  himself  a  bishop.2 
His  reign,  with  those  of  the  succeeding  Arian  emperors,  was  a 
period  of  intense  agitation  in  the  Church.  "  Council  was  held 
against  council ;  creed  was  set  up  against  creed ;  anathema  was 
hurled  against  anathema."  "  As  many  creeds  exist  as  inclinations," 
wrote  the  orthodox  Hilary  of  Poictiers  in  his  exile,  "as  many 
doctrines  as  modes  of  life.  .  .  .  Whilst  we  are  disputing  about 
words,  searching  into  novelties,  catching  at  ambiguities,  anathe- 
matising one  another — scarcely  one  belongs  to  Christ.  .  .  .  We 
make  creeds  every  year,  nay  every  month  ;  we  repent  when  we 
have  made  them ;  we  defend  those  who  repent ;  we  anathematise 
those  whom  we  have  defended  ;  we  condemn  either  other  people's 
opinions  in  our  own,  or  our  own  in  other  people ;  mutually 
devouring  one  another  we  are  at  length  mutually  consumed." 
"  The  posting  service  of  the  empire,"  says  Ammianus  Marcellinus, 
"was  thrown  into  confusion  by  the  troops  of  bishops  galloping 
hither  and  thither  to  the  assemblies  which  they  called  synods." 
And  Athanasius  rebukes  "  the  restless  nutter  of  the  clergy,  who 
journeyed  the  empire  over  to  find  the  true  faith,  and  provoked  the 
ridicule  and  contempt  of  the  unbelieving  world."     But  it  was  not 

1  Early  Church  History,  pt.  ii.  c.  11. 
2  He  accepted  with  complacency  the  lofty  title  of  "  bishop  of  bishops."  The 
reign  of  Constantius  is  described  by  Thomas  Hodgkin  as  "one  of  the  most 
peculiar  of  which  history  has  preserved  a  record ;  the  reign  of  a  man  deeply 
dyed  in  the  blood  of  relatives  and  friends,  who  used  the  obsequious  service  of 
eunuchs  instead  of  entrusting  the  affairs  of  the  State  to  honest  and  capable 
ministers,  whose  feeble  haughtiness  and  cowardly  ambition  bear  no  trace  of  the 
influence  of  Christianity  upon  his  life,  but  who,  nevertheless,  plunged  into 
theological  discussions  with  an  eagerness,  and  continued  in  the  same  with  a 
patient  endurance,  such  as  we  should  scarcely  find  nowadays  in  a  salaried  pro- 
fessor of  Divinity."  Like  his  father,  Constantius  deferred  baptism  till  shortly 
before  his  death. 


6  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

the  clergy  only  who  took  part  in  the  strife.  The  points  of  the 
Arian  controversy  were  the  fashionable  topics  of  conversation 
amongst  all  ranks,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  "  Every  corner 
and  nook  of  the  city"  (Constantinople),  writes  Gregory  of  Nyssa, 
"is  full  of  men  who  discuss  incomprehensible  subjects — the  streets, 
the  markets,  the  dealers  in  old  clothes,  the  money-changers,  the 
hucksters.  Ask  a  man  how  many  oboli  it  comes  to,  he  will  dogma- 
tise on  generated  and  un  generated  being.  Inquire  the  price  of 
bread,  you  are  answered :  '  The  Father  is  greater  than  the  Son, 
and  the  Son  subordinate  to  the  Father.'  Ask  if  the  bath  is  ready, 
and  you  are  told :  'The  Son  of  God  was  created  from  nothing.'" 
The  war  was  very  far,  however,  from  being  confined  to  words ;  the 
intolerance  of  the  age  showed  itself  in  innumerable  acts  of  violence, 
in  which  the  Arians  seem  to  have  far  outdone  the  Catholics.  The 
great  cities  of  the  East  especially  were  the  frequent  scenes  of  con- 
fusion and  bloodshed. 

From  a.d.  341  to  the  death  of  Constantius  in  361,  no  fewer  than 
twelve  councils,  or  synods,  were  held,  at  which  the  balance  con- 
tinually vibrated  between  orthodoxy  and  Arianism,  but  with  a 
general  inclination  towards  the  latter.  This  was  due  to  the 
arbitrary  will  of  the  Emperor,  who  at  the  Council  of  Milan  pro- 
pounded an  Arian  formula  which  he  pretended  to  have  received  by 
revelation,  and  at  the  same  time  attempted  to  quench  all  freedom 
of  debate  by  saying,  "Whatever  I  will  let  that  be  esteemed  a 
canon!"  During  the  strife  the  Arian  party  split  into  two  camps, 
the  Semi-Arians  or  Homoi-ousions  (a  name  adopted  to  express  that 
the  essence  of  the  Son  is  like  but  not  the  same  as  that  of  the  Father), 
and  the  thorough  Arians,  who  held  more  distinctly  than  Arius 
himself  that  the  Son  is  essentially  a  creature  unlike  the  Father,  not 
only  in  substance  but  in  will.  The  Orthodox  body  were  called 
Homo-ousions,  to  signify  their  belief  that  the  Son  is  of  the  same 
essence  as  the  Father,  but  a  different  person.  During  the  storm 
Athanasius,  Hosius  of  Cordova,  Liberius  of  Kome,  Hilary  of  Poictiers, 
and  other  eminent  bishops  of  the  Catholic  party,  were  deposed  and 
banished.  "The  whole  world,"  exclaims  Jerome,  "groaned  in 
astonishment  to  find  itself  Arian." 

This  state  of  things,  however,  did  not  last  long.  On  the  death  of 
Constantius  in  861,  Christianity  itself  was  for  a  time  set  aside  by 
the  accession  of  Julian,  surnamed  the  Apostate,  nephew  to  Constan- 
tine  the  Great.  As  soon  as  this  prince  ascended  the  throne,  he 
declared  himself  in  favour  of  the  ancient  idolatry,  and  restored  it 
to  its  former  place  as  the  religion  of  the  State.  He  sought  to 
infuse  new  life  into  the  dying  creed  by  adopting  the  moral  code  of 


JULIAN   ATTEMPTS   TO    REBUILD   THE    TEMPLE.  7 

Christianity  and  introducing  many  of  its  forms.  The  laws  which 
he  enacted  against  the  Church  were  indeed  mild  in  comparison 
'with  those  which  his  predecessor  had  issued  against  heathenism, 
yet  in  the  course  of  his  short  reign  the  Christians  had  to  endure  no 
little  hardship,  both  from  the  government  and  the  people. 

One  form  in  which  Julian's  enmity  to  the  Gospel  showed  itself 
was  the  attempt  to  rebuild  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem.  He  seems  to 
have  supposed  that  he  could  falsify  our  Lord's  prediction  of  its 
perpetual  ruin.  At  his  call  Jews  from  all  the  provinces  of  the 
■empire  assembled  on  the  holy  mountain  of  their  fathers,  and 
entered  with  fanatical  zeal  into  the  great  national  work.  The  rich 
used  spades  and  mattocks  and  baskets  of  silver,  and  ladies  carried 
the  earth  and  stones  of  the  holy  spot  in  their  silken  aprons.  But 
as  soon  as  the  rubbish  had  been  cleared  away,  and  the  old  founda- 
tions laid  bare,  "fearful  balls  of  flame"  are  said  "to  have  burst 
forth  from  the  earth,  burnt  the  workmen,  and  again  and  again 
driven  them  from  the  spot." 

The  reign  of  restored  paganism  was  short.  Julian  died  in  363, 
And  was  succeeded  by  Jovian,  a  zealous  upholder  of  Christianity, 
but  who,  from  the  critical  circumstances  of  the  times,  left  the 
pagans  unmolested.  At  his  death,  after  a  reign  of  only  eight 
months,  the  purple  fell  jointly  to  Valentinian  I.  and  Valens,  under 
whom  the  final  division  of  the  empire  was  made,  Valens  taking  the 
East  and  Valentinian  the  West.  Valens  trod  in  the  footsteps  of 
<3onstantius,  and  suffered  himself  to  become  the  tool  of  the  Arian 
-clergy.  His  reign  was  in  consequence  a  period  of  deplorable  deso- 
lation in  the  Oriental  Churches.  "Worthy  bishops  were  driven 
from  their  sees  ;  worthless  men,  who  had  their  patrons  among  the 
Imperial  eunuchs  and  chamberlains,  were  imposed  on  the  Churches 
as  priests  and  bishops."  Many  of  the  orthodox  clergy  were  put  to 
death.  On  the  death  of  Valens,  in  378,  the  Catholics  recovered 
their  power,  and  the  Arians  in  their  turn  were  driven  from  the 
"Churches,  never  to  regain  their  former  influence. 

The  legal  toleration  of  paganism  continued  in  the  first  years  of 
the  Emperors  Gratian  and  Valentinian  II.  in  the  West,  and 
Theodosius  in  the  East;  until,  in  881,  Theodosius,  whose  character 
And  military  genius  could  brook  no  breach  of  uniformity,  directed 
the  whole  force  of  his  authority  to  its  suppression ;  and  his  efforts 
were  zealously  seconded  by  the  clergy  and  the  Christian  populace. 

But  Theodosius  was  not  only  a  "most  Christian"  he  was  a  "most 
Catholic"  Emperor.  Summoned  by  Gratian  to  deliver  the  East 
from  the  Goths,  and  baptized  when  dangerously  ill  into  the  Nicene 
faith,  he  set  himself  to  combat  with  equal  skill  and  success  the 


8  WITNESSES   FOE   CHRIST. 

enemies  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  those  of  the  empire.  To  him 
was  due  the  second  general  council  (that  of  Constantinople,  a.d.  381), 
by  which  the  Nicene  Creed  was  finally  established  with  the  addition 
of  a  clause  stating  in  express  terms  the  divinity  of  the  Holy  Spirit.1 
The  soldier  theologian  thus  makes  known  his  Imperial  will.  The 
decree,  directed  in  the  first  place  against  the  Arians,  was  meant  to 
reach  all  dissenters.  "It  is  our  will  that  all  the  nations  who  are 
subject  to  the  rules  of  Our  Clemency  shall  adhere  to  that  religion 
which  the  divine  Apostle  Peter  handed  to  the  Romans,  as  is 
sufficiently  shown  by  its  existence  among  them  to  this  day.  .  .  - 
We  believe  the  One  Godhead  of  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Ghost  with 
equal  majesty  in  the  Holy  Trinity.  We  order  those  who  follow 
this  law  to  assume  the  name  of  Catholic2  Christians:  we  pronounce 
all  others  to  be  mad  and  foolish,  and  we  order  that  they  shall  bear 
the  ignominious  name  of  heretics,3  and  shall  not  presume  to  bestow 
on  their  conventicles  the  title  of  churches:  and  they  are  to  be 
visited,  first  by  the  divine  vengeance,  and  secondarily  by  the  stroke 
of  our  own  authority,  which  we  have  received  in  accordance  with 
the  will  of  heaven."  This  edict  being  found  insufficient,  another, 
more  stringent,  was  issued  the  next  year.  "  Let  there  be  no  place 
left  to  the  heretics  for  celebrating  the  mysteries  of  their  faith,  no 
opportunity  for  exhibiting  their  stupid  obstinacy.  .  .  .  Their  crimes 
being  made  manifest,  let  them  receive  a  mark  of  opprobrium,  and 
be  kept  utterly  away  from  even  the  thresholds  of  the  churches.  If 
they  attempt  any  outbreak,  we  order  that  their  rage  shall  be  quelled, 
and  they  shall  be  cast  forth  outside  the  walls  of  the  cities,  so  that 
the  Catholic  churches,  the  whole  world  over,  may  be  restored  to 
the  orthodox  prelates  who  hold  the  Nicene  faith." 

These  measures,  although  not  in  all  cases  rigorously  enforced, 
were  successful.  "Neither  heathenism  nor  sectarianism,"  observes- 
Eobertson,  "had  much  inward  strength  to  withstand  the  pressure 
of  the  laws  which  required  conformity  to  the  Church."  Expelled 
from  the  old  Churches  of  the  empire,  Arianism  found  refuge 
amongst  the  barbarians,  especially  the  Goths  and  Vandals,  the 

1  The  creed  as  adopted  at  the  Council  of  Nicsea  will  be  found  in  the  Early 
Church  History,  p.  236.  As  enlarged  by  the  Council  of  Constantinople,  it  is,. 
with  one  exception,  the  same  as  we  find  in  the  liturgy  of  the  Church  of  England. 
In  this  liturgy  the  word  Filioque  (and  the  Son),  denoting  the  procession  of  the- 
Holy  Ghost  from  the  Father  and  the  Son  together,  has  been  added. 

2  Catholic,  ^athohkos  (kath  holou,  on  the  whole),  general,  universal.  This 
term  was  employed  by  very  early  Christian  writers  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
it  is  still  used. 

3  Heresy,  hairesis,  signifies — (1)  a  choosing;  (2)  an  opinion  which  anyone 
chooses  for  himself ;  (3)  something  different  from  the  Catholic  opinions. 


OVERTHROW    OF  ARIANISM.  9' 

latter  of  whom,  when  they  acquired  possession  of  North  Africa,. 
a.d.  429,  cruelly  persecuted  the  adherents  of  the  Nicene  faith. 

But  with  the  overthrow  of  Arianism  its  disastrous  consequences- 
did  not  disappear.  By  this  half-century  of  theological  contention 
a  severe  blow  had  been  dealt  at  the  life  of  Christianity.  "Whilst," 
observes  Ullniann,  "the  sanctifying  and  beatifying  doctrines  of  the 
Gospel  which  point  to  the  conversion  of  the  inner  man  were  suffered 
to  lie  inactive,  every  one  from  the  Emperor  to  the  beggar  occupied 
himself  with  incredible  earnestness  in  the  discussion  of  propositions, 
concerning  which  the  Gospel  communicates  just  so  much  as  is- 
profitable  to  us  and  necessary  to  salvation."  "  This  contentious 
spirit,"  writes  Gregory  Nazianzen,  "has  torn  asunder  the  Church ; 
thrown  cities  into  commotion,  driven  the  people  to  take  up  arms,, 
and  excited  princes  against  one  another;  separated  the  priests  from 
the  congregation,  and  the  congregation  from  the  priests.  Every- 
thing which  bears  a  holy  name  has  been  profaned;  .  .  .  an  insolent 
presumption  has  usurped  the  place  of  law ;  and  we  are  divided,  not 
merely  tribe  againt  tribe,  as  was  Israel  of  old,  but  house  against 
house,  family  against  family,  nay,  almost  every  one  is  distracted 
within  himself." 

The  irruption  of  the  barbarian  nations  has  been  already  slightly 
alluded  to.  It  is  the  grand  political  event  of  this  period,  and  it 
influenced  in  the  highest  degree  the  future  of  the  Christian  Church- 
Already,  in  the  third  century,  the  Goths  had  broken  through  the 
barriers  of  the  empire  and  settled  themselves  in  some  of  its  fairest 
provinces.  They  were  succeeded  by  other  tribes — Vandals,  Sueves, 
&c,  and  continual  wars  with  alternate  success  were  waged  untilr 
in  402,  Alaric,  king  of  the  Visigoths,  invaded  Italy,  and  in  410  took 
Borne.  For  six  days  the  Imperial  city,  which  had  stood  for  nearly 
twelve  hundred  years,  was  delivered  up  to  the  licentious  fury  of  the 
barbarians.  At  the  same  time  the  Vandals  and  the  Burgundians 
poured  into  Gaul,  and  the  former,  after  establishing  a  kingdom  in 
Spain,  crossed  over  into  Africa,  a.d.  429,  and  made  themselves 
masters  of  all  the  Koman  dominions  in  that  country. 

In  bringing  this  brief  outline  to  a  close,  we  may  notice  an  event 
which  happened  in  the  reign  of  the  Emperor  Honorius.  Neither 
the  attempt  of  Constantino  to  put  an  end  to  the  combats  of 
gladiators,1  nor  the  protests  of  Christian  writers  renewed  from  age 
to  age,  could  induce  the  Boman  people  to  relinquish  their  favourite 
pastime.     It  seemed  to  require  some  act  of  heroic  self-devotion  to 


1  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  219.    Constantine's  edict  seems  to  have  been 
only  local. 


10 


WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 


break  the  spell  by  which  they  were  bound  to  these  shameful  bar- 
barities. The  Emperor  Honorius,  after  the  victory  gained  by  his 
general  Stilicho  over  Alaric  and  the  Goths  at  Polantia  in  the  year 
404,  was  celebrating  a  triumph  with  the  usual  games.  An  Eastern 
monk  named  Telemachus  left  his  cell  and  travelled  all  the  way  to 
Rome  in  order  to  protest  against  the  unchristian  spectacle.  He 
entered  with  the  multitude  into  the  theatre  of  the  Coliseum. 
Gazing  with  agonized  heart  upon  the  revolting  scene,  and  seeing 
no  other  way  of  making  his  protest  known,  he  leaped  down  into 
the  arena  and  attempted  to  separate  the  combatants.  A  cry  of 
execration  arose.  The  spectators,  "possessed,"  saya  the  historian, 
"  by  the  demon  who  delights  in  the  effusion  of  blood,  and  maddened 
.at  the  interruption  to  their  sport,  stoned  him  to  death."  But  the 
Emperor,  struck  with  admiration  at  his  self-devotion,  and  probably 
pricked  in  his  own  conscience,  ordained  that  these  sanguinary 
spectacles  should  be  abolished,  and  that  the  name  of  Telemachus 
.should  be  entered  on  the  roll  of  martyrs.1 


CHAPTER  II. 


Athanasius. 


The  representative  men  whom  we  have  selected  from  the  ranks  of 
the  Catholic  Church  in  this  epoch  were  all  contemporary ;  Augustine, 
the  youngest  of  them,  had  nearly  reached  man's  estate  when 
Athanasius  died.     They  are  as  follows  : — 


Born  Died 

Athanasius    296  373 

Basil 329  377 

•Gregory  Nazianzen     ....     329  389 

Gregory  Nyssen   331  395 

Ulfilas2 311  381 


Born  Died 

Martin  of  Tours 316  396 

Ambrose    340  397 

Chrysostom 347  407 

Jerome 346  420 

Augustine8    354  430 


1  It  was,  however,  only  the  combats  of  men  with  men  that  were  discontin  ued. 
Encounters  between  men  and  wild  animals,  in  which  human  life  was  often 
sacrificed,  and  which  took  place  even  on  the  highest  festivals  of  the  Ch  urch, 
Tvere  as  numerously  and  passionately  attended  as  ever.  To  the  disgrace  of 
•Christendom,  the  Boman  games  of  the  amphitheatre  still  exist  in  the  bull-fights 
•of  Spain,  France,  and  South  America. 

8  Ulfilas  was  not  in  fact  a  Catholic  ;  he  represents  the  Arian  party. 

8  Other  leading  Churchmen  of  this  century  may  be  named:  the  learned 
Hosius,  bishop  of  Cordova  (a.d.  256-357),  counsellor  of  Constantine  the  Great, 


ATHANASIUS   IN    EXILE.  11 

We  have,  in  the  former  volume,  followed  the  eventful  history  of 
Athanasius  until  the  death  of  Constantine.1  His  course  under  that 
Emperor's  successors  continued  to  be  of  the  same  stormy  and 
eventful  nature ;  at  one  time  a  fugitive  and  exposed  to  hardship, 
at  another  returning  in  triumph  to  Alexandria  and  wielding  his 
crozier  with  increased  authority  and  vigour.2  Inflexible  of  will,  he 
alone,  amidst  the  waves  of  party  strife  which  during  this  time  swept 
over  Church  and  State,  remained  consistent  to  the  one  grand 
purpose  of  his  life,  viz.,  to  preserve  the  orthodox  faith  pure  from 
the  taint  of  heresy.  For  this  end  he  braved  all  dangers  and  with- 
stood the  mandate  of  the  Emperor  himself.  He  was  five  times 
driven  into  exile.  His  sufferings  only  augmented  his  fame,  which 
extended  to  the  extreme  confines  of  Christendom. 

During  his  second  exile  (a.d.  341-846),  Athanasius  spent  three 
years  in  Italy,  a  residence  memorable  for  the  introduction  of  the 
monkish  life  into  the  countries  of  the  West.  Two  strange  uncouth 
figures  in  cloak  and  girdle  accompanied  him  to  Eome.  These  were 
Ammonius  and  Isidore,  youthful  monks  from  the  Nitrian  desert.8 
The  former,  one  of  four  brothers  called  from  their  unusual  stature 
the  Tall  Brethren,  was  a  learned  man,  and  could  repeat,  it  is  said, 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments  by  heart,  as  well  as  passages  from 
Origen  and  others  of  the  Church  Fathers ;  yet  he  cared  nothing 
for  the  ancient  monuments  or  magnificent  works  of  the  great  city, 
but  only  to  visit  the  martyr  churches  of  Peter  and  Paul.  The 
fastidious  taste  of  the  Koman  people  was  at  first  offended  by  the 
appearance  and  manners  of  the  strangers,  but  this  feeling  soon 
gave  way  to  admiration  and  reverence,  as  they  heard  them  dilate 

and  for  a  long  period  the  most  prominent  figure  in  Western  Christendom ; 
Hilary,  bishop  of  Poictiers  (died  368),  the  great  champion  of  the  Trinitarian 
doctrine  in  the  West  ("  a  very  Rhone  of  eloquence,"  as  Jerome  styles  him) ; 
Ephrem,  a  deacon  of  Edessa,  "the  prophet  of  the  Syrians"  (308-373);  Cyril, 
bishop  of  Jerusalem  (315-386),  celebrated  for  his  catechetical  discourses  on  the 
mysteries  of  the  faith.  Some  of  these  dates,  and  of  those  in  the  text,  are  only 
approximate. 

1  Early  Church  History,  pt.  ii.  c.  11,  12. 

*  His  return  from  one  of  his  exiles  (the  second)  is  described  by  Gregory 
Nazianzen  as  a  most  imposing  spectacle.  "  The  vast  population  of  the  great 
city  streamed  forth  to  meet  him  like  another  Nile ;  innumerable  faces  gazed 
upon  him ;  the  air  resounded  with  shouts  of  joy  and  was  made  fragrant  with 
clouds  of  incense.  Within  the  city  the  streets  were  spread  with  carpets  of  the 
gayest  colours,  and  myriads  of  lamps  lighted  up  the  night." 

8  Anthony,  the  first  Christian  hermit,  was  then  living.  Isidore  afterwards 
became  governor  of  the  great  hospice  at  Alexandria.  He  must  be  distinguished 
irom  the  more  famous  Isidore  of  Pelusium,  who  lived  in  the  succeeding  century. 


12  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

upon  that  life  of  bodily  self-mortification  and  spiritual  exaltation 
of  which  Eome  had  hitherto  only  heard  rumours. 

After  the  death,  in  350,  of  the  Emperor  Constans,  Constantius, 
having  procured  the  condemnation  of  Athanasius  at  the  Council  of 
Milan  (a.d.  355),  proceeded  by  force  to  eject  him.  The  bishop  was 
presiding  over  an  all-night  vigil  in  St.  Thomas'  Church,  in  his  city 
of  Alexandria,  when  Syrianus,  general  of  the  army  in  Egypt,  with 
a  force  of  5,000  legionaries,  encompassed  the  building.  Athanasius 
himself  has  left  an  account  of  what  took  place.  "  I  sat  down  on 
my  throne,  and  desired  the  deacon  to  read  the  psalm  of  the  day 
[the  136th]  and  the  people  to  respond,  '  For  his  mercy  endureth 
for  ever,'  and  then  all  to  return  home.  Presently  the  doors  were 
forced  and  the  soldiers  rushed  in,  sounding  the  trumpet,  discharging 
their  arrows,  clashing  their  arms,  and  brandishing  their  swords  in 
the  light  of  the  church-lamps.  Many  of  the  people  who  had  not 
time  to  escape  were  trampled  down,  others  fell  pierced  with  arrows  ; 
several  of  the  virgins  were  slain,  and  the  soldiers  laid  hands  on 
others,  who  dreaded  their  touch  more  than  death  itself."  Athanasius 
himself  had  a  narrow  escape.  "  Seeing  the  soldiers  ready  to  seize 
me,  the  clergy  and  some  of  my  people  present  began  clamorously  to 
urge  me  to  withdraw.  I  refused  to  do  so  until  everyone  in  the  church 
had  got  away.  Standing  up,  I  called  for  prayer,  and  desired  all  to 
go  out  before  me ;  and  when  the  greater  part  had  gone,  the  monks 
and  the  clergy  who  were  about  me  came  up  the  steps  and  dragged 
me  down.  Thus,  under  the  Lord's  guidance,  I  passed  through 
unobserved,  glorifying  God  that  I  had  not  betrayed  the  people."1 

When  the  Emperor  Julian  came  to  the  throne  he  restored  the 
exiled  bishops  to  their  sees ;  and  Athanasius  returned  for  the  third 
time  to  Alexandria  (a.d.  362).  But  his  energy  in  opposing  paganism 
alarmed  the  new  Emperor,  and  he  had  again  to  make  his  escape. 
His  followers,  full  of  grief,  gathered  round  him.  "Be  of  good 
heart,"  he  said,  "it  is  but  a  cloud,  it  will  soon  pass  away." 
Finding  a  vessel  lying  near  the  bank  of  the  Nile,  he  embarked  to 
ascend  the  river  to  Thebes.  But  the  Emperor  had  determined  to 
take  his  life,  and  agents  of  the  government  were  sent  in  pursuit. 
One  of  his  friends  contriving  to  outstrip  the  Imperial  boat,  brought 
him  intelligence  of  the  danger.  His  companions  besought  him  to 
disembark  and  take  refuge  in  the  desert.  He,  however,  directed  the 
steersman  to  put  the  helm  about,  and  return  to  Alexandria.     They 

1  The  two  contemporary  authorities  and  eye-witnesses  differ  slightly  in  the 
details.  According  to  one  of  them,  "  The  bishop  was  seized,  fell  into  a  swoon, 
and  was  almost  torn  to  pieces.  We  do  not  know  how  he  escaped,  for  they  were 
bent  upon  killing  him." 


ATHANASIUS    ON    THE    AKIAN   DOCTKINE.  13 

were  met  by  the  government  boat,  and  hailed  :  "  Where  is  Athana- 
sius ?"  "  He  is  not  far  off,"  was  the  answer,  uttered  perhaps  by 
Athanasius  himself.  Suspicion  was  not  excited,  and  the  vessel 
passed  on.  He  reached  Alexandria  in  safety,  and  remained  con- 
cealed until  the  accession  of  Jovian  in  the  same  year,  363,  restored 
him  to  his  beloved  flock. 

The  Emperor  Valens,  influenced  by  the  firmness  of  the  Alexan- 
drians and  by  fear  of  Valentinian,  suffered  Athanasius  to  remain 
for  a  while  in  his  see;  but  in  365  he  was  once  more  compelled  to 
fly,  and  it  is  said  that  he  lay  hid  four  months  in  his  father's  tomb 
at  the  gate  of  the  city.  He  was  finally  reinstated  in  366,  and  his 
long  and  chequered  life  came  to  a  peaceful  close  in  his  own  house 
in  373.  He  had  occupied  the  see  of  Alexandria  forty-six  years. 
Athanasius  was  small  of  stature,  somewhat  stooping,  and  emaciated 
by  fasting  and  many  hardships.  His  countenance  was  handsome 
and  expressive,  and  his  eye  piercing,  so  that  his  presence  inspired 
even  his  enemies  with  awe. 

Gibbon,  who  seldom  bestows  eulogy  upon  Christian  heroes,  loves 
to  extol  the  character  of  the  great  Alexandrian  divine.  "  The 
immortal  name  of  Athanasius  will  never  be  separated  from  the 
Catholic  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  to  whose  defence  he  consecrated 
every  moment  and  every  faculty  of  his  being  .  .  .  His  pastoral 
labours  were  not  confined  to  the  narrow  limits  of  Egypt.  The 
state  of  the  Christian  world  was  present  to  his  active  and  capacious 
mind ;  and  the  age,  the  merit,  the  reputation  of  Athanasius,  enabled 
him  to  assume,  in  a  moment  of  danger,  the  office  of  Ecclesiastical 
Dictator." 

To  this,  must  be  added  Hooker's  panegyric.  "In  Athanasius 
there  was  nothing  observed  throughout  the  course  of  that  long 
tragedy,  other  than  such  as  very  well  became  a  wise  man  to  do, 
and  a  righteous  to  suffer.  So  that  this  was  the  plain  condition  of 
those  times  :  the  whole  world  against  Athanasius,  and  Athanasius 
against  it ;  half  a  hundred  of  years  spent  in  doubtful  trial  which  of 
the  two  in  the  end  would  prevail — the  side  which  had  all,  or  else 
the  part  which  had  no  friend  but  God  and  death,  the  one  a  defender 
of  his  innocency,  the  other  a  finisher  of  his  troubles." 

The  writings  of  Athanasius  are  numerous,  and  have  always  been 
greatly  prized  by  the  Church.1   His  great  mission,  as  we  have  seen, 

1  "When  you  meet  with  a  saying  of  Athanasius,"  said  Cosmas  the  monk  in 
the  sixth  century,  "and  have  not  paper  on  which  to  copy  it,  copy  it  on  your 
clothes."  The  creed  which  bears  the  name  of  Athanasius  was  not  composed  by 
him,  nor  even  in  his  lifetime,  but  seems  to  have  originated  about  the  middle  of 
the  fifth  century. 


14  WITNESSES   FOB    CHRIST. 

was  to  uphold  against  the  Arians  the  proper  deity  of  the  Son  of 
God.  "  When  the  Arians  maintained  that  the  Son  of  God  is  only 
distinguished  from  other  created  beings  by  the  fact  that  God  created 
Him  first  of  all,  and  then  all  other  beings  by  Him,  Athanasius 
answers :  '  It  is  a  narrow-minded  representation  that  God  should 
require  an  instrument  for  creation ;  it  is  as  though  the  Son  of  God 
came  into  existence  only  for  our  sakes.  By  such  a  representation 
we  might  be  led  to  regard  Him,  not  as  participating  immediately  in 
the  Divine  Essence,  but  as  requiring  an  intermediate  agency  for 
Himself.  .  .  .  If  we  do  not  stand  in  connection  with  God  through 
his  Son,  as  thus  conceived  of,  we  have  no  true  communion  with 
Him,  but  something  stands  between,  and  we  are  not  his  children  in 
a  proper  sense.  For  as  to  our  original  relation  to  Him,  we  are 
only  his  creatures,  and  he  is  not  in  a  proper  sense  our  Father ; 
only  so  far  is  He  our  Father  as  we  are  placed  in  communion  with 
Him  through  Christ.  "Without  this  it  could  not  be  said  that  we  are 
partakers  of  the  Divine  Nature.'  .  .  .  The  Arians  believed  that 
they  ought,  according  to  the  Scriptures,  to  pay  divine  honour  to 
Christ :  Athanasius  charged  them  with  inconsistency,  seeing  that, 
on  their  own  showing,  they  thus  become  idolaters  and  worshippers 
of  a  creature.  The  Arians  objected  to  the  Nicene  doctrine,  that  the 
idea  of  the  Son  of  God  cannot  be  distinguished  from  that  of  a 
created  being,  unless  words  are  used  representing  Him  with  human 
attributes  and  affections.  Athanasius  replied  that  undoubtedly  all 
expressions  regarding  the  nature  of  God  are  symbolical,  and  have 
something  of  a  human  idea  at  their  basis,  and  this  we  must 
abstract  in  order  to  come  at  a  correct  conception.  This  we  do 
in  the  case  of  creation.  In  like  manner  we  must  abstract  from 
the  expressions  Son  of  God,  and  Begotten  of  God,  what  belongs  to 
human  relations,  and  then  there  is  left  to  us  the  idea  of  Unity  of 
Essence." 

The  opinions  of  Athanasius  on  violence  and  persecution  deserve 
to  be  written  in  letters  of  gold.  "Nothing  more  forcibly  marks  the 
weakness  of  a  bad  cause  than  persecution.  Satan,  who  has  no 
truth  to  propose  to  men,  comes  with  axe  and  sword  to  make  way 
for  his  errors.  Christ's  method  is  widely  different.  He  teaches 
the  truth,  and  says :  '  H  any  man  tcill  come  after  Me  and  be  my 
disciple  ; ' — when  He  comes  to  the  heart  He  uses  no  violence,  but 
says,  '  Open  to  Me,  my  sister,  my  spouse.'  If  we  open  He  comes 
in  ;  if  we  will  not  open  He  retires  ;  for  the  truth  is  not  preached 
with  swords  and  spears,  not  by  bands  of  soldiers,  but  by  counsel 
and  persuasion.  But  of  what  use  can  persuasion  be  where  the 
Imperial  Ego  dominates  ?      Or  what  place  is  there  for  counsel 


THE    CAPPADOCIAN    BISHOPS.  15 

when  resistance  to  Imperial  authority  must  terminate  in  exile  or 
death  ?  " 

Allusion  has  been  made  to  the  life,  by  Athanasius,  of  Anthony 
the  Hermit.  It  is  the  first  of  a  long  series  of  saintly  biographies, 
held  in  the  highest  esteem  by  the  Church  of  Rome.  The  work  has 
probably  been  interpolated  by  a  later  hand ;  but,  allowing  for  this, 
it  is  marvellous  that  the  sagacious  and  powerful  mind  of  Athana- 
sius should  have  given  forth  such  a  narrative,  not  indeed  devoid  of 
instruction,  but  mixed  with  so  much  of  absurdity.  It  is  only  to  be 
accounted  for  by  the  influence  of  superstition,  even  on  the  strongest 
minds,  in  an  age  when  freedom  of  thought  was  not  present  to 
counteract  it.  Most  of  the  biography  is  taken  up  in  relating 
Anthony's  encounters  with  the  devil.  The  demonology  of  the 
monks  was  derived  from  the  Neo-Platonists ;  and  "when  the 
solitary  had  reduced  his  hated  enemy,  the  body,  to  a  skeleton,  and 
thus  weakened  his  understanding  and  inflamed  his  imagination, 
he  was  in  a  fit  state  to  hear  strange  voices,  and  behold  fearful 
apparitions." 


CHAPTEK    III. 

The    Cappadocian    Bishops. 

The  name  of  Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  bishop  of  Neo-Caesarea  in 
Pontus,  is  familiar  to  the  readers  of  the  Early  Church  History.1 
The  fruit  of  his  pastoral  work  is  met  with  in  the  household  of  a 
Christian  lady  named  Macrina,  who,  with  her  husband,  concealed 
herself  in  the  forests  during  the  persecution  under  Galerius  and 
Maximinus  Daza.  Their  son  Basil  and  his  wife  Emmelia  had  a 
family  of  ten  children,  and  in  the  ordering  of  their  household  and 
the  bringing  up  of  their  family,  they  diligently  followed  the 
example  set  them  by  their  parents.  It  is  related  of  the  eldest 
daughter,  who  was  named  Macrina  after  her  grandmother,  that  she 
knew  the  whole  of  the  Psalms  by  heart,  as  well  as  many  portions 
of  the  books  of  Solomon. 

Macrina  was  beautiful,  and,  being  also  rich,  her  hand  was  sought 
by  many.  In  accordance  with  the  custom  of  the  age,  the  choice 
lay  with  her  father,  who  selected  a  young  advocate  of  gentle  birth. 
Before  the  time  came  for  the   marriage,  the   young '  man   died. 

i  P.  192. 


16  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

Macrina  possessed  a  soul  of  no  common  order,  and  regarding  her 
betrothal  as  a  virtual  union,  and  her  affianced  husband  as  still 
living,  though  in  a  far-off  land,  to  be  joined  to  her  again  at  the 
resurrection,  she  refused  to  listen  to  any  further  proposals  of 
marriage.  At  her  father's  death,  when  she  was  about  twenty-two 
years  of  age,  the  care  of  her  widowed  mother  and  of  the  younger 
children  devolved  upon  her,  and  she  even  undertook  the  manage- 
ment of  the  family  estates,  which  lay  in  three  different  provinces. 
She  brought  up  her  infant  brother  Peter,  contracted  eligible 
marriages  for  her  four  sisters,  and,  not  disdaining  household  work, 
-she  baked  the  bread  for  the  family,  and  prepared  her  mother's  food 
with  her  own  hands. 

Basil,  the  first  of  the  three  subjects  of  this  chapter,  was  next  to 
Macrina  in  age,  and  was  born  a.d.  329.  When  a  child,  he  was 
-sent  to  the  country  house  of  his  excellent  grandmother,  from 
whom  he  received  the  germs  of  Christian  instruction.  "  She 
taught  me,"  he  tells  us,  "  the  words  of  the  most  blessed  Gregory." 
These  early  lessons  and  his  father's  teaching  prepared  him  to  enter 
into  competition  with  boys  of  his  own  age  at  the  grammar  school 
in  Csesarea,  the  chief  city  of  Cappadocia,  where  he  distinguished 
himself  by  his  brilliant  talents  and  exemplary  conduct.  From 
thence  he  was  removed  to  Constantinople,  and  studied  under  the 
sophist  Libanius,  one  of  the  most  noteworthy  defenders  of  expiring 
paganism.  The  tutor  has  recorded  his  admiration  of  the  eloquence 
of  the  young  Cappadocian,  and  of  his  self-restraint  amid  the  temp- 
tations of  the  New  Rome. 

On  leaving  Constantinople  Basil  repaired  to  Athens  to  drink 
philosophy  at  that  ancient  fountain-head ;  and  here  also  he  had 
heathen  preceptors  for  his  guides,  who  still  lectured  under  the 
colonnades  or  in  the  gardens  where  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  Epicurus 
once  taught. 

At  Athens  Basil  found  a  fellow-countryman  of  his  own  age,  a 
native  of  Arianzus,  a  village  or  estate  in  the  west  of  Cappadocia. 
This  was  Gregory  Nazianzen,  the  second  of  our  Cappadocian 
worthies.  Like  Basil,  he  was  the  child  of  pious  parents.  His 
father  Gregory,  bishop  of  Nazianzus,  had  belonged  at  the  time 
of  his  marriage  to  a  half  heathen  sect  called  Hyjisistarians  (wor- 
shippers of  the  Most  High),  and  had  been  won  over  to  the  Church 
by  the  persevering  influence  of  his  wife.  This  happened  just  when 
several  bishops  passed  through  Nazianzus  to  attend  the  council  of 
Nicaea,  and  he  was  baptized  in  their  presence.  The  credulity  of 
the  age  invested  his  baptism  with  miracles  and  prophecies.  Gre- 
gory's mother  was  Nonna,  a  woman  of  a  masculine  character,  in 


GREGORY   IN    THE    STORM.  17 

whom  religion  was  all  powerful,  but  it  was  the  religion  of  the  age, 
narrow  and  formal.  She  had  unlimited  confidence  in  prayer,  and 
had  attained  such  mastery  of  her  feelings  that  when  affliction  came 
she  never  uttered  a  lamentation  till  she  had  given  thanks  to  God. 
She  carried  her  notions  of  almsgiving  to  such  an  excess  as  often  to 
say  that  she  would  gladly  sell  herself  and  her  children  to  provide 
money  for  the  poor.  She  was  so  exclusive  that  she  would  never 
shake  hands  with  or  kiss  a  heathen  woman,  or  eat  salt  with  an 
idolater. 

Gregory  the  younger  was  born  about  a.d.  330,  and  was  dedicated, 
even  before  his  birth,  to  the  service  of  the  Lord.  Not  many  days 
after  his  birth  his  mother  carried  him  to  the  church,  and  laid  his 
infant  hands  on  a  volume  of  the  Gospels.  He  used  afterwards  to 
compare  himself  to  Isaac  offered  in  sacrifice  to  God,  and  to  Samuel, 
who  was  consecrated  as  a  child  by  his  mother  Hannah.  When  old 
enough,  he  was,  like  Basil,  sent  to  school  at  Neo-Csesarea,  where, 
probably,  the  friendship  between  them  commenced;  and  from 
thence  successively  to  Csesarea  in  Palestine  and  to  Alexandria. 
But  his  heart  was  set  on  Athens ;  and  though  the  time  of  year  was 
unfavourable  for  a  voyage,  he  hastened  to  quit  Alexandria  and  sail 
thither.  When  the  ship  arrived  off  Cyprus,  a  violent  storm  arose ; 
the  thunder,  lightning,  and  darkness  were  accompanied  by  the 
creaking  of  the  yards,  the  quivering  of  the  masts,  and  piteous  cries 
for  help  to  Christ,  even  from  some,  as  Gregory  tells  us,  who  had 
never  before  called  upon  his  name.  They  had  besides  lost  their 
store  of  fresh  water,  so  that  death  from  thirst  or  from  shipwreck 
alike  stared  them  in  the  face.  A  Phoenician  vessel  coming  up, 
managed  with  great  difficulty  to  supply  them  with  water ;  still  the 
storm  did  not  abate,  and  for  many  days  their  fate  hung  in  the 
balance.  It  was  not  the  fear  of  death  itself  which  tormented  Gre- 
gory ;  but,  in  accordance  with  a  frequent  practice,  his  baptism  had 
been  deferred,1  and  death  without  baptism  had  come  to  be  looked 
upon  as  the  loss  of  heaven.  Overwhelmed  with  the  thought,  he 
dedicated  himself  anew  to  God,  and  prayed  for  mercy  and  deliver- 
ance for  himself  and  the  ship's  company.  The  prayer,  as  he  tells  us, 
was  answered ;  all  on  board  were  saved,  and  so  affected  by  their 
deliverance  that  they  received  "  spiritual  as  well  as  temporal 
salvation,"  which  doubtless  means  that  they  underwent  the  rite  of 
baptism. 

He  arrived  at  Athens  some  time  before  Basil.  The  university, 
which  had  lost  its  ancient  simplicity  and  freedom,  was  divided  into 

See  Early  Church  History,  p.  245. 


18  WITNESSES    FOB    CHBIST. 

rival  schools,  and  it  was  the  chief  aim  of  the  professors  to  spread 
their  own  fame  and  increase  the  number  of  their  pupils.  Fresh 
students  were  waylaid  and  fought  for  by  the  rival  parties,  and 
sometimes  torn  away  from  the  very  teacher  whom  they  had  come 
expressly  to  attend. 

The  acquaintance  between  the  two  compatriots  speedily  ripened 
into  an  ardent  friendship.  Dissimilar  in  character,  they  were 
attracted  to  each  other  by  their  very  dissimilarity :  "  Gregory,  the 
affectionate,  the  tender-hearted ;  Basil,  the  man  of  firm  resolve  and 
hard  deeds."  "They  occupied  the  same  chamber  and  ate  at  the 
same  table.  They  studied  the  same  books  and  attended  the  same 
lectures."  "We  knew,"  says  Gregory,  "only  two  streets  of  the 
city :  the  first  and  more  excellent,  that  which  led  to  the  churches 
and  the  ministers  of  the  altar ;  the  other,  to  the  schools  and  the 
teachers  of  the  sciences.  The  streets  which  led  to  the  theatres, 
games,  and  other  places  of  unholy  amusement,  we  left  to  others. 
Holiness  was  our  chief  concern;  our  sole  aim  was  to  be  called 
Christians,  and  to  be  such." 

Amongst  the  fellow-students  of  Basil  and  Gregory  was  Constan- 
tine's  nephew,  Julian,  afterwards  Emperor  and  well  known  by  his 
surname  of  "the  Apostate."  The  young  prince  attached  himself 
to  Basil,  who  responded  to  his  advances.  They  united  in  the  study 
of  classic  literature,  and  even  read  together  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures. 
Gregory,  however,  regarded  Julian  with  suspicion,  discerning,  as 
he  tells  us,  his  true  character  in  his  incessant  restlessness  and 
hesitating  speech,  and  in  every  feature  of  his  countenance  ;  and  he 
warned  his  fellow-students  that  that  young  man  would  one  day 
bring  evil  upon  the  empire. 

Basil  spent  five  years  at  Athens  (a.d.  351-356).  He  had  won  a 
name  in  the  university,  and  it  was  with  pain  he  tore  himself  away, 
yet  a  conviction  of  the  emptiness  of  the  world,  even  under  its 
noblest  aspects,  seemed  to  have  taken  possession  of  him,  and  he 
described  Athens  as  "  hollow  blessedness."  Gregory  remained 
there  a  short  time  longer.1 

Beturning  to  Caesarea,  where  his  father  resided,  Basil  commenced 
practice  as  a  rhetorician.  The  success  he  met  with  and  his  college 
reputation  filled  him  with  vain  and  ambitious  thoughts.  He  looked 
with  contempt  on  his  superiors  in  rank  ;  he  adopted  the  airs  of  a 
fine  gentleman ;  and  began  to  indulge  in  the  pleasures  of  the  city. 
His  sister  Macrina  perceived  his  danger.      Her  loving  heart  was 

1  The  school  at  Athens,  which  had  stood  900  years,  the  last  refuge  of  heathen 
teaching,  was  abolished  by  Justinian  I.,  a.d.  529.  Its  seven  remaining  professors 
-went  into  exile  and  found  protection  with  Chosroes,  king  of  Persia. 


basil's  conversion.  19 

•deeply  stirred  at  seeing  her  brother  choose  the  broad  way.  But 
she  was  scarcely  a  wise  counsellor  for  a  young  man  in  whose  path- 
way the  world  had  spread  its  snares.  It  is  doubtful,  indeed,  if  a 
wise  counsellor  was  at  that  time  anywhere  to  be  found.  The 
mistaken  idea  that  in  order  to  live  above  the  world  it  was  necessary 
to  flee  from  it  had  been  steadily  gaining  force  ever  since  Paul  and 
Anthony  retired  into  the  Libyan  desert ;  and,  although  monastieism 
had  not  yet  been  introduced  into  Asia  Minor,  the  devout  members 
of  the  Church  were  every  where  turning  towards  an  ascetic  life.  It 
would  have  been  a  marvel  if  Macrina  had  escaped  the  general 
(Contagion.  By  her  sisterly  warnings  she  infused  into  her  brother's 
soul  the  same  disregard  of  earthly  pleasures  and  distinctions,  the 
same  enthusiasm  for  self- mortification  which  ruled  in  her  own 
breast. 

The  idea  of  a  recluse  life  was  not  new  to  Basil.  He  and  his 
ifriend  Gregory  had  already,  when  at  Athens,  pledged  each  other 
one  day  to  turn  their  backs  upon  the  world.  Nevertheless,  Basil 
describes  himself  as  awaking,  under  the  effect  of  his  sister's 
admonitions,  out  of  a  deep  sleep,  and  in  the  light  of  Gospel  truth 
•discerning  the  folly  of  this  world's  wisdom  to  which  he  had  begun 
to  devote  himself.  Interpreting  literally  our  Lord's  words :  "  If 
thou  wilt  be  perfect,  go,  sell  that  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the  poor, 
and  thou  shalt  have  treasure  in  heaven;  and  come,  follow  Me"; 
he  at  once  resolved  to  give  up  his  profession,  and  withdraw  into 
solitude.  Accordingly,  about  the  year  357,  he  left  Csesarea  to  visit 
the  most  renowned  ascetics  of  Egypt  and  Syria.  "Their  abstinence 
and  endurance,  their  mastery  over  hunger  and  sleep,  their  in- 
difference to  cold  and  nakedness,"  excited  in  him  the  warmest 
admiration,  accompanied  by  an  ardent  desire  to  imitate  them. 
On  his  return  he  wrote  to  Gregory,  reminding  him  of  their  mutual 
vow,  and  proposing  they  should  withdraw  together  into  the  desert. 

Gregory  had  been  two  years  at  home  since  his  return  from 
Athens.  His  parents  were  advancing  in  age,  and  the  duty  which 
he  owed  to  them  weighed  against  the  allurements  of  a  life  of  prayer 
and  meditation.  He  reflected  also  that  the  desert  would  not  afford 
the  opportunity  which  his  studious  disposition  craved,  for  a  critical 
acquaintance  with  the  Scriptures.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
longed  to  devote  to  God  every  faculty  he  possessed,  and  in  his 
hours  of  contemplative  abstraction  the  examples  of  Elijah  and 
John  the  Baptist  would  present  themselves,  as  most  worthy  of 
imitation.  Evidently  he  did  not  understand  that  it  is  in  the  New 
Covenant  only  the  Christian  can  find  his  perfect  Exemplar ;  that 
Christians  are  called  "  to  go  into  the  world  with  Christ,  not  out  of 


20  WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST. 

it  with  Elijah  and  the  Baptist."  For  a  while  Gregory  sought  to' 
reconcile  the  two  conflicting  influences,  and  attempted  to  live  a 
hermit  life  in  the  midst  of  society.  His  food  was  bread  and  salt, 
his  drink  water,  his  bed  the  bare  ground,  his  clothing  coarse. 
Incessant  labour  filled  up  the  day;  prayers,  hymns  and  meditations, 
a  great  part  of  the  night.  He  condemned  his  former  life ;  the 
mirth  in  which  he  used  to  indulge  now  cost  him  many  tears.  He 
even  gave  up  music,  as  being  a  gratification  of  the  senses.  But  he 
soon  found  that  the  abstraction  of  mind  required  by  this  mode  of 
life  was  incompatible  with  his  domestic  duties.  "  Many  cares,"  he 
says,  "  fretted  me  by  night  and  by  day  ;  ruling  servants  was  a  very, 
network  of  evil ;  and  I  could  no  more  look  after  property,  with  its 
attendant  plagues  of  tax-collectors  and  law-courts,  than  a  man  can 
approach  a  house  on  fire  without  being  blackened  and  scorched  by 
the  smoke."  In  this  state  of  mind  he  replied  to  Basil's  letter,  by 
proposing  that  the  latter  should  join  him  at  Arianzus.  Basil 
accordingly  made  him  a  visit.  But  the  place  disgusted  him,  for  he 
found  it  cold  and  damp  and  intolerably  muddy,  to  use  his  own 
words,  "the  very  pit  of  the  whole  earth." 

By  this  time  Basil's  family  had  settled  on  the  ancestral  estate  in 
Pontus,  beside  the  river  Iris,  the  spot  where  he  himself  had  passed 
his  childhood.  Here  his  sister  Macrina  and  her  mother  converted 
their  household  into  a  religious  sisterhood,  to  which  the  daughters 
of  the  noblest  families  in  the  province  resorted.  Basil  was  not  slow 
to  perceive  the  superiority  of  the  brotherhood  to  the  solitary  life. 
M  God,"  he  writes,  "  has  made  us  like  the  members  of  our  body, 
dependent  on  one  another's  help.  What  discipline  of  humility,  of 
pity,  or  of  patience  can  there  be  if  there  be  no  one  for  whom  these 
duties  are  to  be  practised?  Whose  feet  wilt  thou  wash  ;  to  whom 
wilt  thou  be  as  a  servant ;  how  canst  thou  be  last  of  all,  if  thou 
art  alone  ?  "  Here  unhappily  he  stopped.  God,  who  made  man  to> 
live  in  society,  gave  him  also  marriage,  and  set  him  in  families ; 
and  has  revealed  Himself  to  us  through  that  endeared  relation  of 
Father,  which  the  Church  of  the  fourth  century  presumptuously 
denied  to  her  priests  and  her  elect  children.  If,  instead  of  placing 
himself  at  the  head  of  a  retrograde  movement,  and  trying  to  give  it 
a  more  practical  direction,  this  man  of  commanding  talents  and 
unbending  will  had  taken  his  stand  on  the  New  Testament,  aud 
withstood  the  popular  current  altogether,  he  might  have  conferred 
priceless  benefits  on  his  own  and  succeeding  ages.1 

1  Basil  was  not  actually  the  first  to  introduce  monachism  into  Asia  Minor  ; 
he  was  preceded  by  the  Arian,  Eustathius  of  Sebaste.  On  his  return  from  the 
East,  Basil  joined  himself  to  some  disciples  of  this  bishop,  the  counterpart  of 


basil's  charming  retreat.  21 

The  spot  which  Basil  selected  for  his  monastery  was  in  the 
immediate  neighbourhood  of  his  mother's  religious  house,  but  on 
the  opposite  bank  of  the  river.  It  was  not  a  dreary  wilderness, 
like  the  Egyptian  deserts,  but  a  charming  retreat,  such  as  every 
lover  of  nature  might  covet.  "  God  has  shown  me,"  he  wrote  to 
his  friend  Gregory,  "  a  region  which  exactly  suits  my  mode  of  life ; 
it  is  in  truth  what  in  our  happy  hours  we  often  dreamed  of.  That 
which  imagination  pictured  in  the  distance  I  now  see  before  me. 
At  the  foot  of  a  high  mountain,  covered  with  thick  forest,  spreads 
out  a  wide  plain,  plentifully  watered,  and  enclosed  by  a  belt  of 
many  kinds  of  trees,  almost  thick  enough  to  be  a  fence.  On  two 
sides  deep  ravines  serve  as  a  protection,  whilst  on  a  third  the 
mountain  torrent,  which  breaks  upon  the  wall  of  projecting  rock, 
and  rolls  foaming  into  the  abyss,  forms  an  impassable  barrier. 
From  my  cottage  on  the  summit  I  overlook  the  plain  and  the 
windings  of  the  Iris.  Shall  I  go  on  to  describe  the  fragrant  smell 
of  the  meadows,  the  refreshing  breezes  from  the  water,  or  the  vast 
numbers  of  song-birds  and  flowers  ?  In  all  these  another  might 
take  delight ;  but  as  for  me,  my  mind  is  not  at  liberty  to  enjoy 
them.  To  me  the  greatest  charm  of  this  retreat  is  the  quiet  that 
reigns  here.  Eemote  from  the  tumult  of  the  city,  its  silent  repose 
is  ouly  now  and  then  broken  by  a  solitary  hunter,  who  is  in 
pursuit,  not  of  bears  or  wolves,  but  of  the  deer,  the  roe,  and  the 
hare."1  Even  here,  however,  Basil  could  not  escape  from  himself. 
In  another  letter  he  writes :  "  What  I  do  in  this  solitude  I  am 
almost  ashamed  to  say.  I  have  abandoned  my  residence  in  the 
-city,  as  being  the  source  of  a  thousand  evils,  but  myself  I  cannot 
leave  behind.  I  am  like  voyagers  unaccustomed  to  the  sea,  who, 
when  attacked  with  sickness,  leave  the  large  ship  because  of  its 
violent  rolling,  and  descend  into  a  little  boat,  but  find  no  relief. 
Thus  I,  too,  bearing  about  with  me  my  inherent  passions,  have 
made  but  little  spiritual  progress  by  virtue  of  my  solitary  life." 

In  the  Fade  which  Basil  instituted  for  the  government  of  his 
monastery,  and  which  still  regulates  the  cloisters  of  the  Greek 
Church,  industry  was  combined  with  devotion.     It  was  a  common 

the  ascetics  whom  he  had  seen  in  Egypt  and  Syria ;  but  when  he  discovered 
they  were  the  followers  of  a  "heretic,"  he  left  them,  concluding  that  they  were 
•"  unsanctified  hypocrites." 

1  The  Iris  runs  through  a  valley  some  miles  to  the  west  of  Neo-Csesarea  (now 
•contracted  into  Niksar),  with  a  fine  mountain  region  between.  Although  the 
.site  of  the  monastery  has  not  been  identified,  the  description  of  the  region  by 
modern  travellers  answers  to  Basil's  picture.  "  No  description  is  adequate  to 
jaint  the  brilliancy  and  luxuriance  of  vegetation  and  the  picturesque  forms." 


22  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

proverb  :  •«  A  laborious  monk  is  beset  by  one  devil,  an  idle  monk  by 
a  legion."  By  the  labour  of  Basil's  monks  many  a  barren  tract 
was  converted  into  corn-fields  and  vineyards.  His  rule  was  severe. 
His  monks  wore  coarse  garments  (seldom  washed),  a  belt,  and  shoes 
of  raw  hide;  their  hair  uncombed,  their  looks  downcast.1  One 
meal  only  a  day  was  allowed,  of  bread,  water,  and  beans  without 
salt.  "With  us,"  wrote  Basil  to  the  Emperor  Julian,  "as  is- 
becoming,  the  cook's  art  has  no  place;  our  knives  never  touch 
blood ;  our  daintiest  meal  is  vegetables  with  coarse  bread  and  half- 
sour  wine."2  The  night,  as  well  as  the  day,  was  divided  into- 
definite  portions,  and  the  intervals  of  sleep  filled  up  with  prayers 
and  psalmody.3  Basil  himself  had  but  one  outer  and  one  inner 
garment ;  he  slept  in  a  hair  shirt,  with  the  ground  for  his  bed,  and 
never  made  use  of  a  bath.  But  Basil's  rule  was  more  than  severe. 
Like  the  pattern  which  he  found  in  Egypt,  it  was  an  outrage 
against  humanity.  "It  is  the  devil's  craft,"  he  says,  "to  keep 
alive  in  the  mind  of  the  monk  a  recollection  of  his  parents  and 
kinsfolk,  so  that  under  colour  of  aiding  them  he  may  be  diverted 
from  his  heavenly  course."  And  when  some  (for  there  seem  to- 
have  been  a  few  reasonable  men  still  remaining)  pointed  to  Paul's- 
words,  "  If  any  provide  not  for  his  own,  and  specially  his  own 
household,  he  hath  denied  the  faith,  and  is  worse  than  an  un- 
believer," Basil,  with  perverse  ingenuity,  answered,  that  Paul 
speaks  here  to  the  living,  not  to  the  dead ;  whereas  a  true  monk  is, 
as  regards  all  secular  obligations,  a  dead  man.  The  solitude  of  the 
cell  was  looked  upon  as  the  very  essence  of  the  Christian  life. 
With  a  singular  ignorance  of  human  nature  he  declares  :  "  Solitude 
puts  to  sleep  the  vicious  motions  of  the  mind,  and  leisure  affords  a 
way  of  extirpating  them  altogether."  Intercourse  with  women  was 
especially  prohibited.  It  was  forbidden  to  speak  with,  or  even  to 
look  at  them,  except  in  cases  of  extreme  necessity.  But  the  rule 
did  not  stop  even  here.  "  Shun  the  society  of  young  men  of  thy 
own  age"  (such  is  Basil's  injunction  to  the  novice);  "flee  from 
them  as  from  a  burning  flame ;  if  thou  leave  thy  cell,  thou  leavest 

1  Gregory's  pattern  of  the  true  monk  agrees  with  Basil's:  "Vigils,  fasts, 
prayers,  tears,  smitings  of  the  breast,  standing  the  night  through,  the  mind- 
going  forth  to  God ;  disordered  hair,  feet  naked  in  imitation  of  the  Apostles, 
neglected  clothing,  unwandering  eyes." 

2  Basil,  however,  was  still  human.  "  Send  me  some  fine  pot-herbs,"  wrote 
Gregory  Nazianzen  to  a  friend,  who,  with  Basil,  was  about  to  pay  him  a  visit, 
41  if  thou  dost  not  wish  to  see  Basil  hungry  and  cross." 

8  "  If  any  one  is  cross  on  being  awaked,  what  punishment  is  he  to  have  ? 
At  first,  separation  and  deprivation  of  food ;  but  if  he  continue  insensible,  let 
him  be  cut  off  as  a  diseased  limb." — Shorter  Rule. 


GREGORY   VISITS    BASIL.  25 

thy  virtue."  "What  sort  of  virtue,"  asks  Isaac  Taylor,  "is  that 
which  evaporates  the  moment  it  is  exposed  to  daylight?"  Girls 
were  not  allowed  to  profess  hefore  their  sixteenth  or  seventeenth 
year ;  any  irregularity  fallen  into  hy  those  who  devoted  themselves 
after  this  age,  was  punished  with  inexorable  severity. 

Basil  aimed  at  making  the  cloister  a  school  for  the  priesthood. 
He  held  the  strange  opinion  that  the  austerities  of  monastic 
discipline  were  the  best  training  for  the  Christian  ministry ;  and 
when  he  became  bishop  he  ordained  scarcely  any  but  monks, 
preferring  those  who  carried  self-mortification  to  the  greatest 
extreme.1 

The  alluring  picture  which  Basil  drew  of  his  retreat  brought 
Gregory  to  his  side.  They  prayed,  toiled,  fasted,  and  sang  psalms 
together,  and  studied  the  Scriptures  and  Origen.  Prior  to  Augustine, 
no  one  of  the  Fathers  exercised  so  powerful  a  spell  overmen's  minds 
as  did  Origen.2  Admired  by  some  as  the  first  of  Christian  philo- 
sophers, shunned  by  many  as  a  dangerous  heretic,  anathematized 
by  councils,  the  shibboleth  of  rival  theologians,  it  was  at  the 
copious  well-spring  of  Origen's  intellect  that  ardent,  youthful 
spirits  slaked  their  thirst  for  knowledge.  Gregory  and  Basil  culled 
from  his  works  a  selection  of  choice  passages,  which  they  named 
Philocalia  (Love  for  the  Beautiful). 

Possibly,  however,  at  this  time  Gregory  may  have  found  Basil's 
cloister  life  somewhat  severe,  for  on  his  return  home  he  wrote  his 
friend  a  bantering  epistle.  "  With  Homer  let  us  '  sing  the  garniture 
within,'  to  wit,  thy  dwelling  roofless  and  doorless;  the  hearth 
without  fire  or  smoke ;  walls  nevertheless  baked  enough  lest  the 
mud  should  trickle  down  on  us  while  we  suffer  Tantalus'  penalty — 
thirst  in  the  midst  of  water.  And  that  beggarly  fare  for  which 
thou  called  me  from  Cappadocia !  I  shall  never  forget  the  broth 
and  the  bread ;  bread  so  hard  that  the  teeth  made  no  impression, 
and  when  they  did  effect  an  entrance  were  set  fast  as  in  a  paste. 
Unless  that  true  lady-bountiful,  thy  mother,  had  promptly  come  to 
my  help,  I  had  been  dead  long  ago.  Nor  can  I  omit  that  misnamed 
garden,  void  even  of  pot-herbs;    or  the  Augean  heap  which  we 

1  Chrysostom  herein  differed  altogether  from  Basil.  "  The  monk,"  he  writes, 
"lives  in  a  calm,  where  there  is  little  to  oppose  him.  The  skill  of  the  pilot, 
cannot  be  known  till  he  has  taken  the  helm  in  the  open  sea  in  rough  weather. 
Too  many  of  those  who  have  passed  from  the  seclusion  of  the  cloister  to  the 
active  sphere  of  the  priest  or  bishop,  have  lost  their  head;  and  often,  instead  of 
adding  to  their  virtue,  have  been  deprived  of  the  good  qualities  which  they 
already  possessed.  Monasticism  often  serves  as  a  screen  to  failings  which 
active  life  draws  out,  just  as  the  qualities  of  metal  are  tested  by  fire." 

1  See  Early  Church  History,  pt.  ii.,  c.  4,  &c. 


24  WITNESSES    FOR    CHEIST. 

cleared  off  and  spread  over  it ;  or  how,  in  levelling  a  rugged  bank, 
we  dragged  that  heavy  cart  full,  thou  the  gentleman,  and  I  the 
vintager,  with  neck  and  hand  which  still  bear  the  marks  of  my  toil." 

Finding  that  Basil  did  not  take  his  pleasantry  altogether  in  good 
part,  Gregory  wrote  again  :  "  "What  I  wrote  before  concerning  thy 
Pontic  abode  was  in  jest,  not  in  earnest ;  but  now  I  write  very 
much  in  earnest.  Who  shall  give  me  back  those  psalmodies  and 
vigils,  those  prayers  which  transported  us  from  earth  to  heaven, 
that  life  which  seemed  to  have  nothing  in  it  of  material  or  corporeal  ? 
0  that  I  could  live  again  the  sweet  time  we  spent  in  the  study  of 
the  divine  oracles,  and  enjoy  the  light  which,  through  the  guidance 
of  the  Spirit,  we  found  in  them.  Or  let  me  speak  of  lower  things, 
the  bodily  labours  of  the  day,  gathering  the  wood  and  quarrying 
the  stone,  the  planting  and  the  draining.  And  especially  of  that 
golden  plane-tree,  more  honourable  than  that  of  Xerxes,  under 
which,  not  a  pleasure-sated  king,  but  a  weary  monk  did  sit,  planted 
by  me,  watered  by  Apollos  (that  is  thy  excellent  self),  and  made  by 
God  to  grow  up  to  my  honour,  and  as  a  monument  of  our  mutual 
toil." 

Basil's  reputation  for  sanctity  attracted  to  him  so  large  a  number 
of  devotees  that  his  retreat  quickly  assumed  the  appearance  of  a 
town.  He  also  repeatedly  made  missionary  journeys  through 
Pontus,  and  everywhere  there  sprang  up  conventual  houses  of 
both  sexes  for  the  joint  practice  of  industry  and  piety.  In  these 
institutions  children  were  taken  charge  of,  slaves  protected,  soli- 
taries received,  and  (most  mistaken  charity !)  a  home  made  for 
married  persons  who  imagined  they  were  serving  God  by  living 
apart.  By  his  means  also  hospitals  and  other  homes  of  beneficence 
were  founded. 

In  a.d.  860  the  Emperor  Constantius  used  all  his  authority  to 
obtain  the  signatures  of  the  bishops  to  the  Arian  confession  of 
faith,  known  as  the  creed  of  Ariminum  (Kimini).  Gregory's  father 
was  one  of  those  who  yielded,  but  afterwards,  through  the  influence 
of  his  son  and  of  the  monks  of  his  diocese,  who  were  devoted  to 
Athanasius,  he  made  a  public  confession  of  orthodoxy.  Dianius, 
bishop  of  Csesarea,  also  gave  way.  Basil,  who,  like  Athanasius, 
regarded  it  as  the  great  mission  of  his  life  to  uphold  the  Trinitarian 
faith,  was  grieved  beyond  measure  at  his  bishop's  weakness,  and 
refrained  from  all  communion  with  him.  When,  however,  two 
years  afterwards,  Dianius  was  stricken  for  death,  he  entreated  Basil 
to  come  to  him  and  comfort  his  dying  hours.  The  aged  bishop 
expired  in  Basil's  arms,  protesting  with  his  last  breath  that  he  had 
never  intentionally  departed  from  the  Nicene  faith,  and  that  it  was 


BASIL    OFFENDS    THE    EMPEBOR.  25 

in  the  simplicity  of  his  heart  he  had  given  his  adherence  to  the 
Arian  creed. 

Shortly  before  the  death  of  Dianius,  Julian  ascended  the  throne, 
a.d.  361.  It  was  the  desire  of  the  new  Emperor  to  surround  him- 
self with  the  associates  of  his  early  days ;  and  he  invited  Basil  to 
come  at  once  to  court.  Basil  was  at  first  disposed  to  accept  the 
invitation,  but  when  he  found  that  Julian  had  turned  his  back 
upon  the  Christian  faith,  and  was  preparing  to  restore  paganism, 
he  refused.1  Julian  was  deeply  offended,  and  determined  to  be 
revenged.  Hearing  that  the  citizens,  so  far  from  apostatising  with 
himself,  and  building  new  heathen  temples  as  he  had  commanded, 
had  pulled  down  the  only  one  still  standing — the  Temple  of 
Fortune ;  he  expunged  Csesarea  from  the  catalogue  of  cities,  and 
inflicted  severe  penalties  on  the  clergy  and  the  wealthy  inhabitants. 
He  even  demanded  of  Basil  a  fine  of  a  thousand  pounds'  weight  of 
gold.  Basil,  in  his  reply,  reminded  the  Emperor  of  the  time  when 
they  two  studied  the  Holy  Scriptures  together,  and  upbraided  him 
with  the  folly  of  requiring  so  vast  a  sum  from  one  who  had  not 
enough  even  to  buy  himself  a  meal.  The  Emperor  was  further 
■exasperated  by  another  occurrence.  Eusebius,  a  distinguished 
layman,  was  chosen  bishop  in  the  place  of  Dianius,  mainly  through 
the  exertions  of  Basil  and  Gregory.  The  choice,  which  was 
opposed  by  many  of  the  neighbouring  prelates,  was  offensive  to 
Julian,  who  grudged  the  Church  the  possession  of  so  able  a  citizen, 
and  vowed  that  when  he  should  return  in  triumph  from  his  Persian 
campaign  he  would  reserve  the  two  friends,  "  as  Polyphemus  did 
Ulysses,"  for  his  latest  victims.  He  did  not  live  to  return,  but 
was  slain  in  the  expedition. 

Basil  had  soon  to  repent  of  the  part  he  had  taken  in  the  election 
of  Eusebius.  The  new  bishop,  desiring  to  avail  himself  of  Basil's 
theological  knowledge  and  intellectual  power  to  compensate  for  his 
own  deficiencies,  obliged  him,  against  his  will,  to  receive  ordination 
as  a  priest.  Shortly  before,  in  362,  Basil's  friend  Gregory  had  also 
been,  by  his  father's  authority  and  the  will  of  the  people,  driven  or 
entrapped  into  the  priesthood.  The  perversion  of  the  Christian 
ministry  to  a  sacerdotal  office,  and  the  mistaken  notions  derived 
from  the  old  Eastern  religions,  regarding  the  mortification  of  the 
body,  made  Gregory  shrink  with  extreme  dread  from  ordination. 
"I  felt  myself  unequal  to  this  warfare,  and  therefore  hid  my  face 

1  The  student  of  history  may  recollect  the  two  laconic  epistles  which  passed 
between  the  Emperor  and  Basil.  Julian:  "I  have  read,  I  have  understood, 
I  have  condemned."  Basil :  "  Thou  hast  read,  but  not  understood ;  for  if  thou 
hadst  understood,  thou  wouldst  not  have  condemned." 


20  WITNESSES   FOB    CHRIST. 

and  slunk  away.  My  body  of  humiliation  wages  an  eternal  war 
with  my  passions.  I  toss  to  and  fro  through  the  senses  and  the 
delights  of  life  ;  I  stick  fast  in  the  deep  mire ;  the  law  of  sin  wars 
against  the  law  of  the  spirit,  and  tries  to  efface  the  royal  image  in 
me.  Before  we  have  subdued  with  all  our  might  the  principle 
which  drags  us  down,  and  have  duly  cleansed  the  spirit,  and  have 
much  surpassed  others  in  approach  to  God,  I  consider  it  unsafe  to 
undertake  the  cure  of  souls  or  the  mediatorship  between  God  and 
man,  which  belong  to  a  priest."  When  to  his  conscientious 
scruples  was  added  the  forced  manner  of  his  ordination,  which 
appeared  to  him  nothing  less  than  an  act  of  spiritual  tyranny,  it 
was  more  than  he  could  support,  and  leaving  his  new  charge 
he  betook  himself  to  Pontus  (a.d.  362),  to  seek  consolation  from 
his  old  friend.  The  Nazianzen  Church  was  offended  at  Gregory's 
flight,  and  on  his  return  demanded  from  him  a  public  apology.  He 
set  himself  to  answer  in  a  manner  worthy  of  the  occasion.  The 
result  was  one  of  those  eloquent  discourses  which  have  made  his 
name  famous  as  a  master  of  Christian  oratory.1 

To  return  to  Basil.  A  rupture  soon  broke  out  between  himself 
and  the  new  bishop.  The  latter  was  not  only  his  inferior  in  worth, 
but  was  far  less  popular;  and  when,  envious  of  his  superiority,. 
Eusebius  treated  Basil  with  coldness,  if  not  with  insolence,  the  latter 
might  easily  have  wrested  the  episcopal  authority  out  of  his  hands. 
Basil,  however,  had  the  prudence  to  withdraw  from  the  contest, 
and  shut  himself  up  in  his  monastery  in  Pontus.  Here  he  remained 
till  365,  when  the  arbitrary  measures  adopted  by  the  Emperor 
Valens  for  the  spread  of  Arianism,  brought  him  back  to  Caesarea. 
Through  Gregory's  mediation  he  became  reconciled  to  Eusebius,. 
and  gave  him  his  powerful  support  in  this  hour  of  common  need. 
The  Arians  assumed  a  threatening  aspect,  but  Basil  compelled  them 
to  leave  the  city.  The  insurrection  of  Procopius  at  Constantinople, 
which  just  then  broke  out,  prevented  Valens  for  the  moment  from 
taking  his  revenge ;  and  Basil  had  time  to  organise  his  defence. 
He  also  exerted  himself  to  mitigate  the  suffering  from  drought  and 
famine  by  which,  in  the  year  368,  Cappadocia  was  laid  waste.  He 
gave  up  the  property  which  had  recently  come  to  him  at  the  death 
of  his  mother,  persuaded  the  rich  merchants  who  had  bought  up 
the  corn  to  open  their  stores,  set  on  foot  a  public  subscription,  and 
himself  superintended  the  distribution  of  bread  to  the  starving 
multitude. 

1  The  discourse  is  practically  a  treatise  on  the  pastoral  office,  and  is  a  store- 
house whence  Chrysostom,  Gregory  the  Great,  Bossuet,  and  other  orators  o£ 
various  times  have  drawn  their  ideas. 


THE    SEE    OF    C.3ESAREA.  27" 

In  370  Eusebius  died.  Basil  saw  that  the  cause  of  orthodoxy 
in  the  province  depended  upon  his  own  elevation  to  the  vacant  see. 
The  election  of  a  bishop  in  the  great  cities  had  come,  since  the 
accession  of  Constantine,  to  be  an  affair  of  State,  a  matter  of 
great  political  no  less  than  ecclesiastical  importance,  and  where 
parties  ran  high,  it  was  often  accompanied  by  tumults  and  blood- 
shed.1 

In  this  instance  the  prize  to  be  contended  for  was  of  no  common 
value.  The  bishop  of  Caesarea  was  the  possessor  of  power  reaching 
far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  city  itself.  He  was  metropolitan  of 
Cappadocia  and  exarch  of  Pontus.2  In  the  latter  capacity  his 
authority,  more  or  less  defined,  extended  over  more  than  half  Asia 
Minor,  and  embraced  eleven  provinces.  Basil,  beloved  and  popular 
as  he  was,  felt,  nevertheless,  that  his  election  was  insecure.  The 
people  generally  with  the  clergy  and  monks  were  on  his  side,  but 
the  rich  chafed  under  his  ceaseless  calls  to  charity,  the  authorities 
dreaded  the  displeasure  of  the  Arian  Emperor  Valens,  and  the 
neighbouring  bishops  were  jealous  of  his  superior  reputation  and 
abilities.  Instead  of  leaving  the  matter  in  the  hands  of  Him  who- 
alone  has  the  right  to  appoint  his  shepherds,  Basil  began  to  devise 
measures  for  the  accomplishment  of  his  purpose.  He  sent  for 
Gregory,  but,  fearing  that  if  his  friend  were  apprised  of  the  real 

1  In  the  contest  for  the  see  of  Eome,  in  a.d.  366,  between  Damasus  and 
Ursicinus,  a  sanguinary  street  war  was  waged.  Damasus,  it  is  stated,  followed- 
by  a  furious  mob,  forced  his  way  into  the  churches,  and  trampled  down  all 
opposers.  After  this,  with  a  band  of  gladiators,  he  seized  the  Lateran  Basilica, 
where  he  was  ordained;  and,  having  bribed  the  magistrates,  caused  his- 
opponent  to  be  sent  into  exile.  The  people  would  have  hindered  him  from 
taking  possession  of  the  episcopal  chair,  but  he  cleared  his  way  through  them 
with  blows ;  and  then,  with  the  ecclesiastics  of  his  faction,  joined  by  gladiators,, 
charioteers,  and  armed  rustics,  besieged  one  of  the  churches  where  the  adverse 
party  were  assembled.  Setting  fire  to  the  doors,  he  forced  his  way  in,  slew  160' 
persons,  men  and  women,  and  wounded  many.  "Notwithstanding  all  this," 
adds  Roberts,  "Damasus  was  a  saint,  and  miracles  were  ascribed  to  him  after 
his  death  !  "  How  widely  the  Church  had  departed  from  the  apostolic  rule  in 
the  election  of  its  officers,  even  where  such  outrages  were  unknown,  let 
Chrysostom  declare.  "The  elections  are  generally  made  on  public  festivals, 
and  are  disgraceful  scenes  of  party  feeling  and  intrigue.  The  clergy  and  the- 
people  are  never  of  one  mind.  The  really  important  qualifications  for  the  office 
are  seldom  considered.  Ambitious  men  spare  no  arts  of  bribery  or  flattery  to 
obtain  places.  One  candidate  for  a  bishopric  is  recommended  to  the  electors, 
because  he  is  of  a  noble  family ;  another,  because  he  is  wealthy  and  will  not 
burden  the  funds  of  the  Church ;  a  third,  because  he  is  a  deserter  from  the- 
opposite  party." 

2  As  metropolitan  he  had  fifty  country  bishops  under  him.  The  term  exarch, 
was  nearly  synonymous  with  that  of  patriarch. 


28  WITNESSES    FOB    CHRIST. 

nature  of  the  business  he  might  shrink  from  undertaking  it,  he 
stooped  to  employ  artifice.  As  though  he  were  on  his  death-bed, 
he  wrote,  begging  him  to  come  and  receive  his  last  commands. 
The  wretched  maxim  that  deceit  and  falsehood  are  permissible  when 
religion  is  to  be  promoted,  was  fast  taking  root  in  the  Church.1 

As  soon  as  he  received  the  letter  Gregory  prepared  to  go  to  his 
friend's  help,  but  before  he  set  out  he  discovered  the  deception  which 
had  been  put  upon  him.  He  protested  against  the  fraud,  refused 
to  come  to  Caesarea,  and  urged  Basil  to  leave  the  city  until  the 
election  was  over.  Such  affairs,  he  told  him,  were  not  managed  by 
men  of  piety,  but  by  active  and  popular  agents.  But  Basil  was  not 
thus  to  be  deterred ;  he  turned  from  the  son  to  the  father,  the  aged 
bishop  of  Nazianzus.  Convinced  that  the  cause  of  orthodoxy  was 
involved  in  Basil's  election,  the  old  man  roused  himself  for  the 
occasion.  Using  his  son  as  his  amanuensis,  he  dictated  two  letters 
— one  to  the  clergy  and  people  of  Caesarea,  calling  on  them  to  lay 
aside  party  feeling  and  choose  Basil  as  bishop;  the  other  to  the 

•  electing  prelates,  reminding  them  (as  Basil's  state  of  health  had 
been  made  an  objection)  that  they  were  not  choosing  an  athlete,  but 
a  spiritual  teacher.  He  also  wrote  to  a  bishop  of  wide  influence, 
Eusebius  of  Samosata,  urging  him  to  visit  Caesarea  and  undertake 
the  direction  of  this  difficult  business.  Eusebius  found  the  city 
in  a  state  of  distraction,  but  his  influence  and  tact  overcame  all 
obstacles.  Even  the  bishops  yielded,  or  rather  pretended  to  do  so, 
for  when  the  time  came  for  the  consecration,  two  of  them  only 
were  found  willing  to  join  in  it.  The  rule  of  the  Church  required 
three.2  But  if  the  adverse  party  hoped  in  this  way  to  nullify  the 
election,  they  were  disappointed.  The  aged  Gregory,  though 
scarcely  able  to  stand,  caused  himself  to  be  lifted  from  his  bed  and 
carried  in  a  litter  to  Caesarea.  With  his  own  hands  he  consecrated 
the  newly-elected  prelate,  and  placed  him  in  his  episcopal  chair. 

We  now  follow  Basil  from  his  cell  on  the  Iris  to  his  throne  in 
the  capital  of  Pontus.  His  election  filled  the  orthodox  everywhere 
with  exultation.  Athanasius,  then  seventy-four  years  old,  and 
nearing  the  end  of  his  course,  congratulated  Cappadocia  on  pos- 
sessing a  bishop  whom  every  province  might  envy.  At  Constanti- 
nople the  news  was  received  with  far  different  feelings.     Valens 

1  In  his  Rule,  Basil  took  a  higher  standard  than  in  his  own  practice.     He 

•  enjoined  truthfulness  to  the  exclusion  of  expediency  even  for  a  good  end, 
adducing  the  words  of  Christ  (John  viii.  44). 

2  The  fourth  canon  of  the  Council  of  Nicaea  directs  that,  if  possible,  a  bishop 
should  be  ordained  by  all  the  bishops  of  the  province,  but  that  in  any  case 
three,  at  least,  should  be  present. 


FRAUD    FOE   A   PIOUS    END.       GBEGOEY    NYSSEN.  29 

regarded  it  as  a  serious  check  to  his  designs  for  the  triumph  of 
Arianism.     Basil  was  not  an  opponent  to  be  despised  ;  if  he  could 
not  be  made  to  bend,  he  must  be  got  rid  of. 

Basil  had  hoped  that  his  friend  Gregory  would  become  his  co- 
adjutor in  this  new  office,  but  he  was  disappointed.  Gregory,  whose' 
affection  appears  to  have  been  somewhat  cooled  by  Basil's  trickery, 
expressed  satisfaction  at  his  election,  but  excused  himself  from 
joining  with  him  in  public  life ;  and  although  after  a  while  he 
yielded  to  his  importunity  and  went  to  Caesarea,  it  was  only  to- 
refuse  all  Basil's  public  attentions  and  marks  of  dignity,  and  soon 
to  retire  again  to  his  quiet  home  at  Arianzus. 

For  some  years  Basil's  episcopal  rule  was  troubled  by  those 
bishops  who  had  opposed  his  election.  They  withheld  their 
sympathy  and  help,  and  delighted  in  thwarting  his  plans.  One  of 
them  was  his  own  uncle,  who  had  filled  a  parent's  place  to  him  on 
his  father's  death,  but  who  from  some  cause  had  left  him  and 
joined  the  party  of  opposition.  Basil's  younger  brother  Gregory, 
distinguished  by  the  surname  of  Nyssen,  interposed  his  offices  to- 
effect  a  reconciliation ;  but  the  means  which  he  adopted  were 
the  worst  that  could  have  been  devised.  He,  too,  seems  to  have 
been  imbued  with  the  fatal  error  of  the  age,  and  to  have  supposed 
that  a  pious  end  justifies  fraudulent  means.  He  wrote  forged 
letters  to  Basil  in  his  uncle's  name.  The  fraud,  which  was  quickly 
discovered,  only  had  the  effect  of  widening  the  breach  between  the- 
uncle  and  nephew.  Neither  would  take  the  first  step  towards 
reconciliation  ;  the  former  standing  upon  his  prerogative  of  age  and 
relationship,  the  latter  on  his  rank  as  a  metropolitan  dealing  with 
his  suffragan.  In  the  end,  however,  the  more  noble  part  in  Basil 
prevailed,  and  he  wrote  his  uncle  a  letter  of  affection  and  duty.. 
The  old  man  had  only  waited  for  this,  and  peace  was  restored 
between  them. 

Geegoey  Nyssen  is  the  third  in  our  trio  of  Cappadocian  bishops. 
He  was  two  years  younger  than  his  brother  Basil,  and  was  of  a 
retiring  disposition.  He  had  his  brother's  feebleness  of  constitution 
in  a  still  greater  degree,  but  did  not  possess  the  same  strength  of 
mind.  As  a  youth,  the  observances  of  religion  as  then  practised,, 
had  but  little  attraction  for  him.  Martyrs'  festivals  were  greatly 
in  vogue  ;  and  his  mother  Emmelia  having  come  into  possession  of 
some  relics  of  the  Forty  Martyrs  (soldiers  who  were  said  to  have 
suffered  in  Armenia  under  Licinius,  a.d.  320),  appointed  a  solemn 
festival  for  the  translation  of  the  same  to  a  chapel  adjoining  her 
nunnery.  High  service,  to  which  the  whole  country  had  been 
invited,  was  held  in  her  garden  throughout  the  night.     She  sent  to- 


-30  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

"Caesarea  for  her  son  Gregory  to  take  part  in  the  ceremonial.  He 
obeyed  the  summons,  but  with  so  little  goodwill  that  he  passed  the 
night  asleep  in  an  arbour.  Whilst  thus  sleeping  he  had  a  dream, 
in  which  he  saw  himself  beaten  by  the  martyrs  with  their  rods, 
and  almost  shut  out  from  the  garden.  Terrified  by  this  vision,  and 
full  of  remorse  for  the  dishonour  he  had  done  to  God's  saints,  he 
•determined  to  devote  himself  to  the  Church,  and  undertook  the 
office  of  reader.  Soon  wearying,  however,  of  his  new  vocation,  he 
^relapsed  into  the  world  and  became  a  professor  of  rhetoric.  He 
-also  married,  and  his  wife  is  described  asa"  very  worthy  lady,  full 
of  piety  and  good  works."  His  friends  were  deeply  grieved  at  his 
defection,  and  Gregory  Nazianzen,  who  had  extended  the  friend- 
ship he  had  for  Basil  to  this  younger  brother,  adjured  him  in  the 
strongest  terms  to  retrace  his  steps,  styling  his  desire  of  worldly 
distinction,  a  "demoniacal  ambition."  Nyssen  was  not  deaf  to 
these  entreaties.  After  some  struggles,  he  resolved  to  quit  the 
"world,  abandon  his  virtuous  wife,  and  betake  himself  to  his  brother 
Basil's  monastery.  Here  he  passed  several  years,  studying  the 
-Scriptures,  and  composing  a  treatise  on  Virginity,  in  which  he 
laments  most  poignantly  what  he  looks  upon  as  the  fatal  error,  by 
which,  as  by  a  wall  or  gulf,  he  had  for  ever  separated  himself  from 
that  angelic  state  of  perfection  ! 

It  was  towards  the  close  of  his  residence  in  the  monastery, 
a.d.  371,  that  Gregory  Nyssen  so  unhappily  essayed  to  effect  the 
reconciliation  of  his  brother  with  their  uncle.  On  the  discovery  of 
the  deceit,  Basil  wrote  him  a  letter  of  severe  rebuke.  He  ridicules 
him  for  his  simplicity,  upbraids  him  with  his  unbrotherly  conduct, 
and  although,  as  we  have  seen,  Basil  himself  had  been  guilty  of 
the  same  thing,  reproaches  him  with  endeavouring  to  serve  the 
cause  of  truth  by  deceit ! 

To  return  to  Basil.  In  371  the  Emperor  Valens  divided  Cappa- 
-docia  into  two  provinces,  making  Tyana  the  capital  of  the  new 
division.  Anthimus,  bishop  of  that  city,  choosing  to  consider  that 
the  ecclesiastical  rule  should  follow  the  civil,  claimed  metropolitan 
jurisdiction  over  it  in  the  place  of  Basil,  and  began  to  appropriate 
its  revenues.  To  such  a  course  Basil  was  not  the  man  tamely  to 
submit.  He  summoned  his  friend  Gregory  Nazianzen  to  his  side. 
•Gregory  wrote  in  reply,  "  I  will  come  if  thou  wishest :  if  so  be  that 
the  sea  wants  water  or  Basil  a  counsellor,  I  will  come.  At  all 
events,  I  am  ready  to  bear  ill-usage  in  thy  company."  In  the  scene 
which  followed,  the  parties  on  both  sides  figure  in  a  manner  un- 
becoming to  the  Christian  ministry.  As  soon  as  Gregory  arrived, 
the  two  friends  set  out  together  for  a  monastery  on  the  Taurus 


basil's  arbitrary  conduct.  81 

range,  situated  in  the  severed  province,  to  receive  the  produce  of 
an  estate  which,  up  to  this  time,  had  belonged  to  the  see  of  Cassarea. 
As  the  rents  were  paid  in  kind  they  took  with  them  a  train  of 
sumpter-mules.  Anthimus,  hearing  of  the  expedition,  hastened, 
full  of  wrath,  to  intercept  the  convoy.  Notwithstanding  his  ad- 
vanced age,  he  put  himself  at  the  head  of  a  band  of  armed  retainers, 
whom  he  stationed  at  a  defile  near  Sasima,  through  which  the 
train  had  to  pass  on  its  return.  An  affray  ensued ;  Gregory  was 
injured,  and  Basil  had  his  mule  taken  from  him, 

To  strengthen  himself  against  his  rival,  Basil  determined  to 
erect  two  new  bishoprics  as  defensive  outposts  on  that  frontier  of 
his  diocese,  and  to  fill  them  with  the  two  Gregorys.  The  onerous 
duties  of  a  bishop  were,  however,  distasteful  to  them  both,  and  so 
reluctant  were  they  to  abandon  their  retirement  and  enter  upon 
public  life,  that  in  each  case  compulsion  had  to  be  used  before  they 
would  suffer  the  ordaining  hands  to  be  laid  upon  them.  But  Basil 
was  one  of  those  men  who,  when  they  have  a  clear  sight  of  their 
object,  will  make  their  way  to  it  at  any  sacrifice  ;  and  when  Gregory 
Nazianzen  took  to  flight  to  avoid  consecration,  he  even  went  so  far 
as  to  pursue  and  bring  him  back.  Gregory  was  deeply  wounded. 
At  his  ordination  he  gave  vent  to  his  feelings,  in  these  plaintive 
words  :  "  Once  more  has  the  Holy  Spirit  been  poured  out  upon  me, 
and  once  more  I  enter  upon  my  calling,  sad  and  dejected." 

The  new  bishoprics  were  Sasima  and  Nyssa.  The  latter,  over 
which  Basil  placed  his  brother,  was  an  obscure  town,  so  insigni- 
ficant, that  Eusebius  of  Samosata  wrote  to  remonstrate  against  a 
man  of  such  talents  being  thus  buried.  Basil  replied  that  his  pur- 
pose was  to  make  the  see  famous  by  its  bishop,  not  the  bishop  by 
the  see.  The  choice  of  Sasima  for  Gregory  Nazianzen  was  still 
more  unworthy.  It  was  a  mean  village  or  posting-station,  situate 
within  the  new  province  of  Tyana.  The  revenues  of  the  Church 
were  meagre,  and  it  was  a  spot  in  the  highest  degree  distasteful  to 
the  sensitive  nature  of  Gregory,  who,  in  one  of  his  poems,  has  left 
us  a  description  of  it  somewhat  caricatured.  "  On  a  highway  of 
Cappadocia,  at  a  point  where  three  roads  join,  is  a  halting-place 
where  is  neither  water  nor  anything  green,  nor  any  mark  of  civi- 
lization. It  is  a  frightful  and  detestable  village.  Everywhere  you 
meet  nothing  but  noises,  dust,  waggons,  howls,  groans,  chains, 
instruments  of  torture,  and  the  executioner.  The  whole  population 
consists  of  foreigners  and  travellers.  Such  was  my  church  of 
Sasima." 

Basil  was  universally  censured  for  appointing  Gregory  to  such  a 
place.     Finding  him  slow  to  enter  upon  his  office,  he  sent  his 


32  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

brother  of  Nyssa  to  quicken  his  resolution.  Gregory  Nazianzen 
prepared  to  obey,  but  hearing  that  Anthimus  had  appointed  a  rival 
bishop  to  the  see,  he  retired  from  the  contest.  Basil  reproached 
him  for  his  pusillanimity.  Gregory  could  bear  no  more.  Loving 
and  gentle  as  he  was,  his  whole  soul  recoiled  against  these  repeated 
insults,  and  he  thus  poured  forth  his  wounded  feelings:  "Wilt 
thou  never  cease  to  slander  me,  merely  because  I  am  bold  enough 
to  recognise  how  I  have  been  treated  ?  I  know  now  the  deception 
thou  hast  practised  upon  me,  which  I  can  no  otherwise  explain, 
than  that  thy  elevation  to  the  episcopal  throne  has  suddenly  lifted 
thee  up.  .  .  .  The  most  charitable  accuse  thee  of  making  use  of 
me,  and  then  casting  me  aside,  just  as  the  framework  of  an  arch, 
as  soon  as  the  structure  is  completed,  is  struck  away  and  counted 
good  for  nothing.  ...  I  am  not  going  to  arm  myself  and  learn 
the  art  of  war,  in  order  to  fight  the  martial  Anthimus.  Fight  him 
thyself;  or  if  thou  art  in  want  of  warriors,  wait  till  he  surrounds 
the  pass  and  lays  hold  of  thy  mules.  To  what  purpose  is  it  that  I 
should  fight  for  sucking-pigs  and  chickens,  and  these  not  my  own, 
as  if  they  were  men's  souls  and  Church  canons.  .  .  .  Sweep  every- 
thing into  thy  own  lap,  as  the  rivers  do  the  mountain  torrents,  to 
swell  thy  own  glory ;  so  long  as  thou  dost  not  set  friendship  and 
intimacy  above  right  and  piety."  From  this  moment  the  confiding 
friendship  which  had  subsisted  between  Basil  and  Gregory  ever 
since  their  boyhood  was  broken.  Basil,  indeed,  went  once  again  to- 
Nazianzus  to  visit  Gregory  ;  but  so  far  as  appears,  no  more  familiar 
letters  passed  between  them.  After  Basil's  death  Gregory  endea- 
voured to  offer  an  apology  for  his  friend's  conduct,  but  the  attempt 
only  shows  how  incurable  was  the  wound.  In  his  funeral  oration 
over  him  he  says :  "  Admiring  as  I  do,  all  he  did  more  than  I  can 
express,  I  cannot  praise  his  extraordinary  and  unfriendly  conduct 
towards  me,  the  pain  of  which  time  has  not  removed.  To  this  I 
trace  all  the  irregularity  and  confusion  of  my  subsequent  life. 
Unless,  indeed,  I  may  be  suffered  to  make  this  excuse  for  him,  that 
having  views  beyond  this  earth,  he  slighted  friendship,  only  when 
it  was  his  duty  to  prefer  God,  and  to  make  more  account  of  the 
things  hoped  for,  than  of  the  things  that  perish."1 

It  is  doubtful  whether  Gregory  ever  entered  upon  the  bishopric 
of  Sasima ;  but  at  his  father's  urgent  request  he  became  his  coad- 
jutor in  the  see  of  Nazianzus,  a.d.  372.  How  much  every  call  to 
public  service  cost  him  may  be  seen  by  a  sermon  which  he  preached 

1  Church  historians  have  been  so  tender  of  Basil's  reputation  that  we  have 
been  obliged  to  consult  Gregory's  original  epistles  to  complete  the  story. 


THE    EMPEROR    AND    BASIL.  83 

at  this  time.  "  Between  my  inward  longing  and  the  Holy  Spirit, 
I  am  almost  torn  asunder.  The  one  urges  me  to  fly  to  the  solitude 
of  the  mountains,  to  withdraw  from  all  sensuous  things,  and  to 
retire  into  myself,  that  I  may  commune  with  God  undisturbed. 
But  the  Spirit  would  lead  me  into  active  life  to  serve  the  common 
weal,  to  spread  light,  and  present  to  God  a  people  for  his 
possession,  a  royal  priesthood." 

It  was  a  year  or  two  before  this  happened,  namely,  in  371,  that 
Basil  found  himself  engaged  in  a  personal  encounter  with  the 
Arian  Emperor  Valens.  The  Emperor  had  entered  upon  his 
theological  crusade  against  the  Catholics,  and  was  on  his  march 
through  the  provinces  of  Asia  Minor.  For  awhile  his  progress  was 
one  of  uniform  victory.  "  The  Catholics  had  everywhere  fallen 
before  him.  Bithynia  had  resisted,  and  had  become  the  scene  of 
horrible  tragedies.  The  fickle  Galatia  had  yielded  without  a 
struggle.  The  fate  of  Cappadocia  depended  on  Basil.  His  house, 
as  the  Emperor  drew  near,  was  besieged  by  ladies  of  rank,  high 
personages  of  state,  even  by  bishops,  who  entreated  him  to  bow 
before  the  storm  and  appease  the  Emperor  by  a  temporary  sub- 
mission." But  Basil  had  no  ear  for  such  counsels;  he  rejected 
their  entreaties  with  disdain.  The  arrival  of  Valens  was  preceded 
by  a  band  of  Arian  bishops,  aiming  to  strike  awe  into  their 
opponents  by  their  numbers,  but  Basil  straightway  refused  to  hold 
communion  with  them.  They  were  followed  by  officers  of  the 
Imperial  household,  who  threatened  him  in  violent  language.  One 
of  these  was  Demosthenes,  the  chef  de  cuisine,  whom  the  Emperor 
carried  everywhere  with  him,  but  to  whom  Basil  paid  no  attention 
except  to  bid  him  return  to  his  kitchen  fire.  Another  was  Modestus,. 
the  prefect  of  the  Pretorium  : — 

Modestus.  What  is  the  meaning  of  this,  thou  Basil  (not  deigning 
to  style  him  bishop),  that  thou  standest  out  against  so  great  a 
prince  ? 

Basil.     What  dost  thou  mean  ? 

Modestus.  Thou  dost  not  worship  after  the  Emperor's  manner,, 
although  the  rest  of  thy  party  have  yielded. 

Basil.  Such  is  not  my  Heavenly  Sovereign's  will,  nor  can  I 
worship  any  creature. 

Modestus  (amazed).    For  whom  dost  thou  take  me  ? 

Basil.     For  a  thing  of  nought  while  thy  commands  are  such. 

Modestus.  Is  it,  then,  nothing  to  have  men  of  rank  like  us  on 
your  side  ? 

Basil.  Thou  art  a  prefect,  and  illustrious,  I  grant ;  but  God's 
Majesty  is  greater.    It  would  be  an  honour  to  have  thee  on  my 

D 


84  WITNESSES   FOR   CHBIST. 

side,  but  yet  no  more  so  than  to  have  any  member  of  my  flock ; 
for  Christianity  consists  not  in  distinction  of  persons,  but  in  faith. 

The  prefect  was  enraged  at  this  reply,  and  rising  from  his  chair, 
abruptly  asked  Basil  if  he  did  not  fear  his  power. 

Basil.     Fear  what  ? 

Modestus.    Any  one  of  the  many  penalties  a  prefect  can  inflict. 

Basil.  Let  me  know  them  :  confiscation,  exile,  tortures,  death? 
None  of  these  can  move  me. 

Modestus.     How  so  ? 

Basil.  That  man  is  not  obnoxious  to  confiscation  who  has 
nothing  to  lose,  except  old  tattered  garments  and  a  few  books. 
Nor  does  he  care  for  exile  who  is  not  circumscribed  by  place,  but 
is  everywhere  at  home  on  God's  earth.  Nor  can  torture  harm  a 
frame  so  frail  that  it  would  break  under  the  first  blow  ;  and  death 
would  be  gain. 

Modestus.  No  one  ever  yet  spoke  to  Modestus  with  such 
freedom. 

Basil.  Peradventure  Modestus  never  before  met  with  a  true 
bishop.  0  prefect,  in  other  things  we  are  gentle,  and  more  humble 
than  all  men  living,  but  when  God's  honour  is  at  stake  we  overlook 
all  else.  Fire  and  the  sword,  beasts  of  prey,  irons  to  rend  the 
flesh,  are  an  indulgence  rather  than  a  terror  to  the  Christian. 
Therefore  threaten,  insult,  do  thy  worst,  make  the  most  of  thy 
power.    Let  the  Emperor  be  informed  of  my  purpose. 

Finding  threats  useless,  Modestus  tried  promises  and  flattery, 
but  with  no  better  success.  He  had  to  report  to  his  master  that 
all  his  attempts  to  bring  Basil  to  submission  had  been  fruitless. 
Such  rare  intrepidity  produced  its  natural  effect  on  the  feeble 
mind  of  Valens.  He  refused  to  sanction  harsh  measures  against 
the  bishop,  and  even  condescended  to  present  himself  in  the  chief 
church  of  Caesarea  on  the  Feast  of  the  Epiphany.  The  service  had 
already  commenced.  When  the  Emperor,  in  the  glowing  words 
of  Nazianzen,  "heard  the  chanted  psalms  which  rose  like  a  peal  of 
thunder,  and  beheld  the  sea  of  worshippers  within  and  around  the 
sanctuary,  ranked  in  an  order  so  comely  as  to  resemble  angels 
rather  than  men,  and  the  bishop  himself  standing,  like  Samuel, 
erect  before  the  people,  body,  eyes  and  soul,  absorbed  in  God  and 
the  altar,  and  the  priests  on  either  side  in  reverential  awe — the 
Emperor's  spirit  forsook  him,  and  he  swooned  away."  Gregory 
says  that  Valens  had  never  before  beheld  such  a  spectacle.  This 
can  hardly  have  referred  to  the  service  itself,  for  that  would  surely 
be  as  imposing  in  the  cathedral  church  at  Constantinople.  It  was 
rather  the  oneness  of  purpose  and  spirit  by  which  the  assembly  was 


BASIL   TRIUMPHANT.  85 

animated,  their  love  to  Basil  and  their  devotion  to  the  Nicene 
faith.  It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  the  Trinitarians  were  at 
that  period  the  Nonconformists,  and  that  persecution  had  weeded 
from  their  ranks  the  nominal  and  the  lukewarm.  Add  to  this  the 
sight  of  the  bishop  himself  as  he  stood  before  the  altar — tall,  spare, 
erect,  with  hollow  cheeks  and  piercing  eyes,  and  armed  as  he  con- 
ceived with  the  majesty  of  heaven.  When  the  time  eame  for 
Valens  to  make  his  offering,  and  the  ministers  were  hesitating 
whether  they  should  receive  an  oblation  from  the  hand  of  a  heretic, 
Basil  came  forward,  and  himself  accepted  the  gift. 

The  next  day  Valens  again  visited  the  church,  and  was  admitted 
by  the  bishop  within  the  sacred  veil.  The  cook,  Demosthenes, 
rudely  joining  in  the  conversation,  made  a  grammatical  mistake. 
Basil  smiled,  and  quietly  observed:  "We  have  here,  it  seems,  a 
Demosthenes  who  cannot  speak  Greek ;  he  had  better  attend  to  his 
•sauces  than  meddle  with  theology."  The  retort  amused  the 
Emperor,  who  was  so  well  pleased  with  his  theological  opponent, 
that  he  made  him  a  grant  of  land  on  which  to  erect  a  poor-house. 

But  the  favourable  impression  thus  made  on  Valens  soon  wore 
off.  The  Arian  bishops  recovered  their  influence,  and  an  imperial 
order  was  issued  for  Basil  to  quit  the  city.  He  was  to  start  at 
night,  to  avoid  the  risk  of  popular  disturbance.  The  chariot  was 
at  his  door,  and  his  friends,  Gregory  amongst  them,  were  bewailing 
his  departure,  when  he  was  stopped  by  an  imperial  messenger  sent 
in  consequence  of  the  sudden  illness  of  the  Emperor's  only  son. 
The  Empress  attributed  their  child's  danger  to  the  Divine  dis- 
pleasure at  the  treatment  of  Basil,  and  the  Emperor  sent  to  entreat 
Basil  to  come  and  pray  over  the  sick  child.  On  condition  that  it 
should  be  brought  up  in  the  orthodox  faith,  Basil  consented.  As 
he  prayed,  the  child  grew  better.1  But  the  Arians  contrived  that  it 
should  be  baptized  by  one  of  their  own  bishops.  The  child  (so  the 
historians  relate)  grew  immediately  worse,  and  died  the  same 
night.  Basil's  enemies,  however,  were  not  even  now  in  despair ; 
they  returned  once  more  to  the  attack,  and  with  the  usual  result. 
His  exile  was  again  determined  on ;  but  when  Valens  attempted  to 
sign  the  order,  the  pens,  it  is  declared,  refused  to  write,  and  thrice 
split  in  his  hand  !  This  supposed  miracle  put  an  end  to  all  further 
proceedings.  "  Valens  left  Cassarea,  and  Basil  remained  master  of 
the  situation." 

Thus  left  free  to  devote  his  energies  to  the  internal  administration 

1  The  prefect  Modestus  also,  who  fell  sick,  attributed  his  own  recovery  to  the 
prayers  of  Basil. 


86  WITNESSES   FOE   CHEIST. 

of  his  diocese,  Basil  set  himself  vigorously  to  the  correction  of  the- 
abuses  which  had  grown  up  within  it.  He  was  an  energetic 
promoter  of  morals,  good  order,  and  discipline.  He  had,  however, 
no  thought  of  bringing  back  the  worship  and  government  of  the 
Church  to  its  primitive  pattern  ;  rather  were  the  superstitious 
practices  of  the  time  strengthened,  and  the  authority  of  the  bishops, 
enhanced  under  his  rule.  In  his  own  province  he  usurped  the 
control  of  episcopal  elections,  and  even  travelled  into  Armenia  to 
appoint  new  bishops  and  infuse  fresh  life  into  those  who  were 
already  in  office.  His  incessant  labours  were  performed  under  the 
pressure  of  extreme  bodily  weakness,  so  that,  even  when  considered 
in  health,  he  describes  himself  as  being  "weaker  than  persons  who- 
are  given  over." 

Basil's  heaviest  trial  was  yet  to  come.  A  suspicion  of  his 
orthodoxy  was  artfully  and  successfully  propagated  throughout  the 
Churches.  He  was  unjustly  accused  of  denying  the  proper 
divinity  of  the  Holy  Spirit.1  This  brought  great  odium  upon  him. 
In  his  extremity  he  turned  first  to  Athanasius,  whom  he  designates 
"  that  great  and  apostolic  soul  who  from  boyhood  had  been  an 
athlete  in  the  cause  of  religion,"  and  then  to  the  Western  Church. 
The  former  was  unable  to  assist  him ;  the  Western  bishops  sent 
assurances  of  attachment  and  sympathy,  but  nothing  more.  They 
could  not  move  without  the  bishop  of  Borne  ;  and  the  bishop  of 
Borne  was  offended,  because  Basil  did  not  appeal  to  him  as 
supreme.  This  assumption  of  superiority  was  lost  on  Basil ;  he 
only  remarked,  it  was  in  vain  to  send  messages  to  "  one  who  sat 
aloft,  high  and  haughty,  and  would  not  listen  to  the  truth  from 
men  who  stood  below." 

Even  whilst  he  lay  under  the  imputation  of  heterodoxy,  Basil 
did  not  relax  in  the  conflict  he  was  always  waging  against  Arian- 
ism.  "Polytheism,"  he  writes,  "has  got  possession.  A  greater 
and  a  lesser  God  are  worsbipped.  All  ecclesiastical  power,  all 
Church  ordinances,  are  in  Arian  hands.      Arians  baptize ;    Arians- 

1  Fear  of  Sabellianism  restrained  Basil  for  some  time  from  committing  him- 
self entirely  to  the  Homo-ousion  doctrine.  His  usual  form  of  doxology  was 
"Glory  be  to  the  Father  through  the  Son,  in  the  Holy  Spirit."  On  which 
Hooker  remarks  :  "  Till  Arianism  had  made  it  a  matter  of  great  sharpness  and 
subtilty  of  wit  to  be  a  sound  believing  Christian,  men  were  not  curious  what 
syllables  or  particles  of  speech  they  used.  When  St.  Basil  began  to  practise  the- 
like  indifferency,  and  to  conclude  public  prayers,  glorifying  sometime  the 
Father  with  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  sometime  the  Father  by  the  Son,  in 
the  Spirit,  .  .  .  some  (because  the  light  of  his  candle  too  much  drowned  theirs) 
were  glad  to  lay  hold  on  so  colourable  a  matter,  and  were  exceedingly  forward 
to  traduce  him  as  an  author  of  suspicious  innovation." 


DEATH  OF  BASIL.  37 

visit  the  sick  ;  Arians  administer  the  sacred  mysteries.  The  pious 
are  banished ;  the  houses  of  prayer  are  closed ;  the  altars  for- 
bidden;  the  orthodox  meet  for  worship  in  the  deserts,  exposed  to 
wind  and  rain  and  snow,  or  to  the  scorching  sun." 

Before  his  death,  however,  Basil  was  permitted  to  see  the  dawn 
of  a  brighter  day.  A  new  invasion  of  the  Goths  in  377  drew  off 
Valens  from  the  persecution  of  the  orthodox ;  the  next  year  his 
army  was  defeated  with  immense  slaughter  near  Adrianople,  and 
tbe  Emperor  himself  perished.  His  successor,  the  youthful 
Gratian,  belonged  to  the  Catholic  party,  and  one  of  his  first  acts 
was  to  recall  the  banished  orthodox  prelates.  So  that,  before  his 
death,  Basil  had  the  joy  of  seeing  many  of  his  friends  restored  to 
their  sees. 

Basil  died  January  1,  a.d.  379,  at  Ca3sarea.  Although  only  fifty 
years  old,  his  constitution  was  completely  worn  out.  His  death- 
bed was  surrounded  by  the  citizens,  "  willing  if  so  it  might  be," 
says  his  friend  Gregory,  "  to  give  a  portion  of  their  own  lives  to 
lengthen  that  of  their  bishop."  He  breathed  his  last  with  the 
words,  "  Into  thy  hand  I  commend  my  spirit :  Thou  hast  redeemed 
me,  0  Lord  God  of  Truth."  His  funeral  was  attended  by  immense 
•crowds,  who  almost  tore  the  bier  to  pieces  to  secure  a  relic  of  the 
departed  saint.  "  The  press  was  so  great  that  several  persons  were 
crushed  to  death  ;  almost  the  object  of  envy,  because  they  died  with 
Basil." 

Basil  was  pale,  and  wore  a  beard ;  through  life  he  retained  his 
monkish  dress.  In  speech  he  was  deliberate,  in  manner  reserved 
and  sedate.  His  friend  Gregory  especially  commends  his  trumpet 
eloquence,  his  great  and  various  learning,  his  charity,  his  com- 
passion, his  affability.  "  Who,"  he  exclaims,  "  more  loving  than 
he  to  the  well-conducted?  who  more  severe  with  transgressors?  his 
smile  was  praise,  and  his  silence  a  reproof  to  the  uneasy  conscience. 
If  he  were  not  full  of  talk,  or  a  jester,  or  a  boon  companion,  what 
then  ?  This,  with  men  of  sense,  is  not  his  blame,  but  his  praise. 
Yet,  that  he  was  most  agreeable  in  social  intercourse,  I  who  knew 
him  so  well  can  testify.  None  could  relate  a  story  with  more  wit ; 
none  maintain  the  sport  of  words  so  playfully ;  none  convey  the 
timely  hint  with  greater  delicacy." 

Basil  is  often  called  The  Great,  as  much  on  account  of  his 
writings  as  of  his  character.1     The  following  passage  will  serve  as  a 

1  He  has  left  nearly  400  letters.  Dr.  Jessopp  thus  compares  the  three  great 
letter-writers  of  this  age,  Augustine,  Jerome,  and  Basil.  "  St.  Augustine's  can 
*eally  hardly  be  called  letters  at  all ;  they  are  for  the  most  part  treatises  on  the 


38  WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST. 

specimen  of  his  style : — "  The  love  of  God  cannot  be  taught.  We 
did  not  learn  from  any  one  else  to  take  pleasure  in  the  light,  nor  to 
desire  life.  No  one  taught  us  to  love  our  parents  or  our  nurses. 
Thus,  or  rather  far  more,  the  learning  of  the  love  of  God  comes  not 
from  without,  but  a  certain  seminal  power  of  reason  is  ingrafted  in 
us,  which  possesses  from  its  own  store  the  means  of  that  appropria- 
tion which  leads  to  love.  Which  power  the  school  of  the  divine 
commandments  takes  in  hand,  tills  with  care,  nourishes  with  skill, 
and,  by  the  grace  of  God,  brings  to  perfection.  .  .  .  We  naturally 
love  the  beautiful  (though  to  different  persons  different  things  may 
seem  beautiful),  and  we  delight  to  display  all  good  to  those  who  do 
us  good.  Now  what  more  admirable  than  the  Divine  Beauty? 
What  conception  more  attractive  than  the  Majesty  of  God  ?  What 
longing  so  vehement  and  irresistible  as  that  which  is  engendered  of 
God  in  the  soul  which  is  purged  of  vice,  and  which  cries  out  of  un- 
feigned desire,  ' I  am  sick  of  love  ? '  .  .  .  Alienation  and  aversion 
from  God  is  worse  than  any  torments  of  hell.  It  is  as  the  privation 
of  light  to  the  eye,  even  if  no  pain  be  present ;  or  as  the  deprivation 
of  life  to  a  living  thing.  .  .  .  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  endured 
a  most  shameful  death  that  he  might  restore  us  to  the  glorious  life, 
exacts  no  recompense,  but  is  satisfied  if  he  be  only  loved  for  what 
he  gave.     And  when  I  think  of  all  these  things,  I  am  in  an  ecstasy 

interpretation  of  sacred  Scripture,  or  on  theological  or  philosophical  questions. 
...  In  St.  Jerome's  we  have  some  valuable  notices  of  the  religious  life  of  the 
time,  and  we  get  a  most  curious  impression  of  the  awfully  high  pressure  at 
which  devout  people  were  living  at  the  close  of  the  fourth  century.  The  men 
and  women  are  not  men  and  women,  but  creatures  who  are  trying  to  be  some- 
thing else  and  who  believe  themselves  to  be  something  else.  Jerome  himself  is 
up  in  a  balloon,  and  he  seems  to  assume  that  everybody  else  is,  or  ought  to  be, 
or  wishes  to  be,  or  is  trying  to  be  up  in  a  balloon  too.  .  .  .  St. Basil's  letters  are 
very  much  less  known,  but  they  are  far  more  real,  genuine,  human,  and  inter- 
e  sting  than  those  of  Augustine  and  Jerome.  They  have  a  wide  range  of 
subjects,  and  his  correspondents  were  people  of  all  ranks  and  classes  and 
opinions — pagan  philosophers  and  professors,  governors  of  provinces,  ladies  iu 
distress,  rogues  who  had  tried  to  take  him  in,  and,  of  course,  a  host  of  bishops 
and  clergy.  .  .  .  He  can  laugh  and  be  playful — witness  his  letter  to  the 
governor  of  Cappadocia,  who  had  cured  himself  of  an  illness  by  dieting  himself 
on  pickled  cabbage.  '  My  dear  sir,'  says  Basil,  '  I  am  delighted  at  the  news.  I 
never  believed  in  cabbage  before,  still  less  in  pickled  cabbage ;  but  now  I  shall 
praise  it  as  something  superior  to  the  lotus  that  Homer  talks  of — yea,  not 
inferior  to  the  very  ambrosia  that  served  as  the  food  of  the  gods !  '  The 
governor  answered  that  letter  very  briefly,  and  his  answer  has  been  preserved- 
4  My  right  rev.  brother,'  says  the  governor,  '  you  are  right,  there's  nothing  like 
pickled  cabbage !  Twice  to  cabbage  kills — so  the  saying  has  it.  I  find,  many 
times  to  cabbage  cures.  Come  and  try.  Dine  with  me  to-morrow  on  pickled 
cabbage — that  and  nothing  more ! '" 


GBEGOBY   NAZIANZEN.  89 

of  fear  lest  ever,  through  inattention  of  mind  or  occupation  with 
vanities,  I  should  fall  from  the  love  of  God  and  become  a  reproach 
to  Christ.  .  .  .  The  reproach  which  our  fall  will  bring  on  Christ, 
and  the  glorying  of  the  enemy,  seem  to  me  worse  than  the  punish- 
ments of  hell." 

We  must  now  go  back  a  few  years.  It  was  only  in  condescension 
to  his  father's  will  that  Gregory  Nazianzen  consented  to  become 
his  coadjutor.  On  his  father's  death,  however  (which  took  place  in 
374),  he  continued  to  administer  the  see  until  a  new  bishop  was 
elected.  During  these  years  some  of  his  most  brilliant  discourses 
were  delivered.  He  was  sensible,  however,  of  the  worthlessness  of 
mere  words,  and  at  last  announced  to  his  congregation  that  he  had 
resolved  not  to  preach  before  them  again,  in  order  that  by  his 
silence  he  might  "check  the  mania  for  theological  discussion,  which 
was  leading  everybody  to  teach  the  things  of  the  Spirit  without  the 
unction  of  the  Spirit." 

Suddenly,  in  375,  Gregory  disappeared.  He  had  retired  to  a 
monastery  in  Isauria,  where  he  remained  three  years  in  strict 
seclusion.  He  returned  home  before  Basil's  death,  but  was  taken 
so  dangerously  ill  that  he  could  neither  visit  him  on  his  dying  bed 
nor  be  present  at  his  funeral.  Like  Basil,  he  had  become  prema- 
turely old.  Though  only  fifty  years  of  age,  his  bald  head  bent 
towards  his  bosom,  and  his  countenance  was  wasted  by  tears  and 
fasting,  and  furrowed  with  wrinkles.  With  characteristic  melan- 
choly he  writes  to  a  friend  :  "  Thou  inquirest  how  I  am  ;  I  answer, 
very  ill. '  My  spiritual  brother  [Basil]  and  my  natural  brother 
[Caesarius]  are  both  gone.  Age  shows  itself  on  my  head;  my 
cares  multiply ;  friends  prove  untrue  ;  the  Church  is  without  shep- 
herds ;  good  is  disappearing ;  evil  shows  itself  bare-faced.  We  are 
journeying  in  the  night ;  there  is  nowhere  a  torch  to  give  us  light ; 
Christ  is  asleep.  What,  then,  is  to  be  done  ?  Alas  for  me  !  there 
is  only  one  escape,  and  that  is  death! " 

Bat  there  was  work  yet  for  Gregory  to  do,  and  that  on  a  higher 
stage  than  before.  For  fifty  years  Arianism  had  been  dominant  in 
Constantinople.  The  adherents  of  the  Nicene  faith  had  dwindled 
down  to  a  small  number,  and  were  without  church  or  bishop,  being 
obliged  to  conceal  themselves  in  the  remote  quarters  of  the  city. 
The  accession  of  Gratian  restored  their  courage.  Looking  round 
for  a  pastor,  they  cast  their  eyes  on  Gregory,  whose  praise  for 
eloquence  and  sanctity  was  in  all  the  Churches ;  and  they  sent 
him  an  urgent  appeal  to  take  charge  of  their  little  flock.  Long  he 
remained  unwilling  to  quit  his  beloved  retirement,  but  at  length 
he  yielded  to  the  conviction  that  the  time  for  action  had  arrived ; 


40  WITNESSES    FOB   CHBIST. 

and  he  turned  his  face  towards  the  great  city.  His  opinion  of  the 
state  of  the  Church  there  is  conveyed  in  a  few  words  :  "It  had 
passed  through  the  death  of  infidelity  :  there  was  left  but  one  last 
breath  of  life.  What  the  people  needed  was  solid  teaching  to 
deliver  them  from  the  spider-webs  of  subtleties  in  which  they  had 
been  taken."  Nevertheless,  on  some  points  the  teaching  of  the 
Arians  was  more  enlightened  than  that  of  the  Catholics.  Sir  Isaac 
Newton  remarks  that  before  Gregory  came  to  Constantinople,  the 
city  was  free  from  that  superstitious  reverence  for  the  martyrs  with 
which  it  shortly  after  began  to  be  inflamed. 

Gregory  began  his  work  in  a  private  house  ;  but  the  building 
quickly  became  too  small  for  the  multitudes  which  flocked  to  it, 
and  a  church  was  erected  in  its  place.  To  this  church  he  gave  the 
name  of  Anastasia  (Resurrection,  i.e.  of  the  true  faith).  Here  he 
delivered  a  fresh  series  of  those  discourses  which  have  made  his 
name  famous.  The  success  of  his  preaching  raised  up  a  host  of 
enemies,  who  envied  whilst  they  affected  to  despise  him,  even 
ridiculing  his  person  and  attire.1  A  fierce  attack  was  made  upon 
his  church  during  the  hour  of  service.  From  the  Arian  cathedral 
of  St.  Sophia  there  issued  a  motley  crowd  of  monks,  beggars,  and 
women  more  terrible  than  men.  The  assailants  made  free  use  of 
stones,  sticks,  and  firebrands.  The  altar  was  profaned,  the  con- 
secrated wine  was  mixed  with  blood,  the  house  of  prayer  was  made 
a  scene  of  outrage  and  unbridled  licentiousness.  Personally, 
Gregory  cared  little  for  the  assault;  stones,  he  said,  were  his 
delight ;  his  care  was  only  for  his  flock. 

In  the  year  880  (Nov.  26)  Theodosius  made  his  entry  into  Con- 
stantinople. One  of  his  first  acts  was  to  remove  the  Arians  from 
the  churches  and  restore  these  to  the  orthodox.  To  Demophilus, 
the  Arian  bishop,  was  offered  the  alternative  of  subscribing  the 
Nicene  Creed,  or  of  resigning  his  office.  Demophilus  did  not 
hesitate  a  moment.  Assembling  his  followers  in  the  cathedral,  he 
said :  "  My  brethren,  it  is  written  in  the  Gospel,  '  If  they  persecute 
you  in  one  city,  flee  ye  into  another.'  Seeing  that  the  Emperor  ex- 
cludes us  from  the  churches,  we  will  henceforth  hold  our  assemblies 
without  the  city."  Towards  Gregory,  the  Emperor  manifested  the 
greatest  respect.  On  his  way  to  the  cathedral  he  conversed  with 
him  for  a  long  while,  and,  as  though  anticipating  what  was  about 
to  take  place,  concluded  with  these  words :  "  This  temple  God 
delivers  to  thee  by  our  hand  as  a  reward  for  thy  devoted  labours." 

When  the  day  arrived  on  which  the  orthodox  were  to  take  pos- 

1  "I  was,"  he  says,  "the  very  image  of  a  beggar." 


THEODOSIUS  AND  GREGORY.  41 

session  of  the  churches,  the  city  was  violently  agitated  ;  cries  of  the 
most  opposite  kind  filled  the  air,  some  shouting  with  joy,  many 
more  ventiDg  their  grief  and  disappointment  in  tears  and  threats. 
The  Emperor,  in  warlike  state,  and  followed  by  an  imposing  train, 
proceeded  to  the  Church  of  the  Apostles,  which  he  had  caused  to 
be  strongly  guarded.  Gregory  was  at  his  side,  breathing  feebly 
from  a  recent  fit  of  sickness,  but  full  of  confidence  and  thankful- 
ness. The  streets  through  which  the  procession  marched  were 
crowded  with  an  innumerable  multitude  of  either  sex  and  of  every 
age.  The  windows  and  roofs  of  the  houses  were  thronged,  and  a 
tumultuous  sound  arose,  in  which  grief  and  rage  predominated,  so 
that,  as  Gregory  himself  describes  it,  "  the  city  resembled  a  place 
which  had  been  taken  by  storm,  and  was  in  the  hands  of  some 
barbarian  conqueror."  The  morning  was  gloomy;  a  thick  fog 
filled  the  church.  The  Arians  began  to  exult  in  this  sign  of 
heaven's  displeasure,  and  the  orthodox  were  dispirited,  when  (so 
Gregory  relates),  at  the  first  accents  of  the  chants,  the  sun  broke 
forth  and  shone  upon  the  vestments  of  the  priests  and  the  swords 
of  the  soldiers,  reminding  him  of  the  glory  which  descended  upon 
the  ancient  tabernacle.  At  the  same  time  a  cry  arose  from  the 
congregation,  "  Gregory  shall  be  our  bishop."  Unable  himself  to 
speak  from  bodily  weakness,  he  desired  another  priest  to  address 
the  people  in  his  name:  "Silence,  silence;  this  is  the  time  to 
give  thanks  to  God ;  it  will  be  time  enough  hereafter  to  settle 
other  matters." 

The  following  year  Theodosius  convened  a  general  council  of 
Oriental  bishops  at  Constantinople.  The  chief  objects  were  to 
confirm  the  Nicene  faith,  aud  to  appoint  a  bishop  for  the  metro- 
polis. Although  the  orthodox  were  especially  invited,  other 
parties,  in  the  hope  thereby  of  promoting  union,  were  admitted ; 
but  when  the  Nicene  confession  was  presented  to  the  synod  for  its 
adoption,  the  Semi-Arian  bishops,  of  whom  thirty-six  were  present, 
refused  to  subscribe,  and  left  the  city  in  a  body.  The  wish  of 
Theodosius,  that  Gregory  should  be  bishop  of  Constantinople,  was 
well-known  ;  and  no  opposition  being  made  in  the  council,  he  was 
elected.  The  inaugural  oration  was  preached  by  his  friend  Gregory 
Nyssen. 

Nazianzen's  enjoyment  of  his  lofty  position  was  of  the  very 
briefest  duration.1  Hardly  had  his  consecration  taken  place  than 
the  bishops  began  to  repent  of  their  choice.  His  homely  manners 
and  ignorance  of  the  world  offended  them,  and  they  characterised 

1  He  was  actually  bishop  only  a  few  weeks. 


42  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

as  lukewarmness  the  tolerance  he  showed  to  the  now  persecuted 
Arians.  But  this  was  not  all.  It  was  a  time  of  bitter  party 
spirit  and  great  confusion.  Meletius,  bishop  of  Antioch,  who 
presided  over  the  council,  held  his  bishopric  only  by  a  compromise 
between  two  contending  parties.  He  died  whilst  the  council  was 
in  session,  and  the  question  who  should  be  his  successor  in  the  see 
of  Antioch,  rent  asunder  the  Asiatic  Church  and  the  council  itself. 
Gregory,  by  virtue  of  his  office,  had  become  president  of  the 
council.  He  was  no  party  man,  and  his  endeavour  to  preserve 
peace  between  the  two  parties  was  misinterpreted  and  resented ; 
he  was,  indeed,  of  too  gentle  a  nature  to  govern  the  ship  in  such  a 
storm.  At  this  crisis  there  arrived  from  Egypt  and  Macedonia  a 
fresh  party  of  bishops,  who  objected  to  Gregory's  appointment  to 
the  see  of  Constantinople,  alleging  that,  having  been  formerly  con- 
secrated to  the  see  of  Sasima,  he  could  not  now  (according  to  the 
15th  canon  of  the  Council  of  Nicaea)  fill  any  other.1  In  vain  did 
Gregory  and  his  defenders  reply  that  this  law,  if  not  already  anti- 
quated, had  been  superseded  by  the  act  of  the  council  itself.  The 
opposition  only  became  fiercer,  and  Gregory  saw  that  there  was 
nothing  left  but  to  resign  his  episcopate.  He  delivered  an  address 
to  the  council,  in  which  he  sought  to  pour  oil  upon  the  troubled 
waters.  Its  only  effect  was  to  call  forth  a  universal  uproar,  the 
younger  ecclesiastics  especially  venting  their  ill-will  towards  him,, 
"like  screaming  jackdaws  or  a  swarm  of  angry  wasps."2  He 
wound  up  his  speech  with  these  words :  "I  now  request  permission 
to  resign  my  bishopric,  and  to  lead,  if  a  more  inglorious,  yet  a 
more  peaceful  life."  Once  again  he  appeared  before  the  council, 
and  exhorted  them  to  occupy  themselves  with  matters  worthy  of 
their  high  calling,  and  to  cherish  mutual  harmony.  "  He  was 
ready  to  be  another  Jonah  to  calm  the  angry  waves.  He  owed  but 
one  debt,  the  debt  of  death,  and  that  was  in  God's  hands.  He  had 
but  one  anxiety,  and  that  was  for  his  beloved  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity."  From  the  council  he  went  to  the  Emperor,  who  reluc- 
tantly consented  to  accept  his  resignation. 

It  was  hard  to  tear  himself  away  from  his  beloved  flock.  They 
entreated  him  not  to  leave  them.  "Who,"  they  asked,  "will 
nourish  thy  children,  if  thou  shouldst  forsake  us?"  He  took  a 
public  farewell  of  the  congregation,  at  which  the  council  were 
present ;  and  although  the  cathedral  was  filled  to  every  corner,  not 
a  dry  eye  was  to  be  seen.     "  Farewell" — so  he  wound  up  his  cele- 

1  This  canon  forbade  the  translation  of  bishops. 
'Elsewhere  he  compares  them  to  "cranes  and  geese,"  and  says  it  was  a 
•*  disgrace  to  sit  amongst  such  hucksters  of  the  faith." 


GREGORY   IN   RETIREMENT.  43^ 

brated  but  floral  oration — "  farewell  my  beloved  church,  Anastasia,.. 
by  which  the  true  faith  has  been  raised  up.  And  thou,  too,  more 
majestic  temple,  our  new  possession,  which  hast  now  first  received, 
thy  true  greatness  from  the  true  preaching  of  the  everlasting  Word. 
.  .  .  Farewell,  0  Holy  Trinity,  my  sole  thought,  my  only  jewel ; 
may  this  my  people  keep  Thee,  and  mayest  Thou  preserve  them.. 
Cherish,  0  my  children,  the  truth  I  have  committed  to  you,  and 
remember  the  persecutions  I  have  endured  for  its  sake.  .  .  .  The 
grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  be  with  you  all !    Amen." 

Sorrow  for  the  loss  of  his  church  was,  however,  tempered  by  self- 
gratulation  on  his  escape  from  the  atmosphere  of  the  court.  "  Never 
more  shall  I  be  entertained  at  the  tables  of  princes,  bashful  and 
speechless,  not  breathing  freely,  feasting  like  a  slave.  No  magis- 
trate shall  again  punish  me  with  a  seat  either  near  him  or  below 
him,  giving  the  higher  place  to  some  grovelling  spirit.  No  more 
shall  I  clasp  bloodstained  hands,  or  take  hold  of  beard,  to  gain 
some  small  favour.  No  more,  hurrying  with  a  crowd  to  some 
birthday,  burial,  or  marriage  feast,  shall  I  seize  on  all  I  can,  some- 
thing for  myself,  something  for  my  attendants,  with  their  greedy 
palms,  and  then  late  in  the  evening  drag  home  my  ailing  carcase 
worn  out  with  fatigue,  and  panting  with  satiety."  On  his  way 
home  to  his  native  village  he  preached  his  memorial  oration  over 
the  grave  of  Basil. 

Once  again  in  his  beloved  retirement,  Gregory  partially  re- 
covered his  shattered  health.  There  was  at  Arianzus  a  little 
garden  with  a  shady  walk  and  a  fountain,  which  he  had  reserved 
to  himself  when  all  his  other  property  was  given  to  the  poor.  Here 
he  soothed  his  irritated  spirit,  and  half  forgot  the  turmoil  and 
vexations  of  the  great  city.  "  If  any  of  our  friends,"  he  writesr 
**  should  inquire  what  Gregory  is  doing,  say  that  he  is  enjoying  in 
perfect  quiet  a  philosophical  life,  and  that  he  troubles  himself  as 
little  about  his  enemies  as  he  does  about  persons  of  whose  existence 
he  knows  nothing." 

From  his  solitude  he  sent  forth  to  his  friends  messages  of 
sympathy,  both  in  their  joys  and  in  their  tribulations.  Although 
he  had  himself  renounced  marriage,  and  had  always  extravagantly 
extolled  the  virgin  state,  yet  we  find  him  in  his  declining  years 
entering  into  hearty  sympathy  with  a  young  friend  in  the  prospect 
of  marriage.  "  Thy  beloved  is  now  thine ;  the  moment  of  your 
union  has  arrived;  and  I  who  ought  to  have  been  present,  and 
taken  part  in  the  solemn  service,  am  obliged  to  remain  at  a 
distance.  Several  times  I  have  made  the  attempt  to  set  out,  but 
have  always  been  overcome  by  sickness.     It  must  be  for  others  to 


44  WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST. 

invoke  the  genius  of  love  (for  playful  mirth  becomes  the  nuptial 
festival),  and  paint  the  beauty  of  the  bride  and  the  manliness  of 
the  bridegroom.  Nevertheless,  I  will  sing  you  my  marriage  song : 
*  The  Lord  bless  you  out  of  Zion,  and  grant  harmony  upon  your 
union.  Mayst  thou  see  thy  sons  (thy  sons'  sons,  I  was  ready  to 
say)  still  nobler  than  thyself.'  " 

The  next  year,  382,  he  was  invited  in  the  Emperor's  name  to 
attend  a  synod  at  Constantinople.  He  thus  replied :  "To  tell  the 
truth,  I  am  in  such  a  temper  of  mind  that  I  shun  every  assemblage 
of  bishops,  because  I  have  never  yet  seen  a  good  issue  to  any  synod, 
have  never  been  present  at  any  which  did  not  do  more  for  the 
multiplication  than  it  did  for  the  suppression  of  evils.  An  in- 
describable thirst  for  contention  and  rule  prevails  in  them  ;  and  a 
man  who  dares  to  lift  up  his  voice  against  what  is  base  in  others, 
will  be  far  more  certain  to  bring  down  reproach  upon  himself  than 
to  succeed  in  removing  such  baseness." 

The  spread  of  the  Apollinarian  heresy1  alarmed  the  clergy  and 
people  of  Nazianzus,  and  they  entreated  Gregory  to  return  thither 
and  help  them.  Very  reluctantly  he  yielded  to  their  importunity, 
and  for  a  short  time  administered  the  affairs  of  the  diocese.  But 
his  bodily  weakness  returned,  and  as  soon  as  he  could  induce  the 
neighbouring  prelates  to  consecrate  a  new  bishop,  he  withdrew 
again  from  public  life,  and  spent  his  last  six  years  in  seclusion. 
He  was  not  idle,  however,  but  continued  to  occupy  himself  with 
the  various  interests  which  surrounded  him,  political,  ecclesiastical, 
.and  personal.  In  the  mortification  of  the  body,  to  which  he  had 
devoted  himself  from  early  life,  he  suffered  no  relaxation  to  over- 
take him  in  old  age.  But  these  austerities  failed  to  bring  him 
peace.  To  the  burden  of  a  weak  and  suffering  body  was  often 
added  a  spiritual  agony  so  great  as  to  take  from  him  all  hope  both 
for  this  world  and  the  next.  At  other  times,  faith  lifted  him  above 
his  tribulations,  and  he  could  say :  "  I  suffer  and  am  content,  not 
because  I  suffer,  but  because  I  am  for  others  an  example  of  patience. 
If  I  have  no  means  to  free  myself  from  pain,  I  gain  from  it  at  least 
the  power  to  bear  it,  and  to  be  thankful,  as  well  in  sorrow  as  in 
joy ;  for  I  am  convinced  that,  although  it  seems  to  us  the  contrary, 
there  is  in  the  eyes  of  the  Sovereign  Beason  nothing  opposed  to 
xeason  in  all  that  happens  to  us." 

He  died  a.d.  389  or  390,  aged  about  60  years. 

In  Gregory's  preaching,  the  lessons  of  practical  religion  are 
never  lost  sight  of.     He  often  sets  before  his  hearers  the  danger  of 

1  See  below,  Period  II.,  Chap.  I. 


GREGORY'S  TOLERATION,  AND  LOVE  OF  NATURE.         45 

empty  talkativeness  about  divine  things,  and  disputation  on  theo- 
logical questions,  to  which  they  were  addicted.  He  taught  that 
true  piety  consists  in  doing  God's  will,  and  that  the  knowledge  of 
God  is  attainable  only  in  proportion  as  the  soul  is  purified  from 
the  defilement  of  sin. 

In  toleration  of  heretics  Gregory  was  before  his  age.  His  counsel 
in  dealing  with  such  breathes  the  true  Gospel  spirit:  "Do  not 
rashly  condemn  thy  brother ;  to  condemn  and  despise  is  nothing 
else  than  to  shut  out  from  Christ  the  sole  hope  of  sinners.  It  is 
the  same  as  pulling  up  with  the  weeds  the  hidden  fruit  which 
is  possibly  of  more  value  than  thou  art.  Eaise  up  thy  brother 
gently  and  lovingly,  not  as  an  antagonist,  not  as  a  physician  who 
administers  medicine  by  force,  or  knows  of  no  remedy  but 
cauterising  and  cutting.  Learn  rather  to  know  thyself  in  the 
spirit  of  humility,  and  to  search  out  thy  own  infirmities.  It  is 
not  one  and  the  same  thing  to  pull  up  or  destroy  a  plant  and  a 
man.  Thou  art  an  image  of  God,  and  thou  hast  to  do  with  an 
image  of  God ;  thou  who  judgest  wilt  thyself  be  judged.  ...  In 
our  Father's  house  are  many  mansions,  and  the  ways  which  lead 
to  them  are  various."  Hear  how  he  speaks  to  some  who  denied 
the  divinity  of  the  Holy  Spirit :  "  Such  is  the  love  I  cherish  for 
you,  such  the  respect  I  feel  for  your  becoming  attire,  your 
abstemiousness,  your  holy  societies,  the  honour  you  pay  to  vir- 
ginity, your  nightly  psalm-singing,  your  love  of  the  poor,  your 
brotherly  kindness,  your  hospitality,  that  I  could  even  wish 
myself  accursed  from  Christ  if  ye  were  but  united  with  us."  At 
times,  however,  the  old  bitter  feeling  against  the  Arians,  so  long 
triumphant  over  the  Catholics,  will  break  forth ;  so  that  if  we  had 
no  other  evidence  than  Gregory's  writings,  we  should  pronounce 
the  whole  party  to  be  utterly  base  and  diabolical. 

Gregory's  pensive  spirit  was  especially  open  to  the  sweet  in- 
fluences of  Nature.  Thus  he  writes  in  spring:  "How  beautiful 
is  everything  that  meets  the  eye.  The  meads  send  forth  their 
fragrance ;  the  plants  bud ;  the  young  lambs  frisk  on  the  green 
plains.  The  bee  now  leaves  her  hive,  spreads  her  wings,  displays 
her  sagacious  instinct,  and  robs  the  flowers  of  their  sweetness.  All 
creation  praises  and  glorifies  God  with  inarticulate  voice.  Yes,  it 
is  now  [in  allusion  to  the  Easter  festival] ,  the  spring  of  the  world, 
of  the  souls  of  men  as  well  as  of  their  bodies,  the  visible  and  the 
invisible  spring,  the  same  which  we  shall  taste  above  if  we  are 
transformed  and  renewed  here."  Again,  during  a  time  of  trial  in. 
his  ministry  at  Constantinople,  he  tells  his  hearers :  "As  the  day 
was   declining   I   wandered   alone   by   the   sea-shore,   for    I   was 


46  WITNESSES    FOB    CHRIST. 

accustomed  to  disperse  my  cares  by  this  kind  of  diversion ;  for  the 
,  string  will  not  bear  to  be  always  on  the  stretch,  but  must  occasion- 
ally be  loosened  from  the  bow's  end.  Thus  I  wandered,  my  feet 
.moving  mechanically,  whilst  my  eye  swept  over  the  expanse  of 
waters.  But  it  was  not  then  as  when  the  purple  waves  roll  gently 
forward  and  break  softly  on  the  shore,  for,  to  use  the  words  of 
Scripture,  '  the  sea  had  arisen,  by  reason  of  a  great  wind  that  blew.' 
The  billows,  as  they  approached  from  a  distance,  increased  in  size, 
reared  their  crests,  and  discharged  themselves  on  the  beach  with  a 
thundering  sound.  But,  roar  as  they  might,  the  rocks  stood 
unmoved,  regardless  of  the  waves  that  broke  against  them.  As 
I  gazed  I  thought  a  profitable  lesson  was  to  be  learnt  from  the 
sight,  and  how  I  might  apply  it  to  my  own  state  of  mind,  when, 
as  has  recently  happened,  some  untoward  occurrence  has  burst 
upon  me." 

Notwithstanding  his  rich  Christian  experience,  Gregory  was 
steeped  in  the  superstitious  spirit  of  the  age.  At  Constantinople, 
as  already  remarked,  he  revived  the  practice  of  keeping  birthday 
festivals,  and  pnblicly  returned  thanks  to  the  martyrs  for  having  so 
triumphantly  assisted  the  true  believers  in  their  recent  victory.  We 
shall  treat  this  subject  more  fully  by-and-by. 

The  annexed  passage  from  his  Oration  on  the  Nativity  will  convey 
an  idea  of  his  power  to  soar  into  the  regions  of  abstract  thought. 
"God  ever  was,  and  is,  and  will  be.  Or  rather,  He  ever  is;  for 
the  terms  was  and  will  be  are  portions  of  our  fleeting  duration  and 
transient  nature,  but  He  always  is ;  and  thus  He  designated  Him- 
self when  He  appeared  to  Moses  on  the  mount.  For  He  comprehends 
in  Himself  all  existence  without  commencement,  without  end,  as  it 
were  a  boundless  and  unfathomable  ocean,  rising  above  every  con- 
ception both  of  time  and  nature.  He  is  shadowed  forth  by  the 
intellect  alone,  and  that  most  obscurely  and  imperfectly,  and  not 
from  the  things  which  are  inherent  in  Him,  but  from  those  which 
move  around  Him.  Ideas  collected  from  all  parts  of  the  creation 
combine  to  form  a  faint  image  of  the  Truth,  which  escapes  before 
it  is  seized,  and  flies  before  it  is  understood,  beaming  for  an  instant 
on  our  mind,  as  the  evanescent  lightning  glances  on  our  sight ;  in 
order,  as  I  suppose,  that  by  the  small  portion  which  is  compre- 
hended it  may  allure  us  to  itself  (for  that  which  is  wholly  in- 
comprehensible is  unhoped  for  and  unattempted) ;  and  by  what  is 
unapprehended,  may  be  admired  ;  and  being  admired,  may  be  loved 
the  more ;  and  being  loved,  may  purify ;  and  purifying,  may  render 
4is  divine." 

Another  passage,  less  abstruse,  will  close  this  notice  of  Gregory. 


GREGORY   NYSSEN.  47 

"  Christ  was  born  indeed  on  the  earth ;  but  in  his  supernal 
nature  He  had  been  begotten.  He  was  born  of  a  woman  indeed, 
but  she  was  a  virgin.  If  this  was  natural,  that  was  preternatural. 
He  was  without  a  father  in  his  earthly  geniture,  and  without  a 
mother  in  his  heavenly  generation.  .  .  .  He  was  oppressed  with 
hunger,  yet  He  fed  thousands  in  the  desert ;  and  He  is  the  living 
and  celestial  bread.  He  was  parched  with  thirst,  yet  He  cried 
aloud,  '  If  any  man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me  and  drink.'  He 
was  weary,  yet  is  He  the  rest  of  those  who  are  weary  and  heavy- 
laden.  He  paid  tribute,  obtained  miraculously  from  a  fish,  whilst 
He  ruled  over  those  to  whom  He  paid  the  tribute.  ...  He  wept, 
but  He  made  tears  to  cease.  Because  He  was  a  man,  He  asked 
where  Lazarus  was  laid ;  but  He  raised  Lazarus  from  death,  be- 
cause He  was  God.  He  was  sold  for  thirty  pieces  of  silver,  yet  He 
bought  the  world  at  an  inestimable  price :  for  He  bought  it  with 
his  blood.  He  who  drinks  vinegar  and  is  fed  with  gall,  is  He  who 
converted  the  water  into  wine,  who  has  destroyed  the  bitterness  of 
death,  who  is  altogether  sweetness,  the  desire  of  the  heart.  He  dies, 
yet  He  gives  life  ;  and  dying,  He  destroys  death."1 

We  left  Basil's  brother  Gregory  newly  installed  in  his  bishopric 
of  Nyssa.  This,  it  may  be  remembered,  was  in  the  reign  of  the 
Arian  Emperor  Valens.  A  full  share  of  the  troubles  of  the  time 
fell  to  Gregory's  lot,  aggravated,  it  would  seem,  by  an  inaptitude  on 
his  part  in  dealing  with  men.  The  Imperial  cook  Demosthenes, 
whose  acquaintance  we  have  made,  was  appointed  vicegerent  of 
Pontus,  with  the  understanding  that  he  was  to  do  all  in  his  power 
to  crush  the  adherents  of  the  Nicene  faith.  Gregory  was  one  of 
those  who  felt  the  weight  of  his  tyrannical  hand,  and  refusing  to 
appear  before  a  synod  which  was  summoned  to  hear  charges  against 
him,  he  was  deposed  and  banished,  a.  d.  376.  In  his  exile  he  be- 
wailed the  cruel  necessity  which  had  compelled  him  to  leave  his 
spiritual  children,  and  also  dwells  pathetically  on  the  home  of 
which  he  had  been  deprived — his  fireside,  his  table,  his  pantry,  his 
bed,  his  bench,  his  sackcloth,  contrasting  it  with  the  stifling  hole 
in  which  he  was  now  forced  to  dwell,  of  which  the  only  furniture 
was  straitness,  darkness,  and  cold.  But  he  took  comfort  in  the 
assurance  that  his  brethren  would  remember  him  in  their  prayers. 

On  the  death  of  Valens  in  378,  as  already  related,  Gratian 
recalled  the  exiled  bishops  ;  and  to  the  joy  of  the  faithful,  Gregory 
was  restored  to  the  see  of  Nyssa.  His  return  was  a  triumphal 
progress.     The  inhabitants  of  the  villages  through  which  he  passed 

1  See  a  similar  passage  from  Hippolytus  in  Early  Church  History,  pp.  159. 


48  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

poured  forth  to  meet  him,  and  escorted  him  along  the  road  with 
acclamations  and  tears  of  joy.  In  the  town  the  crowd  was  so 
dense  as  to  impede  his  progress,  and  when  he  approached  a  church, 
a  stream  of  flame  poured  into  it  from  the  multitude  of  lighted 
tapers,  borne  before  him  by  the  virgins  who  had  come  to  welcome 
back  their  beloved  bishop. 

The  happiness  of  Gregory's  return  was,  however,  short-lived. 
Beside  the  severe  labour  and  anxiety  entailed  upon  him  by  the 
confusion  consequent  on  the  long  reign  of  Arianism,  he  had  to 
mourn  the  death  of  his  brother  Basil  and  his  sister  Macrina.  It 
was  many  years  since  Gregory  had  seen  his  sister,  and  when  at  last 
he  was  able  to  visit  her  (in  Pontus),  he  found  her  "  hopelessly  ill 
of  fever,  with  parched  lips,  and  drenched  with  cold  sweats.  She 
was  stretched  on  a  couple  of  planks  on  the  ground,  one  of  them 
being  sloped  to  support  her  head  and  shoulders,  the  wood  barely 
covered  with  a  piece  of  sackcloth.  Her  pallet  faced  the  east.  On 
her  brother's  approach  she  made  an  effort  to  rise  and  do  him  honour 
as  a  bishop  ;  Gregory  prevented  her.  With  great  self-command 
she  restrained  her  groans,  checked  her  asthmatic  pantings,  and, 
putting  on  a  cheerful  countenance,  endeavoured  to  comfort  her 
brother,  who  she  saw  was  full  of  grief.  When  she  spoke  of  Basil's 
death,  Gregory  broke  down ;  but  she  rebuked  him  for  sorrowing  as 
those  who  have  no  hope,"  and  in  a  rapturous  spirit  discoursed  on 
the  resurrection  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  "  Seeing  he  was 
weary,  she  sent  him  into  the  garden  to  rest  in  an  arbour.  The 
following  day  she  employed  her  little  remaining  strength  in  con- 
soling, animating,  and  instructing  him.  Then  she  prayed :  "  Thou, 
0  God,  has  taken  from  me  the  fear  of  death.  Thou  hast  granted 
me  that  the  end  of  this  life  should  be  the  beginning  of  true  life  .  .  . 
Remember  me  in  thy  kingdom;  forgive  whatsoever  I  have  done 
amiss.  Beceive  my  soul  without  spot  into  thy  hands  as  a  burnt 
offering  before  Thee.'  At  last  her  voice  failed;  only  her  lips 
moved ;  she  signed  herself  with  the  cross,  gave  a  deep  sigh,  and  her 
spirit  took  its  flight."  Round  her  neck  was  found  an  iron  cross, 
and  a  ring  containing  a  particle  of  the  "  True  Cross."  She  was 
buried  by  her  brother  in  the  grave  of  her  parents,  in  the  chapel  of 
the  Forty  Martyrs.  After  her  death  many  miracles  were  said  to 
have  been  performed  at  her  tomb.1 

After  settling  some  difficulties  at  home,  Gregory  undertook,  by 

1  Texier  says  that  in  the  village  Melebuhi,  in  Cappadocia,  a  few  miles  from 
Nyssa,  the  inhabitants,  who  are  Greeks,  still  worship  Saint  Macrina,  whose 
bones  are  supposed  to  lie  in  the  neighbourhood.  Possibly  Gregory  transported 
them  thither ;  his  own  name  is  nearly  forgotten. 


THE    EVIL    OF    PILGBIMAGES.  49 

the  desire  of  the  Council  of  Antioch,1  a  long  and  toilsome  journey 
to  Babylon.  He  found  the  church  in  that  city  in  a  deplorable  state. 
The  people  had  "grown  hardened  in  heresy,  and  brutish  in  their 
manners ;  lying  was  more  natural  to  them  than  to  speak  the  truth." 
His  labour  for  their  reformation  seems  to  have  met  with  but  little 
success.2 

During  the  half-century  which  had  elapsed  since  the  pretended 
discovery  by  the  Empress  Helena  of  the  "True  Cross,"  pilgrimages 
to  Jerusalem  had  become  frequent.  On  his  way  home  Gregory 
visited  the  Holy  City,  the  Emperor  placing  at  his  disposal  one  of 
the  imperial  carriages.  Of  this  vehicle  he  made  "  both  a  monastery 
and  a  church,"  where  he  and  his  retinue  kept  up  their  daily  fasting, 
psalmody,  and  hours  of  prayer.  He  visited  Bethlehem,  Calvary, 
the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  But 
although  largely  imbued  with  credulity  and  superstition,  his  faith 
received  no  confirmation  from  what  he  saw.  His  conscience  was 
shocked  by  the  gross  immorality  prevailing  in  the  Holy  City  itself, 
which  he  describes  as  a  sink  of  all  iniquity.  The  evil  was  aggra- 
vated by  Arian  influences,  to  counteract  which  all  his  efforts  were 
ineffectual.  He  returned  home  depressed  and  sorrowful.  In  letters 
written  soon  afterwards,  he  records  his  sense  of  the  evil  of  pil- 
grimages. He  points  out  that  pious  ladies  travelling  lonely  roads 
with  male  attendants  lay  themselves  open  to  suspicion ;  that  tho 
inns  are  notorious  for  dissolute  conversation  and  loose  manners; 
and  that  robbery  and  violence  are  not  infrequent,  even  in  the  Holy 
Land  itself,  whose  moral  state  he  describes  as  infinitely  below  that 
of  Cappadocia.  He  asks,  moreover,  whether  a  man  will  believe 
Christ's  virgin-birth  the  more  by  seeing  Bethlehem,  or  his  resur- 
rection by  visiting  his  tomb,  or  his  ascension  by  standing  on  the 
Mount  of  Olives.  "  Change  of  place,"  he  wrote  to  a  Cappadocian 
abbot,  "brings  God  no  nearer;  God  will  come  to  thee  if  only  the 
inn  of  thy  soul  is  ready  for  Him."3 

»  a.d.  379. 

*  From  the  time  of  Cyrus,  Babylon  rapidly  declined ;  and  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  Christian  era,  the  greater  part  of  the  city  was  in  ruins.  It  con- 
tinued to  exist  a  few  centuries  longer,  when  it  sank  into  the  condition  predicted 
by  Isaiah,  ch.  xiii.  19 — 22. 

3  The  pilgrims  carried  back  with  them  water  from  the  Jordan,  earth  from  the 
Redeemer's  sepulchre,  and  chips  from  the  True  Cross.  Many  even  visited 
Arabia  to  behold  Job's  dunghill !  But  the  East  was  not  the  only  quarter  to 
which  pilgrimages  were  made.  Chrysostom  lamented  that  want  of  time  and 
health  prevented  him  from  going  to  Borne  to  kiss  the  chains  of  Peter  and  Paul, 
which  "  make  devils  tremble  and  angels  rejoice."  Jerome,  however,  though  on 
his  return  to  Bethlehem  after  one  of  his  journeys,  he  quickened  his  steps  that 

E 


50  WITNESSES    FOE    CHEIST. 

Two  years  later  he  attended  the  Council  of  Constantinople,  where, 
as  already  said,  he  delivered  the  oration  on  the  enthronement  of 
Gregory  Nazianzen.  The  last  mention  we  have  of  him  is  his 
presence  at  a  synod  held  in  the  same  city,  a.d.  394,  which  was 
probably  not  long  before  the  close  of  his  life. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

Ulfilas.1 

Hitheeto  we  have  traced  the  course  of  some  of  the  most  gifted 
leaders  in  the  Christian  Church  within  the  pale  of  Eoman  civilisa- 
tion. It  was  within  the  empire  that  Christianity  was  founded  and 
established,  and  for  a  long  time  its  organisation  did  not  extend  far 
beyond  the  frontiers.  But  a  change  was  now  coming  over  the 
existing  civilisation.  "  All  that  is  expressed  by  the  words  Christian 
and  Teutonic  is  coming  in;  all  that  is  expressed  by  the  words 
Pagan  and  Eoman  is  dying  out.  .  .  .  The  Teuton  rent  away  the 
provinces  of  the  empire ;  but,  in  rending  them  away,  he  accepted 
the  faith,  the  tongue,  and,  to  a  great  extent,  the  law,  of  the 
empire."2 

Of  all  the  Teutonic  nations,  the  Goths  were  the  first  to  embrace 
Christianity,  and  their  history  is  the  most  closely  interwoven  with 
that  of  declining  Eome.  "Driven  like  a  wedge  into  the  eastern 
side  of  Europe  by  the  superincumbent  weight  of  the  Huns,  they 
pass  along  the  whole  length  of  it,  to  be  similarly  thrust  out  at  the 
west  by  the  Franks.  During  this  whole  course  they  hold  a  place 
intermediate  between  barbarism  and  civilisation.  .  .  .  They  are 
not  heathens,  yet  they  are  not  acknowledged  as  Christians.    Planted 

he  might  adore  the  manger  and  cradle  of  his  Saviour,  reminds  his  readers  that 
"Britain  is  as  near  heaven  as  Jerusalem  (Et  de  Ierosolymis  et  de  Britania 
sequaliter  patet  aula  ccelestis),  and  that  what  is  worthy  of  praise  is  not  to  have 
been  at  Jerusalem,  but  to  have  led  a  godly  life  there."  It  is  curious  to  see 
Britain  instanced  as  a  very  Ultima  Thule. 

1  Chronologically,  this  chapter  should  have  preceded  the  last ;  but  the  his- 
torical order  seems  to  be  better  consulted  by  following  out  the  course  of  Arianism 
within  the  Empire,  before  referring  to  its  fortunes  beyond  it. 

2  "  This  was  of  a  truth  the  greatest  conquest  that  Eome  ever  made ;  if 
Greece  once  led  captive  her  Roman  conqueror,  far  more  thoroughly  did  Borne 
lead  captive  her  Teutonic  conqueror." — Freeman. 


CHBISTIANITY   AMONGST    THE    GOTHS.  51 

in  an  indefensible  position  by  their  Arian  creed,  they  are  crushed 
between  the  opposing  masses  of  heathenism  and  Catholicism." 1 

The  way  in  which  Christianity  was  first  made  known  to  this 
people  is  related  by  Sozomen.  "  From  the  time  of  the  wars  under 
Gallus  and  his  successors,  between  the  Romans  and  the  Goths, 
many  priests  were  taken  captive,  and  dwelt  among  those  tribes. 
They  healed  the  sick,  purged  those  who  were  possessed,  and  led  a 
holy  and  blameless  life  ;  and  the  barbarians,  marvelling  at  their  life 
and  miracles,  sought  to  imitate  their  example."  So  also  Philo- 
storgius :  "  During  the  reigns  of  Valerian  and  Gallienus  (253-268), 
a  great  body  of  Goths  laid  waste  Eastern  Europe,  and  crossing 
into  Asia,  invaded  Cappadocia  and  Galatia,  whence  they  returned 
laden  with  spoil,  and  bringing  with  them  many  captives,  amongst 
whom  were  not  a  few  ecclesiastics.  These  pious  men  induced  many 
of  their  conquerors  to  embrace  Christianity." 

These  vague  generalities  are  all  that  we  know  of  the  conversion 
of  the  Gothic  tribes  until  we  come  to  Ulfilas.  With  the  name  of 
this  illustrious  man  the  Gothic  Church  is  identified ;  he  may  almost 
be  regarded  as  its  founder,  leader,  and  bishop ;  from  his  hands  it 
received  not  the  Scriptures  only,  but  the  very  alphabet  by  which  to 
read  them.  "  He  is,"  said  Constantine  the  Great,  "  the  Moses  of 
the  Goths."  The  sources  of  information  regarding  him,  though 
still  very  scanty,  were  augmented  in  1840  by  the  discovery,  in  the 
library  of  the  Louvre,  of  a  manuscript  containing  a  notice  of  him, 
and  especially  of  his  creed,  by  his  friend  and  pupil  Auxentius,  Arian 
bishop  of  Dorostorus  (now  Silistria). 

Ulfilas  was  born  about  the  year  311,  and  appears  to  have  been 
a  descendant  of  the  Cappadocian  captives  mentioned  above.  When 
still  a  youth  he  was  sent  with  others  of  his  countrymen  by  the 
ruler  of  the  Gothic  nation  on  an  embassy  to  the  court  of  Con- 
stantine, a.d.  332.  From  this  time  it  is  probable  he  resided  (per- 
haps as  a  hostage)  in  the  city  of  Constantinople.  Here  he  acquired 
or  perfected  his  knowledge  of  Greek  and  Latin,  became  a  reader  in 
the  church  (lector),  commenced  his  translation  of  the  Bible,  and 
formed  an  acquaintance  with  Eusebius,  the  Arian  or  Homoi-ousion 

1  The  campaign  which  Clovis  undertook  against  the  Visigoths,  a.d.  507,  was 
in  fact  a  war  of  the  Catholic  priesthood  against  the  Arians.  Rich  presents 
were  sent  to  the  shrine  of  St.  Martin  at  Tours  to  purchase  the  saint's  favour  ; 
and  as  the  messengers  crossed  the  threshold  of  the  church,  the  precentor,  as  if 
by  accident,  chanted  forth  the  verse :  "  Thou  hast  girded  me  with  strength  unto 
the  battle;  Thou  hast  subdued  under  me  those  that  rose  up  against  me" 
(Ps.  xviii.  39).  Assured  by  this  token,  Clovis  pressed  forward  in  full  reliance  on 
the  protection  of  the  saint. 


52  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

bishop  of  Nicomedia.1  Sozomen  says  that  before  he  went  to  Con- 
stantinople he  held  the  orthodox  faith,  but  that  the  theological 
arguments  of  the  Arian  bishops,  or  their  promise  to  forward  his 
suit  with  the  Emperor  if  he  would  conform  to  their  opinions, 
caused  him  to  join  their  party.  This  statement  is  contradicted  by 
Ulfilas  himself;  his  Arian  creed,  as  preserved  in  the  manuscript 
of  Auxentius,  commencing  with  the  words,  "  I,  Ulfilas,  bishop  and 
confessor,  have  always  thus  believed." 

At  the  age  of  thirty,  a.d.  341,  Ulfilas  was  consecrated  bishop  of 
the  Goths  by  Eusebius,  and  sent  beyond  the  Danube  to  preach  the 
Gospel  to  his  countrymen.  Here  he  laboured  until  the  success  of 
his  efforts  alarmed  the  Gothic  sovereign,  and  gave  rise  to  a  perse- 
cution in  which  "many  servants  and  handmaids  of  Christ  yielded 
up  their  lives."  At  the  end  of  seven  years  Ulfilas  himself,  with  a 
great  body  of  his  converts,  was  expelled,  and  crossing  the  Danube 
took  refuge  within  the  empire,  where  he  was  honourably  received 
by  the  Emperor  Constantius.  They  settled  in  Moesia,  at  the  foot 
of  the  Balkan  Mountains,  "  possessors,"  says  Jordanes,2  "  of  cattle, 
pastures,  forest,  and  a  modicum  of  wheat,  but  otherwise  poor  and 
unwarlike."  Here  Ulfilas  continued  to  govern  and  instruct  them, 
and  they  in  return  yielded  to  him  the  most  confiding  obedience, 
being  firmly  convinced  that  he  could  neither  utter  nor  do  anything 
evil. 

From  this  time  we  hear  no  more  of  Ulfilas  for  twenty  years, 
except  that  in  360  he  attended  a  synod  of  Arian  bishops  at  Con- 
stantinople, at  which  the  creed  of  Ariminum  was  adopted,  and  was 
subscribed  by  Ulfilas. 

In  370  the  Gothic  ruler  Athanaric  renewed  the  persecution  in 
Dacia,  and  many  Christians  were  put  to  death  or  driven  to  take 
refuge  on  Eoman  soil.  In  this  instance  it  was  not  only  Arians  who 
were  thus  harassed,  but  also  Catholics  and  Audians.  These  last 
were  the  followers  of  Audius,  a  zealous  man  of  pure  life,  who  in 
Syria  made  himself  obnoxious  by  censuring  the  vices  of  the  clergy. 
Being  banished  to  Scythia,8  he  made  his  way  into  the  interior  of 
Gothia,  and  himself  and  his  successors  gathered  congregations  and 
founded  convents  for  men  and  women.  The  names  of  some  of  the 
martyrs  in  this  persecution  have  been  preserved.  One  was  Saba, 
respecting  whom  the  afflicted  Church,  after  the  manner  of  the 

1  Auxentius  speaks  of  him  as  preaching  constantly  in  Greek,  Latin,  and 
Gothic. 

2  Sometimes  written  Jornandes. 

8  Scythia  parva,  now  the  Dobrudscha. 


THE    MARTYRDOM    OF    SABA.  53 

•Church  at  Smyrna,1  when  it  testified  to  the  victorious  faith  of 
Poly  carp,  issued  an  encyclical  letter  :  "  The  Church  of  God  which 
is  in  Grothia  to  the  Church  of  God  which  is  in  Cappadocia,  and 
to  all  Christians  of  the  Catholic  Church."  From  this  letter  it 
appears  that  the  Gothic  magistrates  insisted  on  the  Christians 
mating  meat  which  had  been  sacrificed  to  idols.  Some  of  the 
heathens,  touched  with  compassion,  secretly  substituted  instead  of 
the  offerings  meat  which  had  not  thus  been  polluted ;  but  Saba, 
who  had  known  the  faith  from  a  child,  scorned  the  subterfuge, 
declaring  that  no  true  Christian  could  accept  escape  on  such  terms. 
The  persecution  cooled  for  a  season,  but  broke  out  again  in  a 
general  inquisition,  from  which  Saba's  would-be  friends  again 
sought  to  shield  him  by  swearing  that  there  were  no  Christians  in 
the  village.  But  Saba  burst  into  the  assembly,  exclaiming,  "Let 
no  one  swear  for  me,  for  I  am  a  Christian."  Summoned  before  the 
chief  persecutor,  he  was,  on  the  discovery  of  his  poverty,  con- 
temptuously dismissed,  as  one  who  could  do  neither  good  nor  harm. 
Some  time  afterwards  it  became  known  that  Saba  was  keeping 
Easter  with  a  presbyter.  The  king's  son  came  into  the  village  by 
night  with  a  band  of  armed  men,  and  carried  off  both  Saba  and  the 
presbyter  naked  and  bound.  Neither  torture  nor  promises  could 
induce  Saba  to  touch  the  polluted  meat.  Left  for  the  night  made 
fast  to  a  log,  he  was  released  by  a  compassionate  woman,  but 
nevertheless  refused  to  escape.  A  beam  being  fastened  to  his  neck, 
he  was  thrown  into  the  river  Musaeus  and  drowned,  confessing  with 
his  last  breath  his  faith  in  God,  and  glorifying  the  Saviour's  name. 
His  body  was  recovered  and  taken  away  by  Julius  Soranus,  the  dux, 
or  Roman  governor,  of  Scythia,  himself  a  Christian,  who,  to  use  the 
words  of  the  Church  Letter,  "  has  by  permission  of  the  presbytery 
sent  the  same  to  Cappadocia  to  your  Church,  a  precious  gift,  and 
glorious  fruit  of  the  faith." 

The  bulk  of  the  Gothic  nation  still  remained  pagan.  In  375  the 
shock  of  the  Huns,  that  "  terrible  '  riding  folk,'  who  had  just  passed 
the  Gate  of  Nations  and  entered  Europe,"  shattered  the  empire  of 
the  Ostrogoths  on  the  Volga.  Pursuing  their  wild  victorious  march, 
they  came  upon  the  Visigoths  in  Dacia,  and  drove  them  forward  as 
far  as  the  waters  of  the  Danube.  The  Romans  from  the  southern 
shore  of  the  great  river  beheld  the  opposite  bank  crowded  with  a 
countless  multitude — men,  women,  and  children,  "  looking  behind 
them  with  terror  for  the  approach  of  the  dreaded  foe,  and  stretching 
out  their  hands  to  the  land  of  plenty  and  of  safety  which  lay  before 

1  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  47. 


54  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

them.  Their  chief,  Frithigern,  sent  envoys  to  the  Emperor  Valensr 
begging  him  to  receive  his  flying  people,  and  give  them  leave  to 
settle  on  Roman  soil.  Valens,  after  long  debate  with  his  advisers, 
consented,  and  almost  before  the  negotiations  were  complete,  the 
impatient  people,  200,000  armed  men  with  their  families,  began  to 
cross.  Some  attempting  to  swim  over  were  drowned,  others  crossed 
on  rafts  and  canoes  ;  while  the  main  body  were  transported  in  boats. 
The  passage  lasted  through  several  days  and  nights." 

With  their  change  of  country  the  Visigoths  exchanged  also  their 
national  religion.  The  Catholic  historian  Jordanes  relates  that 
when  the  envoys  besought  the  Emperor  to  grant  them  shelter,  they 
promised,  if  he  would  give  them  teachers  in  their  own  tongue,  to 
become  Christians ;  and  that  the  Emperor,  who  was  infected  with 
the  heresy  of  the  Arians,  and  had  suppressed  all  the  orthodox 
Churches,  sent  them  for  preachers  supporters  of  his  own  creed. 
"  The  Goths,"  continues  Jordanes,  "having  come  thither  ignorant 
and  unlearned,  were  thus  imbued  with  the  poison  of  this  perverted 
faith ;  and  afterwards,  in  their  turn,  sending  forth  preachers  to 
carry  the  Gospel  in  the  same  guise  to  the  Ostrogoths  and  Gepid®, 
all  the  nations  of  this  speech  were  drawn  into  the  same  sect." 

Through  the  greed  and  folly  of  the  imperial  officers,  the  conditions 
of  the  treaty  were,  in  .the  absence  of  the  Emperor,  shamefully 
violated,  and  the  Goths  were  turned  from  subjects  into  enemies. 
They  flew  to  arms  and  invaded  Thrace,  and  in  378  a  great  battle 
was  fought  between  them  and  the  imperial  forces  near  Adrian ople, 
which  was  so  disastrous  to  the  Roman  arms  as  to  be  called  a  second 
Cannas.  Valens  himself  was  slain.  He  was  carried  wounded  to  a 
cottage,  to  which  the  barbarians,  ignorant  of  the  prize  it  contained,, 
set  fire,  and  thus  destroyed  at  once  the  enemy  of  their  nation  and 
the  champion  of  their  faith. 

On  the  form  of  Christianity  which  the  Goths  received,  Mr.  Scott 
observes :  "In  this  dim  twilight  of  Arianism  the  figure  of  the  Christ 
appeared  familiar  to  them,  and  comprehensible  by  its  resemblance 
to  their  own  old  deities  who  stood  between  man  and  the  absolute 
divine — the  All-Father.  It  did  not  cost  them  much  to  exchange 
these  demi-gods,  who  were  only  just  one  step  removed  from  heroes, 
for  one  heroic  figure,  in  whom  all  the  powers  and  qualities  of  the 
rest  should  combine.  But  the  All-Father  remained  as  far  removed 
as  ever  from  reach  and  contact  of  human  needs.  Christ  was  not 
God  come  down  from  Heaven  to  reveal  the  God-head  in  the  flesh, 
to  deliver  man  from  sin;  He  was  a  creature  like  man,  exalted  above 
man  by  the  design  and  will  of  the  Father,  not  by  virtue  of  his  own 
divine   essence.  ...  It  was  thus  that   the   Arian  Christ  found 


ARIANISM    OF    THE    TEUTONIC    NATIONS.  55 

responsive  acceptance  in  the  Teutonic  mind.  They  pictured  Him 
as  a  king  upon  earth,  moving  about  the  highways  of  Palestine, 
attended  by  troops  of  loyal  followers,  from  among  whom  He  had 
chosen  the  Twelve  as  captains.  When  He  'went  up  into  a  moun- 
tain,' and  took  his  seat,  his  captains  stood  in  obedient  readiness 
before  Him,  and  all  below  and  around,  the  faithful  host  was  waiting 
to  hear  his  commands.  Or  if  at  any  time  the  Teutonic  mind  took 
a  deeper  and  more  spiritual  view  of  the  Saviour's  work,  it  was  as 
the  Healer  that  they  loved  to  behold  Him,  moving  about  amongst 
suffering  humanity,  touching  for  the  evil,  restoring  sight  and 
power  and  hearing.  Nevertheless,"  he  continues,  "Teutonic 
Arianism  is  to  be  carefully  distinguished  from  Hellenic  Arianism. 
Even  if  the  two  could  be  shown  to  occupy  the  same  platform  of 
belief,  the  moral  value  of  the  same  faith  was  very  different  in  and 
for  the  two  parties  who  had  approached  it  from  different  directions. 
For  the  Goth  it  was  an  upward  step  in  faith  when  he  confessed  a 
belief  in  an  historic  revelation,  and  submitted  himself  to  the 
teaching  of  the  Gospel  through  which  Jesus  was  manifested  as 
the  Son  of  God.  For  the  Hellenic  Christian  the  acceptance  of  an 
Arian  creed,  or  of  any  of  the  Post-Nicene  compromises,  was  a  step 
backwards  and  downwards.  He  left  the  high-level  of  conception  of 
the  nature  of  God,  to  which,  after  a  great  struggle  and,  as  it  were, 
by  a  supreme  effort,  the  Nicene  Council  had  sprung ;  and  he  fell 
back  upon  a  philosophical  heathenism,  which  began  by  denying 
the  God-head  of  Christ,  and  afterwards  sought  to  bring  about  a 
compromise  of  faith  with  reason  at  the  cost  of  logic,  by  proclaiming 
Christ  to  be  God,  but  God  in  the  'second  degree.'  " 

Ulfilas'  own  creed  has  been  preserved  and  expanded  by  Auxentius. 
The  diversity  between  its  language  and  that  of  Nicsea  is  of  the 
most  subtle  kind,  but  amounts,  when  pursued  to  its  logical  issue,  to 
this.  Whilst  the  Son  is  held  to  be  the  Creator  and  Maker  of  all 
things,  King,  Eedeemer,  Saviour,  and  Judge,  he  is  yet  only  a 
"  Second  God,"  subject  and  obedient  in  all  things  to  the  Father; 
and  the  Holy  Spirit  is  neither  God  nor  Lord,  but  the  minister  of 
Christ,  subject  and  in  all  things  obedient  to  the  Son. 

Ulfilas'  translation  of  the  Bible  marks  an  era  in  the  history  of  the 
Church.  It  was  the  earliest  version  of  the  Scriptures  into  an 
unlettered  tongue ;  it  was,  moreover,  the  first  translation  into  one 
of  the  dialects  of  that  great  family  of  nations  "  in  whose  hands  was 
the  future  of  the  world."  Philostorgius  tells  us  that  Ulfilas  trans- 
lated all  the  books  of  both  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  with  the 
exception  of  Samuel  and  the  Kings,  which  he  omitted  because  of  the 
wars  that  are  related  in  them,  judging  that  his  people,  who  were 


56  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

passionately  fond  of  war,  were  more  in  need  of  a  bit  than  of  a  spur.1 
The  translation  was  lost  to  sight  for  many  centuries ;  but  about  the 
year  1500  the  four  Gospels2  were  discovered  in  the  monastery  of 
Werden  in  Westphalia,  near  Diisseldorf,  arranged  in  the  order  of 
Matthew,  John,  Luke,  and  Mark.  This  is  the  famous  Codex  Argen- 
teus  (or  Silver  Book),  now  in  the  library  of  Upsala  University.  At 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  it  found  its  way  to  Prague,  whence 
it  was  carried  off  by  the  Swedes  after  the  siege  in  1648,  and  pre- 
sented by  the  victorious  Konigsmark  to  Queen  Christina. 

The  manuscript  is  referred  to  the  close  of  the  fifth  century,  a 
hundred  years  after  the  death  of  Ulfilas,  and  is  believed  to  have 
been  written  in  Italy,  probably  at  Ravenna.  It  is  on  purple  vellum, 
in  letters  of  silver,  "  a  few  words  at  the  beginning  of  each  section 
being  blazoned  in  gold.  At  the  bottom  of  each  page  a  sort  of 
gallery  of  four  arches  resting  on  Corinthian  columns,  suggests  the 
influence  of  the  architecture  of  Ravenna  on  the  mind  of  the 
amanuensis,  and  serves  the  useful  purpose  of  enclosing  the  numbers 
which  under  the  well-known  name  of  the  Eusebian  Canons  enabled 
the  student,  before  the  introduction  of  chapters  and  verses,  readily 
to  compare  the  text  of  one  gospel  with  the  parallel  passages  in  the 
other  three."8 

We  naturally  ask  whether  any  trace  of  Arian  doctrine  is  to  be 
discovered  in  Ulfilas'  translation.  Little  evidence  of  this  kind  has 
been  detected ;  but  in  Philippians  ii.  6,  "  Who  being  in  the  form  of 
God  thought  it  not  robbery  to  be  equal  with  God,"  the  Greek  isa 
(equal)  is  rendered  by  the  Gothic  galeiko  (German  gleich,  English 
like),  a  word  everywhere  else  used  for  the  Greek  homoios  (like).  "  The 
substitution  of  likeness  for  equality  in  the  relation  of  the  Son  to  the 
Father  is  the  point  most  characteristic  of  the  party  to  which  Ulfilas 
belonged." 

Another  inquiry,  interesting  equally  to  the  missionary  and  the 
scholar,  is,  how  did  Ulfilas,  in  this  first  essay  to  clothe  the  Gospel 

1  Socrates  and  Sozomen  say  that  Ulfilas  invented  the  Gothic  letters.  He 
formed  them  chiefly  from  the  Greek. 

2  Or  rather  portions  of  them,  for  nearly  half  the  leaves  were  missing. 

8  In  1736  a  Gothic  manuscript  came  to  light  at  Wolfenbiittel,  which  was 
found  to  contain  large  portions  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  ;  and  in  1817  Car- 
dinal Mai  deciphered  several  other  manuscripts,  apparently  of  the  sixth  century, 
from  the  monastic  library  at  Bobbio  in  Lombardy.  By  means  of  these  a  con- 
siderable part  of  Paul's  Epistles  and  of  the  missing  portions  of  the  Gospels  has 
been  supplied,  together  with  some  verses  from  Nehemiah  and  Esdras,  a  quo- 
tation from  the  Psalms,  and  allusions  to  passages  in  Genesis  and  Numbers. 
With  these  exceptions,  the  whole  of  the  Old  Testament,  together  with  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles,  the  Catholic  Epistles  and  the  Apocalypse,  are  still  wanting. 


ULFTLAS'  TRANSLATION  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  57 

in  the  language  of  an  uncivilized  tribe,  render  the  Greek  terms 
relating  to  Sin  and  Eedemption  ?  Mr.  Scott  thus  answers  the 
question :  "  The  word  for  law  is  not  command,  but  Vitoth,  from 
vitan,  to  know,  and  thus  signifies  self-knowledge,  conscience,  corre- 
ponding  exactly  with  the  Apostle's  description,  '  a  law  unto  them- 
selves.' Sin  is  Fra-waurhts  (compare  our  froward).  As  to  condem- 
nation :  Amongst  tribes  where  every  stranger  was  a  foe,  the  simplest 
and  worst  punishment  an  injured  community  could  inflict  was  to 
drive  the  offender  from  their  midst.  He  became  a  wanderer  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  or  in  Teutonic  phrase,  a  marges,  or  wolf ;  and 
Ulfilas  making  use  of  gavarjan  and  its  derivatives,  pictured  the 
sinner  after  judgment  as  the  outcast  and  the  wanderer."  In  his 
treatment  of  the  words  hades  and  ge-enna,  Ulfilas  manifested  a 
more  critical  mind  than  the  translators  of  our  Authorised  Version, 
who  rendered  both  alike  by  the  word  Hell.  In  the  Gothic  it  is  the 
former  only  which  is  thus  represented,  namely,  by  "  Halja  (the 
hollow  place),  in  accordance  with  the  old  Teutonic  mythology  in 
which  Hel  was  known  as  the  goddess  of  the  place  of  darkness  and 
of  the  newly-departed."  The  word  ge-enna,  the  valley  of  Hinnom,  he 
left  untranslated,  writing  it  gaiainna.  "Parallel  with  the  notion  of 
sin  as  a  crime,  and  redemption  as  the  payment  of  the  penalty  it  had 
entailed,  was  the  conviction,  deep-rooted  in  Teutonic  thought  and 
language,  that  Sin  is  a  disease,  and  the  Redeemer  a  healer.  The 
Greek  sozein  (to  save)  is  represented  by  the  Gothic  nasjan.  Salvation 
was  regarded  as  '  healing ' ;  the  Saviour  was  the  Nasjands,  the 
« Healer.' " 

But  the  importance  and  interest  which  the  Gothic  translation 
possesses  for  the  Christian  and  the  scholar  is  doubled  in  the  case  of 
those  nations  which,  like  ourselves,  belong  to  the  Teutonic  stock. 
The  language  of  Ulfilas  is  the  eldest  branch  of  the  Teutonic  tree, 
and  in  its  grammar  and  vocabulary  it  is  easy  to  trace  a  close  affinity 
with  the  English  of  the  present  day.  More  than  this,  to  the 
student  of  comparative  philology  these  fragments  of  the  Gothic 
Scriptures  are  invaluable,  as  supplying  a  link  in  the  chain  between 
the  various  forms  of  the  Teutonic  tongue  and  the  ancient  Sanskrit 
with  which  they  are  radically  connected. 

The  translation  thus  made  was  a  priceless  treasure  to  the  northern 
tribes  for  many  ages.  "  Goths  and  Vandals  alike  carried  it  with 
them  on  their  wanderings  through  Europe.  Whether  as  a  religious 
observance,  or  in  the  superstitious  hope  of  reading  the  future  on 
the  chance-appointed  page,  it  was  consulted  on  the  battle-fields  of 
Gaul  before  the  fight  began.  The  Vandals  took  it  into  Spain  and 
Africa,  and  with  their  leader  Genseric  it  came  round  to  Rome." 


58  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

Besides  the  Bible,  Ulfilas  made  other  translations,  and  composed 
treatises  in  Gothic  for  the  use  of  his  people.  In  381,  the  year  of 
the  great  Orthodox  Council,  Theodosius  summoned  Ulfilas  to  Con- 
stantinople. Although  the  Emperor  was  bent  on  crushing  the 
Arians,  it  was  yet  his  policy  to  flatter  the  Goths,  whose  stalwart 
warriors  were  the  support  of  his  throne.  A  schism  had  taken 
place  in  the  Arian  ranks,  and  it  is  no  slight  tribute  to  Ulfilas  that 
he  appears  to  have  been  chosen  as  the  only  man  who  could  reconcile 
the  disputants.  He  was  aged  and  infirm ;  and  he  had  no  sooner 
reached  the  city  than  he  was  seized  with  a  mortal  sickness.  The 
matter  on  which  he  had  been  called  had  weighed  much  on  his 
mind,  but  before  he  had  begun  to  put  his  hand  to  it,  he  was,  in  the 
words  of  his  admiring  biographer,  "  taken  up  to  heaven  after  the 
manner  of  Elijah  the  prophet." 

Great  as  was  the  work  of  Ulfilas,  and  mighty  as  was  his  influence 
in  his  own  age,  that  influence  had  little  of  lasting  effect.  The 
changes  of  events  in  the  West  were  rapid,  and  they  destroyed  any 
abiding  traces  of  his  labours.  Moreover,  "  the  professor  of  an 
Arian  or  Semi- Arian  creed  could  not  become  the  apostle  of  Teutonic 
Christendom,  and  the  Goth,  foremost  and  noblest  branch  of  the 
great  family,  was  too  soon  cut  off  by  the  sword  of  the  East-Koman 
or  trampled  under  the  horsehoofs  of  the  Saracen." 


CHAPTER    V. 

Martin  of  Tours. 

The  reputation  of  Martin  of  Tours  for  holiness  and  miraculous 
power  has  perhaps  been  greater  and  more  universal  than  that  of 
any  other  saint  in  the  calendar.  He  is  best  known  as  having, 
when  a  soldier,  divided  his  martial  cloak  with  a  beggar.  He  de- 
serves also  to  be  known  for  refusing  after  his  conversion  to  serve 
any  longer  in  the  army.  "Hitherto,"  he  said  to  his  general,  "I 
have  been  thy  soldier  ;  let  me  now  be  God's.  I  am  the  soldier  of 
Christ ;  it  is  not  lawful  for  me  to  fight." 

Martin  was  born  about  a.d.  316.  In  860  he  planted,  near 
Poictiers,  what  is  believed  to  have  been  the  earliest  monastery  in 
Gaul,  and  in  371  he  became  bishop  of  Tours.  Here  the  discharge 
of  his  episcopal  duties  did  not  satisfy  him ;  he  pined  for  his 
monkish  way  of  life.  Leaving  the  city  therefore,  he  founded  a 
monastery  two  miles  eastward,  at  the  foot  of  a  precipitous  rock  on 


MARTIN   OF    TOURS.  59 

the  north  bank  of  the  Loire.  Some  of  the  cells  were  built  of  logs 
rudely  joined  together,  but  most  of  the  eighty  brethren,  whom  he 
gathered  round  him,  dwelt  in  grottoes,  or  cavities  of  the  rock. 
The  author  visited  the  spot  in  the  spring  of  1888.  The  following, 
is  an  extract  from  his  diary: — "  The  cliff,  which  is  of  sandstone,, 
is  one-third  of  a  mile  from  the  river.  It  is  about  eighty  feet  high, 
and  is  pierced  with  natural  grottoes,  some  at  its  base,  others  at 
some  distance  up  the  face  of  the  rock.  Devotion  and  art  have 
changed  the  original  character  of  these  caves,  and  adorned  the  face 
of  the  cliff  with  chapels,  steps,  and  oratories.  In  front  of  one  of 
these  is  the  burial-place  of  Martin's  disciples  and  successors,  whose 
bones,  it  is  said,  were  cast  out  at  the  Eevolution.  The  grotto 
shown  as  that  in  which  Martin  himself  lived  is  probably  authentic ; 
it  was  for  many  centuries  one  of  the  most  popular  places  of  pil- 
grimage in  Europe.  When  the  age  grew  more  luxurious  a  vast 
monastery  was  erected  on  the  gently  sloping  ground  between  the 
grottoes  and  the  highway  which  skirts  the  river.  It  was  called 
Marmoutiers  (Ma jus  Monasterium),  and  with  its  garden  covered 
many  acres.  All  that  remains  of  the  edifice  is  the  picturesque 
gateway,  on  the  roadside,  erected  in  the  13th  century.  A  girls' 
boarding-school  now  occupies  the  place,  the  large  garden  being 
probably  the  same  as  in  the  days  of  the  monks.  It  is  laid  out  with 
a  fine  avenue  of  trees,  and  with  vines,  fruit,  vegetables,  and 
flowers.  Some  of  the  girls  were  walking  up  and  down  the  avenue, 
others  were  at  play  in  the  quadrangle." 

The  miracles  with  which  Martin  is  credited  were  wonderful  even, 
for  that  age  ;  some  of  them  are  of  the  magical  type  familiar  to  us 
in  the  Arabian  Nights. 

His  biography,  by  his  friend  Sulpicius  Severus,  was  the  most 
popular  work  of  the  day.  As  soon  as  it  appeared  in  Eome  there 
was  an  eager  scramble  for  it,  to  the  great  profit  of  the  booksellers  ; 
and  at  Alexandria  nearly  all  the  people  had  it  by  heart. 

Martin  is  associated  with  the  name  of  the  Priscillianists,  Spanish, 
dissenters  from  the  Orthodox  Church,  who  seem  to  have  partaken 
of  both  Gnostic  and  Manichean  errors.  Although  not  more 
inclined  than  Ambrose  of  Milan,  or  Damasus  and  Siricius,  who 
successively  filled  the  see  of  Eome  at  that  time,  to  grant  actual 
toleration  to  the  followers  of  Priscillian,  Martin's  kindlier  nature 
led  him  to  interpose  on  their  behalf  when  extreme  measures  were 
determined  against  them.  In  his  ardour  to  spare  their  lives,  he 
even  did  violence  to  his  own  conscience  by  partaking  of  the  com- 
munion with  the  bishops  whose  hands,  in  his  view,  were  stained 
with  the  blood  of  the  heretics.     Priscillian  was  beheaded,  with  six- 


60  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

of  his  adherents,  amongst  whom  was  Euchrotia,  the  widow  of  a 
distinguished  poet  and  orator ;  Instantius,  a  hishop,  was  banished 
to  the  Scilly  Islands ;  others  of  the  party  were  variously  punished. 

Although  blindly  devoted  to  the  Church,  Martin  was  a  man  of 
truly  Christian  life  and  blameless  character.  "  He  was,"  says 
Farrar,  "full  of  pity  and  gentleness,  wearing  always  on  his 
countenance  a  sort  of  celestial  joy;  never  was  anything  on  his 
lips  but  Christ,  never  anything  in  his  heart  but  piety,  peace,  and 
pity."  He  died  about  a.d.  397,  on  November  11th,  named  from  him 
Martinmas  Day. 

Martin  is  credited  with  having  had  frequent  interviews  with 
■Satan.  One  of  these  is  thus  related  by  Cardinal  Newman :  u  One 
day,  while  Martin  was  praying  in  his  cell,  the  Evil  Spirit  stood 
before  him,  environed  in  a  glittering  radiance,  by  such  pretence 
more  easily  to  deceive  him  ;  clad  also  in  royal  robes,  crowned  with 
a  golden  and  jewelled  diadem,  with  shoes  covered  with  gold,  with 
serene  face  and  bright  looks,  so  as  to  seem  nothing  so  little  as  he 
was.  Martin  at  first  was  dazzled  at  the  sight ;  and  for  a  long 
while  both  parties  kept  silence.  At  length  the  Evil  One  began: 
'Acknowledge,  0  Martin,  whom  thou  seest.  I  am  Christ,  I  am 
now  descendiug  upon  earth,  and  I  wished  first  to  manifest  myself 
to  thee.'  Martin  still  kept  silent,  and  returned  no  answer.  The 
devil  ventured  to  repeat  his  bold  pretence  :  '  Martin,  why  hesitate 
believing,  when  thou  seest  I  am  Christ  ? '  Then  he,  understanding 
by  revelation  of  the  Spirit,  that  it  was  the  Evil  One,  and  not  God, 
answered:  'Jesus,  the  Lord,  announced  not  that  He  should  come 
in  glittering  clothing,  and  radiant  with  a  diadem.  I  will  not 
believe  that  Christ  is  come,  save  in  that  state  and  form  in  which 
He  suffered,  save  with  the  show  of  the  wounds  of  the  Cross.'  At  these 
words  the  other  vanished  forthwith  as  smoke,  and  filled  the  cell 
with  so  horrible  an  odour  as  to  leave  indubitable  proof  who  he  was. 
The  application  of  this  vision,"  observes  the  cardinal,  "  to  Martin's 
age,  is  obvious.  I  suppose  it  means  in  this  day,  that  Christ  comes 
not  in  pride  of  intellect,  or  reputation  for  ability.  These  are  the 
glittering  robes  in  which  Satan  is  now  arrayed.  Many  spirits  are 
abroad ;  more  are  issuing  from  the  pit :  the  credentials  which  they 
-display  are  the  precious  gifts  of  mind,  beauty,  riches,  depth, 
originality.  Christian,  look  hard  at  them  with  Martin  in  silence, 
^ind  then  ask  for  the  print  of  the  nails." 


(     61     ) 


CHAPTEK    VI. 


Ambrose. 


The  other  Catholic  Witnesses  whom  we  have  selected,  all  of  whom 
were  bishops  except  Jerome,  rose  to  ecclesiastical  rank  through  the 
regular  gradations  of  the  priesthood,  and  most  of  them  also  by  the 


Episcopal  Chair  of  Ambrose,  of  white  marble,  in  the  church  of  St.  Ambrose, 
Milan.     (From  a  photograph). 

way  of  the  monastic  cell.  It  was  quite  otherwise  with  Ambrose.. 
From  the  ivory  chair  of  the  Eoman  magistrate  (sella  curulis)  he 
stepped  at  once  to  the  marble  chair  (cathedra)  of  the  bishop,  which 
he  filled  to  so  much  purpose  as  to  leave  it  at  his  death  superior  in 
authority  to  the  imperial  throne.  The  scene  of  his  sovereignty 
was  Milan,  the  usual  residence  of  the  Western  Emperors  from  the 
reign  of  Diocletian  till  the  invasion  of  the  Goths  under  Alaric. 

The  father  of  Ambrose  was  a  Eoman  of  rank,  and  prefect  of  that 
division  of  the  empire  to  which  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Britain  belonged^ 


62  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

His  son  was  born  about  a.d.  340.  After  receiving  a  liberal  education, 
the  young  man  devoted  himself  to  the  profession  of  the  law,  which 
was  the  customary  road  to  promotion  in  the  State.  He  made  rapid 
advances,  and  was  appointed  to  the  high  dignity  of  "Consular" 
magistrate  at  Milan,  in  which  post  he  gained  the  good  opinion  of 
all  parties.  Whilst  he  held  this  office,  the  Arian  bishop  of  the  city 
died,  and  the  Catholics  determined  to  elect  one  of  their  own  party 
in  his  place.  The  Arians  resisted,  and  a  vehement  strife  arose ; 
the  public  peace  was  in  danger.  The  Consular  hastened  down  to 
the  church  and  made  a  speech  to  the  people,  exhorting  them  to 
peace  and  mutual  concord.  Whilst  he  was  speaking,  a  cry  was 
heard,  "  Ambrose  for  bishop."  The  voice  was  said  afterwards  to 
have  been  that  of  a  child.  However  this  may  have  been,  the  name 
met  with  an  instant  and  enthusiastic  response,  the  whole  multi- 
tude, with  one  voice,  shouting  out,  "  We  will  have  Ambrose  for 
our  bishop."  Ambrose,  who  had  not  even  been  baptized,  made  all 
the  resistance  he  could  to  this  popular  nomination,  even  resorting 
to  very  doubtful  means  to  divert  the  people  from  their  object.  All 
was  of  no  avail,  and  when  he  tried  to  escape  the  citizens  took  him 
into  friendly  custody,  and  sent  a  letter  to  the  Emperor  Valen- 
tinian  I.,  praying  for  his  approval  of  their  election.  As  soon  as 
the  imperial  confirmation  was  received,  the  bishop-elect  was  bap- 
tized, passed  summarily  through  the  intermediate  ecclesiastical 
stages,  and  on  the  eighth  day  received  episcopal  consecration.  This 
was  in  374,  a  year  after  the  death  of  Athanasius,  and  two  years 
after  Basil  had  compelled  the  two  Gregorys  to  accept  the  same 
honour.     Ambrose  was  thirty-four  years  of  age. 

On  his  ordination  he  at  once  divested  himself  of  his  private 
property,  bestowing  part  on  the  poor  and  the  Church,  reserving  a 
portion  for  his  sister's  maintenance,  and  placing  the  rest  under  the 
management  of  his  brother  Satyrus.  To  this  voluntary  poverty 
he  joined  the  rigid  asceticism  of  the  times.  He  attended  no 
banquets,  dined  only  on  Sundays,  Saturdays,  and  festivals,  and 
■devoted  the  greater  part  of  the  night  to  prayer.  It  was  one  of  his 
first  cares  to  make  up  by  study  for  his  want  of  education  in 
Christian  doctrine.  "  Hurried  as  I  was  from  the  judicial  bench  to 
the  priesthood,  I  began  to  teach  what  I  had  not  myself  learned,  so 
that  I  had  to  learn  and  teach  at  the  same  time,  because  I  had  not 
had  time  to  learn  before." 

In  Ambrose  the  stern  rule  of  the  Eoman  magistrate1  was  united 

1  He  was  several  times  employed  in  political  negotiations ;  his  statesmanship 
was  second  only  to  his  churchmanship. 


MABTYRS'    BELICS.  63 

to  the  zeal  of  the  ambitious  churchman  ;  he  was,  as  Milman 
expresses  it,  "  the  spiritual  ancestor  of  the  Hildebrands  and  the 
Innocents."  Of  such  a  man  it  "was  not  to  be  expected  that  he 
would  oppose  the  growing  superstitions  of  the  age.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  promoted  some  of  them  to  the  utmost  of  his  influence. 
He  was  never  weary  of  extolling  the  merits  of  virginity,  on  which 
he  discoursed  with  such  eloquence  that  the  mothers  of  Milan  locked 
up  their  daughters  lest  they  should  come  under  his  spell.  Never- 
theless, troops  of  virgins  flocked  to  him  for  consecration,  some  of 
them  even  so  far  as  from  Mauritania.  Still  his  success  fell  short 
of  his  desires,  and  he  even  commended  those  who  took  the  veil  in 
spite  of  their  parents. 

No  less  did  he  foster  the  growing  veneration  for  relics.  A 
splendid  basilica  had  just  been  erected.  '  As  a  check  to  the  Arians, 
the  orthodox  wished  it  dedicated  with  the  same  pomp  as  had  been 
used  in  the  case  of  another  new  church  near  the  Eoman  Gate.  To 
this  Ambrose  consented,  on  condition  that  some  new  relics  should 
be  found  to  consecrate  it.  These  were  discovered  in  the  church  of 
St.  Felix  and  St.  Nabor.  Let  us  hear  his  own  account  of  the 
matter.  "  Since,"  he  writes  to  his  sister,  "  I  never  conceal  from 
thy  Sanctity  anything  which  takes  place,  thou  must  know  that  we 
have  actually  discovered  some  holy  martyrs.  I  felt  an  ardent 
presentiment  of  what  was  to  happen.  Notwithstanding  the  diffi- 
dence of  the  clergy,  I  commanded  the  earth  to  be  removed  from 
the  space  before  the  rails.  I  recognised  the  appropriate  tokens ; 
and  some  persons  being  presented  for  the  imposition  of  hands,  the 
holy  martyrs  began  so  to  bestir  themselves,  that  before  I  had 
spoken,  an  urn  was  snatched  up,  and  thrown  down  on  the  place  of 
the  holy  sepulture.  We  found  two  men  of  extraordinary  size,2 
such  as  a  former  age  has  produced  ;  all  the  bones  entire,  and  plenty 
of  blood.  There  was  a  great  concourse  of  people  during  two  days. 
We  transferred  the  remains  to  the  church,  which  they  call  the 
Ambrosian  ;  and  while  we  were  removing  them  a  blind  man  was 
cured."  "  The  miracles  of  old  time,"  he  adds  in  a  sermon  preached 
on  the  occasion,  "  are  now  revived  ;  for  you  see  many  healed  by  the 
mere  shadows  of  the  saints'  bodies.  How  many  kerchiefs  are  dis- 
played in  triumph  !  How  many  coverlets  are  sought  for,  as  having 
by  mere  contact  with  these  most  holy  relics  become  capable  of 
curing  disease!"3 

1  On  the  site  of  the  present  cathedral. 

2  Afterwards  identified  as  Gervasius  and  Protasius,  two  brothers  supposed  to 
have  been  martyred  under  Nero  at  Ravenna,  and  thence  removed  to  Milan. 

3  The  Arians  derided  the  whole  affair  as  a  trick.     An  annual  procession  used 


64  WITNESSES    FOB    CHEIST. 

Under  Ambrose  the  ceremonial  of  Divine  service  was  invested 
with  increased  solemnity  and  magnificence.  During  the  anxious 
vigils  of  the  congregation,  when  his  basilica  was  beset  by  the 
soldiers  of  Valentinian  II.,  Ambrose  introduced  from  the  East  the 
practice  of  antiphonal  singing,  in  which,  instead  of  leaving  the 
psalmody  to  the  choristers,  the  whole  congregation,  divided  into 
two  choirs,  bore  an  alternate  part.1 

Profound,  however,  as  was  his  veneration  for  the  externals  of 
religion,  Ambrose  knew  how  to  disregard  them  when  weighed 
against  the  lives  and  liberty  of  men.  The  Gothic  invasion  brought 
with  it  unutterable  calamities.  From  Thrace  and  Illyricum,  espe- 
cially, an  immense  number  of  captives  were  carried  off  ;  and  these 
the  Church,  as  in  the  days  of  Cyprian,  hastened  to  redeem.  When 
the  common  chest  of  the  Milanese  Church  had  been  emptied,  and 
the  rich  offerings  of  piety  exhausted,  Ambrose  caused  the  sacra- 
mental vessels  to  be  melted  down  and  sold,  to  supply  money  for 
the  ransom.  "The  Church,"  he  wrote,  "possesses  gold,  not  to 
treasure  up,  but  to  distribute  for  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  men. 
It  is  not  merely  the  lives  of  the  men  and  the  honour  of  the  women 
which  are  endangered  in  captivity,  but  the  faith  of  their  children. 
The  blood  of  redemption  which  has  gleamed  in  these  golden  cups 
has  sanctified  them,  not  for  the  service  alone,  but  for  the  ransom 
of  man." 

Ambrose  had  not  long  taken  possession  of  his  office  when  he  was 
brought  into  sharp  collision  with  the  Imperial  authority.  The  see 
of  Sirmium  was  vacant.  Disregarding  the  limits  of  his  own 
diocese,  he  went  thither  to  prevent  the  election  of  an  Arian  and  to 
secure  the  appointment  of  an  orthodox  bishop.  By  this  act  he 
incurred  the  displeasure  of  Justina,  the  mother  of  the  youthful 
emperor,  Valentinian  II.,  who  was  a  zealous  Arian,  and  had  her 
residence  at  Sirmium.  Some  years  afterwards  she  demanded  the 
basilica  in  Porta  Eomana  at  Milan,  which  was  outside  the  walls  of 
the  city,  for  the  Arian  worship.  The  answer  of  Ambrose  was  : 
"A  bishop  cannot  alienate  that  which  is  dedicated  to  God."  A 
second  demand  for  the  possession  of  a  new  church  within  the  walls 
met  with  the  same  repulse.  The  Imperial  officers  were  ordered  to 
take  possession  of  the  church ;  a  tumult  arose,  and  an  Arian  priest 
was  severely  handled,   and  only   rescued  by   the   interference   of 

to  take  place  at  Milan  in  honour  of  these  saints,  but  it  was  forbidden  by  the 
authorities,  because  the  people  of  Piacenza  threatened,  if  it  occurred  again,  to 
produce  their  relic,  the  third  leg  of  St.  Protasius  ! 

1  Ambrose's  care  in  this  matter  has  been  perpetuated  in  the  name  of  the 
Ambrosian  Chant,  but  the  connection  of  this  latter  with  Ambrose  is  uncertain. 


ATTEMPT    TO   BANISH   AMBROSE.  65 

Ambrose.  Many  wealthy  citizens  were  thrown  into  prison,  and 
heavy  fines  imposed.  But  the  bishop  was  inflexible ;  and  when, 
the  Empress  commanded  him  to  tranquillize  the  populace,  he 
answered,  "It  is  in  my  power  to  refrain  from  exciting  their 
violence,  but  it  is  for  God  to  appease  it  when  excited."  The 
soldiers  surrounded  the  church.  The  bishop  who  was  performing 
the  religious  rites  was  apprised  of  their  arrival,  but  went  on  as  if 
nothing  was  happening.  The  doors  were  burst  open ;  the  affrighted 
women  began  to  fly ;  but  when  the  soldiers  saw  the  dignified  and 
undisturbed  countenance  of  the  bishop,  as  of  one  whose  soul  was 
absorbed  in  his  office,  they  fell  on  their  knees  and  assured  him 
that  they  came  to  pray,  and  not  to  fight. 

In  386  an  edict  was  passed  permitting  free  worship  to  the  Arians, 
and  rendering  liable  to  capital  punishment  all  who  should  obstruct 
them.  Under  this  edict  the  basilica  of  Porta  Romana  was  again 
demanded,  but  Ambrose  again  refused :  "  God  forbid  that  I  should 
yield  the  heritage  of  Jesus  Christ.  Naboth  would  not  part  with 
the  vineyard  of  his  fathers  to  Ahab,  and  should  I  surrender  the 
house  of  God — the  heritage  of  all  the  faithful  bishops  who  have 
been  before  me  ?"  An  order  of  banisbment  was  served  upon  him, 
but  in  terms  very  unusual  in  the  imperial  chancery :  "  Depart  from 
the  city,  and  go  whither  thou  pleasest."  Ambrose,  however,  did 
not  please  to  depart,  but  remained  in  the  city  preaching  with  the 
utmost  fearlessness,  and  even  attacking  the  Empress-mother  in  a 
style  which  cannot  be  defended.  He  took  his  text  from  the  book 
of  Job,  and  compared  the  Empress  to  the  patriarch's  wife,  who 
bade  her  husband  blaspheme  God.  He  went  on  to  liken  her  to 
Eve,  to  Jezebel,  and  to  Herodias.  Upon  this  the  youthful  Emperor 
Valentinian  II.  sent  his  private  secretary,  not  to  expel  the  refractory 
prelate,  but  to  deprecate  his  tyranny.  "  If  I  am  a  tyrant,"  replied 
Ambrose,  "  why  not  strike  me  down  ?  So  far  from  being  a  tyrant, 
my  only  defence  is  the  power  to  expose  my  life  for  the  honour  of 
God."  He  added,  with  sacerdotal  pride,  "  Under  the  ancient  law, 
priests  bestowed  empire,  they  did  not  condescend  to  assume  it; 
kings  desired  the  priesthood,  not  priests  the  sovereignty."  When 
the  Emperor  himself  was  urged  to  confront  Ambrose  in  the  church, 
he  replied :  "  His  eloquence  would  compel  you  yourselves  to  lay 
me  bound  hand  and  foot  before  his  throne." 

But  it  was  not  boys1  and  dowagers  only  that  Ambrose  brought 
to  his  feet.  The  great  Theodosius  L,  Emperor  of  the  East,  was 
in  his  turn  compelled  to  give  way  before  the  commanding  genius  and 
spiritual  assumption  of  the  bishop.     A  synagogue  of  the  Jews  in 

1  Valentinian  was  not  more  than  fourteen  when  these  events  took  place. 

F 


66  WITNESSES    FOB    CHRIST. 

Mesopotamia  had  been  burnt  by  the  Christians,  at  the  instigation, 
it  was  said,  of  the  bishop  of  the  place.  At  the  same  time  the 
church  of  the  Gnostics  had  been  destroyed  and  plundered  by  the 
furious  zeal  of  some  monks.  Theodosius  commanded  that  the 
local  bishop  should  rebuild  the  synagogue  at  his  own  expense,  and 
that  the  Gnostics  should  be  indemnified  and  the  rioters  be  punished 
by  the  governor.  The  party  spirit  of  the  Christian  world  was 
affronted,  and  the  "  pious "  indignation  of  Ambrose  aroused,  by 
this  equitable  decree.  He  stood  forward  as  the  champion  of  the 
faith,  and  in  a  letter  to  the  Emperor  vindicated  the  conduct  of  the 
bishop:  "  I  protest  that  I  would  myself  have  burnt  the  synagogue, 
certainly  that  I  would  have  given  orders  for  it,  that  no  place  might 
be  found  where  Christ  is  denied."  "If,"  he  continues,  "the 
bishop  shall  comply  with  the  mandate  he  will  be  an  apostate,  and 
the  Emperor  will  be  answerable  for  his  apostasy.  What  has 
been  done  is  but  a  trifling  retaliation  for  the  acts  of  plunder  and 
destruction  perpetrated  by  the  Jews  and  heretics  against  the 
Catholics." 

No  answer  being  returned  to  this  letter,  Ambrose  had  recourse 
to  the  pulpit.  In  a  sermon  delivered  in  the  presence  of  the 
Emperor,  he  compared  the  Christian  priest  to  the  prophets  of  the 
Old  Testament  whose  duty  it  was  to  proclaim  God's  message  to  the 
king  himself;  and  he  admonished  Theodosius  that  he  owed  every- 
thing to  God's  mercy,  and  that  therefore  it  was  his  duty  to  wash 
and  kiss  the  feet  of  the  Church,  the  body  of  Christ,  to  honour  all 
the  disciples,  even  the  least,  and  to  pardon  their  faults.  As  he 
was  leaving  the  pulpit  the  Emperor  stopped  him,  asking,  "  Is  it  I 
whom  thou  hast  made  the  subject  of  thy  discourse?"  "  I  have 
said  that  which  I  deemed  useful  for  thee,"  was  the  reply.  '  I 
own,"  rejoined  Theodosius,  "  that  my  commands  have  been  a  little 
severe,  but  I  have  already  relaxed  them,  and  these  monks  commit 
many  crimes."  This  concession  did  not  satisfy  Ambrose.  "  I  am 
going,"  he  said,  "  to  offer  for  thee  the  sacrifice ;  enable  me  to  do  so 
with  a  clear  conscience."  The  Emperor  sat  down  and  nodded 
assent,  but  the  pertinacious  prelate  remained  standing.  "  Suppress 
the  whole  matter,"  he  said,  "  swear  it  to  me,  and  on  thy  sworn 
promise  I  will  proceed  to  offer  the  sacrifice."  The  Emperor  swore. 
Ambrose  celebrated  the  Eucharist.  "  But,"  as  he  wrote  the  day 
after  to  his  sister,  "  I  would  not  have  done  it  unless  he  had  given 
me  his  solemn  promise ;  and  never  did  I  experience  such  sensible 
marks  of  the  presence  of  God  in  prayer." 

Two  years  later,  a.d.  390,  Theodosius  was  again  compelled  to 
humble  himself  before  Ambrose,  and  this  time  for  worthy  cause. 


AMBROSE   AND    THE    EMPEBOB    THEODOSITJS  67 

41  With  all  his  wisdom  and  virtue  the  Emperor  was  liable  to 
paroxysms  of  ungovernable  fury."  A  tumult  had  arisen  in  Thes- 
salonica  about  a  favourite  charioteer  of  the  circus.  The  riot  was 
quelled  with  difficulty.  The  imperial  officers  were  treated  with  the 
utmost  indignity,  and  some  of  them  brutally  murdered.  When  the 
news  was  brought  to  the  Emperor,  who  was  then  at  Milan,  his  rage 
was  unbounded.  But  Ambrose  was  at  his  side,  and  succeeded  for 
the  time  in  calming  his  excitement,  and  in  obtaining  from  him  a 
promise  that  the  affair  should  be  judicially  dealt  with.  Unhappily 
the  bishop  was  called  away  to  preside  at  a  synod,  and  during  his 
absence  other  counsellors,  particularly  Rufinus,  the  master  of  the 
household,  obtained  the  Emperor's  ear,  and  in  an  evil  moment  he 
sent  secret  orders  to  Thessalonica  for  a  general  massacre.  A  fresh 
exhibition  of  games  was  announced,  and,  in  order  to  make  the 
number  of  victims  as  large  as  possible,  the  whole  population  were 
invited  to  them  in  the  Emperor's  name.  Eager  to  propitiate  their 
offended  sovereign,  the  citizens  crowded  into  the  circus.  The 
troops  were  ready ;  instead  of  the  games  the  signal  for  the  massacre 
was  given,  and  before  sunset  seven  thousand,  at  the  lowest  com- 
putation, men,  women,  and  children,  had  been  "  mown  down  like 
ears  of  corn  at  harvest  time." 

On  hearing  of  this  atrocity,  Ambrose  withdrew  into  the  country 
and  wrote  to  the  Emperor.  The  letter  set  forth  the  horror  which 
he  and  his  brother  bishops  felt  at  this  inhuman  deed,  in  which  he 
should  consider  himself  an  accomplice  if  he  did  not  avow  his 
detestation  of  its  guilt,  and  refuse  to  celebrate  the  Eucharist  in  the 
presence  of  one  so  stained  with  blood.  He  exhorted  Theodosius  to 
penitence,  and  promised  to  offer  up  prayers  on  his  behalf.  When 
the  Emperor  presented  himself  with  his  royal  retinue  at  the  door  of 
the  church,  to  join  as  usual  in  the  public  worship,  he  was  confronted 
by  the  indignant  prelate  in  his  episcopal  robes :  "  How  wilt  thou 
dare,  0  Emperor,  to  set  foot  in  the  sanctuary,  and  with  hands 
dripping  with  the  blood  of  men  unjustly  slain,  to  receive  the  body 
of  the  all-holy  Lord,  or  dare  to  raise  his  precious  blood  to  lips  from 
which  words  of  so  great  wrath  and  destruction  have  proceeded. 
Retire,  and  add  not  a  fresh  crime  to  those  with  which  thou  art 
already  burdened." 

The  Emperor  returned  to  his  palace  conscience- stricken  and 
weeping.  For  eight  months  he  endured  his  ignominious  exclusion. 
The  festival  of  Christmas  came,  and  found  him  utterly  disconsolate. 
Rufinus  inquired  the  cause  of  his  grief.  He  replied,  "I  am 
lamenting  my  unhappy  lot ;  the  church  of  God  is  open  to  slaves 
and  beggars,  but  is  closed  to  me.     Heaven,  too,  is  closed ;  for  our 


68 


WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST. 


Lord  said,  '  Whatsoever  ye  shall  bind  on  earth,  shall  be  bound  in 
heaven.'"  "I  will  go  to  Ambrose,"  answered  Rufinus,  "and 
compel  him  to  release  thee  from  this  bond."     "It  is  in  vain," 


Doors  of  the  basilica  of  St.  Ambrose,  Milan,  containing  (at  the  top  of  each)  a 
small  panel  of  cypress  wood,  believed  to  be  part  of  the  gates  which  Ambrose 
closed  against  the  Emperor  Theodosius.    From  a  photograph. 

replied  the  Emperor,  "  thou  wi^not  persuade  Ambrose  to  violate 
the  Divine  law  from  any  fear  of  Imperial  power."  Rufinus,  how- 
ever, sought  an  interview  with  the  bishop,  who  spurned  him  as  the 
chief  counseller  of  the  massacre.  And  when  Rufinus  said  the 
Emperor  was  approaching:  "  If  he  comes,"  replied  Ambrose,  "I 
will  repel  him  from  the  vestibule  of  the  church." 


THE   EMPEROR'S    PENANCE.  69 

The  minister  returned  to  the  Emperor,  and  advised  him  to 
remain  in  his  palace.  But  the  Imperial  will  was  now  thoroughly 
subdued.  "  I  will  go,"  he  answered,  "  and  receive  the  chastisement 
I  deserve."  Proceeding  to  the  consecrated  precincts,  he  found  the 
bishop  sitting  in  his  parlour,  and  humbly  begged  for  absolution. 
The  bishop  sternly  asked,  "  What  penitence  hast  thou  shown  for 
thy  great  fault  ?  What  remedy  hast  thou  applied  to  the  incurable 
wound  thou  hast  inflicted?  "  "  It  is  thy  duty,"  answered  the  peni- 
tent, "  to  prescribe  the  remedies  ;  mine  to  obey."  Ambrose  imposed 
two  conditions,  that  the  law  of  the  Emperor  Gratian  should  be  re- 
enacted,  which  required  on  every  sentence  of  death  or  confiscation 
the  lapse  of  thirty  days  before  execution,  and  that  Theodosius 
should  perform  public  penance  in  the  church.  The  conditions  were 
accepted ;  the  enactment  was  signed ;  and  "  the  sovereign  of  the 
Boman  Empire — the  victor  in  so  many  battles,  the  legislator  of  the 
world — entered  the  sacred  enclosure  as  an  abject  penitent.  Laying 
aside  every  ornament  that  marked  his  rank,  prostrate  on  the  pave- 
ment, smiting  his  breast,  tearing  his  hair,  watering  the  stones  with 
his  tears,  he  cried  aloud,  '  My  soul  cleaveth  to  the  dust,  quicken 
Thou  me,  according  to  thy  word.'"  In  this  position  he  remained 
during  the  first  portion  of  the  Liturgy.  When  the  offertory  began, 
he  rose,  advanced  within  the  choir  to  present  his  offering,  and  was 
about  to  take  the  seat  usually  accorded  to  the  Emperor  in  the 
midst  of  the  clergy.  But  Ambrose  took  advantage  of  his  humilia- 
tion to  put  an  end  to  this  practice.  A  deacon  stepped  up  to  Theo- 
dosius and  informed  him  that  no  layman  might  remain  in  the  choir 
during  the  celebration.  The  submissive  Emperor  withdrew  outside 
the  rails.1 

In  395  Theodosius  died.  Calling  for  Ambrose  on  his  death-bed, 
lie  entreated  him  to  be  a  father  to  his  youthful  sons  Arcadius  and 
Honorius,2  as  he  had  been  twenty  years  before  to  Gratian  and 
Valentinian.  But  only  two  more  years  were  allotted  to  Ambrose. 
They  were  years  of  activity  and  busy  work.  Clouds  were  gathering 
on  the  northern  horizon,  but  the  high-souled  churchman  did  not 
live  to  share  the  troubles  which  beset  the  sons  of  Theodosius.  He 
passed  away  whilst  Alaric  was  even  now  planning  the  invasion  of 
Italy,  which  ended  in  the  sack  of  Borne. 

1  When  Theodosius  returned  to  Constantinople  he  was  invited  by  the  bishop 
Nectarius  to  occupy  his  accustomed  chair  in  the  choir.  "No,"  replied  Theo- 
dosius with  a  sigh ;  "  I  have  learned  at  Milan  the  insignificance  of  an  Emperor 
in  the  church,  and  the  difference  between  him  and  a  bishop.  But  no  one 
here  tells  me  the  truth.  I  know  not  any  bishop  save  Ambrose  who  deserves 
the  name." 

2  Arcadius  was  twelve,  Honorius  eleven  years  old. 


70  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

The  great  Stilicho,  who  ruled  the  West  in  the  name  of  Honorius, 
held  Ambrose  in  the  same  esteem  as  Theodosius  had  done.  When 
he  heard  that  the  bishop  was  dying,  he  summoned  the  clergy,  and, 
with  mingled  entreaties  and  commands,  persuaded  them  to  go  to 
his  bedside,  and  bid  him  pray  to  be  permitted  to  live.  The  dying 
prelate  calmly  replied,  "I  have  not  so  lived  among  you  as  to  be 
ashamed  to  live  on ;  but  I  do  not  fear  to  die,  for  our  Lord  is  good." 
As  the  end  drew  near,  the  question  arose  who  should  succeed  him. 
Four  deacons,  standing  at  the  farther  end  of  the  gallery  in  which 
his  couch  was  placed,  were  conversing  in  a  low  tone  on  this  subject. 
The  dying  man  overheard  them,  and  when  they  mentioned  the 
name  of  Simplician,  they  were  startled  to  hear  him  say  three  times, 
"  Old,  but  good."1  Ambrose  died  a.d.  397,  in  his  fifty-eighth  year. 
His  body  was  laid  in  state  in  the  cathedral  until  Easter  Eve,  and 
buried  in  the  church  which  now  bears  his  name,2  in  presence  of  an 
immense  crowd,  Jews  and  pagans  joining  with  his  flock  to  pay  him 
honour. 

Ambrose  left  a  multitude  of  works,  which,  "  though  deficient 
in  originality,"  have  acquired  for  him  a  distinguished  place  as  a 
teacher  in  the  Western  Church.  "  The  West  owes  a  vast  debt  to 
Ambrose  ;  he,  more  than  any  other  Father,  checked  the  waves  of 
Arianism,  which,  but  for  him,  would  have  rolled  over  Italy."  He 
is  esteemed  by  many  Protestant  writers,  especially  by  Luther. 
"  Amongst  the  Fathers,"  says  the  great  Eeformer,  "  St.  Augustine 
holds  unquestionably  the  first  place,  Ambrose  the  second,  Bernard 
the  third.  Ambrose  is  admirable  when  he  treats  upon  that  most 
essential  article,  the  forgiveness  of  sins." 

Amongst  the  best  known  of  Ambrose's  works  are  his  hymns. 
With  one  of  these  Augustine  consoled  himself  the  day  after  his 
mother's  death.  "  I  slept,"  he  says  in  his  Confessions,  "  and  awoke 
again,  and  as  I  lay  alone  on  my  bed  and  called  to  mind  those  verses 
of  Thy  Ambrose,  I  found  my  grief  not  a  little  assuaged." 

1  Simplician  was  elected  his  successor. 
2  The  basilica  of  St.  Ambrose.  The  present  building  is  of  Lombard  style, 
and  dates  from  the  latter  part  of  the  ninth  century.  Its  chief  feature  is  the 
rich  facing  of  the  altar  in  gold  and  silver  work,  richly  set  with  precious  stones. 
The  twelve  bas-reliefs  on  the  back  represent  scenes  in  the  life  of  Ambrose  ;  they 
appear  to  have  been  executed  about  835. 


(    71     ) 

CHAPTER   VII. 

Chrysostom. 

We  return  now  to  the  East.  John,  who  was  surnamed  for  his 
eloquence  Chrysostom,  or  the  golden-mouthed,1  was  a  native  of 
Antioch  and  was  born  a.d.  345  or  347.  His  father  was  a  military 
officer  of  rank ;  his  mother  Anthusa,  who  was  left  a  widow  at  the 
age  of  twenty,  refused  to  marry  again,  that  she  might  devote  her- 
self to  the  education  of  her  infant  son  and  the  care  of  his  property. 
When  his  pagan  tutor  Libanius,  who,  we  may  remember,  was  also 
Basil's  instructor,  and  who  had  returned  to  his  native  city  of 
Antioch,  heard  that  Anthusa  remained  unmarried,  he  exclaimed, 
"  Good  heavens,  what  women  these  Christians  have  ! "  And  when 
on  his  death-bed,  many  years  afterwards,  Libanius  was  asked  by 
his  friends  which  of  his  pupils  he  thought  most  worthy  to  succeed 
him  in  his  professorship,  he  replied,  "  John,  if  the  Christians  had 
not  stolen  him  from  us." 

On  the  completion  of  his  education  Chrysostom  commenced  life 
as  an  advocate,  a  calling  for  which  his  brilliant  powers  of  oratory 
especially  qualified  him ;  but  the  pious  instructions  of  his  mother 
were  beginning  to  bear  fruit,  and  he  recoiled  from  the  practices  in 
use  in  the  legal  profession.  His  disinclination  to  the  law  and  to 
the  worldly  life  by  which  he  was  surrounded  was  strengthened  by 
the  influence  of  Basilius,2  "  the  companion  of  his  studies  and  the 
sharer  of  all  his  thoughts  and  plans."  Like  most  of  the  earnest 
spirits  in  that  age,  Basilius  had  adopted  the  monastic  life,  and 
Chrysostom  prepared  to  follow  his  example.  It  was,  as  he  after- 
wards said,  a  sense  of  the  glaring  contrast  between  the  Christianity 
of  the  Gospel  and  the  Christianity  of  ordinary  life  which  drove  him 
to  this  resolution.  The  world  seemed  to  him  "to  wage  an  im- 
placable warfare  against  the  commands  of  Christ,  and  he  determined 
therefore  to  seek  in  seclusion  that  kind  of  life  which  he  saw  exhibited 
in  the  gospels,  but  nowhere  else."  He  does  not  seem  to  have  asked 
himself,  What  is  to  become  of  the  community  of  men  if  the  salt  is 
taken  away  ? 

1  This  epithet  was  not  in  common  use  until  the  fifth  century ;  in  his  lifetime 
he  was  always  called  John. 

*  This  name  and  Basil  are  the  same ;  the  Latin  form  is  here  used  to  dis- 
tinguish Chrysostom's  friend  from  Basil  of  Cappadocia. 


72  WITNESSES    FOB    CHRIST. 

Up  to  this  time  be  had  not  been  baptized.  Of  all  the  eminent 
men  whose  lives  we  are  passing  under  review  not  one  can  be  shown 
to  have  received  baptism  in  infancy,  and  of  most  it  can  be  said  with 
certainty  that  they  were  not  baptized  until  they  were  of  full  age  ; 
yet  all,  except  two,  were  the  sons  of  Christian  parents,  and  Augus- 
tine's mother  was  a  Christian.  Chrysostom  was  about  twenty- 
three  years  old  when  he  received  the  rite,  and  the  public  profession 
of  his  faith  thus  made  was  very  helpful  to  his  character.  "  From 
the  hour  of  his  baptism,"  says  his  biographer  Palladius,  "  he 
neither  swore,  nor  defamed  any  one,  nor  spoke  falsely,  nor  cursed, 
nor  even  tolerated  facetious  jokes." 

"When  Chrysostom's  mother  heard  of  his  intention  to  become  a 
monk  her  affectionate  heart  sank  within  her.  Taking  him  by  the 
hand  she  led  him  into  her  chamber,  and  making  him  sit  beside  her 
on  the  bed,  burst  into  tears,  and  "with  words  more  moving  than 
tears"  thus  poured  out  her  heart.  "Not  long,  my  child,  was  I 
permitted  the  enjoyment  of  thy  father's  virtues,  whose  premature 
•death  brought  orphanhood  on  thee,  and  on  me  the  miseries  of 
untimely  widowhood.  Words  cannot  describe  the  troubled  sea  into 
which  a  young  woman  who  has  just  left  her  father's  roof,  and  is 
unused  to  the  world,  is  suddenly  plunged  by  this  insufferable 
calamity ;  what  idleness  and  misconduct  of  servants  she  has  to  put 
up  with,  against  what  cabals  of  kinsfolk  she  has  to  defend  herself; 
what  insolence  of  assessors  and  tax-gatherers  she  has  to  submit  to. 
By  none  of  these  difficulties,  however,  was  I  prevailed  upon  to 
contract  a  second  marriage,  but  endured  the  tempest  without 
shrinking,  being  supported  in  the  first  place  from  above,  and  next 
by  thy  features,  on  which  I  gazed  incessantly  as  on  the  living  image 
of  my  departed  husband.  I  have  not  suffered  thy  patrimony  to 
diminish,  but,  whilst  I  have  denied  thee  nothing  which  thy  con- 
dition required,  the  expense  has  been  defrayed  from  my  own  purse 
and  my  father's  dowry.  Do  not  think  however  that  I  say  this  to 
reproach  thee.  In  return  for  all  I  have  but  one  favour  to  entreat ; 
make  me  not  a  second  time  a  widow,  awaken  not  again  my 
slumbering  sorrows.  Wait  for  my  death,  which  cannot  be  very 
long ;  and  when  thou  hast  laid  me  in  the  dust  and  mingled  my 
bones  with  those  of  thy  father,  then  travel  whither  thou  wilt,  even 
beyond  the  sea.  Only  so  long  as  I  live  be  contented  to  dwell  with 
me,  and  do  not  rashly  provoke  God  by  afflicting  thy  mother." 

Chrysostom  could  not  withstand  so  tender  an  appeal.  He  did 
not,  however,  entirely  relinquish  his  purpose.  Like  Gregory 
Nazianzen,  prevented  from  entering  a  monastery  he  made  a  monas- 
tery of  his  home,  and  withdrew  from  all  worldly  occupations  and 


cheysostom's  artifice  to  elude  ordination.  73 

amusements.  He  ate  little  and  seldom,  slept  on  the  bare  ground, 
and  rose  frequently  for  prayer ;  he  rarely  left  the  house,  and  lest 
he  should  fall  back  into  the  habit  of  evil  speaking  he  maintained 
almost  unbroken  silence.  In  this  recluse  manner  of  life  he  was 
joined  by  several  youthful  companions.  One  of  these  was  Theodore, 
afterwards  bishop  of  Mopsuestia,  famous  for  his  advocacy  of  the 
rational  as  opposed  to  the  allegorical  method  of  scripture  inter- 
pretation. 

We  have  more  than  once  had  to  deplore  the  low  standard  of 
truthfulness  which  prevailed  at  this  period,  even  amongst  the  most 
devoted  Christians.  Chrysostom  shared  this  failing.  Several  sees 
became  vacant  in  Syria  which  it  was  desirable  to  fill  without  delay. 
A  body  of  bishops  met  at  Antioch  for  this  purpose.  Amongst 
those  deemed  eligible  Chrysostom  and  Basilius  were  named,  al- 
though they  were  not  yet  even  deacons.  Basilius  proposed  that 
they  should  act  in  concert,  and  either  both  accept  or  both  refuse 
the  office,  and  to  this  Chrysostom  pretended  to  agree  ;  but,  terrified 
at  the  bare  idea  of  ordination,  he  secretly  resolved  to  elude  the 
appointment  and  let  his  friend  be  chosen  alone.  When  the  time 
arrived,  and  Basilius  was  seized  and  carried  before  the  bishops, 
Chrysostom  was  not  to  be  found.  To  his  inquiries  for  him  Basilius 
received  the  evasive  answer,  "  that  it  would  be  strange  indeed,  if, 
when  the  self-willed  Chrysostom  was  yielding  submissively  to  the 
decision  of  the  fathers,  Basilius,  his  superior  in  understanding  and 
experience,  should  show  any  reluctance."  On  the  faith  of  this, 
Basilius  allowed  the  ordaining  hands  to  be  laid  upon  his  own  head. 
Discovering  too  late  the  trick  which  had  been  played  upon  him,  he 
upbraided  Chrysostom  with  his  breach  of  their  friendly  compact. 
So  deeply  were  his  feelings  touched  that  words  choked  his  utterance. 
But  Chrysostom,  unmoved  by  his  reproaches,  answered  only  with  a 
burst  of  laughter,  and  forcibly  seizing  his  hand  and  kissing  it,  gave 
thanks  to  God  for  the  success  of  the  plot.  He  went  further  and 
defended  the  fraud,  on  the  oft-asserted  but  rotten  principle  that 
deceit  is  praiseworthy  when  practised  in  a  good  cause.  A  century 
and  a  quarter  before,  Julius  Africanus  had  penned  this  memorable 
maxim,  "  May  the  opinion  never  prevail  in  the  Church  of  Christ 
that  any  false  thing  can  be  fabricated  for  Christ's  glory."1  Un- 
happily the  Church  has  too  often  lost  sight  of  this  golden  rule.2 

1  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  171. 

8  "Jerome  not  unfrequently  violated  the  sanctity  of  truth.     He   defends 

himself  by  the  examples  of  Plato,  Xenophon,  Aristotle,  and  still  more  by  the 

practice  of  Christian  controversialists,  as  Origen,  Methodius,  Eusebius,  Apolli- 

naris,  who  often  allowed  themselves  to  advance  what  they  knew  to  be  untrue, 


74  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

Just  at  this  period  paganism  was  rigorously  proscribed.  An 
imperial  decree,  issued  by  Valentinian  and  Valens  against  such  as 
practised  magical  arts,  was  being  enforced  at  Eome  and  Antioch. 
The  mere  possession  of  a  book  of  divination  might  lead  to  torture, 
banishment,  or  even  death.1    It  happened  that  Chrysostom,  walking 

in  order  to  strengthen  their  argument.  This  laxity  concerning  truth  passed 
under  the  name  of  oikonomia  in  Greek,  and  dispensatio  in  Latin  [both  signifying 
management],  or  sometimes  officiosum  mendacium  [serviceable  falsehood].  It 
had  footing  chiefly  in  the  Greek  Church."  These  loose  principles  were  not 
shared  by  Augustine,  who  stands  almost  alone  amongst  the  Fathers  of  this  ago 
in  his  steadfast  adherence  to  truth.  "  Every  lie  is  a  sin.  Speech  was  given  to 
man,  not  to  deceive  another,  but  to  make  known  his  thoughts ;  and  to  use  it 
for  deception,  and  not  for  its  appointed  end,  is  a  sin.  Nor  are  we  to  suppose 
that  there  can  be  a  lie  which  is  not  sinful,  because  it  is  sometimes  possible  by 
telling  a  lie  to  serve  another.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  those  have  reached  a 
high  standard  of  goodness  who  never  lie  except  to  save  a  man  from  injury,  but 
it  is  not  the  deceit,  but  the  good  intention  that  is  praiseworthy.  It  is  quite 
enough  that  the  deception  should  be  pardoned  without  being  made  the  subject 
of  laudation,  especially  among  the  heirs  of  the  New  Covenant,  to  whom  it  is 
said,  '  Let  your  communication  be  yea,  yea,  and  nay,  nay,  for  whatsoever  is 
more  than  these  cometh  of  evil.'" 

1  Of  the  dominion  which  magic  exerted  over  the  ancient  world  we  have  at 
this  day  little  conception.  The  stringent  and  frequent  repetition  in  the  Old 
Testament  of  the  law  against  enchantments,  necromancy,  familiar  spirits,  and 
other  forms  of  divination,  proves  the  prevalence  of  this  superstition  in  the  early 
ages  of  the  world ;  nor  was  its  hold  less  powerful  on  the  nations,  classic  or  bar- 
barian, over  which  the  Eoman  Empire  extended.  In  the  Acts  (xix.  19)  we  read 
of  the  converts  at  Ephesus  (one  of  the  chief  centres  of  the  magical  art) 
burning  the  books  they  were  accustomed  to  use,  to  the  value  of  nearly  £2000. 

It  was  a  piece  of  treasonable  practice  which  provoked  the  inquisition  at 
Antioch.  Many  plots  were  in  agitation  against  the  life  of  the  Emperor  Valens, 
and  in  one  of  these  the  conspirators  fixed  upon  Theodorus,  an  Imperial  Secretary, 
to  be  Emperor  in  his  stead.  To  confirm  this  choice,  the  magical  art  was 
invoked.  According  to  the  evidence  of  one  of  the  actors  given  under  torture, 
a  tripod  of  laurel  twigs  was  constructed  in  imitation  of  that  of  the  famous 
oracle  at  Delphi,  and,  after  being  consecrated  with  mysterious  incantations, 
was  placed  in  the  middle  of  a  room  which  had  been  purified  by  Arabian  incense* 
On  the  tripod  was  set  a  metal  dish  with  the  twenty-four  letters  of  the  Greek 
alphabet  engraved  round  the  edge.  Then  a  priest,  clothed  in  linen,  and  holding 
a  sprig  of  vervain,  called  upon  the  divinity  who  presides  over  foreknowledge, 
and  extending  his  hand  above  the  tripod,  let  fall  a  ring  suspended  by  a  flaxen 
thread  of  extreme  fineness.  As  the  ring,  gently  set  in  motion  by  his  fingers, 
touched  and  bounded  off  from  the  successive  letters,  the  priest  following  the 
order  in  which  the  letters  were  touched  gave  forth  metrical  replies  to  the 
questions  put  by  the  bystanders.  And  when  one  of  them  inquired  who  should 
succeed  the  present  Emperor?  the  ring  touched  successively  the  four  letters 
0  E  O  A  (TH  E  0  D),  on  which  some  one  exclaimed :  "  This  is  the  decree  of  fate ; 
Theodorus  is  to  be  our  Emperor."  On  the  discovery  of  the  plot  Theodorus  was 
put  to  death  in  a  barbarous  manner,  and  with  him  a  multitude  of  persons  of 


LIFE    IN    THE    CLOISTER.  75 

with  a  friend  through  the  public  gardens  by  the  banks  of  the 
Orontes,  fished  out  of  the  river  some  leaves  of  a  book.  "  A  playful 
contest  for  the  prize  ensued,  but  was  changed  into  horror  on  finding 
it  to  be  a  book  of  magic.  Their  dismay  was  increased  by  seeing  a 
soldier  approach.  What  was  to  be  done  ?  To  keep  the  leaves  or 
to  throw  them  away  seemed  equally  dangerous.  At  last  they  flung 
them  back  into  the  water.  The  soldier's  suspicions  had  not  been 
aroused,  and  the  two  friends  passed  on  unchallenged."  "  Chry- 
sostom  always  gratefully  looked  back  to  this  escape  as  a  signal 
instance  of  providential  deliverance." 

Shortly  after  this  occurrence  (his  mother  probably  being  then 
deceased),  Chrysostom  left  his  home  to  join  a  monastic  community 
on  the  mountains  to  the  south  of  Antioch.  Here  he  spent  four 
years,  "  a  hallowed  and  peaceful  time,"  to  which  he  loved  to  recur 
in  after-life.  He  paints  the  daily  round  of  the  cloister  in  warm 
colours.  "  Before  the  first  rays  of  sunlight  the  abbot  went  round, 
and  with  his  foot  woke  up  those  who  were  still  sleeping.  "When  all 
had  risen,  and  before  they  broke  their  fast,  they  united  in  a  hymn 
of  praise  and  in  prayer.  At  sunrise  each  went  to  his  allotted  task 
— some  to  read  or  write,  others  to  manual  labour.  Four  hours 
during  the  day — the  third,  sixth,  ninth,  and  at  even — were  ap- 
pointed for  prayer  and  psalmody.  When  the  day's  work  was  over, 
reclining  on  strewn  grass,  they  partook  of  a  common  meal  of  bread 
and  water,  with  occasionally  vegetables  and  oil  for  the  sick.  After 
this  they  again  sang  a  hymn,  and  then  betook  themselves  to  their 
straw  couches,  and  slept,  Chrysostom  says,  free  from  those  anxieties 
which  beset  men  in  the  world.  No  need  was  there  of  bolts  and 
bars,  for  the  monk  had  notbing  to  lose  except  his  life,  the  loss  of 
which  he  counted  an  advantage,  since  he  could  say,  '  to  me  to  live 
is  Christ,  and  to  die  is  gain.'  When  death  entered  the  monastery 
no  sound  of  lamentation  was  heard.  It  was  not  said  such  a  one 
is  dead,  but,  '  he  has  been  perfected ; '  and  his  body  was  carried 
forth  to  burial  with  hymns  of  thanksgiving,  and  the  prayers  of  his 
companions,  that  they,  too,  might  soon  see  the  end  of  their  labours, 
and  be  permitted  to  behold  Jesus  Christ." 

But  being  still  unable  to  attain  the  object  he  had  in  view, 
namely,  "  the  utter  extirpation  of  his  human  instincts,  he  pro- 
ceeded to  abandon  altogether  the  society  of  man,  and  taking  up  his 
abode  in  one  of  those  solitary  caves  with  which  the  mountains 


various  ranks,  some  of  whom,  it  would  seem,  were  guilty  of  no  other  crime 
than  owning  in  their  names  the  fatal  syllables.  The  actual  successor  of  Valens- 
was  Theodosius. 


76  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

abound,  he  braved  the  intense  cold  of  that  elevated  region,  and 
limited  himself  to  the  smallest  portion  of  food  and  sleep  on  -which 
life  could  be  sustained.  At  the  end  of  two  years  his  health  so  com- 
pletely broke  down  that  he  was  forced  to  quit  his  cave,  and  forsaking 
1  the  life  of  angels '  for  that  of  men,  he  returned  with  a  shattered 
constitution  to  his  home  in  Antioch." 

After  teaching  as  a  deacon  for  five  years,  Chrysostom  was 
ordained  presbyter  in  386,  and  for  ten  years  diligently  occupied 
himself  with  the  duties  of  his  office,  sometimes  preaching  five  days 
in  the  week.  Bishop  Flavian  opened  the  pulpit  of  the  cathedral  to 
him,  and  whenever  it  was  his  turn  to  preach,  the  building  was  sure 
to  be  thronged.  In  the  great  cities  the  congregations  were  of  a 
very  motley  character  ;  and  there  also  the  most  popular  preachers 
were  to  be  found.  An  unseemly  and  reprehensible  practice  had 
crept  in  of  signifying  approbation  by  applause.  It  is  a  notable 
evidence  of  the  decay  of  the  Church  that  the  manners  of  the  theatre 
should  thus  have  been  imported  into  divine  service.  So  inveterate 
had  this  habit  become,  that  when  Chrysostom  rebuked  his  auditory 
for  their  irreverent  behaviour,  they  applauded  the  very  rebuke. 
Such,  too,  was  the  charm  of  his  eloquence  that,  in  these  crowded 
audiences  hanging  in  rapt  admiration  on  the  preacher's  lips,  pick- 
pockets found  a  profitable  occasion  for  plying  their  trade,  and 
Chrysostom  had  to  warn  his  hearers  to  leave  their  purses  at  home. 

Here  it  may  be  well  to  pause  a  moment  and  inquire  whether  the 
Church  has  not  been  mistaken  in  offering  so  high  a  premium  for 
pulpit  oratory.  The  popular  admiration  of  this  gift  and  the  prizes 
offered  to  those  who  excel,  lead  to  a  contempt  of  simple  Gospel 
ministry  when  unaccompanied  by  learning  and  eloquence.  When, 
in  the  still  earlier  period  of  the  Church,  the  free  exercise  of  prophecy 
and  teaching  in  the  congregation  was  exchanged  for  the  ministry 
of  one  man  only,  grievous  loss  was  incurred ;  and  this  loss  was  yet 
more  enhanced  when  it  came  to  be  held  of  first  importance  that  the 
minister  should  be  both  scholar  and  orator.  No  warranty  for  such 
a  change  is  to  be  found  in  the  New  Testament,  where  a  sound 
knowledge  of  scriptural  truth,  with  faith  and  love,  and  the  anointing 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  are  set  forth  as  the  only  and  sufficient  qualifica- 
tions of  the  Gospel  herald.  This  departure  from  the  original 
•Christian  institutes  brought  with  it  a  train  of  evil  consequences. 
.Not  only  were  those  gifts  stifled  which  the  Apostle  so  fully  recog- 
nizes as  the  spiritual  possession  of  the  many,  but  the  congregation 
no  longer  came  together  to  realise  the  presence  of  Christ  in  their 
midst,  and  to  wait  for  the  manifestation  of  his  spirit.  They  came 
to  see,  to  hear,  and  to  be  entertained.     "  The  preachers,"  as  Gre- 


PULPIT    ELOQUENCE.  77 

gory  Nazianzen  observes,  "  too  often  seek  to  adorn  the  artless  piety 
of  our  religion  by  introducing  into  the  sanctuary  a  new  sort  of 
secular  oratory,  borrowed  from  the  forum  and  the  threatre.  The 
multitude  seek  not  priests,  but  rhetoricians  ;  and  I  must  say  some- 
thing in  their  defence.  We  have  thus  brought  them  up,  by  our 
desire  to  become  all  things  to  all  men, — I  know  not  whether  for  the 
perdition  or  salvation  of  all." 

Chrysostom  himself  whilst  at  Antioch  suffered  from  this  perversion 
of  Gospel  order.  "Most  men,"  he  says,  "  listen,  not  for  improve- 
ment, but  to  be  pleased,  and  to  criticise,  just  as  though  a  player  or 
musician  were  before  them.  They  require  eloquence  more  peremp- 
torily from  preachers  tban  from  professed  rhetoricians.  .  .  .  The 
most  eloquent  preacher,  unless  his  discourses  come  up  to  the 
measure  of  their  expectations,  is  exposed  to  innumerable  sneers 
and  censures  from  his  audience,  none  considering  that  a  temporary 
depression  of  spirits,  some  anxiety,  perhaps  a  fit  of  ill-humour,  may 
dim  the  brightness  of  his  intellect,  and  hinder  the  development  of 
his  thoughts  ;  "  and,  in  a  homily  delivered  some  years  afterwards 
at  Constantinople,  he  brings  out  the  bitterness  of  a  more  extensive 
experience.  "  Many  take  infinite  pains  to  prepare  a  long  sermon, 
and  if  they  win  applause,  it  is  as  though  they  had  gained  the  king- 
dom of  Heaven  itself,  but  if  silence  follows  their  discourse  the 
dejection  wbich  covers  their  spirits  is  worse  tban  hell.  This  has 
turned  the  churches  upside  down ;  because  both  you  are  impatient 
of  those  discourses  which  might  produce  compunction,  and  will 
endure  only  such  as  tickle  your  ears  by  their  composition  and 
euphony  ;  and  we  act  a  pitiful  part  in  suffering  ourselves  to  pander 
to  your  appetites,  when  we  ought  to  be  combating  them.  .  .  . 
When,  as  I  discourse,  I  hear  myself  applauded,  at  the  moment  as  a 
man  (why  should  I  not  confess  the  truth  ?)  I  am  delighted,  and 
indulge  in  the  pleasurable  feeling ;  but  when  I  get  home,  and 
bethink  me  that  those  who  have  applauded  have  derived  no  benefit, 
from  my  sermon,  but  that  the  good  they  ought  to  have  received 
was  dissipated  by  their  plaudits,  I  am  in  pain,  I  groan  and  weep, 
and  feel  as  though  I  had  spoken  all  in  vain." 

In  397  Chrysostom's  connection  with  Antioch  was  suddenly  dis- 
solved. Nectarius,  bishop  of  Constantinople,  an  amiable  and 
indolent  prelate,  died.  The  appointment  to  the  vacant  place 
virtually  rested  with  the  eunuch  Eutropius,  the  chief  minister  of 
the  feeble  Emperor  Arcadius.  He  cast  his  eyes  upon  Chrysostom, 
but  fearing  lest  the  people  of  Antioch  should  refuse  to  part  with 
their  favourite  preacher,  he  had  recourse  to  a  stratagem.  On  a 
false  pretext,  Chrysostom  was  induced  to  visit  a  martyr's  chapel 


78  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

outside  the  city  walls.  Here  he  was  apprehended  by  one  of  the 
Imperial  officers,  conveyed  to  the  first  post-station  on  the  road 
to  Constantinople,  and  being  placed  in  a  public  chariot  and  guarded 
by  a  military  escort,  he  was  whirled  along  from  stage  to  stage  over 
the  800  miles  which  intervened.1 

Whether  the  dignity  of  bishop  of  the  Imperial  city,  thus  thrust 
upon  him,  was  welcome  or  otherwise,  Chrysostom  submitted  to  it 
with  a  good  grace.  The  probability  is  that,  although  it  was  a 
wrench  to  be  snatched  from  his  native  city  in  the  midst  of  his 
loving  labours,  the  extended  field  now  opened  before  him  for  pastoral 
work  and  for  the  exercise  of  his  unrivalled  powers  as  a  preacher 
fully  reconciled  him  to  the  change.  He  was  consecrated,  a.d.  398, 
by  Theophilus,  bishop  of  Alexandria,  who  had  been  summoned  to 
Constantinople  for  the  purpose.  But  Theophilus  who  had  set  his 
mind  on  another  candidate  performed  the  ceremony  with  the 
utmost  reluctance  :  he  would  even  have  entirely  refused  to  act,  if  it 
had  not  been  for  the  threats  of  Eutropius. 

The  citizens  were  not  long  in  perceiving  the  difference  between 
the  new  bishop  and  his  predecessor.  Nectarius  had  lived  in  a  style 
of  luxury  and  magnificence,  which  to  Chrysostom's  severe  character 
seemed  to  be  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  profession  of  a  Christian 
bishop.  He  accordingly  disfurnished  the  episcopal  residence,  sold 
the  costly  plate  and  rich  carpets,  and  with  the  proceeds  erected 
hospitals  for  the  sick  and  strangers,  and  provided  for  the  support  of 
virgins  and  widows.  He  even  disposed  of  some  of  the  marbles  and 
other  ornaments  of  the  churches.  Instead  of  interchanging  grand 
dinners  with  the  wealthy,  he  ate  the  simplest  fare  in  his  solitary 
chamber.  He  avoided  the  Court  and  the  company  of  the  great,  and 
■even  seems  to  have  regarded  social  intercourse  with  his  fellow-men 
as  waste  of  time.  The  bishops  who  visited  Constantinople  no 
longer  found  the  episcopal  palace  open  to  them,  Chrysostom 
alleging  that  there  were  houses  of  the  faithful  in  abundance  where 
they  would  meet  with  a  welcome.  One,  a  Syrian  bishop  named 
Acacius,  was  so  provoked  by  the  meanness  of  the  table  and  lodging 
which  had  been  provided,  that  he  exclaimed,  "I'll  season  his  pot 
for  him." 

Besides  carrying  into  the  episcopal  palace  the  habits  he  had 
acquired  in  the  cloister,  and  thus  ignoring  some  of  the  duties  of  his 
exalted  station,  Chrysostom  provoked  hostility  by  his  ecclesiastical 
reforms.      The  moral  tone  of  the  clerical  order  had  sunk  to  a  low 


1  From  Antioch  to  Constantinople  was  reckoned  a  week's  journey  travelling 
day  and  night. 


MISSION    TO    THE    GOTHS.  79 

ebb — worldliness,  avarice,  flattery  of  the  great,  and  yet  graver 
faults  were  common.  A  thorough  reform  was  needed,  and  Chrysos- 
tom  set  himself  to  the  arduous  task  with  unsparing  severity.  His 
measures  were  rendered  the  more  unpalatable  by  his  unbending 
manner  and  irritable  temper.  From  the  reform  of  the  clergy  he 
passed  to  that  of  the  Court.  The  dissolute  manners  and  frivolous 
lives  of  the  nobles  and  Court  ladies  furnished  a  frequent  theme  for 
his  discourses,  and  the  fulminations  he  uttered  from  the  pulpit, 
whilst  they  drew  immense  crowds  to  the  cathedral  and  daily 
increased  his  popularity  with  the  multitude,  continually  raised  up 
new  enemies  against  him. 

Before,  however,  we  enter  on  the  memorable  contest  with  vice 
and  folly  in  high  places,  which  in  the  end  caused  Chrysostom's 
downfall,  we  must  introduce  two  episodes — his  work  of  evangelisa- 
tion amongst  the  Goths,  and  his  connection  with  the  fate  of  the 
minister  Eutropius. 

Many  thousand  Goths  dwelt  in  Constantinople  and  the  neigh- 
bouring provinces,  and  Chrysostom,  zealous  for  the  recovery  of  this 
people  from  the  Arian  doctrine,  set  apart  one  of  the  churches  in  the 
city  for  divine  service  in  their  native  tongue.  One  Sunday,  about 
the  year  396,  he  himself  attended.  The  Bible  was  read  in  the 
translation  of  Ulfilas,  and  a  discourse  delivered  in  Gothic  by  a 
Gothic  preacher.  A  number  of  Chrysostom's  own  congregation 
seem  to  have  been  present,  and  he  took  advantage  of  the  scene 
before  him  to  deliver  an  eloquent  discourse  (interpreted  into  Gothic) 
on  the  transforming  power  of  Christianity.  Quoting  Isaiah  (lxv. 
25),  "  the  wolf  and  the  lamb  shall  feed  together,  and  the  lion 
shall  eat  straw  like  the  ox,"  he  said:  "The prophet  is  not  speaking 
here  of  lions  and  lambs,  but  predicting  that,  subdued  by  the  power 
of  the  divine  doctrine,  the  brutal  sense  of  rude  men  should  be 
transformed  into  gentleness,  and  they  should  unite  in  the  same 
community  with  the  meek.  And  this  you  have  witnessed  to-day, 
the  most  savage  race  of  mankind  standing  side  by  side  with  the 
lambs  of  the  Church — one  pasture,  one  fold  for  all,  one  table  set 
before  all."  Besides  his  care  for  the  Goths  in  and  around  the  city, 
he  also  sent  forth  missionaries  to  those  tribes  which  had  remained 
on  the  banks  of  the  Danube,  consecrating  a  native  to  be  their 
bishop  ;  and  he  showed  a  like  interest  in  the  Syrian  nomads.  Up 
to  the  end  of  his  life,  he  did  not  cease,  in  sickness  and  exile,  to 
further  these  cherished  aims. 

Between  Chrysostom  and  the  minister  Eutropius,  by  whom  he 
had  been  raised  to  the  primacy,  there  was  nothing  in  common. 
The  latter  was  cruel  and  rapacious ;    and  he  found  in  the  new 


80  "WITNESSES   FOB    CHRIST. 

bishop,  instead  of  a  subservient  tool,  a  man  of  lofty  spirit  who 
vigilantly  guarded  the  ecclesiastical  prerogative.  "When  the  victims 
of  Eutropius'  extortions  fled  to  the  churches  to  claim  the  right  of 
asylum,  they  found  in  Chrysostom  a  powerful  and  resolute  protector. 
In  an  evil  hour  for  himself  the  minister  had  procured  from  the 
feeble  Emperor  a  law  abolishing  the  privilege  of  sanctuary.  By  a 
change  of  affairs  at  Court,  Eutropius  suddenly  fell  from  his  lofty 
station.  Deprived  of  his  rank,  his  property  confiscated,  driven 
from  the  palace,  and  exposed  to  the  insults  of  the  populace,  he 
found  himself  homeless  and  friendless.  Whither  should  he  flee  ? 
No  asylum  remained  but  through  the  very  door  which  he  had  done 
his  best  to  close.  He  might  still  find  that  door  open.  The  law 
which  he  had  made  was  hateful  to  the  clergy,  it  might  be  that  the 
bishop  would  connive  at  its  violation,  even  by  the  very  man  who 
had  framed  it.  "In  the  guise  of  a  suppliant,  tears  streaming  down 
his  cheeks,  his  scant  grey  hairs  smeared  with  dust,  he  crept  into  the 
cathedral,  pushed  aside  the  curtain  which  divided  the  chancel  or 
sanctuary  from  the  nave,  and,  clinging  closely  to  the  '  holy  table,' 
awaited  the  approach  of  the  bishop  or  any  of  the  clergy.  The 
enemy  was  on  his  track.  As  he  lay  quaking  with  terror,  he  could 
hear  on  the  other  side  of  the  thin  partition  the  trampling  of  feet, 
mingled  with  the  clattering  of  arms  and  voices  raised  in  threatening 
tones  by  soldiers  on  the  search.  At  this  crisis  he  was  found  by  the 
bishop  in  a  state  of  pitiable  and  abject  terror,  his  cheek  blanched 
with  a  death-like  pallor,  his  teeth  chattering,  his  whole  frame 
quivering,  as  with  faltering  lips  he  craved  the  asylum  of  the 
Church.  .  .  .  Chrysostom  led  the  unhappy  fugitive  to  the  sacristy, 
and,  having  concealed  him  there,  confronted  his  pursuers,  asserted 
the  inviolability  of  the  sacred  precincts,  and  refused  to  surrender 
the  refugee.  '  None  shall  penetrate  the  sanctuary  save  over  my 
body ;  the  Church  is  the  bride  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  has  entrusted 
her  honour  to  me,  and  I  will  never  betray  it ! '  The  soldiers 
threatened  to  lay  violent  hands  on  the  bishop  ;  but  he  freely  pre- 
sented himself  to  them,  and  only  desired  to  be  conducted  to  the 
Emperor,  that  the  whole  affair  might  be  submitted  to  his  judgment. 
He  was  accordingly  placed  between  two  rows  of  spearmen,  and 
marched  like  a  prisoner  from  the  cathedral  to  the  palace."  In  the 
presence  of  Arcadius  he  maintained  the  same  lofty  tone  :  "  What 
were  human  laws  when  weighed  against  divine  ?  "  The  Emperor 
was  unable  to  resist  the  authority  with  which  he  spoke,  and  promised 
to  respect  the  asylum.  But  when  the  soldiers  heard  this,  they 
were  furious  at  the  loss  of  their  victim,  and  it  was  only  by  a 
passionate  harangue,  ending  with  a  flood  of  tears,  that  Arcadius 


EUTKOPIUS   AT    THE    ALTAR.  81' 

succeeded  in  restraining  them  from  breaking  into  the  chancel  and 
dragging  forth  the  suppliant. 

"  The  next  day  was  Sunday.  The  places  of  public  amusement 
were  deserted,  and  the  cathedral  was  filled  with  a  vast  concourse  of 
men  and  women.  All  were  in  a  flutter  of  expectation  to  hear  what 
the  Golden  Mouth  would  utter  in  defence  of  the  Church's  privilege, 
and  in  defiance  of  the  law.  The  bishop  took  his  seat  in  the  ambo;1 
all  faces  were  upturned  ;  but,  before  the  preacher  uttered  a  word, 
the  curtain  which  separated  the  nave  from  the  chancel,  was  partially 
drawn  aside,  and  disclosed  the  cowering  form  of  the  unhappy 
Eutropius  clinging  to  one  of  the  columns  which  supported  the  holy 
table.  Presently  the  bishop  burst  forth:  'Vanity  of  vanities  I 
"Where  is  now  the  pomp  of  yonder  man's  consulship  ?  Where  his 
torch-light  festivities  ?  "Where  the  applause  which  once  greeted 
him  ?  "Where  his  banquets  and  garlands  ?  They  are  gone,  all 
gone ;  one  rude  blast  has  shattered  all  the  leaves,  and  shows  us  the 
tree  stripped  quite  bare,  and  shaken  to  its  very  roots.  .  .  .  Vanity 
of  vanities ;  all  is  vanity.  These  words  should  be  inscribed  on  our 
walls  and  on  our  garments,  in  the  market-place,  and  by  the  way-: 
side,  but  above  all  on  our  consciences.'  Then,  turning  towards  the 
pitiable  figure  by  the  holy  table  :  '  Did  I  not  continually  warn  thee 
that  wealth  is  a  runaway  slave,  a  thankless  servant  ?  but  thou 
wouldst  not  heed.  Lo,  now  experience  has  proved  to  thee  that  it  is 
not  only  fugitive  and  thankless,  but  murderous  also  ;  for  this  it  is' 
which  causes  thee  now  to  tremble.  Did  I  not  tell  thee,  when  thou: 
rebuked  me  for  speaking  the  truth,  that  I  loved  thee  better  than  thy 
flatterers  ?  If  thou  hadst  endured  my  wounds,  the  kisses  of  thy 
enemies  would  not  have  wrought  thee  this  destruction.  .  .  .  The 
Church  which  thou  treated  as  an  enemy  has  opened  her  bosom  to 
receive  thee ;  the  theatre  which  thou  favoured  has  betrayed  thee, 
and  whetted  the  sword  against  thee.' "...  Then,  turning  back 
again  to  the  audience,  he  declared  that  the  trembling  suppliant 
whom  they  beheld  was  "the  ornament  of  the  altar."  "  '  "What,* 
you  will  say,  '  this  iniquitous  rapacious  creature  an  ornament  to  the 
altar ! '  Hush !  the  sinful  woman  was  permitted  to  touch  the  feet 
of  Jesus  Christ  Himself."  .  .  .  Addressing  himself  especially  to 
the  rich,  he  said :  "  Such  a  spectacle  as  this,  of  one  lately  at  the 
pinnacle  of  power,  now  crouching  with  fear  like  a  hare  or  a  frog, 
chained  to  yonder  pillar,  not  by  fetters,  but  by  fright,  is  sufficient 

1  Or  reading-desk,  from  which,  on  account  of  his  low  stature,  he  could  be 
better  heard  than  from  the  pulpit.  The  most  usual  practice  was  for  the 
preacher  to  sit,  the  people  to  stand. 

o 


82  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

to  subdue  arrogance,  and  teach  the  truth  of  the  Scripture  precept, 
4  All  flesh  is  grass,  and  all  the  glory  of  man  as  the  flower  of 
grass.' " 

After  remaining  several  days  in  the  sanctuary,  perhaps  finding 
his  asylum  no  longer  safe,  Eutropius  quitted  it,  and  escaped  in  dis- 
guise from  the  city.  He  was  taken,  tried  on  sundry  charges  of 
treason,  and  beheaded. 

The  beautiful  Eudoxia,  the  haughty  and  intriguing  wife  of 
Arcadius,  was  the  real  sovereign  of  the  East.  For  a  short  while 
Chrysostom  enjoyed  her  favour.  Soon  after  his  arrival  she  was 
seized  with  "a  fit  of  religious  excitement,"  which  found  vent  in  the 
translation  of  some  martyrs'  relics  to  the  great  church  of  St.  Thomas 
in  Drypia,  nine  miles  from  the  city.  The  august  ceremonial  took 
place  at  night ;  "  the  Empress  in  her  royal  diadem  and  purple, 
attended  by  nobles  and  ladies  of  distinction,  walked  by  the  side  of 
the  bishop  in  the  rear  of  the  chest  enclosing  the  sacred  bones,"  and 
so  vast  was  the  number  of  torches  that  Chrysostom  compares  the 
procession  to  a  river  of  fire.  It  was  dawn  before  they  reached  the 
Church.  The  bishop  ascended  the  pulpit  and  preached  a  sermon 
full  of  "extravagant  laudations  of  Eudoxia,  and  of  ecstatic  ex- 
pressions of  joy  "  at  this  auspicious  event. 

But  Eudoxia's  devotion  presently  "  burnt  itself  out."  Chrysos- 
tom soon  saw  occasion  to  change  his  opinion  of  her,  and  even  to 
censure  her  conduct,  as  well  as  that  of  the  courtiers,  a  course  of 
action  which  turned  her  imperial  favour  into  implacable  enmity. 

Chrysostom's  zeal  for  the  maintenance  of  Church  discipline 
carried  him  beyond  the  bounds  of  discretion.  Not  content  with 
setting  his  own  diocese  in  order,  he  quitted  the  capital  for  Asia 
Minor,  a.d.  401,  to  correct  some  flagrant  abuses  in  Ephesus  and 
the  neighbouring  sees.  He  left  Constantinople  in  charge  of  a 
bishop  named  Severian. .  The  harshness  with  which  Chrysostom 
exercised  his  usurped  authority  at  Ephesus  increased  the  number 
of  his  enemies  ;  and  the  length  of  his  absence  from  the  capital  gave 
them  opportunity  to  conspire  against  him.1 

On  his  return  he  found  that  through  the  treachery  of  Severian 
the  affairs  of  the  Church  at  Constantinople  had  fallen  into  confusion. 
Instead,  however,  of  adopting  the  measures  which  prudence  would 
have  dictated,  he  was  excited  to  a  vehement  display  of  his  feelings. 
In  his  very  first  sermon  he  attacked  Severian.  A  few  days  later  he 
aimed  his  shafts  higher,  and  held  up  to  public  odium  the  whole 
cabal  of  bishops  who  played  the  part  of  court  flatterers,  and  even 

1  He  deposed  twenty  bishops  in  the  course  of  his  visitation. 


CHRYSOSTOM  AND   EUDOXIA.  88 

Eudoxia  herself.  Like  Ambrose,  he  compared  the  Empress  to 
Jezebel.  "Gather  together  to  me,". he  exclaimed,  "those  base 
p>riests  that  eat  at  Jezebel's  table,  that  I  may  say  to  them,  as  Elijah 
of  old,  '  How  long  halt  ye  between  two  opinions  ? '  .  .  .  If  Jezebel's 
table  be  the  table  of  the  Lord,  eat  at  it ;  eat  at  it  till  you  vomit." 
The  allusion  was  too  patent  to  be  mistaken.  From  that  moment 
his  fate  was  sealed. 

The  conduct  of  Chrysostom  on  this  occasion  has  been  much 
praised.  No  one  will  deny  that  it  manifested  daring  courage ;  but 
courage  is  not  everything  in  a  .Christian  minister.  This  outburst 
of  indignation  was  indeed  far  nobler  than  his  previous  flattery,  but 
it  was  not  wise  or  defensible.  To  speak  of  the  faults  of  others 
behind  their  back  is  contrary  to  Gospel  rule,  and  it  does  not  mend 
the  matter  if  the  defamation  is  public,  and  in  the  presence  of 
thousands.  Moreover,  the  respect  and  honour  which  are  due  to  all 
men,  are  doubly  due  to  kings  and  those  in  authority.  When  Paul 
administered  a  richly  deserved  rebuke  to  the  high-priest  Ananias,  he 
apologised,  because  of  the  commandment,  "  Thou  shalt  not  speak 
evil  of  the  ruler  of  thy  people."  Again,  the  object  of  reproof  is 
reclamation,  but  the  offender  is  hardly  likely  to  give  heed  to  the 
reproof  when  it  is  wrapped  in  words  of  fire,  and  published  through 
a  trumpet.  Evil,  too,  must  have  been  the  effect  of  Chrysostom's 
philippics  on  the  people  of  Constantinople.  Denunciations  of  rulers 
and  public  characters  from  his  golden  lips  could  not  fail  to  render 
the  Church  more  attractive  than  the  theatre.  What  flattery  is 
sweeter  to  the  populace  than  to  be  told  of  the  vices  of  their  superiors  ? 
And  when  the  ear  is  filled  with  such  words,  no  room  is  left  for  the 
great  purpose  for  which  men  come  together  in  the  church,  the  wor- 
ship of  God. 

Chrysostom  was  not  without  personal  friends  in  high  station. 
Besides  several  men  of  influence,  some  eminent  women  were  devoted 
to  him  and  his  cause.  The  most  celebrated  of  these  was  the 
deaconess  Olympias.  She  was  early  left  an  orphan,  and  came 
nnder  the  oversight  of  Gregory  Nazianzen,  whom  she  addressed  as 
"  father,"  and  who  loved  to  call  her  his  "  own  Olympias."  Her 
husband,  the  prefect  of  Constantinople,  died  about  two  years  after 
their  marriage,  and  Olympias  regarded  this  event  as  an  intimation 
that  she  should  consecrate  the  rest  of  her  days  to  the  Lord.  After 
she  was  made  deaconess  she  seldom  departed  from  the  church  night 
or  day.  She  gave  her  time  and  scattered  her  wealth  with  profuse 
liberality,  assisting  the  clergy  of  Greece,  Asia,  and  Syria  in  their 
•charitable  works.  Between  her  and  Chrysostom  there  was  a  strong 
bond  of  mutual  affection ;  "  she  repaid  his  spiritual  care  by  many 


84  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

womanly  attentions,  especially  by  seeing  that  he  was  supplied  with 
wholesome  food,  and  did  not  overstrain  his  feeble  constitution  by  a 
too  rigid  abstinence." 

The  time  was  not  yet  ripe  for  the  enemies  of  Chrysostom  openly 
to  show  themselves.  The  Empress  even  found  it  expedient  to 
maintain  for  a  while  the  semblance  of  friendship  with  the  popular 
preacher.  When,  on  a  charge  being  preferred  against  Severian, 
Chrysostom,  without  inquiry,  excommunicated  that  bishop  and 
commanded  him  to  leave  the  city,  Eudoxia  presented  herself  before 
him  in  the  church  of  the  Apostles,  placed  her  infant  son  on  his 
knees  and  conjured  him  to  reverse  the  sentence.  But  Severian, 
though  restored,  was  not  reconciled,  and  the  number  of  Chry- 
sostom's  enemies  from  the  ranks  of  the  Court  ladies  and  the 
offended  ecclesiastics  increased  daily.  They  were  joined  by  the 
bishop  Antiochus  of  Ptolemais,  and  by  Acacius  mentioned  above, 
who  was  not  at  all  displeased  at  the  prospect  of  fulfilling  his  coarse 
threat. 

Courtiers  and  offended  bishops  were  not  the  only  foes  against 
whom  Chrysostom  had  to  contend.  The  Arians  who  had  been 
deprived  of  their  churches  by  Theodosius  were  determined,  if 
possible,  to  recover  their  influence  in  the  city.  They  assembled  at 
night  in  the  public  piazzas  to  sing  responsive  hymns,  and  at  break 
of  day  marched  in  procession  through  the  midst  of  the  city,  passing 
out  at  the  gates  to  their  places  of  worship.  To  make  these  demon- 
strations more  defiant  they  interspersed  with  the  hymns  insulting 
questions  or  expressions.  Chrysostom,  to  counteract  their  in- 
fluence, organised  similar  processions  of  the  Orthodox,  and  as 
these  were  the  more  numerous  party,  and  the  Empress  placed  her 
purse  at  their  disposal,  they  presently  surpassed  the  others  in 
pomp,  carrying  crosses  of  silver  illuminated  by  wax  tapers.  This- 
display  provoked  the  Arians  to  attack  their  rivals.  Blood  was  shed 
on  both  sides,  and  the  Imperial  eunuch  who  was  leading  the  Homo- 
ousion  choir  was  wounded.  On  this  the  Emperor  forcibly  put  a 
stop  to  the  Arian  processions.  The  historian  who  relates  this 
occurrence  refers  to  it  as  the  origin  of  such  public  demonstrations : 
"  Tlie  Orthodox  party,"  he  says,  "  having  thus  commenced  the 
practice  of  singing  hymns  in  procession,  did  not  discontinue  it,  bat 
have  retained  it  to  the  present  day." 1 

1  "  Chrysostom  in  Constantinople  sealed  the  victory  of  the  Catholic  party. 
He  achieved  what  all  the  edicts  of  Theodosius  failed  to  do ;  detached  the 
populace  of  the  city  from  their  persistent  and  often  tumultuous  support  of 
Aiianism,  and  before  the  end  of  his  brief  opportunity  made  them  devoted 
adherents  of  himself,  and  through  himself  of  the  Catholic  Church." 


THEOPHILUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA.  85 

The  Court  party  only  wanted  a  leader  to  open  the  campaign 
against  Chrysostom.  One  was  found  in  Theophilus,  the  bishop  of 
Alexandria,  who  had  so  unwillingly  consecrated  him  to  the  episcopal 
<}hair.  He  was  "  a  man  who  knew  better  how  to  manage  a  court 
intrigue  than  how  to  resolve  a  question  of  divinity,  and  the  only 
rule  by  which  he  shaped  his  opinions  was  interest  or  ambition." 
It  suited  his  purposes  to  institute  a  persecution  of  the  monks  of 
the  Nitrian  desert,  and  particularly  of  the  Tall  Brethren  spoken  of 
in  a  former  chapter,  now  far  advanced  in  years.  Many  fled  from 
the  country,  and  the  four  Brethren  with  about  fifty  companions, 
after  many  hardships,  arrived  at  length  at  Constantinople. 

They  repaired  at  once  to  Chrysostom,  who  received  them  with 
great  respect,  and  shed  tears  of  compassion  when  he  heard  the  tale 
•of  their  sufferings  and  wanderings.  But  he  acted  with  caution. 
He  lodged  them  in  the  precincts  of  the  church  of  Anastasia,  but 
refused  to  admit  them  to  the  Eucharist  until  their  cause  was 
examined  and  their  excommunication  revoked.  Finding  themselves 
still  pursued  by  the  emissaries  of  Theophilus,  they  resolved  to 
make  an  appeal  to  the  Empress.  One  day,  as  she  was  riding  to 
church,  a  party  of  them  presented  themselves  before  her,  in  their 
11  white  sheepskins  and  bare  arms  and  knees."  She  stopped  her 
litter,  bowed  graciously  to  them,  and  implored  their  prayers  on 
behalf  of  the  Emperor,  herself,  and  her  children ;  and  when  they 
besought  her  protection,  she  promised  that  a  council  should  be 
convened,  and  Theophilus  summoned  to  attend. 

On  receiving  these  tidings  Theophilus  was  furious.  Epiphanius , 
bishop  of  Cyprus,1  a  restless  controversialist,  was  foremost  amongst 
the  opponents  of  Origen,  whom  he  designated  the  u  ancestor  of  the 
Arian  heresy."  This  man,  then  verging  towards  ninety  years  old, 
Theophilus  sent  to  Constantinople,  at  once  to  extinguish  Origenism, 
and  to  bring  Chrysostom  to  account  for  sheltering  the  Tall  Brethren. 
On  Epiphanius'  arrival,  Chrysostom  received  him  courteously,  and 
invited  him  to  take  up  his  abode  in  the  episcopal  palace ;  but 
Epiphanius,  rejecting  his  overtures,  called  together  the  bishops  who 
were  then  in  the  city,  and  laying  before  them  the  decree  of  his  own 
provincial  council  against  the  writings  of  Origen,  required  them  to 
put  their  hands  to  it.  Some  complied;  others  refused.  Amongst 
the  latter  was  a  Goth  who  had  adopted  the  name  of  Theotimus,  and 
had  been  appointed  metropolitan  of  Lesser  Scythia.     He  was  not 

1  The  same  we  met  with  in  the  Early  Church  History  as  protesting  against 
oaths  and  pictures  in  churches,  and  also  as  condemning,  in  his  work  Against 
Hertsies,  the  reformer  Aerius,  pp.  134,  270,  311. 


86  WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST.     C 

only  bishop ;  he  was  also  physician  and  commercial  agent  to  the 
nomadic  tribes.  Only  half  a  convert  to  Greek  habits,  he  still 
allowed  his  long  hair  to  float  over  his  episcopal  robe.  Educated 
in  Greece,  he  had  carried  back  with  him  some  precious  books ;  and 
when  not  galloping  across  the  plains,  or  baptizing  some  barbarian, 
he  would  unroll  his  parchments,  and  drink  at  the  flowing  spring  of 
knowledge  which  the  earlier  writers,  especially  Origen,  had  opened. 
The  anathemas  uttered  against  his  favourite  author  by  Epiphanius 
and  those  who  sided  with  him,  astonished  and  shocked  him.  He 
made  no  reply  at  the  moment,  but  when  the  bishops  met  again,  the 
Gothic  bishop  drew  from  the  folds  of  his  garment  a  roll  which  he 
began  to  read  in  a  loud  voice.  It  contained  passages  from  Origen 
of  unimpeachable  doctrine,  glowing  with  elevated  thoughts  and 
ardent  faith.  Passage  succeeded  passage ;  and  when  at  length 
Theotimus  paused,  it  was  only  to  give  vent  to  his  pent-up  indigna- 
tion. "  I  cannot  comprehend,  my  brethren,  how  any  one  should 
dare  to  asperse  a  man  who  has  written  a  thousand  passages  as 
excellent  as  these,  and  to  pronounce  him  a  child  of  Satan  and  an 
arch-heretic.  If  you  find  in  his  books  anything  less  admirable  than 
what  I  have  read,  or  even  something  which  you  cannot  approve,  lay 
it  on  one  side ;  leave  the  bad  and  choose  the  good." 

Epiphanius  had  not  been  long  at  Constantinople  before  he  dis- 
covered that  he  had  come  upon  a  fool's  errand,  and  growing  weary 
of  the  miserable  business  he  returned  to  Cyprus.  He  bade  fare- 
well to  the  bishops  who  accompanied  him  to  the  ship,  with  these 
words :  "  I  leave  you  your  city,  and  your  Imperial  palace,  and  all 
this  stage-acting." 

In  accordance  with  the  promise  given  by  Eudoxia  to  the  monks, 
Theophilus  was  summoned  to  Constantinople.  He  hailed  the 
occasion  as  the  wished-for  opportunity  of  accomplishing  the  ruin 
of  Chrysostom.  He  was  attended  by  a  strong  body-guard  of  sailors, 
and  took  with  him  costly  presents  for  the  disaffected  clergy  and 
persons  of  rank.  He  did  not  even  scruple  to  give  out,  whilst  on 
his  journey,  that  he  was  going  to  depose  Chrysostom  for  grave 
offences.  Many  bishops  accompanied  him  from  Egypt  and  Asia, 
some  of  the  latter  being  those  whom  Chrysostom  had  deposed.  So 
far  from  conducting  himself  as  one  accused,  he  made  his  entry 
into  Constantinople  "  surrounded  by  the  pomp  and  dignity  of  a 
judge." 

Chrysostom  did  not  fail  to  offer  to  Theophilus  the  hospitality  due 
to  a  brother  bishop,  but  it  was  disdainfully  rejected.  Theophilus 
took  up  his  lodging  in  one  of  the  Emperor's  palaces  in  the  suburb 
of  Pera.    During  the  three  weeks  he  resided  there  he  refused  all 


CHRYSOSTOM  CITED  BEFORE  THE  SYNOD. 


8? 


communication  with  Chrysostom.  "  His  house  was  the  resort  of 
the  disaffected  clergy,  and  the  affronted  ladies  and  gentlemen,  wh6 
were  drawn  thither,  not  only  hy  a  common  hatred  to  Chrysostom, 
but  also  by  the  handsome  gifts,  the  dainty  repasts,  and  the  winning 
flattery  of  Theophilus." 

Chrysostom  was  directed  by  the  Court  to  repair  to  Pera  and 
open  an  inquiry  into  the  offences  of  which  Tbeophilus  was  accused. 
Either  from  some  scruple  as  to  his  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  or 
from  the  love  of  peace,  he  declined.  It  was  now  Theophilus' 
turn  to  bring  his  rival  to  account.  Not  daring  to  institute  pro- 
ceedings in  the  city  itself,  he  assembled  a  synod  in  the  Asiatic 
suburb  of  Chalcedon,  which,  from  the  position  of  the  mansion 
in  which  it  was  held,  near  to  a  celebrated  tree,  was  called  the  Synod 
of  the  Oak.  It  was  attended  by  only  thirty- six  bishops,  of  whom 
twenty-nine  were  Egyptians.  Two  deacons  who  had  been  de- 
graded by  Chrysostom  for  gross  misconduct  were  suborned  to 
prefer  charges  against  him,  and  he  was  summoned  to  defend  him- 
self before  the  council. 

The  scene  which  took  place  when  Chrysostom  received  the  sum- 
mons is  thus  described  by  his  biographer,  Palladius.  We  give  it  a3 
translated  by  Mr.  Stephens.  "  "We  were  sitting,  to  the  number  of 
forty  bishops,  in  the  dining-hall  of  the  palace,  marvelling  at  the 
audacity  with  which  one,  who  had  been  commanded  to  appear  as  a 
culprit  at  Constantinople,  had  arrived  with  a  train  of  bishops,  had 
altered  the  sentiments  of  nobles  and  magistrates,  and  perverted 
the  majority  even  of  the  clergy.  "Whilst  we  were  wondering,  John 
[Chrysostom] ,  inspired  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  addressed  to  us  the 
following  words :  '  Pray  for  me,  my  brethren,  and  if  ye  love  Christ, 
let  no  one  for  my  sake  desert  his  see,  for  I  am  now  ready  to  be 
offered,  and  the  time  of  my  departure  is  at  hand.  I  know  the 
intrigues  of  Satan,  that  he  will  not  endure  any  longer  the  burden 
of  my  words  delivered  against  him.'  Seized  with  inexpressible 
sorrow,  some  of  us  began  to  weep,  and  others  to  leave  the  assembly, 
after  kissing,  amid  tears  and  sobs,  his  sacred  head  and  eyes  and 
eloquent  mouth.  He,  however,  exhorted  them  to  return,  and  as 
they  hovered  near  like  bees  humming  round  their  hive,  '  Sit  down, 
my  brethren,'  he  said,  *  and  do  not  weep,  unnerving  me  by  your 
tears,  for  to  me  to  live  is  Christ,  to  die  is  gain.  Recall  the  words 
which  I  have  so  frequently  spoken  to  you :  our  present  life  is  a 
journey ;  both  its  good  and  painful  things  pass  away ;  present  time 
is  like  a  fair :  we  buy,  we  sell,  and  the  assembly  is  dissolved.  Are 
we  better  than  the  patriarchs,  the  prophets,  the  apostles,  that  this 
life  should  remain  to  us  for  ever?'     Here  one  of  the  company* 


88  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

uttering  a  cry,  exclaimed,  '  Nay,  but  what  we  lament  is  our  bereave- 
ment, and  the  widowhood  of  the  Church ;  the  derangement  of 
sacred  laws ;  the  ambition  of  those  who  fear  not  the  Lord  and 
violently  seize  the  highest  positions  ;  the  destitution  of  the  poor, 
and  the  loss  of  sound  teaching.'  But  John  replied,  striking  (as 
was  his  custom)  the  palm  of  his  left  hand  with  the  forefinger  of  his 
right,  '  Enough,  my  brother — no  more ;  only,  as  I  was  saying,  do 
not  abandon  your  churches ;  for  neither  did  the  office  of  teaching 
begin  with  me,  nor  in  me  has  it  ended.  Did  not  Moses  die,  and 
was  not  Joshua  found  to  succeed  him  ?  Did  not  Samuel  die  ?  but 
was  not  David  anointed  ?  Jeremiah  departed  this  life,  but  Baruch 
was  left.  Elijah  was  taken  up,  but  Elisha  prophesied  in  his  place. 
Paul  was  beheaded,  but  did  he  not  leave  Timothy,  Titus,  Apollos, 
and  a  host  of  others  to  work  after  him  ?' " 

At  this  point  it  was  announced  that  two  deputies  had  arrived 
from  the  Synod  of  the  Oak.  Chrysostom  inquired  of  what  rank 
they  were,  and  on  hearing  they  were  bishops,  begged  them  to 
be  seated,  and  to  declare  the  purpose  of  their  coming.  "  We  are," 
said  they,  "  the  bearers  of  a  document  which  we  request  thou  wilt 
command  to  be  read."  It  was  a  citation,  and  as  though  Chry- 
sostom had  already  been  degraded,  he  was  addressed  only  by  his 
name.  "  The  Holy  Synod  assembled  at  the  Oak  to  John.  We 
have  received,"  so  ran  the  paper,  "  an  infinite  number  of  charges 
against  thee :  present  thyself  therefore  before  us,  bringing  with 
thee  the  priests  Serapion  and  Tigrius,  for  their  presence  is  neces- 
sary." Chrysostom's  friends  were  indignant  at  the  insolence  of  the 
message,  and  drew  up  a  reply  addressed  to  Theophilus,  of  which 
three  bishops  and  two  priests  were  the  bearers.  It  was  in  these 
words :  "  Subvert  not  nor  rend  the  Church  for  which  God  became 
incarnate  ;  but  if,  in  contempt  of  the  canons  framed  by  318  bishops 
at  Nicsea,  thou  wilt  judge  a  cause  outside  thy  jurisdiction,  cross 
over  into  our  city,  which  is  at  least  governed  by  law,  and  do  not, 
after  the  example  of  Cain,  call  Abel  out  into  the  open  field.  For 
we  on  our  side  possess  charges  of  palpable  crimes  against  thee, 
drawn  up  under  seventy  heads ;  and  we  by  the  grace  of  God  are 
assembled  after  a  peaceful  manner,  not  for  the  disruption  of  the 
Church,  and  are  besides  more  numerous  than  you,  for  with  thee 
there  are  but  thirty-six,  but  we  are  forty,  seven  of  whom  are 
metropolitans." 

Chrysostom  approved  of  this  answer,  but  sent  also  a  separate 
letter  on  his  own  behalf,  addressed  not  to  Theophilus,  but  to  the 
synod.  "  If  you  wish  me  to  appear  before  you,  eject  from  your 
assembly  my  declared  enemies,  Theophilus  whom  I  could  convi 


CHRYSOSTOM   CONDEMNED.  89 

of  having  said,  '  I  am  setting  out  for  the  capital  to  depose  John,' 
Acacius,  Severian,  and  Antiochus.  If  these  are  removed,  I  am 
ready  to  appear,  not  before  you  only,  but  before  a  council  of  all 
Christendom.  But  know  that,  unless  this  is  complied  with,  I  will 
still  refuse  to  present  myself,  though  you  should  summon  me  ten 
thousand  times  over." 

The  charges  against  Chrysostom  were  presented  under  twenty- 
nine  heads  ;  some  of  them  were  contemptibly  frivolous,  and  some 
utterly  false.  "  He  had  struck  people  on  the  face  ;  had  calum- 
niated and  even  imprisoned  his  clergy ;  had  illegally  deposed 
bishops  in  Asia,  and  ordained  others  without  sufficient  inquiry  ; 
had  alienated  the  property  and  sold  the  ornaments  of  the  church ; 
had  held  private  interviews  with  women ;  had  dined  gluttonously 
by  himself  as  a  cyclops ;  had  robed  and  unrobed  himself  on  his 
episcopal  throne ;  had  eaten  a  lozenge  after  holy  Communion ;  and 
had  administered  both  sacraments  after  he  himself  or  the  recipients 
had  broken  their  fast."  The  culminating  offence  was  that  of 
uttering  treasonable  words  against  the  Empress  (in  comparing 
her  to  Jezebel),  which  was  construed  into  exciting  the  people  to 
rebellion.  To  the  citation  four  times  repeated,  to  appear  before 
this  packed  tribunal,  Chrysostom's  reply  was  always  the  same, 
refusal  to  attend,  and  an  appeal  to  a  general  council.  Thus  baffled, 
*'  the  cabal  expended  their  fury  on  his  messengers  ;  they  beat  one 
bishop,  tore  the  clothes  of  another,  and  placed  on  the  neck  of  a 
third  the  chains  they  had  designed  for  Chrysostom  himself;  their 
intention  having  been  to  put  him  secretly  on  board  ship  and  send 
him  off  to  some  remote  part  of  the  empire."  Sentence  was  pro- 
nounced against  him:  he  was  "condemned  as  contumacious,  and 
deposed  from  his  bishopric.  The  charge  of  treason  his  judges  left 
to  be  dealt  with  by  the  civil  power,  secretly  hoping  that  a  capital 
sentence  would  be  the  issue.  To  their  mortification,  however,  the 
Imperial  rescript,  which  confirmed  the  sentence  of  deposition,  con- 
demned the  bishop  only  to  banishment  for  life." 

But  if  the  disappointment  of  his  enemies  at  the  lenity  of  the 
sentence  was  great,  "  the  wrath  of  the  populace  at  the  condemna- 
tion of  their  favourite  preacher  knew  no  bounds.  As  evening  wore 
on,  the  news  flew  from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  a  crowd  collected  at 
the  doors  of  his  residence  and  of  the  great  church,  to  keep  watch 
lest  he  should  be  forcibly  carried  off.  This  voluntary  guard  pro- 
tected him  for  three  days  and  nights,  during  which  he  continually 
passed  from  one  building  to  the  other.  His  power  over  the  popular 
mind  was  never  greater."  He  had  the  wisdom  not  to  abuse 
it.     "  The  sermons  he  addressed  to  the  vast  crowds  which  filled 


90  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

the  cathedral1  inculcated  patience  and  resignation  to  the  Divine 
will."  He  himself  determined  to  bow  to  the  storm.  On  the  third 
day  he  took  advantage  of  the  hour  of  the  noontide  meal  to  slip  out 
unperceived  by  a  side  door,  and  quietly  surrendered  himself  to  the 
Imperial  officers,  by  whom  he  was  conducted  after  dark  to  the 
harbour,  and  put  on  board  a  vessel  which  conveyed  him  to  the 
Bithynian  coast. 

11  The  victory  of  his  enemies  seemed  complete.  Theophilua 
entered  the  city  in  triumphal  state,  and  wreaked  his  vengeance  on 
the  bishop's  partisans.  The  people,  who  had  crowded  to  the 
churches  to  pour  forth  their  lamentations,  were  forcibly  dislodged, 
not  without  bloodshed.  Furious  at  the  loss  of  their  revered 
teacher,  they  thronged  the  approaches  to  the  Imperial  palace, 
clamouring  for  his  restoration,  and  demanding  that  his  case  should 
be  heard  before  a  general  council.  Constantinople  was  almost  in 
revolt." 

The  following  night  the  city  was  convulsed  by  an  earthquake. 
The  shock  was  felt  with  peculiar  violence  in  the  Empress's  bed- 
chamber. Eudoxia,  as  superstitious  as  she  was  vindictive,  fell  at 
Arcadius'  feet,  and  entreated  him  to  avert  the  wrath  of  Heaven  by 
revoking  the  sentence  against  Chrysostom.  The  flexile  Emperor 
complied.  Messengers  were  despatched  in  pursuit  of  the  banished 
prelate,  bearing  letters  from  Eudoxia,  couched  in  terms  of  abject 
humiliation.  "  Let  not  thy  holiness  imagine  that  I  was  cognizant 
of  what  has  been  done.  Wicked  men  have  contrived  this  plot.  I 
remember  the  baptism  of  my  children  by  thy  hands.  God  whom 
I  serve  is  witness  of  my  tears." 

"  The  news  of  Chrysostom's  recall  caused  a  universal  jubilee. 
Late  in  the  day  as  it  was,  his  friends  took  shipping,  and  a  fleet  of 
barks  put  forth  to  meet  him.  The  Bosphorus  blazed  with  torches 
and  resounded  with  psalms  of  welcome.  Chrysostom  at  first 
halted  outside  the  city,  claiming  to  be  acquitted  by  a  general 
council  before  resuming  his  see.  The  people  suspected  treachery, 
and  loudly  denounced  the  Emperor  and  Empress.  Apprehensive 
of  a  serious  outbreak,  Arcadius  sent  a  secretary  to  desire  Chry- 
sostom to  enter  the  walls  without  delay.  As  a  loyal  subject  he 
obeyed.  On  passing  the  gates  he  was  borne  aloft  by  a  crowd, 
carried  into  the  church,  placed  on  his  episcopal  seat,  and  forced  to 
deliver  an  extemporaneous  oration.  His  triumph  was  now  as  com- 
plete as  that  of  his  enemies  had  been  a  few  days  before."  The 
leaders  of  the  cabal  could  scarcely  show  themselves  in  public  ;  and 

*  The  Church  of  St.  Sophia. 


A    DELUSIVE    CALM.  91 

after  a  short  delay,  Theopbilus,  on  the  plea  that  his  diocese  could 
no  longer  dispense  with  his  presence,  left  the  city  by  night,  and 
sailed  for  Alexandria.  His  flight  was  speedily  followed  by  the 
assembling  of  about  sixty  bishops  friendly  to  Chrysostom,  who 
annulled  the  proceedings  of  the  Oak,  and  declared  him  to  be  still 
the  legitimate  bishop  of  Constantinople. 

For  a  while  the  Empress  yielded  to  the  tide,  and  professed  to  be 
completely  reconciled  to  Chrysostom.  Strange  to  say,  he  responded 
to  her  overtures,  and  they  vied  with  each  other  in  compliments  and 
eulogistic  phrases.  It  is  not  easy  to  account  for  such  weakness  on 
the  part  of  a  man  of  Chrysostom's  high  character.  The  servile 
adulation  paid  to  Oriental  monarchs  might  perhaps  be  advanced  as 
an  excuse,  if  Chrysostom  had  not  shown  how  easily  he  could  break 
through  such  trammels.  A  more  probable  cause  is  to  be  found  in 
the  fatal  maxim  he  had  adopted,  that  the  end  sanctifies  the  means. 
He  doubtless  persuaded  himself  that  to  propitiate  the  Empress  was 
essential  to  the  interests  of  the  Church,  even  at  the  expense  of 
truth.  But  this  delusive  calm  was  presently  succeeded  by  another 
storm. 

Lofty  as  was  her  position,  Eudoxia  aspired  to  still  higher 
honours.  Not  content  with  the  virtual  rule  of  the  East,  she 
panted  for  that  half-divine  homage  which  by  ancient  custom  was 
still  paid  to  the  Emperor  himself.1  She  caused  her  statue  to  be 
cast  in  silver,  and  set  up  on  a  lofty  column  of  porphyry  in  the 
centre  of  the  market-place,  in  front  of  the  church  of  St.  Sophia. 
Its  dedication  was  accompanied  by  the  boisterous  revelry  of  the  old 
pagan  rites,  which  the  Christian  Emperors,  in  their  short-sighted 
and  faithless  policy,  had  retained  as  a  means  of  preserving  the 
loyalty  of  the  people.  The  sound  of  the  music  and  dancing  was 
heard  in  the  church,  and  disturbed  the  service.  "Chrysostom's 
holy  indignation  took  fire  ;    he  rushed  to  the  reading-desk,  and 

1  "  When  on  rare  occasions,  Arcadius  condescended  to  show  himself  in 
public,  he  was  preceded  by  a  vast  multitude  of  attendants  glittering  in  gold. 
The  streets  were  cleared  before  the  Emperor's  approach,  who  stood  or  reclined 
in  a  gorgeous  chariot  adorned  with  precious  stones,  and  drawn  by  white  mules 
in  gilded  trappings.  The  cushions  were  snow-white ;  the  carpets  of  silk, 
embroidered  with  dragons  in  the  richest  colours.  Gilt  fans,  waved  by  the 
motion  of  the  chariot,  cooled  the  air.  The  Emperor  himself  was  laden  with 
jewels,  ears,  arms,  and  brow;  whilst  his  robes  of  imperial  purple,  to  which 
colour  none  else  might  aspire,  were  embroidered  in  all  their  seams  with  precious 
stones.  He  was  attended  by  a  bodyguard  carrying  shields  with  golden  bosses 
set  round  with  golden  eyes.  Ships  were  employed  for  the  express  purpose  of 
bringing  gold  dust  to  strew  the  pavement,  that  the  Emperor's  foot  might  touch 
nothing  but  gold." 


"92  WITNESSES   FOB    CHRIST. 

thundered  forth  a  homily,  embracing  in  its  fierce  invective  all  who 
had  any  share  in  these  profanities ;  the  prefect  who  ordered  them, 
the  people  who  joined  in  them,  and,  above  all,  the  arrogant 
woman  whose  ambition  was  the  cause  of  them.  '  Herodias,'  he  is 
reported  to  have  exclaimed,  '  is  once  more  maddening  ;  Herodias  is 
■  once  more  dancing ;  once  more  Herodias  demands  the  head  of  John 
on  a  charger.'1  These  scathing  words  were  reported  to  Eudoxia. 
Can  we  wonder  that  all  her  former  fury  revived,  and  that  she 
demanded  of  the  Emperor  signal  redress  for  such  treasonable 
insolence  ?  Compromise  was  no  longer  possible  ;  the  bishop  or  the 
Empress  must  yield." 

The  hostile  bishops  who  had  returned  to  their  dioceses  now 
flocked  again  to  the  metropolis,  ready,  with  the  fashionable  ladies 
and  the  worldly  clergy  of  the  city,  to  contrive  new  plots  for  Chry- 
sostom's  ruin.  He  had  demanded  a  general  council ;  let  such  a 
council  be  called,  and  let  his  treasonable  language  against  the 
Empress  be  laid  before  it,  and  the  result  could  not  be  doubtful. 
But  to  make  matters  still  more  secure,  Theophilus  put  forward  a 
canon  of  the  Council  of  Antioch,  a.d.  341,  pronouncing  the  ipso 
facto  deprivation  of  any  bishop  who  after  deposition  should  appeal 
to  the  secular  power  for  restoration.  The  general  council  met 
towards  the  end  of  the  year  (403),  and  seems,  without  passing  any 
formal  sentence,  to  have  considered  this  canon  as  decisive. 

The  Emperor  accepted  this  conclusion,  and  accordingly,  on 
Christmas  day,  refused  to  attend  divine  Service  in  the  cathedral. 
But  this  token  of  imperial  displeasure  was  lost  on  Chrysostom. 
Supported  by  forty-two  bishops,  he  continued  to  administer  his 
episcopate,  and  to  preach  to  the  people  as  before.  Matters  went  on 
in  this  way  until  near  Easter,  when  it  was  resolved  that  Chrysostom 
must  be  removed  at  all  hazards.  Arcadius  sent  him  an  order  for- 
bidding him  to  enter  the  church  during  Easter.  Chrysostom's 
dignified  reply  was,  "  I  received  this  church  from  God  my  Saviour, 
and  am  charged  with  the  salvation  of  this  flock,  which  I  am  not 
at  liberty  to  abandon.  Expel  me  if  thou  wilt,  since  the  city 
belongs  to  thee,  that  I  may  have  thy  authority  as  an  excuse  for 
deserting  my  post." 

Fearing  to  use  force,  lest  he  should  again  provoke  the  vengeance 
•of  Heaven,  Arcadius,  on  the  advice  of  Acacius  and  Antiochus, 

1  These  words  are  now  extant  only  as  the  exordium  of  a  homily,  ascribed  to 
Chrysostom,  but  pronounced  by  some  of  the  best  critics  to  be  spurious.  That 
they  nearly  represent  what  was  uttered  is  probable,  both  from  Chrysostom's 
language  on  the  former  occasion,  and  because  they  could  not  have  been  laid 
hold  of  for  his  ruin  unless  they  had  been  in  the  highest  degree  offensive. 


ATTACK    ON    THE    CATHEDRAL.  93"- 

commanded  the  bishop  to  remain  a  prisoner  in  the  episcopal  palace, 
not  leaving  it  even  for  the  church  without  permission.  The  Em- 
peror could  scarcely  have  looked  for  obedience  to  this  command, 
least  of  all  on  Easter  Eve  (the  great  season  of  baptism),  when 
three  thousand  catechumens  were  expected  to  present  themselves. 
The  bishop  again  answered  that  he  would  not  desist  from  officiating,, 
unless  compelled  by  actual  force.  **  When  the  time  arrived,  he 
calmly  left  his  residence  and  proceeded  to  the  cathedral.  The 
Imperial  guards,  forbidden  to  use  violence,  dared  not  interfere. 
The  perplexed  Emperor  summoned  Acacius  and  Antiochus  to  his 
presence,  and  reproached  them  with  the  failure  of  their  counsel. 
They  replied  that  Chrysostom  being  no  longer  a  bishop  was  acting 
illegally  in  administering  the  sacraments,  and  that  they  would  take 
on  themselves  the  responsibility  of  his  ejection." 

On  this,  the  Emperor  at  once  ordered  the  guards  to  act.  The- 
church  was  thronged  with  worshippers  keeping  the  vigil  of  the 
Resurrection,  and  baptism  was  being  administered  to  the  long  files  of 
catechumens,  male  and  female,  whom  the  deacons  and  deaconesses- 
had  prepared  for  the  rite  by  the  removal  of  their  outer  garments. 
Suddenly  the  din  of  arms  broke  the  solemn  stillness.  A  body  of 
soldiers,  sword  in  hand,  burst  in,  and  rushed,  some  to  the  bap- 
tisteries, some  up  the  nave  to  the  altar.  The  catechumens  were- 
driven  from  the  fonts  at  the  point  of  the  sword ;  women  as  well  as 
men,  half-dressed  and  shrieking,  rushed  into  the  streets.  Many- 
were  wounded,  and  the  baptismal  water  was  red  with  blood.  Others 
of  the  troop,  some  of  whom  were  pagans,  forced  open  the  inner 
doors,  and  not  only  gazed  on  the  sacred  vessels,  but  handled  the 
Eucharistic  elements,  and  spilt  the  wine  on  their  garments.  The 
clergy  in  their  liturgical  robes  were  forcibly  ejected  from  the 
church,  and  with  the  mingled  crowd  of  men,  women  and  children, 
chased  along  the  dark  streets.  Taking  refuge  in  the  baths  of  Con- 
stantine,  and  hastily  "blessing"  the  profane  building,  to  serve  as 
a  baptistery,  they  began  to  collect  the  terrified  catechumens  and 
proceed  with  the  ceremonial.  But  they  were  again  interrupted  by 
the  soldiery,  who  drove  them  out  as  before ;  and  the  same  scene 
was  enacted  wherever  the  scattered  congregations  endeavoured  to 
re-unite.  "  The  horrors  of  that  night  remained  indelibly  imprinted 
on  the  minds  of  those  who  witnessed  them,  and  were  spoken  of 
long  afterwards  with  shuddering."  For  the  greater  part  of  the 
week  Constantinople  wore  the  aspect  of  a  city  which  had  been 
taken  by  storm.  The  partisans  of  Chrysostom,  now  called  "  Joan- 
nites,"  were  hunted  out,  thrown  into  prison  and  scourged,  the- 
sound  of  the  scourge  and  the  oaths  of  the  soldiers  being  heard  even 
in  the  churches. 


94  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST.   .  i. 

For  two  months,  however,  the  timid  Arcadius  could  not  summon 
resolution  to  sign  the  decree  for  Chrysostom's  banishment.  At 
length  it  was  signed.  The  bishop  received  it  with  submission,  and 
entering  the  cathedral,  said  to  those  who  accompanied  him,  "Come 
and  let  us  pray.  At  my  own  fate  I  can  rejoice :  I  only  grieve  for 
the  sorrow  of  my  people."  Then  entering  the  baptistery,  he  sent 
for  Olympias  and  three  other  of  the  deaconesses,  to  whom  he  said, 
"  Come  hither,  my  daughters,  and  hearken  to  me.  I  have  finished 
my  course  ;  perchance  you  will  see  my  face  no  more.  Submit  to 
the  authority  of  my  successor.  Eemember  me  in  your  prayers." 
Overwhelmed  with  grief,  they  threw  themselves  at  his  feet;  he 
made  a  sign  to  one  of  the  priests  to  remove  them,  lest  their  wailing 
should  be  heard  outside.  Being  informed  that  the  troops  were  in 
readiness  to  compel  him  to  withdraw,  and  advised  by  one  of  his 
friends  to  take  his  departure  in  secret,  he  directed  that  his  mule 
should  be  saddled,  and  led,  according  to  custom,  to  the  western 
gate  of  the  cathedral.  Whilst  the  people's  attention  was  diverted 
by  this  feint,  he  passed  out  unobserved  at  a  postern,  and  surrendered 
himself  to  some  of  the  soldiers.  Two  faithful  bishops  accompanied 
him,  and  a  vessel  bore  them  under  cover  of  night  across  to  the 
Asiatic  shore. 

When  the  people  discovered  that  the  bishop  was  gone,  they 
became  violently  agitated.  Some  rushed  to  the  harbour,  others 
made  an  attack  upon  the  cathedral,  and  battered  the  doors,  which 
had  been  locked  by  the  soldiery.  Suddenly  flames  burst  forth  from 
the  building ;  all  attempts  to  extinguish  them  were  in  vain,  and 
this  magnificent  structure,  the  erection  of  Constantine  the  Great, 
was  in  three  hours  reduced  to  a  heap  of  cinders.1  The  flames 
spread  to  the  senate-house,  which  was  also  destroyed.  Suspicion, 
real  or  affected,  fell  on  Chrysostom  and  his  flock  ;  and  a  fresh 
chapter  of  persecution  followed,  worthy  of  pagan  rule.  In  fact,  the 
government  of  the  city  was  at  the  time  in  the  hands  of, a  pagan 
prefect,  who  hunted  down  the  follows  of  the  bishop  with  relentless 
■cruelty.  To  the  pretended  crime  of  incendiarism  was  added  that  of 
refusal  to  recognise  Chrysostom's  successor,  Arsacius,  a  very  old 
man,  described  by  Palladius  as  "  more  dumb  than  a  fish  and  more 
incapable  than  a  frog,"  and  who  appears  to  have  been  appointed 
by  the  sole  fiat  of  the  Emperor.      Clergy  and  laymen,  and  even 


I  !  It  was  again  destroyed  a.d,  532,  and  was  rebuilt  with  yet  greater  skill  and 
splendour,  by  Justinian,  in  544.  In  1453,  at  the  capture  of  the  city  by,  Mdham- 
med  II.,  Justinian's  church  was  converted  into  a  mosque  which  still  beiars  the 
name  of  St.  Sophia. 


DIGNIFIED   CONDUCT   OF    OLYMPIAS.  95 

women,  were  subjected  to  intimidation,  imprisonment,  insult,  and 
torture. 

Those  ladies  who  were  most  distinguished  for  their  friendship  with 
the  deposed  bishop  were  taken  before  the  prefect,  and  admonished  to 
acknowledge  Arsacius.  Some  from  timidity  complied,  but  others 
met  the  arbitrary  command  with  a  dauntless  spirit.  Amongst 
these  was  the  deaconess  Olympias.  Being  asked  why  she  had  set 
fire  to  the  great  church,  "My  manner  of  life,"  she  answered,  "is 
a  sufficient  refutation  of  such  a  charge.  One  who  has  expended 
large  sums  of  money  to  restore  and  embellish  the  churches  of  God 
is  not  likely  to  burn  them."  "I know  thy  past  course  of  life  well," 
cried  the  prefect.  "  If  thou  knowest  aught  against  it,"  was  the 
intrepid  reply,  "descend  from  thy  place  as  judge,  and  come  forward 
as  my  accuser."  Unable  to  fix  any  charge  upon  her,  the  prefect 
changed  his  tone,  and  advised  her  and  the  other  accused  ladies  to 
save  themselves  further  trouble  by  "communicating"  with  Arsacius. 
Her  companions  yielded,  but  Olympias  boldly  replied :  "  It  is  an 
injustice,  that,  after  being  publicly  calumniated,  I  should  be  called 
upon  to  clear  myself  of  charges  utterly  foreign  to  the  issue.  Not 
even  on  compulsion  will  I  hold  communion  with  those  from  whom 
it  is  my  duty  to  secede."  She  was  mulcted  in  a  heavy  fine,  which 
she  paid,  and  then  withdrew  to  the  other  side  of  the  Straits. 

Chrysostom  and  his  friends  sent  four  bishops  of  their  party  to  the 
bishop  of  Eome  and  the  Western  Churches  to  inform  them  of  the 
ordeal  through  which  the  faithful  in  Constantinople  were  passing. 
Innocent  expressed  his  sympathy  with  the  sufferers ;  and  at  the 
request  of  the  Italian  bishops,  the  Emperor  Honorius  wrote  letters 
to  his  brother  Arcadius.  But  the  sympathy  and  the  letters  were 
alike  fruitless.  The  bearers  were  insulted  and  ill-treated,  and  com- 
pelled to  return  to  Italy;  and  the  four  Eastern  bishops  were 
banished  to  distant  quarters  of  the  empire,  and  harried  on  their  way 
with  brutal  insults  and  indignities. 

Arsacius  survived  his  elevation  to  the  patriarchate  less  than  a 
year.  His  successor  Atticus  was  equally  determined  to  stamp  out 
the  Joannites.  The  wealthier  clergy  of  the  party  mostly  made 
their  peace  by  concession,  the  poorer  sought  refuge  in  flight,  either 
£o  Eome  or  the  monasteries ;  some  obtained  a  precarious  livelihood 
by  manual  labour,  farming  or  fishing:  laymen  were  degraded,  fined, 
and  banished.  Qn  the  other  hand,  the  delinquent  bishops  whom 
Chrysostom  had  expelled  were  restored ;  and  ordinations  were  con- 
ducted with  feasting,  drunkenness,  and  bribery.  "  The  spirit  of 
lawlessness  and  selfishness  which  was  let  loose  during  this  period 


96  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

of  misrule,  dealt  a  blow  to  morality  and  discipline  from  which  the 
Church  at  Constantinople  never  recovered." 

Landing  on  the  Asiatic  coast,  Chrysostom  was  conveyed  to  Nicsea. 
Not  until  he  reached  that  city  was  he  informed  of  his  destination, 
the  mountain  village  of  Cucusus  on  the  borders  of  Cilicia  and 
Armenia,  in  a  lonely  valley  of  the  Taurus  range.  The  climate  was 
inclement ;  the  country  was  exposed  to  perpetual  inroads  from  the 
Isaurian  marauders :  it  was  the  hottest  season  of  the  year  (July), 
and  the  journey  was  long  and  toilsome.  His  heart  sank  within 
him.  His  guards  had  received  instructions  to  push  on  with  all 
speed ;  and  although  they  compassionated  the  sufferings  of  their 
prisoner,  they  dared  not  disobey.  The  squalid  villages,  where  the 
convoy  halted,  furnished  no  food  but  black  bread,  which  had  to  be 
steeped  before  Chrysostom  could  masticate  it.  The  water  was  un- 
wholesome, exciting  rather  than  allaying  thirst.  Chrysostom  was 
seized  with  ague,  yet  he  was  not  permitted  to  halt,  but  was  hurried 
forward  to  Caesarea  in  Cappadocia,  some  600  miles  from  the 
capital. 

"  I  entered  Caesarea,"  he  writes  to  Olympias,  "  worn  down  and 
exhausted,  and  in  the  crisis  of  a  tertian  fever.  There  was  at  first 
no  one  to  nurse  me,  no  physician  to  be  had,  no  alleviations  neces- 
sary for  my  state.  Soon,  however,  the  clergy,  the  people,  monks, 
and  medical  men  flowed  in  upon  me,  proffering  their  services :  only 
Pharetrius  (the  bishop)  came  not.1  After  a  time  the  disorder 
abated,  and  I  began  to  think  of  setting  forward,  when  news  was 
brought  that  the  Isaurians  were  laying  waste  the  country,  and  that 
the  tribune  had  marched  out  to  oppose  them.  Whilst  things  were 
in  this  posture,  a  cohort  of  monks,  set  on  by  Pharetrius,  came  to 
the  house  where  I  lodged,  and  threatened  to  set  it  on  fire  if  I  did 
not  immediately  leave  the  city.  So  furious  was  their  behaviour 
that  the  soldiers  who  came  to  protect  me  were  overawed,  for  these 
brutes  boasted  that  they  had  on  former  occasions  shamefully 
handled  the  city  guard.  The  prefect  sent  to  Pharetrius,  imploring 
him  not  to  expose  me  to  the  Isaurian  bands,  but  to  allow  me  a  few 
days'  delay.  But  all  was  of  no  avail ;  the  next  day  the  monks  re- 
newed their  attack ;  and  about  noon,  throwing  myself  into  my 
litter,  I  quitted  the  city,  all  the  people  bewailing  my  departure,  and 
devoting  to  perdition  the  man  who  had  occasioned  it. 

"Hearing  what  had  taken  place,  the  excellent  lady,  Seleucia, 
besought  me  to  take  up  my  abode  at  her  villa,  some  five  miles 

He  was  secretly  in  league  with  the  enemies  of  Chrysostom,  and  had  many 
of  the  monks  on  his  side ;  but  his  clergy  were  Joannites  almost  to  a  man. 


CHBYSOSTOM    AT    CUCUSUS.  97 

distant,  where  there  was  a  strong  tower,  proof  against  any  attack 
which  could  be  made  upon  it.  At  the  same  time  she  ordered  her 
steward,  if  the  monks  should  pursue  me,  to  summon  the  peasants 
from  her  other  villas,  to  contend  with  them  hand  to  hand.  But  in 
the  middle  of  the  night  Pharetrius  came  to  the  villa,  and  with 
vehement  threats  insisted  upon  my  being  ejected.  The  lady  was- 
unable  to  withstand  his  importunity,  and  the  presbyter  Evetheus,. 
coming  into  my  chamber,  and  supposing  the  alarm  to  be  caused  by 
the  Isaurians,  waked  me,  crying  out,  '  Eise,  I  pray  thee,  the  bar- 
barians are  upon  us  ! '  The  night  was  moonless  and  gloomy  ;  we 
had  no  guide,  nor  any  to  help  us.  Expecting  death  at  any 
moment,  and  almost  sinking  under  my  trials,  I  rose  and  ordered 
torches  to  be  lighted  ;  these,  however,  the  presbyter  extinguished, 
lest  the  barbarians,  attracted  by  the  light,  should  rush  upon  us. 
The  way  being  stony,  the  mule  which  carried  my  litter  fell,  and  I 
was  thrown  to  the  ground.  Eaising  myself,  I  crawled  along, 
Evetheus,  who  had  leaped  from  his  horse,  holding  my  hands. 
From  the  roughness  of  the  way  and  the  darkness  of  the  night  L 
was  unable  to  use  my  feet." 

It  was  the  end  of  August  before  Chrysostom  reached  Cucusus- 
His  reception  almost  made  him  forget  the  sufferings  of  the  journey* 
Every  comfort  was  provided  for  him ;  friends  from  Constantinople 
and  Antioch  came  to  visit  him,  some  even  to  share  his  exile.  Far 
removed  as  he  now  was,  he  did  not  settle  down  in  inaction.  "  The 
three  years  spent  at  Cucusus  were  the  most  glorious  of  his  life." 
Hitherto,  in  the  perilous  position  of  a  popular  preacher,  his  in- 
firmities of  temper  and  character  had  marred  his  work.  Now 
exiled,  shorn  of  outward  honour,  and  chastened  by  suffering,  he 
yet  laboured  unremittingly  as  ever  for  the  weal  of  his  fellow-men. 
His  letters  are  very  numerous,  and  bear  witness  to  his  care,  not 
alone  for  his  flock  in  the  Imperial  city,  but  for  the  interests  of  the 
Churches  far  and  near.  "Never  did  he  exert  a  wider  and  more 
powerful  influence.  His  advice  was  sought  from  all  quarters ;  no 
important  ecclesiastical  measure  was  undertaken  without  con- 
sulting him.  The  East  was  almost  governed  from  a  mountain 
village  of  Armenia." 

His  chief  hardships  were  occasioned  by  the  forays  of  the  brigands, 
and  the  extremes  of  the  climate.  With  difficulty  could  he  endure 
the  severity  of  the  winter.  "  I  am  just  recalled,"  he  says,  in 
another  letter  to  Olympias,  "from  the  gates  of  death,  having 
passed  two  months  in  a  state  of  suffering  more  grievous  even  than 
the  agonies  of  death  itself.  All  that  I  seemed  to  live  for  was  to  be 
sensible  of  the  ills  with  which  I  was  encompassed.     Whether  it 


98  -  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

was  morning  or  noon,  it  mattered  not ;  all  was  all  night  to  me.  I 
passed  whole  days  without  rising  from  my  bed;  and  although  I 
kept  a  good  fire,  enduring  the  smoke,  and  was  covered  with  a  pile 
of  blankets,  and  never  ventured  to  the  door,  I  suffered  extreme 
torture  ;  each  sleepless  night  was  like  a  long  sea  voyage.  As  soon, 
however,  as  spring  appeared  all  my  ailments  left  me." 

In  the  winter  of  405,  an  alarm  was  raised  that  the  marauders 
were  coming.  Nearly  the  whole  of  the  inhabitants  fled.  Chry- 
sostom  and  a  few  faithful  companions  wandered  hither  and  thither, 
sometimes  even  passing  the  night  without  shelter,  until  they 
reached  a  mountain-fort,  sixty  miles  from  Gucusus.  Here,  cut  off 
from  his  friends  by  the  snow  and  by  the  brigands,  who  one  night 
had  nearly  captured  the  castle,  unable  to  procure  his  usual  medi- 
cines, and  the  place  crowded  like  a  prison,  he  struggled  through  the 
winter.  With  the  return  of  spring  the  Isaurians  retired,  and 
Chrysostom  went  back  to  Cucusus.  After  the  hill-fort  **  this 
desolate  little  town  seemed  to  him  a  paradise.  His  wonderful 
preservation  from  danger,  and  the  manner  in  which  his  feeble 
health,  instead  of  sinking  under  the  accumulated  trials  of  his 
banishment,  became  invigorated,  awoke  sanguine  anticipations, 
and  in  his  letters  written  at  this  time  he  confidently  foretold  his 
return  to  Constantinople."     But  this  was  not  to  be. 

"The  unhappy  Eudoxia  had  preceded  the  victim  of  her  hatred 
to  the  grave  to  which  she  had  destined  him,  but  she  left  other  not 
less  relentless  enemies  behind.  Stung  with  disappointment  that 
the  climate  of  Cucusus  had  failed  to  do  the  work  they  intended, 
they  obtained  a  rescript  from  Arcadius,  transferring  the  exile  to 
Pityus,  a  frontier  fortress  on  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Euxine, 
where  the  roots  of  the  Caucasus  come  down  to  the  sea.  This 
was  the  most  inhospitable  spot  they  could  choose,  and  there- 
fore the  most  certain  to  rid  them  of  their  victim,  even  if  the 
long  and  toilsome  journey  should  fail  to  quench  the  feeble  spark 
of  life." 

"  Two  praetorian  guards  of  ferocious  temper  were  selected  to 
attend  him,  with  instructions  to  push  forward  with  merciless  haste, 
the  hint  being  privately  given  that  they  might  expect  promotion  if 
he  died  on  the  road.  One  of  the  two  furtively  showed  some  little 
kindness  to  the  sufferer,  but  the  other  followed  literally  his  instruc- 
tions. The  journey  was  to  be  made  on  foot ;  towns  where  Chry- 
sostom might  enjoy  any  approach  to  comfort,  or  have  the  refresh- 
ment of  a  warm  bath,  were  to  be  avoided ;  all  letters  were  forbidden, 
and  the  least  communication  with  passers-by  was  punished  with 
blows."     So  slow  was  the  progress  that  in  three  months  they  had 


DEATH    OF    CHBYSOSTOM.  99 

travelled  no  further  than  Comana,  in  Pontus.1  Here  it  was  evident 
that  the  bishop's  strength  was  exhausted:  "his  body  was  almost 
calcined  by  the  sun.  Nevertheless  his  guards  hurried  him  through 
the  town  '  as  if  its  streets  were  no  more  than  a  bridge.' " 

u  Five  or  six  miles  beyond  Comana  stood  a  chapel  erected  over 
the  tomb  of  a  martyred  bishop.  Here  they  halted  for  the  night. 
It  is  said  that  in  his  sleep  Chrysostom  saw  the  martyr  standing  by 
his  side,  and  bidding  him  be  of  good  cheer,  for  on  the  morrow  they 
should  be  together ;  and  that  the  priest  in  charge  of  the  chapel 
saw  in  a  vision  the  same  martyr,  bidding  him  '  prepare  a  place  for 
our  brother  John.'  In  the  morning  Chrysostom  earnestly  begged 
for  a  brief  respite,  but  in  vain ;  he  was  hurried  off,  but  had  scarcely 
gone  three  miles  when  a  paroxysm  of  fever  compelled  his  guards  to 
■carry  him  back  to  the  chapel.  On  reaching  the  place  he  was  sup- 
ported to  the  altar,  and  having  asked  for  the  white  robes  of  baptism 
he  put  them  on,  distributing  his  own  clothes  to  the  bystanders. 
He  then  partook  of  the  bread  and  wine,  prayed  a  last  prayer, 
uttered  his  accustomed  doxology,  '  Glory  be  to  God  for  all  things,' 
and  yielded  up  his  spirit."  He  died  a.d.  407,  in  the  sixtieth  year 
of  his  age,  and  was  buried  by  the  side  of  the  martyr  in  the  presence 
of  a  large  concourse  of  monks  and  nuns. 

Thirty-one  years  afterwards,  when  Theodosius  II.  was  Emperor, 
Chrysostom's  body  was  exhumed  and  translated  with  great  pomp  to 
Constantinople.  "  As  once  in  his  lifetime  to  greet  him  on  his 
return  from  exile,  so  now,  but  in  still  greater  numbers,  the  city 
poured  itself  forth  to  receive  all  that  remained  of  their  beloved 
bishop.  The  corpse  was  deposited  near  the  altar  in  the  church  of 
the  Apostles,  along  with  the  dust  of  Emperors  and  bishops,  the 
youthful  sovereign  and  his  sister  Pulcheria  assisting  at  the  cere- 
mony, and  asking  pardon  of  Heaven  for  the  wrong  inflicted  by  their 
parents  on  the  sainted  bishop." 


1  This  does  not  appear  to  lie  in  the  direct  route  from  Cucusus  to  Pityus, 
which  would  surely  be  up  the  Euphrates  valley.  No  doubt  the  detour  was  pur- 
posely made.  Armenian  tradition  places  the  site  of  Comana  at  some  ruins  on 
the  banks  of  the  Iris,  situated  two  hours'  journey  east  of  the  large  manu- 
facturing town  of  Tokat.  Here  Henry  Martyn,  in  1812,  a  few  months  after 
completing  the  translation  of  the  New  Testament  into  Persian,  closed  his  brief 
devoted  life,  and  lies  buried  in  the  Armenian  cemetery.  There  is  a  similarity 
in  the  closing  scene  with  that  of  the  brother  who  had  preceded  him  by  so  many 
centuries.  Like  Chrysostom,  he  was  on  a  long  journey  across  Asia  Minor  ;  he 
was  worn  by  fever,  and  harassed  by  hardships,  far  from  friends  and  loved  ones, 
and  with  none  near  him  but  "merciless"  and  alien  attendants.  "0,  wherx 
shall  time  give  place  to  eternity,"  is  the  last  entry  in  Martyn' s  journal. 


100  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

Chrysostom,  as  has  been  already  remarked,  was  "  small  of  sta- 
ture :  his  limbs  were  long,  and  so  emaciated  that  he  compared  him- 
self to  a  spider.  His  forehead  was  lofty,  expanding  at  the  summit, 
and  furrowed  with  wrinkles ;  his  head  bald ;  his  eyes  deep-set,  but 
keen  and  piercing  ;  his  cheeks  pallid  and  withered  ;  his  chin  pointed 
and  covered  with  a  short  beard." 

Chrysostom's  genius  was  comprehensive  and  his  industry  un- 
wearied. In  eloquence  he  was  without  a  rival.  "  His  virtues  were 
those  of  the  monk  rather  than  of  the  Christian  citizen."  Himself 
of  dauntless  courage  and  inflexible  purpose,  he  was  unable  to  make 
allowance  for  the  more  pliable  temperament  of  others  ;  and  he  was 
wanting  in  discernment  of  character,  and  tact  in  the  management 
of  men.  His  naturally  irritable  temper  was  aggravated  by  feeble- 
ness of  digestion,  "  the  excessive  austerities  of  his  youth  having 
rendered  him  incapable  of  taking  food,  except  in  very  small 
quantities  and  of  the  plainest  kind."  In  spite,  however,  of  his 
infirmities,  he  was,  as  we  have  seen,  greatly  beloved  by  those  who 
were  most  intimate  with  him. 

His  writings  are  very  voluminous  and  highly  esteemed,  especially 
his  commentaries  on  Scripture.1  He  was,  however,  no  reformer- 
The  state  of  the  Church  cried  aloud  for  teachers  of  clear  vision 
and  honest  heart,  to  bring  back  the  golden  days  ere  men  began  to 
teach  for  doctrines  their  own  inventions  and  commandments. 
Chrysostom  gave  no  answer  to  this  call.  Spiritually-minded  as  he 
was,  we  yet  find  him  giving  his  countenance  to  the  worst  super- 
stitions of  the  times,  and  even  urging  them  forward  with  all  the 
force  of  his  eloquence.  We  have  seen  how  profound  was  his 
reverence  for  the  ascetic  life.  In  a  future  chapter  we  shall-  notice 
his  extravagant  views  on  celibacy,  fasting,  and  almsgiving,  as  well 
as  the  support  he  gave  to  the  worship  of  saints  and  their  relics. 
Let  us  here  consider  what  he  has  to  say  on  the  priesthood  and  the 
Eucharist.  Surely  no  man  ever  carried  sacerdotal  pretensions 
to  a  greater  height,  or  ever  set  them  forth  in  more  rhapsodical 
language. 

"  Although  the  priesthood  is  discharged  upon  earth,"  so  he  writes 
in  his  celebrated  treatise,  "it  is  ranked  among  heavenly  ordi- 
nances ;  for  it  was  established  by  the  Comforter  Himself,  who  has 
entrusted  men  yet  dwelling  in  the  flesh  with  a  ministry  like  that  of 
angels.  For  if  the  institutions  of  the  law  were  awful  and  most 
impressive,  yet  that  which  was  made  glorious  had  no  glory  at  all 

1  The  Benedictine  edition  of  his  works  is  contained  in  thirteen  large  folios, 
one-half  being  a  translation  into  Latin.  In  the  Greek  Church  he  ranks  above 
all  other  Church  writers. 


CHRYSOSTOJI    ON    THE    EUCHARIST.  101 

by  reason  of  the  glory  that  excelleth.  .  .  .  Although  their  abode  and 
home  is  on  earth,  the  priests  are  entrusted  with  the  management  of 
things  in  heaven,  and  receive  an  authority  such  as  God  never 
granted  either  to  angels  or  archangels :  to  whom  it  was  never  said, 
1  Whatsoever  ye  shall  bind  on  earth  shall  be  bound  in  heaven,  and 
whatsoever  ye  shall  loose  on  earth  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven.'  For 
though  even  temporal  rulers  have  authority  to  bind,  their  power 
reaches  only  to  the  body ;  whereas  this  bond  penetrates  the  very 
soul,  and  passes  up  into  the  heavens,  where  God  ratifies  the  act  of 
his  priests.  .  .  .  Out  upon  the  madness  which  would  despise  an 
office  so  important,  without  which  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  obtain 
either  salvation  or  the  blessings  which  are  promised  !  For  if, 
except  a  man  be  born  again  of  water  and  of  the  Spirit  he  cannot 
-enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  if  he  who  does  not  eat  the 
flesh  of  the  Lord  and  drink  His  blood  is  rejected  from  eternal  life, 
and  if  all  these  blessings  are  dispensed  only  by  the  holy  hands  of 
the  priest,  how  can  any  one  without  their  ministry  either  escape  the 
fire  of  hell  or  obtain  the  crowns  which  are  laid  up  for  us  ?  .  .  .  . 
Wherefore  those  who  despise  the  priestly  office  commit  a  greater 
crime,  and  are  worthy  of  a  sorer  punishment,  than  even  the 
followers  of  Dathan." 

Not  less  repugnant  to  New  Testament  teaching  is  the  picture 
which  presents  itself  to  the  preacher's  fervid  imagination  when  the 
priest  blesses  and  distributes  the  bread  and  wine.  u  When  you  see 
the  Lord  sacrificed  and  laid  upon  the  altar,  and  the  priest  standing 
and  praying  over  the  sacrifice,  and  all  the  people  empurpled  with 
his  most  precious  blood,  do  you  then  fancy  yourself  still  among 
men,  or  are  you  not  instantly  transported  into  the  heavens,  so  as, 
laying  aside  every  fleshly  sentiment,  to  look  around  with  naked  soul 
and  disembodied  spirit  on  celestial  objects  ?  0  the  wondrous 
loving-kindness  of  God !  He  who  sits  above  with  the  Father  is  at 
that  instant  holden  in  the  hands  of  every  one,  giving  Himself  to 
those  who  clasp  and  embrace  Him,  as  all  may  clearly  see  with  the 
eyes  of  faith.  .  .  .  Then,  too,  there  are  angels  standing  near  the 
priest ;  and  all  the  order  of  the  heavenly  powers  raise  their  voice 
in  honour  of  the  victim.  I  once  heard  a  certain  person  relate  what 
an  aged  and  venerable  man  accustomed  to  revelations  told  him, 
namely,  that  when  the  sacrifice  was  offered  he  suddenly  beheld  a 
multitude  of  white-robed  angels  encompassing  the  altar  and  bowing 
down  their  heads,  as  soldiers  do  homage  to  their  prince ;  and  I 
believe  it."1 

1  In  the  Order  of  the  Divine  Sacrifice,  in  the  Liturgy  of  the  Church  of  Con- 
stantinople, the  "  bloodless  sacrifice,"  as  the  Fathers  loved  to  call  it,  iB  made  to 


102  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

The  communicants,  however,  were  not  always  thus  transported. 
Chrysostom  has  often  to  reprove  them  for  occupying  the  very 
moment  of  the  consecration  with  worldly  business  and  merriment. 
Many  also,  he  tells  us,  presented  themselves  only  on  great  festivals,, 
and  then  in  a  most  disorderly  manner.  They  hustled  one  another 
in  their  eagerness  first  to  reach  the  table  ;  and  as  soon  as  they  had 
partaken  of  the  bread  and  wine,  hurried  out  of  the  church  without 
waiting  for  the  conclusion  of  the  service.  Many  who  came  to  par- 
take of  the  "awful  and  terrific  table,"  passed  their  days  on  the 
race-ground,  or  hastened  away  to  the  forbidden  spectacles  of  the 
stage.  "  You  leave  the  well  of  blood,  the  terrific  cup,  to  go  to  the 
Devil's  well,  where  your  own  soul  suffers  shipwreck.  If  souls  were 
visible,  how  many  could  I  show  you  floating  there,  like  the  corpses 
of  the  Egyptians  in  the  Bed  Sea." 

It  was  a  common  belief  in  that  age,  as  now  in  the  Komish 
Church,  that  heaven  is  to  be  purchased  by  good  works  and  self- 
mortification.  Such  a  doctrine  is  almost  inseparable  from  the 
ascetic  life ;  Chrysostom  thus  gives  it  shape.  "  As  those  who  are 
in  a  foreign  country,  when  they  wish  to  return  to  their  own  land, 
take  pains,  a  long  time  beforehand,  to  collect  means  sufficient  for 
their  journey,  so  surely  ought  we,  who  are  but  strangers  on  this 
earth,  to  lay  up  a  store  of  provisions  through  spiritual  virtue,  that 
when  our  Master  shall  command  our  return  into  our  native  country, 
we  may  be  prepared,  and  may  carry  part  of  our  store  with  us, 
having  sent  the  other  in  advance."  In  one  of  his  letters  to  Olym- 
pias  he  invites  her  to  count  over  her  own  perfections  and  to  dwell 
with  complacency  on  the  heavenly  reward  which  is  in  store  for  her. 
The  sufferings  of  life,  no  less  than  good  works,  were  similarly 
assigned  in  the  celestial  ledger  to  the  credit  of  the  believer.  When 
Chrysostom  was  driven  out  of  Csesarea  and  dragged  along  the 
mountain  path,  he  wrote  to  Olympias  :  "Are  not  these  trials  suffi- 
cient to  blot  out  many  sins,  and  to  suggest  to  me  a  hope  of  future 

resemble  the  Offering  on  the  Cross.  The  bread  was  fashioned  cross-wise,  or  in 
four  limbs,  and  impressed  with  the  sign  of  the  cross  on  each  limb.  The  priest 
taking  a  "holy  spear,"  performed  various  touchings  and  piercings  of  the 
cruciform  cake,  elevated  it,  and  replaced  it  in  the  charger.  Then  the  deacon, 
nddressing  the  priest,  says,  "Slay,  Sir";  and  the  priest  immolates  the  "holy 
cake,"  saying,  "  The  Lamb  of  God  is  slain  who  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world."  Then  the  deacon  says,  "  Prick,  Sir" ;  and  the  priest  pierces  the  cake 
on  the  right  side  with  the  "holy  lance":  at  the  same  moment  the  deacon 
pours  wine  and  water  into  the  chalice.  This  Order,  however,  it  should  be 
stated,  although  appended  to  the  works  of  Chrysostom,  is,  at  least  in  its  actual 
form,  of  a  very  much  later  date. 


CHRYSOSTOM    ON    SINCERITY   IN    WORSHIP.  108 

glory?"1  But  when  Olympias,  pursuing  this  mistaken  notion  to 
its  legitimate  issue,  wrote,  "  My  only  thought  is  how  I  may  increase 
my  suffering,"  Chrysostom  seems  to  have  become  conscious  of 
having  ventured  too  near  the  precipice.  He  thus  admonishes  her  i 
"  I  regard  it  as  something  highly  sinful  that  thou  professest,  volun- 
tarily and  designedly,  to  encourage  thoughts  which  bring  sorrow 
with  them.  Thou  certainly  art  in  duty  to  thyself  bound  to  con- 
trive everything  to  obliterate  sadness  from  thy  mind,  but  thou 
dost  what  is  agreeable  to  Satan  by  augmenting  thy  grief  and 
trouble."2 

We  turn  with  pleasure  from  the  legal  and  ritualistic  side  of  Chry- 
sostom's  character  to  the  spiritual  and  Christlike.  He  was  quite 
alive  to  the  vanity  of  mere  outward  observances.  "  We  go  to  the 
church,  not  merely  for  the  sake  of  spending  a  few  moments  there, 
but  that  we  may  come  away  with  some  great  gain  in  spiritual 
things.  If  a  child  goes  daily  to  school  and  learns  nothing,  is  his 
regular  attendance  an  excuse  for  him  ?  Does  it  not  rather  aggra- 
vate his  fault  ?  .  .  .  When  you  have  sung  together  two  or  three 
psalms  and  gone  through  the  ordinary  prayers  and  return  home, 
you  suppose  this  is  sufficient  for  your  salvation.  Have  you  not 
heard  what  God  says  :  '  This  people  honour  me  with  their  lips,  but 
their  heart  is  far  from  me '  ?"  "In  our  prayers  we  pay  less  respect 
to  God  than  a  servant  does  to  his  master,  a  soldier  to  his  general, 
or  even  a  friend  to  his  friend.  For  we  speak  to  our  friends  with 
attention,  but  whilst  we  are  on  our  knees  asking  pardon  for  our 
sins  and  treating  with  God  about  the  business  of  our  salvation,  our 


1  There  is  an  obvious  confusion  of  ideas  in  these  words.  That  "  our  light 
affliction,  which  is  for  the  moment,  worketh  for  us  more  and  more  exceedingly 
an  eternal  weight  of  glory,"  is  one  thing;  that  our  sins  can  be  purged  by 
calamities  or  sufferings,  is  another,  and  a  wholly  unscriptural  doctrine. 

2  Roberts'  reflections  on  Chrysostom's  letters  (all  written  from  Cucusus)  are 
very  pertinent.  "One  shade  of  melancholy  rests  upon  them  all,  but  the 
melancholy  of  a  mind  receiving  every  dispensation  as  the  work  of  mercy,  and 
the  discipline  of  grace.  He  bore  his  banishment,  not  indeed  without  occasional 
complaint,  but  in  general  with  the  cheerful  fortitude  of  a  Christian  soldier.  .  .  . 
Still  in  these  letters  we  do  not  perceive,  in  their  just  and  beautiful  proportions, 
those  supports  under  affliction  which  we  look  for  in  a  sainted  Father  of  the 
Church  of  Christ.  There  are  not  found  in  them  any  distinct  references  to  the 
Cross  of  Jesus,  or  to  the  love  and  sympathy  of  that  Divine  Participator  in 
human  sorrows,  who  has  offered  the  refreshment  of  his  hallowed  rest  to  the 
weary  and  heavy-laden.  If  we  do  not  find  in  Chrysostom  too  high  an  opinion 
of  his  own  deserts,  we  cannot  but  discover  in  his  letters  a  tendency  to  claim 
the  rewards  of  Heaven  on  a  title  simply  based  on  his  sufferings  and  per- 
secutions." 


104  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

mind  is  at  court,  or  at  the  bar,  and  there  is  no  correspondence 
between  our  thoughts  and  our  words." 

Like  Gregory  Nazianzen,  Chrysostom  deprecated  the  intolerance 
of  that  uncharitable  age.  "To  anathematize,"  he  says,  "is  pre- 
sumptuous ;  it  is  as  great  a  usurpation  of  Christ's  authority  as  for 
a  subject  to  put  on  the  Imperial  purple.  The  part  of  a  Christian 
is  '  to  instruct  in  meekness  those  who  oppose  themselves,  if  God 
peradventure  will  give  them  repentance  to  the  acknowledging  of  the 
truth.'  But  if  any  man  refuse  to  accept  thy  counsel,  do  not  hate 
him,  turn  not  from  him,  but  catch  him  in  the  net  of  sincere  charity." 
Nevertheless,  in  this  as  in  other  things,  he  was  not  always  con- 
sistent with  himself.  We  shudder  as  we  read  the  following  to 
Olympias : — "  If  in  addition  to  the  rewards  of  her  chastity,  her 
fasts,  her  vigils,  her  prayers,  her  boundless  hospitality,  Olympias 
wishes  to  enjoy  the  sight  of  her  adversaries,  those  iniquitous  and 
blood-stained  men,  undergoing  punishment  for  their  crimes,  that 
pleasure  also  shall  be  hers.  Lazarus  saw  Dives  tormented  in 
flames.  This  thou  too  wilt  experience.  For  if  he,  who  neglected 
but  one  man,  suffered  such  punishment,  what  penalty  will  be 
exacted  of  men  who  have  overturned  so  many  churches  and  sur- 
passed the  ferocity  of  barbarians  and  robbers?" 

In  words  no  less  apt  now  than  when  they  were  spoken  does  Chry- 
eostom  urge  upon  his  hearers  the  debt  of  Christian  love  which  every 
man,  whether  called  lay  or  clerical,  owes  to  his  fellow.  "  There  are 
many  who  possess  farms  and  fields,  but  all  their  anxiety  is  to  make 
a  bath-house  to  their  mansion,  to  build  entrance  courts  and  ser- 
vants' offices  :  how  the  souls  of  their  servants  are  cultivated  they  care 
not.  .  .  .  Ought  not  every  Christian  landholder  to  build  a  church, 
and  to  make  it  his  aim  before  all  things  else  that  his  people  should 
be  Christian  ?  .  .  .  Nothing  can  be  more  chilling  than  the  sight  of 
a  Christian  who  makes  no  effort  to  save  others.  Neither  poverty, 
nor  humble  station,  nor  bodily  infirmity,  can  exempt  men  and 
women  from  the  obligation  of  this  great  duty.  To  hide  our 
Christian  light  under  pretence  of  weakness  is  as  great  an  insult  to 
God  as  if  we  were  to  say  that  He  could  not  make  His  sun  to  shine. 
Every  house  should  be  a  church,  and  every  father  of  a  family  a 
shepherd  over  his  household,  responsible  for  the  welfare  of  all  its 
members,  even  of  the  slaves,  whom  indeed  the  Gospel  places  in 
their  relation  to  God  on  the  same  level  with  their  owners.  Whilst 
in  earlier  days,"  he  was  accustomed  to  say,  "  the  house  was  by  the 
love  of  heavenly  things  turned  into  a  church,  now  the  church 
itself,  through  the  earthly  mind  of  those  who  attend  it,  is  become 
an  ordinary  house." 


CHEYSOSTOM    ON    THE    SCRIPTURES.  105 

The  commentaries  of  Chrysostom  on  Scripture  are,  as  already 
said,  among  the  choicest  of  his  works.  "  One  of  his  maxims  was, 
that  sound  doctrine  cannot  be  extracted  from  Holy  Scripture  except 
by  a  careful  comparison  of  many  passages  not  isolated  from  their 
context.  .  .  .  He  had  a  clear  conception  of  the  essential  coherence 
between  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament.  '  The  very  words,  Old 
and  New,'  he  used  to  say,  'are  relative  terms:  New,  implies  an 
antecedent ;  Old,  preparatory  to  it.'  .  .  .  The  commandment, 
'  Thou  shalt  not  kill,'  attacks  the  fruit  and  consequence  of  sin  ;  the 
precept,  '  Whosoever  is  angry  with  his  brother  without  a  cause,' 
strikes  at  the  root."  He  held  that  the  entire  Bible  was  written 
under  Divine  inspiration,  and  that  no  passage,  no  word  even,  is  to 
be  disregarded.  "  Men  wrote  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy 
Spirit ;  yet  this  was  not  independent  of  their  own  human  under- 
standing and  personal  character.  The  prophet  retained  his  peculiar 
faculties  and  style ;  only  all  his  powers  were  quickened,  energized 
by  the  Spirit,  to  the  utterance  of  words  which,  unassisted,  he  could 
not  have  uttered." 

Chrysostom  was  accustomed  to  impress  on  all  his  hearers  the 
duty  of  reading  the  Bible  for  themselves.  This  was  a  point  on 
which  the  Church  teachers  of  this  age  were  unanimous,  thus  un- 
consciously rebuking  and  condemning  the  times  which  succeeded, 
when  those  who  were  appointed  to  teach  the  Truth  took  away  the 
Book  from  their  flock,  and  sealed  it  up  as  though  it  were  a  fountain 
of  error.  "  Give  yourselves  to  the  reading  of  Holy  Scripture  ;  not 
merely  hearing  it  at  church,  but  when  you  return  home  take  your 
Bible  in  hand  and  dive  into  the  meaning  of  what  is  written  therein.1 
....  Seating  yourselves,  as  it  were,  beside  these  waters,  even 
although  you  may  have  no  one  at  hand  to  interpret  them,  yet  will 

you  by  the  diligent  perusal  of  them  acquire  great  benefit 

Divine  Providence  ordained  that  the  Scriptures  should  be  written 
by  publicans,  fishermen,  tentmakers,  shepherds,  goatherds,  in  order 
that  the  things  written  should  be  readily  intelligible  to  all,  that  the 
artificer,  the  poor  widow,  the  slave  might  derive  advantage  from 
them ;  ...  as  says  the  prophet,  '  They  shall  be  all  taught  of 
God.'  "  "  If,"  he  says  again,  "  after  repeated  perusal,  the  meaning 
of  the  text  is  still  obscure,  have  recourse  to  some  one  wiser  than 
thyself,  to  a  teacher  ;  God,  seeing  thy  fervour,  will  Himself,  even  if 
man  does  not,  open  the  meaning  to  thee."  .  .  .  Elsewhere  he  does 

1  It  was  Chrysostom's  practice  to  give  out  his  text  beforehand,  in  order  that 
the  congregation  might  prepare  themselves  for  the  sermon  by  Scripture  searching 
and  reflection.  Augustine  likens  the  zealous  Christian  who  stores  up  Scripture 
in  his  memory,  against  a  time  of  need,  to  the  industrious  ant. 


106  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

not  shrink  from  fully  setting  forth  the  truth  on  this  matter  :  "  Holy 
Scripture  does  not  need  the  aid  of  human  wisdom  for  its  true 
understanding,  but  only  the  revelation  of  the  Spirit."  The  com- 
mon excuse  of  the  absorbing  occupation  of  the  present  life  he  thus 
answers  :  "  Let  no  one  give  the  cold  reply,  '  As  for  me,  I  am  fully 
occupied  with  business  in  court,  or  the  interests  of  the  State  or  my 
craft ;  I  have  a  wife  to  care  for,  children  to  maintain,  a  household 
to  manage  ;  I  am  a  man  of  the  world,  and  it  is  not  for  me  to  read 
the  Scriptures.  This  duty  belongs  to  those  who  have  betaken 
themselves  to  the  mountains  for  that  very  purpose.'  How !  Is  it 
not  precisely  because  thou  art  surrounded  with  worldly  cares  that 
thou  hast  more  need  than  they  to  read  thy  Bible  ?  .  .  .  Ignorance 
of  Scripture  is  a  great  precipice  and  a  deep  pit.  It  begets  heresies, 
leads  to  a  corrupt  life,  and  throws  everything  into  confusion." 
"Better  the  light  of  the  sun  should  be  extinguished  than  that 
David's  words  should  be  forgotten." 

Often  did  his  admonitions  remain  unheeded.  Commencing  his; 
lectures  on  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  he  asserts  that  many  of  his 
hearers  were  not  aware  of  the  existence  of  such  a  book.  "We  find 
draughts  and  dice,  but  books  nowhere,  except  among  a  few.  And 
even  these  lock  them  away  in  cases,  all  their  care  being  for  the  fine- 
ness of  the  parchment  and  the  beauty  of  the  letters.  For  they  did 
not  buy  them  to  be  benefited,  but  to  show  their  wealth  and  pride." 
"  Gentlemen,"  he  says  again,  "  are  acquainted  with  the  characters, 
families,  and  native  cities  of  charioteers  and  dancers,  and  can  tell 
the  breeding,  training,  sires  and  dams  of  the  horses  that  run  in  the 
races  ;  but  not  one  probably  knows  the  titles  of  Paul's  Epistles."1 

Chrysostom  is  clear  and  emphatic  on  the  nature  of  Sin.  "  There 
is  only  one  thing,"  he  writes  to  the  faithful  Olympias,  "  which  is 
really  terrible  ;  there  is  only  one  real  trial,  and  that  is  Sin. 
Spoliation  of  goods  is  freedom;  banishment  is  but  a  change  of 
abode  ;  death  is  but  the  discharge  of  nature's  debt,  which  all  must 
pay.  These,  and  all  other  evils,  when  compared  with  Sin,  are  but 
as  dust  and  smoke."  Sin  is  "  a  terrible  pit,  containing  fierce 
monsters,  and  full  of  darkness ;  as  fire,  which  when  once  it  has  got 
a  hold  on  the  thoughts  of  the  heart,  if  it  is  not  quenched,  spreads 
further  and  further  ;  as  a  weight,  heavier  and  more  oppressive  than 
lead."  He  combats  the  error  of  supposing  that  sin  is  more  par- 
donable in  a  man  of  the  world  than  in  a  monk.  Anger,  unclean- 
ness,    swearing  are  equally  sinful  in  all.     "  Nothing,"   he   says, 

1  The  Scriptures  at  this  time  were  not  so  scarce  as  we  sometimes  imagine. 
Copies  were  greatly  multiplied  and  widely  diffused.  "Even  Britain,"  says 
Chrysostom,  "  abounds  with  the  word  of  Life." 


CHEYSOSTOM    ON    CONFESSION,    AND    ON    PEAYEE.  107 

"has  inflicted  more  injury  on  the  moral  tone  of  society  than 
the  supposition  that  strictness  of  life  is  demanded  of  the  monk 
only." 

But  on  Eepentance  our  author  is  not  equally  sound.  In  his 
nine  homilies  on  this  duty  delivered  at  Antioch,  he  enumerates  the 
several  paths  which  lead  to  it.  They  are  (1)  Confession ;  (2) 
Mourning  for  sin ;  (3)  Humility ;  (4)  Almsgiving  (the  queen  of 
virtues,  the  readiest  of  all  ways  of  getting  to  heaven,  and  the  best 
advocate  there) ;  (5)  Hourly  prayer  ;  (6)  Fasting  (which  makes 
angels  of  men).  The  confession  here  spoken  of  was  not  the 
auricular  confession  of  the  Romish  Church,  now  required  as  a. 
necessary  condition  of  Communion,  but  was  usually  public,  and 
when  private,  was  always  voluntary.  On  this  point  Chrysostom's 
testimony  is  of  great  value.  "I  do  not  require  thee  to  discover 
thy  sins  to  men,  but  to  show  thy  wounds  unto  God,  who  will  not 
reproach  but  only  heal  thee.  ...  Is  it  to  a  man  that  thou  con- 
fessest,  to  a  fellow- servant,  who  might  expose  thee  ?  Nay,  it  is  to 
the  Lord,  thy  physician,  thy  friend,  who  says,  '  Confess  thy  sin  to 
Me  alone,  and  I  will  deliver  thee.'" 

The  reader  of  the  Early  Church  History  may  remember  the 
beautiful  passages  from  Tertullian,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and 
Origen  on  the  subject  of  Prayer.1  Chrysostom  is  not  unworthy  to 
be  placed  beside  them.  "  The  effect  of  prayer  on  the  heart  is  like 
that  of  the  rising  sun  on  the  natural  world.  The  wild  beasts  come 
forth  by  night  to  prowl  and  devour,  but  the  sun  arises,  and  they 
get  them  away  and  lay  them  down  in  their  dens ;  so,  when  the 
soul  is  illuminated  by  prayer,  the  irrational  and  brutal  passions  are 
put  to  flight.  Prayer  is  the  treasure  of  the  poor,  the  security  of 
the  rich ;  the  poorest  of  men  is  rich  if  he  can  pray,  and  the  rich 
man  who  cannot  pray  is  miserably  poor.  .  .  .  It  is  impossible  that 
a  man  who  with  becoming  zeal  calls  constantly  on  God,  should  sin ; 
he  is  proof  against  temptation  so  long  as  tbe  effect  of  his  praying 
endures,  and  when  it  begins  to  fail  he  must  pray  again.  And  this 
may  be  done  anywhere,  in  the  market  or  in  the  shop,  since  prayer 
demands  the  outstretched  soul  rather  than  the  extended  hands. 
Avoid  long  prayers  which  give  opportunity  to  Satan  to  distract  the 
attention ;  prayers  should  be  frequent  and  short ;  it  is  in  this 
way  we  can  best  comply  with  Paul's  direction  to  pray  without 
ceasing." 

Notwithstanding  his  legality,  Chrysostom  could  preach  salvation, 
by  Christ  free  and  full.  "What  reward  shall  I  render  unto  the 
Lord  for  all  His  benefits  ?     Who  shall  express  His  glorious  acts,  or 

1  Early  Church  History,  pp.  77,  78. 


108  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

show  forth  all  His  praise  ?  '  He  abased  Himself  that  He  might 
exalt  thee ;  He  died  to  make  thee  immortal ;  He  became  a  curse 
that  thou  mightest  obtain  a  blessing.  .  .  .  Say  not,  I  have  sinned 
much ;  how  can  I  be  saved  ?  Thou  art  not  able,  but  thy  Master  is 
able  so  to  blot  out  thy  sins  that  no  trace  even  of  them  shall  remain. 
In  the  natural  body,  though  the  wound  be  healed  yet  the  scar 
remains ;  but  God  does  not  suffer  the  scar  even  to  remain,  but 
together  with  release  from  punishment,  grants  righteousness  also, 
and  makes  the  sinner  to  be  equal  to  him  who  has  not  sinned.  .  .  . 
Sin  is  drowned  in  the  ocean  of  God's  mercy,  just  as  a  spark  is 
extinguished  in  a  flood  of  water." 

We  will  pluck  one  more  leaf  from  his  spiritual  meditations.  The 
subject  is  thanksgiving.  "  Let  us  give  thanks  to  God  continually. 
For  it  is  monstrous  that,  enjoying  as  we  do  his  bounty  in  deed 
every  day,  we  should  not  so  much  as  in  word  acknowledge  the 
favour ;  and  that  too,  although  the  acknowledgment  again  yields 
all  its  profit  to  us,  since  He  needs  not  anything  of  ours,  but  we 
stand  in  need  of  all  things  from  Him.  .  .  .  But  let  us  be  thankful, 
not  for  our  own  blessings  alone,  but  also  for  those  of  others ;  for 
in  this  way  we  shall  be  able  both  to  destroy  our  envy,  and  to 
strengthen  and  purify  our  charity ;  since  it  will  not  be  possible  for 
thee  to  go  on  envying  those  in  behalf  of  whom  thou  givest  thanks 
to  the  Lord." 

It  is  evident  that  two  opposite  influences  strove  together  in 
Chrysostom,  the  ritual  and  the  spiritual.  Isaac  Taylor,  remarking 
on  the  impossibility  of  holding  the  two  in  equipoise,  and  on  the 
vain  endeavour  of  certain  of  the  Fathers  to  do  this,  adduces  Chry- 
sostom as  the  most  illustrious  example  of  failure.  "  How  does  he 
toil  and  pant  in  this  bootless  task  !  Personally  too  much  alive  to 
the  spiritual  and  vital  reality  of  the  Christian  scheme,  to  be  quietly 
willing  to  let  it  disappear ;  and  yet  far  too  deeply  imbued  with  the 
Gnostic  and  the  Brahminical  feeling,  and  too  intimately  compro- 
mised as  a  public  person  with  the  Church  doctrines  of  the  times, 
he  could  never  rest.  .  .  .  Few  great  writers  offer  so  little  repose ; 
few  present  contrasts  so  violent ;  as  if  his  cynosure  had  been  a 
binary  star,  shedding  contrary  influences  upon  his  course.  And  so 
it  was  in  fact.  Scarcely  is  there  a  homily  all  of  a  piece ;  hardly 
are  there  two  consecutive  passages  that  can  be  read  without  a  sur- 
prise, amounting  to  a  painful  perplexity,  until  the  secret  of  all  this 
contrariety  is  understood ;  and  then  it  becomes  manifest  enough 
that,  within  the  writer's  soul,  a  spiritual  Christianity,  which  should 
have  been  uppermost,  was  ever  wrestling  with  Church  doctrines 
and  Gnostic  sentiments,  which  would  be  uppermost." 


(     109     ) 

CHAPTEK    VIII. 

Jerome. 

Etjsebitjs  Hieronymus  was  born  about  the  year  346 l  at  Stridon,. 
near  Aquileia,  at  the  head  of  the  Adriatic.  At  the  age  of  seven- 
teen,' he  was  sent  to  Home  to  complete  his  studies :  his  teacher 
was  the  famous  grammarian  Aelius  Donatus.  Here  Jerome  used 
on  Sundays  to  visit  the  catacombs  ;8  he  also  began  to  collect  a 
library,  which  he  afterwards  carried  with  him  wherever  he  went.* 
He  relates  that  he  yielded  to  the  temptations  which  the  great 
capital  so  plentifully  presented,  and  fell  into  sin. 

At  the  age  of  five  and  twenty  we  find  him  at  Aquileia,  one  of  & 
circle  of  young  men  who  devoted  themselves  to  sacred  studies  and 
to  the  ascetic  life.  The  most  celebrated  of  these  was  the  historian 
Eufinus,  between  whom  and  Jerome  there  sprang  up  so  ardent  a 
friendship  that  they  were  compared  to  Damon  and  Pythias.  But 
Jerome  was  as  violent  in  his  antipathies  as  in  his  friendships ;  and 
he  gave  full  scope  to  the  acerbity  of  his  nature  when,  on  his  retire- 
ment with  his  brother  Paulinian  to  lead  a  hermit  life  on  their 
paternal  estate  at  Stridon,  he  fell  under  the  displeasure  of  the 
bishop.  In  his  correspondence  with  that  dignitary,  his  language 
was  most  abusive,  and  it  was  now  that  he  commenced  the  offensive 
practice  of  holding  up  his  antagonist  to  ridicule  by  fastening  upon 
him  an  opprobrious  epithet,  a  practice  which  unhappily  he  followed 
through  life. 

There  floated  before  Jerome's  imagination  an  alluring  vision  of 
the  East,  the  cradle  and  paradise  of  monasticism  ;  and  in  373  the 
two  brothers  with  a  few  intimate  friends  directed  their  course 
thither.  Passing  through  Csesarea  in  Cappadocia,  they  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Basil,  who  by  the  recent  death  of  Athanasius 
had  become  the  leading  churchman  of  the  Catholic  party  in  the 
East. 

At  Antioch,  Jerome  fell  sick  and  had  a  strange  vision  connected 
with   his  classical  studies  which  sat  uneasy  on   his   conscience. 

1  Or  about  a.d.  340.    The  dates  assigned  greatly  vary. 
1  Or  fourteen.  *  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  272. 

*  " The  Alexandrian  manuscripts,"  he  says,  "emptied  my  purse."  When 
he  was  permitted  to  use  the  library  of  Pamphilus  in  Caesarea,  containing  all  the 
•works  of  Origen,  he  thought  himself  richer  than  Crcesus. 


110  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

What  lie  saw  he  related  long  afterwards  in  a  letter  to  a  noble 
Eoman  lady : — "  When,  years  ago,  I  had  torn  myself  from  home, 
and  parents,  sister  and  friends,  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven's  sake, 
I  could  not  part  with  the  books  which  with  very  great  care  and 
labour  I  had  collected  at  Eome.  And  so,  unhappy  man  that  I  was, 
I  followed  up  my  fasting  by  reading  Cicero ;  or,  after  a  night  of 
watching,  after  shedding  tears,  which  the  remembrance  of  my  past 
sins  drew  from  my  inmost  soul,  I  took  up  Plautus.  If  sometimes, 
coming  to  myself,  I  began  to  read  the  prophets,  their  inartistic 
style  repelled  me.  When  my  blinded  eyes  could  not  see  the  light, 
I  thought  the  fault  was  in  the  sun,  not  in  my  eyes.  While  the  old 
serpent  thus  deceived  me,  about  the  middle  of  Lent  a  fever  seized 
me,  and  so  reduced  my  strength  that  my  life  scarce  cleaved  to  my 
bones.  They  began  to  prepare  for  my  funeral.  My  whole  body 
was  •  growing  cold,  only  a  little  vital  warmth  remained  in  my 
breast ;  when  suddenly  I  was  caught  up  in  spirit,  and  brought 
Defore  the  tribunal  of  the  Judge.  So  great  was  the  glory  of  his 
presence,  and  such  the  brilliancy  of  the  purity  of  those  who  sur- 
rounded Him,  that  I  cast  myself  to  the  earth,  and  did  not  dare  to 
raise  my  eyes.  Being  asked  who  I  was,  I  answered  that  I  was  a 
Christian.  '  Thou  liest,'  said  the  Judge,  '  thou  art  a  Ciceronian 
and  no  Christian,  for  where  thy  treasure  is  there  is  thy  heart  also  ! ' 
Thereupon  I  was  silent.  He  ordered  me  to  be  beaten,  but  I  was 
tormented  more  by  remorse  of  conscience  than  by  the  blows :  I 
said  to  myself,  '  Who  shall  give  thee  thanks  in  hell  ? '  Then  I 
cried,  with  tears,  '  Have  mercy  upon  me,  0  Lord,  have  mercy  upon 
me ! '  My  cry  was  heard  above  the  sound  of  the  blows.  Then 
they  who  stood  by,  gliding  to  the  knees  of  the  Judge,  prayed  Him 
to  have  mercy  on  my  youth,  and  He  gave  me  time  for  repentance 
on  penalty  of  more  severe  punishment  if  I  should  ever  again  read 
pagan  books.  I,  who  in  such  a  strait  would  have  promised  even 
greater  things,  made  oath  and  declared  by  his  sacred  Name,  ■  0 
Lord,  if  ever  I  henceforth  possess  profane  books  or  read  them,  let 
me  be  treated  as  if  I  had  denied  thee  ! '  After  this  oath  they  let 
me  go,  and  I  returned  to  the  world.  To  the  wonder  of  all  who 
stood  by,  I  opened  my  eyes,  shedding  such  a  shower  of  tears,  that 
my  grief  would  make  even  the  incredulous  believe  in  my  vision. 
This  was  not  mere  sleep,  or  a  vain  dream,  such  as  often  deludes 
us  ;  the  tribunal  before  which  I  lay  is  witness,  that  awful  sentence 
which  I  feared  is  witness  ;  so  may  I  never  come  into  a  like  judg- 
ment. I  protest  that  my  shoulders  were  livid,  that  I  felt  the  blows 
after  I  awoke,  and  thenceforward  I  studied  divine  things  with 
greater  ardour  than  ever  I  had  studied  the  things  of  the  world." 


JEKOME   IN    THE    DESERT.  Ill 

Jerome  kept  this  vow  for  many  years.  But  on  his  settlement  at 
Bethlehem  he  resumed  his  classical  studies ;  and  in  later  life  he 
seems  to  have  treated  the  vision  either  as  a  solemn  reality  or  an 
idle  fancy,  just  as  for  the  moment  it  suited  him. 

In  Syria  he  met  with  an  aged  hermit  named  Malchus,  whose 
romantic  history  intensified  his  desire  for  the  ascetic  life.  The 
desert  which  he  made  choice  of  was  that  of  Chalcis,  some  fifty 
miles  east  of  Antioch.  It  was  peopled  by  monks  and  hermits,  in 
the  midst  of  whom  Jerome  took  up  his  abode,  supporting  himself 
by  his  own  labour.  At  first  he  seems  to  have  been  charmed  with 
the  solitude.  One  of  his  companions  having  gone  back  to  Aquileia, 
Jerome  wrote  to  him  in  a  tone  of  reproach  :  "  What  art  thou  doing 
in  thy  home,  0  effeminate  soldier  !  Where  are  the  rampart  and 
the  fosse,  and  the  winter  spent  in  the  tented  field !  .  .  .  0  desert, 
blooming  with  the  flowers  of  Christ !  0  wilderness,  where  are 
shaped  the  stones  of  which  the  city  of  the  Great  King  is  built !  0 
solitude,  where  men  converse  familiarly  with  God  !  " 

But  a  letter  written  after  he  had  left  the  desert  tells  a  very 
different  tale.  "I  sat  alone,  I  was  filled  with  bitterness ;  my 
limbs  were  uncomely  and  rough  with  sack-cloth,  and  my  squalid 
skin  became  as  black  as  an  Ethiop's.  I  spent  whole  days  in  tears 
and  groans;  and  if  ever  the  sleep  which  hung  upon  my  eyelids 
overcame  my  resistance,  I  knocked  against  the  ground  with  my 
bare  bones  which  scarce  clung  together.  I  will  not  speak  of  my 
meat  and  drink,  since  the  monks,  even  when  sick,  take  nothing  but 
cold  water,  and  regard  cooked  food  as  a  luxury.  Through  fear  of 
hell  I  had  condemned  myself  to  such  a  dungeon,  with  scorpions  and 
wild  beasts  as  my  companions."  With  all  this,  however,  he  could 
not  escape  from  himself.  Solitude  served  only  to  inflame  his 
passions,  and  his  imagination  carried  him  back  to  the  forbidden 
delights  of  Rome.  "  Though  my  face  was  pallid  with  fasting,  yet 
my  soul  glowed  with  carnal  desire  in  my  cold  body.  My  flesh  had 
not  waited  for  the  destruction  of  the  whole  man,  it  was  dead 
already,  and  yet  the  fires  of  the  passions  boiled  up  within  me.  I 
often  imagined  myself  in  the  midst  of  girls  dancing."  At  times, 
however,  hope  and  peace  would  break  through  the  gloom,  although 
the  false  notion  of  penance  as  the  necessary  price  at  which  the 
Divine  favour  is  be  purchased  deprived  him  of  the  full  and  abiding 
assurance  of  faith.  "  Destitute  of  all  help,  I  cast  myself  at  the  feet 
of  Jesus ;  I  bathed  them  with  my  tears,  I  wiped  them  with  my  hair. 
I  tried  to  conquer  this  rebellious  flesh  by  a  week  of  fasting.  I  often 
passed  the  night  and  day  in  crying  and  beating  my  breast,  and 
ceased  not  until,  God  making  Himself  heard,  peace  came  back  to 


112  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

me.  Then  I  feared  to  return  to  my  cell,  as  if  it  had  known  my 
thoughts,  and  full  of  anger  against  myself  I  plunged  alone  into  the 
desert.  Sometimes  after  shedding  floods  of  tears,  with  my  eyes 
lifted  up  to  heaven,  I  believed  myself  transported  into  the  midst  of 
the  choirs  of  angels,  and,  filled  with  confidence  and  joy,  I  sang, 
'Because  of  the  savour  of  thy  perfumes,  we  will  run  after  Thee.'  " 

During  the  four  or  five  years  spent  by  Jerome  in  the  desert,  he 
studied  and  wrote  diligently.  In  one  of  the  nearest  monasteries 
was  living  a  converted  Jew,  of  whom  he  learnt  Hebrew,  as  a  means, 
he  said,  of  self-mortification.1  He  also  disputed  on  the  ecclesiastical 
politics  of  the  see  of  Antioch  with  the  neighbouring  monks  and 
solitaries,  by  whom  he  was  persecuted  as  a  heretic.  The  hatred  was 
mutual.2 

Weary  of  the  desert,  he  returned  to  Antioch  in  879.  The  Church 
in  that  city  was  split  up  into  three  parties,  each  of  which  had  its  own 
bishop,  of  whom  Jerome  says :  "  I  know  nothing  of  Vitalis ;  I  reject 
Meletius ;  I  do  not  acknowledge  Paulinus."  Nevertheless,  he  ac- 
cepted ordination  as  a  priest  at  Paulinus'  hands,  but  on  the  condition 
that  he  should  not  be  required  to  leave  his  monastic  life,  or  to  per- 
form any  functions  of  the  priestly  office. 

In  the  year  380  Jerome  went  to  Constantinople,  where,  as  has 
been  related,  he  placed  himself  under  the  instruction  of  Gregory 
Nazianzen.  He  remained  in  the  Eastern  metropolis  during  the 
council  of  381,  and  must  have  been  a  spectator  of  Gregory's  fall ; 
but  to  these  events  he  makes  no  allusion.  Thence  he  removed  to 
Rome,  which  at  this  time  he  calls  "  The  light  of  the  world,  the  salt  of 
the  earth,  the  only  place  where  the  Gospel  remains  uncorrupted"  (I). 
Here  his  reputation  as  a  scholar  became  established.  Two  main 
objects  henceforth  shared  his  affections, — scriptural  study,  and  the 
promotion  of  the  ascetic  life.  The  former  drew  him  into  his  most 
celebrated  work,  a  new  translation  into  Latin  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  from  the  original  languages,  of  which  we  shall  speak 
presently.  Of  asceticism,  which  was  introduced  into  Eome  nearly 
forty  years  before,  by  Athanasius  and  the  Egyptian  monks,  Jerome 
was  now  the  foremost  champion. 

In  Rome  he  became  the  guest  of  Marcella,  a  widow  of  illustrious 
birth  and  great  wealth,  who  had  consecrated  her  ancestral  palace 
on  Mount  Aventine  to  the  service  of  religion.     His  companion,  our 

1  He  complains  that  its  grating  sound  destroyed  the  elegance  of  the  Latin 
speech. 

2  The  monks  took  away  his  paper,  so  that  he  was  obliged  to  write  on  an  old 
rag.  His  companions  said:  "We  had  rather  live  with  wild  beasts  than  with 
such  Christians  as  these." 


JEROME    IN    ROME.  113 

old  acquaintance  Epiphanius,  bishop  of  Cyprus,1  was  entertained  by 
Paula,  another  Roman  matron,  equally  noble  and  wealthy.  These 
ladies  were  the  centre  of  a  society  of  religious  women,  which  was 
being  formed  when  Jerome  was  a  student  in  Eome.  Some  of  them 
he  knew  by  person,  all  were  acquainted  with  him  through  his 
letters,  and  he  soon  became  "  the  soul  of  this  patrician  circle.  He 
answered  their  questions  of  conscience ;  he  incited  them  to  celibate 
life,  lavish  beneficence,  and  enthusiastic  asceticism ;  and  flattered 
their  spiritual  vanity  by  extravagant  praises.  He  was  their  oracle , 
biographer,  admirer,  and  eulogist."  But  he  was  not  a  safe  guide. 
"  The  letters  which  he  wrote  to  these  ladies,"  observes  Maitland, 
"  are  a  fearful  monument  of  the  social  effects  of  the  monastic 
system.  Amidst  elaborate  and  far  from  spiritual  interpretations  of 
Solomon's  Song — amidst  fulsome  eulogies  of  the  nuns  and  disser- 
tations upon  their  peculiar  relationship  to  the  Bridegroom — the 
religion  and  the  Christ  of  the  New  Testament  seem  missing.  The 
Lord  of  life  is  departed,  the  grave-clothes  alone  remain  to  show  the 
place  where  He  lay." 

Marcella  was  as  intellectual  as  she  was  pious.  "  All  the  while  I 
was  in  Rome,"  writes  Jerome,  "  she  never  saw  me  without  putting 
some  question  on  history  or  theology ;  nor  was  she  ever  satisfied 
by  authority  only,  without  examination ;  and  often  my  place  was 
changed  from  teacher  to  learner."  "  Paula  was  descended  on  one 
side  from  the  Scipios  and  the  Gracchi,  on  the  other  from  the  half 
fabulous  kings  of  Sparta  and  MycenaB.  Left  a  widow  at  thirty-five 
by  the  death  of  her  Greek  husband  Toxotius,  she  carried  mourning 
in  her  heart  more  than  on  her  garments,  and  for  a  time  her  grief 
was  so  violent  that  her  life  was  in  danger.  She  had  four  daughters 
— Blesilla,  Paulina,  Julia-Eustochium,  and  Rufina.  To  exalted  and 
refined  sentiments,  Paula  joined  an  excessive  delicacy  of  body  and 
softness  of  habitude.  Half  a  Greek,  brought  up  in  an  opulence 
which  had  no  equal  in  the  "West,  she  lived  an  Asiatic  life,  nearly 
always  reclining,  and  when  she  walked  she  was  supported,  or 
rather  carried,  on  the  arms  of  her  eunuchs.  Nevertheless,  she 
possessed  an  invincible  strength  of  mind  in  resisting  tyranny  and 
wrong.  Her  understanding  was  solid  and  well  cultivated;  she 
spoke  Greek  as  a  family  language,  and  knew  Hebrew  well  enough 
to  read  and  sing  the  Psalms  of  David  in  the  original. 

"  Paula's  daughter  Eustochium,  then  barely  sixteen  years  of 
age,  was  a  pattern  of  calm,  reflective  will,  and  of  firmness,  even 
stubbornness  in  her  resolutions  ;  her  education  had  fully  developed 
the  innate  germ  of  Christian  stoicism  in  her  heart.     Entrusted  in 

See  ante,  p.  85. 


114  WITNESSES   FOR   CHBIST. 

infancy  by  her  mother  to  the  care  of  Marcella,  she  had  breathed  a 
serene  and  peaceful  atmosphere,  not  always  to  be  found  in  her  own 
home.  She  early  announced  her  intention  not  to  marry,  but  to 
assume  the  virgin's  veil.  It  was  the  first  example  of  such  a  reso- 
lution given  by  a  girl  of  her  rank,  and  all  the  world  believed  she 
would  change  her  mind  when  she  became  of  age.  But  when  the 
time  arrived,  and  Eustochium  prepared  to  take  the  vow,  a  cry  of 
surprise  and  exasperation  arose ;  her  friends  exerted  themselves  by 
alternate  threats  and  caresses  to  turn  her  from  her  purpose,  but  in 
vain.  Her  father's  sister  Prastextata  was  a  zealous  pagan,  and 
with  her  husband  saw  in  their  niece's  determination  a  disgrace  to 
their  name  and  a  sacrilege  against  their  gods.  Finding  all  their 
warnings  and  entreaties  fruitless,  they  tried  to  entrap  her  on  the 
side  of  feminine  coquetry.  They  invited  her  to  their  house.  As 
soon  as  she  entered  her  aunt's  apartment,  some  women,  who  had 
been  engaged  for  the  purpose,  stripped  off  her  woollen  garments, 
and  letting  down  her  long  hair,  braided  it  and  frizzled  it  in  the 
newest  fashion,  painted  her  eyes,  lips,  and  neck,  clothed  her  in  a 
magnificent  silk  robe,  and  covered  her  with  jewels.  Eustochium 
•quietly  submitted  to  the  metamorphose,  listened  with  her  habitual 
serenity  to  all  the  blandishments  which  were  lavished  upon  her ; 
and  then,  when  the  hour  came  to  return  to  Marcella,  put  on  again 
her  old  serge  dress  and  went  her  way." 

"  Less  difference  existed  between  Paula  and  her  eldest  daughter 
Blesilla.  Both  were  weak  in  body,  and  subject  to  alternate  mental 
depression  and  exaltation  ;  but  the  latter  wasted  her  energy  in  vain 
agitations  and  pleasures.  A  widow  after  seven  months  of  married 
life  chequered  with  cares,  although  scarcely  twenty  years  of  age, 
she  rejected  all  proposals  for  a  second  union.  This  resolution  was 
not  like  her  sister's,  prompted  by  love  for  the  ascetic  life ;  she 
chose  rather  thenceforth  to  live  for  herself,  for  the  daily  round  of 
pleasure,  and  the  charms  of  the  toilet ;  she  might  almost  be  said 
to  have  passed  her  life  before  the  mirror.  In  this  condition  she  was 
attacked  by  fever,  but  recovered  when  at  the  very  point  of  death. 
She  believed  her  cure  to  be  miraculous,  and  renouncing  the  world, 
assumed  the  habit  of  a  church  widow.  Her  pagan  friends  were 
scandalized ;  Jerome  seized  the  pen  in  her  defence :  ■  She  stank 
somewhat  of  negligence,  and  was  buried  in  the  grave-clothes  of 
riches,  and  lay  in  the  sepulchre  of  this  world,  but  Jesus  groaned  in 
spirit,  and  cried,  "  Blesilla,  come  forth,"  and  she  arose  and  came 
forth,  and  now  sits  at  the  table  with  Christ.'  "  His  letter  provoked 
answers  from  Helvidius,  a  lawyer,  and  the  monk  Jovinian.  Of  his 
controversy  with  the  latter  we  shall  speak  in  a  future  chapter. 


JEROME    ON    CELIBACY.  115 

Jerome's  advocacy  of  the  ascetic  life  was  as  violent  as  it  was 
Wind.  "I  love  to  praise  marriage,  because  it  supplies  us  with 
virgins;  of  these  thorns  we  gather  roses."  "Although  your  little 
nephew  should  hang  about  your  neck ;  although  your  mother,  with 
hair  dishevelled  and  garments  rent,  should  show  you  the  breasts  at 
which  she  nourished  you ;  although  your  father  should  lie  on  the 
threshold ;  trample  on  your  father  and  set  out !  Fly  with  dry 
eyes  to  the  banner  of  the  cross !  The  only  kind  of  piety  is  to  be 
cruel  in  this  matter."  "  Peter,"  he  has  the  audacity  to  say,  "  was 
only  an  apostle ;  but  John,  because  he  was  a  virgin,  was  apostle, 
evangelist,  and  prophet.  John  the  single,  expounds  what  the 
married  could  not :  '  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,'  etc.  To  him, 
a  virgin,  was  committed  the  charge  of  the  virgin-mother  by  his 
virgin  Lord ;  and  for  the  same  cause  was  he  more  beloved  of  the 
Lord,  and  reclined  on  His  bosom."1 

When  Eustochium  took  the  veil,  Jerome  addressed  a  letter  to  her, 
which  was  in  effect  an  elaborate  eulogy  of  virginity.  In  his  defence 
of  Blesilla  he  had  lashed  the  manners  of  the  high  pagan  society ;  his 
letter  to  Eustochium  contained  "  a  scathing  satire  on  the  vices  of  the 
Christians."  "How  many  virgins  daily  fall!  'Why,'  say  they, 
'  should  I  abstain  from  food  which  God  created  to  be  used  ?  '  And 
when  they  have  flooded  themselves  with  wine,  they  add  sacrilege  to 
drunkenness,  and  say,  '  Be  it  far  from  me  that  I  should  refrain  from 
partaking  of  the  blood  of  Christ ! '  And  when  they  see  any  one  pale 
and  sad,  they  call  her  a  wretch  and  a  Manichaean."  The  clergy 
were  not  spared.  "  All  their  anxiety  is  about  their  dress,  whether 
they  are  well  perfumed,  whether  their  shoes  of  soft  leather  fit  with- 
out a  wrinkle.  Their  hair  is  curled  with  the  tongs,  their  fingers 
glitter  with  rings,  and  they  walk  on  tiptoe  lest  the  wet  road  should 
soil  the  soles  of  their  shoes.  You  would  take  them  for  bridegrooms, 
rather  than  for  clerics  ;  their  whole  thought  and  life  is  to  know  the 
names  and  houses  and  doings  of  the  rich  ladies." 

Blesilla' s  health  gave  way,  and  now  her  disorder  terminated  in 
death.  The  world  insisted  that  Jerome  and  her  mother  had  killed 
her  with  austerities.  Her  relations  gave  her  a  pompous  funeral ;  and 
a  vast  crowd  collected  to  see  the  procession  pass  along  the  Appian 
Way  to  the  family  mausoleum.  Paula,  who  followed  the  bier,  was 
overcome  with  grief,  and  fainted.  This  incident  produced  a  strong 
sensation.     "  See  this  mother,"  cried  the  spectators,  "  who  weeps 

1  Although  Jerome  speaks  of  this  letter  as  written  when  he  was  a  young 
man,  he  praises  Fabiola  (see  below)  for  having  learnt  it  by  heart,  and  acted 
on  it. 


116  WITNESSES    FOE    CHRIST. 

for  the  daughter  she  has  killed  with  fasting.  Let  us  drive  the 
cursed  race  of  monks  out  of  the  city ;  let  us  stone  them ;  let  us 
throw  them  into  the  Tiber." 

A  month  after  these  occurrences  bishop  Damasus  died.  Jerome, 
now  become  the  first  ecclesiastic  in  Eome  and  the  acknowledged 
leader  of  the  most  influential  circle,  aspired  to  the  vacant  chair ; 
but  he  was  obnoxious  to  many  of  the  clergy,  and  his  temper  entirely 
unfitted  him  for  so  responsible  an  office.  His  rival,  Siricius,1  was 
elected.  This  disappointment  was  aggravated  by  a  calumnious  story 
regarding  his  relations  with  Paula,  which  took  such  hold  of  the 
public  mind  that  he  was  hooted  in  the  streets. 

Jerome  now  began  to  suspect  that  he  had  been  mistaken  in 
coming  to  Eome,  and  that  his  true  vocation  after  all  was  the 
desert.  He  therefore  determined  to  shake  off  the  dust  of  the  great 
city,  and  return  to  a  solitary  life.  On  the  eve  of  his  departure  he 
wrote  to  one  of  his  friends :  "  In  haste,  dear  Lady  Acella,  whilst 
the  vessel  is  spreading  her  sails,  I  write  these  lines  between  my  sobs 
and  my  tears,  giving  thanks  to  God  that  I  am  found  worthy  of  the 
hatred  of  the  world.  Pray  for  me  that,  leaving  Babylon,  I  may 
arrive  at  Jerusalem ;  that,  escaping  the  dominion  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar, Ezra  may  lead  me  back  to  my  country.  Fool  that  I  was,  to 
wish  to  sing  the  Lord's  songs  in  a  strange  land,  to  abandon  Mount 
Sinai,  and  ask  help  from  Egypt !  "  Paula  resolved  to  be  Jerome's 
companion.  With  Eustochium  and  a  band  of  maidens  taken  from 
all  classes,  she  set  sail  for  Antioch,  a.d.  385.  At  Cyprus  they  made 
a  stay  of  ten  days,  receiving  from  Epiphanius  the  same  hospitality 
which  Paula  had  shown  Jerome  in  Eome.  Jerome,  with  his  brother 
and  a  friend,  travelling  by  another  route,  reached  Antioch  before 
them.  On  the  ladies'  arrival  the  two  parties  formed  a  caravan,  the 
ladies  riding  on  asses,  with  their  luggage  on  pack-mules.  They 
arrived  in  Jerusalem  early  in  386. 

Paula  was  profoundly  affected  as  she  approached  the  scene  of  the 
Saviour's  passion.  "  The  whole  city,"  says  Jerome,  "  was  witness 
of  her  tears  and  groans.  In  the  church  of  the  Sepulchre  she  threw 
herself  on  the  stone  with  which  the  tomb  was  supposed  to  have 
been  closed,  and  embraced  it  so  vehemently  that  we  could  scarcely 
disengage  her.  But  when  she  entered  the  sepulchral  chamber, 
when  her  knees  felt  the  ground  which  the  limbs  of  the  Saviour  had 
touched,  and  her  hands  pressed  the  stone  couch  on  which  His  divine 
body  had  lain,  she  fainted  away.  Eegaining  consciousness,  she 
covered  those  lifeless  relics  with  kisses,  clinging  to  them  with  her 

1    As  fierce  an  advocate  of  celibacy  as  Jerome  himself. 


THE   BETHLEHEM   CONVENTS.  117 

lips,  as  one  parched  with  thirst  at  a  long  sought  spring,  as  though 
she  purposed  to  dissolve  the  rock  by  her  tears  and  kisses."  Such  a 
demonstration  on  the  part  of  this  noble  Boman  lady  may  seem 
strange  to  us,  and  the  outcome  of  a  morbid  excitement,  but  we  shall 
do  well  to  consider  whether  our  love  to  the  same  Saviour  equals 
hers. 

The  pilgrims  made  the  round  of  the  Holy  Places,  from  Mamre 
and  the  Dead  Sea  southward,  to  Nazareth  and  the  Lake  of  Galilee 
in  the  north;  after  which  they  went  down  into  Egypt.  "At  the 
monasteries  of  Nitria  they  were  received  with  great  honour.  They 
heard  the  strange  tales  of  the  monks,  assisted  at  all  their  services, 
ate  their  hard  fare,  lay  in  their  hard  cubicles,  and  were  indeed 
almost  persuaded  to  take  up  their  abode  in  the  Egyptian  desert. 
But  the  superior  attractions  of  Palestine  prevailed,  and  returning 
thither  the  whole  company  settled  at  Bethlehem  in  the  autumn  of 
the  same  year.  There  Jerome  spent  the  remaining  thirty-four 
years  of  his  life,  pursuing  unremittingly  the  two  great  objects  to 
which  he  had  devoted  himself." 

The  first  work  of  the  pilgrims  was  to  build  a  monastery,  and 
three  convents  over  which  Jerome  and  Paula  presided.  They 
erected  a  church  also,  in  which  the  inmates  of  all  the  houses  met, 
and  a  hospice  or  house  of  entertainment  for  the  pilgrims,  who 
came  from  all  parts  of  the  world  to  visit  the  holy  places.  "  Now," 
cried  Paula,  "  if  Joseph  and  Mary  should  again  come  to  Bethlehem, 
they  would  have  a  place  to  lodge  in."  Jerome  took  possession  of  a 
cave  or  grotto  next  to  that  "of  the  Nativity,"1  where  he  surrounded 
himself  with  his  books,  papers,  amanuenses  and  other  appliances  of 
study :  he  called  it  his  paradise.  "  I  find  myself,"  he  wrote  to 
Augustine,  "well  hidden  in  this  hole,  to  weep  for  my  sins  whilst 


1  Jerome's  grotto  is  still  a  principal  object  of  curiosity  at  Bethlehem.  The 
genuineness  of  the  cave  which  now  bears  his  name  is  a  question  which  depends 
on  that  of  "  The  Grotto  of  the  Nativity,"  both  being  rock-hewn  and  situated 
underneath  the  present  church  of  St.  Mary.  That  the  stable  where  our  Saviour 
was  born  was  a  grotto  was  an  article  of  early  belief,  and  it  was  in  this  belief  that 
Jerome  took  up  his  abode  there.  That  he  did  live  in  one  or  other  of  the  several 
rock-hewn  chambers  here  existing  (and  which  have  since  undergone  much 
alteration)  may  be  considered  as  certain,  but  whether  in  that  which  is  now 
called  the  Chapel  of  St.  Jerome,  is  much  less  so.  The  earliest  mention  of  this 
chapel  is  in  1449.  It  is  entirely  hewn  out  of  the  rock  except  on  the  north  side, 
where  a  window  looks  towards  the  cloisters  of  the  church.  There  is  a  painting 
in  the  chapel  representing  Jerome  with  a  Bible  in  his  hand.  The  Emperor 
Constantine,  in  330,  erected  a  basilica  over  the  Grotto  of  the  Nativity,  and  it  is 
pretty  generally  agreed  that  the  present  church  is  substantially  identical  with 
that  basilica. 


118  WITNESSES    FOB    CHRIST. 

■waiting  for  the  Day  of  Judgment."  As  soon  as  he  was  settled  he 
opened  a  free  school  for  the  inhabitants  of  Bethlehem,  to  whom  he 
taught  Greek  and  Latin.  Thus  carried  hack  to  the  books  he  had 
so  passionately  loved  in  his  youth,  he  forgot  his  dream,  and  eagerly 
drank  again  at  the  forbidden  fountain.  Virgil,  the  lyric  and  comic 
poets,  Cicero,  Plato,  Homer,  became  again  his  daily  delight,  and  he 
never  wearied  of  expounding  them  to  his  pupils. 

In  figure  and  visage  Jerome  was  spare,  his  naturally  pale  com- 
plexion embrowned  by  the  Eastern  sky  :  he  wore  his  hair  short  and 
straight.  His  inner  and  outer  garment  were  those  of  the  hermit, 
of  a  dark  brown  colour,  the  same  he  had  worn  even  in  Borne ;  and 
if  we  may  judge  by  his  directions  to  others,  they  were  not  over 
cleanly.1  He  fasted  till  sunset,  when  he  supped  on  vegetables  and 
bread ;  he  allowed  himself  flesh  and  wine  only  in  sickness. 

No  inconsiderable  part  of  Jerome's  time  was  taken  up  with  the 
care  and  discipline  of  the  monastery,  and  with  the  crowds  of  monks 
and  pilgrims  who  flocked  to  the  hospice.  Yet  Scriptural  studies 
were  bis  main  pursuit,  and  his  diligence  in  these  is  almost  incred- 
ible. Sulpicius  Severus,  who  visited  Bethelehem,  says:  "The 
presbyter  Jerome  who  rules  the  Church  there  is  so  well  versed  in 
Latin,  Greek,  and  even  Hebrew  learning,  that  no  man  can  stand 
before  him.  He  devotes  himself  wholly  to  books  and  study,  resting 
neither  night  nor  day.  I  stayed  with  him  six  months,  and  when  I 
departed,  his  household  accompanied  me  along  the  road,  and  I 
returned  with  a  light  heart  to  Alexandria."  Jerome  wrote,  or 
rather  dictated,  with  great  rapidity.  The  translation  of  the  three 
books  of  Solomon  was  the  work  of  three  days,  when  he  had  just  re- 
covered from  a  severe  illness ;  and  he  rendered  the  book  of  Tobit 
from  the  Cbaldee  in  a  single  day.  When  confined  to  his  couch 
with  sickness  he  would  take  down  from  his  shelves  one  volume  after 
another,  and  dictate  to  an  amanuensis.2 

Of  the  manner  of  life  at  Bethlehem  we  have  a  picture  from  the 

1  "  Cleanliness  of  body,"  so  he  wrote  to  some  of  his  lady  friends,  "  is  the  filth 
of  the  soul.  A  mean  sombre  garment  is  the  index  of  a  mind  at  peace."  "No 
one  of  the  Roman  matrons,"  he  says  elsewhere,  "was  ever  able  to  command  my 
homage,  except  she  mourned  and  fasted  and  appeared  in  squalid  clothing."" 
Sometimes,  however,  he  expresses  himself  more  reasonably :  "  Shun  equally 
sordid  and  showy  garments.  Foppery  and  filth  are  alike  to  be  avoided ;  the  one 
as  redolent  of  voluptuousness,  the  other  of  vain-glory."  "Thy  clothes,"  he 
tells  Eustochium,  "  should  not  be  exactly  clean,  yet  not  filthy."  Chrysostom 
commended  the  squalid  attire  of  his  beloved  Olympias. 

a  Jerome's  reputation  was  spread  throughout  the  Christian  world.  One  day 
six  strangers  presented  themselves  at  his  cell ;  they  were  sent  by  a  pious  and 
wealthy  Spaniard,  who  desired  to  possess  copies  of  all  his  works. 


LIFE   AT    BETHLEHEM.  119 

hands  of  Paula  and  Eustochium,  coloured  by  their  own  fervid 
feelings  and  imagination.  It  is  in  a  letter  to  Marcella  at  Rome. 
"It  would  take  too  long  to  recount  who  of  the  bishops,  the  martyrs, 
the  doctors  of  the  Church,  have  visited  Jerusalem,  esteeming  them- 
selves imperfect  in  religion  and  knowledge  until  they  had  received 
the  finishing  touch,  and  adored  Christ  in  those  places  where  first 
the  Gospel  shone  forth  from  the  cross.  .  .  .  We  do  not  say  this 
because  we  deny  that  the  ■  kingdom  of  God  is  within  us,'  and  that  there 
are  holy  men  in  other  quarters ;  but  they  who  are  foremost  in  all 
the  world  are  gathered  together  here.  .  .  .  The  Gaul,  and  even 
the  Briton,  severed  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  whosoever  among 
them  has  made  any  progress  in  religion,  hastens  hither,  eager  to  see 
for  himself  the  places  mentioned  in  the  Holy  Scriptures ;  not  to 
speak  of  the  Armenians  and  Persians,  the  people  of  Arabia  and 
Ethiopia,  Egypt  teeming  with  monks,  Pontus,  Cappadocia  and 
Mesopotamia.  .  .  .  There  are  almost  as  many  choirs  of  choristers 
as  there  are  different  nations.  There  are  no  distinctions  amongst 
them  ;  the  only  strife  is  who  can  be  most  humble.  ...  In  what 
words,"  they  continue,  "  can  we  place  before  thee  the  cave  of  the 
Saviour  and  the  manger  in  which  He  uttered  his  first  cry  ?  Here 
one  does  not  see  the  broad  porticoes,  the  gilded  ceilings,  the  palace 
halls  which  wealth  erects,  that  man's  worthless  little  body  may 
walk  about  more  sumptuously.  See,  in  this  little  hole  of  earth  the 
maker  of  the  Heavens  was  born ;  here  He  was  wrapped  in  swaddling 
clothes ;  here  visited  by  the  shepherds ;  here  pointed  out  by  the 
star ;  here  adored  by  the  Magi.  ...  In  this  little  city  of  Christ 
all  is  rustic.  The  silence  is  only  broken  by  psalms.  Wherever  one 
turns,  the  ploughman  holding  the  plough  sings  alleluias  ;  the 
toiling  reaper  cheers  his  labour  with  psalms ;  the  vine-dresser, 
pruning  the  vine  with  his  hook,  sings  something  of  David.  These 
are  the  ballads  of  this  country ;  these  the  love-songs  ;  this  the 
shepherd's  pipe ;  these  its  rustic  sports."  Jerome  added  a  postscript 
to  their  letter  :  "  Here  bread  and  herbs,  the  produce  of  our  own 
hands,  with  milk,  afford  us  plain  but  wholesome  food.  Living 
thus,  sleep  does  not  overtake  us  in  prayer,  satiety  does  not  interfere 
with  study.  In  summer  the  trees  afford  us  shade ;  in  autumn  the 
air  is  cool,  and  the  fallen  leaves  afford  us  a  quiet  resting  place  ;  in 
spring  the  fields  are  clothed  with  flowers,  and  we  sing  our  psalms 
the  sweeter  amid  the  singing  of  the  birds ;  and  when  the  winter's 
cold  and  snow  come  we  have  no  lack  of  wood,  and  I  watch,  or  sleep 
warm  enough." 

The  repose  of  the  community  at  Bethlehem  was,  in  the  year  395, 
rudely  interrupted  by  a  threatened  invasion  of  the  Huns,  who  had 


120  WITNESSES    FOB    CHRIST. 

overrun  Syria,  laid  siege  to  Antioch,  and  were  directing  their 
course  towards  Palestine.  The  monasteries  were  broken  up. 
Jerome  and  Paula  hurried  down  to  the  sea  of  Joppa,  where  they 
erected  a  temporary  camp  for  the  protection  of  the  sisterhood,  and 
hired  ships  to  carry  them  to  a  place  of  safety.  At  this  juncture, 
news  was  brought  that  the  Huns  had  changed  their  course,  and 
instead  of  crossing  Lebanon  had  turned  to  the  north  and  west. 

About  this  time  Fabiola,  one  of  the  group  of  noble  ladies  who 
remained  in  Eome,  was  on  a  visit  at  the  convent.  She  had  come 
to  consult  Jerome  on  a  case  of  conscience.  Ill-treated  by  her  hus- 
band, she  had  sought  relief  in  divorce,  and  to  escape  the  tempta- 
tions of  her  unprotected  state  she  had  married  again.  Could  she, 
without  performing  penance,  be  in  communion  with  the  Church, 
her  first  husband  being  still  alive  ?  She  returned  to  Rome  without 
having  conferred  with  Jerome  ;  but  the  case  being  made  known  to 
him  by  a  priest  of  her  company,  he  sent  his  judgment  in  writing. 
In  regard  to  the  plea  that  she  married  a  second  time  from  necessity, 
he  says :  "  We  all  favour  our  own  vices,  and  what  we  have  done  of 
our  own  will  we  attribute  to  the  necessity  of  nature."  On  the 
question  of  her  second  marriage  while  her  husband  was  living,  he 
quotes  the  Apostle's  sentence  :  '"The  woman  is  bound  by  the  law 
to  her  husband  so  long  as  he  liveth,  but  if,  while  her  husband 
liveth,  she  is  married  to  another  man,  she  shall  be  called  an  adul- 
teress.' Therefore,  if  this  sister  wishes  to  receive  Christ's  body 
and  not  to  be  called  an  adulteress,  let  her  do  penance."  Fabiola 
accepted  the  conditions,  and  "  Rome  beheld  a  daughter  of  the 
ancient  and  illustrious  house  of  the  Fabii  kneeling  amongst  the 
penitents  on  the  steps  of  the  Lateran  church  in  mourning  habit, 
with  dishevelled  hair,  and  sprinkled  with  ashes." 

During  his  residence  at  Bethlehem,  Jerome  was  involved  in 
several  long  and  bitter  controversies.  The  earliest  of  these  was 
his  contest  with  his  old  friend  Rufinus  respecting  the  doctrines  of 
Origen.  Like  Basil  and  Gregory,  Jerome  and  Rufinus  had  early 
been  captivated  by  the  philosophy  of  that  profound  thinker.  But 
as  time  went  on  the  former  became  convinced  that  some  of  Origen' s 
dogmas  could  not  be  defended,  and  that  his  own  reputation  for 
orthodoxy  was  in  danger.  So  that  when  the  question  again 
agitated  the  Churches  of  Palestine,  a.d.  895,  Jerome  hastened  to 
repudiate  the  charge  of  being  one  of  Origen's  disciples.  This  pro- 
duced an  acrimonious  correspondence  between  himself  and  Rufinus, 
and  although  after  a  while  they  professed  to  be  reconciled,  and  took 
each  other's  hands  over  the  Saviour's  tomb  in  the  church  of  the 
Resurrection,  yet  on  Rufinus'  removal  to  Rome  in  397,  the  quarrel 


CORRESPONDENCE    BETWEEN   JEROME    AND   AUGUSTINE.  121 

broke  out  afresh.  For  several  years  an  exchange  of  controversial, 
or  more  properly  speaking,  abusive  tracts  took  place  between  the 
two  angry  disputants.  Augustine  was  deeply  pained  to  witness 
such  strife  between  men  of  advanced  age,  of  reputation  for  learning 
and  piety,  and  who  had  once  been  familiar  friends  and  fellow- 
students  of  Scripture.  "I  am  pierced  through,"  he  writes  to 
Jerome,  "  by  darts  of  keenest  sorrow  when  I  think  how  between 
Eufinus  and  thee,  to  whom  God  has  granted  to  feast  together  on 
the  honey  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  the  blight  of  such  exceeding 
bitterness  has  fallen.  This,  too,  at  a  time  when  you  were  living 
together  in  that  very  land  which  the  feet  of  our  Lord  trod  when 
He  said,  'Peace  I  leave  with  you,  my  peace  I  give  unto  you.'  If  I 
could  anywhere  meet  you  both  together  (which,  alas !  I  cannot  hope 
to  do),  so  strong  is  my  agitation,  grief  and  fear,  that  I  think  I 
would  cast  myself  at  your  feet,  and  there  weeping  till  I  could  weep 
no  more,  would,  with  all  the  eloquence  of  love,  appeal  first  to  each 
of  you  for  his  own  sake,  then  to  both  for  each  other's  sake,  and  for 
the  sake  especially  of  the  weak,  for  whom  Christ  died,  imploring 
you  not  to  scatter  abroad  these  hard  words  against  each  other, 
which  if  at  any  time  you  were  reconciled  you  could  not  recall,  and 
which  you  could  not  then  venture  to  read,  lest  strife  should  be 
kindled  anew."  Sad  to  say,  this  pathetic  pleading  was  ineffectual; 
even  Eufinus'  death  did  not  disarm  Jerome.1 

With  Augustine  himself,  somewhat  his  junior  in  age,  Jerome  had 
a  curious  correspondence,  which  only  escaped  embitterment  owing 
to  the  patience  displayed  by  the  former.  Jerome,  in  his  com- 
mentary on  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  had  put  forward  the  mon- 
strous hypothesis  that  the  dispute  between  the  apostles  Peter  and 
Paul,  there  described,  was  merely  feigned.  Peter,  he  asserted,  only 
pretended  to  separate  himself  from  the  Gentiles  the  more  forcibly 
to  bring  out  the  incongruity  of  a  Christian  continuing  to  keep  the 
Mosaic  law.  This  appeared  to  Augustine  as  imputing  to  the 
apostle  an  acted  lie,  and  he  accordingly  wrote  to  Jerome,  a.d.  394,* 
showing  what  evil  consequences  must  ensue  if  it  could  possibly  be 
supposed  that  any  teaching  of  the  apostles  was  illusory.  He  asks, 
with  a  sly  hit  at  Jerome's  extravagant  notions  on  celibacy,  if  we  are 
to  consider  that  the  passages  in  which  Paul  eulogises  marriage  are 
fictitious.     Unfortunately  the  presbyter  to  whom  Augustine  com- 

1  "The  scorpion,"  wrote  Jerome,  "is buried  under  the  soil  of  Sicily,  with 
Enceladus  and  Porphyrion ;  the  many-headed  hydra  has  ceased  to  hiss  against 
us."  Of  Jerome's  controversies  with  Jovinian  and  Vigilantius,  we  shall  speak 
when  we  come  to  the  history  of  those  reformers.  2  Or  395. 


122  WITNESSES    FOE    CHEIST. 

mitted  his  letter,  together  with  some  of  his  own  writings  for 
Jerome's  perusal,  died  before  he  had  set  out  on  his  errand,  but  not 
before  he  had  shown  the  letter  to  several  persons,  and  copies  had 
been  taken.  A  second  letter,  which  Augustine  wrote  three  years 
later,  when  he  discovered  that  the  first  had  never  been  received, 
also  miscarried :  the  messenger  to  whom  it  was  committed  never 
started,  alleging  that  he  was  afraid  of  the  sea.  But  of  this  letter, 
too,  copies  were  taken,  and  a  deacon,  who  had  met  with  one  on  an 
island  of  the  Adriatic,  bound  up  with  other  writings  of  Augustine, 
either  brought  a  copy,  or  described  its  contents  to  Jerome.  Soon 
afterwards,  some  pilgrims  returning  from  the  Holy  Land,  informed 
Augustine  that  it  was  the  talk  of  the  monasteries  of  Bethlehem 
how  he  had  attacked  Jerome  in  a  letter  which  he  had  not  sent  to 
him.  Augustine  hastened  to  exculpate  himself,  and  to  point  out 
that  what  he  had  written  was  never  intended  for  publication.  He 
also  begged  Jerome  to  use  an  equal  freedom  in  criticism,  and  con- 
cluded with  the  earnest  desire  that  he  could  have  personal  inter- 
course with  his  correspondent.  "  In  Jerome's  reply,  friendship 
struggles  with  suspicion  and  resentment."  He  professes  to  know 
little  of  Augustine's  works,  concerning  which,  nevertheless,  he 
might  have  something  to  say  in  the  way  of  criticism,  and  insinuates 
that  Augustine  was  seeking  to  increase  his  own  reputation  at  his 
expense.  Augustine's  rejoinder  opens  with  language  of  profound 
respect,  and  after  explaining  how  his  first  letter  had  miscarried,  he 
enters  again  on  questions  of  Biblical  interpretation.  He  commends 
Jerome's  version  of  the  New  Testament,  but,  with  the  mistaken 
reverence  of  the  times  for  the  Septuagint,  entreats  him  not  to  con- 
tinue the  translation  he  had  begun  of  the  Old  Testament  from  the 
original  Hebrew.  Jerome  again  complains  that  he  had  not  received 
Augustine's  original  letter.  "Send  me,"  he  says,  "your  letter 
signed  by  yourself,  or  else  cease  from  attacking  me,  and  let  me  beg 
you,  if  you  write  to  me  again,  to  take  care  that  I  am  the  first  whom 
your  letter  reaches."  Augustine  now  (some  ten  years  after  his  first 
letter  was  written)  sent  to  Jerome  authentic  copies  of  both  his 
letters,  at  the  same  time  begging  that  the  matter  might  not, 
through  the  mishaps  which  had  occurred,  grow  into  a  feud  like 
that  between  Jerome  and  Rufinus.  On  the  receipt  of  this  packet 
Jerome  returned  an  immediate  and  full  reply.  He  touched  on  all 
the  points  raised,  appealing,  on  the  question  of  Peter's  conduct  at 
Antioch,  to  Origen  and  other  Eastern  expositors  of  Scripture  to 
bear  him  out.1    It  would  seem,  however,  that  Jerome  was  at  last 

1  The  Eastern  Churches  continued  to  maintain  Jerome's  interpretation  of 
Peter's  conduct ;  the  Western  followed  Augustine. 


DEATH   OP    PAULA.  128 

convinced,  for  Augustine,  writing  at  a  later  date,  cites  a  passage 
from  him,  in  which  he  admits  that  no  bishops  are  immaculate, 
since  Paul  found  something  to  blame  even  in  Peter.  The  corre- 
spondence was  carried  on  some  time  longer  with  increasing  good- 
will on  both  sides.1 

In  403  Paula  died,  at  the  age  of  56.  Her  health  had  been 
undermined  by  years  of  excessive  austerities.  "  She  was,"  says 
Jerome,  "  always  mourning  and  fasting  ;  and  had  become  almost 
blind  with  weeping."  As  she  was  departing  she  murmured  in 
Hebrew  some  verses  in  Psalms  xxvi.  and  lxxxiv.,  commencing, 
*•  0  Lord,  I  have  loved  the  beautiful  order  of  thy  house  and  the 
place  of  the  habitation  of  thy  glory."  Then  applying  her  finger 
to  her  mouth,  she  made  the  sign  of  the  cross  upon  her  lips. 
"  There  were  present  at  her  death  the  bishops  of  Jerusalem  and 
other  cities,  and  an  innumerable  company  of  priests  and  deacons^, 
virgins  and  monks.  There  was  no  doleful  cry,  but  a  universal 
chant  of  the  Psalms.  Her  body  was  carried  to  the  tomb  by  the 
hands  of  bishops,  and  laid  in  the  midst  of  the  church  of  the 
Nativity.  The  cities  of  Palestine  came  to  her  funeral ;  the  widows 
and  the  poor,  after  the  example  of  Dorcas,  showing  the  clothes 
that  she  had  given  them.  .  .  .  During  the  whole  week  the  Psalms 
were  sung  in  order  in  Hebrew,  Greek,  Latin  and  Syriac."  .  .  . 
"If,"  writes  Jerome,  "all  my  being  should  become  tongue  and 
voice,  I  should  still  be  unable  worthily  to  declare  her  virtues. 
Noble  by  birth,  she  was  yet  more  noble  by  her  sanctity;  once 
powerful  by  her  wealth,  she  became  still  more  powerful  by  her 
poverty  in  Christ ;  the  descendant  of  the  Gracchi  and  the  Scipios, 
she  preferred  Bethlehem  to  Eome,  and  a  mud  roof  to  the  gilded 
ceiling  of  a  palace.  Never,"  he  adds,  "  from  the  death  of  her 
husband  to  the  day  of  her  own  going  to  sleep,  did  she  eat  with  any 
man  however  holy,  not  even  if  he  were  a  bishop.  She  never 
entered  the  bath  unless  she  was  sick  ;  even  in  a  dangerous  fever 

1  In  this  correspondence,  as  in  all  the  letters  of  the  time  which  have  come 
down  to  us,  we  are  struck  with  the  adulatory  titles  made  use  of.  We  have  seen 
the  commencement  of  this  weakness  in  Cyprian's  days.  —  See  Early  Church 
History,  p.  177,  note.  As  the  honour  paid  to  the  bishops  became  more  pro- 
found, the  style  of  address  became  more  fulsome.  Augustine  salutes  Jerome- 
as  "My  lord  most  beloved  and  longed  for,"  "  My  venerable  lord  Jerome  "  ;  and 
addresses  him  and  others  as  "Your  charity,  your  holiness."  Jerome  in  reply 
styles  Augustine  "  My  lord  truly  holy  and  most  blessed  father  (papa),"  and 
calls  him  "  Your  excellency,"  "Your  grace."  At  the  Council  of  Ephesus,  a.d. 
431,  Cyril  is  styled  "  Most  saintly,  most  sacred,  most  devoted  to  God,  our  father 
and  bishop."  The  bishops  were  saluted  with  bowing  the  head,  kissing  the 
hand,  and  even  kissing  the  feet. 


124  WITNESSES    FOB   CHRIST. 

she  used  no  soft  bed,  but  rested  on  the  hard  ground  with  a  scanty 
covering  of  hair-cloth,  if  indeed  that  is  to  be  called  rest,  which 
joined  days  and  nights  together  by  almost  ceaseless  prayers. 
.  .  .  Farewell,"  he  exclaims,  "  0  Paula,  and  help  by  thy  prayers 
the  old  age  of  him  who  bears  thee  a  religious  reverence.  Thy 
faith  and  works  have  joined  thee  to  Christ,  and  being  now  present 
with  Him  thou  wilt  more  easily  obtain  what  thou  desirest.  I 
have  raised  to  thee  a  monument  more  durable  than  brass,  which 
time  shall  never  destroy.  But,"  he  adds,  "  we  do  not  weep  that  we 
have  lost  her  ;  we  thank  God  that  we  once  possessed  her.  What 
do  I  say  ?  We  possess  her  still,  for  the  elect  who  ascend  to  God 
still  remain  in  the  family  of  those  who  love  them." 

"  The  picture  of  Paula's  death,"  writes  Joseph  Bevan  Braith- 
waite,  "  gains  nothing  in  our  eyes  from  the  ascetic  colouring  spread 
over  it.  Yet  we  may  be  instructed  as  we  trace  in  her  self-denying 
faith,  her  care  for  the  poor,  her  patience  in  tribulation,  her  child- 
like trust  in  God,  the  genuine  marks  of  the  followers  of  Jesus.  We 
would  especially  notice  her  love  for  the  Scriptures.  She  had  stored 
them  in  her  memory.  The  facts  of  the  Bible  were  to  her  the 
foundation  of  truth ;  and  she  still  sought  after  an  insight  into  the 
spiritual  meaning  for  the  edification  of  her  soul.  Much  as  we 
must  deplore  the  evils  of  monasticism,  we  cannot  mark  the  conduct 
•of  these  devoted  women  in  laying  aside  the  wealth  and  honours  of 
earth  for  what  they  believed  to  be  the  service  of  Christ,  without,  in 
some  measure  at  least,  entering  into  the  feelings  of  Jerome  as  he 
watched  by  the  couch  of  the  dying  Paula,  and  listened  to  the 
descendant  of  so  many  illustrious  heathens  testifying  of  her  longing 
to  depart  and  to  be  with  Christ ;  and  breathing  forth  her  spirit  in 
language  more  ancient  than  the  earliest  triumphs  of  Rome,  but 
which  is  for  ever  new  in  the  experience  of  the  children  of  God : 
•  How  amiable  are  thy  tabernacles,  0  Lord  of  Hosts !  my  soul 
longeth,  yea,  even  fainteth  for  the  courts  of  the  Lord.'" 

It  was  now  that  the  nations  of  the  north  of  Europe — Goths, 
Vandals,  Sueves,  and  Alans — having  broken  down  the  military 
barriers  of  the  Empire,  poured  their  hordes  over  her  fairest  pro- 
vinces. In  405  the  Isaurians  laid  waste  the  north  of  Palestine  ;  the 
monasteries  of  Bethlehem  were  beset  with  fugitives,  and  Jerome 
and  his  friends  were  brought  into  great  straits  for  the  means  of 
living.  But  another  and  a  sorer  calamity  was  at  hand.  Already 
the  Goths  were  ravaging  the  northern  provinces  of  Italy ;  and  in 
410  Borne  was  taken  by  Alaric.  Many  of  the  inhabitants  were 
massacred ;  a  far  greater  number  were  suddenly  reduced  to  the 
miserable  condition  of  captives  and  exiles.     The  city  was  given  up 


FALL   OF    ROME.  125 

to  pillage ;  the  booty  was  immense.  "  The  acquisition  of  richer 
served  only  to  stimulate  the  avarice  of  the  rapacious  barbarians, 
who  proceeded  by  threats,  by  blows,  and  by  torture,  to  force  from 
their  prisoners  the  confession  of  hidden  treasure.  The  noble  Mar- 
cella,  the  venerable  head  of  the  religious  sisterhood  in  the  city,  was 
verging  upon  extreme  old  age.  The  blood-stained  Gothic  soldiers 
who  rushed  into  her  house  expecting  large  spoils  from  so  stately  a 
palace,  eagerly  demanded  that  she  should  surrender  the  treasures 
which  they  were  persuaded  she  had  buried.  She  showed  her  mean 
and  threadbare  garments,  and  told  them  how  it  came  to  pass  that 
she,  a  Eoman  matron,  was  destitute  of  wealth.  The  words  '  volun- 
tary poverty'  fell  on  unbelieving  ears.  They  beat  her  with  clubs  ; 
they  scourged  her ;  she  bore  the  strokes  with  unflinching  courage, 
but  fell  at  their  feet  and  implored  them  not  to  separate  her  from 
the  youthful  Principia,  her  adopted  daughter,  dreading  the  effect 
of  these  horrors  on  the  maiden,  if  called  to  bear  them  alone.  At 
length  their  hard  hearts  softened  towards  her.  They  accepted  her 
statement  as  to  her  poverty,  and  escorted  her  and  Principia  to  the- 
basilica  of  St.  Paul.1  Arrived  there  she  broke  forth  into  a  song  of 
thanksgiving,  '  that  God  had  at  least  kept  her  friend  for  her  un- 
harmed, that  she  had  not  been  made  poor  by  the  ruin  of  the  city, 
but  that  it  had  found  her  poor  already,  that  she  would  not  feel  the 
hunger  of  the  body,  even  though  the  daily  bread  might  fail,  because 
she  was  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  Christ.'  But  the  shock  of  the 
cruelties  she  had  endured  was  too  great  for  her  aged  frame,  and 
after  a  few  days  she  expired,  the  hands  of  her  adopted  daughter 
closing  her  eyes,  and  her  kisses  accompanying  the  last  sigh." 

Many  of  the  fugitives  took  refuge  in  Africa  and  Syria,  and  some 
even  found  their  way  to  Bethlehem.  "  Jerome  describes  himself  as- 
struck  dumb  with  amazement  at  the  capture  of  the  city  that  had 
conquered  the  world ;  and  as  the  intelligence  followed  in  quick 
succession,  of  the  desolation  of  the  provinces,  and  of  the  ruin  which 
foreshadowed  the  breaking  up  of  the  Empire  in  the  West,  he  often 
sought  relief  in  the  words  of  his  own  translation  of  Psalm  cxx.  5, 
•  Woe  is  me  that  my  pilgrimage  is  lengthened  out!'"  .  .  .  .  "It 
was,"  he  says  again,  "as  though  the  end  of  the  world  was  come. 
Who  would  have  believed  that  obscure  Bethlehem  would  see  begging 
at  its  gates  nobles  lately  laden  with  wealth  ?  The  daughters  of  the 
queenly  city  wander  from  shore  to  shore ;  her  ladies  have  become 
servants ;  her  most  illustrious  personages  ask  bread  at  our  gate, 

1  Alaric  had  given  orders  that  the  right  of  asylum  in  the  churches  should  be 
respected,  especially  in  the  two  great  basilicas  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul. 


126  WITNESSES    FOE    CHRIST. 

and  when  we  cannot  give  bread  to  them  all,  we  give  them  at  least 
our  tears.  In  vain  I  try  to  snatch  myself  from  the  sight  of  such 
sufferings  by  resuming  my  unfinished  work  ;  I  am  incapable  of 
study ;  I  feel  that  this  is  the  time  for  translating  the  precepts  of 
Scripture,  not  into  words,  but  deeds,  and  not  for  saying  holy  things, 
but  doing  them."1 

We  have  spoken  of  the  Vulgate,  the  celebrated  translation  of  the 
Bible  into  Latin  from  the  original  languages.  It  arose  out  of 
Jerome's  connection  with  the  Eoman  bishop  Damasus.  Whilst  he 
resided  in  Rome,  a  council  was  held  in  the  city,  to  which  he  was 
appointed  secretary,  and  when  it  was  dissolved  the  bishop  retained 
his  services  for  himself  in  the  same  capacity.  During  their  inter- 
course on  matters  of  Scripture  interpretation,  Damasus  urged 
Jerome  to  undertake  a  thorough  revision  of  the  Latin  Gospels. 
Jerome  recognised  the  need  of  such  a  work.  "Mistakes,"  he  says, 
"  have  been  introduced  by  false  transcription,  by  clumsy  corrections, 
and  by  careless  interpolations,  so  that  there  are  almost  as  many 
forms  of  text  as  copies."  This  revision  was  accomplished  whilst  he 
was  in  Rome ;  and  after  he  removed  to  Bethlehem,  at  the  urgent 
request  of  Paula  and  Eustochium,  he  extended  his  labours  to  the 
Old  Testament.2  He  had,  as  has  been  said,  already  commenced 
the  study  of  Hebrew;8  and  now  he  engaged  as  his  teachers,  at  much 
difficulty  and  expense,  three  Rabbis,  one  of  whom  was  from  Lydda, 
and  another  from  Tiberias.*  Great  preparation  was  needed  for  the 
work.  He  consulted  Biblical  students ;  he  searched  every  library 
in  Palestine  and  Egypt,  especially  those  of  Alexandria  and  Cassarea ; 
he  made  use  of  the  Hexapla  of  Origen ;  by  the  help  of  linguists  he 

1  "  The  fall  of  Rome,"  says  Thierry,  "turned  men's  brains  as  with  a  vertigo 
and  delirium.  There  was  no  longer  any  government,  pity,  or  justice,  and  for 
many  men  no  longer  a  God.  '  The  world  crumbles  away,  and  our  head  knows 
not  how  to  bow  down,'  cried  Jerome  in  terror.  'That  which  is  born  must 
perish ;  that  which  has  grown  must  wither.  There  is  no  created  work  which 
rust  or  age  does  not  consume : — but  Eome !  Who  could  have  believed  that, 
raised  by  her  victories  above  the  universe,  she  would  one  day  fall,  and  become 
for  her  people  at  once  a  mother  and  a  tomb?'  " 

2  Eustochium,  as  well  as  Paula,  understood  Hebrew.  They  used  to  go  to 
Jerome's  cave  at  certain  hours  to  read  the  Hebrew  Bible  with  him ;  and  from 
the  conversations  which  arose  on  these  occasions  many  a  passage  in  his  version 
of  the  Vulgate  was  settled. 

s  Jerome's  knowledge  of  Hebrew  was  much  greater  than  that  of  Origen, 
Epiphanius,  or  Ephrem,  the  only  other  Fathers  who  understood  it  at  all. 

4  It  is  said  of  the  Jew  of  Lydda  that  his  thirst  for  gold  was  equal  to  his  love 
of  knowledge.  To  read  Daniel  and  Tobit,  Jerome  was  obliged  to  change  his 
instructor  for  one  who  understood  Chaldee :  the  Eabbi  rendered  the  text  into 
Hebrew,  which  Jerome  dictated  in  Latin  for  his  scribes  to  write  down. 


THE    VULGATE.  127 

made  himself  acquainted  with  the  Ethiopic  and  Syriac  versions ; 
and  he  availed  himself  of  the  traditional  knowledge  of  his  Jewish 
instructors  on  orthography,  vowel  sounds  and  interpretations,  as 
well  as  on  Biblical  topography.  On  the  last  point  he  was  not 
satisfied  with  information  at  second-hand,  but  made  a  tour  of 
Palestine,  identifying,  as  well  as  he  was  able,  the  sites  of  the  cities 
and  villages,  mountains,  and  sacred  spots  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments.  This  was  not  all.  He  exercised  his  sound  and 
penetrating  judgment  in  replacing  passages  which  had  been 
omitted,  and  rejecting  such  as  had  been  interpolated.  Nor  were 
learning  and  genius  alone  necessary  for  the  accomplishment  of  this 
vast  undertaking  ;  it  required  a  rare  intrepidity  to  call  in  question 
the  authority  of  the  Septuagint,  and  to  restore  to  its  proper  place 
the  original  Hebrew.  It  must  also  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  task 
was  undertaken  and  completed  by  one  man  on  his  own  individual 
responsibility.  "  No  scholar,  for  fifteen  hundred  years,"  remarks 
Westcott,  "was  so  fitted  to  accomplish  it."  In  the  words  of 
Milman :  "  Whatever  it  may  owe  to  the  older  and  fragmentary 
versions  of  the  sacred  writings,  Jerome's  Bible  is  a  wonderful  work, 
still  more  as  achieved  by  one  man,  and  that  a  Western  Christian, 
even  with  all  the  advantage  of  study  and  of  residence  in  the  East. 
It  almost  created  a  new  language.  The  inflexible  Latin  became 
pliant  and  expansive,  naturalizing  foreign  Eastern  imagery,  Eastern 
modes  of  expression  and  of  thought  and  Eastern  religious  notions, 
most  uncongenial  to  its  own  genius  and  character  ;  and  yet 
retaining  much  of  its  own  peculiar  strength,  solidity  and  majesty. 
If  the  Northern,  the  Teutonic  languages,  coalesce  with  greater 
facility  with  the  Orientalism  of  the  Scriptures,  it  is  the  triumph  of 
Jerome  to  have  brought  the  more  dissonant  Latin  into  harmony 
with  the  Eastern  tongues.  The  Vulgate,  even  more  perhaps  than 
the  Papal  power,  was  the  foundation  of  Latin  Christianity." 

Like  all  innovations,  however  good,  the  labours  of  Jerome  were 
received  at  first  with  an  outcry  of  alarm.  He  was  accused  of  dis- 
turbing the  repose  of  the  Church,  and  shaking  the  foundations  of 
the  faith.  But  although  the  Vulgate  was  an  appeal  from  tradition 
to  truth,  it  came  itself  in  course  of  time  to  represent  that  very 
idolatry  of  tradition  which  it  had  sought  to  overthrow.  Barely 
tolerated  during  the  life-time  of  its  author,  its  intrinsic  merit 
made  way  for  it,  until  by  the  seventh  century  it  had  entirely  super- 
seded the  older  versions.  Its  daily  and  hourly  use  in  all  the 
churches  and  monasteries  of  Europe,  coupled  with  ignorance  of 
the  original  languages  on  the  part  of  the  clergy,  raised  its  authority, 
in  time,  to  the  place  of  an  article  of  faith  ;  so  that  the  Council  of 


128  WITNESSES    FOR    CHBIST. 

Trent,  in  1546,  declared :  "  The  Vulgate  edition  shall  be  held  for 
authentic  in  public  lectures,  disputations,  sermons  and  expositions, 
and  none  shall  dare  to  refuse  it."1 

A  long  period  of  sickness  preceded  Jerome's  death.  By  the  help 
of  a  cord  fixed  to  the  ceiling  of  his  cell,  he  used  to  raise  himself 
from  his  couch  whilst  he  recited  his  Hours?  He  was  attended  in 
his  last  illness  by  the  younger  Paula  (grandchild  of  his  friend 
Paula),  and  another  of  the  nuns.  He  died  419  or  420  a.d.,  at  the 
age  of  seventy-four. 

All  critics  agree  in  extolling  Jerome's  learning  and  the  soundness 
of  his  theology.  "  What  Jerome  was  ignorant  of,"  said  Augustine, 
"  no  mortal  has  ever  known."  The  words  of  Erasmus  are :  "  The 
divine  Jerome  is  among  the  Latins  so  incontestably  the  first  of 
theologians  that  we  have  scarcely  another  worthy  the  name. 
What  a  pitch  of  Roman  eloquence  in  him !  How  great  a  skill 
in  languages !  What  a  depth  of  acquaintance  with  the  history 
of  all  antiquity !  How  retentive  a  memory !  How  happy  a  union 
of  all  qualities !  How  absolute  a  knowledge  of  mystic  science  1 
Above  all  things,  how  ardent  a  spirit,  and  how  admirable  an 
inspiration!"  "His  commentaries  on  Scripture,"  says  Roberts, 
"  are  among  the  best  which  the  Fathers  have  bequeathed  to  us. 
His  Letter  to  Demetrius  is  valuable  for  the  clear  and  sound 
exposition  it  contains  of  Divine  Grace  as  the  gift  of  gratuitous 
mercy." 

Although  his  notions  were  at  least  as  superstitious,  and  his 
prejudices  more  violent  than  those  of  his  contemporaries,  yet  his 
powerful  intellect  often  grasps  the  truth  with  singular  firmness, 
and  holds  it  up  to  view  unsullied  and  luminous.  The  traditions  of 
the  Church  had  become  by  this  time  of  equal  authority  with  Holy 
Scripture.  **  Of  the  dogmas  which  are  preserved  in  the  Church," 
writes  Basil,  "  there  are  some  which  we  have  from  Scripture,  and 
others  from  the  tradition  of  the  Apostles,  and  both  have  the  same 
force.  What  written  precept  have  we,  for  instance,  for  signing 
believers  with  the  cross  ?  or  for  turning  to  the  east  in  our  prayers  ? 
The  words  of  invocation,  when  the  bread  of  the  Eucharist  and  cup 
of  Blessing  are  consecrated,  which  of  the  saints  has  left  to  us  in 
writing  ?  We  bless  both  the  water  of  baptism,  and  the  oil  of 
unction,  and  the  person  who  is  baptized — out  of  what  Scripture  ? 
Is  it  not  on  the  authority  of  the  silent  mystical  tradition  ?  "  How- 
ever inconsistent  he  may  have  been  in  practice,  Jerome  disposes  in 

1  On  the  invention  of  printing,  the  Vulgate  was  the  first  book  of  any  con- 
siderable size  which  was  issued  from  the  press. 

*  The  prayers  and  psalms  repeated  at  stated  times  were  thus  named. 


jebome's  adverse  influence  on  the  church.  129 

a  few  words  of  all  such  pretensions.  "  Do  not  suffer  yourselves  to 
be  seduced  by  pretended  apostolical  traditions.  Hypocritical  priests 
require  men  to  worship  their  traditions  and  statutes  as  other 
nations  worship  idols ;  but  to  us  God  has  given  the  law  and  the 
testimony  of  the  Scriptures.  ...  I  place  the  Apostles  apart  from 
all  other  writers  ;  they  always  speak  the  truth ;  others  err  like  men. 
We  ought  not,  like  the  scholars  of  Pythagoras,  to  regard  the  pre- 
judicated  opinion  of  the  teacher,  but  the  weight  and  reason  of  the 
thing  taught." 

But  the  case  is  far  otherwise  when  we  come  to  consider  Jerome's 
spirit  and  temper,  and  his  influence  on  his  own  and  succeeding 
ages.  There  is  too  much  ground  for  the  protest  of  Isaac  Taylor 
against  the  "vile  legendary  trash"  of  which  Jerome's  Life  of  the 
Hermit  Paul  largely  consists.  "  It  is  not,"  he  adds,  "  without  an 
emotion  profoundly  painful,  that  one  turns  from  the  turbid,  frothy, 
and  infectious  stream  of  Jerome's  ascetic  writings,  to  the  pellucid 
waters  of  Plato,  Xenophon,  and  Cicero,  reason  darkened  indeed, 
but  struggling  toward  the  light,  and  exempt  from  virulence,  from 
hypocrisy  and  from  absurdity.  Such  a  contrast  powerfully  im- 
presses the  mind  with  a  sense  of  the  infinite  mischief  that  has  been 
done  to  mankind  by  men,  who,  when  Christianity,  with  its  simple 
grandeur  and  its  divine  purity,  was  fairly  lodged  in  their  hands  and 
committed  to  their  care,  could  do  nothing  but  madly  heap  upon  it, 
and  often  for  selfish  purposes,  every  grossness  and  folly  which  might 
turn  aside  its  influence,  and  expose  it  to  contempt.  It  may  be  a 
Christian-like  and  kindly  office  to  palliate  the  errors,  and  to  cloak 
the  follies,  and  to  give  a  reason  for  the  false  notions,  of  the  Nicene 
divines;  but  when,  on  the  other  side,  one  thinks  of  the  long 
centuries  of  woe,  ignorance,  and  persecution,  and  religious  de- 
bauchery, which  took  their  character  directly  from  the  perversity 
of  these  doctors,  it  is  hard  to  repress  emotions  of  the  liveliest 
indignation." 

We  will  conclude  with  the  masterly  analysis  of  Jerome's  character 
in  the  Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography.  "  He  was  vain  and  unable 
to  bear  rivals  ;  extremely  sensitive  as  to  the  estimation  in  which  he 
was  held  by  his  contemporaries,  and  especially  by  the  bishops ; 
passionate  and  resentful,  but  at  times  becoming  suddenly  placable  ; 
scornful  and  violent  in  controversy ;  kind  to  the  weak  and  the  poor ; 
respectful  in  his  dealings  with  women ;  entirely  without  avarice ;. 
extraordinarily  diligent  in  work,  and  nobly  tenacious  of  the  main 
objects  to  which  he  devoted  his  life.  .  .  .  His  writings  contain  the 
whole  spirit  of  the  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages,  its  monasticism,  its 
contrast  of  sacred  things  with  profane,  its  credulity  and  super- 


130  WITNESSES    FOB    CHRIST. 

stition,  its  subjection  to  hierarchical  authority,  its  dread  of  heresy, 
its  passion  for  pilgrimages.  To  the  society  which  was  thus  in  a 
great  measure  formed  by  him,  his  Bible  was  the  greatest  boon 
which  could  have  been  given.  But  he  founded  no  school,  and  had 
no  inspiring  power ;  there  was  no  courage  or  width  of  view  in  his 
spiritual  legacy  which  could  break  through  the  fatal  circle  of 
bondage  to  received  authority  which  was  closing  round  mankind." 


CHAPTER    IX. 

Augustine. 

Op  Augustine,  "  the  tenderest,  most  devout,  and  in  all  respects 
most  noble-minded  of  the  Christian  Fathers,"  more  is  known  than 
of  any  other,  chiefly  because  he  has  left  an  autobiography,  the 
well-known  Confessions,  written  when  he  was  about  forty-three  years 
old.  The  son  of  a  pagan  citizen  of  Thagaste,  in  Numidia,  he  was 
born  a.d.  354.  His  mother,  Monnica,  "  the  pattern  of  mothers," 
was  a  Christian,  and  to  her  patience  and  faithfulness  her  husband 
mainly  owed  his  conversion,  and  her  son  his  character  and 
greatness. 

Augustine  was  sent  first  to  an  elementary  school  in  his  native 
town,  "  where,"  as  he  tells  us,  '■'■one  and  one  are  two,  two  and  two  are 
four,  was  a  hateful  singsong"  to  him,  and  when  he  did  not  learn, 
he  was  beaten.  He  calls  this  discipline  "a  great  and  grievous  ill," 
and  in  his  distress  he  used  earnestly  to  pray  to  God  that  he  might 
not  be  so  punished.  "  We  boys,"  he  says,  "  wanted  not  memory 
or  capacity,  but  we  delighted  only  in  play,  and  for  this  we  were 
punished  by  those  who  were  doing  the  same  things  themselves.  But 
the  idleness  of  our  elders  is  called  business,  whilst  boys  who  do  the 
like  are  punished  by  those  same  elders." 

In  due  time  he  was  promoted  to  a  higher  school  in  the  neigh- 
bouring large  town  of  Madaura,  where  the  majority  of  the  in- 
habitants were  pagans,  and  the  statues  of  the  gods  still  stood 
uninjured  in  the  forum.  Here  Virgil  delighted  him, — "the  wooden 
horse  full  of  armed  men,  and  the  burning  of  Troy,  and  the  spectral 
image  of  Creusa ; "  but  although  Homer  contained  the  same 
"sweetly  vain  fiction,"  the  difficulty  of  mastering  Greek  em- 
bittered all  the  romance  of  the  Iliad.  To  make  the  youthful 
scholar  comprehend  the  Greek  poet,  harsh  threats  and  blows  were 
freely  used. 


Augustine's  youth.  131 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  when  Augustine  in  after  years  looked 
hack  upon  his  school  days  with  a  ripened  judgment,  and  from  a 
Christian  standpoint,  he  condemned  the  classic  method  of  instruc- 
tion, that  "  torrent  of  hell "  as  he  calls  it,  hy  which  learning  was 
poured  into  the  boyish  mind  through  the  obscene  fables  of  heathen- 
ism. He  also  brings  out  into  strong  relief  the  scrupulous  care  with 
which  the  scholars  were  trained  in  the  niceties  of  grammar,  whilst 
moral  truth  and  practice  were  neglected  ;  so  that,  as  he  expresses 
it,  "  it  was  accounted  a  greater  offence  for  a  scholar  to  drop  the 
aspirate  and  say  'ominem,  instead  of  hominem  (man),  than  if,  in 
opposition  to  the  divine  commandments,  he,  a  human  being,  should 
hate  a  human  being." 

At  the  age  of  sixteen  he  returned  home  to  his  parents,  and  the 
next  year  was  sent  to  college  at  Carthage  to  complete  his  education. 
During  this  period,  notwithstanding  his  mother's  loving  counsel 
and  entreaties,  he  fell  into  dissolute  habits.  "  My  mother's 
admonitions  to  chastity  appeared  to  me  but  womanish  counsels 
which  I  should  blush  to  obey."  ..."  Blindly"  (he  says  again) 
"I  rushed  on  headlong;  when  I  heard  my  equals  pluming  them- 
selves on  their  disgraceful  deeds,  I  made  myself  out  worse  than  I 
was  that  I  might  not  be  dispraised.  ...  A  cauldron  of  unholy 
loves  bubbled  up  around  me  ;  and  yet  foul  and  dishonourable  as  I 
was,  I  craved,  through  an  excess  of  vanity,  to  be  thought  elegant 
and  urbane."  He  and  his  companions,  habitues  of  the  theatre  and 
the  circus,  prided  themselves  on  their  gallantry,  and  practised 
shameful  tricks  and  rough  jokes  in  the  public  streets.  But  in  the 
midst  of  all  this  dissipation  he  found  time  for  study,  and  his 
natural  genius  asserted  itself  so  strongly  that  he  became  head 
scholar  in  the  school  of  rhetoric. 

In  the  course  of  his  studies  he  lighted  upon  the  "Hortensius"  of 
Cicero,  a  dialogue  in  praise  of  philosophy,  of  which  fragments  only 
remain.  "This  book,"  he  writes,  "changed  my  affections,  and 
turned  my  prayers  to  Thee,  0  Lord.1  Suddenly  all  my  vain  hopes 
became  worthless,  and  with  an  incredible  warmth  of  heart,  I 
yearned  for  the  possession  of  immortal  philosophy,  and  began  to 
arise  that  I  might  return  to  Thee.  .  .  .  One  thing  alone  checked 
my  ardour,  that  the  name  of  Christ  was  not  in  the  book.  For  this 
name  had  my  tender  heart  piously  drunk  in,  even  with  my  mother's 
milk,  and  whatever  was  without  that  name,  though  never  so  erudite, 
polished  and  truthful,  could  not  take  complete  hold  of  me."  But 
he  was  not  yet  humble  enough  to  receive  the  spiritual  teaching  of 

1  His  Confessions  are  throughout  addressed  to  God. 


182  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

the  Scriptures.  "  They  were  such  as  the  lowly  can  understand ;  hut 
they  appeared  to  me  unworthy  to  he  compared  with  the  dignity  of 
Cicero ;  my  full-blown  pride  shunned  their  simple  style,  nor  could 
the  sharpness  of  my  wit  penetrate  their  inner  meaning." 

In  this  condition  of  mind  he  met  with  the  Manichasans,1  whose 
rationalistic  system  entangled  him  like  "  bird-lime,"  and  for  a  long 
time  held  him  a  willing  prisoner.  Years  afterwards,  when  he  had 
escaped,  and  had  come  into  the  reality  of  the  Gospel,  he  saw  how 
deceitful  had  been  the  illusion  which  had  been  put  upon  him.  "0 
truth,  truth,  how  did  the  marrow  of  my  soul  pant  after  thee !  They 
sounded  out  thy  name  to  me,  but  it  was  but  a  voice.  As  fictitious 
dishes  served  up  to  one  in  hunger,  so  instead  of  Thee  they  served 
up  to  me  thy  sun  and  moon,  thy  beauteous  works,  but  not  Thyself; 
and  glowing  phantasies  and  empty  fictions  ;  and  I  fed  upon  them,, 
but  was  not  nourished  but  famished.  For  I  hungered  and  thirsted,, 
not  so  much  after  thy  works,  but  after  Thee  Thyself,  the  Truth,, 
with  whom  is  no  variableness,  neither  shadow  of  turning ;  and  far 
from  Thee  was  I  wandering,  cut  off  even  from  the  husks  of  the 
swine  whom  with  husks  I  was  feeding." 

Augustine  returned  from  Carthage  an  avowed  Manichsean,  and 
not  content  with  holding  these  opinions  himself,  he  used  all  his- 
skill  as  a  trained  disputant  to  win  converts  to  the  same  error.  His. 
pious  mother  (his  father  was  then  dead)  "  wept  for  him  more  than 
mothers  weep  the  bodily  death  of  their  children."  She  did  more 
than  grieve.  Shrinking  from,  and  detesting  the  blasphemies  of  his 
heresy,  she  began  to  doubt  whether  it  was  right  in  her  to  allow  her 
son  to  live  with  her  and  to  eat  at  the  same  table.  From  this 
perplexity  she  was  delivered  by  a  dream.  She  saw  herself  standing 
on  a  wooden  rule,2  bowed  down  with  grief,  when  a  shining  youth 
advanced  towards  her,  and  with  a  smile  inquired  the  cause  of  her 
sorrow.  She  answered  that  she  was  lamenting  her  son's  perdition ; 
he  bade  her  be  comforted,  and  told  her  to  behold  and  see  that 
where  she  was,  there  was  her  son  also.  She  looked,  and  saw 
Augustine  standing  near  her  on  the  same  rule.  On  her  relating  to 
him  the  vision  he  pretended  that  it  signified  she  should  not  despair 
of  being  some  day  what  he  was.  "  No,"  she  replied  promptly  and 
decidedly,  "  it  was  not  told  me,  where  he  is,  thou  shalt  be,  but 
where  thou  art,  he  shall  be."  He  confesses  that  his  mother's 
answer,  showing  that  she  was  not  deceived  by  his  sophistry,  moved 
him  more  than  the  dream  itself. 

1  See  a  brief  notice  of  their  rise  and  doctrines  in  Early  Church  History,  p.  226. 
2  Begula;  symbolical  of  the  rule  of  faith. 


AUGUSTINE   A   TEACHER  OF   RHETORIC.  183 

About  the  same  period  his  mother  in  her  distress  applied  to  a 
hishop,  reported  to  be  well  skilled  in  refuting  errors  and  teaching 
sound  doctrine,  entreating  him  that  he  would  have  some  talk  with 
her  son.  He  refused,  alleging  that  Augustine  was  as  yet  unteach- 
able,  being  puffed  up  with  the  novelty  of  the  heresy  he  had  em- 
braced, and  with  having  already  silenced  many  by  his  arguments. 
"  Leave  him  alone  for  a  time,"  he  said,  "  only  pray  for  him;  he 
will  of  himself,  by  reading,  discover  his  error  ;  for  I  myself,  when 
a  youth,  was  by  a  misguided  mother  betrayed  to  the  Manichaeans, 
and  not  only  read  but  wrote  out  almost  all  their  books ;  and  yet  I 
came  to  see,  without  argument  or  proof  from  any  one,  how  that 
sect  was  to  be  shunned."  But  Monnica  could  not  be  satisfied;  she 
besought  the  good  bishop  still  more  earnestly  and  with  many  tears, 
that  he  would  see  and  discourse  with  her  son.  A  little  displeased 
at  her  importunity  he  exclaimed,  "  Go  thy  way  and  God  bless  thee, 
for  it  is  not  possible  that  the  son  of  these  tears  should  perish." 
She  went  away  comforted,  accepting  his  answer  as  a  voice  from 
heaven. 

Augustine  now  commenced  to  teach  rhetoric  at  Carthage.  His 
pupils  were  mostly  studying  for  the  law.  "  In  those  years  I  made 
sale  of  the  art  of  victorious  loquacity.  Yet  I  preferred  to  have 
honest  scholars,  as  they  are  esteemed,  to  whom  I  without  artifice 
taught  artifices,  not  to  be  practised  against  the  life  of  the  guiltless, 
although  sometimes  for  the  life  of  the  guilty."  Many  heathen 
notions  and  practices  still  lingered,  and  amongst  them  that  of 
soothsaying.  "  When  I  would  compete  for  a  theatrical  prize," 
Augustine  continues,  "  a  soothsayer  demanded  how  mueh  I  would 
give  him  to  make  me  win.  He  was  to  sacrifice  certain  living 
creatures,  and  so  induce  the  devils  to  favour  me.  I  answered  him: 
1  Although  the  garland  I  was  to  win  should  be  made  of  imperishable 
gold,  I  would  not  suffer  a  fly  to  be  destroyed  to  secure  it.'  But  I 
.said  this  not  out  of  pure  love  for  Thee,  0  God  of  my  heart,  for  I 
knew  not  then  how  to  love  Thee,  but  because  I  detested  and 
abominated  such  foul  mysteries,  although  I  myself  was  sacrificing 
to  devils  by  the  superstition  in  which  I  was  enthralled."  Accord- 
ingly he  did  not  hesitate  to  consult  another  kind  of  impostors,  the 
astrologers,  or  "  mathematicians,"  who  observed  the  stars,  but 
offered  no  sacrifices  and  invoked  no  spirit  in  their  divinations. 

At  twenty,  Augustine  had  mastered  nearly  all  the  science  of  the 
age.  Whilst  others  were  scarcely  able  to  understand  Aristotle 
with  the  aid  of  skilful  tutors,  he  read  him  unassisted.  "Whatever 
was  written  on  rhetoric,  logic,  geometry,  music,  or  arithmetic,  I 
understood  without  an  instructor,  because  of  the   quickness  of 


134  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

intelligence  and  acuteness  of  observing  which  Thou,  0  my  God, 
gave  me." 

By  degrees  Augustine  discovered  that  the  professors  of  Manichae- 
ism  could  not  solve  the  questions  which  sprang  up  in  his  astute 
mind,  and  that  what  Manes  had  taught  regarding  the  universe  was 
contradicted  by  science.  His  confidence  was  further  shaken  by  the 
most  renowned  bishop  of  the  sect,  who  discerned  Augustine's 
genius,  requesting  to  become  his  pupil.  All  this  time,  during 
which  he  was  wandering  in  the  labyrinth  of  a  false  religion, 
Augustine  was  in  bondage  also  to  the  indulgence  of  his  unsubdued 
appetites. 

Amongst  the  pupils  in  his  school  of  rhetoric  was  Alypius,  a  youth 
of  great  promise,  but  "  the  vortex  of  Carthaginian  customs  had 
inveigled  him  into  the  madness  of  the  games."  Although  not  yet 
himself  converted,  Augustine  perceived  clearly  the  folly  of  such  a 
manner  of  life.  "  One  day,"  he  writes,  "  when  I  was  sitting  in  my 
accustomed  place,  with  my  scholars  before  me,  Alypius  came  in, 
saluted  me,  and  fixed  his  attention  on  the  subject  I  was  handling- 
"Whilst  I  was  explaining  there  occurred  to  me  a  simile  borrowed 
from  the  circus,  as  likely  to  make  what  I  wished  to  convey 
pleasanter  and  plainer,  imbued  at  the  same  time  with  a  biting  gibe 
at  those  who  were  enthralled  by  that  madness.  I  had  no  thought 
at  the  moment  of  curing  Alypius  of  that  plague.  But  he  applied 
my  words  to  himself,  and  thought  I  spoke  them  only  for  his  sake. 
And  what  any  other  would  have  made  a  ground  of  offence  against 
me,  this  worthy  young  man  took  as  a  reason  for  being  offended  at 
himself,  and  for  loving  me  more  fervently."  But  although 
Augustine's  sharp  reproof  brought  Alypius  for  the  time  to  his 
senses,  he  was  not  in  reality  "  cured  of  his  plague."  In  Borne,  not. 
long  afterwards,  he  was  one  day  met  by  a  knot  of  acquaintances 
and  fellow-students  returning  from  dinner,  who  with  friendly 
violence  drew  him  towards  the  amphitheatre,  he  all  the  while 
resisting.  "  You  may,"  he  protested,  "  drag  my  body  thither  and 
seat  me  there,  but  you  cannot  force  me  to  lend  my  mind  or  my  eyes 
to  the  spectacle."  Nevertheless  they  carried  him  in  with  them  and 
took  their  places.  Soon  the  customary  excitement  seized  the  vast 
crowd.  For  a  while  Alypius  kept  his  eyes  firmly  closed,  but  on  the 
fall  of  one  of  the  combatants,  there  arose  so  mighty  a  cry,  that,, 
overcome  by  curiosity,  his  resolution  gave  way,  and  he  looked  on 
the  scene  before  him.  Instantly  the  sight  of  the  blood  brought  back 
all  the  old  craving  ;  he  fixed  his  gaze  until  he  was  intoxicated  with 
the  sanguinary  pastime,  and  joined  in  the  universal  shout.  "  From 
all  this,  didst  Thou,"  adds  Augustine,  "  with  a  most  powerful  and 


AUGUSTINE  GOES  TO  HOME.  185 

a  most  merciful  hand  pluck  him,  and  teach  him  not  to  trust  in 
himself  but  in  Thee." 

The  schools  of  rhetoric  at  Carthage  were  very  disorderly,  and 
although  that  of  Augustine  enjoyed  a  high  reputation,  he  longed  for 
a  more  quiet  chair,  where  discipline  still  held  something  of  her 
ancient  sway.  He  resolved  to  go  to  Eome.  This  resolution  was  a 
great  grief  to  Monnica.  Unable  to  part  with  him,  she  went  down 
to  the  harbour,  determined  either  to  prevent  his  voyage,  or  to  bear 
him  company.  To  free  himself  from  her,  he  pretended  that  he  had 
a  friend  whom  he  desired  to  see  off,  and  who  was  waiting  for  a 
favourable  wind.  "  By  the  help  of  this  device,  I  hardly  persuaded 
her  to  remain  that  night  in  a  place  close  to  our  ship,  where  there 
was  an  oratory  in  memory  of  the  blessed  Cyprian."  During  the 
night,  whilst  she  was  weeping  and  praying  that  he  might  not  be 
permitted  to  leave  her,  the  wind  rose,  filled  the  sails,  and  bore 
Augustine  out  of  sight  of  land.  His  reflections  in  after-years  on  the 
events  of  this  sad  night  are  full  of  tenderness  and  wisdom.  "  I  lied 
to  my  mother,  and  such  a  mother,  and  got  away.  Thou,  0  God, 
mysteriously  counselling  and  hearing  the  real  purpose  of  her  desire, 
granted  not  what  she  then  asked,  that  Thou  mightest  make  me 
what  she  was  ever  asking."  When  the  next  morning  she  came  to 
the  shore  and  found  the  ship  was  gone,  "  she  was  wild  with  grief." 

Augustine  came  to  Kome  in  383.  He  had  been  there  only  six 
months  when  the  city  of  Milan  applied  to  Symmachus,  the  pagan 
prefect,  an  upright  and  eloquent  man,  for  a  teacher  of  rhetoric. 
Augustine,  through  some  Manichaean  friends,  made  application  for 
the  appointment ;  and  Symmachus,  having  satisfied  himself  of  his 
fitness,  sent  him  to  Milan  at  the  public  expense.  Alypius  would  not 
leave  him.  " He  clave  to  me,"  writes  Augustine,  "by  a  most  strong 
tie,  and  went  with  me  to  Milan,  both  that  he  might  not  leave  me, 
and  that  he  might  practise  something  of  the  law  he  had  studied, 
more  to  please  his  parents  than  himself.  At  Eome,"  he  continues, 
"  he  had  thrice  sat  as  assessor  with  much  uncorruptness,  wondered 
at  by  others,  he  wondering  that  they  should  prefer  gold  to 
honesty." 

The  great  attraction  for  Augustine  at  Milan  was  Ambrose.  "  To 
Milan  I  came,  and  to  Ambrose  the  bishop,1  thy  devout  servant, 
known  to  the  whole  world  as  among  the  best  of  men,  whose  eloquent 
discourse  did  at  that  time  strenuously  dispense  unto  thy  people  the 
flour  of  thy  wheat,  the  gladness  of  thy  oil,  and  the  sober  intoxication 
of  thy  wine.     To  him  was  I  unknowingly  led  by  Thee,  that  by  him 

1  He  had  then  occupied  the  see  nine  years. 


186  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

I  might  knowingly  be  led  to  Thee.  He  received  me  as  a  father,  and 
I  began  to  love  him,  not  at  first  indeed  as  a  teacher  of  the  Truth, 
which  I  utterly  despaired  of  finding  in  thy  Church,  but  as  a  man 
friendly  to  myself.  I  studiously  hearkened  to  him  preaching  to  the 
people,  but  not  with  the  intent  I  ought  to  have  done,  for  of  the 
matter  I  was  careless  and  scornful,  but  testing  his  eloquence  whether 
it  came  up  to  its  fame.  Yet  all  the  time,  little  by  little,  I  was 
unconsciously  drawing  nearer  to  him.  For  although  I  took  no 
pains  to  learn  what  he  spoke,  but  only  to  hear  how  he  spoke,  yet 
along  with  the  words  which  I  prized  there  entered  into  my  mind 
also  the  things  about  which  I  was  indifferent;  for  I  could  not 
separate  them :  so  that  whilst  I  opened  my  heart  to  admit  how 
skilfully  he  spoke,  by  degrees  there  entered  also  the  conviction  how 
truly  he  spoke.  In  the  end  I  resolved  to  become  a  catechumen  in 
the  Catholic  Church." 

Augustine  found  but  little  opportunity  of  private  intercourse  with 
the  bishop.  "It  would  seem  that  Ambrose,  after  the  fashion  of  hot 
countries,  sat  habitually  in  a  corner  of  the  cloister  or  verandah 
which  surrounded  the  open  court  of  the  house,  so  that  those  who 
wished  to  speak  to  him  could  watch  for  an  opportunity  of  finding 
him  disengaged."  "  When,"  writes  Augustine,  "  he  was  not 
occupied  with  the  crowds  of  busy  people  to  whose  infirmities  he 
devoted  himself,  he  was  either  refreshing  his  body  with  necessary 
sustenance,  or  his  mind  with  reading.  Often  when  we  had  come 
and  seen  him  thus  intent,  and  had  sat  long  silent,  we  were  fain  to 
depart,  inferring  that  he  was  unwilling  to  lose  the  little  time  he  thus 
secured  for  replenishing  his  mind." 

Monnica  could  not  long  remain  absent  from  her  beloved  and 
erring  son,  but  followed  him  to  Milan.  The  vessel  in  which  she 
sailed  was  in  danger  of  shipwreck,  and  the  sailors  themselves  were 
alarmed,  but  Monnica,  so  Augustine  relates,  was  comforted  by  a 
heavenly  vision  and  able  to  predict  a  safe  termination  to  their 
voyage. 

Shortly  before  her  arrival  Augustine  and  Alypius  were  joined  by 
another  young  man,  Nebridius,  "who  left  Carthage  and  his  fine 
paternal  estate,  his  house  and  his  mother,  and  came  to  Milan  for  no 
other  reason  but  that  with  me  he  might  live  in  a  most  ardent  search 
after  truth  and  wisdom.  "  So,"  he  continues,  "  were  there  three 
indigent  persons  sighing  out  their  wants  one  to  another,  and  waiting 
upon  Thee  that  Thou  mightest  give  them  their  meat  in  due 
season."  These  three,  with  a  few  others  of  like  mind,  formed  the 
project  of  separating  themselves  wholly  from  the  turmoil  of  the 
world.    Each  was  to  throw  his  possessions  into  the  common  stock ; 


LIGHT    DAWNS.  137 

and  the  cares  of  the  household  were  to  be  committed  to  two  of  them 
as  stewards,  that  the  rest  might  devote  themselves  undisturbed  to 
the  pursuit  of  wisdom.  But  an  important  element  had  been  left 
out  in  their  calculation.  "We  began  to  ask  whether  the  wives 
whom  some  of  us  possessed  already,  and  others  hoped  to  have, 
would  give  their  consent,  and  all  our  plans  which  had  been  so 
skilfully  framed  broke  to  pieces,  and  were  utterly  wrecked  and  cast 
aside.  So  we  fell  again  to  sighs  and  groans,  and  our  steps  again 
followed  the  broad  and  beaten  tracks  of  the  world." 

Augustine  found  himself  still  under  the  shackles  of  his  old  sins. 
He  had  brought  with  him  to  Milan  his  son  Adeodatus,  and  the 
youth's  mother.  Monnica  was  very  solicitous  that  he  should  break 
off  the  unlawful  connexion,  and  contract  an  honourable  marriage. 
A  maiden  was  even  chosen  for  him  and  his  consent  obtained ;  but 
the  time  of  reformation  was  not  yet  come ;  he  fell  back  again  into 
his  former  mode  of  life. 

He  had  now  cast  off  the  doctrines  of  the  Manichseans,  and  had 
allied  himself  with  the  Neo-Platonists,  with  whom,  however,  he  did 
not  long  remain.  " Being,"  he  says,  "warned  to  return  to  myself, 
I  entered  into  my  inward  parts,  Thou  leading  me  on  ;  and  with  the 
eye  of  my  soul  I  saw  above  my  mind  the  unchangeable  light.  Not 
this  common  light  which  all  flesh  may  look  upon,  nor  a  greater  one 
of  the  same  kind,  though  much  more  resplendent,  but  very  different 
from  these.  Neither  was  it  above  my  mind  as  oil  is  above  water, 
nor  as  heaven  is  above  earth,  but  it  was  above  me  because  it  made 
me,  and  I  was  below  it  because  I  was  made  by  it.  He  who  knows 
the  truth  knows  that  light,  and  he  who  knows  that  light  knows 
eternity.  Love  knows  it.  0  eternal  truth,  and  true  love  and 
beloved  eternity !  .  .  .  I  found  not  the  way  to  enjoy  Thee,  until  I 
embraced  that  Mediator  between  God  and  man,  the  Man  Christ 
Jesus,  who  is  over  all  God  blessed  for  ever,  and  who  called  to  me 
saying,  '  I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life  ! '  " 

There  was  at  Milan  a  good  man  named  Simplician,1  one  who  had 
been  spiritually  helpful  to  Ambrose,  and  who  is  described  by  him 
*'  as  having  traversed  the  whole  world  to  acquire  divine  knowledge, 
and  given  his  entire  life  to  holy  reading,  night  and  day."  "  Thou 
God !  "  exclaims  Augustine,  "didst  put  into  my  mind,  and  it  seemed 
good  in  my  eyes,  to  go  to  this  man.  I  went  therefore  and  unfolded 
to  him  the  tortuous  course  of  my  errors."  Simplician  related  to 
him  the  history  of  Victorinus,  who  after  worshipping  idols  all  his 
life,  became  in  his  old  age  a  child  of  Christ,  and  made  a  public 

1  He  succeeded  Ambrose  as  bishop  of  Milan. — See  ante,  p.  70. 


138  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

confession  of  his  name.  As  Augustine  listened — "  I  burned,"  he 
says,  "to  imitate  Victorinus,  and  when  I  heard  that  in  the  time  of 
the  Emperor  Julian  a  law  was  made  forbidding  Christians  to  teach 
grammar  and  rhetoric,  and  that  this  man  chose  rather  to  relinquish 
the  school  of  words  than  to  give  up  thy  Word,  he  appeared  to  me 
not  more  courageous  than  happy  in  having  thus  discovered  an 
opportunity  of  serving  Thee  only ; — which  thing  I  also  sighed  for  in 
my  bonds ;  bonds  not  imposed  by  another,  but  by  my  own  iron 
will.  The  enemy  being  master  of  my  will  had  made  a  chain  of  itr 
and  bound  me  with  it.  Out  of  a  perverse  will  came  lust ;  and  lust 
indulged  became  custom  ;  and  custom  unresisted  became  necessity. 
And  that  new  will  which  had  begun  to  rise  in  me,  freely  to  serve 
Thee  and  to  wish  to  enjoy  Thee,  0  God,  the  only  sure  delight,  was 
not  as  yet  able  to  overcome  my  former  wilfulness  made  strong  by 
long  indulgence.  Thus  did  my  two  wills — one  old,  the  other  new  ; 
one  carnal,  the  other  spiritual — strive  within  me,  and  by  their  dis- 
cord undid  my  soul." 

Another  hand  of  help  was  extended  to  him  by  his  fellow-country- 
man Pontitianus.  This  man,  coming  to  the  house  where  Augustine 
and  Alypius  dwelt,  saw  on  the  table  a  copy  of  Paul's  Epistles ;  and 
in  the  conversation  to  which  the  volume  gave  rise  he  related  to 
them  the  anecdote  of  the  two  gentlemen,  who  were  turned  from  the 
pursuit  of  worldly  honour  to  embrace  the  ascetic  life  by  reading 
Athanasius'  Life  of  St.  Anthony.1  The  narrative  sank  deep  into 
Augustine's  soul.  "  Thou,  0  Lord,  whilst  he  was  speaking  didst 
turn  me  towards  myself,  taking  me  from  behind  my  back  where  I 
had  placed  myself,  and  setting  me  before  my  face  that  I  might  see 
how  foul  I  was,  how  crooked  and  defiled,  bespotted  and  ulcerous.  I 
beheld  and  loathed  myself,  and  whither  to  flee  from  myself  I  found 
not.  And  whenever  I  sought  to  turn  away  my  gaze  from  myself, 
Thou  again  didst  set  me  over  against  myself,  and  thrustedst  me 
before  my  own  eyes  that  I  might  find  out  my  own  iniquity  and  hate 
it.  .  .  .  Pontitianus,"  continues  Augustine,  "  having  finished  his 
story  and  the  business  he  came  for,  went  his  way,  and  I  withdrew 
into  myself.  With  what  scourges  of  rebuke  did  I  not  lash  my  soul 
to  make  her  follow  me,  struggling  to  go  after  Thee  !  Yet  she  drew 
back,  she  refused.  All  her  arguments  were  spent  and  confuted ; 
there  remained  only  a  mute  shrinking ;  she  dreaded,  as  if  it  were 
death  itself,  the  plugging  of  that  flow  of  habit  whereby  she  was 
wasting  to  death.  I  grasped  Alypius,  and  exclaimed,  •  What  ails 
us  ?     What  is  it  ?     The  unlearned  start  up  and  take  Heaven  by 

1  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  300,  note. 


A   DEATH-STRUGGLE.  139 

force,  while  we  with  our  learning,  but  wanting  heart,  behold ! 
where  we  wallow  in  flesh  and  blood.'  Some  such  words  I  uttered,. 
and  in  my  excitement  flung  myself  from  him,  while  he  gazed  after 
me  in  silent  amazement." 

"  There  was,"  he  goes  on  to  relate,  "  a  little  garden  belonging  to 
our  lodging,  of  which  we  had  the  use.  Thither  the  tempest  within 
my  breast  hurried  me,  where  no  one  might  check  the  fiery  struggle 
in  which  I  was  engaged  with  myself,  until  it  came  to  the  issue 
which  Thou  knewest,  though  I  did  not."  Alypius  followed,  "for 
his  presence  did  not  destroy  my  privacy,  and  how  could  he  desert 
me  so  troubled  ?  "We  sat  down  as  far  from  the  house  as  we 
could." 

The  fever  which  consumed  Augustine's  soul  communicated  itself 
to  his  body ;  he  tore  his  hair ;  he  smote  his  forehead  ;  with  close- 
knit  fingers  he  clasped  his  knee.  The  two  natures,  the  two  wills- 
within  him,  the  good  drawing  this  way,  the  evil  that  way,  were 
locked  together  in  a  death-3truggle  for  the  mastery.  "  The  very 
toys  of  toys  and  vanities  of  vanities,  my  old  mistresses,  held  me  in 
their  thrall ;  they  shook  my  fleshly  garment  and  whispered  softly, 
Dost  thou  part  with  us  ?  From  this  moment  shall  we  no  more  be 
with  thee  for  ever  ?  What  they  said  I  did  not  so  much  as  half 
hear,  for  they  did  not  openly  show  themselves  and  contradict  me, 
but  muttering  as  it  were  behind  my  back,  furtively  plucked  me  as 
I  was  departing,  to  make  me  look  back  upon  them.  For  on  that 
other  side  toward  which  I  had  set  my  face  and  whither  I  still 
trembled  to  go,  the  chaste  dignity  of  continence  shone  upon  me 
full  of  cheerfulness,  honestly  alluring  me  to  come  and  doubt  nothing, 
and  extending  her  holy  hands,  full  of  a  multiplicity  of  good 
examples,  to  receive  and  embrace  me." 

At  length  he  could  could  contain  himself  no  longer ;  the  storm 
which  raged  within  him  found  vent  in  a  torrent  of  tears.  Feeling 
entire  solitude  to  be  the  fittest  place  for  weeping,  he  stole  away 
from  Alypius,  and  flung  himself  under  a  fig-tree,  where  his  heart 
found  relief  in  words.  "  'Thou,  0  Lord,  how  long?  How  long, 
Lord,  wilt  Thou  be  angry  for  ever  ?  0  remember  not  against  us- 
former  iniquities.  How  long,  how  long  ?  To-morrow,  to-morrow  ? 
Why  not  now  ?  Why  not  this  hour  an  end  to  my  uncleanness  ? ' 
Thus  I  said,  and  wept  in  the  most  bitter  contrition  of  my  heart, 
and  behold  I  heard  the  voice,  as  of  a  boy  or  girl,  I  know  not  which, 
coming  from  a  neighbouring  house,  chanting  and  oft  repeating, 
'  Tolle,  lege ;  tolle  lege ' ;  '  Take  up  and  read,  take  up  and  read.' 
Instantly  my  countenance  altered  ;  I  began  to  think  most  intently 
whether  children  were  wont  in  any  kind  of  play  to  sing  such  words  'r 


140  WITNESSES   FOB   CHRIST. 

and  I  could  not  remember  ever  to  have  heard  the  like.  So  checking 
my  tears  I  rose  up,  interpreting  it  to  be  no  other  than  a  command 
to  me  from  Heaven,  to  open  the  book  and  read  the  first  chapter  I 
should  light  upon.  .  .  .  Eagerly,  therefore,  I  returned  to  the 
place  where  Alypius  was  sitting,  for  there  I  had  laid  the  volume  of 
the  Apostles.  I  seized,  I  opened,  and  in  silence  read  that  para- 
graph on  which  my  eyes  first  fell :  '  Not  in  rioting  and  drunken- 
ness, not  in  chambering  and  wantonness,  not  in  strife  and  envying; 
but  put  ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  make  no  provision  for  the 
flesh  to  fulfil  the  lusts  thereof.'  No  further  would  I  read,  nor 
needed  I,  for  instantly  as  the  sentence  ended,  by  a  serene  light  as 
it  were  infused  into  my  heart,  all  the  darkness  of  doubt  vanished 
away.  Then  putting  my  finger,  or  some  other  mark,  in  the  place, 
I  closed  the  book,  and  with  a  tranquil  countenance  made  known  to 
Alypius  what  had  passed.  He  asked  to  see  what  I  had  been 
reading.  I  showed  him ;  he  looked  further  and  read,  '  Him  that 
is  weak  in  the  faith,  receive  ye,'  which  he  applied  to  himself  and 
was  strengthened.  Thence  we  go  in  to  my  mother.  We  tell 
her ;  she  rejoices ;  we  relate  how  it  all  took  place  ;  she  leaps  for 
joy,  and  triumphs  and  blesses  Thee,  who  art  able  to  do  exceeding 
abundantly  above  all  that  we  can  ask  or  think,  for  she  saw  that 
Thou  hadst  given  her  for  me  more  than  she  was  wont  to  ask  in 
her  pitiful  and  most  sorrowful  groanings.  For  Thou  didst  so 
convert  me  to  Thyself,  that  I  sought  neither  a  wife  nor  any  other 
of  this  world's  hopes,  standing  on  that  rule  of  faith  where  Thou 
hadst  showed  me  to  her  in  a  vision  so  many  years  before." 

It  was  only  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  age  that  Augus- 
tine, having  now  given  himself  to  the  Lord,  should  take  the  vow  of 
perpetual  celibacy  and  withdraw  altogether  from  secular  concerns. 
Throwing  up  his  professorship,  he  retired  to  a  country  house  at 
Cassiacum,1  which  was  placed  at  his  disposal  by  one  of  his  Milanese 
friends.  There  he  passed  the  seven  months  which  intervened  till 
his  baptism.  He  was  accompanied  by  his  mother  and  his  son,  then 
not  quite  fifteen,  Alypius  and  Nebridius,  and  six  other  chosen 
friends.  To  this  select  company  the  time  spent  at  Cassiacum  was 
the  realization  of  the  happy  life  of  which  some  of  them  had  already 
dreamed.  They  rose  early,  sometimes  passed  the  morning  in 
reading,  dined  frugally  together,  and  in  the  afternoon  assembled 
under  a  spreading  tree  in  the  meadow,  for  pleasant  and  profitable 
conversation.  When  it  rained  they  removed  to  a  hall  of  the  baths 
which  were  attached  to  the  villa.  "  Of  these  reunions  Augustine 
was  the  life  and  soul ;  it  was  a  little  school  of  Christian  philosophy 

1  Now  Caseago  de  Brianza,  twenty  miles  from  Milan. 


AUGUSTINE    BISHOP   OF    HIPPO.  141 

of  which  he  was  the  professor.  Some  had  their  tablets  always 
ready,  and  with  the  stylus  noted  down  rapidly  what  was  said. 
When  the  discussion  was  prolonged  into  the  twilight,  a  servant 
brought  a  lamp  that  the  writers  might  not  lose  any  of  the  master's- 
words."  These  conversations  were  the  germ  of  several  of  Augus- 
tine's philosophical  treatises. 

After  his  baptism,  which  was  performed  (a.d.  387)  by  Ambrose 
himself,  his  son  and  Alypius  being  baptized  at  the  same  time, 
Augustine  and  Monnica  proceeded  to  Kome,  intending  to  return  to 
Africa.  But  the  sweet  prospect  of  again  living  together  in  their 
native  country  was  not  to  be  realized  :  Monnica' s  earthly  race  was 
nearly  run.  At  Ostia  she  was  taken  with  fever,  which  carried  her 
off  in  nine  days.  Augustine  bewailed  her  loss  with  the  most 
poignant  sorrow. 

Augustine  tarried  nearly  a  year  in  Kome  before  returning  to- 
Africa.  In  388  he  took  up  his  dwelling  in  his  native  town, 
Thagaste.  Distributing  half  of  his  patrimony  to  the  poor,  he 
retired  with  a  few  chosen  friends,  of  whom  Alypius  was  one,  to  his 
own  house,  and  entered  upon  a  life  of  fasting,  prayer,  meditation,, 
and  study.  Like  Basil  and  Jerome,  he  exerted  himself  for  the 
establishment  of  monastic  houses,  but  it  was  chiefly  the  lower 
classes  and  liberated  slaves  whom  he  persuaded  to  take  the  vows. 

At  the  end  of  three  years,  having  occasion  to  go  to  Hippo,  he 
was  present  in  the  church  when  the  bishop  Valerius  was  discoursing 
on  the  necessity  of  appointing  an  additional  priest  for  the  Catholic 
service.  He  was  recognized  and  laid  hold  of,  and  notwithstanding 
his  resistance,  presented  to  the  bishop,  who  ordained  him  on  the 
spot.  When  he  removed  to  Hippo1  he  took  with  him  his  brother- 
hood, and  settled  his  monastery  in  the  gardens  adjoining  the 
church.  In  a  few  years  Valerius,  finding  his  strength  decline, 
associated  Augustine  with  him  in  his  episcopal  duties,  and  at  his 
death  in  396  Augustine  became  bishop.  He  thus  meditates  on  his 
new  position.  "  Nothing  is  better  than  the  study  of  Divine  wisdom 
without  distraction ;  but  to  preach,  to  refute,  to  reprove,  to  edify, 
to  take  care  for  each  individual  soul,  is  a  heavy  burden  and  toil. 
Who  would  not  shun  it  ?  But  the  Gospel  makes  me  afraid  when  I 
think  of  the  slothful  servant  who  buried  his  Lord's  talent."  The 
episcopal  residence  now  became  both  a  cloister  and  a  school  of 
theology.  Many  who  were  there  trained  for  the  priesthood  rose  to 
offices  of  rank  and  influence.2 

1  The  modern  seaport  town  of  Bona,  in  the  east  of  Algeria,  is  built  out  of  the 
ruins  of  the  ancient  Hippo,  the  site  of  which  lay  a  mile  to  the  south. 

8  Combining  the  clerical  life  with  the  monastic,  Augustine  became  unwit- 


142  WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST. 

Augustine  required  his  clergy  to  live  with  him  as  a  religious  com- 
munity in  celibacy  and  poverty.  There  was,  however,  no  display 
of  asceticism.  He  himself  wore  the  black  dress  of  the  Eastern 
coenobites,  but  retained  his  linen  and  shoes.  "I  applaud  your 
courage,"  he  said  to  those  who  went  barefoot ;  "  do  you  bear  with 
my  weakness."  The  table  service  was  of  wood,  earthenware  and 
marble,  and  the  spoons  of  silver.  Hospitality  was  freely  main- 
tained. The  diet  of  the  brotherhood  was  mostly  vegetable  ;  but 
flesh  and  wine  were  provided  for  the  visitors,  of  whom  there  was  a 
continual  succession.  On  the  dining-table  was  carved  a  Latin 
distich : — 

"  He  who  slanders  the  absent  is  forbidden  to  sit  at  this  board." 

If  any  one  infringed  this  rule,  Augustine  used  to  tell  him  that 
cither  the  verses  must  be  effaced,  or  he  must  leave  the  table. 
Another  reprehensible  custom  in  conversation  was  the  frequent 
taking  of  the  name  of  God  to  witness  the  truth  of  what  was  said. 
The  penalty  which  the  bishop  imposed  on  his  guests  for  this  offence 
was  to  go  without  wine  at  dinner. 

Augustine  was  a  powerful  and  very  diligent  preacher ;  often 
preaching  five  days  in  succession,  sometimes  twice  a  day.  The  fire 
which  burnt  in  his  own  soul  kindled  a  corresponding  flame  in  the 
souls  of  his  hearers.  Like  all  true  Christian  preachers,  he  de- 
pended for  success  on  the  help  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  "  The  Christian 
orator,"  he  says,  "will  succeed  more  by  prayer  than  by  gifts  of 
oratory.  Before  he  attempts  to  speak  he  will  pray  for  himself  and 
his  hearers.  And  when  the  time  is  come,  before  he  opens  his 
mouth,  he  must  lift  up  his  thirsty  soul  to  God  to  drink  in  what  he 
is  about  to  pour  forth,  and  to  be  himself  filled  with  what  he  is  about 
to  dispense.  For  who  knows  what  it  is  expedient  at  any  given 
moment  for  us  to  say,  or  to  be  heard  saying,  except  God  who  knows 
the  hearts  of  all  ?  And  who  can  enable  us  to  say  what  we  ought, 
and  in  the  way  we  ought,  but  He  in  whose  hand  are  both  ourselves 
and  our  words  ?  He  therefore  who  would  both  know  and  teach, 
should  learn  all  that  is  to  be  taught,  and  acquire  a  faculty  of 
speech,  suitable  to  his  office  ;  but  when  the  hour  for  speech  arrives 
let  him  give  heed  to  our  Lord's  words,  '  Take  no  thought  how  or 
what  ye  should  speak,  for  it  shall  be  given  you  in  that  same  hour 
what  ye  shall  speak  ;  for  it  is  not  ye  that  speak  but  the  Spirit  of 
your  Father  that  speaketh  in  you.'  If  the  Holy  Spirit  speaks  thus 
in  those  who  for  Christ's  sake  are  delivered  to  the  persecutors,  why 

tingly  to  himself  the  founder  of  the  Augustinian  order,  which  1100  years  after- 
wards gave  Luther  to  the  world. 


AUGUSTINE    ON    PREACHING.  143 

not  also  in  those  who  deliver  Christ's  message  to  those  who  are 
willing  to  learn?  " 

At  the  same  time  he  has  a  word  of  reproof  for  such  as  from  sloth 
or  a  fanatical  spirit  despised  the  helps  which  God  has  provided. 
"  If  any  one  says  we  need  not  direct  men  how  or  what  they  should 
teach,  since  it  is  the  Holy  Spirit  that  makes  them  teachers,  he 
might  as  well  say  we  need  not  pray,  since  our  Lord  says,  '  Your 
Father  knoweth  what  things  ye  have  need  of  before  ye  ask  Him '  ; 
or  that  the  apostle  Paul  should  not  have  given  directions  to  Timothy 
and  Titus  as  to  how  or  what  they  should  teach  to  others.  These  three 
apostolic  epistles  ought  to  be  constantly  before  the  eyes  of  every 
one  who  has  attained  to  the  position  of  a  teacher  in  the  Church."1 

Augustine's  practice  agreed  with  his  precepts.  "  One  day  he  had 
prepared  an  eloquent  discourse,  designed  to  produce  a  strong  im- 
pression on  cultivated  minds.  Suddenly  in  the  midst  of  his 
preaching  he  broke  the  thread  of  his  argument,  and  turned  abruptly 
to  a  more  simple  and  popular  subject.  On  his  return  home  he 
related  how  he  had  yielded  to  an  impulse  of  the  Holy  Spirit  which 
had  driven  him  to  set  aside  the  original  plan  of  his  sermon. 
Hardly  had  he  spoken,  when  a  man  knocking  at  the  door,  entered, 
bathed  in  tears.  He  had  been  arrested  by  the  diverted  portion 
of  the  discourse,  and  now  confessed  himself  to  be  won  over  to  the 
Gospel." 

It  was  early  in  Augustine's  episcopal  life  that  he  came  into  con- 
flict with  the  Donatists.2  This  sect,  confined  to  the  North  African 
province,  had  increased  rather  than  diminished  under  the  successors 
of  Constantine,  and  its  adherents  were  here  as  numerous  as  the 
Catholics.  Hippo  was  a  very  hotbed  of  the  schism.  With  the 
same  faith,  the  same  worship,  and  nearly  the  same  discipline,  there 

1  With  all  this  wisdom,  Augustine,  like  most  of  the  Fathers,  indulged  in  a 
symbolism  often  fanciful  and  sometimes  absurd.  See  for  example  his  comment 
on  the  healing  of  the  impotent  man  at  the  Pool  of  Bethesda.  "  The  pool  is  the 
Jewish  people  shut  in  by  the  five  books  of  Moses  as  by  five  porches.  The  law 
only  brought  forth  the  sick,  it  could  not  heal  them.  Christ,  by  his  teaching  and 
mighty  acts,  troubles  sinners,  troubles  the  water,  and  arouses  it  to  his  own  death. 
To  descend  into  the  troubled  waters  means  to  believe  in  the  Lord's  death. 
That  only  one  was  healed  signifies  unity  ;  those  who  came  afterwards  were  not 
healed,  because  he  who  is  outside  unity  cannot  be  healed.  Christ  found  in  the 
impotent  man's  age  the  number  of  infirmity.  The  number  forty  is  consecrated 
by  a  kind  of  perfection.     Why  should  we  wonder  that  he  was  weak  and  sick 

_  whose  years  fell  short  of  forty  by  two  ?  Finding  the  man  thus  lacking,  Christ 
gave  him  two  precepts,  ordered  him  to  do  two  things,  '  Take  up  thy  bed — and 
walk.'     Thus  filling  up  that  which  was  lacking  of  the  perfect  number." 

2  For  an  account  of  the  rise  of  the  Donatists,  see  Early  Church  History, 
Part  ii.  c.  10. 


144  WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST. 

were  two  rival  communities,  each  claiming  to  be  the  true  Church. 
This  was  a  condition  of  things  which  Augustine  could  not  endure 
to  behold.  He  not  only  yearned  to  bring  all  men  to  what  he  looked 
upon  as  the  peculiar  privileges  of  the  Catholic  Church ;  he  sincerely 
believed  that  outside  her  pale  there  is  no  salvation.1  He  confounded 
the  authority  of  Christ  with  that  of  the  visible  Church,  and  claimed 
for  the  latter  the  same  absolute  obedience  as  for  Christ  Himself. 
From  the  moment  therefore  when  he  became  bishop  of  Hippo,  no 
object  lay  nearer  to  his  heart,  than  to  bring  back  the  Donatists 
into  the  Catholic  communion.  His  confidence  in  his  own  theo- 
logical principles  induced  him  to  believe  that  if  the  bishops  of  that 
party  could  only  be  brought  calmly  to  investigate  the  questions  at 
issue,  they  would  acknowledge  their  error.  In  397  a  public  dis- 
putation took  place  between  himself  and  an  aged  Donatist  bishop, 
named  Fortunius,  which  however  led  to  no  practical  result.  In 
403  another  effort  was  made.  At  a  Council  held  at  Carthage  the 
Donatists  were  invited  to  choose  delegates  prepared  to  discuss  the 
contested  points  with  delegates  of  the  Catholic  party.  The  invita- 
tion would  seem  to  have  been  prompted  by  the  spirit  of  charity, 
but  the  terms  in  which  it  was  couched  were  not  conciliatory ;  it 
was  the  language  of  men  who  believed  themselves  the  sole  posses- 
sors of  the  truth,  addressed  to  men  in  error,  and  whose  errors 
moreover  it  was  their  business  to  correct.  The  Donatists  naturally 
rejected  the  overture. 

It  happened  several  years  afterwards  (410)  that  some  Donatist 
bishops  who  had  been  summoned  before  the  higher  civil  authorities, 
let  fall  the  assertion  that  they  would  be  well  able  to  prove  the  truth 
of  their  cause  if  they  were  but  allowed  a  patient  hearing.  The 
Catholic  bishops,  or  Augustine  on  their  behalf,  seized  eagerly  upon 
the  words  ;  and  the  next  year  the  Emperor  Honorius  gave  orders 
for  a  conference  to  be  held  at  Carthage  between  the  two  parties. 
The  Pro-consul  of  Africa,  Flavius  Marcellinus,  a  man  of  ability, 
and  friendly  with  Augustine,  was  appointed  to  preside.  The  terms 
on  which  the  Donatists  were  invited  to  meet  their  opponents  had 
the  sound  of  extreme  liberality.  The  Catholics  declared  themselves 
ready  to  surrender  their  bishoprics  to  the  Donatists  if  these  should 
be  able  to  prove  their  case.  But  there  is  little  merit  in  the  pro- 
fession of  great  sacrifices  when  there  is  not  the  remotest  chance  of 

i  «♦  why,"  he  asks,  "should  any  hesitate  to  throw  themselves  into  the  arms 
of  that  Church,  which  has  always  maintained  herself  by  the  succession  of 
bishops  in  apostolic  sees,  by  the  faith  of  the  people,  the  decisions  of  councils, 
and  the  authority  of  miracles  ?  It  is  either  a  matchless  impiety  or  a  foolish 
arrogancy  not  to  acknowledge  her  doctrine  as  a  rule  of  faith." 


CONFERENCE    WITH   THE   DONATISTS   AT    CARTHAGE.  145 

these  being  called  for.  More  feasible  was  another  proposal,  that  if 
the  Donatists  should  lose  their  cause,  and  should  be  willing  to 
return  to  the  Catholic  Church,  their  bishops  should  be  recognized 
as  such  ;  or,  if  preferred,  the  bishops  of  both  parties  should  resign, 
and  Donatists  and  Catholics  unitedly  choose  new  officers.  "Be 
brothers  with  us  in  the  Lord's  inheritance,"  pleaded  Augustine; 
"  let  us  not  for  the  sake  of  preserving  our  own  dignities  hinder  the 
peace  of  Christ."  He  endeavoured  at  the  same  time  to  inspire  his 
Catholic  brethren  with  the  charity  that  animated  his  own  breast : 
"  The  eyes  of  the  Donatists  are  inflamed,  they  must  be  treated 
tenderly.  Let  no  one  defend  his  faith  by  disputation,  lest  the 
spark  let  fall  should  kindle  a  great  fire.  If  you  should  hear  reviling 
language,  endure  it ;  be  as  though  you  had  not  heard  it ;  be  silent. 
'  Shall  I  be  silent,'  you  may  ask,  'when  charges  are  brought  against 
my  bishop  ? '  Yes,  be  silent,  not  that  you  are  to  allow  the  charges, 
but  to  bear  them." 

Accordingly  there  met  at  Carthage  (a.d.  411)  286  bishops  of  the 
Catholic,  and  279  of  the  Donatist  party.1  The  latter,  who  stood  in 
awe  of  the  superior  logic  of  Augustine,  came  to  the  conference 
reluctantly  and  full  of  distrust :  this  was  manifest  from  the  first- 
As  the  numbers  were  so  great,  Marcillinus  directed  that  seven  dis- 
putants from  each  side  should  be  chosen.  To  this  the  Donatists 
objected ;  and  the  greater  part  of  the  first  day  was  spent  in  debate 
on  this  point,  and  on  other  questions  of  a  formal  nature.  At 
length  they  yielded,  and  nominated  their  representatives,  of  whom 
Petilian  was  the  chief  spokesman.  Augustine  of  course  was  the 
leader  on  the  Catholic  side ;  and  amongst  his  colleagues  was 
Alypius. 

When  the  deputies  met  again  on  the  second  day,  the  Donatists 
refused  to  be  seated,  saying :  "  The  divine  law  forbids  us  to  sit 
with  the  wicked."  No  notice  was  taken  of  this  most  offensive 
remark ;  but  the  Catholics  declining  out  of  courtesy  to  sit  whilst 
their  opponents  were  standing,  Marcellinus  also  ordered  his  own 
chair  to  be  removed.  Two  subjects  chiefly  occupied  the  conference. 
The  first  related  to  an  historical  question  of  a  hundred  years  before,, 
viz.,  the  traditorship  of  Felix2  and  the  validity  of  Csecilian's  con- 

1  One  hundred  and  twenty  Catholic  bishops  are  said  to  have  been  absent,  and 
Bixty-four  sees  were  vacant.  Many  of  the  Donatist  bishops  also  were  absent.  It 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  many  of  the  villages  of  this  province,  as  well  as 
the  towns,  were  then  presided  over  by  bishops. 

J  See  Early  Church  History,  pp.  222,  224.  The  traditores,  or  betrayers,  were 
those  who  in  the  Diocletian  persecution  gave  up  to  the  magistrates  their  copies 
of  the  New  Testament  to  be  publicly  burnt. 

L 


146  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

secration  :  into  this  we  need  not  here  enter.  The  other  resolved 
itself  into  the  great  theological  problem  :  What  is  the  Church  ? 

That  which  had  been  the  apple  of  discord  between  Cyprian  and 
Novatian,1  the  definition  of  the  Church,  was  now  keeping  the 
Catholics  and  Donatists  asunder.  Both  parties  confounded  the 
visible  with  the  invisible  Church,  the  cup  with  that  which  it  con- 
tains. The  Catholics  maintained  that,  apart  from  the  communion 
with  the  one  visible  Catholic  Church,  derived  from  the  Apostles 
through  the  succession  of  bishops,  there  can  be  no  communication 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  no  salvation.  Augustine  thus  confounded 
what  Christianity  had  effected  through  the  Church,  with  the  Church 
itself  as  an  outward  institution.  He  did  not  see  that  the  mighty 
effects  brought  about  by  the  Gospel  had  been  due  to  its  inherent 
divine  power ;  nay,  that  it  might  have  produced  far  purer  and 
mightier  effects,  had  it  not  been  in  so  many  ways  disturbed  and 
checked  in  its  operation  by  the  imperfect  vehicle  of  its  transmission. 
In  his  exclusion  of  dissenters  from  the  benefit  of  the  Gospel,  Augus- 
tine does  not  come  behind  Cyprian  :  "No  one,"  he  says,  "  attains 
to  salvation,  and  eternal  life,  who  has  not  Christ  for  his  Head.  But 
no  one  can  have  Christ  for  Head,  who  does  not  belong  to  his  body, 
which  is  the  Church.  The  entire  Christ  is  the  Head  and  the  Body ; 
the  Head  is  the  only-begotten  Son  of  God,  and  the  body  is  the 
Church.  He  who  agrees  not  with  Scripture  in  the  doctrine  con- 
cerning the  Head,  although  he  may  stand  in  external  communion 
with  the  Church,  belongs  not  to  the  Church  ;  and  he  who  holds 
fast  to  all  that  Scripture  teaches  respecting  the  Head,  and  yet 
cleaves  not  to  the  unity  of  the  Church,  belongs  not  to  the  Church." 
Whenever  the  Donatists  appealed  to  miracles,  answers  to  prayer, 
visions,  and  the  holy  lives  of  their  bishops,  as  evidences  that  the 
true  Church  was  with  them,  Augustine  met  them  by  a  reference  to 
such  passages  of  Scripture,  as  Matt.  xxiv.  24  :  "  There  shall  arise 
false  Christs,  and  false  prophets,  and  shall  show  great  signs  and 
wonders."  "  Let  them  not  try  to  prove  the  genuineness  of  their 
Church  by  the  councils  of  their  bishops,  or  by  deceitful  miraculous 
signs,  seeing  that  our  Lord  has  put  us  on  our  guard  against  such 
proofs,  but  let  them  confine  themselves  to  the  Law  and  the  Prophets, 
and  the  word  of  the  only  Shepherd." 

The  Donatists,  like  the  Novatians,  held  that  every  Church  which 
tolerates  unworthy  members  within  it,  is  itself  polluted  by  com- 
munion with  them,  and  thus  ceases  to  be  a  true  Christian  Church  ; 
and  by  a  natural  but  mistaken  egotism,  they  took  it  for  granted 
that  they  were  themselves  the  true  Church,  and  that  the  rest  of 

1  See  Early  Church  History,  pp.  183 — 185. 


THE    DONATIST    CHURCH  BLOTTED   OUT.  147 

-Christendom  was  apostate  and  corrupt.  Petilian  argued  that  reli- 
gious acts  are  operative  only  in  a  pure  Church  ;  that  none  but  a 
blameless  priest  can  administer  the  "  sacraments."  Augustine 
replied :  "  Often  the  conscience  of  man  is  unknown  to  me,  but  I 
am  certain  of  the  mercy  of  Christ." 

Petilian:  Whoever  receives  the  faith  through  an  unbeliever 
receives  not  faith  but  guilt. 

Augustine :  But  Christ  is  faithful,  from  whom  I  receive  faith  and 
not  guilt. 

Petilian:  The  character  of  a  thing  depends  on  its  origin  and 
root ;  a  genuine  new  birth  can  come  only  from  good  seed. 

Augustine :  My  origin  is  Christ ;  my  root  is  Christ ;  my  head  is 
Christ.  He  alone  makes  me  free  from  'guilt,  who  died  for  our 
sins  and  rose  again  for  our  justification  ;  for  I  believe  not  in 
the  minister  by  whom  I  am  baptized,  but  in  Him  who  justifies  the 
sinner,  so  that  my  faith  is  counted  to  me  for  righteousness. 

It  was  a  foregone  conclusion  that  Marcellinus  should  give  sen- 
tence against  the  Donatists.  They  were  adjudged  to  have  lost 
their  cause  and  to  be  guilty  of  heterodoxy.  It  was  determined  that 
the  sect  should  be  utterly  blotted  out ;  that  all  who  would  not  con- 
form should  be  deprived  of  both  place  and  name,  so  that  the  whole 
province  might  be  brought  back  into  the  Catholic  unity.  To  this 
object,  unhappily,  Augustine  lent  the  weight  of  his  eloquence, 
learning,  and  character.  The  pro-consul  forbade  the  Donatists 
thenceforth  to  assemble  for  worship,  and  ordered  them  to  give  up 
their  church-buildings  to  the  Catholics  ;  at  the  same  time  ad- 
monishing the  bishops  to  return  to  the  one  true  Church.  Appeal 
to  the  Emperor  proved  useless.  Honorius,  in  412,  is  sued  a  decree 
enacting  severe  penalties  against  the  sect.  The  malcontents  were 
to  be  heavily  fined  in  proportion  to  their  rank,  and  if  obstinate  were 
to  forfeit  all  their  property.  Slaves  and  peasants  were  to  be 
scourged  into  conformity,  and  their  Catholic  masters  who  should 
neglect  to  act  on  this  order  were  to  be  punished  as  Donatists. 
Bishops  and  clergy  were  to  be  banished,  and  the  church  property 
confiscated. 

Very  many  yielded,  whole  communities  even,  as  at  Cirta,  returning 
bodily  to  the  Catholic  Church.  A  greater  number,  however,  nobly 
preferred  to  suffer  the  loss  of  liberty  and  property  rather  than  do 
violence  to  their  consciences.  Three  hundred  bishops  and  thousands 
of  the  inferior  clergy  were  torn  from  their  churches  and  banished 
to  the  islands.  Some  even,  in  the  madness  of  despair,  com- 
mitted suicide.  "  The  persecution,"  says  Julius  Lloyd,  "  was  as  unre- 
lenting as  that  by  which  Louis  XIV.  coerced  the  Huguenots.   Some 


148  WITNESSES   FOB   CHBIST. 

yielded  through  fear  of  the  Imperial  Edict,  others  through  the* 
extraordinary  ability  and  fascinating  influence  of  Augustine.  Not 
Francis  de  Sales,  Bossuet  and  Fenelon  together,  exercised  over 
the  Protestants  of  France  a  greater  influence  than  Augustine 
alone,  in  -winning  to  his  side  all  who  were  accessible  to  eloquence- 
or  argument."1 

The  measures  adopted  were  only  too  successful.  The  remnant 
of  the  Donatist  Church,  on  the  irruption  of  the  Vandals,  sided 
with  the  conquerors  against  the  Empire,  and  were  taken  under 
their  protection,  but  this  Church  never  regained  its  influence.  The 
Donatists  lingered,  however,  till  the  pontificate  of  Gregory  the 
Great  at  the  end  of  the  sixth  century,  but  after  his  adverse  edicts 
they  disappear  from  history. 

During  this  long  controversy  Augustine  vacillated  between  gentle 
and  forcible  methods  of  overcoming  the  Donatists.  At  one  time 
we  find  him  appealing  to  the  example  of  Elijah,  who  slew  with  his 
own  hand  the  prophets  of  Baal ;  at  another  protesting  against  the 
penal  measures  by  which  it  was  proposed  to  coerce  the  schismatics : 
"  You  must  go  forward,"  he  said,  "  simply  with  the  word  of  truth  ; 
you  must  seek  to  overcome  by  argument,  else  all  the  effect  will  be 
that  instead  of  open  and  avowed  heretics  you  will  have  hypocritical 
Catholic  Christians." 

In  a  letter  assigned  to  the  year  408,  Augustine  defends  with 
sophistical  arguments  the  principle  of  coercion.  "If  any  one  saw 
his  enemy  running  headlong  to  destroy  himself,  when  he  had 
become  delirious  through  a  dangerous  fever,  would  he  not  in  that 
case  be  much  more  truly  rendering  evil  for  evil  if  he  permitted  him 
to  run  on  thus  than  if  he  took  measures  to  have  him  seized  and 
bound  ?  .  .  .  "Who  can  love  us  more  than  God  ?  And  yet  God 
quickens  us  by  salutary  fear,  and  the  sharp  medicine  of  tribulation ; 
afflicts  with  famine  even  the  patriarchs,  disquiets  a  rebellious 
people  by  severe  chastisements,  and  refuses  though  thrice  besought 
to  take  away  from  the  Apostle  the  thorn  in  the  flesh.  .  .  .  What- 
ever the  true  Mother  does,  even  when  something  severe  and  bitter 
is  felt  by  her  children  at  her  hands,  she  is  not  rendering  evil  for 
evil,  but  is  applying  the  benefit  of  discipline  to  counteract  the  evil 
of  sin,  not  with  the  hatred  which  seeks  to  harm,  but  with  the  love 
which  seeks  to  heal." 

At  the  Conference  this  question  was  necessarily  uppermost  in  the 

1  A  section  of  the  Donatists,  the  Circumcelliones,  burned  the  churches,  mal- 
treated the  Catholic  clergy,  committed  many  other  outrages,  and  laid  wait  for 
Augustine  himself.  The  moderate  Donatists  looked  on  in  horror,  but  were 
powerless  to  check  these  excesses.    See  Early  Church  Hittory,  p.  225. 


FATAL    SOPHISTRY. 


149 


minds  of  the  Donatist  leaders  over  whose  heads  the  sword  of  the 
magistrate  hung  suspended  by  a  hair.  "  Did  the  Apostles,"  asked 
Petilian,  "  ever  persecute  any  one,  or  did  Christ  ever  deliver  any 
one  over  to  the  secular  power  ?  In  dying  for  men  he  has  given 
Christians  the  example  to  die,  but  not  to  kill."  Another  Donatist 
bishop,  Gaudentius,  pleaded :  "  The  Saviour  of  souls  sent  fisher- 
men, not  soldiers,  to  preach  his  faith.  What  must  that  man  think 
of  God  who  defends  Him  with  outward  violence?"  To  these  un- 
answerable arguments  Augustine  had  nothing  to  reply  but  the  same 
kind  of  sophism ;  "It  is  no  doubt  better  to  be  led  to  God  by  in- 
struction than  by  fear  of  punishment  or  affliction;  but  although 
the  former  is  better,  the  other  is  not  to  be  neglected.  Bad  servants 
must  be  reclaimed  by  the  rod  of  temporal  suffering."  No  atrocities, 
alas,  will  be  wanting  when  for  the  sake  of  the  supposed  good,  either 
of  the  whole  or  of  individuals,  the  question,  What  is  right  ?  comes 
to  be  thus  subordinated  to  the  question,  What  is  expedient  ?  With 
a  strange  perversity  of  interpretation,  Augustine  adduced  as  a 
Scriptural  warrant  for  the  most  flagrant  acts  of  oppression,  our 
Saviour's  command  in  the  parable  of  the  Supper,  "  compel  them  to 
come  in."  His  sanction  of  persecution  became  from  this  time 
forward  a  precedent  of  great  authority  in  the  Church.  In  it  is  to 
be  found  the  germ  of  that  whole  system  of  spiritual  despotism  and 
intolerance  which  culminated  in  the  Inquisition. 

Whilst  persecution  was  raging  against  the  Donatists,  Augustine 
embarked  in  the  Pelagian  controversy.  Hitherto  the  doctrinal 
differences  which  agitated  the  Church  had  come  from  the  East ; 
this  arose  in  the  West.1 

1  The  germ  of  the  Pelagian  doctrine  had  however  for  some  time  existed  in 
the  Eastern  Church.  Marius  Mercator  asserts  that  it  had  its  birth  in  the  Anti- 
ochian  School,  chiefly  with  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  (a.d.  392),  and  was  carried 
to  Rome  by  Eufinus,  who,  not  daring  himself  to  publish  it,  taught  it  to  Pelagius. 
But  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  cardinal  doctrine  of  Pelagianism,  man's  natural 
goodness,  is  put  by  Athanasius,  half  a  century  earlier,  into  the  mouth  of 
Anthony.  In  his  sermon  to  the  monks  the  anchorite  is  made  to  say :  "  Virtue 
needs  only  the  consent  of  the  will,  since  it  is  within  us,  and  originates  in  the 
mind,  for  the  soul  was  created  beautiful  and  upright.  If  it  turn  from  its 
original  nature,  this  is  called  vice.  The  thing  therefore  is  not  difficult ;  for  if 
we  remain  as  we  were  originally  created,  we  are  in  a  state  of  virtue.  Now  if 
this  had  to  be  obtained  from  without,  there  would  be  real  difficulty  ;  but  since 
it  is  within  us,  let  us  guard  the  soul  as  a  precious  deposit  which  the  Lord  has 
committed  to  our  keeping,  in  order  that  He  may  acknowledge  his  work  to  be  as 
He  made  it.  ...  In  this  we  have  the  Lord  for  our  fellow- worker."  Upon 
which  Ruffner  observes :  "  The  origin  of  this  doctrine  was  not  the  Bible,  nor 
even  apostolical  tradition,  but  the  Platonism  of  the  Fathers  from  the  time  of 
Justin  Martyr.  Plato  taught  the  entire  moral  ability  of  man  to  purify  his  soul 
irom  sin." 


150  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

About  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  Pelagius,1  a  British  monk,  a 
man  of  learning  and  reputation,  took  up  his  abode  in  Eome,  where 
he  became  the  disciple  of  Eufinus.  Amongst  his  acquaintances 
was  Caelestius,2  a  native  of  Ireland,  who  had  forsaken  the  profession 
of  an  advocate  for  the  ascetic  life.  The  two  friends  began  to  put 
forth  views  in  direct  antagonism  to  those  of  Augustine,  who  had 
for  some  time  taught  that  man  is  by  nature  wholly  evil,  and  in 
himself  impotent  to  embrace  and  pursue  good.  They  remained, 
however,  unmolested  until  the  sack  of  the  city  in  410,  when 
Caelestius  fled  to  Carthage.  Here  his  doctrines  excited  alarm,  and 
were  condemned  by  a  Council  held  in  412.  Augustine  brought  his- 
powerful  intellect  to  bear  upon  the  infant  heresy,  refuting  it  both 
by  preaching  and  writing. 

Pelagius,  meantime,  had  gone  to  Palestine,  where  (415)  he  was- 
charged  with  heresy  before  bishop  John  of  Jerusalem,  and  a  synod  of 
his  clergy.  Orosius,  ayoung  Spanish  ecclesiastic,  who  had  been  living 
with  Jerome,  stood  forth  as  his  accuser.  When  Orosius  supported 
his  charge  by  a  reference  to  Augustine,  Pelagius  contemptuously 
asked,  "  What  is  Augustine  to  me?"  Orosius  answered,  that  a 
man  who  presumed  thus  to  speak  of  the  bishop  to  whom  the  North 
African  Church  owed  her  restoration,  deserved  to  be  excommuni- 
cated. John,  who  also  made  little  account  of  the  authority  of 
Augustine,  exclaimed,  "I  will  be  Augustine,"  and  undertook  him- 
self the  defence  of  Pelagius.3  The  synod,  on  the  ground  of  juris- 
diction, referred  the  question  to  the  bishop  of  Eome.  In  the  same 
year,  before  a  synod  at  Diospolis,  the  ancient  Lydda,  Pelagius  was 
tried  and  pronounced  innocent.  It  was  easy  for  a  doctrinal  heresy 
to  take  root  in  the  East. 

Caelestius,  who  had  returned  to  Eome,  seized  this  occasion  to 
appeal  against  the  sentence  of  the  Carthaginian  synod.  A  council 
was  called  by  Zosimus,  the  Eoman  bishop  ;  and  on  Caelestius  dis- 
avowing all  dogmas  which  the  Eoman  See  had  condemned,  he  was 
exculpated,  Zosimus  sending  a  letter  of  reproof  to  the  Africans  for 
listening  too  readily  to  charges  against  good  men.  But  Augustine 
and  the  African  prelates  were  not  to  be  thus  trifled  with.  They 
assembled  again  in  synod  at  Carthage  (a.d.  418),  asserted  their 
independence  of  Eome,  and  passed  nine  canons,  which  came  to  be 
regarded  as  the  bulwark  of  the  Church  against  Pelagianism.  The 
Emperor  Honorius  now  interposed,  declared  the  Pelagians  to  be 

1  This  name  is  the  Greek  form  for  Morgan — i.e.,  sea-born. 
2  Jerome  describes  Caelestius  as  Scotorum  pultibus  pragravatus,  "  heavy  with. 
Scotch  porridge."     The  term  Scot  at  that  time  signified  a  native  of  Ireland. 
s  John  spoke  only  Greek,  Orosius  only  Latin,  but  Pelagius  both  languages. 


PELAGIUS    AND   AUGUSTINE.  151 

heretics,  and  subjected  them  to  disabilities  and  penalties.  Upon 
this  Zosimus,  pressed  by  the  Court  and  by  the  anti-Pelagian  party, 
re-opened  the  matter,  and  summoned  Caelestius  before  a  fresh 
council.  But  Caelestius  quitted  Rome  ;  and  Zosimus  excommuni- 
cated him  and  Pelagius  as  heretics,  at  the  same  time  requiring  all 
bishops  to  subscribe  the  African  canons.  Pelagius  and  his  ad- 
herents were  banished.1 

The  Pelagian  doctrine  may  be  thus  stated.  Adam  was  created 
mortal  and  would  have  died,  even  if  he  had  not  sinned  ;  and  men 
come  now  into  the  world  in  the  same  state  in  which  Adam  was 
created.  Adam's  sin  brought  injury  to  his  descendants,  not  by 
transmission,  but  by  the  influence  of  example.  As  man  is  able  to 
discern  good  from  evil,  so  he  has  power  to  will  and  to  work  what  is 
good ;  as  by  our  own  free  will  we  run  into  sin,  so  by  the  same  free 
will  are  we  able  to  repent  and  reform,  and  raise  ourselves  to  the 
highest  degree  of  virtue  and  piety.  Pelagius,  indeed,  spoke  of 
grace,  but  by  it  he  understood  that  knowledge  of  his  will  which 
God  has  given — the  law  and  the  Gospel,  the  example  of  the 
Saviour's  life.  He  denied  that  the  help  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
necessary  to  man's  salvation.  He  professed  to  follow  Scripture, 
but  when  Scripture  crossed  his  opinions  he  forsook  that  safe  guide, 
and  gave  himself  up  to  the  beguiling  direction  of  his  own  reason. 

Augustine's  teaching  was  the  very  opposite  of  all  this.  He  held 
that  death,  temporal  and  eternal,  with  all  the  diseases  of  the  body, 
are  the  consequences  and  penalty  of  sin.  He  denied,  sometimes 
absolutely,  sometimes  in  a  modified  sense,  the  freedom  of  the  will, 
and  taught  that  without  grace  man  can  do  only  evil.  Original  sin, 
derived  from  Adam's  transgression,  he  held  to  be  a  cardinal  doc- 
trine of  the  Gospel,  and  that  God  exacts  the  penalty  due  to  his 
broken  law,  even  from  the  heathen  and  from  infants  of  the  tenderest 
age  if  unbaptized.  In  intimate  connection  with  this  doctrine  he 
maintained  the  existence  of  an  eternal  decree,  separating  ante- 
cedently to  any  difference  of  merit  one  portion  of  the  human  race 
from  another — ordaining  one  to  everlasting  life,  abandoning  the 
other  to  everlasting  misery.  This  he  allowed  to  be  a  perplexing 
mystery,  and  repugnant  to  our  natural  ideas  of  God's  justice,  but 
he  defended  it  on  the  ground  of  his  inscrutable  and  sovereign  will. 
Predestination,  moreover,  implied  irresistible  grace  and  final  per- 
severance. 

Augustine  did  not  all  at  once  arrive  at  these  conclusions  ;  and 
even  when  he  had  matured  his  system  he  shrank  from  its  legitimate 

1  Caelestius  went  to  Constantinople,  where  he  was  kindly  received  by  Nes- 
torius. 


152  WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST. 

consequences.  His  charity  was  better  than  his  logic.  We  find 
him  reproving  some  who  asserted  that  God  has  predestinated  the 
wicked,  not  only  to  suffer  eternal  punishment,  but  also  to  commit 
sin,  their  sinful  actions  being  determined  by  an  inevitable  necessity. 
And  in  a  letter  (a.d.  426)  he  writes,  "  We  have  been  visited  by  two 
young  men  who  report  that  your  monastery  has  been  agitated  by 
dissension.  Some,  they  told  us,  entertained  such  exalted  views  of 
grace  as  wholly  to  deny  free-will,  and  even  maintained  that  in  the 
day  of  judgment  God  will  not  render  to  every  one  according  to  his 
works.  Most  of  you,  however,  hold  a  different  opinion,  main- 
taining that  man's  free-will  is  assisted  by  God's  grace,  and  by  it 
disposed  to  what  is  right ;  and  that  when  the  Lord  shall  come  to 
render  to  every  one  according  to  his  works,  He  will  judge  those 
works  only  to  be  good  which  he  has  prepared  for  us  to  walk  in ;  and 
this  I  pronounce  to  be  the  right  opinion.  ...  If  there  be  no  grace 
of  God,  how  does  He  save  the  world ;  if  there  be  no  free-will,  how  is 
He  to  judge  the  world  ?" 

Augustine  erred  through  supposing  that  divine  truth  can  be  fully 
grasped  by  human  reason,  and  was  obliged  to  explain  away  a  host 
of  clear  and  positive  statements  of  Scripture,  which  controverted 
his  positions.1  "  His  was  the  error,"  observes  Canon  Mozley,  "  of 
those  who  follow  without  due  consideration  the  strong  first  im- 
pression which  the  human  mind  entertains,  that  there  must  be 
some  definite  truth  to  be  arrived  at  on  the  question,  and  who  there- 
fore imagine  that  they  cannot  be  doing  other  than  good  service  if 
they  only  add  to  what  is  defective,  enough  to  make  it  complete,  or 
take  away  from  what  is  ambiguous,  enough  to  make  it  decisive.  .  . 
If  revelation  as  a  whole  does  not  speak  explicitly,  revelation  did 
not  intend  to  do  so  ;  and  to  impose  a  definite  truth  upon  it  when  it 
designedly  stops  short  of  one,  is  as  real  an  error  of  interpretation 
as  to  deny  a  truth  which  it  expresses." 

Dr.  Schaff  refers  the  two  systems  to  the  characters  of  their 
authors.  "Pelagius  was  an  upright  monk,  who,  without  inward 
conflicts,  won  for  himself  in  the  way  of  tranquil  development  a 
legal  piety  which  knew  neither  the  depths  of  sin  nor  the  heights  of 
grace.  Augustine  passed  through  sharp  convulsions  and  bitter 
conflicts,  till  he  was  overtaken  by  the  unmerited  grace  of  God.  He 
had  a  soaring  intellect  and  a  glowing  heart,  and  only  found  peace 
after  he  had  long  been  tossed  by  the  waves  of  passion  ;  he  tasted 

1  For  instance,  he  distorts  the  plain  words  in  1  Tim.  ii.  4,  "  Whowilleth  that 
all  men  should  be  saved,"  into  "  all  manner  of  men,"  rich  and  poor,  learned 
and  unlearned,  and  he  makes  the  sense  to  be,  that  all  who  are  saved,  are  saved 
only  by  the  will  of  God. 


AUGUSTINE   ON    DIVINE   GRACE.  168 

all  the  misery  of  sin,  and  then  all  the  glory  of  redemption.  .  .  . 
The  Pelagian  controversy  turns  upon  the  mighty  antithesis  of  sin 
and  grace.  ...  It  comes  at  last  to  the  question  whether  redemp- 
tion is  chiefly  a  work  of  God  or  of  man  ;  whether  man  needs  to  be 
born  anew,  or  merely  improved.  The  soul  of  the  Pelagian  system 
is  human  freedom ;  the  soul  of  the  Augustinian  is  divine  grace. 
The  one  system  proceeds  from  the  liberty  of  choice  to  legalistic 
piety  ;  the  other  from  the  bondage  of  sin  to  the  evangelical  liberty 
of  the  children  of  God.  The  one  loves  to  admire  the  dignity 
and  strength  of  man;  the  other  loses  itself  in  adoration  of  the 
glory  and  omnipotence  of  God.  The  one  flatters  natural  pride,  the 
other  is  a  gospel  for  penitent  publicans  and  sinners.  Pelagianism 
begins  with  self-exaltation,  and  ends  with  the  sense  of  self-deception 
and  impotency.  Augustinianism  casts  man  first  into  the  dust  of 
humiliation  and  despair,  in  order  to  lift  him  on  the  wings  of  grace 
to  supernatural  strength,  and  lead  him  ...  up  to  the  heaven  of 
the  knowledge  of  God." 

For  his  clear  setting  forth  of  the  doctrine  of  divine  grace,  apart 
from  the  presumptuous  theory  of  predestination,  the  Church  owes 
to  Augustine  a  debt  of  lasting  gratitude.  In  his  enunciation  of 
this  evangelical  truth  he  stood  opposed  to  the  traditional  principle 
of  salvation  by  good  works,  which  was  taught  by  almost  every 
writer  of  the  time.  And  although  it  was  left  for  the  Eeformed 
Church  fully  to  endorse  his  apostolic  teaching  on  this  point,  yet  in 
every  century,  thoughtful  and  humble  disciples  accepted  it  for 
themselves,  and  were  edified  by  his  Christlike  spirit.  But  the 
Catholic  Church,  through  her  doctors  and  councils,  continued  to 
uphold  the  efficacious  merit  of  good  works,  on  which  the  Council 
of  Trent,  in  1546,  set  its  seal,  ruling  that  "  If  any  one  shall  say 
that  justifying  faith  is  none  other  than  a  trust  in  the  divine  mercy 
forgiving  our  sins  for  Christ's  sake,  or  that  it  is  that  trust  alone  by 
which  we  are  justified,  let  him  be  accursed." 

Hitherto  the  North  African  province  had  escaped  the  scourge  of 
the  Northern  hordes  which  had  laid  Europe  waste.  Its  turn  was 
now  come.  Genseric,  King  of  the  Vandals,  the  most  terrible  of  all 
the  barbarian  leaders,  crossed  from  Spain  in  429,  and  ravaged  the 
country  with  all  the  atrocities  in  which  uncivilized  races  indulge 
when  let  loose  upon  a  wealthy  and  luxurious  population.  The 
miseries  the  Catholics  had  inflicted  on  the  Donatists  were  now 
multiplied  upon  themselves. 

After  overrunning  nearly  the  whole  province,  the  invading  army 
laid  siege  to  Hippo.  During  several  months  the  city  was  success- 
fully defended  by  the  Roman  general  Count  Boniface.     Augustine 


154  WITNESSES    FOB    CHRIST. 

was  old  and  infirm.  "  The  devastation  of  his  country,"  says  his 
biographer  Possidonius,  "  embittered  his  days.  He  saw  the  towns 
ruined,  the  country  houses  destroyed,  the  inhabitants  slain  or 
fugitives,  the  churches  destitute  of  priests,  the  virgins  and  monks 
dispersed.  Some  had  succumbed  to  torments,  others  had  perished 
by  the  sword,  others  again  were  taken  captive  and  served  hard  and 
brutal  masters." 

Several  bishops,  with  the  remnant  of  their  flocks,  took  refuge  in 
Hippo,  and  found  shelter  in  Augustine's  house.  "  The  misfortunes," 
writes  Possidonius,  "  of  which  we  were  witnesses  were  the  topic  of 
our  daily  conversation.  We  pondered  the  terrible  judgments  which 
the  Divine  justice  was  accomplishing  before  our  eyes,  and  we  said : 
'  Thou  art  just  and  good,  and  thy  judgments  are  true.'  We  mingled 
our  griefs,  our  groans  and  our  tears,  and  offered  them  to  the  Father 
of  all  mercies  and  God  of  all  comfort,  beseeching  Him  to  deliver  us 
from  the  evils  we  endured  and  those  we  feared."  "  What  I  ask  of 
God,"  said  Augustine  one  day  at  table,  "  is,  that  He  would  be 
pleased  to  deliver  this  city  from  the  enemies  who  besiege  it ;  or  if 
He  has  otherwise  ordained,  that  He  will  give  his  servants  strength 
to  endure  the  evils  He  shall  permit  to  befall  them ;  or  at  least  that 
He  will  withdraw  me  from  this  world  and  call  me  to  Himself." 
This  last  prayer  was  soon  granted. 

In  the  third  month  of  the  siege,  Augustine  was  attacked  with 
fever.  A  man  brought  to  him  his  sick  son,  and  entreated  him  to 
lay  his  hands  upon  him.  The  dying  bishop  asked  why,  if  he  had 
the  power  to  heal  the  sick,  he  should  not  exercise  it  first  upon 
himself  ?  The  father  replied  that  he  had  had  a  dream,  in  which  he 
heard  a  voice  say :  "  Go  seek  the  bishop  Augustine,  ask  him  to  lay 
hands  on  thy  son,  and  he  shall  be  healed."  Upon  this,  Augustine 
did  as  the  man  requested,  and  (so  Possidonius  relates)  the  youth 
immediately  recovered. 

It  was  a  maxim  with  Augustine  that  even  the  most  experienced 
Christian  ought  not  to  die  without  a  season  of  penitential  retire- 
ment. Accordingly,  as  he  felt  death  approaching,  he  begged  his 
friends  to  leave  him  entirely  to  himself,  and  not  to  enter  his 
chamber,  except  with  his  physician  or  the  attendants.  He  caused 
the  penitential  psalms  to  be  written  out  large,  and  hung  before  him 
upon  the  wall ;  and  in  this  manner,  in  solitude  and  prayer,  he 
passed  the  last  six  days  of  his  life.  He  died  on  the  28th  of  August, 
430,  aged  seventy-six  years. 

With  Augustine  departed  the  glory  of  the  North  African  Church. 
"Eising  with  Tertullian  towards  the  end  of  the  second  century,  it 
ran  a  fervid  course  like  its  own  ardent  sun,  and  set  almost  as  pre- 


Augustine's  genius  and  want  of  courage.  155 

cipitately  in  the  early  part  of  the  fifth."  The  name  of  Christian 
still  survived,  but  little  more  was  left  than  the  dregs  of  Christianity, 
to  withstand,  two  centuries  later,  the  fury  of  the  Mohammedan 
invasion.1 

Since  the  apostles,  no  man  has  occupied  a  more  important  place 
in  the  Church  than  Augustine,  or  has  exercised  more  lasting  influ- 
ence on  mankind.  "He  was,"  says  Schaff,  " a  philosophical  and 
theological  genius  of  the  first  order,  towering  like  a  pyramid  above 
his  age,  and  looking  down  commandingly  upon  succeeding  centuries. 
He  had  a  mind  uncommonly  fertile  and  deep,  bold  and  soaring,  and 
with  it,  what  is  better,  a  heart  full  of  Christian  love  and  humility. 
He  stands  of  right  by  the  side  of  the  greatest  philosophers  of 
antiquity  and  of  modern  times.  .  .  .  With  royal  munificence  he 
scattered  ideas  in  passing  which  have  set  in  mighty  motion  other 
lands  and  later  times." 

Want  of  courage,  no  less  than  an  undue  reverence  for  tradition, 
hindered  Augustine  from  standing  forth  as  a  Church  Beformer. 
He  confesses  that  Christianity,  which  God  made  free,  appointing 
few  sacraments  and  easy  to  be  observed,  had  in  his  time  become 
more  burdened  with  ceremonies  than  the  Jewish  Church  itself; 
and  he  professes  himself  ready  to  abolish  those  customs  which  are 
neither  contained  in  Scripture,  nor  enjoined  by  councils,  nor  con- 
firmed by  universal  practice.  But  here  he  stops.  The  more  flagrant 
abuses  of  the  age  were  left  untouched.  "I  dare  not,"  he  says, 
"condemn  more  freely  many  things,  because  I  must  take  care  not 
to  offend  the  piety  of  some  and  the  pugnacity  of  others." 

It  is  with  no  desire  to  dwell  with  harshness  on  the  defects  in 
Augustine's  character,  but  because  his  surpassing  gifts  must  not 
blind  us  to  his  deficiencies,  that  we  add  Isaac  Taylor's  words. 
"  Everyone  must  allow  this  eminent  man  to  have  been  a  fervent 
and  heavenly-minded  Christian.  That  grace  which  prevails  over 
nature,  rendering  whoever  receives  it  a  new  creature  in  Christ 
Jesus,  shone  in  him  conspicuously ;  and  his  devotional  writings 
come  home  to  the  heart  of  every  spiritually-minded  reader.  .  .  ► 
No  moment  in  the  history  of  the  Church  can  be  named  more 
fearfully  critical  than  when  the  bishop  of  Hippo  stood  before 
Christendom  in  the  prime  and  vigour  of  his  religious  course.  The 
fate  of  Europe  was  trembling  on  the  point  between  an  abyss  of 
ignorance  and  anarchy,  and  a  possible  renovation.  .  .  .  There  was 

1  At  the  period  of  the  Vandal  conquest  the  North  African  provinces  num- 
bered no  fewer  than  500  Catholic  bishops ;  in  a.d.  457,  less  than  eighteen  years 
afterwards,  only  three  remained.  There  appears  to  have  been  no  bishop  of 
Hippo  after  Augustine. 


156  WITNESSES    FOE   CHBIST. 

a,  downward  rush  toward  all  those  follies  and  abuses  which  rendered 
Christianity  an  object  of  contempt  to  the  Saracen  conquerors  of  the 
next  century.  Yet  was  there  at  the  same  time  a  rising  movement 
towards  reform  ;  more  than  two  or  three  raised  a  remonstrant  voice 
against  the  frauds  and  illusions  of  the  age.  .  .  .  Who  better  than 
Augustine  might  have  led  this  early  reformation  ?  .  .  .  0,  that  it 
had  been  whispered  to  him  at  that  dark  moment,  to  think,  and 
.speak,  and  act  as  a  true  father  of  the  Church !  .  .  .  Fruitless 
regrets  !  Augustine,  the  last  hope  of  his  times,  joined  hands  with 
the  besotted  bigots  around  him,  who  would  listen  to  no  reproofs. 
Superstition  and  spiritual  despotism,  illusion,  knavery,  and  abject 
formalism,  received  a  new  warrant  from  the  high  seat  of  influence 
which  he  occupied."1 

Augustine  was  a  most  voluminous  writer.  His  Confessions  have 
been  freely  used  in  the  foregoing  narrative.  The  treatise  On  the 
Trinity  is  associated  with  a  well-known  legendary  anecdote.  As  he 
was  walking  to  and  fro  on  the  sea-shore  of  Hippo,  he  saw  what 
appeared  to  be  a  little  boy  busily  employed  in  digging  a  hole  in  the 
sand  and  then  filling  it  with  water,  which  he  fetched  in  a  cockle- 
shell from  the  sea.  Augustine  paused  and  spoke  to  him :  "  What 
art  thou  doing,  my  child  ?  "  "lam  trying  to  empty  the  sea  into 
this  hole  which  I  have  dug."  "  My  child,  it  is  impossible  to  get 
the  great  sea  into  that  little  hole."  "  Not  more  impossible, 
Augustine,"  replied  the  angel  (for  such  he  was),  "than  for  thy 
finite  mind  to  comprehend  the  mystery  of  the  Trinity." 

His  most  famous  work  is  entitled  The  City  of  God.  "  The  later 
opponents  of  Christianity  among  the  heathen  charged  the  misfor- 
tunes and  the  decline  of  the  Eoman  Empire  on  the  overthrow  of 
idolatry.  Augustine  answered  the  charge  in  his  immortal  work 
The  City  of  God  (that  is,  the  Church  of  Christ),  upon  which  he 
laboured  twelve  years,  from  413  to  426,  amidst  the  storms  of  the 
great  migration,  and  towards  the  close  of  his  life.  He  was  not 
wanting  in  appreciation  of  the  old  Roman  virtues,  and  he  attributes 
io  these  the  former  greatness  of  the  empire,  and  to  the  decline  of 
them  he  imputes  her  growing  weakness.  But  he  rose  at  the  same 
time  far  above  the  superficial  view  which  estimates  persons  and 
things  by  the  scale  of  earthly  profit  and  loss,  and  of  temporary 
success.  The  City  of  God  is  the  most  powerful,  comprehensive, 
profound,  and  fertile  production  in  refutation  of  heathenism  and 

1  Augustine  not  only  endorsed  Ambrose's  discovery  of  the  buried  martyrs 
under  the  altar  at  Milan  (see  ante,  p.  63),  but  himself  presents  us  with  a  tissue 
of  miraculous  cures  wrought  by  the  bones  of  the  martyr  Stephen,  quite  as 
incredible. 


THE    TREASUBK-HOUSE    OF    THE    MEMORY.  15T 

vindication  of  Christianity,  which  the  ancient  Church  has  bequeathed 
to  us,  and  forms  a  worthy  close  to  her  literary  contest  with  Graeco- 
Koman  paganism.  It  is  a  grand  funeral  discourse  upon  the  depart- 
ing universal  empire  of  heathenism,  and  a  lofty  salutation  to  the 
approaching  universal  order  of  Christianity.  While  even  Jerome 
deplored  in  the  destruction  of  the  city  the  downfall  of  the  empire,, 
as  the  omen  of  the  approaching  doom  of  the  world,  the  African 
Father  saw  in  it  only  a  passing  revolution  preparing  the  way  for 
new  conquests  of  Christianity.  Standing  at  that  remarkable  turning- 
point  of  history,  he  considers  the  origin,  progress  and  end  of  the- 
perishable  kingdom  of  this  world,  and  the  imperisbable  kingdom  of 
God,  from  the  fall  of  man  to  the  final  judgment,  where  at  last  they 
fully  and  for  ever  separate  into  hell  and  heaven." 

We  conclude  our  notice  of  Augustine  with  the  passage  in  which  he- 
gives  "a  local  habitation  "  to  the  faculty  of  Memory, 

"  I  come  to  the  fields  and  spacious  palaces  of  my  Memory,  where 
are  the  treasures  of  countless  images  brought  into  it  from  all  manner 
of  things  by  the  senses.  There  is  stored  up,  also,  whatsoever  we 
think,  either  by  enlarging  or  diminishing,  or  any  other  way  varying 
those  things  which  the  senses  apprehended  :  yea,  and  whatever  else 
has  been  committed  to  it  which  forgetfulness  has  not  yet  swallowed 
up  and  buried.  When  I  enter  this  store-house,  I  require  what  I  will 
to  be  brought  forth,  and  some  things  come  instantly ;  others  must 
be  longer  sought  for,  and  are  fetched,  as  it  were,  out  of  some  inner 
receptacle ;  others,  again,  rush  out  in  troops,  and  whilst  something 
else  is  desired  and  enquired  for,  start  forth,  as  who  should  say,  '  Is 
it  perchance  we  ?  '  These  I  drive  away  with  the  hand  of  my  heart 
from  before  the  face  of  my  remembrance,  until  what  I  wish  discovers 
itself  and  comes  to  view  out  of  its  secret  place.  Other  things  present 
themselves  without  effort,  and  in  continuous  order  as  they  are  called 
for,  those  in  front  giving  place  to  those  that  follow,  and  as  they 
make  way  returning  to  their  hiding-place  ready  to  come  forth  again 
when  I  will.  All  which  takes  place  when  I  repeat  a  thing  from 
memory.  All  these  things,  each  of  which  entered  by  its  own 
avenue,  are  severally  and  under  general  heads  there  laid  up,  being, 
received  into  that  great  store-house  of  the  memory,  in  her  number- 
less secret  and  inexpressible  windings,  to  be  forthcoming  at  need. 
Yet  it  is  not  the  things  themselves  that  enter  in,  but  only  the 
images  of  the  things,  which  how  they  are  formed  who  can  tell?' 
Even  when  I  dwell  in  darkness  and  silence,  in  my  memory  I  can 
produce  colours  if  I  will,  and  discern  betwixt  black  and  white ; 
sounds  also  are  there  lying  dormant,  and  laid  up  as  it  were  apart. 
For  these,  too,  I  call,  and  forthwith  they  appear ;  and  though  my 


WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

tongue  be  still  and  my  throat  mute,  yet  can  I  sing  as  much  as  I 
will.  The  same  with  the  other  things  piled  up  by  the  other  senses  ; 
so  that  I  discern  the  scent  of  lilies  from  violets,  though  smelling 
nothing.  In  that  vast  court  of  my  memory  there  are  present  also 
with  me  heaven,  earth,  sea,  and  whatever  I  can  think  upon  in 
them.  There  also  meet  I  with  myself  and  recall  myself,  and  when, 
where,  and  what  I  have  done,  and  under  what  feelings.  Out  of  the 
same  store  do  I  myself  with  the  past  combine  fresh  and  fresh  like- 
nesses of  things  which  I  have  experienced  or  have  believed,  and 
thence  again  infer  future  actions,  events  and  hopes,  on  all  which 
I  reflect  a3  if  present.  Excessive  great  is  this  power  of  memory, 
0  my  God,  a  large  and  boundless  chamber ;  who  has  ever  sounded 
the  depths  of  it?  Men  go  abroad  to  admire  the  height  of  the 
mountains,  the  mighty  billows  of  the  sea,  the  broad  flow  of  the 
rivers,  the  compass  of  the  ocean,  and  the  courses  of  the  stars,  and 
jet  they  omit  to  wonder  at  themselves." 


CHAPTEK    X. 

The  Spirit  of  the  Age. 

Public  Worship. — "  Three  centuries  and  more,"  says  Cardinal 
Newman,  "were  necessary  for  the  infant  Church  to  attain  her 
mature  and  perfect  form  and  due  stature.  Athanasius,  Basil,  and 
Ambrose  are  the  fully  instructed  doctors  of  her  doctrine,  morals 
and  discipline."  Strange  interpretation  of  Church  History  !  The 
presumptuous  forbidding  to  marry,  the  plagiarism  of  Brahminical 
self-torture,  the  invocation  of  the  martyrs  and  adoration  of  their 
bones  and  ashes,  the  fond  belief  in  lying  wonders,  the  exaltation  of 
priestly  rule  to  the  prejudice  of  the  civil  power  instead  of  the  un- 
worldly kingdom  of  Jesus,  are  these  the  tokens  of  fully  instructed 
teaching  in  doctrine,  morals  and  discipline  ? 

The  preceding  biographies  have  presented  in  some  fulness  the 
state  of  the  Church  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries.  It  will  only 
be  necessary  here  to  add  a  few  additional  touches. 

To  begin  with  the  order  of  public  worship,  as  it  was  conducted  in 
Constantinople  and  other  great  cities.  "  A  stranger  on  entering 
the  spacious  open  court  in  front  of  the  church,  which  was  flanked 
on  either  side  by  cloisters,  beheld  the  fountain  where  the  wor- 
shippers were  expected  to  wash  their  hands  before  entering  the 
divine  presence.     Lingering  in  these  cloisters,  and  pressing  around 


THE  ORDER  OF  PUBLIC  WORSHIP.  159 

the  faithful  to  solicit  their  prayers,  he  would  observe  men,  pale, 
dejected,  and  clad  in  sack-cloth.  These  were  the  first  class  of 
penitents,  men  of  notorious  guilt,  whom  only  a  long  period  of 
humiliating  probation  could  admit  even  within  hearing  of  the 
service.  As  he  advanced  to  the  church  door,  he  had  to  pass  the 
scrutiny  of  the  doorkeepers,  who  guarded  admission,  and  distributed 
the  several  classes  of  worshippers  to  their  proper  seats.  Nearest  to 
the  door  were  placed  the  catechumens  and  the  less  guilty  penitents 
of  the  second  order.  Amongst  these  also  Jews  and  heathens  were 
admitted,  that  they  might  profit  by  the  religious  instruction.  He 
would  see  the  walls  of  the  church  lined  with  marbles ;  the  roof  often 
ceiled  with  mosaic,  and  supported  by  lofty  columns  with  gilded 
capitals ;  the  doors  inlaid  with  ivory  or  silver,  the  distant  altar 
glittering  with  precious  stones.  In  the  midst  of  the  nave  stood  the 
pulpit  or  reading  desk,  around  which  were  arranged  the  choristers. 
When  the  chanting  was  ended,  one  of  the  inferior  clergy  ascended 
the  pulpit,  and  read  the  portion  of  Scripture  for  the  day.  He  was 
succeeded  by  the  preacher,  a  presbyter,  or  a  bishop,  selected  for  his 
learning  and  eloquence,  whose  discourse  was  frequently  interrupted 
by  the  plaudits  of  the  auditory.  Around  the  pulpit,  also,  was  the 
last  order  of  penitents,  who  prostrated  themselves  in  humble 
reverence  during  the  prayers  and  the  benediction  of  the  bishop. 
Here  the  steps  of  the  uninitiated  stranger  must  pause.  He  might 
only  behold  at  respectful  distance  the  striking  scene  :  first  of  the 
baptized  worshippers  in  their  ranks,  the  women  in  galleries  above ; 
beyond,  in  still  further  secluded  sanctity,  on  an  elevated  semi-circle, 
the  bishop  in  the  midst  of  his  attendant  clergy.  Even  the  gorgeous 
throne  of  the  Emperor  was  below  this  platform.  Before  it  stood 
the  altar,  spread  with  a  cloth  of  fine  linen,  and  in  some  churches 
overhung  with  a  richly- wrought  canopy.  In  the  East,  embroidered 
curtains  or  light  doors  altogether  hid  it  from  view.  Such  was  the 
ceremonial  as  it  was  addressed  to  the  multitude.  But  as  soon  as 
the  liturgy  commenced,  the  catechumens  were  dismissed,  and  the 
church  doors  were  closed.1  To  add  to  the  impressiveness,  night 
was  sometimes  chosen  for  the  Christian,  as  it  had  formerly  been 
for  the  pagan  mysteries." 

How  unlike  all  this  to  the  simplicity  of  the  primitive  worship !    If, 

1  The  dismissal  of  the  uninitiate  was  called  Missa  Catechumenorum,  that  of 
the  baptized  at  the  end  of  the  service  came  in  later  ages  to  be  known  as  Missa 
Fidelium.  By  degrees  the  word  3Iissa  was  retained  only  for  the  latter,  and  was 
applied,  not  to  the  act  of  dismissal,  but  to  the  service  itself  ;  and  thus  in  its 
slightly  altered  form  of  Mass  it  came  to  signify  the  consecration  and  oblation  of 
the  Host  (Jiostia,  victim  or  sacrifice). 


160  WITNESSES    FOR    CHEIST. 

however,  the  stranger  had  happened  upon  the  birthday  of  some  popular 
Saint,  he  would  have  beheld  a  still  greater  contrast.  "  As  soon  as 
he  passed  the  door  his  senses  would  be  greeted  by  the  perfume  of 
flowers,1  and  the  noon-day  glare  of  lamps  and  tapers.  He  would 
see  the  floor  covered  with  a  prostrate  crowd  of  pilgrims,  imprinting 
their  devout  kisses  on  the  walls  and  pavement,  and  directing  their 
prayers  to  the  relics  of  the  saint,  which  were  usually  concealed 
behind  a  linen  or  silken  veil."  Suspended  on  the  walls  or  on  the 
pillars  of  the  church  he  would  see  the  votive  offerings  of  the  faithful, 
the  model  in  gold,  silver  or  wood,  of  an  eye,  a  hand,  a  foot,  the 
picture  of  a  shipwreck,  the  memento  of  some  special  blessing.  How 
early  this  imitation  of  a  pagan  usage  was  first  practised,  cannot  be 
said  with  certainty,  but  it  was  already  in  vogue,  both  in  the  East 
and  West,  at  the  period  we  are  now  reviewing.2 

The  truth  is  that  the  public  worship  of  the  Christians  had 
approached  perilously  near  to  that  of  the  ancient  Greeks  and 
Komans.  Thus  there  were  in  both  rituals  splendid  robes,  mitres, 
tiaras,  croziers  (identical  with  the  lituus,  or  crook  of  the  augur), 
processions,  lustrations,  images,  gold  and  silver  vessels,  and,  in  the 
course  of  the  fifth  century,  incense.  The  heathens  supposed  that 
their  country  would  be  more  prosperous  in  proportion  as  the  temples 
of  the  gods  and  heroes  were  multiplied,  and  this  notion  descended 
to  the  Christians.  New  churches  were  continually  being  dedicated 
to  Christ  and  the  saints,  in  order  to  render  heavenly  assistance 

1  The  use  of  flowers,  whether  for  strewing  the  graves  of  the  dead,  or  adorning 
the  churches,  dates  from  the  latter  part  of  the  fourth  century.  The  former  of 
these  two  customs  (they  would  not  have  dreamed  of  the  latter)  was  repudiated 
by  the  Early  Christians  as  a  heathen  observance.  One  of  the  earliest  passages 
in  which  it  is  alluded  to  is  in  Ambrose :  "I  will  not  sprinkle  his  tomb  with 
flowers,  but  with  the  sweet  scent  of  Christ's  spirit ;  let  others  scatter  baskets  of 
lilies  ;  our  lily  is  Christ."  Jerome  says:  "  Some  husbands  strew  over  the  tombs 
of  their  wives,  violets,  roses,  lilies,  and  purple  flowers."  The  practice  was  soon 
extended  to  the  churches,  first  to  those  of  the  martyrs,  which  in  their  origin 
were  only  enlarged  sepulchres,  and  then  to  the  basilicas.  Jerome  commends 
Nepotianus  for  decorating  both  kinds  of  buildings  with  flowers,  foliage,  and 
vine  leaves. 

2  The  classical  student  is  familiar  with  this  custom.  Many  offerings,  arms, 
legs,  and  other  parts  of  the  body,  in  metal,  stone,  or  clay,  which  were  formerly 
hung  up  in  the  temples,  are  still  preserved  in  museums  and  cabinets.  Persons 
saved  from  shipwreck  used  to  hang  up  their  clothes  in  the  temple  of  Neptune, 
with  a  picture  representing  their  danger  and  escape.  Soldiers  discharged  from 
service  suspended  their  arms  to  Mars;  gladiators,  their  swords  to  Hercules;  and 
poets,  the  fillets  of  their  hair  to  Apollo.  The  temple  of  JUsculapius,  however, 
in  which  were  hung  up  tablets  recording  the  cures  wrought  by  that  god,  seems  to 
have  been  the  chief  model  for  the  Christian  shrine. 


BAPTISM.  161 

more  powerful  and  certain.  As  was  to  be  expected,  the  idea  of 
sanctity  which  had  become  attached  to  places  of  worship  lost 
nothing  of  its  force  ;  as  we  have  more  than  once  seen  in  preceding 
chapters,  the  churches,  like  the  persons  of  the  priests,  were 
surrounded  with  an  ever  increasing  halo  of  solemn  mystery. 

Baptism  and  the  Eucharist. — We  drew  attention  in  the  former 
volume  to  the  explicit  declarations  of  John  the  Baptist,  our  Lord 
Himself,  and  Peter,  that  whereas  John's  baptism  was  with  water, 
Christ's  disciples  should  be  baptized  with  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  we 
at  the  same  time  pointed  out,  how  early  this  grand  distinction  began 
to  be  lost  sight  of.  Even  the  more  thoughtful  so  identified  the 
spiritual  change  with  the  external  rite,  as  to  be  unable  to  conceive 
of  the  one  without  the  other ;  whilst  in  the  belief  of  the  multitude, 
who  lost  sight  altogether  of  the  former,  immersion  in  water 
removed,  as  by  a  magical  and  instantaneous  process,  all  the  defile- 
ment of  sin,  and  made  men  fit  for  Heaven. 

The  writers  of  the  previous  century,  Tertullian,  Hippolytus  and 
others,  insist  so  unmistakably  on  this  almost  talismanic  power 
as  to  leave  little  to  be  added  by  those  who  followed  them.  Chry- 
sostom  clothes  the  same  idea  in  his  own  fervid  language.  ' '  Although 
a  man  should  be  foul  with  every  human  vice,  the  blackest  that  can 
be  named,  yet  when  he  descends  into  the  baptismal  pool,  he  comes 
up  from  the  divine  waters  purer  than  the  beams  of  noon.  .  .  .  The 
baptized  put  on  a  royal  garment,  a  purple  dipped  in  the  blood  of 
the  Lord."  Basil  urged  baptism  in  his  most  declamatory  style 
"Beware  lest  procrastinating  and  providing  no  oil,  thou  should 
come  upon  the  fatal  day.  Who  in  that  hour  shall  administer  the 
rite  ?  It  is  night ;  no  helper  is  at  hand ;  death  is  near.  .  .  , 
'  Alas,  I  neglected  to  cast  off  the  burden  of  my  sins  when  it  would 
have  been  so  easy !  Miserable  wretch !  I  washed  not  my  sins 
away  in  the  sweet  waters  of  baptism  ;  and  lo,  I  perish  !  Even  now 
I  might  have  been  sitting  in  the  choir  of  angels,  might  have  shared 
the  delights  of  heaven.'  "  Gregory  of  Nyssa  states  that  when 
alarmed  by  earthquakes,  pestilences,  or  other  public  calamities,, 
such  multitudes  rushed  to  be  baptized,  that  the  clergy  were 
oppressed  by  the  labour  of  receiving  them.  It  was  the  same 
superstitious  view  which  induced  Constantine  the  Great  to  defer 
his  baptism  to  the  latest  hour  of  life.1 

Each  successive  age  contributed  its  share  towards  the  conversion 
of  the  morsel  of  bread  which  the  priest  had  blessed,  into  an  object 
of  adoration  and  supernatural  efficacy,  as  it  is  this  day  regarded  in 

1  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  245. 


162  WITNESSES   FOB    CHRIST. 

the  Eomish  Church.  It  is  true  that  the  best  writers  of  this  period 
see  beyond  the  external,  and  dwell  upon  that  inward  and  heavenly 
communion  with  Christ,  of  which  the  outward  observance,  if  now 
of  any  further  service,  is  only  a  sign  and  a  memorial.  Thus 
Athanasius,  commenting  on  John  vi.  62,  declares  that  the  par- 
taking of  the  flesh  and  blood  of  Christ  is  not  there  to  be  understood 
in  a  literal  sense.  "  Christ,"  he  says,  "  mentions  on  this  occasion 
his  ascension  to  heaven  for  the  very  purpose  of  turning  away  men's 
minds  from  sensuous  notions,  and  leading  them  to  the  idea  of  a 
spiritual  nourishment,  inasmuch  as  He  communicates  Himself  to 
each  after  a  spiritual  manner."  And  Jerome  :  "If  the  bread  which 
came  down  from  heaven  is  the  Lord's  body,  and  the  wine  which  He 
gave  to  his  disciples  his  blood,  let  us  go  up  with  the  Lord  into  that 
great  and  high  room,  and  receive  at  his  hand  the  cup  which  is  the 
New  Covenant.  He  invites  us  to  the  feast,  and  is  Himself  our 
meat ;  He  eats  with  us,  and  we  eat  Him.  .  .  .  Jesus  Christ  has 
given  his  blood  to  redeem  us,  and  this  may  be  taken  either  for  his 
spiritual  and  divine  flesh,  whereof  He  saith  Himself,  '  My  flesh  is 
meat  indeed,  and  my  blood  is  drink  indeed; '  or  for  his  flesh  which 
was  crucified,  and  his  blood  which  in  his  passion  was  spilt  with  the 
soldier's  lance."  So  Augustine:  "The  flesh  without  the  spirit 
profits  nothing.  The  inward  act  of  feeding  is  to  be  distinguished 
from  the  outward.  The  former  is  a  privilege  only  of  believers ;  the 
unbelieving  and  the  unworthy  receive  nothing  but  the  sacrament  of 
the  body  and  blood  of  Christ." 

But  the  Fathers  of  the  fourth  century  do  not  always  write  thus 
soberly.  Take  an  example  from  Ambrose's  funeral  oration  over  his 
brother  Satyrus.  The  vessel  in  which  Satyrus  was  returning  to 
Italy  ran  upon  the  rocks.  Unbaptized  and  uninitiated  in  the 
"mysteries,"  the  young  man  sought  amongst  those  on  board  for  a 
morsel  of  the  consecrated  bread,  which  when  he  had  found  he 
wrapped  in  a  sacrificial  kerchief  and  tied  about  his  neck.  Thus 
armed,  he  fearlessly  leapt  into  the  sea,  believing  himself  to  be  so 
well  protected  as  to  need  no  other  help. 

Virginity. — Foremost  amongst  the  elements  of  which  the  ascetic 
life  was  composed  is  the  vow  of  perpetual  celibacy.  How  the  un- 
married state  came  in  the  fourth  century  to  occupy  the  place  that 
martyrdom  had  held  during  the  times  of  persecution,  and  how,  by 
its  introduction  as  a  rule  of  devout  Christian  life,  one  of  the  most 
awful  and  emphatic  predictions  of  the  New  Testament  was  accom- 
plished, has  already  been  shown  in  the   Early  Church   History.1 

1  Pt.  ii.  c.  xvii.  "  God,  when  he  would  form  a  happy  and  holy  world,  said, 
1  It  is  not  good  for  man  to  be  alone.'     Satan,  inspiring  the  apostacy  to  make 


THE    FATHERS    ON   VIRGINITY.  163 

Prom  the  time  of  the  Council  of  Nicaea,  the  virgin  state  is  the 
favourite  theme  with  all  the  great  Church  writers ;  and  is  presented 
by  them  sometimes  in  the  very  language  of  the  Oriental  theosophy. 
The  great  object  was  the  mortification  of  the  flesh ;  and  in  this 
exercise,  observes  Euffner,  Virginity  was  the  most  difficult  to  attain, 
requiring  the  aid  of  all  other  mortifications.  "  So  to  thin  the  blood, 
■attenuate  the  flesh,  enfeeble  the  nerves,  dry  up  the  marrow,  and 
exhaust  the  constitution,  as  to  destroy  the  natural  appetite,"  in  this 
it  was  considered  lay  the  secret  of  overcoming  "both  the  demon 
without  and  the  demon  within."  Even  Origen,  so  early  as  the 
third  century,  says:  "When  we  abstain  from  flesh,  we  do  it  to 
chasten  the  body  and  reduce  it  to  servitude,  in  order  that  we  may 
-extinguish  our  carnal  affections,  and  so  put  to  death  our  corporeal 
actions."  This  kind  of  teaching  was  carried  much  further  by  the 
writers  of  the  next  century. 

To  begin  with  Athanasius.  "  The  Son  of  God  has,  besides  his 
■other  gifts,  granted  us  to  have  on  earth  an  image  of  the  sanctity  of 
angels,  namely,  Virginity.  The  maidens  who  possess  this  virtue, 
-and  whom  the  Church  Catholic  is  wont  to  call  the  brides  of  Christ, 
are  admired  even  by  the  Gentiles  as  being  the  temple  of  the  Word. 
Nowhere,  except  among  us  Christians,  is  this  holy  profession  per- 
fected ;  so  that  we  may  appeal  to  this  very  fact  as  a  convincing 
proof  that  with  us  the  true  religion  is  to  be  found."  "A  great 
virtue  truly  is  virginity,"  exclaims  Basil,  "which,  to  say  all  in  a 
"word,  renders  man  like  to  the  incorruptible  God.  For  the  soul, 
holding  to  the  idea  of  the  true  good,  and  soaring  up  to  it  as  on  the 
wing  of  this  incorruptness,  and  perceiving  that  by  this  alone  the 
incorruptible  God  can  be  worthily  worshipped,  brings  up  the  vir- 
ginity of  the  body  as  an  obsequious  handmaid  to  assist  her  in  the 
worship  of  beauty  like  her  own." 

The  two  Gregorys  teem  with  the  same  kind  of  dreamy  philosophy. 
Nazianzen  thus  addresses  a  virgin  :  "  Thou  hast  chosen  the  angelic 
life,  and  hast  ranged  thyself  with  those  who  are  unyoked  [the 
angels] ;  be  not  thou  borne  downward  to  the  flesh ;  be  not  thou 
borne  downward  to  matter."  Nyssen  writes:  "  In  order  that  we 
may,  with  a  clear  eye,  gaze  upon  the  light  of  the  intellectual 
universe,  we  must  disengage  ourselves  from  every  mundane 
affection";  "that,"  in  the  words  of  Chrysostom,  "the  soul  dis- 
engaged from  its  trammels  and  all  earthly  thoughts  may  wing  its 
way  to  its  home  and  its  native  soil."     Chrysostom  indeed  falls  into 

the  world  and  even  the  Church  unholy  and  unhappy,  said,  '  It  is  good  for  man 
to  be  alone ;  nay,  it  is  better  for  him  to  be  alone.'  " 


164  WITNESSES    FOB   CHRIST. 

a  rhapsody  when  he  contemplates  the  lustre  of  virginity.  "  The- 
virgin  when  she  goes  abroad  should  strike  all  with  amazement,  as 
if  an  angel  had  just  come  down  from  heaven.  All  who  look  upon 
her  should  be  thrown  into  stupor  at  the  sight  of  her  sanctity. 
When  she  sits  at  church  it  is  in  the  profoundest  silence,  her  eye 
catches  nothing  of  the  objects  around  her,  she  sees  neither  women 
nor  men,  but  her  Spouse  only.  Not  only  does  she  hide  herself 
from  the  eyes  of  men,  she  avoids  the  society  of  secular  women  also. 
Who  is  it  that  shall  dare  approach  her  ?  Where  is  the  man  that 
shall  venture  to  touch  this  flaming  spirit  ?  All  stand  aloof,  willing 
or  unwilling,  all  are  fixed  in  amazement  as  if  there  were  before 
their  eyes  a  mass  of  incandescent  and  sparkling  gold." 

Between  these  soaring  imaginations,  however,  and  the  actual  life 
of  multitudes  of  those  who  assumed  the  vows  of  celibacy,  a  great 
gulf  intervened.  In  the  same  treatise  from  which  these  words  are 
taken  Chrysostom  thus  discloses  the  reverse  side  of  the  picture. 
"Alas,  my  soul !  our  virginity  has  fallen  into  contempt.  The  veil 
that  parted  it  off  from  matrimony  is  rent  by  shameless  hands ;  the 
holy  of  holies  is  trodden  under  foot,  and  its  grave  and  tremendous 
sanctities  have  become  profane,  and  are  thrown  open  to  all ;  and 
that  which  once  was  had  in  reverence,  as  so  much  more  excellent 
than  wedlock,  is  sunk  far  below  it.  Nor  is  it  the  enemy  that  has 
effected  all  this,  but  the  virgins  themselves !" 

That  the  monastic  vow  was  very  imperfectly  kept,  both  by  men 
and  women,  is  notorious.  Denouncing  the  practice  of  the  unmarried 
clergy,  who,  under  the  name  of  spiritual  sisters,  kept  young  women, 
often  "consecrated  virgins,"  as  housekeepers,  Chrysostom  exclaims: 
"  What  a  spectacle  it  is  to  enter  the  cell  of  a  solitary  brother,  and 
see  the  apartment  hung  about  with  female  gear.  But  it  is  a  greater 
riddle  still  to  visit  the  dwelling  of  a  rich  monk ;  for  you  find  the 
solitary  surrounded  with  a  bevy  of  lasses,  just,  one  might  say,  like 
the  leader  of  a  company  of  singing  and  dancing  girls.  What  can 
be  more  disgraceful !  Forbidden  by  the  apostolic  precept  to  meddle 
at  all  with  temporal  matters,  he  spends  his  time,  not  only  in  mun- 
dane, but  even  in  effeminate  trifles.  He  is  sent  to  the  silversmith's 
to  inquire  if  my  lady's  mirror  is  finished,  if  her  vase  is  ready,  if 
her  scent-cruet  has  been  returned ;  for  matters  have  come  to  such 
a  pass  that  the  virgins  use  more  toilet  luxuries  than  those  who  have 
not  taken  the  vow.  From  the  silversmith's  he  must  run  to  the 
perfumer's  to  inquire  about  her  aromatics  ;  from  the  perfumer's  to 
the  linendraper's ;  and  thence  to  the  upholsterer's.  For  the  good 
man  is  so  complaisant  that  he  will  perform  any  errand,  however 
trivial.     Add  to  all  these  cares  the  jarrings  and  scoldings  which 


VIRGINITY,    FASTING.  165 

beset  a  house  full  of  pampered  women  !  Paul  says :  'Be  ye  not  the 
servants  of  men;'  how  then  shall  we  be  the  slaves  of  women!" 

Of  the  150  extant  epistles  of  Jerome,  the  greater  part  have 
Virginity  for  their  subject,  and  abound  in  exhortations,  cautions, 
and  rebukes,  to  these  "holy  pets  of  the  Church."  "  Some  priests," 
he  says,  in  a  letter  to  Eustochium,  "walk  forth  in  the  most  public 
manner,  and  by  sly  winks  draw  after  them  crowds  of  young  men. 
They  dress  in  thin  purple  robes,  and  tie  their  hair  loose  that  it  may 
fall  over  their  shoulders,  over  which  a  mantle  is  thrown.  They 
wear  short  sleeves  and  thin  slippers,  and  go  mincing  as  they  walk. 
And  this  is  all  their  virginity."  The  monks  were  no  better. 
"Some  you  may  see  with  their  loins  girt,  clad  in  dingy  cloaks, 
with  long  beards,  who  yet  can  never  break  away  from  the  company 
of  women ;  but  live  under  the  same  roof,  sit  at  the  same  tables,  are 
waited  upon  by  young  girls,  and  want  nothing  proper  to  the  married 
state  except — wives  !  " 

The  upholders  of  celibacy  relied  upon  the  example  of  the  Virgin 
Mary ;  the  dogma  of  her  perpetual  virginity  was  essential  to  their 
position:  so  early  a  writer  as  Clement  of  Alexandria  alludes  to  it. 
The  unsophisticated  reader  of  the  New  Testament  is  left  in  no 
doubt  that  Mary  had  children  after  the  birth  of  our  Lord.  The 
language  of  Matt.  i.  25,  and  Luke  ii.  7,  with  the  mention  of  the 
brothers  of  our  Lord,1  is  too  plain  and  conclusive  to  be  touched 
by  any  authority  of  Church  Father,  Council,  or  Pope.  "  To  have 
admitted,"  remarks  Isaac  Taylor,  "the  plain  sense  of  the  in- 
telligible phrase  employed  by  the  inspired  evangelist  would  have 
been  tantamount  to  a  betrayal  of  the  whole  scheme  of  religious 
celibacy.  Only  let,  it  have  been  granted  that  the  virtue  of  the 
'mother  of  God'  was  nothing  better  than  real  virtue,  and  that  her 
piety  was  a  principle  of  the  heart,  and  that  her  purity  was  the 
purity  of  the  affections;  and  only  allow  that  she  was  a  'holy 
woman,'  and  an  exemplary  wife  and  mother,  such  as  the  Apostles 
speak  of  and  commend;  only  to  have  done  this,  would  have 
marred  the  entire  scheme  of  theology  and  morals,  as  fancied  and 
fashioned  by  the  ancient  Church.  The  perpetual  inviolateness  of 
the  blessed  virgin  was  well  felt  to  be  the  keystone  of  the  building." 

Fasting. — This  observance  had  been  gradually  removed  from  the 
place  which  it  occupies  in  the  New  Testament  and  in  the  earliest 
class  of  Church  writers,  into  a  different  sphere.     New  motives  and 

1  Matt.  xii.  46 ;  John  vii.  5.  In  this  case,  as  in  others,  the  plainest 
meaning  of  words  and  fullest  testimony  of  Scripture  were  set  at  nought  by  the 
■Church  to  attain  her  object. 


166  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

a  new  object  gave  to  it  a  totally  new  character.  The  Church  at- 
Antioch  fasted  as  they  ministered  to  the  Lord,  and  again  when  they 
separated  Saul  and  Barnabas  for  the  work  of  the  Gospel ;  and  Paul 
shows  us  how  the  combat  in  the  spiritual  arena  is  to  be  waged : 
11 1  buffet  my  body  and  bring  it  into  bondage,  lest  by  any  means 
after  that  I  have  preached  to  others  I  myself  should  be  rejected."1 
The  widely  different  place  which  this  observance  occupied  in  the 
fourth  century,  and  the  scrupulous  and  painful  manner  in  which 
it  was  practised,2  has  been  repeatedly  presented  in  the  foregoing 
biographies.  "What,"  asks  Athanasius,  "does  Christ  require  of 
thee,  but  a  pure  heart  and  a  body  unsoiled  and  brought  down  with 
fasting?"  "Wouldst  thou  learn,"  writes  Chrysostom,  "  what  an 
ornament  fasting  is  to  men ,  what  a  guard  and  preservative  ?  Look 
well  to  the  monastic  tribe,  blessed  and  admirable !  Men  though 
they  are,  fasting  makes  angels  of  them.  God,  when  He  made  man, 
instantly  committed  him  into  the  hands  of  Fasting  as  to  a  loving 
mother  entrusted  with  his  safety.3  If,  tben,  fasting  were  indis- 
pensable even  in  Paradise,  how  much  more  so  out  of  Paradise  ?  " 

These  maxims  of  Chrysostom's  made,  however,  but  a  faint 
impression  on  the  volatile  people  of  Constantinople.  "If,"  he- 
says,  in  one  of  his  sermons,  "  I  ask  why  hast  thou  been  to  the 
bath  to-day?  thou  wilt  reply,  to  cleanse  my  body  in  preparation 
for  the  Fast.  And  if  I  ask  why  didst  thou  get  drunk  yesterday  ? 
again  thou  wilt  reply,  because  I  am  to  fast  to-day."  "We  see," 
he  says  again,  "nothing  but  people  making  merry,  and  saying  to 
one  another,  '  Victory  is  ours ;  Mid-Lent  is  over.'  ...  I  know 
some  who,  in  the  middle  of  Lent,  dread  already  the  fast  of  the  next 
year."  The  mass  of  the  population  indeed  alternated  between  cere- 
monial observances  and  sensual  excess.  The  Church  fasts,  which 
were  observed  with  superstitious  strictness,  were  succeeded  by 
disgraceful  outbreaks  of  debauchery.  Basil  gives  on  one  occasion 
as  a  reason  for  protracting  his  sermon,  that  although  it  was  in  the 
midst  of  the  fast,  many  of  the  congregation,  as  soon  as  the  service 
was  over,  would  fly  to  the  gaming-table. 

The  Fasts  were  sometimes  observed  with  such  scrupulosity  that 
the  Church  had  to  interfere.  Timothy,  bishop  of  Alexandria,  was 
called  upon  to  decide  the  question,  gravely  propounded,  whether  a 

1  Acts  xii.  2,  3 ;  1  Cor.  ix.  27. 
2  The  Christian  anchorites  performed  miracles  of  fasting,  but  they  scarcely 
come  up  to  those  of  the  Hindoo  saints.    In  one  of  the  Brahminical  fasts  the 
devotee  is  neither  to  eat  nor  drink  for  twelve  days  and  nights.     In  another  he 
drinks  only  warm  water. 

8  Does  this  refer  to  Genesis  ii.  16,  17  ? 


ALMSGIVING,    SAINT- WORSHIP.  167 

man  who  fasted  in  order  to  communicate,  and  who  had  by  chance 
swallowed  a  drop  of  water,  ought  to  refrain.  He  replied  that  he 
ought  so  much  the  more  to  communicate,  because  it  was  an  artifice 
of  the  devil  to  hinder  him.1 

Almsgiving. — When  the  fatal  maxim  was  admitted  that  salvation 
is  to  be  purchased  by  good  works,  the  blessed  grace  of  "  considering 
the  poor"  soon  lost  its  original  savour,  and  was  degraded  into  a 
matter  of  barter  between  the  soul  and  heaven.  Chrysostom  asks, 
"What!  hast  thou  not  understood,  from  the  instance  of  the  ten 
virgins  in  the  Gospel,  how  that  those  who,  although  proficients  in 
virginity,  yet  possessed  not  Almsgiving,  were  excluded  from  the 
mystical  banquet  ?  Virginity  is  the  fire  of  the  lamps,  and  alms- 
giving is  the  oil.  As  the  flame  unless  supplied  with  a  stream  of  oil 
disappears,  so  virginity  unless  it  is  united  with  Almsgiving  is 
extinguished.  Now  who  are  the  vendors  of  this  oil  ?  The  poor 
who  sit  for  alms  about  the  doors  of  the  church.  And  for  how 
much  is  it  to  be  bought  ?  For  what  thou  wilt,  for  so  much  as  thou 
hast.  Hast  thou  a  penny  ?  Buy  Heaven ;  not  indeed  as  if  Heaven 
were  cheap,  but  the  Master  is  indulgent.  Hast  thou  not  even  a 
penny  ?  Give  a  cup  of  cold  water.  Heaven  is  in  the  market,  and 
we  heed  it  not !  Give  a  crust,  and  take  back  paradise.  Alms  are 
the  redemption  of  the  soul.  As  vases  of  water  are  set  at  the 
church  gates  for  washing  the  hands,  so  are  beggars  sitting  there 
that  thou  mayst  wash  the  hands  of  thy  soul." 

Saint- Worship. — The  inducement  which  the  martyrs'  festivals 
offered  to  the  heathen  to  join  themselves  to  the  Church,  and  the 
evil  consequences  which  ensued  from  this  compromise  with  idolatry, 
are  fully  stated  in  our  former  volume.2  To  the  nominal  convert, 
the  substitution  of  the  saint  for  the  idol  would  make  but  little  diffe- 
rence. The  old  classic  mythology  may  be  said  to  have  been  re- 
placed by  a  new  Christian  Pantheon.3 

1  One  of  the  charges  brought  against  Chrysostom  by  the  Synod  of  the  Oak 
was  "  that  he  had  eaten  a  lozenge  after  Holy  Communion." — See  ante,  p.  89. 
2  Early  Church  History,  p.  280. 

3  The  deification  of  the  martyrs  naturally  excited  the  mockery  of  the  heathen. 
"  Instead  of  many  gods,"  writes  the  Emperor  Julian,  "the  Christians  worship 
many  wretched  men."  Eunapius  the  Sardian,  one  of  the  last  of  the  pagan 
authors,  exclaims :  "  These  are  the  gods  the  earth  now  brings  forth — the  inter- 
cessors with  the  gods,  men  called  martyrs,  before  whose  bones  and  skulls,  pickled 
and  salted,  the  monks  kneel  and  prostrate  themselves,  besmearing  themselves 
with  filth  and  dust."  In  like  manner  the  Manichasan  Faustus  reproves  the 
Catholic  Christians:  "  Ye  have  changed  the  idols  into  martyrs  whom  ye  worship 
with  the  like  prayers,  and  ye  appease  the  shades  of  the  dead  with  wine  and 
flesh." 


168  WITNESSES    FOB   CHRIST. 

.  Dr.  Middleton,  commenting  on  the  idolatry  of  modern  Rome, 
invites  his  readers  to  enter  the  temples,  and  see  the  altars  which 
were  built  originally  by  the  old  Romans  to  the  honour  of  their 
pagan  deities.  "  We  shall  hardly  see  any  other  alteration  than  the 
shrine  of  some  old  hero  filled  by  the  meaner  statue  of  some  modern 
saint ;  nay,  they  have  not  always  given  themselves  the  trouble  of 
making  even  this  change,  but  have  been  content  sometimes  to  take 
up  with  the  old  image,  just  as  they  found  it,  after  baptizing  it  only, 
as  it  were,  or  consecrating  it  anew,  by  the  imposition  of  a  Christian 
name.  This  their  antiquaries  do  not  scruple  to  put  strangers  in 
mind  of,  in  showing  their  churches ;  and  it  was,  I  think,  in  that  of 
St.  Agnes,  where  they  showed  me  an  antique  statue  of  a  young 
Bacchus,  which,  with  a  new  name,  and  some  little  change  of 
drapery,  stands  now  worshipped  as  a  female  saint.  The  noblest 
heathen  temple,"  he  continues,  "  now  remaining  in  the  world,  is 
the  Pantheon,  which,  as  the  inscription  over  the  portico  informs  us, 
having  been  impiously  dedicated  of  old  by  Agrippa  to  Jove  and  all 
the  gods,  was  piously  re-consecrated  by  Pope  Boniface  IV.1  to  the 
blessed  Virgin  and  all  the  saints.  With  this  single  alteration  it 
serves  as  exactly  for  the  Popish  as  it  did  for  the  pagan  worship  for 
which  it  was  built.  For  as  in  the  old  temple  every  one  might  find 
the  god  of  his  country,  and  address  himself  to  that  deity  whose 
religion  he  was  most  devoted  to,  so  it  is  now ;  every  one  chooses 
the  patron  whom  he  likes  best ;  and  one  may  see  here  different  ser- 
vices going  on  at  the  same  time  at  different  altars,  with  distinct 
■congregations  around  them,  just  as  the  inclinations  of  the  people 
lead  them  to  the  worship  of  this  or  that  particular  saint." 

We  have  seen  how  profound  in  the  time  of  Cyprian  was  the 
veneration  for  the  victorious  confessors.2  This  feeling  gathered 
rather  than  lost  strength  after  the  Diocletian  persecution,  and 
working  on  the  natural  tendency  of  mankind  to  deify  its  benefactors 
and  heroes,  ended  in  a  universal  worship  of  the  saints.  Possibly, 
also,  the  controversies  respecting  the  Trinity  and  the  nature  of 
•Christ  may  have  tended  indirectly  towards  the  same  result.  Al- 
though his  human  nature  was  in  theory  as  clearly  asserted  as  his 
divine,  yet  it  was  not  dwelt  upon  in  the  same  emphatic  manner,  and 
people  began  to  seek  out,  or  eagerly  to  turn  towards,  other  beings 
who  were  supposed  to  be  in  closer  sympathy  with  man.  These  they 
found  in  the  martyrs.  The  spirits  of  the  martyrs  were  believed  to 
hover  about  their  tombs,  or  even,  as  Jerome  pretended,  to  be 

»  a.d.  608—615. 
2  Early  Church  History,  p.  165. 


TUTELAEY    SAINTS.  169 

ubiquitous,  and  prayers  were  addressed  to  them  as  intercessors 
with  God. 

Another  preparation  for  saint-worship  may  perhaps  be  found  in 
the  semi- divine  honours  which  were  paid  to  the  Roman  Emperors, 
and  which  produced  a  thraldom  of  the  mind  extremely  favourable 
to  superstitious  notions. 

Prayers,  thanksgivings,  vows,  and  offerings  were  everywhere 
made  to  the  saints.  And  as  in  the  older  mythology  there  were 
tutelary  gods,  to  whom  the  guardianship  of  special  nations  and 
cities,  trades  and  conditions  of  life,  were  assigned,  so  now  every 
country  and  place,  every  order  and  profession  of  men  came  to  have 
its  patron  saint.1 

The  Fathers  of  the  age  were  leaders  in  the  very  fore-front  of  this 
superstition.  A  few  specimens  out  of  many,  taken  from  their 
writings,  will  suffice.  Basil,  in  an  oration  delivered  on  the  "birth- 
day "  of  one  of  the  martyrs,  thus  appeals  to  the  bystanders  :  "As 
many  of  you  as  in  this  place  have  been  assisted  by  him  in  prayer, 
as  many  as  he  has  brought  back  into  the  right  way,  as  many  as  he 
has  restored  to  health,  or  who  have  had  their  dead  children  recalled 
to  life,  be  ye  mindful  of  the  martyr."  Again,  on  the  festival  of  the 
Forty  Martyrs  :  "  Behold  a  fountain  of  blessing,  a  refuge  prepared 
for  the  Christian !  A  church  of  martyrs !  Often  hast  thou  laboured 
to  find  one  who  might  intercede  for  thee.  Lo!  here  are  forty, 
emitting  one  voice  of  prayer.  The  wretcb  bowed  down  with 
anguish  flees  to  them.  0,  indissoluble  band!  Guardians  of 
mankind ! " 

1  Thus  James  became  the  patron  of  Spain ;  George  the  Martyr,  about  whose 
identity  and  even  existence  there  has  been  a  voluminous  controversy,  the 
guardian  saint  of  England.  John  was  the  patron  of  theologians;  Luke  of 
painters ;  Anthony  was  venerated  as  a  protector  against  pestilence ;  Apollonia 
against  toothache.  To  Phocas,  a  gardener  at  Sinope  (through  some  strange 
freak  of  the  genius  of  superstition),  was  especially  entrusted  the  care  of 
mariners,  the  ancient  office  of  Castor  and  Pollux.  At  the  daily  meals  on  ship- 
board, it  was  customary  to  assign  him  a  ration,  as  to  an  invisible  guest,  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  sale  of  such  ration  being  distributed  among  the  poor  as  a  thank- 
offering  for  a  prosperous  voyage.  Calendars  of  the  saints  were  commenced  in 
the  fourth  century ;  and  as  the  number  of  martyrs  exceeded  that  of  the  days  of 
the  year,  many  festivals  often  fell  on  the  same  day.  The  Lives  of  the  Saints 
(Acta  Sanctorum)  are  contained  in  sixty-three  folio  volumes.  This  colossal 
work,  which  was  commenced  (or  rather  sketched)  by  Eosweyd,  before  the  close 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  was  continued  by  the  Bollandists  in  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth,  and  is  still  in  progress.  When  Eosweyd's  prospectus,  which 
contemplated  only  seventeen  volumes,  was  shown  to  Cardinal  Bellarmine,  he 
asked,  "  What  is  the  man's  age  ?  "  "  Perhaps  forty,"  was  the  answer.  "  Does 
he,"  asked  the  Cardinal,  "  expect  to  live  200  years?  " 


170  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

Gregory  Nazianzen  thus  invokes  Athanasius,  in  the  oration 
delivered  after  his  death  :  "  Look  down  propitiously  upon  us,  and 
govern  this  people,  who  are  perfect  adorers  of  the  perfect  Trinity. 
If  peace  should  come,  preserve  me  and  feed  my  flock  with  me  ;  but 
if  war,  take  me  home  and  place  me  beside  thyself  and  those  who  are 
like  thee." 

Gregory  Nyssen  does  not  come  behind  either  his  friend  or  his 
brother.  Thus  he  speaks  of  the  martyr  Theodorus.  "Last  year 
he  quieted  the  savage  tempest,  and  put  a  stop  to  the  horrid  war  of 
the  fierce  Syrians.  If  any  one  is  permitted  to  carry  away  the  dust 
with  which  his  tomb  is  covered,  it  is  to  be  laid  up  as  a  thing  of 
great  price.  0  Theodorus,  we  want  many  blessings  ;  intercede  for 
thy  country,  with  the  common  King.  If  there  be  need  of  more 
intercession  and  deprecation,  call  together  the  choir  of  thy  brethren 
the  martyrs.  Exhort  Peter,  excite  Paul  and  John  the  beloved 
disciple,  that  they  may  be  solicitous  for  the  Churches  which  they 
have  founded,  that  the  worship  of  idols  may  not  lift  up  its  head 
against  us,  that  heresies  may  not  spring  up  like  thorns  in  the  vine- 
yard ;  but  that  by  the  power  of  thy  prayer,  and  of  the  prayers  of 
thy  companions,  the  commonwealth  of  Christians  may  become  a 
field  of  corn." 

After  reading  such  rhapsodies  we  may  well  exclaim  with  Bishop 
Hooper,  "  What  intolerable  blasphemy  of  God,  and  ethnical  idolatry 
is  this  ! "  And  these  things  were  not  done  in  a  corner.  On  the 
occasion  of  Gregory's  oration,  the  birthday  of  Theodorus,  the 
people  streamed  to  the  shrine  in  such  multitudes,  that  he  could 
compare  it  to  nothing  but  an  ant-hill. 

As  was  to  be  expected,  the  fervid  imagination  of  Chrysostom 
carries  him  even  beyond  his  brethren.  "  Let  us  in  this  fire  of  love 
fall  down  before  the  relics  of  the  saints !  Great  boldness  had  they 
when  living,  but  much  more  now  that  they  are  dead ;  for  now  they 
bear  the  stigmata x  of  Christ,  and  when  they  show  these,  they  can 
obtain  all  things  of  the  King.  0  wonderful  pyre !  What  a  treasure 
does  it  hold !  That  dust  and  those  ashes,  more  precious  than  gold 
or  jewels,  more  fragrant  than  any  perfume."  Some  relics  of  the 
"Egyptian  Martyrs"  were  transported  from  Alexandria  to  Constan- 
stinople  :  the  city  poured  itself  out  to  welcome  the  landing  of  the 
inestimable  treasure,  and  to  accompany  it  to  the  sacred  shrine  where 
it  was  to  be  deposited  in  gold  and  marble.  The  voice  of  the 
preacher  is  lifted  up:    "Now  is  our  city  more  securely  defended 

1  Marks  of  the  wounds  in  the  body  of  Jesus;  hence,  generally,  marks  oi 
martyrdom. 


AUGUSTINE    ON    SAINT-WORSHIP.  171 

than  by  ramparts  of  adamant ;  now  is  it  walled  about  with  lofty 
rocks  on  this  side  and  on  that.  For  tbese  ashes  of  the  saints  repel 
not  merely  the  assaults  of  visible  enemies,  or  exclude  merely 
sensible  evils,  but  even  the  machinations  of  invisible  demons,  con- 
founding all  the  stratagems  of  the  devil ;  and  this  they  do  with  as 
much  ease  as  a  strong  man  sweeps  down  a  child's  playthings." 
Nevertheless  Chrysostom,  when  the  evangelical  mind  was  uppermost 
in  him,  could  say:  "A  great  man  can  be  reached  only  through 
porters  and  parasites,  but  God  is  invoked  without  the  intervention 
of  any  one,  without  money,  without  cost  of  any  kind." x 

As  time  goes  on,  the  shades  of  error  deepen.  Sulpicius  Severus, 
in  his  eulogy  of  Martin  of  Tours,  after  lamenting  the  heavy  burden 
of  his  own  sins,  exclaims :  "  There  is  a  hope,  however,  left,  our  sole 
and  last  hope,  that  what  we  cannot  obtain  of  ourselves  we  may  at 
least  merit  by  Martin's  intercession."  And  Prudentius  thus 
addresses  St.  Agnes  : — 

"  0  blessed  virgin !  0  new  glory  ! 
Noble  inhabitant  of  the  celestial  height  1 
Incline  thy  face  with  double  diadem 
To  behold  our  vile  impurities ; 

To  whom  it  has  been  given  by  the  Universal  Parent 
To  render  pure  even  the  vault  of  heaven  itself. 
I  shall  be  cleansed  by  the  brightness 
Of  thy  countenance,  easy  of  propitiation, 
If  thou  wilt  fill  my  heart. 

All  is  pure  which  thou  pious  one  deems  worthy  to  look  upon, 
Or  to  touch  with  thy  bounteous  feet."2 

Augustine,  more  enlightened,  laboured  to  explain  away  or  to- 
excuse  the  worship  paid  to  the  saints  ;  but  his  disclaimer  is  contra- 
dicted by  facts,  and  his  pleas  are  unwarranted  by  Scripture.  "  We 
do  venerate  the  memory  of  the  martyrs,  and  this  is  done  both  to 
excite  us  to  imitate  them,  and  to  obtain  a  share  in  their  merits  and 
the  assistance  of  their  prayers.  But  it  is  not  to  any  martyr  that 
we  build  altars,  but  to  the  God  of  the  martyrs.  No  one  ever  says, 
We  bring  an  offering  to  thee,  0  Peter,  0  Paul,  or  0  Cyprian !  Our 
emotions  are  intensified  by  the  associations  of  the  place,  and  love 
is  excited  both  towards  those  who  are  our  examples,  and  towards 
Him  by  whose  help  we  may  follow  such  examples.  We  regard  the 
martyrs  with  the  same  affection  that  we  feel  towards  holy  men  of 
God  in  this  life ;  only  there  is  more  devotion  in  our  sentiment 

1  Dr.  Pusey  observes :  "  Through  volumes  of  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Chrysos- 
tom there  is  no  mention  of  any  reliance  except  on  Christ  alone." 

2    Sulpicius  died  about  a.d.  420 ;  Prudentius  flourished  about  405. 


172  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

towards  them,  because  we  know  that  their  conflict  is  over,  and  we 
can  speak  with  greater  confidence  in  praise  of  those  who  are  already 
victors  in  heaven  than  of  those  who  are  still  combating  here.  That 
which  is  properly  divine  worship,  which  the  Greeks  call  latria,  and 
for  which  there  is  no  word  in  Latin,  we  give  only  to  God.  To  this 
worship  belongs  the  offering  of  sacrifices,  as  we  see  in  the  word 
idolatry,  which  means  the  rendering  of  this  worship  to  idols.  Ac- 
cordingly we  never  offer  sacrifice  to  a  martyr,  or  to  a  holy  soul,  or 
to  an  angel.  Any  one  falling  into  this  error  is  instructed  either  in 
the  way  of  correction  or  of  caution." 

Relics. — It  is  not  easy  for  us  in  this  Protestant  age  and  country 
to  comprehend  the  high  value  set  upon  relics,  especially  from  the 
time  when  the  Empress  Helena  made  the  "discovery  of  the  true 
Cross."     No  church  was  complete  without  the  possession  of  these 
treasures ;  no  altar  was  looked  upon  as  truly  sanctified,  except  a 
bone  of  one  of  the  Apostles,  or  the  ashes  of  some  distinguished 
martyr,  or  a  splinter  of  the  Cross  itself,  was  enshrined  within  it.1 
The  passion  for  relics  finds  a  place  in  all  the  great  writers.   Ambrose 
is  seeking  the  remains  of  a  predecessor  who  was  banished  to  Cap- 
padocia  ;  Basil  is  able  to  send  him  the  coveted  treasure,  affirming 
with  great  emphasis  the  genuineness  of  the  article.      The  devout 
sons  of  the  West  made  pious  journeys  eastward  in  quest  of  the 
much  coveted  relics,  and  not  unfrequently  the  cunning  Greeks, 
who  received  their  genuine    coin,    sent  them   home   laden  with 
spurious  merchandise.     Later,  as  Pope  Gregory  the  Great  tells  us, 
Greek  monks  came  to  Rome  to  dig  up  common  bones  near  St. 
Paul's  church  for  sale  in  the  East  as  holy  relics.     Imperial  legis- 
lation and  the  decrees  of  councils  were  equally  powerless  to  check 
this  profitable  traffic.     "  Let  no  one,"  so  runs  a  law  of  Theodosius 
in  386,  "remove  a  buried  body;  let  no  one  carry  away  or  sell  a 
martyr."     Individuals,  no  less  than  churches,  coveted  the  posses- 
sion of  these  jewels.     We  may  remember  how,  so  early  as  the  year 
811,  the  lady  Lucilla  kept  by  her  the  bone  of  a  martyr  to  kiss 
before  she  partook  of  the  Bread  and  Wine.2      This  mania  soon 
became  universal.     Scarcely  any  one  ventured  to  go  about  unpro- 
vided with  such  a  talisman.     Chrysostom  speaks  of  particles  of  the 
True  Cross  being  set  in  gold  and  suspended  about  the  necks  both  of 
men  and  women. 

The  epoch  we  are  now  reviewing  was  the  very  age  of  wonders 
and  legends.     Speaking  of  Butler's  Lives  of  the  Saints,  which  he 

1  The  second  Council  of  Nicsea  (a.d.  787)  decreed  that  the  presence  of  relics 
vwas  indispensable  to  an  altar. — Canon  7. 

2  Early  Church  History,  p.  222. 


THE    MONASTIC    LIFE.  173 

terms  "  the  fairy-land  of  unbounded  credulity,"  Isaac  Taylor  says  : 
"  Let  any  one  open  the  volume  at  hazard  and,  without  looking  at 
the  dates,  select  a  few  [narratives]  which  appear  the  most  ridi- 
culously absurd  or  on  any  account  peculiarly  offensive,  and  I  will 
venture  to  predict  that  they  will  turn  out  to  be  Nicene  and  not 
Popish  stories.  In  fact,  they  will  be  found  to  be  translations  from 
Athanasius,  Basil,  Palladius,  Jerome,  or  some  of  their  contem- 
poraries. On  the  contrary,  any  lives  that  may  appear  to  be  less 
objectionable,  and  in  a  sense  edifying,  will  be  those  of  modern 
Komanist  saints." 

Monachism. — We  come  now  to  the  peculiar  feature  of  the  age : 
the  Monastic  Life.  In  the  former  volume  we  touched  upon  the 
origin  of  the  anchorite's  cell  and  its  gradual  development  into  the 
monastery.1  The  period  we  are  now  reviewing  saw  the  new  in- 
stitution spread  from  Egypt  and  Syria  over  all  the  provinces  of  the 
Empire,  absorbing  into  itself  the  best  life  of  the  Church.  It  will 
be  worth  while  to  examine  more  closely  the  features  of  this  singular 
phenomenon. 

Monachism  did  not  spring  out  of  the  gospel.  Its  essential  idea 
has  not  only  nothing  in  common  with  New  Testament  doctrine ;  it 
is  repugnant  to  its  whole  spirit  and  object.  We  must  go  back  for 
the  origin  of  asceticism  to  an  antiquity  greater  than  even  Greek 
philosophy  can  show,  and  to  countries  beyond  the  Ganges.  The 
elder  form  of  Hindoo  superstition, — Brahminism, — was  Pantheistic. 
It  proposed  to  man,  as  the  highest  good,  absorption  into  the  uni- 
versal God ;  and  the  means  by  which  this  felicity  was  to  be 
obtained  were  seclusion  from  society,  mental  abstraction,  and  the 
mortification  of  the  body  even  to  suicide.  The  great  Brahminical 
code,  the  Laws  of  Menu,  written  a  thousand  years  before  the 
Christian  era,  lays  down  the  following  rules  for  the  man  who  would 
attain  perfection  :  "  Let  him  retire  from  the  world,  and  gain  the 
favour  of  the  gods  by  fasting,  subduing  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  and 
mortifying  the  senses.  Let  him  crawl  backwards  and  forwards  on 
his  belly  ;  or  let  him  stand  all  the  day  on  his  toes.  At  sunrise,, 
noon,  and  sunset  let  him  go  to  the  water  and  bathe.2  In  the  heat 
of  summer  let  him  kindle  five  fires  about  him  ;  when  it  rains  let 
him  bare  himself  to  the  storm  ;  in  winter  let  him  wrap  himself  in 
a  wet  garment.  So  let  him  rise  by  degrees  in  the  strength  of  his 
penances."  What  have  we  here  but  the  very  type  and  pattern  of 
the  fourth-century  asceticism  ? 

1  See  Early  Church  History,  Pt.  ii.  c.  xvii. 
2  This  observance  puts  to  shame  the  Christian  devotees. 


174  WITNESSES    FOE    CHEIST. 

In  the  sixth  century  b.o.,  or  earlier,  the  Buddhist  reformation 
took  place,  by  which  Nihilism  was  substituted  for  Pantheism,  and 
the  world  not  so  much  despised  as  bewailed  for  its  emptiness.  Less 
fanatical  than  the  original  creed,  it  yet  united  self-mortification 
^with  contemplation  and  prayer.  The  monastery  now  took  the 
place  of  the  cave  or  cell,  and  convents  both  for  men  and  women 
were  spread  over  Eastern  Asia.  The  two  governing  principles  of 
Hindoo  philosophy,  whether  Buddhist  or  Brahminical,  are,  first, 
that  matter  is  essentially  evil ;  and  secondly,  that  happiness  con- 
sists in  exemption  from  all  the  affections  and  influences  which 
spring  from  matter,  in  other  words,  in  profound,  imperturbable 
repose,  the  soul  being  occupied  only  with  the  ceaseless  contem- 
plation of  the  Divine  Essence  from  which  it  is  derived. 

11  Considering  the  misery  that  originates  in  affection,  let  the  man 
wander  alone  like  a  rhinoceros.  So  long  as  the  love  of  man  toward 
woman  is  not  destroyed,  so  long  is  his  mind  in  bondage.  He  who 
has  no  desire  for  this  world  or  the  next,  and  who  after  leaving 
human  attachment  has  overcome  divine  attachment, — he  is  indeed 
to  be  called  a  Brahman.  As  a  man  might  with  loathing  shake  off 
a  corpse  bound  upon  his  shoulders,  so  let  me,  leaving  this  perish- 
able body,  this  collection  of  many  foul  vapours  (as  men  deposit 
filth  upon  a  dung-heap),  depart,  regretting  nothing,  wanting  nothing. 
The  'Four  Besources'  of  a  religious  life  are  (1)  morsels  of  food 
received  in  alms ;  (2)  for  clothing,  rags  taken  from  a  dust-heap  ; 
(3),  for  shelter,  to  dwell  at  the  root  of  a  tree  ;  (4)  for  medicine,  the 
four  kinds  of  filth — dung,  urine,  ashes  and  clay." 

Both  these  doctrines  found  their  way  into  the  Christian  Church. 
With  the  most  famous  of  the  Anchorites,  who  were  held  up  as  the 
great  objects  of  imitation,  the  body,  instead  of  being  cherished  as 
God's  creation,  was  contemned  as  "  a  machine  for  producing  sin,  a 
loathsome  prison  of  the  spirit."1     "All  earthly  things  which  can 

1  Dorotheus,  an  Egyptian  monk,  never  gave  way  to  sleep  of  his  own  will.  It 
sometimes  happened  that,  utterly  overcome  with  lassitude,  he  would  fall  down 
on  his  mat.  Then  he  would  be  sorely  grieved,  and  say  in  an  undertone,  "You 
■could  as  easily  persuade  angels  to  sleep  as  men  of  the  true  watchful  spirit."  He 
was  once  asked,  "  Why  do  you  kill  your  body  in  this  way?"  He  answered, 
"  Because  my  body  kills  me."  Another,  an  aged  man  named  Benjamin,  being 
Afflicted  with  dropsy,  requested  those  who  came  to  visit  him  to  pray  for  his 
soul.  "  I  care  little,"  he  said,  "for  my  body ;  for  when  it  was  well  it  did  me  no 
good,  and  now  that  it  is  sick  it  can  do  me  no  harm." 

Eusebius,  a  Syrian  monk,  employed  another  to  read  to  him  from  the  Gospels. 
His  attention  being  drawn  off  by  some  men  ploughing  in  the  neighbouring  field, 
it  was  necessary  to  read  the  passage  a  second  time.  To  punish  himself  for  his 
inattention,  he  fastened  an  iron  girdle  round  his  loins,  riveted  a  heavy  collar  to 


THE    BUDDHIST   MONASTERIES.  175 

afford  pleasure  to  the  senses  were  shunned  as  a  snare.  Cities  are 
«vil,  human  society  is  evil,  green  fields,  shady  woods,  refreshing 
streams,  balmy  breezes,  gay  and  fragrant  flowers,  the  music  of 
speech  and  the  music  of  nature,  all  that  is  sweet  to  human  sense, 
is  poison  to  the  soul.  Impressed  with  this  false  and  miserable 
estimate  of  his  Maker's  works,  the  Christian  seeker  after  perfection, 
like  the  Brahminical,  fled  into  the  desert,  where  amid  arid  sands 
and  naked  rocks,  noisome  beasts  and  reptiles,  and  the  fiery  sun 
overhead,  he  spent  his  days  in  punishing  his  body,  fighting  with 
demons,  praying  to  God  and  dreaming  of  heaven.  It  was  imagined, 
moreover,  that  the  more  of  earthly  good  the  soul  renounces  and 
sacrifices  for  the  sake  of  heaven,  the  more  of  heaven's  felicity  will 
God  bestow  upon  it." 

The  Buddhist  monasteries,  thus  originating  many  centuries 
before  the  Christian,  have  continued  to  flourish  down  to  this  day. 
They  bear  a  strong  resemblance  to  those  of  the  Romish  church. 
Their  vows  of  celibacy,  poverty  and  obedience,  their  common  meals, 
readings  and  religious  exercises,  correspond  so  closely  with  those  of 
the  Latin  convent,  that  the  Romish  missionaries  to  the  East  in  the 
seventeenth  century  were  utterly  bewildered,  and  could  only  sup- 
pose that  Satan  had  devised  a  counterfeit  of  the  true  devotion  on 
purpose  to  plague  them.  Thus,  Borri,  one  of  their  number,  says  : 
"  There  are  so  many  priests  and  monks  in  that  country  (Cochin 
China)  that  it  looks  as  if  the  devil  had  sought  to  represent  among 
the  heathen  the  beauty  and  variety  of  our  orders.  Some  are  clad 
in  white,  some  in  black,  some  in  blue  and  other  colours.  Some 
profess  poverty,  living  on  alms ;  others  occupy  themselves  in  works 
of  mercy.  The  priests  wear  chaplets  and  strings  of  beads  round 
their  necks,  and  make  so  many  processions  in  prayer  to  their  false 
gods  that  they  outdo  the  Christians." 

The  preceding  biographies  furnish  ample  evidence  that  the 
monastic  profession  numbered  within  its  ranks  some  on  whom  the 
choicest  gifts  of  the  head  and  of  the  heart  had  been  conferred. 
Doubtless,  under  the  rough  cloak  and  girdle  were  to  be  found 
thousands  of  sincere  and  even  intelligent  Christians,  who,  although 
in  the  darkness  of  the  times  they  had  mistaken  the  way,  yet  had 
their  citizenship  in  heaven.1     But  for  the  most  part  the  monks 

his  neck,  and  by  a  chain  drew  the  two  together,  so  that  his  head  was  bent  down 
and  he  could  not  look  up.  This  he  called  foiling  Satan  by  a  stratagem.  He  also 
made  a  vow  never  to  tread  any  path  but  the  narrow  one  which  led  from  the 
monastery  to  the  church. 

1  The  number  of  persons  of  both  sexes  who  during  this  period  devoted  them- 
selves to  the  monastic  life  was  prodigious.     Palladius  speaks  of  3000,  5000, 


176  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

were  a  fanatical,  illiterate  race.  Many  were  unable  to  read ;  the 
ignorance  which  would  have  been  despised  in  the  "secular"  clergy,, 
was  in  them  admired  as  a  token  of  sanctity.  They  were  in  con- 
sequence easily  aroused ;  their  partisanship  was  violent ;  they  de- 
nounced every  deviation  from  their  own  narrow  creed  and  notions 
as  the  work  of  the  devil.  Beginning,  moreover,  with  seclusion  and 
separation  from  the  world,  they  came  to  play  the  busiest  part  in  all 
its  transactions.  "  Strange  contradiction  of  the  human  mind!" 
writes  Montesquieu  ;  "  the  ministers  of  religion  amongst  the  ancient 
Eomans,  not  being  excluded  from  the  duties  of  civil  society,  bur- 
dened themselves  but  little  with  its  affairs.  And  when  the  Christian 
religion  was  first  established,  the  ecclesiastics  who  were  more  separ- 
ated from  worldly  affairs  mingled  in  them  with  moderation.  But 
in  the  fall  of  the  Empire,  the  monks,  bound  by  a  more  exclusive 
profession  to  flee  and  even  to  fear  business,  embraced  every  occa- 
sion of  meddling  with  it.  They  ceased  not  to  make  confusion 
everywhere,  and  to  stir  up  that  world  which  they  had  left.  No  state 
matter,  no  peace,  no  war,  no  truce,  no  negotiation,  no  marriage 
was  managed  without  the  help  of  the  monks ;  the  councils  of  the 
prince  were  full  of  them,  and  the  national  assemblies  almost  en- 
tirely composed  of  them." 

Commencing  with  vows  of  poverty,  the  monks  soon  began  to 
acquire  property  and  even  wealth.  Jerome  says  :  "  Some,  when 
they  have  renounced  the  world,  increase  rather  than  diminish  their 
estates,  and  amongst  crowds  of  guests  and  swarms  of  servants,. 
claim  the  title  of  solitaries.  Some  clericals  possess  a  degree  of 
wealth  under  the  poor  Christ,  which  they  did  not  possess  under 
that  rich  knave  the  devil."  So  John  Cassianus  :  "  We,  living  in 
common  under  an  abbot,  carry  about  our  private  keys,  and  wear  on 
our  fingers  the  rings  with  which  we  seal  up  our  stores.  Not  boxes 
and  baskets,  not  even  chests  and  store-rooms  suffice  to  hold  the 
things  we  have  collected,  or  which  we  received  when  we  left  the 
world." 

Much  has  been  said,  not  by  Boman  Catholic  writers  only,  in 
praise  of  Monachism,  and  we  cannot  doubt  that  God  has  made  use 
of  this  institution  to  subserve  his  beneficent  designs.  By  means  of 
the  monasteries,  at  some  epochs,  the  wilderness  has  been  reclaimed, 
the  arts  of  industry  have  been  taught  to  rude  nations,  learning  has 

or  even  10,000  monks  as  being  associated  under  the  rule  of  a  single  anchoret 
or  abbot ;  and  10,000  nuns  are  mentioned  as  belonging  to  the  religious  houses 
of  one  city.  Nearly  100,000  of  all  classes  were  to  be  found  at  one  time  in 
Egypt. 


THE   MONASTIC   LIFE.  177 

been  preserved,  a  sanctuary  provided  from  rapine  and  bloodshed, 
and  a  fountain  opened  from  which  spiritual  life  and  knowledge 
flowed  around.  But  all  this  does  not  prove  that  the  institution  was 
Christian  or  right ;  it  only  shows  that  which  we  see  continually, 
that  God  overrules  man's  devious  methods  for  the  purposes  of  his 
own  love  and  goodness.  The  Israelites  did  evil  when  they  clamoured 
for  a  king,  yet  the  monarchy  was  made  use  of  in  perfecting  the 
divine  scheme  of  man's  redemption.  It  was  no  real  extenuation  of 
the  cruel  sin  of  Joseph's  brethren,  in  selling  him  into  Egypt,  that 
he  said  to  them,  long  afterwards,  "  Be  not  grieved  that  ye  sold  me 
hither,  for  it  was  not  you  who  sent  me  but  God." 

Milman  has  portrayed  in  eloquent  language  the  evil  and  the 
good  of  the  monastic  life.  "  It  is  impossible,"  he  says,  "  to  survey 
Monachism  in  its  general  influence,  from  the  earliest  period  of  its 
interworking  into  Christianity,  without  being  astonished  and  per- 
plexed with  its  diametrically  opposite  effects.  Here,  it  is  the 
undoubted  parent  of  the  blindest  ignorance  and  the  most  ferocious 
bigotry,  sometimes  of  the  most  debasing  licentiousness ;  there,  the 
guardian  of  learning,  the  author  of  civilization,  the  propagator  of 
humble  and  peaceful  religion.  To  the  dominant  spirit  of  Monachism 
may  be  ascribed  some  part  at  least  of  the  gross  superstition  and 
moral  inefficiency  of  the  church  in  the  Byzantine  Empire;  to  the 
same  spirit  much  of  the  salutary  authority  of  Western  Christianity, 
its  constant  aggressions  on  barbarism,  and  its  connection  with  the 
Latin  literature.  .  .  .  Nothing  can  be  conceived  more  apparently 
opposed  to  the  designs  of  the  God  of  nature,  and  to  the  mild  and 
beneficent  spirit  of  Christianity;  nothing  more  hostile  to  the 
dignity,  the  interests,  the  happiness,  and  the  intellectual  and 
moral  perfection  of  man,  than  the  monk  afflicting  himself  with 
unnecessary  pain,  and  thrilling  his  soul  with  causeless  fears ; 
confined  to  a  dull  routine  of  religious  duties,  jealously  watching, 
and  proscribing  every  emotion  of  pleasure  as  a  sin  against  the 
benevolent  Deity;  dreading  knowledge,  as  an  impious  departure 
from  the  becoming  humility  of  man.  On  the  other  hand,  what 
generous  or  lofty  mind  can  refuse  to  acknowledge  the  grandeur  of 
that  superiority  to  all  the  cares  and  passions  of  mortality;  the 
felicity  of  that  state  which  is  removed  far  above  the  fears  or  the 
necessities  of  life ;  that  sole  passion  of  admiration  and  love  of  the 
Deity,  which  no  doubt  was  attained  by  some  of  the  purer  and  more 
imaginative  enthusiasts  of  the  cell  or  the  cloister  ?  Who,  still 
more,  will  dare  to  depreciate  that  heroism  of  Christian  benevolence, 
which  underwent  this  self-denial  of  the  lawful  enjoyments  and 
domestic  charities  of  which  it  had  neither  extinguished  the  desire, 

N 


178  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

nor  subdued  the  regret — not  from  the  slavish  fear  of  displeasing  the 
Deity,  or  the  selfish  ambition  of  personal  perfection — but  from  the 
genuine  desire  of  advancing  the  temporal  and  eternal  improvement 
of  mankind ;  of  imparting  the  moral  amelioration  and  spiritual 
hopes  of  Christianity  to  the  wretched  and  the  barbarous  ;  of  being 
the  messengers  of  Christian  faith,  and  the  ministers  of  Christian 
charity  to  the  heathen,  whether  in  creed  or  in  character  ?  " 

We  cannot  wholly  subscribe  to  these  latter  sentiments.  It  is  true 
that  the  only  genuine  heroism  in  the  world  is  the  heroism  of  Christian 
self-denial  for  the  sake  of  our  fellow-men ;  and  it  is  shameful  when 
those  who  spend  their  lives  in  self-indulgence,  forgetful  of  God  and 
man,  affect  to  despise  a  simplicity  of  life,  a  scorn  of  ease  or  a  pro- 
digality of  unselfish  labour,  which  they  can  neither  imitate  nor 
appreciate.  But  it  can  hardly  be  too  much  emphasized  that  the 
praise  which  our  author  is  disposed  to  accord  is  due  to  the  motives 
only  of  those  who  embraced  the  ascetic  life.  We  would  acknowledge 
in  many  the  excellence  of  their  motive,  but  we  deplore  the  error  of 
their  method.  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  cloister  is  necessary  to 
any  of  the  objects  set  forth,  least  of  all  to  the  work  of  the  Christian 
missionary. 

Isaac  Taylor  takes  a  different  view.  He  wrote  at  a  time  when,  as 
now,  a  deluge  of  semi-popery  threatened  to  submerge  our  country. 
11  Christianity  was  just  about  to  work  its  proper  effect  upon  the 
Roman  world,  when  the  ascetic  fanaticism  came  in ;  first  to  poison 
the  domestic  system  at  the  core  by  its  hypocritical  prudery,  and  its 
consequent  separation  of  the  sexes ;  and,  secondly,  to  turn  off  the 
fertilising  current  of  the  most  powerful  sentiments  from  the  field 
of  common  life,  and  to  throw  them  all  into  the  waste-pipe  which 
emptied  itself  upon  the  wilderness.  The  mighty  waters  of  Christian 
moral  influence,  which  should  have  renovated  the  Roman  world  and 
have  saved  the  barbarism  of  a  thousand  years,  were  by  the  ascetic 
institute  shed  over  the  horrid  sands  of  Egypt  and  Arabia — there  to 
be  lost  for  ever.  .  .  .  Southern  Europe  was  left  for  another  cycle 
of  centuries,  and  monkish  fanaticism,  with  its  celibacy  and  its 
fastings,  has  continued  now  these  fifteen  hundred  years  to  be  the 
grim  antithesis  of  a  widespread  dissoluteness  of  manners." 

Enough  has  been  said  regarding  monkish  austerities,  but  there 
is  one  type  of  self -mortification  as  yet  unmentioned,  which  confirms 
in  a  striking  manner  the  comparison  already  made  between  the 
Indian  fakir  and  the  Christian  devotee.  We  mean  the  Pillar 
saints. 

The  first  and  most  celebrated  of  these  was  Simeon  Stylites,  born 
about  a.d.  390.     The  account  of  him  which  has  been  handed  down 


SIMEON    STYLITES.  179 

is  as  follows.  When  a  youth  he  entered  a  monastery  near  Antioeh, 
where  his  austerities  were  so  excessive  that  the  abbot  begged  him 
to  depart,  lest  the  emulation  he  caused  should  be  dangerous  to  the 
weaker  brethren.  He  accordingly  withdrew  to  a  place  about  forty 
miles  from  the  city,  where  he  lived  for  ten  years  in  a  sort  of  narrow 
pen.  Afterwards  he  built  a  pillar  and  took  up  his  dwelling  on  the 
top  of  it,  which  was  only  about  a  yard  in  diameter.  He  removed 
successively  from  one  pillar  to  another,  always  increasing  the  height, 
until  at  last  it  reached  to  sixty  feet.  In  this  manner  of  life  he  spent 
thirty-seven  years.  Day  and  night  he  professed  to  be  continually  in 
prayer,  spreading  forth  his  hands  and  bending  so  low  that  his  fore- 
head touched  his  feet.  At  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  he  addressed 
the  admiring  crowd  below,  heard  and  answered  their  questions,  sent 
messages  and  wrote  letters,  for  he  corresponded  with  bishops  and 
even  Emperors.  He  took  only  one  scanty  meal  a  week  and  fasted 
altogether  throughout  Lent ;  he  wore  a  long  sheepskin  robe  and  a 
cap  of  the  same ;  his  neck  was  loaded  with  an  iron  chain. 

Simeon  is  said  to  have  converted  thousands  of  Arabs,  Armenians, 
Persians,  and  heretics  ;  but  the  conversion  seems  to  have  consisted 
in  their  being  immersed  in  water  and  paying  divine  honour  to  the 
saint  and  his  pillar,  rather  than  in  any  change  of  spirit  or  manner 
of  life.  At  Simeon's  death  his  cowl  descended  to  another  monk 
named  Daniel,  whose  mastery  over  his  body,  miracles,  and  sanctity 
rivalled  those  of  his  predecessor.  The  two  saints  found  many 
imitators  in  the  East,  but  this  absurd  fashion  never  got  a  footing 
in  Europe.1 

The  Church  and  the  World. — The  Fathers  of  the  fourth  and 
fifth  centuries  were  not  blind  to  the  moral  condition  into  which 
the  Church  had  sunk  in  their  day.  "The  Church,"  writes 
Chrysostom,  "is  like  a  woman  fallen  from  her  ancient  prosperity, 
who  possesses  various  signs  of  her  former  wealth,  and  displays  the 
little  chests  and  caskets  in  which  her  treasure  was  preserved,  but 
who  has  lost  the  treasure  itself."  Basil  likens  her  to  "  a  ship 
driven  about  by  the  fiercest  storms,  whilst  the  crew  are  quarrelling 
amongst  themselves ; "  and  "to  an  old  garment  which  tears 
wherever  you  touch  it,  and  which  it  is  impossible  to  restore  to  its 
primitive  strength  and  soundness." 


1  Simeon's  pillar  was  gradually  built  round  with  chapels  and  monasteries,  and 
the  figure  of  the  saint  as  a  protecting  genius  was  set  up  at  the  doors  of  the  shops 
in  Eome.  A  German  fanatic  built  himself  a  similar  pillar  near  Treves,  and  essayed 
to  live  upon  it,  after  the  manner  of  Simeon,  but  the  neighbouring  bishops  pulled 
it  down. 


180  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

By  this  time,  indeed,  the  distinction  between  Pagan  and  Christians 
had  become  nominal  rather  than  real.  The  vile  manners  of  the- 
heathen  were  still  maintained  by  those  who  called  themselves- 
Christians.  Children  were  by  needy  parents  exposed  to  perish, 
boys  were  sold  as  slaves  for  their  fathers'  debts.  Christian  parents 
betook  themselves  to  magicians  when  their  children  were  sick,  and 
expected  a  cure  to  be  wrought  by  hanging  a  talisman  about  their 
necks.     The  conversation  of  the  market-places  was  filthy. 

The  theatre  was  frequented  alike  by  Christians  and  heathens,  and 
was,  as  in  the  days  of  Tertullian,1  the  very  hotbed  of  vice.  Chrysostom 
calls  it  "the  seat  of  pestilence,  the  gymnasium  of  incontinence;  and 
a  school  of  luxury,  Satan  being  its  author  and  architect ; "  and  after 
many  unheeded  warnings  declares  he  will  no  longer  admit  play- 
goers to  the  Lord's  Supper.  By  the  force  of  custom,  sights  were 
tolerated  there  which  would  have  been  endured  nowhere  else.  Even 
the  celebration  of  the  Eucharist  and  other  rites  of  the  Church  were 
profanely  represented.2 

The  circus  evoked  the  indignation  of  Chrysostom  even  more  than 
the  theatre.  "  The  indomitable  passion  for  the  chariot-races,  and 
the  silly  eagerness  displayed  about  them  by  the  inhabitants  of  Borne, 
Constantinople,  and  Antioch,  are  among  the  most  remarkable 
symptoms  of  the  depraved  state  of  society  under  the  later  Empire. 
The  whole  populace  was  divided  into  factions,  distinguished  by  the 
different  colours  adopted  by  the  charioteers,  of  which  green  and 
blue  were  the  chief  favourites.  The  animosity,  the  sanguinary 
tumults,  the  superstitions,  folly,  violence  of  every  kind,  which  were 
mixed  up  with  these  popular  amusements  well  deserved  the 
unsparing  severity  with  which  they  were  lashed  by  the  great 
preacher.  '  You  applaud  my  words,  and  then  hurry  off  to  the 
circus,  and  sitting  side  by  side  with  Jew  or  Pagan,  clap  your  hands- 
with  frenzied  eagerness  at  the  efforts  of  the  charioteers.  You  plead 
business,  poverty,  want  of  health,  lameness  as  excuses  for  absence 
from  church,  but  these  hindrances  never  prevent  your  attendance 
at  the  hippodrome.' " 

Salvian,  a  presbyter  of  Marseilles,  and  a  writer  of  uncommon 
elegance,  has  left  us  a  forcible  description  of  the  corrupt  state  of 
the  Church  in  the  fifth  century.  The  biting  language  in  which  he 
declaims  is  the  very  counterpart  of  that  in  which  Cyprian  speaks 

1  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  115. 
2  "We  Christians,"  complains  Gregory  Nazianzen,  "are  brought  upon  the 
stage,  and  made  subjects  for  vulgar  laughter  in  company  with  the  most  profligate 
of  men.   Nay,  there  is  hardly  any  gratification  so  popular  as  a  Christian  exposed 
to  mockery  and  insult  in  a  comedy." 


salvian's  pictube  of  the  age.  181 

of  the  heathen  world.1  "  What,"  he  asks,  "  what  but  fraud  and 
perjury  is  the  course  of  life  of  the  merchants  ?  What  but  iniquity 
-that  of  those  attached  to  halls  and  courts  ?  What  but  false  accu- 
sation that  of  officials  ?  What  but  rapine  that  of  all  the  military  ? 
You  will  say,  surely  the  nobility  are  free  from  crime.  Not  so ;  for 
•who  is  there,  whether  among  the  noble  or  among  the  rich  (and  it 
is  one  of  the  miseries  of  these  times  that  none  is  accounted  so  noble 
&s  he  who  has  amassed  the  greatest  wealth),  who  is  there  that 
shudders  at  crime  ?  I  am  wrong.  Many  shudder  at  crimes ;  they 
are  shocked  at  the  vices  of  others,  whilst  they  themselves  practise 
the  same.  They  execrate  openly  what  they  perpetrate  secretly. 
^  .  .  A  very  few  excepted,  what  else  is  almost  every  assembly  of 
Christians  but  a  sink  of  vices  ?  You  will  more  easily  find  the  man 
who  is  guilty  of  all  crimes  than  him  who  is  guilty  of  none.  But  it 
is  the  laity  only,  you  will  say,  who  sin  at  this  rate,  surely  not  the 
clergy.  Alas  !  under  colour  of  religion,  men  who  after  a  course  of 
profligacy  inscribed  themselves  with  a  saintly  title,  have  changed 
their  profession  only,  not  their  life.  They  have  put  off  the  garment 
only,  not  the  mind  of  their  former  condition.  These  men  well  know 
that  what  I  am  saying  is  true,  their  own  consciences  bear  witness 
to  every  word.  .  .  .  The  entire  mass  of  the  priests  is  so  sunk  into 
this  depravity  that  it  has  come  to  be  regarded  as  a  species  of  sanctity 
for  one  to  be  a  little  less  vicious  than  the  rest.  Inasmuch  as 
scarcely  any  corner  is  not  blotted  with  the  stain  of  mortal  sin, 
what  room  have  we  to  flatter  ourselves  with  our  name  ?  ...  It 
will,  to  many,  sound  insufferable  if  I  should  affirm  that  we  are 
inferior  to  the  barbarians,  who  are  either  heretics  (Arians)  or 
pagans.  But  what  if  it  be  so  ?  As  to  life  and  conduct,  I  grieve 
to  say  we  are  worse.  ...  Ye  Romans  and  Christians  and  Catholics, 
ye  defraud  your  brethren,  grind  the  faces  of  the  poor,  fritter  away 
your  lives  over  the  impure  and  heathenish  spectacles  of  the  amphi- 
theatre, wallow  in  licentiousness  and  inebriety.  The  barbarians, 
however  fierce  towards  us,  are  just  and  fair  in  their  dealings  with 
one  another ;  the  impurities  of  the  theatre  are  unknown  amongst 
them ;  many  of  their  tribes  are  free  from  the  taint  of  drunkenness ; 
and  amongst  all,  except  the  Alans  and  the  Huns,  chastity  is  the 
rule." 

Whatever  truth  there  may  be  in  Salvian's  verdict  regarding  the 
priesthood,  there  must  have  been  very  many,  in  all  parts  of  the 
ompire,  who  still  adorned  the  profession  of  the  Christian  minister. 
In  support  of  this  opinion  we  may  adduce  the  unequivocal  testimony 
of  an  outsider,  the  heathen  historian  Ammianus  Marcellinus.     He 

1  See  Early  Church  History,  pp.  6  -  8. 


182  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

has  been  relating  the  sanguinary  contest  between  Damasus  and; 
Ursicinus  for  the  possession  of  the  Koman  See,1  and  thus  con- 
cludes :  "I  do  not  deny,  when  I  consider  the  pomp  and  display  of 
the  episcopal  office  in  this  city,  that  they  who  covet  such  rank  are 
justified  in  striving  with  all  their  might  to  attain  the  object  of  their 
desires.  For  when  they  have  gained  it,  they  come  into  a  state  of 
perfect  ease  and  luxury ;  the  offerings  of  matrons  are  showered 
upon  them ;  they  ride  in  chariots,  dress  with  splendour,  and  feast 
with  even  more  than  royal  extravagance.  They  might  be  equally 
happy  if,  instead,  they  were  to  live  like  some  of  the  provincial 
bishops,  whom  rigid  abstinence,  simplicity  of  dress,  and  an  humble 
demeanour  commend  to  the  Eternal  Deity  and  his  true  worshippers 
as  pure  and  sober-minded  men." 


CHAPTEK    XI. 

JOVINIAN   AND    VlGILANTIUS. 

From  the  galaxy  of  illustrious  names  on  which  we  have  been  gazing,, 
we  turn  to  that  small  cluster  of  obscure  men  who  strove  to  call 
back  the  Church  to  Apostolic  simplicity  and  truth.  The  need  of 
reform  had  become  more  and  more  pressing,  but  the  great  leaders 
and  teachers  of  the  age  had  failed  to  perform  their  duty  ;  neverthe- 
less the  truth  was  not  left  wholly  without  witnesses. 

The  name  of  Aerius  was  introduced  into  our  former  work2  earlier 
than  in  the  exact  order  of  time.  He  flourished  about  the  middle  of 
the  fourth  century,  and  may  be  regarded  as  the  first  Protestant 
after  the  Council  of  Nicsea.  His  teaching  on  many  points  an- 
ticipated in  a  remarkable  degree  that  of  the  most  enlightened 
Protestants  of  the  Eeformation. 

Jovinian.  Little  is  known  of  the  personal  history  of  this  monk. 
As  in  the  case  of  Aerius,  his  own  writings  have  perished,  his- 
opinions  having  come  down  to  us  only  through  his  opponents, 
Jerome  and  Augustine.  He  received  his  education  in  an  Italian 
convent,8  but  his  bold  and  free  spirit  refused  to  be  shackled  by  the 
dead  forms  which  surrounded  him,  and  about  a.d.  888  he  began  to 
enunciate  sounder  and  more  spiritual  principles.     Especially  he 

1  See  ante,  p.  27,  note. 

2  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  310. 

3  Cave  says  he  lived  some  years  in  Ambrose's  monastery  at  Milan. 


JOVINIAN.  183 

denied  the  superior  merit  of  celibacy  ;*  and  as  just  then  the  popular 
feeling,  consequent  on  the  death  of  Blesilla,2  was  running  against 
Jerome  and  Monachism,  he  made  many  converts,  not  only  of  the 
laity,  but  also  of  monks  and  nuns ;  and  many  of  both  sexes  were 
induced  to  marry. 

A  friend  of  Jerome's,  Pammachius,  the  husband  of  Paula's 
daughter,  was  one  of  the  first  to  take  alarm  at  the  new  heresy. 
He  brought  Jovinian's  book  to  the  notice  of  Siricius,  the  Eoman 
bishop,  a  blind  upholder  of  celibacy.3  A  synod  was  convened, 
a.d.  390,  and  Jovinian  and  eight  of  his  adherents  were  summarily 
condemned  and  excommunicated.  Jovinian  betook  himself  to  Milan, 
but  if  he  expected  to  meet  with  indulgence  either  from  the  Emperor 
Theodosius  or  the  bishop  Ambrose,  he  was  grievously  disappointed. 
Siricius  had  been  beforehand  with  him,  and  had  sent  three  presbyters 
with  a  letter  of  warning  addressed  to  the  Milanese  Church ;  and 
Ambrose  hastened  to  show  himself  in  complete  accord  with  the 
Roman  synod.  In  conjunction  with  eight  other  bishops,  he  en- 
dorsed the  sentence  of  excommunication,  and  in  a  letter  to  Siricius 
stated  that  the  Emperor  also  execrated  the  impiety  of  the  Jovinian- 
ists,  and  that  all  at  Milan  who  had  seen  the  heretics  shunned  them 
like  a  pestilence.  He  stigmatizes  Jovinian's  opinion  that  there 
was  no  difference  of  merit  between  the  married  and  the  unmarried 
as  "a  savage  howling  of  ferocious  wolves  scaring  the  flock."  The 
matter  did  not  end  here.  For,  long  after,  in  412,  we  find  the 
Emperor  Honorius  issuing  the  following  edict:  "Some  bishops 
having  complained  that  Jovinian  assembles  sacrilegious  meetings 
without  the  walls  of  the  most  holy  city,  We  ordain  that  the  said 
Jovinian  be  seized  and  whipped,  together  with  his  abettors  and 
followers,  and  that  he  be  immediately  banished  to  the  Island 
of  Boa."4 

1  He  controverted  the  perpetual  virginity  of  Mary,  a  point  which  was  then 
becoming  an  article  of  faith  in  the  Church. 

2  See  ante,  p.  115. 

3  See  ante,  p.  116,  note.  Siricius  decreed  by  letter  that  if  any  bishop,  priest, 
or  deacon  should  marry,  he  should  not  look  for  pardon,  "  because  it  is  necessary 
to  cut  off  with  the  knife  those  sores  which  cannot  be  cured  by  other  remedies." 
This  was  the  first  Decretal,  the  first  of  the  Letters  of  the  Bishop  of  Eome  which 
became  a  rule  to  the  Western  Church,  and  thus  laid  the  foundation  of  the  vast 
system  of  ecclesiastical  law. 

4  Boa  was  a  rock  near  the  DJyrian  coast.  Some  historians  have  thought  that 
the  Edict  of  Honorius  was  not  directed  against  our  monk,  but  against  another 
heretic  of  the  same  name.  For  this  opinion  two  reasons  are  assigned,  the  one 
that  Jovinian,  as  appears  by  Jerome,  died  so  early  as  406;  the  other  that  no 
such  complaint  as  that  on  which  the  edict  is  founded  was  brought  against  him 


184 


WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 


Whilst  the  merit  of  the  ascetic  life  was  being  re-echoed  from  side 
to  side,  and  charity  was  estimated  and  sins  graduated  by  the  out- 
ward act,  Jovinian  stood  forth  and  proclaimed  the  true  doctrine  of 
faith.  "  There  is  but  one  Divine  element  of  life  which  all  believers 
share  in  common;  but  one  fellowship  with  Christ  which  proceeds 
from  faith  in  Him;  but  one  new  birth.  All  who  possess  this,  all 
who  are  Christians  in  the  true  sense,  have  the  same  calling,  the 
same  dignity,  the  same  heavenly  blessings.  .  .  .  The  labourers  of 
the  first,  the  third,  the  sixth,  the  ninth,  and  the  eleventh  hour 
received  each  alike  one  penny ;  and  that  you  may  wonder  the  more, 
the  payment  begins  with  those  who  had  laboured  the  shortest  time 
in  the  vineyard.  .  .  .  Virgins,  widows  and  married  women  who 
have  been  once  baptized  into  Christ,  if  their  works  are  right,  have 
equal  merit.  ...  It  amounts  to  the  same  thing,  whether  a  man 
abstain  from  food,  or  partake  of  it  with  thanksgiving."  But  when 
he  goes  on  to  say  that  there  are  no  half-ripe  members  in  the 
Church,  no  progression  in  the  spiritual  life,  we  cannot  follow  him ; 
nor  when  he  declares  that  he  who  is  once  baptized  cannot  be  over- 
come by  temptation,  and  that  if  any  are  so  overcome  it  is  a  proof 
that  they  have  never  received  the  true  baptism.  In  opposition  to 
the  division  of  sins  into  mortal  and  venial  (the  former  only  being 
held  to  exclude  from  eternal  life),  Jovinian  took  his  stand  on  high 
and  solid  ground.  He  maintained  that  the  Gospel  requires  and 
confers  a  new  holy  disposition,  to  which  every  sin  of  every  kind 
stands  directly  opposed,  so  that  all  sin,  whatever  outward  appear- 
ance it  may  have,  proceeds  from  the  same  corrupt  fountain,  and 
manifests  the  same  ungodly  life.1 

The  publication  of  Jovinian's  book  excited,  as  has  been  said, 
considerable  attention  in  Eome.  It  also  aroused  the  wrath  of 
Jerome  in  his  cell  at  Bethlehem,  and  without  delay  he  set  to  work 
to  extinguish  the  heretic.  "  The  tone  of  his  reply  is  that  of  a  man 
suddenly  arrested  in  his  triumphant  career  by  some  utterly  un- 
expected opposition ;  his  resentment  at  being  thus  crossed  is 
mingled  with  a  kind  of  wonder  that  men  should  exist  who  could 
entertain  such  strange  and  daring  tenets.  The  length,  it  might  be 
said  the  prolixity,  to  which  he  draws  out  his  answer,  seems  rather 
the  outpouring  of  his  wrath  and  his  learning,  than  as  if  he  con- 


at  the  synod.  The  latter  objection  is  of  little  weight ;  with  regard  to  the 
former,  Tillemont  suggests  that  the  date  of  the  edict  may  be  erroneous.  More- 
over, it  is  not  probable  there  were  two  Jovinians ;  if  there  were,  we  have  one 
reformer  the  more,  or  at  least  one  more  instance  of  a  willingness  to  suffer  for 
conscience'  sake. 

1  Jovinian  also  opposed  the  excessive  veneration  for  the  act  of  martyrdom. 


JOVINIAN   AND    JEROME.  185 

sidered  it  necessary  to  refute  such  obvious  errors."  He  calls 
Jovinian's  protest  against  the  supposed  merit  of  asceticism,  "the 
hissings  of  the  old  serpent,  by  which  the  dragon  expelled  man  from 
Paradise." x  So  violent  was  his  language  that  on  his  reply  being  sent 
i;o  Eome,  Pammachius  and  others  of  his  friends  attempted  to  sup- 
press it ;  but  Jerome  told  them  the  book  had  been  too  much  circulated 
to  be  recalled.  Augustine,  who  was  also  opposed  to  Jovinian, 
was  alarmed  at  the  extravagant  terms  in  which  Jerome  had  extolled 
celibacy,  and  deprecated  marriage;  and  to  counteract  the  effect  of 
his  tract,  wrote  a  treatise  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  marriage  to 
its  true  position  ;  although,  as  was  to  be  expected,  he  ascribes  a 
still  higher  degree  of  the  Christian  life  to  the  unmarried  state,  when 
it  is  chosen  from  the  right  motives.  "In  this  tract,"  observes 
Neander,  "  Augustine  distinguishes  himself,  not  only  by  his  greater 
moderation,  but  also  by  a  more  correct  judgment  of  the  ascetic  life 
in  its  connection  with  the  whole  Christian  temper.  Like  Jovinian, 
he  opposed  the  tendency  to  set  a  value  upon  the  outward  con- 
duct, upon  the  mere  opus  operation,  without  regard  to  its  relation  to 
the  disposition  of  the  heart.  By  giving  prominence  to  the  latter, 
Augustine  approached  Jovinian,  and  he  would  have  come  still 
nearer  to  him,  had  he  not  been  on  so  many  sides  fettered  by  the 
Church  spirit  of  the  times." 

The  names  of  two  other  witnesses  of  Jovinian's  age  and  country, 
if  not  actually  his  disciples,  have  also  come  down  to  us,  Sarmatio 
and  Barbatianus,  both  of  them  monks  in  Ambrose's  cloister  at 
Milan.  They  disputed  the  benefit  of  asceticism  and  the  peculiar 
merit  of  the  unmarried  life.  Not  being  suffered  to  utter  their 
opinions  in  the  cloister,  they  renounced  their  vows,2  and  removed 
to  Vercelli,  where  they  hoped  to  be  able  to  teach  their  doctrines 
unmolested.  But  Ambrose  put  the  Church  in  that  city  on  its 
guard  against  the  heretics.  Of  the  further  history  of  these  men  we 
have  no  account. 

Thus  persecuted  by  the  bishops,  written  down  by  the  greatest 
doctors  of  the  age,  outlawed  by  synods,  detested  by  the  whole  body 
of  the  clergy,  Jovinian  and  his  adherents  were  soon  forgotten.  But 
though  the  mouths  of  the  witnesses  were  closed,  the  truths  they  pro- 

1  We  take  no  notice  of  the  charge  of  gluttony  brought  by  Jerome  against 
Jovinian.  It  is  probable  it  had  no  other  ground  than  that  on  which  the 
Pharisees  rested  their  accusation  against  our  Lord :  "  The  Son  of  Man  is  come 
«ating  and  drinking ;  and  ye  say :  Behold,  a  gluttonous  man,  and  a  winebibber, 
a  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners." 

2  The  monastic  vow  was  not  then  irrevocable  ;  it  was  first  so  made  by  Bene- 
dict of  Nursia,  a.d.  529. 


186  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

claimed  were  not  so  easily  destroyed.      They  presently  sprang  up 
again  in  a  new  quarter. 

Vigilantius  was  born  about  a.d.  364,  at  Calagorris,  a  mansio  or 
posting- station,  forty-five  miles  south-west  of  Toulouse.  His 
father,  a  descendant  of  the  robbers  whom  Pompey  drove  out  of 
Spain,1  was  the  innkeeper  of  the  place,  and  made  his  fortune  by 
supplying  post-horses  and  refreshment  to  travellers.2  Vigilantius 
assisted  him,  and  it  was  probably  his  business  to  wait  on  the 
travellers,  drive  the  cars  and  act  as  guide  across  the  Pyrenean 
mountains. 

The  ecclesiastical  writer  Sulpicius  Severus,  with  whom  we  have 
already  met  in  the  life  of  Martin  of  Tours,  resided  at  a  villa  between 
Toulouse  and  Narbonne,  and  possessed  estates  on  both  sides  of  the 
Pyrenees.  His  way  from  one  to  the  other  lay  through  Calagorris,. 
and  the  young  man  attracting  his  notice,  he  took  him  into  his  ser- 
vice. Here  Vigilantius  would  meet  with  the  best  society  of  which 
Gaul  could  boast,  and  would  hear  the  news  of  the  Christian  world 
retailed,  and  theological  questions  discussed.  Sulpicius,  besides 
his  charity  towards  the  sick  and  poor,  and  his  care  for  the 
maintenance  of  public  and  family  worship,  was  occupied  in 
preparing  an  abridgment  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  But  in  this- 
reasonable  and  exemplary  manner  of  life  he  seems  to  have  been 
disturbed  by  bishop  Martin  of  Tours,  who  persuaded  him  tbat  his 
benevolent  and  pious  actions  were  of  no  value  without  the  practice 
of  austerities.  Sulpicius  hearkened  only  too  credulously.  To  what 
an  extent  he  carried  his  self-humiliation  we  see  by  a  letter  from  his 
friend  Paulinus  of  Nola.  "  Thy  domestics  tell  me  thou  art  poor  in 
the  midst  of  wealth,  and  art  living  in  a  state  of  self-imposed  bondage, 
treating  tby  servants  as  thy  companions,  and  thy  brethren  as  thy 
masters.  In  fact,  that  thou  art  a  perfect  servant  of  God,  the  enemy 
of  riches,  the  living  copy  of  the  holy  Martin,  an  entirely  obedient 
follower  of  the  Gospel." 

In  394  Vigilantius  and  a  companion  were  sent  by  Sulpicius  to 
Nola  to  visit  Paulinus.  The  reader  of  our  former  volume  is  already 
acquainted  with  this  enthusiast,  who  so  greatly  delighted  in  hi& 
noon-day  illuminations ; 8  but  in  view  of  the  protest  which  Vigilan- 

1  These  robbers  belonged  to  the  Spanish  village  of  Calagorris,  and  when  they 
arrived  in  Gaul  they  gave  the  same  name  to  their  new  settlement. 

2  The  posting  system  was  under  the  direction  of  the  State,  and  officials  or 
government  messengers  were  carried  along  at  the  rate  of  upwards  of  eight  miles 
an  hour  in  four-wheeled  carriages  or  light  two-wheeled  cars,  drawn  by  horses  or 
mules. 

s  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  272. 


PAULINUS'    CHURCH    AT   NOLA.  187 

tius  was  soon  to  raise  against  the  superstitions  of  the  age  it  may  be 
well  to  acquaint  ourselves  more  closely  with  what  must  have  come 
under  his  notice  at  Nola.  The  fame  of  Paulinus  was  in  all  the 
churches.  He  held  a  correspondence  with  Augustine,  by  whom  he 
was  addressed  in  a  style  of  warm  friendship,  reverence,  and  even 
flattery ;  and  his  influence  was  so  great  that  he  was  able  to  set  at 
nought  the  displeasure  of  the  Roman  bishop  Siricius.1 

Paulinus  had  fitted  up  his  villa,  which  stood  close  to  the  tomb  of 
his  patron  saint  Felix,2  as  a  monastery  and  a  house  of  reception  for 
strangers.  Ample  pleasure  grounds  which  had  been  adorned  with 
fountains,  statues  and  flowerbeds,  were  transformed  into  an  orchard 
and  a  cabbage  garden.  During  Vigilantius'  visit,  his  host  began  to 
rebuild  the  church.  The  pavement  and  walls  were  laid  in  marble, 
and  on  the  ceiling  of  the  dome  there  were  wrought  in  mosaic  em- 
blematical representations  of  the  Trinity  and  the  evangelists.8 
Under  the  cupola  stood  the  high  altar,  enshrining  ashes  of  the 
Apostles,  relics  of  martyrs,  and  a  splinter  of  the  "true  Cross."  The 
lofty  nave  was  flanked  by  aisles,  and  beyond  these  were  four  chapels 
for  private  devotion  and  the  burial-places  of  the  faithful.  From 
the  church  you  passed  by  three  latticed  arcades  to  the  mausoleum 
of  St.  Felix,  and  from  this  again  in  the  same  manner  to  his  oratory. 
The  building  when  completed,  surmounted  as  it  was  by  three 
cupolas  and  encompassed  with  walls,  had  almost  the  appearance  of 
a  little  town.4 

When  all  was  finished,  processions  were  formed,  the  relics  of  the 
saint  were  displayed,  clouds  of  incense  rose,  and  lights  were  burned 
before  the  tomb,  whilst  votive  offerings  were  presented  by  the 
multitude,  who  cried  aloud,  "  Hear  us,  holy  Felix !  blessed  Felix !  " 
A  festival  which  took  place  in  honour  of  the  saint  whilst  Vigilantius 


1  Paulinus  was  meant  for  better  things.  "Eigorous  abstinence,  periodical 
fastings,  night  watchings,  coarse  vestments,  the  accumulation  of  bones  and  rags 
of  saints,  and  especially  the  hourly  prostrations  at  the  shrine  of  St.  Felix,  ab- 
sorbed all  the  capacities  of  a  mind  once  distinguished  by  the  graces  and  refine- 
ments of  the  scholar,  the  poet  and  the  rhetorician." 

2  A  legendary  confessor  in  the  Decian  persecution,  whose  life  was  said  to  have 
been  miraculously  preserved. 

3  This  is  the  first  mention  in  the  West  of  allegorical  figures  or  historical 
pictures  in  churches.  In  the  East  they  are  spoken  of  by  Gregory  Nyssen  a 
generation  earlier. 

*  In  imitation  of  Paulinus,  Sulpicius  in  Gaul  built  two  basilicas,  with  a 
baptistery  between  them,  on  the  walls  of  which  were  painted  likenesses  of 
Martin  and  of  Paulinus  himself.  Paulinus  is  popularly  said  to  have  been  the 
inventor  of  church  bells.  It  is  clear  that  some  sonorous  instrument  (signum)' 
was  first  employed  about  this  time  to  call  Christians  to  worship. 


188  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

was  at  Nola  is  described  in  almost  the  very  words  of  Prudentius' 
rhapsody  over  the  pilgrimage  to  the  shrine  of  Hippolytus  in  the 
Roman  catacombs.1  Paulinus  himself  was  somewhat  shocked  with 
the  prodigal  consumption  of  wine  on  this  occasion,  although  he  is 
.a,t  first  inclined  to  regard  the  excess  with  indulgence.  "  Would 
they  could  offer  up  their  vows  of  joy  with  more  sobriety,  and  not  be 
quaffing  cups  of  wine  within  the  sacred  precincts !  Yet  I  think 
some  allowance  may  be  made  for  those  who  indulge  a  little  in  these 
festivals,  since  rude  minds  are  liable  to  error,  and  simple  piety  is 
scarcely  conscious  of  the  faults  it  commits."  But  the  sight  of  an 
inebriate  provokes  his  wrath :  "  Thou  hast  now  reason  to  dread 
Felix ;  thou  art  insulting  him  by  thy  drunkenness ;  wretched 
•creature,  thou  art  making  him  the  witness  and  the  avenger  of  thy 
revels.  I  have  thought  it  right,"  he  continues,  "  to  have  the  walls 
of  the  sanctuary  decorated  with  paintings,  that  in  the  sacred  his- 
tory, and  the  pious  examples  held  up  to  their  view,  the  rustics  may 
forget  their  wine  and  become  sober." 

The  rule  of  the  monastery  was  severe.  Paulinus  tells  us  of  one 
of  the  brotherhood  who,  after  he  had  been  some  time  at  Nola,  was 
much  altered;  his  body  grew  lean  and  his  face  pale;  and  adds,  "He 
rarely  drinks  at  table,  and  in  such  small  quantities  as  is  scarcely 
sufficient  to  wet  his  lips,  but  he  does  not  now  complain  of  an  empty 
stomach  or  a  dry  throat."  The  cloister  cooks  leaving,  one  after 
another,  Sulpicius  sent  to  Paulinus  "  brother  Victor,"  who  proved 
a  rare  treasure  to  his  new  master.  "  His  dishes,"  says  Paulinus, 
■*'  are  of  a  kind  to  destroy  the  fancies  and  delicacies  of  a  senator. 
He  thoroughly  understands  how  to  dress  beans,  to  make  vinegar 
from  beetroot,  and  to  prepare  coarse  broth  for  hungry  monks. 
More  than  this,  he  seasons  his  meagre  porridge  with  such  salt  of 
grace  and  such  sweetness  of  cbarity,  that  the  want  of  material  con- 
diments is  not  felt."2 


1  Early  Church  History,  p.  277. 
2  The  monks  of  the  West  fell  short  of  the  Oriental  standard  in  the  discipline 
■of  the  body  as  well  as  in  the  power  of  abstraction.  In  one  of  Sulpicius'  dia- 
logues, himself  and  Gallus  (a  disciple  of  Martin  of  Tours),  being  present, 
Postumian,  the  pilgrim,  relates  how  the  ship  he  sailed  in  was  almost  driven  on 
the  quicksands  (Syrtes),  and  how,  just  escaping,  he  and  his  companions  went 
.ashore  to  explore  the  desert  country  of  the  African  coast.  They  saw  before  them 
a  hut  shaped  like  the  keel  of  a  ship,  and  an  aged  hermit  clad  in  sheepskins  and 
.turning  a  hand-mill.  Finding  they  were  Christians,  the  old  man  received  them 
lovingly,  and  invited  them  to  join  in  prayer.  "'Laying  some  skins  on  the 
ground  for  us  to  recline  upon,  he  set  before  us  a  plentiful  dinner,  half  a  barley 
loaf  and  a  handful  of  a  sweet  herb.  There  were  four  of  us  and  he  the  fifth.  We 
made  a  hearty  meal.'     At  this  word  Sulpicius  smiled  and  said  to  Gallus,  'How 


DIFFICULTIES    OF   BIBLE    STUDY.  189" 

Cleanliness  and  becoming  attire  were  as  little  regarded  at  Nola  as 
the  delicacies  of  the  table.  "Give  me,"  exclaims  Paulinus,  "the 
society  of  those  who  wear  hair-cloth  shirts,  and  whose  loins  are- 
girdled  with  a  rope.  I  cannot  do  with  those  insolent  persons  who 
pride  themselves  on  their  well-dressed  hair :  give  me  those  who  for 
the  sake  of  holy  deformity,  wear  it  short  and  badly  cut,  such  as  live 
in  honourable  neglect  of  the  niceties  of  life,  who  despise  personal 
beauty,  and  purposely  disfigure  themselves,  that  their  hearts  may 
be  clean." 

We  must  not,  however,  pass  over  a  redeeming  element  in  the 
monastic  life  at  Nola,  which  so  long  as  it  remained  served  as  a  bulwark, 
against  corruption  and  decay.  This  was  the  study  of  Holy  Scrip- 
ture, a  pursuit  to  which  Paulinus  devoted  himself  as  ardently  as- 
Sulpicius.  The  difficulties  which  the  Biblical  student  of  that  time 
had  to  surmount,  were  such  as  in  our  day  can  scarcely  be  imagined.. 
Books  were  all  in  manuscript  and  took  up  much  room.  It  was  a 
rare  thing  to  possess  the  whole  Bible  in  one  volume.  Origen, 
Eusebius,  and  Jerome  had  introduced  into  the  Scriptures  certain, 
divisions,  but  these  fell  very  short  of  the  chapters  and  verses  which, 
we  now  possess ;  and  headings  of  chapters,  marginal  notes,  indexes 
and  concordances  were  unknown.  Paulinus  was  considered  so  good 
a  textuarian,  that  Augustine  consulted  him,  and  submitted  some  of 
his  writings  to  his  correction.  The  study  of  the  Holy  Scriptures 
by  the  side  of  the  semi-heathen  rites  practised  at  Nola,  although  it 
failed  to  open  the  eyes  of  a  Sulpicius  or  a  Paulinus,  may  have  been 
to  the  more  free  and  inquiring  mind  of  Vigilantius,  as  a  lamp^ 
shining  in  darkness. 

On  the  death  of  his  father  in  395,  Vigilantius  returned  for  a  short 
time  to  Calagorris,  whence  he  again  set  out  on  a  journey  to  Pales- 
tine and  Egypt.  Kevisiting  Nola  on  the  way,  he  was  furnished  by 
Paulinus  with  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Jerome  at  Bethlehem. 
The  great  recluse  received  him  courteously,  and  took  him  to  the 
sacred  places,  "  crossing  himself  at  every  step."     As  Vigilantius 


wouldst  thou  like  to  dine  on  a  handful  of  herbs  and  half  a  loaf  for  five  men  ? ' 
Gallus  blushed  and  answered :  '  Thou  art  at  thy  old  tricks,  Sulpicius,  letting 
slip  no  opportunity  of  taxing  us  Gauls  with  voracity  ;  but  it  is  cruel  to  expect 
us  to  live  like  angels,  though  for  myself  I  can  believe  that  the  angels  eat  too. 
As  to  that  half  of  a  barley  loaf,  I  should  think  it  a  poor  mouthful  for  myself 
alone,  but  that  meagre  Cyrenian  might  be  well  content  with  it ;  for  hunger 
belongs  to  him  either  by  necessity  or  by  nature.  Nor  do  I  wonder  that  half- 
starved  and  weather-beaten  mariners  should  think  it  a  good  dinner ;  but  for  our 
part,  we  are  far  from  the  sea,  in  a  plentiful  country  ;  and  what  is  more,  as  L 
have  often  told  thee,  we  are  Gauls.' " 


190  .  WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST. 

appears  to  have  made  his  visit  only  three  years  after  Jerome  had 
crushed  Jovinian,  it  is  not  very  unlikely  that  the  opinions  of  that 
reformer  formed  a  topic  of  conversation  between  them.  Another 
topic  was  furnished  by  the  Origen  controversy,  which  was  then 
going  on,  and  which  seems  to  have  occasioned  some  interruption  to 
their  friendly  intercourse.  From  Bethlehem  Vigilantius  proceeded 
to  Jerusalem,  where  he  appears  to  have  spent  some  time  with 
Jerome's  opponent,  Eufinus,  and  when  on  his  way  home  he  repeated 
his  visit  to  Jerome,  the  suspicious  nature  and  ill-humour  of  the 
latter  burst  forth,  and  Vigilantius  quitted  Bethlehem  abruptly.  On 
his  way  back  to  Gaul  he  tarried  a  while  in  Alexandria,  whence, 
proceeding  to  the  shores  of  Italy,  he  made  his  way  home  by 
the  Cottian  Alps.1  Wherever  he  went  he  seems  to  have  spoken 
freely  of  Jerome  and  his  opinions,  and  to  have  found  many  sympa- 
thisers. 

The  recollection  of  their  quarrel  rankled  in  Jerome's  mind,  and 
when  he  heard  of  the  manner  in  which  his  late  visitor  had  occupied 
himself  on  his  journey  he  vented  his  spleen  in  a  stinging  epistle 
(a.d.  398).  "  It  would  have  been  just  had  I  given  thee  no  satis- 
faction by  letter,  since  thou  hast  given  no  credence  to  thy  own  ears. 
But  since  Christ  has  given  us  in  Himself  an  example  of  perfect 
humility  by  kissing  his  betrayer,  I  intimate  to  thee  in  thy  absence 
the  same  things  which  I  told  thee  when  present.  .  .  .  Thou  hast 
left  Egypt  and  all  the  provinces  where  so  many  defend  thy  opinions 
with  effrontery ;  and  hast  selected  me  as  an  object  of  persecution, 
me  who  reprehend  all  doctrines  contrary  to  the  Church  and  pub- 
licly condemn  them.  So  Origen  is  a  heretic  !  What  is  that  to  me, 
who  do  not  deny  that  in  many  points  he  is  a  heretic  ?  If  I  did  not 
daily  anathematize  his  errors,  I  should  be  a  partaker  of  them.  .  .  . 
I  as  a  Christian,  speaking  to  thee  as  a  Christian,  beseech  thee 
brother  not  to  aim  at  being  wise  above  thy  knowledge.  From  thy 
childhood  thou  hast  learned  another  trade,  thou  hast  been  used  to 
another  kind  of  training.  It  is  not  for  the  same  man  to  examine 
both  gold  coins  and  the  Scriptures,  both  to  sip  wines  and  to  under- 
stand the  Apostles  and  Prophets.  .  .  .  Call  to  mind  I  pray  thee 
the  time  when  I  descanted  on  the  true  resurrection  of  the  body, 
how  thou  leaped  aside,  clapped  thy  hands  and  stamped  thy  feet, 
proclaiming  that  I  was  orthodox.  But  when  thou  got  out  to  sea, 
the  offensive  odour  of  tbe  bilge-water  struck  into  thy  brain,  and 
thou  remembered  that  I  was  a  heretic.     I  gave  credence  to  the 

1  Some  have  connected  this  journey  over  the  Cottian  Alps  with  the  early 
Protestantism  which  manifested  itself  in  the  valleys  of  Dauphine  and  Piedmont, 
but  without,  as  it  seems,  sufficient  ground. 


JEKOME    AND    VIGILANTIUS.  191 

letters  of  the  holy  presbyter  Paulinus,  not  imagining  that  his  judg- 
ment of  thee  could  be  erroneous  ;  and  although  I  noticed  that  thy 
conversation  was  unpolished,  I  set  it  down  to  rusticity  and  simpli- 
city rather  than  to  folly.  .  .  .  Thy  name  must  have  been  given 
thee  by  antiphrasis,  for  thy  whole  mind  slumbers  as  in  a  lethargy. 
Thy  tongue  ought  to  be  cut  out  and  torn  to  shreds." 

Several  years  may  have  elapsed  before  Vigilantius  put  forth  the 
treatise  which  has  made  his  name  honourable,  and  which  drew 
down  upon  him  a  still  more  severe  infliction  of  Jerome's  wrath.  As 
soon  as  it  was  published,  information  of  the  writer's  audacity  in 
attacking  the  ruling  follies  of  the  age  was  sent  to  Jerome  by  Eipa- 
rius,  a  priest  of  the  diocese  of  Toulouse.  It  drew  forth  (a.d.  404) 
a  characteristic  reply. 

"Thou  sayest,"  writes  Jerome,  "that  Vigilantius  (he  should 
rather  be  called  Dormitantius)  is  again  opening  his  foul  mouth,  and 
is  casting  forth  the  most  villainous  filth  against  the  relics  of  the 
holy  martyrs,  styling  us  who  receive  them  'cinder-gatherers  and 
idolaters,'  because  we  venerate  the  bones  of  dead  men.  ...  I  am 
surprised  that  the  holy  bishop1  in  whose  diocese  he  is  said  to  be  a 
presbyter,  should  wink  at  such  madness,  and  should  not  with  his 
apostolic  rod  of  iron,  dash  in  pieces  the  worthless  vessel,  and  de- 
liver him  for  the  destruction  of  the  flesh  that  the  spirit  may  be 
saved.  ...  If  the  relics  of  the  martyrs  are  not  to  be  honoured,  how 
is  it  that  we  read  •  Precious  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord  is  the  death  of 
his  saints '  ?  If  their  bones  pollute  those  who  touch  them,  how 
was  it  that  Elisha  when  dead  raised  to  life  the  dead  man  ?  Were 
all  the  camps  of  the  Israelitish  host  unclean  because  they  carried 
the  bodies  of  Joseph  and  the  patriarchs  in  the  wilderness  ?  And  did 
they  carry  unclean  ashes  into  the  Holy  Land  ?  .  .  .  This  tongue 
should  be  cut  off  by  the  surgeons,  or  rather  this  mad  head  should 
be  cured,  that  he  who  knows  not  how  to  speak  may  learn  some- 
times to  keep  silence.  I  once  saw  this  marvel  and  wished  to  bind 
the  madman  with  Scripture  testimonies ;  but  he  went  off,  he  de- 
parted, he  escaped,  he  burst  away,  and  has  railed  against  us  between 
the  billows  of  the  Adriatic  and  the  Cottian  Alps.  ...  I  could  have 
wished  to  say  more  did  not  the  brevity  of  a  letter  impose  on  me  the 
obligation  to  silence,  and  hadst  thou  thought  it  expedient  to  send 
me  his  doggerel  books  that  I  might  know  what  I  ought  to  answer. 
At  present  I  am  beating  the  air,  and  give  proof  rather  of  my  own 
orthodoxy  than  of  his  heterodoxy  which  is  manifest  to  all  men. 
But  if  thou  wishest  that  I  should  write  a  longer  book  against  him, 

1  Exuperius,  bishop  of  Toulouse. 


192  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

send  me  his  dirges  and  drivellings,  that  he  may  hear  John  the 
Baptist  announcing,  '  Now  also  the  axe  is  laid  unto  the  root  of  the 
tree  ;  therefore  every  tree  which  bringeth  not  forth  good  fruit  is 
hewn  down  and  cast  into  the  fire.'" 

In  accordance  with  this  letter,  Kiparius,  and  another  priest, 
Desiderius,  sent  a  copy  of  Yigilantius'  tract  to  Jerome,  and  with  it 
a  formal  charge  against  the  reformer.  They  represented  that  the 
whole  neighbourhood  was  in  commotion,  and  that  their  own  people 
were  infected  by  the  blasphemous  doctrines  of  the  heretic.  The 
infuriated  monk  immediately  set  to  work,  and  in  one  night  forged 
the  engine  which  was  to  "  crush  the  serpent."  This  was  in  the 
year  406.1 

Vigilantius'  treatise  is  known  only  through  Jerome's  answer.  It 
is  plain,  however,  tbat  in  his  protest  against  the  abuses  of  the 
times,  Vigilantius  takes  a  wider  range  than  his  predecessor  Jovinian 
had  done.  We  have  seen  that  he  denied  the  tombs  of  the  martyrs 
to  be  the  proper  objects  of  veneration.  He  calls  their  relics  a  heap 
of  ashes  and  wretched  bones,  and  asks  of  what  use  it  is  to  honour 
and  adore  and  even  kiss  dust  folded  up  in  a  linen  cloth  ?  He  de- 
rides the  prodigies  said  to  be  wrought  in  the  churches  of  the 
martyrs,  and  condemns  the  vigils  performed  in  them,  asserting,  as 
Tertullian  and  Lactantius  had  done  before  him,2  that  the  practice 
of  burning  tapers  by  daylight  came  from  the  heathen.  "  How," 
he  asks,  "  could  men  think  of  honouring  by  the  light  of  miserable 
wax  candles,  those  martyrs  on  whom  the  Lamb  in  the  midst  of 
God's  throne  is  shedding  all  the  brightness  of  his  majesty  ?" 

In  his  answer  Jerome  does  not  deny  that  these  practices  were 
borrowed  from  the  pagans,  but  asserts  that  the  same  homage,  which 
is  to  be  detested  when  offered  to  idols,  is  to  be  approved  when 
offered  to  martyrs.  He  maintains,  further,  that  Christians  are  far 
from  intending  to  pay  to  creatures  the  honour  which  is  due  to  the 
Creator  alone ;  that  their  devotion  sees  in  what  Vigilantius  de- 
scribes as  "  wretched  bones,"  something  of  much  greater  worth; 
that  they  venerate  in  the  tomb  nothing  which  is  dead,  but  through 
it  look  up  to  the  saints  alive  with  God,  who  is  in  truth  not  the  God 
of  the  dead  but  of  the  living.  In  defending  the  vigils,  he  could 
not  deny  that  they  often  served  both  as  a  pretext  and  an  occasion 
for  gross  immoralities.  To  the  objection  advanced  against  the 
lighted  tapers,  he  could  only  answer  that,  even  though  the  laity  or 

1  Jerome  tells  us  that  he  wrote  his  answer  "  in  a  single  night,"  because  the 
brother  who  was  to  take  the  letter  could  not  tarry  longer. 
2  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  271. 


PBAYEBS   TO   THE   SAINTS.  198 

pious  women  might  be  mistaken  in  supposing  the  martyrs  to  be  so 
honoured,  yet  we  are  bound  to  respect  such  pious  feelings,  though 
they  may  err  in  the  mode  of  expression.     But  the  conclusive  argu- 
ment on  which  he  relies  is,  universal  authority.     "  Was  the  Em- 
peror Constantius,"  he  asks,  "  guilty  of  sacrilege,  who  transported 
the  holy  relics  of  Andrew,  Luke  and  Timothy  to  Constantinople, 
before  which  the  devils  (such  devils  as  inhabit  Vigilantius)  roar, 
and  are  confounded  ?    Or  the  Emperor  Arcadius,  who  translated 
the  bones  of  the  blessed  Samuel  from  Juda3a  into  Thrace  ?    Are  all 
the  bishops  not  only  sacrilegious  but  infatuated,  who  carried  this 
worthless  trash  and  these  loose  cinders  in  silk  and  gold ;  and  all 
the  people  gathered  together  from  Palestine  even  to  Chalcedon,  who 
met  them,  and  received  them  as  if  it  were  the  living  prophet  ?    Is 
the  bishop  of  Eome  sacrilegious,  who  offers  sacrifice  on  the  altar 
under  which  are  the  venerable  bones  (the  vile  dust  would  Vigilantius 
say  ?)  of  Peter  and  Paul ;  and  not  the  bishop  of  one  city  alone,  but 
the  bishops  of  all  the  cities  of  the  world,  who  enter  the  church 
of  the  dead  in  which  this  most  worthless  dust  and  ashes  are  de- 
posited ?" 

Vigilantius  also  denied  the  efficacy  of  prayers  addressed  to  de- 
parted saints.  "  According  to  the  Holy  Scriptures,"  he  says, 
"  only  the  living  pray  for  one  another  ;  the  martyrs  moreover  can- 
not be  everywhere  present,  to  hear  men's  prayers  and  to  succour 
them.  The  souls  of  the  Apostles  and  martyrs  have  settled  them- 
selves either  in  Abraham's  bosom,  or  in  a  place  of  refreshment,  or 
under  the  altar  of  God  ;  and  they  cannot  escape  and  present  them- 
selves where  they  please.  Do  they  so  love  their  ashes  as  to  hover 
always  round  them,  lest  if  any  suppliant  should  happen  to  draw 
near  they  might  not  hear  him  ?"  These  opinions  may  be  fanciful,, 
but  Jerome's  reply  is  no  better  founded.  "  If  the  Apostles  and 
martyrs  in  this  earthly  life,  before  they  had  yet  come  safely  out  of 
the  conflict,  were  able  to  pray  for  others,  how  much  more  can  they 
do  so,  now  that  they  have  obtained  the  victory !  and  seeing  it  is 
asserted  of  them  that  they  follow  the  Lamb  whithersoever  He  goes, 
and  the  Lamb  is  everywhere  present,  we  must  believe  that  the 
faithful  are  in  spirit  everywhere  with  Christ." 

Vigilantius  spoke  lightly  of  fasting  and  mortification,  and  the 
various  austerities  of  the  monks,  and  even  of  the  hermit  life  itself. 
"  Should  all  retire  from  the  world  and  live  in  deserts,  who  would 
remain  to  uphold  the  public  worship  of  God  ?  Who  would  exhort 
sinners  to  virtue  ?  This  would  not  be  to  fight,  but  to  fly."  Espe- 
cially he  denied  the  merit  of  virginity,  and  that  celibacy  is  incum- 
bent on  the  clergy.     It  is  evident  that  his  teaching  had  made  some 


194  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

converts  among  the  higher  clergy,  for  Jerome  declaims  against 
some  bishops,  who  (evidently  because  they  feared  the  pernicious 
consequences  of  a  constrained  celibacy)  would  ordain  no  others  as 
deacons,  but  those  who  were  married. 

Another  point  on  which  Vigilantius  sought  to  bring  men  back  to 
Scripture  and  common  sense,  was  that  of  the  right  stewardship  of 
earthly  possessions.  He  showed  that  those  who  managed  their 
own  property  themselves,  and  distributed  their  incomes  prudently 
amongst  the  poor,  did  better  than  those  who  gave  away  the  whole 
at  once  ;  and  that  it  was  a  more  Christian  act  for  a  man  to  provide 
for  the  poor  of  his  own  neighbourhood,  than  to  send  his  money  to 
Jerusalem  for  the  support  of  the  monks  in  that  city  who  lived  on 
charity.  On  these  as  on  some  other  points,  Jerome  has  nothing  to 
oppose  but  flimsy  sophistry.  What  he  lacks  in  reason,  however, 
he  makes  np  in  abuse.  "  Many  monsters  have  been  born  into  the 
world,  centaurs  and  satyrs,  owls  and  bitterns,  Cerberus,  the  chimera 
and  the  many-headed  hydra,  and  the  three-formed  Geryon.  Gaul 
alone  has  had  no  monsters,  but  has  always  abounded  in  brave  and 
eloquent  men.  Suddenly  Vigilantius  has  arisen,  who,  in  his  un- 
clean spirit,  fights  against  the  spirit  of  Christ." 

From  this  time  we  almost  lose  sight  of  the  reformer.  According 
to  some,  the  bishop  Exuperius,  who  refused  in  the  first  instance  to 
take  part  against  Vigilantius,  and  was  even  said  to  favour  him,  was 
eventually  induced  by  the  invectives  of  Jerome,  and  the  influence  of 
Innocent  I.  of  Rome,  to  have  him  banished  from  Aquitaine.  One 
historian  records  that  he  served  a  church  in  Barcelona,  and  this 
may  well  agree  with  the  statement  just  related.  It  is  thought  that 
he  may  have  perished  about  the  year  409,  in  that  great  hurricane 
of  the  Northern  barbarians,  which  after  desolating  Gaul,  broke 
over  the  Spanish  peninsula,  and  converted  it  into  a  desert. 

The  Catholic  worthies  whose  lives  we  have  endeavoured  to  por- 
tray are  the  men  to  whom  the  Romanists  of  the  present  day,  and 
many  who  bear  the  name  of  Protestant,  look  up,  as  to  the  Fathers 
of  the  Church  ;  and  the  century  in  which  they  flourished  is  regarded 
as  its  golden  age.  No  constellation  of  luminaries  so  bright  and  so 
numerous  is  to  be  met  with  again  until  we  come  to  the  Reforma- 
tion. At  the  same  time  how  far  all  these  celebrated  churchmen 
were,  as  individuals,  true  Witnesses  for  Christ,  is  a  question  on  which 
there  may  well  be  a  difference  of  opinion.  Few  of  the  readers  of 
this  volume  are  likely  to  follow  Cardinal  Newman  in  the  reasons  he 
gives  for  honouring  Jerome  :  "  I  do  not  scruple  to  say,  that  were 
he  not  a  saint,  there  are  words  and  ideas  in  his  writings  from  which 
I  should  shrink  ;  but  as  he  is  a  saint,  I  shrink  with  greater  reason 


DOUBTFUL  MERIT  OF  THE  FATHERS.  195 

from  putting  myself  in  opposition,  even  in  minor  matters  and  points 
.of  detail,  to  one  who  has  the  infallibility  of  the  Church  pledged  to 
his  saintly  perfection.  I  cannot,  indeed,  force  myself  to  approve  or 
like  these  particulars  on  my  private  judgment  or  feeling  ;  but  I  can 
receive  things  on  faith  against  both  the  one  and  the  other.  And  I 
readily  and  heartily  do  take  on  faith  these  characteristics,  words, 
or  acts  of  this  great  Doctor  of  the  Universal  Church  ;  and  I  think 
it  is  not  less  acceptable  to  God  or  to  him  to  give  him  my  religious 
homage  than  my  human  praise."1  To  argue  in  this  manner  is  to 
impose  on  one's  self  a  slavery  worse  than  that  of  Egypt.  Many  of 
our  readers  will  agree  with  Newman  in  his  private  opinion  regarding 
Jerome,  and  some  will  perhaps  go  further,  disposed,  like  Isaac 
Taylor,  to  challenge  the  claim  of  that  extraordinary  man  to  any 
place  at  all  amongst  the  true  Witnesses  for  Christ. 

It  is  clear  that  these  renowned  Fathers  of  the  Church  have  not 
earned  our  gratitude  in  some  essential  matters.  They  found  the 
.episcopal  authority  already  inordinately  great ;  they  left  it  absolute. 
They  found  the  system  of  celibacy  and  monkery  and  the  worship  of 
saints  and  relics  a  young  and  sturdy  plant ;  they  left  it  a  mighty 
tree  overshadowing  the  whole  land.  They  found  the  Church  half 
resolved  to  employ  force  in  compelling  men's  consciences  ;  they  left 
her  fully  embarked  on  this  fatal  course.  Down  to  their  time, 
schismatics  (not  to  say  heretics)  were  regarded  with  some  measure 
<of  charity,  and  treated  with  some  show  of  consideration  ;  but  after 
the  time  of  Augustine  all  this  has  vanished ;  it  is,  "  Eecant,  or  die ; 
return  to  the  bosom  of  Holy  Mother  Church,  or  perish  like  a  male- 
factor." Such  from  this  time  forward  was  the  only  alternative. 
At  the  same  time  the  dogma  of  one  Catholic  Church,  beyond  the 
pale  of  which  there  is  no  salvation,  became  fixed  and  universal. 

In  passing  judgment  however  upon  the  Church  teachers  and 
rulers  of  this  age  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  men  are  to  be  weighed 
in  the  balance  of  their  own  times,  and  not  in  that  of  any  other. 
The  degree  of  light  which  prevailed  in  their  day  must  always  be 
taken  into  account.  The  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  formed  an  age 
not  only  of  rank  superstition,  but  of  profound  moral  corruption. 
The  social  and  political  sores  went  on  festering  until  they  became 
intolerable,  and  had  to  be  cut  out  by  the  swords  of  the  barbarians. 

In  estimating,  on  the  other  hand,  the  motives  and  characters  of 
the  Eeformers,  Aerius,  Jovinian,  Vigilantius,  two  important  con- 
siderations present  themselves.  They  are  men  almost  unknown  to 
history.     Scorned  and  proscribed  by  nearly  the  whole  Church,  no 

1  These  views  are  sufficiently  refuted  by  Jerome's  own  words,  quoted  above. 
See  p.  129. 


196  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

friendly  biographer  has  traced  their  course  or  drawn  their  portrait ;; 
or  if  this  was  done,  envy  and  bigotry  have  effectually  effaced  the 
record.  And  as  the  story  of  their  life  has  perished,  so  it  is  with 
their  writings ;  these  have  either  been  designedly  destroyed  or  have 
become  buried  in  oblivion.  Not  a  fragment  of  all  that  proceeded 
from  the  pens  of  these  three  Witnesses  has  come  down  to  us,  except. 
in  the  quotations  made  from  their  books  by  those  who  undertook  to 
refute  them.1  No  man,  it  is  needless  to  say,  would  ever  consent  to 
be  judged  on  the  evidence  of  extracts  from  his  writings  made  by  an 
adversary.  The  meaning  of  quoted  words  may  be  greatly  modified, 
or  even  neutralised,  by  the  unquoted  context.  Other  writings  of 
the  same  author,  or  other  chapters  not  referred  to,  may  set  his 
object  or  his  motive  in  a  totally  different  light,  and  in  the  place  of 
distrust,  awaken  sympathy  and  admiration.  Lastly,  the  extracts 
themselves  may  be  garbled.  And  if  all  this  is  true  as  a  general 
rule,  it  is  emphatically  so  when  the  antagonist  is  a  Jerome.  Hence 
we  draw  our  estimate  of  the  character  of  these  reformers  from 
slender  materials.  We  know  not  how  far  they  possessed  that  true 
spirit  of  love  and  faith  which  is  able  to  disarm  or  to  rise  above  the 
persecution  of  man.  We  do  know  that  they  saw  clearly  some 
things  in  respect  of  which  the  eyes  of  the  leading  churchmen  of  the 
age  were  blinded. 

If  the  warning  voice  raised  by  these  just  men  had  been  heeded, 
and  the  Church  had  happily  retraced  her  steps  out  of  the  labyrinth 
of  error  into  which  she  had  wandered,  with  what  affection  would 
their  names  have  been  embalmed !  Their  writings  would  have 
been  preserved  with  as  much  care  as  those  of  Athanasius  or  Chry- 
sostom,  and  we  might  have  constructed  biographies  of  them  as 
worthy  of  our  attention  and  even  as  full  of  incident  as  those  of  the 
champions  of  orthodoxy.  But  if  their  known  actions  are  fairly 
weighed  and  duly  considered,  they  will  be  found  to  deserve  the  title 
of  Christian  heroes.  The  whole  Christian  world  was  rapidly 
sinking  into  an  easy  and  fatal  slumber.  They  lifted  up  their  voices 
to  utter  the  warning  cry.  They  were  almost  alone;  they  could 
hope  for  no  inspiriting  echo  from  any  other  quarter.  The  courage 
of  Chrysostom  has  been  much  extolled  when  he  ventured  from  the 
fastness  of  his  pulpit  to  attack  the  Empress  Eudoxia  ;  and  of  Basil 
and  Ambrose,  when  they  confronted  Valens  and  his  minister  and 
the  Emperor  Theodosius,  with  a  spirit  as  haughty  as  their  own ; 
but  the  breach  into  which  Jovinian  and  Vigilantius  threw  them- 

1  The  monks  were  the  only  librarians  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  they  admitted 
none  but  orthodox  books.  Thus  the  works  of  such  writers  as  Vigilantius  ani 
Jovinian,  even  if  not  purposely  destroyed,  would  soon  disappear. 


HEROISM  OF  THE  REFORMERS.  197 

selves  was  one  of  far  greater  danger  and  for  a  far  nobler  prize.  If 
any  men  ever  played  a  part  which  should  entitle  them  to  the  grati- 
tude of  posterity,  surely  it  was  these.  And  carefully  must  we  note 
that,  although  their  opponents,  in  order  to  weaken  their  influence, 
seek  in  every  way  to  blacken  their  memory,  yet  no  tangible  accusa- 
tion is  made  against  them,  either  as  to  the  honesty  of  their  motives 
or  the  moral  character  of  their  life.1 

1  The  opinion  of  the  candid  historian,  Du  Pin,  lends  support  to  the  above. 
"It  is  a  misfortune  that  Jovinian's  and  Vigilantius'  books  are  lost;  and  there 
is  reason  to  believe  from  those  other  disputes  wherein  St.  Jerome  was  engaged, 
that  if  we  knew  what  they  said  for  themselves,  instead  of  thinking  them  heretics, 
we  should  esteem  them  illustrious  defenders  of  the  Christian  religion  against 
that  superstition,  which  an  immoderate  zeal  for  a  monastical  life  did  at  that 
time  introduce  into  the  Church.  .  .  .  Since  obstinacy  is  necessary  to  make  a 
man  a  heretic,  it  would  be  rashness  to  call  Jovinian  a  heretic,  of  whom  we  know 
nothing  but  what  we  have  from  his  enemies." 


PERIOD    II. 


FROM  THE   DEATH  OP   AUGUSTINE,   A.D.  430, 
TO  THE  ACCESSION  OF  POPE   GREGORY  THE   GREAT,  A.D.    590. 


(     201     ) 

CHAPTER    I. 

The  Nestorian  Strife. 

That  long  conflict  of  tongues  and  pens,  and  not  unfrequently  of 
swords  also,  which  commenced  with  the  Nestorian  Controversy,  has 
special  claims  on  our  attention.  Not  only  does  its  record  form  a 
faithful  mirror  of  the  age,  fraught  with  instructive  lessons,  but  the 
contest  itself  powerfully  hastened,  if  it  did  not  actually  produce, 
that  vital  decay  of  the  Eastern  Churches  which  rendered  them  an 
easy  prey  to  the  hosts  of  Islam. 

The  Arian  controversy  turned  on  the  question  of  our  Lord's 
proper  deity  ;  the  Nestorian  on  that  of  the  two  natures  in  Him,  the 
human  and  the  divine.  The  problems  on  which  the  Eastern  Church 
of  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries  wasted  her  energy  may  be  regarded 
&s  insoluble ;  and  it  is  not  always  easy  even  to  follow  the  subtle 
arguments  of  the  disputants.  But  the  narrative  is  curious  ;  and  if 
the  reader  has  any  faith  still  remaining  in  the  purity  of  the  ancient 
Church,  or  in  the  efficacy  of  Church  councils,  it  will  be  severely 
tried  before  he  has  followed  the  story  to  its  end. 

Two  schools  of  thought  stand  opposed  to  each  other,  the  Alexan- 
drian, and  the  Antiochian  or  Syrian.  At  Alexandria,  where  the 
enemy  to  be  combated  was  the  Arian  denial  of  Christ's  eternal 
Godhead,  his  divinity  was  insisted  upon  at  the  expense  of  his 
humanity,  so  that  it  was  customary  to  say,  "  God  was  born,  suffered, 
and  redeemed  us  with  his  blood ;  "  and  the  favourite  appellation  of 
the  Virgin  Mary  (whose  worship  was  just  coming  into  vogue)  was 
that  of  Theo-tokos  (bearer  or  mother  of  God).1  At  the  head  of  this 
school  was  Cyril,  bishop  of  Alexandria,  who  seems  to  have  regarded 
the  Incarnation  almost  as  a  new  entity,  which  is  in  every  relation 
God  and  man  in  one.  The  Antiochian  school,  on  the  contrary, 
having  to  contend  against  the  heresy  of  Apollinaris,2  who  taught 
that  in  Christ  the  human  body  was  united  with  an  animal  soul  only 
(the  place  of  the  rational  soul  being  supplied  by  the  Divine  Logos8), 

1  The  phrase  is  used  by  Athanasius. 
2  Bishop  of  Laodicea,  died  392  ;  see  ante,  p.  44. 
8  Christ  was  thus  made  a  middle  being,  between  God  and  man.    Apollinaris 
regarded  the  orthodox  view  of  a  union  of  full  humanity  with  full  divinity  in  one 
person — of  two  wholes  in  one  whole — as  an  absurdity. 


202 


WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 


took  an  opposite  direction.  This  school,  distinguished  for  sound 
learning  and  sobriety  of  interpretation,  but  with  a  tendency  towards 
rationalism,  was  founded  by  Diodorus  of  Tarsus1  and  Theodore  of 
Mopsuestia.2  In  its  scheme  the  divine  and  human  nature  were  held 
so  rigidly  apart  as  to  make  Christ,  though  not  professedly,  yet 
virtually,  a  double  person.  The  effect  was  to  weaken  the  cardinal 
truths  of  his  sufferings,  death  and  resurrection,  and  thus  impair  the 
reality  of  his  work  of  redemption.  To  this  school  belonged 
Nestorius,  who  however  held  its  doctrine  in  a  more  modified  form 
than  his  friend  and  teacher  Theodore.  In  the  course  of  the  struggle 
a  third  standard  was  raised  by  the  monk  Eutyches  of  Constanti- 
nople, who,  whilst  he  aimed  at  supporting  Cyril  and  the  Alexandrian 
party,  created  a  fresh  schism  by  going  still  further,  and  teaching 
that  there  is  only  one  nature  in  Christ,  the  divine. 

If  it  is  difficult  at  the  beginning  of  the  contest  accurately  to  mark 
out  the  relative  position  and  front  of  the  combatants,  it  is  still 
more  so  to  follow  the  hostile  banners  through  the  shifting  scenes  of 
this  fiercely  contested  field.  "  Never  was  there  a  case,"  observes 
Milman,  "in  which  the  contending  parties  approximated  so  closely. 
Both  appealed  to  the  Nicene  Creed ;  both  admitted  the  pre-exist- 
ence,  the  impassibility  of  the  Eternal  Word ;  but  the  fatal  duty 
which  the  Christians  in  that  age,  and  unhappily  in  subsequent 
ages,  have  imposed  upon  themselves,  of  considering  the  detection 
of  heresy  the  first  of  religious  obligations,  mingled  as  it  now  was 
with  human  passions  and  interests,  made  the  breach  irreparable." 
"  The  real  differences  between  the  combatants  on  either  side," 
remarks  Roberts,  "in  the  maintenance  of  the  dogmas  of  Eutyches 
and  Nestorius,  were  often  undiscernible  amidst  the  dust  and  smoke 
of  the  combat;  and  the  sharpest  feeling  of  hostility  in  either  party 
arose  out  of  their  mistakes  of  each  other's  meaning." 

Nestorius  succeeded  to  the  episcopal  chair  of  Constantinople, 
a.d.  428.3  He  began  his  rule  as  an  ardent  Catholic.  On  the  fifth 
day  after  his  ordination  he  endeavoured  to  deprive  the  Arians  of 
their  church :  they  burned  it  down  in  despair.  "  Give  me,"  he 
cried  in  his  inaugural  discourse  before  the  Emperor  Theodosius  II., 
"  the  earth  purged  of  heretics,  and  in  exchange  I  will  give  thee 
heaven.  Help  me  to  destroy  the  heretics,  and  I  will  help  thee  to 
conquer  the  Persians."     All  the  while  however  he  held  private 

»  Died  a.d.  394. 
3  He  was  bishop  from  393 — 428 ;  see  ante,  p.  73. 
3  He  is  described  as  "  simple  in  dress,  grave  in  demeanour,  pale  and  meagre 
with  ascetic  observances,  and  of  surpassing  eloquence." 


the  term  Theotokos.  203 

opinions  which  he  refrained  from  openly  avowing.  The  challenge 
came  from  his  presbyter  Anastasius,  who  said  in  public :  "  Let  no 
man  style  Mary  Mother  of  God  (Theotokos),  for  Mary  was  human, 
and  it  is  impossible  that  God  should  be  born  of  humanity."  This 
was  followed  up  by  a  bishop  of  Mcesia  who  was  visiting  Constanti- 
nople, and  who  in  one  of  his  sermons  cried  out :  "  Let  him  be 
accursed  who  calls  Mary  Mother  of  God.'" 

Upon  this  a  violent  agitation  arose  in  the  city,  not  only  amongst 
the  clergy,  but  amongst  all  classes  of  tbe  people.  It  was  as  if  the 
denial  of  the  name  Theotokos  had  robbed  mankind  of  tbe  hope  of 
salvation.  The  general  feeling  found  its  utterance  through  Euse- 
bius,  afterwards  bishop  of  Dorylasum  in  Phrygia,  and  also  through 
Proclus,  who  had  been  an  unsuccessful  candidate  for  the  see  of 
Constantinople.  One  day  when  Nestorius  was  preaching,  the 
former  stood  up  in  full  church,  and  in  contradiction  of  the  bishop, 
asserted  that  the  "  Eternal  Word  begotten  before  the  ages  had  sub- 
mitted to  be  born  a  second  time."  And  Proclus,  in  a  sermon, 
accused  Nestorius  and  his  party  of  believing  only  in  a  deified  man, 
and  of  detracting  from  the  honour  of  Mary.  Nestorius  was  not- 
slow  to  retort :  he  compared  his  adversaries  to  the  pagans  who  gave 
mothers  to  their  gods.  Nevertheless,  he  declared  that  if  any  of  the 
simple-minded  were  disposed  to  call  the  Virgin  Mary  Theotokos,  he 
would  not  quarrel  with  them,  provided  they  did  not  convert  her 
into  a  goddess ;  but  he  proposed  instead  the  safer  and  more 
Scriptural  term  Christo-tokos  (the  mother  of  Christ),  inasmuch  as 
the  name  Christ  belongs  to  the  whole  person,  uniting  the  divine 
and  tbe  human  natures.1 

.  This  did  not  satisfy  his  opponents.  A  large  party  of  the  clergy 
and  monks  refused  to  recognize  him  any  longer  as  their  bishop,  or 
even  to  hold  Church  fellowship  with  him ;  and  a  placard  was 
affixed  to  the  walls  of  the  principal  church,  probably  by  Eusebius, 
exhibiting  a  parallel  between  his  tenets  and  those  of  the  heretical 
Paul  of  Samosata,  whose  name  was  still  a  by-word  in  the  Church. 
Once  also  when  Nestorius  was  about  to  preach,  a  monk  placed  him- 
self in  the  way,  refusing  to  let  him  enter  because  it  was  forbidden 
to  a  heretic  to  teach  in  the  churches.  His  enemies  even  threatened 
to  throw  him  into  the  sea.  In  retaliation  Nestorius  made  free  uso 
of  deposition,  whipping,  banishment,  and  other  forcible  means 
against  such  as  were  amenable  to  his  jurisdiction. 

Cyril  was  watching  events  from  Alexandria.     His  first  act  in 

1  As  Nestorius  justly  points  out,  the  Scriptures  nowhere  teach  that  God,  but 
everywhere  that  Jesus  Christ,  the  son  of  God,  was  born  of  Mary. 


'204  WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST. 

opposition  to  Nestorius  was  to  publish  a  homily,  for  the  Easter 
festival,  on  the  union  of  deity  and  humanity  in  Christ,  and  after- 
wards to  address  to  the  Egyptian  monks  a  long  admonitory  letter 
-on  the  same  subject.  In  both  these  documents  he  vindicated  the 
title  Theotokos,  and  sounded  an  alarm  against  the  disturbers  of 
orthodoxy.  An  unfriendly  correspondence  ensued  between  himself 
vand  Nestorius.  But  the  latter,  notwithstanding  the  arrogant  speech 
with  which  he  commenced  his  rule,  and  the  intolerant  and  violent 
acts  of  which  he  had  been  guilty,  seems  to  have  been  a  sincere 
man,  desirous  of  doing  what  he  believed  to  be  right.  When  there- 
fore a  good  presbyter  named  Lampon  proffered  his  friendly  offices 
between  the  two  disputants,  Nestorius  readily  accepted  his  media- 
tion, and  sent  Cyril  a  short  conciliatory  letter  which  closed  the 
correspondence.  "Lampon's  gentleness,"  he  wrote,  "has  con- 
quered me.  Nothing  is  more  powerful  than  Christian  gentleness. 
When  I  see  such  a  spirit  in  any  one  I  am  seized  with  fear ;  it  is  as 
though  God  dwelt  in  him." 

But  Cyril  was  too  envious  of  the  Byzantine  see,  and  too  full  of 
ill-will  against  his  rival,  to  lay  aside  his  hostility.  He  intrigued 
with  the  clergy  at  Constantinople ;  and  when  Nestorius  proposed 
that  the  matters  in  dispute  should  be  referred  to  a  general  council, 
he  wrote  to  Celestine  bishop  of  Borne,  sending  him  a  garbled  report 
of  the  doctrines  taught  by  Nestorius,  and  craftily  leaving  it  to  his 
decision  whether  the  offender  ought  not  to  be  deprived  of  the 
fellowship  of  the  Church.  Nestorius  likewise  sent  Celestine  an 
account  of  the  controversy,  but  in  this  letter,  instead  of  conceding 
to  the  bishop  of  Borne  any  jurisdiction  over  the  Churches,  he 
addressed  him,  as  Chrysostom  had  done,  simply  as  an  equal. 
Celestine,  as  was  to  be  expected,  espoused  the  cause  of  Cyril.  He 
pronounced  Nestorius  guilty  of  heresy,  and  directed  that  unless  he 
should  within  ten  days  present  a  written  recantation  of  his  errors, 
and  testify  his  agreement  with  the  Boman  and  Alexandrian 
Churches  on  the  birth  of  Christ,  he  should  be  degraded  and 
•excommunicated.  At  the  same  time  in  a  letter  to  Cyril,  full  of 
extravagant  praises,  he  gave  to  that  bishop  "  by  the  sovereign 
authority  of  the  Apostolic  See,"  power  to  carry  the  sentence  into 
execution.  The  copy  of  the  decree  which  he  sent  to  Nestorius  was 
accompanied  by  vehement  reproaches. 

Thus  armed,  Cyril  called  upon  Nestorius  to  recant,  and  at  the 
same  time  sent  him  a  creed  or  body  of  doctrine  set  forth  in  twelve 
formulas  of  Anathema,  which  he  required  him  to  subscribe.  This 
step  had  the  effect  of  converting  the  personal  dispute  between 
himself  and  Nestorius  into  a  rupture  with  the  Antiochian  Church. 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  EPHESUS.  205 

The  Syrian  bishops,  many  of  them  men  of  learning  and  piety,  were 
indignant  at  Cyril's  conduct ;  and  their  leader  John,  the  patriarch 
of  Antioch,  selected  Theodoret1  to  draw  up  an  answer  to  the  Ana- 
themas. In  his  answer,  however,  Theodoret  unhappily  showed 
himself  more  eager  to  confute  Cyril  than  to  discover  and  set  forth 
Scriptural  truth.  He  did  not  consider,  controversialists  seldom 
consider,  that  victory  at  the  expense  of  truth  is  not  victory,  but 
defeat. 

Meanwhile  the  messengers  of  Celestine  and  Cyril  presented  their 
demands  to  Nestorius.  Conscious  of  right,  and  of  his  independent 
dignity,  the  bishop  treated  their  message  with  disdain.  At  the 
Imperial  Court  also,  Cyril's  conduct  produced  an  unfavourable 
impression  ;  and  Theodosius  II.  acceded  to  Nestorius'  request  and 
summoned  a  general  council. 

The  council  met  at  Ephesus  in  the  year  431. 2  With  his  copy  of 
the  summons  Cyril  received  an  imperial  reprimand  for  his  meddle- 
some and  intriguing  conduct.  The  better  to  secure  calm  deliberation 
and  order,  the  Emperor  sent  down  to  Ephesus  the  Count  Candidian, 
one  of  his  wisest  ministers,  as  his  representative.  The  count 
ordered  all  strangers,  monks  and  laymen  to  quit  the  city,  and 
forbade  the  bishops  to  absent  themselves  from  the  synod  during  its 
session,  and  especially  to  visit  the  court.  Cyril  and  Nestorius 
arrived  at  Ephesus  at  the  appointed  time.  The  former  brought 
with  him  sixty  Egyptian  bishops,  blindly  devoted  to  his  will.  He 
had  also  a  powerful  colleague  in  Memnon,  bishop  of  Ephesus 
itself,  who  had  forty  prelates  under  him.  Nestorius  deemed  it 
necessary  to  obtain  from  Candidian  a  guard  of  soldiers  for  his 
protection. 

The  arrival  of  John  of  Antioch  and  the  Syrian  bishops,  who 
made  the  journey  by  land,  was  delayed  by  violent  rains  and  other 
causes,  so  that  sixteen  days  after  the  appointed  time  they  were  still 
five  or  six  days'  journey  from  the  city.  John  informed  Cyril  of 
tbis  in  a  respectful  letter  which  he  sent  to  excuse  their  delay.  But 
it  chimed  in  so  completely  with  Cyril's  purpose  to  proceed  in  the 
absence  of  the  friends  of  Nestorius,  that  he  refused  to  wait  longer. 
On  the  22nd  of  June,  therefore,  notwithstanding  the  protest  of 
Candidian  and  of  Nestorius  and  forty-one  other  bishops,  he  opened 


1  Bishop  of  Cyrus  on  the  Euphrates  and  a  fellow-student  of  Chrysostom ; 
well  known  also  as  the  author  of  one  of  that  series  of  Church  histories  (com- 
mencing with  Eusebius)  which  covered  the  first  six  centuries  of  the  Christian 
era,  and  from  which  we  have  had  frequent  occasion  to  quote. 

1  It  is  known  as  the  Third  General  Council,  Nicsea,  a.d.  325,  being  the  First 
and  Constantinople,  381,  the  Second. 


206  WITNESSES   FOR   CHBIST. 

the  synod,  having  allowed  his  party  to  place  him  in  the  chair.  The 
council  was  held  in  the  church  of  St.  Mary,  where,  as  tradition 
affirmed,  the  Virgin,  the  Theutokos,  had  been  interred.  About  200 
bishops  were  present.  Nestorius  kept  aloof,  declaring  that  he 
would  appear  only  when  all  were  assembled. 

Under  these  circumstances  an  orderly  investigation  was  not  to  be 
thought  of ;  the  issue  had  indeed  been  determined  beforehand.  In 
a  single  day,  the  assembly  sitting  from  morning  till  night,  Nestorius 
was  cited,  arraigned,  condemned,  deposed,  and  deprived  of  his 
orders.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  farce,  the  assembly  raised  a 
tumultuous  shout,  "Anathema,  Anathema  to  him  who  does  not 
anathematize  Nestorius!"  and,  as  the  narrative  has  it,  "after  many 
tears,"  proceeded  to  pass  sentence  against  him  in  the  following 
terms :  "  The  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  blasphemed  by  Nestorius,  has 
ordained  by  this  most  holy  synod,  that  he  should  be  deprived  of  his 
episcopal  rank,  and  of  all  sacerdotal  fellowship."  This  sentence 
was  signed  by  198  bishops  ; *  after  which  Eheginus  of  Constantia  in 
Cyprus  preached  a  discourse  in  which  Nestorius  was  branded  as 
"  worse  than  Cain,  as  one  under  whom  the  earth  ought  to  open  and 
swallow  him  up,  and  fire  to  rain  down  on  him  from  heaven  that  the 
simple  might  witness  his  end."  The  preacher  thus  concluded: 
"  Let  us  worship  and  adore  the  God,  Logos,  who  has  condescended 
to  walk  among  us  in  the  flesh,  without  separating  Himself  from  the 
essence  of  the  Father."2  In  the  message  to  Nestorius  which 
accompanied  the  sentence  he  was  called  **  a  new  Judas."  The 
Ephesians  were  violently  orthodox,  and  when  the  sentence  was 
proclaimed  by  heralds,  it  caused  tumultuous  rejoicing  in  the  city. 
The  people,  who  had  waited  from  morning  till  evening,  broke  out 
into  shouts  of  triumph,  and  escorted  Cyril  and  the  bishops  in  state 
to  their  houses  with  torches  and  censers.8  We  need  not  stay  to 
characterize  this  council  as  it  deserves,  because  it  was  succeeded 
some  years  later  by  one  far  more  violent  and  infamous. 

1  Some  of  the  subscriptions  are  found  in  this  form  :  "  I have  subscribed 

by  the  hand  of ,  because  I  cannot  write."  It  was  the  same  with  the  signa- 
tures at  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  eighteen  years  afterwards. 

2  "As  if,"  remarks  Neander,  "this  worship  of  the  incarnate  God  did  not 
exist  among  the  party  of  Nestorius,  because  they  expressed  themselves  in  other 
language  !  Thus,"  he  adds,  "a  new  slavery  to  forms  of  expression  in  religion 
was  again  to  be  substituted  in  place  of  the  worship  of  God  in  spirit  and  in 
truth ! " 

8  These  events  and  the  place  suggest  a  parallel  with  Acts  xix.  34,  35  ;  as  if, 
-almost,  the  Theotokot  had  taken  the  place  of  the  Dio-petes,  Diana  of  the 
Ephesians. 


EIVAIi   COUNCILS.  207 

The  council  sent  to  the  Emperor  a  party  statement  of  what  had 
been  done,  full  of  perversions  of  the  truth  regarding  Nestorius ;  and 
prayed  for  an  order  that  the  "writings  of  that  heretic  might  be 
burned  wherever  they  were  found.  Nestorius  and  ten  of  his  friends 
sent  up  a  counter-memorial,  complaining  of  the  arbitrary  and 
illegal  proceedings  of  Cyril  and  Memnon,  demanding  protection, 
and  praying  the  Emperor  to  summon  a  new  and  impartial  assembly. 
Candidian  also  drew  up  his  report,  in  which  he  gave  it  as  his  judg- 
ment that  the  decrees  of  the  synod  could  have  no  legal  validity. 

In  the  midst  of  these  transactions,  John  of  Antioch  and  the 
Syrian  bishops,  thirty  in  number,  arrived  at  Ephesus,  and  in  con- 
junction with  the  other  prelates  friendly  to  Nestorius,  proceeded 
very  imprudently  to  constitute  themselves  a  new  council.1  With 
still  greater  imprudence  they  passed  sentence  of  deposition  upon 
Cyril  and  Memnon,  and  excommunicated  all  who  had  taken  part  in 
the  proceedings  against  Nestorius.  Now  also  came  upon  the  scene 
the  deputies  of  the  Eoman  bishop,  who  had  been  detained  by  con- 
trary winds,  and  who,  according  to  their  instructions,  approved  of 
all  that  Cyril  had  done.  Thus  fortified,  the  Cyrillian  council  pro- 
ceeded to  summon  before  it  John  of  Antioch  and  his  associates,  and 
when  they  refused  to  appear  passed  sentence  of  suspension  against 
them.  The  Emperor,  on  receiving  Candidian's  report,  sent  a  letter 
to  the  synod,  censuring  the  conduct  of  its  members,  and  declaring 
that  he  could  not  approve  of  any  judgment  upon  the  doctrines  in 
dispute,  which  did  not  proceed  from  the  whole  united  council. 
Unable  to  offer  any  reasonable  bar  to  this  equitable  decree,  Cyril 
called  in  the  aid  of  fanaticism. 

There  was  at  Constantinople  an  archimandrite,2  held  in  great 
verneration,  named  Dalmatius.  For  forty-eight  years  he  had  lived 
in  seclusion.  The  Emperor  himself  had  sought  his  help,  but  could 
never  prevail  upon  him,  even  in  times  of  public  calamity,  to  leave 
his  cell.  Dalmatius  had  from  the  first  regarded  Nestorius  as  a 
teacher  of  error,  and  was  wont  to  say  to  those  who  visited  him : 
"  Take  heed  to  yourselves,  my  brethren,  an  evil  beast  is  come  into 
this  city  who  may  do  you  an  injury."  To  this  man  Cyril  sent  an 
account  of  the  judgment  passed  upon  Nestorius,  and  of  the  affliction 
which,  as  he  pretended,  the  faithful  were  suffering  at  his  hands. 
The  arrival  of  the  letter  set  the  whole  body  of  zealous  monks  in 
commotion.     Dalmatius  imagined  himself  summoned  by  a  voice 

1  They  are  henceforth  spoken  of  as  the  Oriental  Party. 
8  Archimandrite,  "  ruler  over  the  fold,"  signifies  an  abbot  or  superior  of 
monasteries. 


208  WITNESSES    FOB    CHRIST. 

from  heaven  to  come  forth  at  last  from  his  seclusion  in  order  to 
save  the  Church  from  ruin.  The  abhots  and  monks  issued  from 
their  cloisters,  and  chanting  psalms,  with  torches  in  their  hands, 
marched  in  procession  with  Dalmatius  at  their  head  to  the  palace 
of  the  Emperor.  Vast  multitudes  followed  and  stood  before  the 
gate,  chanting  in  their  choirs,  whilst  the  abbots  were  admitted  to 
an  audience.  In  the  presence  of  a  full  court  Dalmatius  addressed 
the  Emperor  in  a  bold  and  confident  tone,  and  handing  him  the 
letter  of  the  synod,  asked,  to  whom  he  would  give  ear,  to  six  thou- 
sand bishops,  or  to  one  godless  man  ?  The  weak-minded  Emperor 
promised  that  the  Cyrillian  party  should  be  allowed  to  send  deputies 
to  Constantinople.  When  Dalmatius  announced  to  the  multitudes 
outside  that  a  favourable  answer  had  been  received,  the  vast  pro- 
cession, singing  the  150th  Psalm,  marched  forward  to  one  of  the 
churches,  where  Dalmatius  read  the  letter  of  the  synod  and  gave  an 
account  of  his  audience.  As  soon  as  he  had  finished,  a  universal 
shout  was  raised,  "  Anathema  to  Nestorius !" 

Acting  on  the  permission  thus  granted,  Cyril  sent  three  bishops 
to  Constantinople.  The  effect  of  their  influence  was  soon  appa- 
rent. Some  who  had  hitherto  numbered  themselves  amongst  the 
friends  of  Nestorius  were  won  over  to  the  opposite  side.  To  one  of 
these  the  persecuted  bishop  wrote  a  touching  letter,  not  reproaching 
him  for  his  defection,  but  vindicating  his  own  orthodoxy,  and  de- 
claring how  thankful  he  would  be  to  return  to  the  tranquillity  of 
his  old  cloister  life.  The  Oriental  bishops  on  their  part  were  not' 
idle.  They  still  had  friends  at  court,  one  of  whom,  the  count 
Irenaeus,  a  colleague  of  Candidian,  laboured  to  counteract  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Cyrillian  bishops.  His  success,  however  was  only 
partial ;  the  Emperor's  understanding  was  convinced,  but  he  was  a 
tool  of  court  parties,  which  in  turn  were  directed  by  outside  in- 
fluences. All  he  could  do  was  to  order  that  the  three  deposed 
bishops,  Nestorius,  Cyril,  and  Memnon,  should  remain  deposed, 
and  that  the  rest  of  the  council  should  lay  aside  their  mutual 
contention,  and  prepare  to  return  to  their  own  sees  m  peace  and 
concord.1 

The  Imperial  message  was  entrusted  to  the  count  John,  one  of 

.  the  secretaries  of  state,  who  invited  the  bishops  on  both  sides  to 

meet  him  at  his  own  apartment  in   Ephesus.     But  instead   of 

1  The  extreme  heat  of  the  summer,  and  confinement  within  the  walls  of 
Ephesus,  affected  the  health  of  many  of  the  bishops,  as  well  as  of  their  atten- 
dants ;  several  died,  while  many  who  had  not  made  provision  for  so  long  an 
absence  from  their  homes,  were  reduced  to  distress  for  the  means  of  sub- 
sistence. 


NESTORIUS    SENT    BACK   TO    HIS    CLOISTER.  209 

listening  to  what  he  had  to  say,  the  two  parties,  as  soon  as  they 
met,  fell  into  vehement  disputes,  which  lasted  the  greater  part  of 
the  day  and  went  on  even  to  blows.  Unable  to  bring  them  to 
reason,  the  count  caused  Cyril  and  Nestorius  to  be  forcibly  re- 
moved ;  after  which  he  laboured  in  every  way  to  restore  harmony. 
John  of  Antioch  and  his  friends  were  prepared  to  make  concessions; 
but  the  Cyrillians,  to  whom  the  person  of  their  leader  was  of  much 
more  importance  than  that  of  Nestorius  was  to  his  party,  were  not 
so  compliant,  and  when  the  count  proposed  that  a  common  con- 
fession of  faith  should  be  drawn  up,  they  would  have  nothing  to  do 
with  it.  One  point  on  which  the  Emperor  had  expressly  insisted 
was  that  the  Oriental  bishops  should  declare  themselves  in  favour 
of  the  Theotokos.  In  accordance  with  this,  the  more  moderate 
amongst  them  drew  up  a  confession,  in  whicb,  whilst  the  two 
natures  in  Christ  were  distinguished  with  precision,  a  sense  was 
admitted  in  which  the  term  Theotokos  might  be  used.  This  con- 
cession, however,  was  distasteful  to  the  more  zealous  of  the  party, 
who  wholly  rejected  the  term. 

Count  John  seeing  that  all  his  pains  to  restore  peace  were  in- 
effectual, advised  the  Emperor  to  send  for  deputies  from  both  sides, 
and  to  enter  himself  into  a  personal  investigation  of  the  whole 
matter.  To  this  the  Emperor  agreed ;  and  eight  bishops  from  each 
party  went  up  to  Constantinople.  Soon  after  their  departure  from 
Ephesus,  Nestorius  was  informed  that  the  Emperor,  in  court 
phrase,  "had  given  him  permission"  to  return  to  his  cloister. 
Weary  of  strife  and  care,  he  gladly  obeyed,  and  retired  to  his  cell 
outside  the  gates  of  Antioch.  At  the  same  time  Cyril  and  Memnon 
were  by  an  Imperial  decree  restored  to  their  episcopal  dignity. 

When  the  deputies  of  the  two  parties  arrived  at  Chalcedon,  they 
were  directed  not  to  cross  the  Bosphorus  into  Constantinople,  for 
fear  of  exciting  an  insurrection  of  the  monks.  This  prohibition, 
in  the  case  of  the  Cyrillians,  was  presently  withdrawn  ;  whilst  the 
Oriental  delegates,  still  detained  on  the  Asiatic  side,  were  set  upon 
by  the  ferocious  monks  of  the  suburb,  and  some  of  them  wounded. 
By  this  time  the  mind  of  the  Emperor  had  become  entirely  closed 
against  Nestorius,  and  when  the  restoration  of  that  bishop  to  his 
see  was  urged  by  some  members  of  the  privy  council,  he  cried,. 
"Let  no  one  speak  to  me  of  Nestorius ;  I  have  had  enough  of  him 
already."  The  Oriental  deputies,  after  five  pretended  audiences, 
seeing  that  their  longer  talliance  would  be  to  no  purpose,  obtained 
leave  to  return  to  their  homes  ;  as  did  also  the  reot  of  the  bishops 
who  had  remained  at  Ephesus. 

Notwithstanding  all  that  had  taken  place,  there  was  little  dispo- 


210  WITNESSES   FOB    CHEIST. 

sition  at  the  Imperial  Court  to  support  Cyril  in  his  antagonism  to 
the  Orientals.  His  dogmatic  stiffness  was  regarded  as  the  cause  of 
the  continued  divisions  in  the  Church.  To  further  his  case  he  had 
recourse  to  the  arts  of  cajolery  and  bribery,  and  spent  so  much 
money  on  chamberlains  and  court  ladies,  that  the  Churches  of 
Alexandria  were  burdened  with  debt. 

But  if  Cyril  was  regarded  with  suspicion,  the  hatred  against 
Nestorius  grew  more  and  more  intense.  Even  John  of  Antioch 
now  wavered,  and  at  length  drew  off  from  his  old  friend  and  ally. 
Cyril,  on  his  part,  finding  his  intrigues  produce  but  little  fruit, 
began  to  see  that  a  timely  concession  might  win  over  the  moderate 
Orientals  to  the  condemnation  of  Nestorius.  An  iniquitous  com- 
pact was  accordingly  entered  into  between  the  two  parties.  Cyril 
subscribed  a  confession  of  faith,  essentially  identical  with  that 
which  the  moderate  Orientals  had  sent  up  to  Constantinople.  John 
of  Antioch  consented  to  condemn  Nestorius,  and  to  recognize  Maxi- 
mian  as  bishop  of  Constantinople  in  his  place.  This  compromise, 
made  in  the  year  432,  met  with  the  usual  fate  of  such  hollow  and 
artificial  reconciliations.  Concealing  the  inward  schism  which  still 
continued  to  exist,  it  merely  served  to  call  forth  new  divisions. 
Cyril  was  accused  by  the  zealots  of  his  party  of  betraying  his  own 
cause,  whilst  in  his  "  confession"  the  Ultra-Orientals  saw  the  hated 
spectre  of  Apollinarianism  rise  again  into  view.1 

But  whilst  there  were  divisions  in  the  Oriental  camp  with  regard 
to  the  scheme  of  doctrine  now  put  forth  by  Cyril,  there  was  little 
disposition  to  follow  John's  example  in  condemning  Nestorius. 
With  Theodoret  at  their  head,  the  Syrian  bishops  declared  that 
they  would  consent  "  neither  with  hand,  tongue,  nor  heart,"  to  the 
unjust  and  wicked  sentence  which  had  been  passed  upon  him  ;  and 
they  not   only  continued  to  regard  Cyril  as  excluded   from   the 

1  One  of  the  Oriental  bishops,  Andreas  of  Samosata,  relates  a  singular 
dream.  He  found  himself  in  an  assembly  of  bishops,  where  he  was  told  that 
the  heretic  Apollinaris  was  in  reality  still  living.  Andreas  in  astonishment 
asked  several  times  whether  this  really  was  so,  and  Alexander  assured  him  it 
was.  All  at  once  they  entered  a  house  where  Apollinaris,  in  extreme  old  age, 
lay  upon  a  bed.  As  they  were  about  to  take  their  seats  by  the  bedside  the  old 
man  rose  and  distributed  the  elements  of  the  Supper.  The  bishop  John  of 
Antioch  sitting  on  the  bed  received  the  bread  and  wine  from  his  hand.  But 
Andreas  with  indignation  said  within  himself,  "  What  accommodation  to  cir- 
cumstances is  this  !  it  is  a  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost ;  it  is  trifling  with  the 
incarnation  of  our  Lord."  With  these  words  he  awoke,  and  gave  earnest  ex- 
pression to  the  wish  that  the  dream  might  not  prove  true,  that  Apollinaris,  who 
had  re-appeared,  so  to  speak,  in  Cyril,  might  not  bring  them  all  over  to  his 
•own  dootrine. 


PERSECUTION    OF   THE    ORIENTAL    BISHOPS.  211 

■Church,  but  they  excommuicated  all  who  accepted  the  compromise. 
Encroaching  conduct  on  the  part  of  John  still  further  estranged 
them  from  him,  and  the  schism  which  thus  arose  in  the  diocese  of 
Antioch,  spread  into  other  parts  of  the  East,  until  there  was  formed 
an  association  of  bishops  who  were  opposed  to  the  three  patriarchs 
of  Constantinople,  Alexandria,  and  Antioch. 

Nestorius  was  still  dear  to  many  at  Constantinople,  and  on  the 
death  of  Maximian,  in  433,  vast  multitudes  assembled  and  de- 
manded his  restoration,  threatening  in  case  of  refusal  to  set  fire  to 
the  cathedral.  This  demonstration  however  was  of  no  avail. 
Proclus,  who  had  been,  as  we  have  seen,  one  of  the  first  to  oppose 
Nestorius,  was  elected  patriarch,  and  leagued  himself  with  Cyril 
and  John,  in  supporting  the  unnatural  compact  of  the  previous 
year.  The  two  latter,  determined  to  overcome  the  resistance  of  the 
Oriental  Church,  employed  threats  and  bribery,  and  even  obtained 
an  Imperial  edict  for  the  expulsion  of  such  bishops  as  refused  to 
accept  the  articles  of  agreement.  Men  who  for  a  long  period  of 
years  had  given  their  lives  wholly  to  their  spiritual  office,  were  now 
threatened  with  a  forcible  separation  from  the  communities  by 
whom  they  were  beloved  and  respected,  because  the  arbitrary  will 
of  a  few  individuals  found  it  possible  through  the  Court  to  rule 
•over  the  Church. 

Most  of  the  bishops,  including  even  Theodoret,  bent  before  the 
storm.  A  few  remained  faithful,  and  were  driven  from  their  sees 
by  military  force.  Amongst  these  are  especially  to  be  named 
Meletius  of  Mopsuestia  and  Alexander,  the  venerable  bishop  of 
Hierapolis,  who  set  the  noble  example  of  preferring  the  answer  of 
a  good  conscience  above  worldly  advantage  and  imperial  favour. 
Alexander  boldly  declared  that  even  if  the  dead  were  to  rise  and 
testify  in  favour  of  the  Egyptian  doctrines,  he  must  yet  be  true  to 
Iris  own  conscience,  and  reject  them.  "When  he  was  torn  from  his 
own  flock,  a  universal  lamentation  arose  through  the  city;  the 
churches  were  closed,  and  it  was  necessary  to  open  them  by  force. 
Meletius,  when  reproached  with  the  presumption  of  standing  out 
alone  against  the  united  judgment  of  the  whole  Christian  world, 
replied  that  God  has  given  to  men  the  dominion  over  their  own 
will ;  whence  it  has  often  happened,  as  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments show,  that  a  few,  inspired  by  faith  in  God,  have  defended 
the  truth  against  the  multitude.  "Pardon  me,  I  pray  you,"  he 
said,  "  if  I  find  myself  unable  to  deceive  my  own  conscience.  As 
isoon  as  I  see  the  order  for  my  removal  signed  by  the  Emperor's 
•own  hand,  I  shall  leave  the  church,  still  praising  God  as  before.  I 
am  ready  by  his  grace  not  only  to  give  up  my  church,  but  to  die  a 


212  WITNESSES   FOB    CHRIST. 

thousand  deaths  rather  than  sin  against  my  conscience."  He  was 
banished  to  Armenia.  Neither  of  these  faithful  Witnesses  had 
saved  enough  money  to  defray  the  expenses  of  his  journey. 

Thus  forsaken  by  almost  all  his  friends,  and  every  day  more 
hated  at  the  Imperial  Court,  the  very  name  of  Nestorius  became  a 
byword  and  a  reproach,  and  continued  to  be  such  for  many  succes- 
sive ages.  His  enemies  grudged  him  the  tranquillity  he  enjoyed  in 
his  cloister  before  the  gates  of  Antioch;  and  the  Koman  bishop 
Celestine,  so  early  as  432,  called  upon  the  Emperor  to  remove  from 
society  the  man  who  had  been  condemned  by  the  judgment  of  the 
whole  Church,  and  who  still  persisted  in  his  "  blasphemous  errors." 
He  was,  however,  left  unmolested  until  435,  when  Cyril  and  John, 
in  the  prosecution  of  their  unholy  alliance,  procured  his  banish- 
ment. The  place  of  his  exile  was  one  of  the  oases  of  Egypt,  pro- 
bably the  Great  Oasis.  After  remaining  there  a  while  he  was 
carried  off  by  some  Libyan  barbarians,  who  however  had  com- 
passion upon  him,  set  him  at  liberty,  and  warned  him  to  seek  a 
safer  place  of  abode.  He  went  to  the  town  of  Panapolis  in  the 
Thebais  ;  but  here  the  prefect,  more  barbarous  than  the  barbarians, 
caused  the  aged  bishop,  now  enfeebed  by  hardship,  to  be  hurried 
by  his  soldiers  pitilessly  from  place  to  place.  Of  the  manner  in 
which  he  ended  his  days,  no  certain  account  has  come  down  to  us. 
During  his  exile  he  enjoyed  sufficient  composure  of  mind  to  write 
a  history  of  the  controversy  in  which  he  had  been  engaged.  In  this 
production,  which  he  styled  Tragedy,  and  of  which  only  some  few 
extracts  have  survived,  he  forcibly  exposes  the  intrigues  of  Cyril, 
but  speaks  with  more  forbearance  of  those  who  had  been  the  dupes 
of  that  bishop. 

The  followers  of  Nestorius  were  numerous.  Driven  beyond  the 
bounds  of  the  Empire,  their  teachers  sought  a  refuge  in  the  school 
of  Edessa,  from  whence  their  doctrines  spread  into  Persia,1  India, 
and  Tartary,  and  even  into  the  heart  of  northern  China.  They  had 
churches  also  in  Syria,  Arabia,  and  Cyprus.  At  the  present  day 
they  are  found  in  the  mountains  of  Kurdistan  and  the  plain  of 
Oroomiah  on  the  confines  of  Persia  and  Armenia.  Although 
ignorant,  they  are  in  many  ways  more  simple  and  spiritual  than 
the  other  Oriental  Churches.  They  reject  the  use  of  images,  the 
worship  of  Mary  as  the  mother  of  God,  and  the  doctrine  of  purga- 
tory. They  do  not  practise  auricular  confession  ;  and  their  priests 
mainly  support  themselves  by  labour.  Both  bishops  and  presbyters 
are  permitted  to  marry.     Their  worship  is  more  simple  than  that 

1  Syriac  became  the  ritual  language  of  the  Persian  Church. 


DIOSCOKUS    OF   ALEXANDRIA.  213 

of  the  Greek  Church,  and  they  are  more  accessible  to  the  message 
of  the  Gospel.     They  have  been  styled  the  Protestants  of  Asia. 

The  banishment  of  Nestorius  brought  no  relief  to  his  followers. 
The  same  year  a  new  Imperial  edict  appeared,  ordaining  that  the 
Nestorians  should  for  the  future  be  called  Simonians,1  that  all  who 
should  copy,  preserve,  or  read  the  writings  of  Nestorius  should  be 
severely  punished,  and  that  all  bishops  who  defended  him  should 
be  deposed.  All  meetings  of  Nestorians  for  divine  worship  were 
forbidden.  A  military  tribune  was  sent  into  the  Antiochian  diocese 
to  enforce  this  law.  But  Theodoret  and  some  others  refused  to 
stoop  to  any  further  concession. 

In  the  midst  of  these  conflicts  death  carried  off  Cyril  from  the 
scene  of  his  restless  strife,  a.d.  444.  But  the  spirit  of  Cyril  sur- 
vived in  his  successor.2  This  was  Dioscorus,  a  man  of  like  ambi- 
tion, of  an  irascible  and  boisterous  temper,  and  a  loose  manner  of 
life,  who  stuck  at  no  means,  however  infamous,  to  attain  his  object. 
He  inherited  the  aims  as  well  as  some  of  the  traits  of  his  prede- 
cessor, and  laboured  with  equal  zeal  to  make  the  doctrine  of  the 
one  nature  in  Christ  dominant,  and  to  exalt  the  Alexandrian  see 
above  that  of  Constantinople.  The  Oriental  Churches,  led  now  by 
Theodoret,  were  the  principal  object  of  his  attack  ;  he  had  as  allies 
within  those  Churches  a  party  of  monks  and  clergy,  the  abbot 
Barsumas  at  their  head,  who  had  acted  as  spies  to  Cyril  and  creators 
of  disturbance. 

At  Constantinople  there  continued  to  be  an  influential  body  of 
abbots  and  monks,  who,  deficient  in  intellectual  culture,  and  unable 
to  apprehend  any  system  but  that  which  appealed  to  their  feelings, 
naturally  gravitated  towards  the  Alexandrian  doctrine,  which  in 
fact  they  carried  to  an  extreme.  "  We  hold  fast  to  the  Scriptures," 
so  they  were  accustomed  to  say,  "  and  these  declare  that  the  Word 
became  flesh.  In  becoming  flesh  He  assuredly  underwent  no 
change.  He  is  the  same ;  and  this  is  the  inexpressible  wonder. 
God  was  born ;  God  suffered ;  God  has  a  body.  The  how  is  what 
no  reason  can  explain.  It  is  not  for  us  to  know  more  than  Scrip- 
ture reveals.     All  beyond  is  dangerous  to  faith." 3 


1  From  Simon  Magus ;  a  common  epithet  of  detestation  for  inveterate  here- 
tics : — "  even,"  says  the  Edict,  "  as  the  Arians  were  styled  Porphyrians  by  a  law 
of  Constantine  of  blessed  memory." 

2  In  regard  to  Cyril,  it  is  due  to  say  that  some  historians  take  a  much  more 
favourable  view  of  his  character  and  aims. 

3  They  spoke  of  the  Saviour's  humanity  as  "  absorbed  in  his  Godhead,  like  a 
drop  of  honey  in  the  ocean." 


214  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

The  leader  of  this  party  was  the  abbot  Eutyches,1  and  from  him 
the  new  stage  of  the  protracted  contest  has  been  called  the  Euty- 
chian  Controversy.  This  man  had  lived  from  youth  to  old  age 
shut  up  in  his  cloister,  which  he  had  never  quitted  but  once, 
namely,  at  the  time  of  the  Cyrillian  Council  at  Ephesus,  when  he 
had  come  abroad  in  public  to  raise  his  voice  against  Nestorius.  It 
was  the  writings  of  Theodoret  which  now  again  drew  him  out  to 
oppose  the  "  pernicious  doctrines  "  of  those  who,  as  he  expressed 
it,  divided  the  one  and  only  Christ  into  two  Sons  of  God.  At  the 
same  time  Theodoret  in  a  fresh  treatise  challenged  both  Dioscorus 
and  Eutyches,  skilfully  attacking  the  whole  type  of  doctrine  which 
they  set  forth,  and  making  an  able  defence  of  the  Antiochian  theo- 
logy. Dioscorus,  instead  of  defending  himself  with  the  pen,  accused 
Theodoret  before  the  new  patriarch  of  Antioch,  Domnus — who  had 
succeeded  to  that  see  on  the  death  of  his  uncle  John — of  preaching 
two  Sons  of  God.  Theodoret  saw  the  danger,  and  expressed  his 
readiness  to  condemn  such  as  refused  to  call  Mary  Theotokos.  But 
this  concession  came  too  late.  Dioscorus  sent  a  memorial  to  the 
Emperor,  accusing  the  whole  Oriental  Church  of  Nestorianism ; 
and  Theodoret  received  orders  to  keep  quiet  and  not  to  leave  his 
own  diocese. 

At  this  juncture  the  scene  suddenly  shifted.     Flavian,  who  in 

1  "  As  Nestorius,  teaching  rightly  that  God  and  man  are  distinct  natures,  did 
thereupon  misinfer  that  in  Christ  those  natures  can  by  no  conjunction  make 
one  person  ;  so  Eutyches,  of  sound  belief  as  teaching  their  true  personal  con- 
junction, became  unsound  by  denying  the  difference  which  still  continueth  be- 
tween the  one  and  the  other  natures." — Hooker.  The  same  judicious  writer 
thus  sums  up  the  four  points  which  express  the  whole  nature  of  Christ,  with 
the  corresponding  heresies  regarding  them,  and  the  councils  at  which  they  were 
condemned.  "  There  are  but  four  things  which  concur  to  make  complete  the 
whole  state  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  :  his  deity,  his  manhood,  the  conjunction 
of  both,  and  the  distinction  of  one  from  the  other  being  joined  into  one.  Four 
principal  heresies  there  are,  which  have  in  these  things  withstood  the  truth : 
Arians,  by  bending  themselves  against  the  deity  of  Christ ;  Apollinarians,  by 
maiming  and  misinterpreting  that  which  belongeth  to  his  human  nature ; 
Nestorians,  by  rending  Christ  asunder,  and  dividing  Him  into  two  persons  ;  the 
followers  of  Eutyches,  by  confounding  in  his  person  those  natures  which  they 
should  distinguish.  Against  these  there  have  been  four  most  famous  councils : 
the  Council  of  Nicaea,  to  define  against  Arians ;  against  Apollinarians,  the 
Council  of  Constantinople  ;  the  Council  of  Ephesus,  against  Nestorians ;  against 
Eutychians,  the  Chalcedon  Council.  In  four  words,  alethos,  teleos,  adiairetos, 
asugchutos,  truly,  perfectly,  indivisibly,  distinctly  ;  the  first  applied  to  his  being 
God,  the  second  to  his  being  man,  the  third  to  his  being  of  both  One,  and  the 
fourth  to  his  still  continuing  in  that  one  Both ;  we  may  fully,  by  way  of 
abridgment,  comprise  whatsoever  antiquity  hath  at  large  handled  either  in  de- 
claration of  Christian  belief,  or  in  refutation  of  the  foresaid  heresies." 


THE    ROBBER    COUNCIL.  215 

446  succeeded  Proclus  as  bishop  of  Constantinople,  assembled  two 
years  later  a  local  or  home  synod,  as  it  was  termed.  In  this 
assembly,  Eutyches,  whose  crude  theology  was  as  hateful  to  many 
as  that  of  his  opponent  Nestorius  had  been,  was  formally  arraigned 
and  excommunicated  as  a  heretic.  This  rash  act,  committed  in  the 
face  of  the  Emperor's  displeasure,  and  in  spite  of  the  popularity 
and  influence  of  the  accused,  was  acquiesced  in  unwillingly  by 
Flavian,  who  was  carried  away  by  the  tide  he  could  not  stem. 
Eutyches  and  his  party  cried  aloud  for  a  general  council. 

The  "  Second  Council  of  Ephesus"  was  accordingly  summoned 
in  449.  It  was  never  designed  to  be  a  free  assembly  of  the  Church ; 
it  was  merely  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  Dioscorus,  Eutyches 
and  the  Emperor,  for  the  overthrow  of  Flavian,  and,  as  Theodosius 
expressed  it,  "  the  extirpation  of  the  devilish  root  of  the  Nestorian 
heresy."  Dioscorus  was  nominated  president.  Flavian  was  to 
have  no  vote.  In  order  to  counterbalance  the  still  dreaded  influence 
of  Theodoret  and  the  Oriental  bishops,  a  seat  was  given  to  the 
abbot  Barsumas,  as  the  representative  of  the  orthodox  archi- 
mandrites, who,  in  many  places  of  the  East,  were  in  antagonism 
to  their  bishops.  Lastly  two  counts  of  the  Empire  were  included 
that  they  might  employ  the  secular  power  in  support  of  the  domi- 
nant party.  The  Egyptian  bishops  who  accompanied  Dioscorus 
were  men  of  a  violent  and  fanatical  spirit,  and  Barsumas  was 
attended  by  a  "  thousand  rabid  monks  and  a  troop  of  brawny  hos- 
pital waiters,"  whose  fierce  shouts  showed  they  were  ready  for 
strife  and  outrage.  But  the  cause  of  injustice  derived  its  greatest 
strength  from  the  cowardice  or  covetousness  of  many  of  the  bishops, 
who  loved  honour  and  office  more  than  the  truth.  They  professed 
Christ  with  the  lips,  but  in  act  and  spirit  they  denied  Him.  When 
a  formal  complaint  was  about  to  be  brought  against  a  bishop, 
accused  of  unchastity  and  other  offences,  Dioscorus  dismissed  the 
whole  matter.  "  If,"  said  he,  "  you  have  a  complaint  against  his 
orthodoxy,  we  shall  receive  it,  but  we  have  not  come  here  to  pass 
judgment  on  unchastity."  They  were,  in  fact,  "  for  acting,"  re- 
marks Theodoret,  "  as  if  Christ  had  give  us  a  rule  of  faith  merely, 
and  not  a  rule  of  practice." 

The  proceedings  were  violent  and  disorderly  from  the  beginning ; 
Dioscorus  turned  out  all  reporters  but  those  of  his  own  party.  He 
opened  the  synod  by  declaring  that  the  Council  of  Nicaea  and  the 
Council  of  Ephesus  had  established  one  and  the  same  creed,  which 
was  unalterable.  "  Accursed  then,"  he  exclaimed,  "  be  he  who 
would  unsettle  again  what  was  there  determined !  "  In  response 
to  which  the  assembly  shouted  out :  "  On  this  depends  the  salva- 


216  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

tion  of  the   world  !      God  save  the  bishop  Dioscorus,   the  great 
guardian  of  the  faith  ! " 

"  Eutyches  laid  before  the  council  a  written  confession  of  faith, 
which  having  been  read  and  approved,  Flavian  called  upon  Euse- 
bius  of  Dorylseum  to  read  and  make  good  the  charges  he  had  pre- 
ferred against  Eutyches  at  the  home  synod.  This  was  not  allowed, 
and  the  acts  of  the  synod  were  merely  read  over.  No  disturbance 
arose  until  the  part  taken  by  Eusebius  in  urging  Eutyches  to 
acknowledge  two  natures  in  Christ  after  the  incarnation,  came 
under  review,  and  then  all  was  confusion  and  uproar."  The 
Egyptian  bishops  and  the  whole  throng  of  monks  who  accom- 
panied Barsumas,  exclaimed :  "  Divide  asunder  the  man  who  speaks 
of  two  natures  !  He  who  speaks  of  two  natures  is  a  Nestorius." 
Eusebius  attempted  to  explain,  but  was  interrupted  by  cries  of, 
"  Burn  Eusebius  !  let  him  be  burned  alive  !  As  he  has  cut  Christ 
asunder,  so  let  him  be  cut  asunder  ! "  The  president  put  the  ques- 
tion :  "  Is  the  doctrine  that  there  are  two  natures  after  the  incar- 
nation to  be  tolerated  ?"  The  answer  was  returned  :  "  Anathema 
on  him  who  so  says !  "  '  "  I  have  your  voices,"  replied  Dioscorus, 
"  I  must  have  your  hands  !  He  who  cannot  cry,  let  him  lift  up  his 
hands!"  All  hands  were  raised,  with  the  shout:  "Expel,  burn, 
tear,  cut  asunder,  massacre — all  who  hold  two  natures  ! " 

Dioscorus  then  demanded  the  condemnation  of  Eusebius  and 
Flavian.  The  bishops  now  perceived  that  they  had  gone  too  far, 
and  a  number  of  them  gathered  round,  imploring  him  on  their 
knees  not  to  proceed  further.  Disregarding  their  entreaties  he 
exclaimed :  "  Call  in  the  counts  ! "  The  pro-consul  of  Asia  entered, 
attended  by  soldiers  and  monks,  with  swords,  clubs  and  chains. 
The  bishops  in  terror  attempted  to  hide  themselves  in  corners  of 
the  church,  or  under  the  benches;  they  were  dragged  out,  and 
with  threats  and  blows  compelled  to  sign  a  blank  paper  on  which 
the  condemnation  of  Flavian  was  to  be  written.  It  is  said  that 
Dioscorus  and  Barsumas  struck  the  aged  Flavian  on  the  face, 
kicked  him,  and  stamped  on  him,  Barsumas  shouting,  "  Strike 
him,  strike  him  dead!"  He  was  taken  out  of  the  council  hall; 
and  being  dragged  by  the  soldiers  to  Hypepe,  a  village  at  a  short 
distance  from  the  city,  expired  three  days  after.  Eusebius  and 
Theodoret  were  deposed  and  the  former  imprisoned.  The  Roman 
legates  offered  a  fruitless  resistance  to  these  barbarous  and  tyran- 
nical acts.1 

1  Neander  remarks  that  the  bishops,  in  palliation  afterwards  of  their  own 
conduct,  had  strong  inducements  to  exaggerate  the  violence  used  on  this  occa- 
sion, and  that  many  contradictions  may  be  detected  in  their  testimony.  "  Still,' 


WOLVES  IN  THE  FOLD.   POPE  LEO  THE  GREAT.        217 

To  this  infamous  assembly  Leo  of  Rome,  doubtless  not  unin- 
fluenced by  the  treatment  his  own  representatives  had  received, 
gave  the  expressive  name  of  the  Robber  Synod  (Latrocinium). 
"  Terrible  was  the  day  on  which  it  opened,"  writes  the  abbe  Mar- 
tin ;  "  the  true  faith  received  in  the  East  a  shock  from  which  it 
has  never  since  completely  recovered.  The  Church  witnessed  the 
separation  from  herself  of  nations  which  have  never  returned  to 
her,  and  perhaps  never  will."  It  seems  to  us  hardly  credible  that 
such  a  scene  could  ever  be  tolerated  either  by  Church  or  Emperor. 
We  see  the  literal  fulfilment  of  Paul's  prediction  to  the  elders  of 
this  very  city:  "Grievous  wolves  shall  enter  in  among  you,  not 
sparing  the  flock."  What  were  such  synods  but  herds  of  wolves 
in  disguise,  holding  high  council  as  though  they  were  the  true 
shepherds  ?  To  what  purpose  is  it  that  the  Holy  Ghost  says  : 
"The  Lord's  servant  must  not  strive,  but  be  gentle  towards  all; 
correcting  in  meekness  them  that  oppose  themselves  "  ? 

So  corrupt  were  the  times  that  the  very  bishops  who  had  taken 
part  in  the  home  synod  of  Constantinople  under  Flavian,  hastened 
to  give  their  adhesion  to  the  decrees  of  the  Robber  Council.  But 
this  concession  could  not  save  the  party.  Many  of  the  most  worthy 
bishops  of  the  East  were  deposed.  By  these  measures  Dioscorus 
succeeded  at  last  in  silencing,  if  he  could  not  extinguish,  the 
Oriental  Church. 

The  sagacious  churchman  who  then  filled  the  Roman  chair,  and 
of  whom  it  has  been  said  that  he  "possessed  every  virtue  com- 
patible with  an  unbounded  ambition,"1  had  been  no  unconcerned 
spectator  of  the  Nestorian  Controversy.  He  considered  himself  to  be 
of  right,  as  Peter's  successor,  the  chief  shepherd  of  the  entire 
Church,  and  the  hope  of  establishing  universal  dominion,  no  less 
than  his  own  sound  theological  convictions,  compelled  him  to  inter- 
fere. His  strong  clear  intellect  perceived  the  importance  of  the 
question  at  issue,  and  two  months  before  the  Robber  Council  met, 

he  adds,  "it  is  clear  that  force  was  resorted  to  in  various  ways  ;  that  the 
bishops  were  kept  confined  for  a  whole  day  in  the  church ;  that  they  were 
menaced  by  soldiers  and  monks  till  they  had  subscribed ;  and  that  blank  papers 
were  laid  before  them  for  their  signature,  which  could  afterwards  be  filled  up 
with  whatever  the  leaders  chose." 

1  Milman  says  of  Leo :  "  He  was  a  Roman  in  sentiment  as  in  birth.  All  that 
survived  of  Rome,  of  her  unbounded  ambition,  her  inflexible  perseverance,  her 
dignity  in  defeat,  her  haughtiness  of  language,  her  belief  in  her  own  eternity 
and  in  her  indefeasible  title  to  universal  dominion,  her  respect  for  traditionary 
and  written  law  and  for  unchangeable  custom,  might  seem  concentred  in  him." 
Leo,  it  may  be  added,  seems  to  have  been  almost  free  from  the  superstition  of 
his  age. 


218  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

he  had  embodied  his  views  in  a  letter  or  Tome,  addressed  to  the 
Patriarch  Flavian.  This  document,  or  one  of  similar  import,  was 
presented  to  the  council,  but  Dioscorus  always  contrived  to  put  off 
the  reading  of  it.  In  this  celebrated  letter,  the  entireness  and  yet 
the  distinctness  of  the  two  natures  united  in  the  Saviour,  are  de- 
fined with  singular  ability,  and  copiously  illustrated.  Leo  demon- 
strates that  the  fundamental  truth  of  Christianity  is  sacrificed 
quite  as  much  by  a  curtailment  of  Christ's  humanity  as  of  his 
divinity.  "  The  faith,"  so  he  wrote,  in  words  which  have  become 
famous,  "  by  which  the  Catholic  Church  lives  and  progresses  is, 
that  neither  his  humanity  exists  without  his  true  divinity,  nor  his 
divinity  without  his  true  humanity.  A  denial  of  his  veritable 
human  nature  is  a  denial  also  of  his  corporeal  passion  ;  and  the 
danger  is  equal  of  believing  that  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  either 
God  alone  without  being  man,  or  man  only  without  being  God. 
In  the  one  nature  He  suffered  death,  but  in  the  other  He  could  not 
die." 

After  the  Robber  Council  events  concurred  to  favour  Leo's  inter- 
ference. In  450  Theodosius  died,  and  his  sister  Pulcheria,  who- 
had  been  the  patroness  of  Flavian,  united  herself  in  marriage  with 
Marcian,  a  soldier  of  fortune  on  whom  she  conferred  the  Imperial 
diadem.  A  complete  change  now  came  over  the  court  religion. 
The  exiled  bishops  were  recalled ;  and  many  trimmed  their  sails 
anew  to  suit  the  change  in  the  wind.  Anatolius,  the  new  bishop 
of  Constantinople,  was  recognized  by  Leo  only  on  the  condition 
of  subscribing  his  Letter  and  condemning  Eutyches,  as  well  as 
Nestorius. 

Both  Leo  and  the  Emperor  were  favourable  to  calling  a  new 
general  council,  as  the  best  means  of  repairing  the  mischief  done 
by  the  Robber  Synod ;  but  whilst  Leo  urged  that  the  place  of 
meeting  should  be  in  Italy,  the  Emperor  decided  on  Nicsea.  The 
assembly  came  together  in  451.1  Owing  to  the  disturbances 
created  by  fanatical  monks  and  others,  the  Emperor  was  induced 
to  transfer  it  to  Chalcedon. 

The  council  met  in  the  church  of  Euphemia  the  martyr.  Eva- 
grius  the  historian,  who  was  conversant  with  the  capital  and  its 
vicinity,  describes  the  spot  with  the  pen  of  an  eye-witness  :  "  You 
go  up  to  the  church  by  a  gentle  ascent,  and  from  this  commanding 
position,  survey  the  plain  beneath,  verdant  with  herbage,  corn,  and 
every  kind  of  tree.     The  eye  takes  in  also  a  range  of  woody  moun- 

1  The  number  of  bishops  is  variously  reckoned  at  from  520  to  630.  All  were 
from  the  East  except  Leo's  envoys  and  two  African  bishops. 


DIOSCORUS    ON    HIS    TRIAL.  219' 

tains,  and  rests  on  the  sea  where  the  dark  blue  waters  play  with  a 
gentle  ripple  on  the  beach,  or  the  surging  waves  in  their  recoil 
sweep  back  the  shells  and  seaweed.  Right  opposite  rises  Constan- 
tinople in  the  charm  of  its  vastness.  Here  the  council  was  under 
the  Emperor's  own  eye,  and  he  deputed  nineteen  officers  of  state  to 
attend  it  as  his  representatives.  The  Eoman  delegates  and  Ana- 
tolius  sat  as  presidents  of  the  clergy. 

Although  the  assembly  was  so  numerous,  and  so  august  in  its 
constitution,  the  irritation  and  mutual  hatred  of  the  two  parties 
was  apparent  from  the  very  outset.  When  Theodoret  appeared  in 
the  midst  as  the  accuser  of  his  former  judges,  whilst  he  was  wel- 
comed by  the  Orientals  with  enthusiasm,  the  bishops  of  the  Egyptian 
party  raised  a  malignant  cry  :  "  Cast  forth  the  Jew,  the  enemy  of 
God,  the  blasphemer  of  Christ !  "  Notwithstanding,  however,  this 
burst  of  fanaticism,  fear,  court  favour,  and  the  change  in  religious 
fashion  soon  showed  their  effects.  The  Palestinian  bishops  left  the 
seats  which  they  had  at  first  occupied  near  the  Egyptians,  and 
removed  to  the  opposite  side  where  the  Orientals  and  the  Eoman 
delegates  were  seated.  Others  followed  their  example,  until  at  last 
Dioscorus  was  left  with  only  thirteen  Egyptian  bishops  to  support 
him.  But  the  sense  of  shame  was  not  entirely  wanting.  When 
the  question  arose  of  deposing  those  bishops  who  had  taken  the 
lead  in  the  late  council,  the  assembly  resounded  with  the  cry:  "We 
have  all  sinned,  we  all  ask  forgiveness."  Many  with  an  ill  grace 
excused  their  past  conduct  on  the  ground  of  Imperial  authority  and 
constraint.  Even  the  commissioners  declared  such  an  excuse  in 
matters  of  faith  to  be  inadmissible,  and  Dioscorus  stigmatized  it  as 
a  confession  of  guilt.  The  Alexandrian  bishop  was  as  courageous 
as  he  was  overbearing.  He  made  an  able  and  spirited  defence,1 
and  had  even  the  audacity  to  excommunicate  Leo.  The  sentence 
of  the  synod,  which  was  signed  by  about  300  bishops,  condemned 
him  to  degradation  from  his  episcopal  and  priestly  rank :  it  was 
confirmed  by  the  Emperor,  who  added  to  it  that  of  exile.  Dioscorus 
ended  his  days  at  Gangra  in  Paphlagonia,  a.d.  454. 

Leo's  letter  to  Flavian,  already  noticed,  was  read  at  the  Council 
of  Chalcedon.  When  the  Roman  delegates  proposed  that  it  should 
be  adopted  as  an  authoritative  creed,  some  murmurs  were  at  first 
heard  ;  but  when  it  was  threatened  to  hold  a  council  at  Rome,  the 


1  Dioscorus  acknowledged  Christ  to  be  "  of  two  natures,"  but  declined  to  use 
the  form  "  in  two  natures,"  thus  refusing  to  own  that  the  difference  of  natures 
subsisted  after  the  incarnation.  The  distinction  between  "in"  and  "of" 
became  a  Shibboleth  in  the  Church. 


220  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

objectors  gave  way,  and  shouts  of  approval  burst  from  all  sides  : 
"  This  is  the  belief  of  the  Fathers,  of  the  Apostles  !  Thus  do  we 
all  believe  !  Accursed  be  he  who  denies  that  Peter  has  spoken  by 
the  mouth  of  Leo  ! " 1 

We  subjoin  the  symbol  or  creed  adopted  by  the  council,  which 
was  succeeded  by  the  usual  presumptuous  anathema  against  all 
who  should  presume  to  teach  otherwise :  "  Following  the  holy 
Fathers,  we  unanimously  teach  one  and  the  same  Son,  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  complete  as  to  his  Godhead,  and  complete  as  to  his 
manhood ;  truly  God,  and  truly  man,  of  a  reasonable  soul  and 
human  flesh  subsisting ;  consubstantial  with  the  Father  as  to  his 
Godhead,  and  consubstantial  also  with  us  as  to  his  manhood ;  like 
unto  us  in  all  things,  yet  without  sin  :  as  to  his  Godhead  begotten 
of  the  Father  before  all  worlds,  but  as  to  his  manhood,  in  these 
last  days  born  for  us  men  and  for  our  salvation  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 
the  mother  of  God  (Theotokos) ;  one  and  the  same  Christ,  Son, 
Lord,  Only-begotten,  to  be  acknowledged  in  (or  of)2  two  natures , 
without  confusion,  without  conversion,  without  severance,  and 
without  division ;  the  distinction  of  the  natures  being  in  nowise 
taken  away  by  their  union,  but  the  property  of  each  nature  being 
maintained,  and  both  concurring  in  one  person  and  substance 
(hypostasis).  We  confess  not  a  Son  divided  and  sundered  into 
two  persons,  but  one  and  the  same  Son,  and  Only-begotten,  God 
the  Word,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  even  as  the  prophets  had  before 
proclaimed  concerning  Him,  and  He  himself  hath  taught  us,  and 
the  symbol  of  the  fathers  hath  handed  down  to  us." 

Although  the  Egyptian  party  had  submitted,  their  hatred  towards 
the  Orientals  was  in  no  degree  appeased.  In  the  eighth  session  of 
the  council  the  case  of  Theodoret  came  up  for  consideration,  and  he 
was  set  upon  vociferously,  and  urged  to  anathematize  Nestorius,  his 
doctrines,  and  his  friends.  The  theological  opinions  of  Theodoret 
appear  to  have  undergone  a  change,3  and  he  had  come  to  the 
council  prepared  to  make  large  concessions.  "Truly,"  he  said,  "it 
is  not  for  the  sake  of  my  bishopric  that  I  have  come  here,  but  to 

1  A  legend  grew  up  respecting  this  letter.  It  was  said  that  when  the  Pope 
had  written  it,  he  laid  it  on  the  Apostle  Peter's  altar,  praying  that  if  there  were 
anything  erroneous  in  it,  it  might  be  corrected.  At  the  end  of  three  days  he 
found  the  letter  marked  with  sundry  erasures  and  emendations,  which  he 
accepted  as  the  work  of  the  apostle. 

2  The  reading  is  uncertain. 

8  In  one  of  his  latest  works,  his  Account  of  Heresies,  he  speaks  of  Nestorius 
as  "  an  instrument  of  Satan,"  and  as  having  under  the  pretext  of  orthodoxy 
■denied  both  the  divinity  and  the  incarnation  of  the  Only-begotten  Son. 


THEODORET,  BISHOP  OF  CYBUS.  221 

prove  myself  an  orthodox  man,  to  show  you  that  I  condemn 
Nestorius  and  Eutyches  and  every  one  who  speaks  of  two  Sons  of 
God."  This  was  not  enough  for  his  implacable  adversaries,  who 
interrupted  him  with  repeated  cries :  "  Say,  Anathema  to  Nestorius 
and  to  all  who  think  with  him."     He  attempted  to  justify  himself: 

"  I  cannot  utter  that  anathema,  but  I  believe  " .     Here  he  was 

again  interrupted :  "  He  is  a  heretic,  a  Nestorian,  cast  out  the 
Nestorian  !  "  Wearied  with  the  strife,  and  overborne  by  clamour, 
he  at  length  gave  way,  and  repeated  the  formula :  "  Anathema  to 
Nestorius,  and  to  every  one  who  refuses  to  call  Mary  the  mother  of 
God,  and  who  divides  in  two  the  Only-begotten  Son."  Upon  this 
he  was  considered  to  have  given  sufficient  proof  of  his  orthodoxy, 
and  at  the  instance  of  the  Imperial  commissioners  he  was  restored. 
to  his  Church  by  acclamation.  It  is  uncertain  whether  Theodoret 
returned  to  his  see,  or  spent  the  remainder  of  his  days  in  his 
monastery,  devoting  himself  to  literary  labour.  He  died  a.d.  458.1 
Theodoret's  is  a  sad  history.  He  was  possessed  of  a  broad,  un- 
selfish, and  independent  spirit,  but  the  times  in  which  he  lived  were 
too  hard  and  stormy  for  his  faith.  "With  Nestorius  and  John  of 
Antioch,  he  was  brought  up  in  a  Syrian  monastery,  where  he  is  said 
to  have  been  placed  at  the  age  of  seven,  and  to  have  sat  at  the  feet 
of  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  and  Chrysostom.  In  423  he  was  pressed 
into  the  episcopal  office,  and  sent  to  govern  the  Church  of  Cyrus  on 
the  Euphrates,  with  its  800  villages.  Here  he  set  himself  with 
extraordinary  success  to  the  conversion  of  heretics,  and  was  distin- 
guished for  his  skill  in  refuting  the  arguments  of  Jews  and  pagans* 
In  one  of  his  letters  he  enters,  like  Paul,  into  a  forced  commenda- 
tion of  himself:  "  I  have  never  prosecuted,  or  been  prosecuted  at 
law  ;  and  I  can  say  the  same  of  all  the  pious  clergy  in  my  diocese. 
Neither  I  nor  my  servants  ever  received  a  gift,  not  so  much  as  a  loaf 
or  an  egg.  Long  ago  I  gave  my  patrimony  to  the  poor ;  and  now 
I  possess  neither  house,  land,  nor  money,  not  even  a  sepulchre  in 
which  to  lay  my  bones.  Out  of  my  episcopal  revenues  I  have 
erected  porticoes,  built  bridges,  and  repaired  the  public  baths.  I 
found  the  city  without  water,  and  have  constructed  an  aqueduct  by 
which  it  is  plentifully  supplied."  "When  Theodoret  was  deposed  by 
the  Robber  Synod,  he  wrote  :  "  The  hardships  we  undergo  for  the 

1  Whilst  theological  storms  were  thus  agitating  the  Church,  the  world  with? 
out  was  convulsed  by  a  tempest  of  a  different  kind.  Attila  the  Hun,  "  the 
scourge  of  God,"  was  devastating  the  countries  both  of  the  East  and  the  West. 
From  445  to  450,  he  ravaged  the  Empire  from  the  Euxine  to  the  Adriatic,  after 
which  he  continued  his  march  into  Gaul,  where,  in  451,  at  Chalons,  he  was 
defeated  by  Aetius  and  Theodoric,  King  of  the  Goths.     He  died  in  453.  i 


222  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

sake  of  the  divine  doctrines  are  welcome.  It  cannot  be  otherwise  if 
we  truly  believe  in  the  promise  that  '  the  sufferings  of  this  present 
time  are  not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory  which  shall  be 
revealed  to  us-ward.'  But  why  should  I  speak  of  future  blessings  ? 
Even  though  no  reward  were  bestowed  on  the  combatants,  yet  the 
Truth  itself  alone  is  enough  to  move  its  friends  to  encounter  with 
all  joy  every  danger  in  its  behalf."  Although  an  intense  admirer 
of  the  ascetic  life,  and  swallowing  the  miracles  of  the  desert  with  as 
great  an  avidity  as  Athanasius  or  Jerome,  he  had  yet  a  profound 
reverence  for  truth  and  reason.  "  Blind  faith,"  he  writes,  "  is  the 
source  of  all  the  evils  and  errors  of  the  Church.  Of  all  heresies  the 
most  dangerous  is  that  which  in  our  days  lifts  its  head  so  high,  and 
with  equal  absurdity  and  injustice,  exacts  that  man  should  abandon 
his  own  intelligence  and  receive  his  religion  without  examination, 
thus  preventing  him  from  ever  arriving  at  a  living  and  constant 
faith." 

The  acts  of  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  were  ill-adapted  to  secure 
the  object  it  had  in  view,  namely,  the  union  of  the  two  parties.  The 
defects  and  contradictions  which  were  brought  to  light ;  the  substi- 
tution of  one  formula  of  belief  for  another;  the  mischievous  influence 
of  the  Court :  all  this  was  fatal  to  the  authority  of  its  decisions. 

The  prominence  given  in  the  council  to  the  doctrine  of  "one 
nature  "  marks  indeed  only  a  fresh  epoch  in  the  dreary  theological 
war,  which  now  enters  upon  its  third  and  last  stage,  under  the 
name  of  the  Monophysite  Controversy.  This  word  Monophysite 
.(One  Nature)  became  a  war  cry  with  the  wild  and  untutored  monks 
of  Egypt  and  Palestine,  who  showed  little  mercy  to  such  as  differed 
from  them.  We  do  not  propose  to  pursue  further  the  history  of  the 
dispute.  "Were  we  to  do  so  we  should  see  adventurous  monks 
climbing  to  the  highest  places  by  the  ladder  of  fanaticism ;  provinces 
wasted  with  fire  and  sword;  one  Emperor  vowing  to  make  the 
Monophysite  doctrine  universal  in  the  East;  the  next  eagerly 
espousing  the  opposite  cause ;  a  third  in  danger  of  losing  his  crown 
because  he  favoured  a  proposed  addition  to  a  Church  hymn.1  But 
of  reason  or  piety,  of  love  to  God  or  charity  to  man,  of  the  true 

1  Out  of  the  Monophysite  heresy  was  evolved  the  Monothelite  (of  one  will)  in 
which  the  metaphysical  point  was  drawn  out  to  such  a  degree  of  fineness  as  to 
be  invisible.  Mosheim  observes :  "  They  admitted  two  wills  in  Christ  [the 
divine  and  the  human],  both  active  and  operative,  and  yet  maintained  that,  in 
a  certain  sense,  there  is  in  Him  but  one  will  and  one  operation  of  will."  This 
phase  of  theology  arose  during  the  reign  of  the  Emperor  Heraclius  (a.d.  610 — 
641),  and  divided  the  Eastern  Church  for  fifty  years.  It  was  condemned  by  the 
■Council  of  Constantinople  (a.d.  630),  called  the  Sixth  (Ecumenical  Council. 


FACUNDUS,    THE    AFRICAN    BISHOP.  228 

witnessing  for  Christ,  we  should  find  next  to  nothing.  Never  was 
the  Apostle's  injunction  to  Timothy,  and  through  him  to  all  these 
hishops, — whether  Alexandrian,  Antiochian,  Nestorian,  Eutychian, 
or  Monophysite — more  needed  or  less  regarded  :  "  Charging  them 
in  the  sight  of  the  Lord,  that  they  strive  not  about  words,  to  no 
profit,  to  the  subverting  of  them  that  hear." * 

A  few  straggling  rays  of  light,  indicative,  let  us  hope,  of  many 
more  now  lost  in  oblivion,  illumined  this  long  age  of  darkness. 
One  is  the  character  of  Timotheus  Salophaciolus,  patriarch  of 
Alexandria  in  the  year  460,  and  again  in  477.  This  man,  by  his 
gentleness  and  moderation,  secured  on  two  occasions  to  that  dis- 
tracted city  an  interval  of  tranquillity  in  the  midst  of  perpetual 
disturbance.  Himself  a  Duophysite  (defender  of  the  tico  natures), 
he  protected  instead  of  persecuting  the  Monophysite  party,  and 
although  admonished  by  the  Emperor  Basiliscus  to  use  greater 
severity  towards  the  heretics,  he  was  not  to  be  turned  aside  from  his 
course  of  rectitude.  In  consequence  he  was  esteemed  by  all  parties, 
the  Monophysites  calling  to  him  in  the  streets:  "Although  we  have 
no  Church  fellowship  with  thee  yet  we  love  thee." 

Another  gleam  of  brightness  is  found  in  the  resistance  of  a  North 
African  bishop  to  the  arbitrary  will  of  Justinian.  In  544  that 
Emperor  published  the  edict  of  The  Three  Chapters,  in  which  the 
writings  of  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  and  Theodoret,  the  survivor  of 
whom  had  been  dead  a  century,  were  condemned.2  The  edict  was 
sent  through  the  whole  Empire  to  receive  the  signatures  of  the 
bishops.  Justinian's  great  general,  Belisarius,  had  just  recovered 
North  Africa  from  the  Vandals,  and  the  Church  in  that  desolated 
province  had  begun  again  to  show  signs  of  life.  The  bishop 
Facundus  of  Hermiana  possessed  a  temper  rare  in  those  days. 
Having  first  thoroughly  investigated  the  doctrinal  questions  in  dis- 
pute, and  come  to  a  decision  upon  them,  he  abode  by  the  result  with 
unshaken  constancy.  He  wrote  a  treatise  eminently  characterised 
by  freedom  of  spirit  and  disregard  of  the  fear  of  man,  as  well  as  by 
a  candid  and  searching  criticism.  In  this  tract  he  protested  against 
the  unwarrantable  dogmatism  which  had  wrought  so  much  mischief 
in  the  Greek  Church.  "  Whilst,"  he  says,  "  in  other  arts  no  one 
presumes  to  pass  judgment   on  what  he  has  never  learned,  in 

1  The  external  Church  during  this  period  was  maintained  on  a  magnificent 
scale.  The  cathedral  of  Constantinople,  under  the  Emperor  Justinian,  was 
served  by  60  presbyters,  100  deacons,  40  deaconesses,  90  sub-deacons,  110  lectors, 
25  precentors,  and  100  janitors — a  total  of  525  officers. 

2  The  writings  of  the  former  were  so  effectually  destroyed  that  only  some 
titles  and  fragments  have  come  down  to  us. 


224  .  WITNESSES    FOB    CHKIST. 

matters  of  theology  those  who  have  learned  the  least  are  most 
arrogant  and  peremptory  in  their  judgments.  When  the  civil 
power  oversteps  its  office,  it  may  indeed  ruin  men  by  betraying  them 
to  deny  the  truth  with  their  lips,  but  it  can  never  effect  the  object- 
it  has  in  view,  for  it  cannot  instil  into  their  minds  other  convictions 
than  they  possess  ;  it  can  act  only  on  what  is  external ;  it  cannot- 
reach  the  soul."  Of  the  bishops  who  excused  their  compliance  by 
the  constraint  of  secular  power,  he  spoke  with  scorn.  "As  if  we 
have  been  ordained  bishops  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  be  enriched 
by  the  gifts  of  princes,  and  to  sit  among  the  high  dignitaries  of  the 
State.  And  as  if,  when  by  the  cares  of  government  and  the  arts  of 
the  wicked,  the  prince  has  admitted  anything  which  tends  to  injure 
the  Church  or  disturb  its  peace,  it  were  not  our  duty  to  set  before 
him  the  truth  for  his  own  good,  and  if  necessary  to  resist  him  with 
our  Christian  authority,  and  patiently  endure  his  displeasure."1 

The  controversy  held  on  its  withering  course  throughout  the  fifth 
and  the  greater  part  of  the  sixth  century,  branching  out  into 
further  dispute  on  the  doctrines  of  Origen,  and  the  edict  of  The 
Three  Chapters.  After  the  year  565,  when  death  delivered  the 
Church  from  that  great  legislator  and  self-deluded  theologian 
Justinian,  the  Monophysites,  like  the  Nestorians,  became  a  separate 
sect  outside  the  limits  of  the  Church  general ;  and  thus  they  have 
continued  to  the  present  day.  Their  descendants  are  yet  found  in 
Syria,  Armenia,  Assyria,  Egypt  and  Abyssinia.  "  They  have," 
says  Schaff,  "  long  since  fallen  into  stagnation,  ignorance  and 
superstition,  and  are  to  Christendom  as  a  praying  corpse  to  a  living 
man."  "Isolated  fragments,"  he  styles  them,  "  of  ancient  Church 
history,  curious  petrifactions  from  the  Christological  battle-fields  of 
the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries." 

But  if  the  long  controversy,  of  which  Monophysitism  was  the 
concluding  act,  was  barren  of  good,  it  was  abundantly  fruitful  of 
evil.  Schism,  hatred,  bloodshed,  the  bitterest  intolerance,  the 
substitution  of  words  for  actions,  of  formal  orthodoxy  for  practical 
piety,  broke  down  what  yet  remained  of  vigour  and  life  in  the  once 
flourishing  Churches  of  the  East,  and  left  them,  in  the  succeeding 
century,  an  easy  prey  to  the  Mohammedan  conquerors.  When  the 
challenge  came  they  surrendered  their  liberty,  often  their  faith,  with 
an  alacrity  which  else  would  have  been  incredible ;  and  even  where 
they  resisted,  it  was  with  the  warrior's  sword,  not  with  the  spirit 
of  ancient  martyrdom. 

1  To  these  instances  may  be  added  the  enlightened  testimony  borne  by  John 
the  Almsgiver,  patriarch  of  Constantinople,  in  which  he  shows  clearly  that 
Slavery  is  abhorrent  to  the  Gospel. 


(     225     ) 


CHAPTEE    II. 

Christian  Art  and  Mary-Worship. 

Whilst  the  Church  was  thus  torn  by  internal  contest  on  questions 
of  doctrine,  Art  within  the  Church  was  steadily  developing  in  con- 
formity with  the  growing  elaboration  of  her  ritual  and  the  splendour 
of  her  priesthood.  There  was  one  Italian  city  which  signalised 
itself  beyond  all  others  by  the  beauty  and  variety  of  the  works 
which  were  there  executed  during  this  period.     This  was  Kavenna> 


Theodoric's  Palace,  Bavenna. 

which,  from  the  fifth  to  the  eighth  century,  was  virtually  the  capital 
of  Italy.  One  reign  during  this  long  period  of  violence  and  revolu- 
tion, stands  forth  illustrious.  It  is  that  of  Theodoric  the  Goth. 
His  beneficent  and  prosperous  rule  gave  time  to  the  distracted 
country  to  breathe  again  after  her  long  years  of  agony.  During  his 
reign,  491-526,  so  great  was  the  security  attained  in  Italy  that  even 
wayfarers  were  safe.  Ennodius  calls  him  a  "  pattern  of  a  perfect 
king  for  moderation,  temperance,  chastity,  and  sacerdotal  modesty." 

Q 


226  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

"  The  serene  impartiality  of  Theodoric's  government  in  religious 
affairs,"  says  a  modern  writer,  "  extorts  the  praise  of  the  most 
zealous  Catholic.  Himself  an  Arian,  he  attempted  nothing  against 
the  Catholic  faith.  '  We  cannot,'  he  used  to  say,  'impose  a  religion 
by  command,  because  no  one  can  be  compelled  to  believe  against 
his  will.'  He  devoted  himself  to  maintaining  the  peace,  securing 
the  welfare,  promoting  the  civilization,  and  lightening  the  financial 
burdens  of  his  people." 

The  churches  of  Ravenna  and  the  mosaics  with  which  they  are 
embellished  form  a  collection  of  early  Christian  Art  which  stands 
alone  amongst  the  monuments  of  Europe.  "  It  is  well,"  says 
Freeman, "  that  there  should  be  one  spot  from  which  the  monuments 
of  heathen  Eome  and  mediaeval  Christendom  are  alike  absent,  and 
where  every  relic  breathes  of  the  strange  and  almost  forgotten  time 
which  comes  between  the  two."  The  art  and  the  artists  came 
alike  from  the  East,  and  their  work  has  been  described  as  "  more 
Byzantine  than  Constantinople  itself ;  "  and  although  it  belongs 
to  successive  dominations  so  dissimilar  as  those  of  the  declining 
Empire,  the  great  Ostrogoth,  and  the  Exarchate,  yet  the  same  de- 
sign and  the  same  workmanship  extend  unbroken  through  a  period 
of  250  years. 

The  church  of  S.  Vitale  contains  the  celebrated  mosaics  of 
Justinian  and  Theodora,  "  still  almost  as  fresh  as  when  they  were 
first  executed."  The  two  sovereigns,  with  other  principal  figures, 
form  the  frontispiece  to  this  volume  ;  it  was  composed  by  Edward 
Backhouse  from  two  distinct  and  larger  groups. 

In  these  rich  remains  of  Christian  art  from  the  fifth  to  the 
seventh  century,  nothing  is  more  conspicuous  than  the  advance 
which  had  taken  place  in  superstitious  ideas  since  the  era  of  the 
catacombs.  That  era  came  to  an  end  about  the  time  when  the 
Eavenna  mosaics  were  commenced.  In  the  monuments  on  the 
walls  of  the  catacombs  there  is  a  marked  absence  of  that  idolatry 
into  which  the  Church  afterwards  fell.  There  were,  originally, 
no  apostles  in  their  ecclesiastical  character,  no  saints,  no  ma- 
donnas, no  angels,  no  nimbus  or  auriole.1  In  Ravenna  we  find  all 
these,  some  of  them,  it  may  be,  here  introduced  for  the  first  time. 
The  earliest  figures  of  angels  are  to  be  seen  in  the  church  of 
S.  Agata;  of  apostles,  in  that  of  S.  Giovanni  in  Fonte.  The 
nimbus  was  a  decoration  of  heathen  origin,  and  was  placed  around 
the  heads  of  gods  and  emperors.  It  would  seem  that  previous  to 
the  sixth  century  it  was  applied  to  no  Christian  figure  as  such. 

1  The  aureole  is  the  nimbus  for  the  whole  body,  usually  oval. 


THE  MADONNA.  227 

Where  it  is  seen  round  the  head  of  our  Lord  in  the  earlier  mosaics, 
it  is  thought  to  have  heen  added  by  later  hands. 

But  the  most  notable  departure  from  the  earlier  simplicity  is  in 
the  Madonna.  In  the  mosaics  of  Ravenna  we  have  an  outcome  of 
the  orthodox  zeal  kindled  by  the  Nestorian  Controversy ;  we  see 
the  Virgin-mother  with  her  Child,  seated  on  her  throne,  the  object 
•of  universal  worship,  and  giving  forth  blessings  as  though  she  were 
God  Himself.  Henceforth  the  Virgin  and  Child  becomes  the 
leading  subject  of  art,  presented  with  every  kind  of  variation,  and 
employing  the  highest  genius  of  each  successive  age.  These  he- 
switching  representations  are  not  without  danger  for  the  unwary 
mind ;  and  in  the  present  age  especially,  when  indifference,  that 
deadly  enemy  of  spiritual  religion,  has  borrowed  the  name  of 
■charity,  and  the  wholesome  dread  of  Rome  which  acted  as  a 
restraint  on  our  forefathers  no  longer  exists,  the  seductive  beauty 
of  Italian  art  opens  a  wide  door  to  error.  That  there  is  a  real 
power  in  this  fascination,  such  as  may  overcome  true  fidelity  to 
■Christ  and  to  his  first  and  great  commandment,  no  one  will  deny. 
Mrs.  Jameson  writes  of  those  "  who  refuse  to  give  to  this  subject 
the  honour  due  to  a  religious  representation,  yet  regard  it  with  a 
tender  half-unwilling  homage  ;  and  when  the  glorified  type  of  what 
is  purest,  loftiest,  holiest  in  womanhood,  stands  before  us,  arrayed 
in  all  the  majesty  and  beauty  that  accomplished  art  inspired  by 
faith  and  love  could  lend  her,  and  bearing  her  Divine  Son,  rather 
enthroned  than  sustained  on  her  maternal  bosom,  •  we  look,  and 
the  heart  is  in  heaven ! '  and  it  is  difficult,  very  difficult,  to  refrain 
from  Or  a  pro  Nobis."1 

It  is  a  wide-spread  but  mistaken  belief  that  Christian  worship  is 
assisted  by  art.  This  belief  is  one  of  the  results  of  looking  to  man 
for  what  can  only  come  from  God.  The  first  century,  during  which 
the  Church  was  a  stranger  to  art,  was  the  most  glorious  era  of  her 
history,  and  no  epoch  of  Latin  Christianity  has  been  further  re- 
moved from  the  faith  and  holy  life  of  the  primitive  age,  than  that 
in  which  Raphael  and  Michael-Angelo  exhausted  their  skill  in 
adorning  her  temples.  "In  the  teachings  of  the  Saviour,"  writes 
Samuel  Tuke,  "  there  was  much  to  show  that  '  Grace  hath  use  of 
Nature ' :  the  dressing  of  the  lily  and  the  provision  for  the  sparrows 
supply  beautiful  lessons  on  the  universal  providence  of  the  Creator, 
and  the  trust  which  his  superior  creature  Man  might  repose  in  Him. 

1  That  these  grand  efforts  of  the  pencil  are  necessarily  or  even  generally 
J<  inspired  by  faith  and  love,"  is  a  mere  assumption,  not  borne  out  by  fact. 
Some  of  the  chief  worshippers  in  the  temple  of  the  fine  arts  have  been  men  of 
loose  morals  and  doubtful  faith. 


228  WITNESSES   FOE   CHEIST. 

No  idea,  however,  appears  to  have  entered  the  minds  of  the  early 
disciples  that  they  were  to  set  lilies  and  sparrows  before  them  arti- 
ficially to  stimulate  their  trust  and  confidence.  .  .  .  History  abun- 
dantly shows  that  as  that  living  faith  which  is  the  life-blood  of  true 
religion  declined,  so  did  men  seek  by  dead  forms,  pageantries,  and 
other  varieties  of  human  art  to  stir  up  something  which  was  like 
the  living  power  that  had  been  more  or  less  lost.     This  practice  of 
imitation  will  be  found  running  through   all  the   history  of  the 
Church's  depravation.      Art  raised  up  feelings  in  men's  minds 
which  were  the  imitations  of  those  holy  aspirations  that  came  from 
God  and  breathe  towards  Him.     The  Gospel  in  its  simplicity  had 
been  preached  to  the  poor,  and  had  wrought  its  miracles  ;  it  had  by 
the  accompanying  power  of  divine  grace   awakened  dead  souls, 
opened  blind  eyes,  and  the  ear  deaf  to  the  sweetness  of  truth  was 
made  to  hear  and  understand  the  words  of    eternal  life.      The 
changes  were  inward,  but  the  effects  were  seen  outwardly,  and  here 
was  the  door  opened  for  human  art  to  be  exercised,  and  like  the 
Egyptian  sorcerers  of  old,  it  did  somewhat  '  likewise  by  its  enchant- 
ments.1    We  cannot,  I  believe,  have  too  much  impressed  upon  our 
minds,  that  all  the  ingenious  arts  by  which  it  has  been  attempted 
to  quicken  dormant  souls  to  the  sense  of  heavenly  things,  are  but 
so  many  counterfeits  of  truth  and  seals  upon  error,  by  which  men 
are  prevented  from  seeking  after  and  finding  the  true  wisdom  and 
riches.  .  .  .  The  use  of  sensible  imagery  in  religious  teaching,  and 
some  imitations  of  the  heathen  mysteries,  may  be  clearly  traced  in 
the  second  century,  and  still  more  largely  in  the  third.     In  the 
fourth  century  the  rites  and  institutions  by  which  the  Greeks, 
Eomans,  and  other  nations  had  formerly  testified  their  religious 
veneration   for  fictitious   deities,  were  adopted  with   some   slight 
alterations  by  Christian  bishops  and  employed  in  the  service  of  the 
true  God.     Thus  art  came  to  be  restored  in  great  measure  to  the 
place  which  she  had  formerly  held  in  connection  with  religion ;  and 
her  sway  and  influence  increased  during  the  period  which  elapsed 
between  what  is   called   the  conversion  of  Constantine,  and  the 
downfall  of  the  Eoman  Empire."     So  was  it  in  the  era  of  the 
Eenaissance  :  "It  was  just  when  superstition  and  profligacy  were 
at  their  height  in  that  which  called  itself  the  Church  of  Christ,  and 
when  wealth  had  again  arisen  to  encourage  them,  that  the  fine  arts 
also  again  made  their  appearance  to  hide  by  their  adulterate  de- 
corations the  filthiness  which  was  within.    Licentious  and  profligate 
popes  patronized  those  extraordinary  efforts  of  the  pencil  by  which 
the  events  of  sacred  story  were  transferred  pictorially  to  the  walls 
of  the  great  Temple  of  Eome  or  of  the  Vatican.     There  was  no 


INFLUENCE   OF    ABT   ON   WORSHIP.  22£ 

incongruity  between  the  grossest  sensuality  and  impiety,  and  the 
love  and  admiration  of  the  beautiful  in  nature  as  presented  by  the 
fine  arts ;  and  though  in  the  complicated  operations  of  moral 
causes,  it  is  not  permitted  us  absolutely  and  certainly  to  analyse 
their  several  portions  of  influence,  and  though  I  am  far  from 
tracing  the  condition  of  the  Church  primarily  to  a  love  of  the 
artificial,  yet  I  think  it  bears  the  character  of  an  important  agent 
in  the  progress  of  deterioration,  and  that  at  least,  by  glozing  over 
or  hiding  the  real  deformities  and  deadness  of  the  Church,  it  tended 
greatly  to  obstruct  the  work  of  reformation." 

"  The  revival  of  the  ancient  world  in  the  classical  studies,"  to 
quote  another  Christian  moralist,  "  pursued  as  it  was  in  Italy  with 
such  passionate  ardour,  revived  also  the  spirit  of  the  ancient  hea- 
thenism, harboured  it  in  Home  itself  and  upon  the  very  throne  of  the 
Koman  bishop,  and  threatened  the  world  with  a  new  heathenism, 
unless  the  Eeformation  had  averted  this  danger.  .  .  Assuredly  the 
arts  and  sciences  flourished  in  Italy,  in  the  Medicean  era  as  they 
had  never  done  before,  as  they  have  never  done  since,  and  adorned 
life  with  an  unwonted  refinement  of  manners  and  education.  But 
the  foundation  of  true  morality  was  wanting.  Classical  studies 
resulted  in  a  hitherto  unheard  of  licentiousness  in  life  and  motive. 
.  .  .  The  most  distinguished  advocates  of  classical  learning  re- 
proach each  other  with  sins  which  cannot  be  spoken  of.  Poggio 
wrote  Jests  (Facetiae)  which  can  scarcely  be  equalled  for  vulgarity 
and  immorality,  and  which  yet  went  through  twenty  editions  in 
thirty  years.  The  heathen  spirit,  under  the  form  of  refinement 
and  scientific  interest,  ruled  at  the  Medicean  court.  The  Platonic 
Academy  at  Florence  put  the  Platonic  philosophy  in  the  place  of 
Christianity ;  and  Savonarola  strove  with  ardent  zeal  against 
heathen  immorality  and  heathen  belief  as  defended  by  the  highest 
prelates.  .  .  Macchiavelli  says :  '  We  Italians  are  pre-eminently 
irreligious  and  wicked,  because  the  Church,  in  the  persons  of  its 
advocates,  sets  the  worst  example.'  " 

The  worship  of  the  Virgin,  as  already  said,  was  almost  unknown 
before  the  Nestorian  Controversy :  the  first  Council  of  Ephesus 
denotes  the  era  of  its  birth.1 

The  worship  of  the  saints  in  general  was  familiar  to  men's 
minds  for  some  time  before  the  Virgin  Mary  became  the  especial 
object  of  adoration.  The  craving  for  human  mediators  between 
man  and  God,  fostered  by  heathen  influences  and  a  one-sided 
theology,  found  its  most  complete  satisfaction  in  the  person  of  the 

1  See  ante,  p.  205. 


230  WITNESSES    FOB   CHRIST. 

Virgin.  "Directly,"  remarks  Milman,  "that  Christian  devotion 
expanded  itself  beyond  its  legitimate  objects,  .  .  .  the  Virgin- 
mother  of  the  Saviour  appeared  to  possess  peculiar  claims  ta 
veneration.  .  .  .  The  higher  importance  assigned  to  the  female  sex 
by  Christianity,  than  by  any  other  form  of  at  least  Oriental  religion, 
powerfully  tended  to  the  general  adoption  of  the  worship  of  the 
Virgin.  Women  willingly  deified  this  perfect  representative  of 
their  own  sex,  while  the  sex  was  elevated  in  general  sentiment  by 
the  influence  ascribed  to  their  all-powerful  patroness.  The  ideal 
of  this  sacred  being  was  the  blending  of  maternal  tenderness  with 
perfect  purity — the  two  attributes  of  the  female  character  which 
man,  by  his  nature,  seems  to  hold  in  the  highest  admiration  and 
love." 

Let  us  trace  the  steps  by  which  Mary-worship  was  developed. 
The  first  germ  is  to  be  found  in  the  parallel  which,  in  the  second 
century,  was  drawn  between  the  Virgin  and  Eve.  The  earliest 
writer  who  refers  to  this  is  Justin  Martyr.  "Eve,  a  virgin,  con- 
ceived the  word  of  the  serpent,  and  brought  forth  disobedience  and 
death  ;  but  the  virgin  Mary  received  faith  and  joy,  when  the  angel 
Gabriel  announced  the  good  tidings  to  her,  and  replied,  '  Be  it  unto 
me  according  to  thy  word.'  And  from  her  was  born  He  by  whom 
God  destroyed  the  serpent."  Half  a  century  later,  this  simple 
thought  had  developed  in  such  a  manner  as  already  to  trench  on 
the  Saviour's  work  of  redemption.  "  If,"  says  Irenaeus,  "  the 
virgin  Eve  disobeyed  God,  the  virgin  Mary  was  persuaded  to  be 
obedient  to  God,  that  she  might  become  the  advocate  of  the  virgin 
Eve.  Thus,  as  the  human  race  fell  into  bondage  unto  death 
through  a  virgin,  so  is  it  rescued  through  a  virgin."  Again  :  "  As 
Eve  being  disobedient,  became  the  cause  of  death  both  to  herself 
and  to  the  whole  human  race,  so  Mary  being  obedient  became  the 
cause  of  salvation  both  to  herself  and  to  all  mankind.  .  .  .  The 
knot  of  Eve's  disobedience  was  loosed  through  the  obedience  of 
Mary."  These  Fathers  are,  however,  entirely  unconscious  of  the 
perfections  which  a  later  age  discerned  in  Mary ;  they  speak  of  her 
just  as  they  do  of  the  other  holy  women  of  the  New  Testament,  as 
simply  human,  liable  to  err,  obnoxious  to  reproof. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  Mary's  "  perpetual  virginity."1  The 
first  champion  of  this  doctrine,  Epiphanius,  is  the  first  also  in  the 
orthodox  Church  to  broach  the  utterly  baseless  idea,  of  her  "  As- 
sumption." "  For  myself,  I  am  uncertain  whether  Mary  died  and 
was  buried,  or  not."     But  so  little  was  the  Church  of  that  day  pre- 

1  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  282,  and  ante,  p.  165. 


PRAYEB    TO   THE  VIKGIN.  281 

pared  for  the  actual  worship  of  the  Virgin,  that  the  same  writer 
strongly  reprehends  the  practice  of  certain  women  who  came  from 
Thrace  into  Arabia,  and  who  were  accustomed,  on  a  fine  day,  once 
in  the  year,  to  spread  a  linen  cloth  on  a  car  (or  throne)  and  per- 
haps in  imitation  of  the  worship  of  Ceres  offer  on  it  to  the  Virgin  a 
cake.  "The  whole  thing,"  he  says,  "is  foolish  and  .strange, 
and  is  a  device  and  deceit  of  the  Devil.  Let  Mary  be  in  honour. 
Let  the  Lord  be  worshipped.     Let  no  one  worship  Mary." 

By  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  Mary's  perpetual  virginity  had 
become  an  article  of  faith.  Jerome  (in  383)  anathematizes  Helvi- 
dius  and  Jovinian  for  maintaining  that  she  bore  children  to  Joseph 
after  the  birth  of  Jesus  ;  and  a  few  years  later,  Bonosus,  bishop  of 
Sardica,  was  for  the  same  offence  deposed,  and  his  church  closed 
against  him.  A  further  step  is  attributed  to  Augustine,  viz.,  the 
doctrine  that  Mary  was  free  from  actual,  although  not  from 
original  sin. 

We  first  meet  with  prayer  to  the  Virgin  towards  the  end  of  this 
century.  Gregory  Nazianzen  (a.d.  389)  tells  of  a  woman  who  in  a 
time  of  danger  prayed  to  Mary  for  protection  ;  but  neither  Athana- 
sius,  Basil,  Chrysostom,  nor  Augustine  supplies  any  example  of 
such  an  invocation. 

It  was,  as  already  said,  the  Nestorian  Controversy  that  gave  the 
signal  for  the  worship  of  Mary,  raising  her  at  once  to  the  highest 
rank  in  the  new  Christian  Pantheon.  From  the  time  when  Nes- 
torius  was  condemned  by  the  Council  at  Ephesus,  the  title  of 
Theotokos  (Mother  of  God),  which  had  hitherto  been  used  only  by 
the  Alexandrian  School,  became  general.  The  Eutychians  vied 
with  the  Catholics  in  the  honour  they  paid  to  the  Virgin ;  and  the 
Monophysite  bishop  of  Antioch,  Petrus  Gnapheus,  was  the  first  to 
introduce  her  name  into  the  prayers  of  his  church  (circa  470)  .1 
Churches  and  altars  were  everywhere  dedicated  to  the  "Holy 
Mother  of  God,  the  perpetual  Virgin,"  and  the  picture  of  the  Ma- 
donna and  Child  became  the  symbol  of  the  orthodox  faith.  Every 
one  who  wished  to  prove  his  abhorrence  of  the  arch-heretic  Nes- 
torius  exhibited  on  the  walls  of  his  house,  or  on  his  garments  or 
furniture,  the  image  of  the  maternal  Virgin  holding  in  her  arms  the 
Divine  infant. 

The  Apocryphal  Gospels,  which  about  this  time  began  to  find 
general  acceptance,  powerfully  aided  the  development  of  Mary- 
worship.  In  these  fabulous  histories  of  our  Lord  and  his  Apostles, 
which  had  their  origin  amongst  the  Gnostics,  and  were  for  a  long 

1  This  practice  appears  not  to  have  obtained  in  the  Latin  Church  till  the 
time  of  Pope  Gregory  the  Great. 


282  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

time  rejected  by  the  Church,  are  contained  marvellous  stories  con- 
cerning Mary — the  germs  of  those  dogmas  which  in  course  of  time 
became  articles  of  faith.  Soon  the  language  addressed  to  her  grew 
well  nigh  blasphemous.  The  opponents  of  Nestorius,  Proclus  who 
succeeded  him  at  Constantinople,  and  Cyril  bishop  of  Alexandria, 
could  scarcely  find  words  emphatic  enough  to  express  her  transcen- 
dent glory.  She  is,  "  The  spiritual  Paradise  of  the  second  Adam, 
the  living  Bush  of  nature,  the  Sceptre  of  orthodoxy,  the  imperish- 
able Temple."  Through  her  "  heaven  rejoices  and  the  angels  and 
archangels  are  glad,  the  devil  is  disarmed  and  banished,  fallen  man 
is  restored  to  heaven,  and  every  believing  soul  is  saved." 

We  add  here  an  outline  of  the  history  of  Mariolatry  down  to  our 
own  time. 

In  the  sixth  century  we  find  the  Emperor  Justinian  imploring 
the  Virgin's  intercession  with  God  at  the  dedication  of  the  church 
of  St.  Sophia,  and  in  general  for  the  success  of  his  administration. 
His  general  Narses  was  unwilling  to  join  battle  until  he  had 
received  some  token  of  her  protection ;  and  the  Emperor  Heraclius 
(a.d.  610)  had  images  of  the  Virgin  on  his  masts  when  he  sailed 
to  Constantinople  to  overthrow  Phocas.  The  Old  Testament  types 
and  phophecies  were  now  found  to  apply  to  the  Virgin  equally  with 
the  Saviour.  Germanus,  patriarch  of  Constantinople  in  the  eighth 
century,  finds  in  her,  "  the  second  tabernacle,  the  altar,  the  Holy 
of  Holies,  the  Cherubim  of  glory,  the  burning  bush,  the  temple 
gate  entered  by  the  Lord  God  which  man  might  never  open,  the 
root  of  Jesse,  the  garden  enclosed,  the  city  of  God,  the  Queen  and 
the  Bride."  He  thus  addresses  her.  "  0  Mistress,  Mother  of  God, 
grant  to  all  who  celebrate  this  thy  festival,  thy  help,  shelter,  and 
patronage,  ever  saving  them  through  thy  intercessions  from  all 
dangers,  diseases,  and  calamities,  and  from  the  future  threatening 
of  thy  Son,  and  establish  them  in  the  palace  of  delight." 

It  remained  for  the  learned  and  pious  schoolman  Bonaventura 
(in  the  thirteenth  century),  by  a  new  device  to  intensify  and  popu- 
larize this  anti-scriptural  worship.  In  the  Virgin's  Psalter,  ascribed 
to  his  pen,  the  Psalms  are  applied  to  Mary  instead  of  to  God.1  It 
is  a  religious  parody,  and  whilst  as  such  it  is  abhorrent  to  our 
feelings,  a  few  examples  are  necessary  to  show  how  far  the  Church 
of  Borne  has  lost  herself  in  the  paths  of  idolatry. 

1  This  book,  whether  from  the  hand  of  Bonaventura  himself  or  of  a  con- 
temporary, is  always  printed  in  his  name,  and  is  at  the  present  day  a  most 
popular  work  in  France  and  Italy,  editions  being  continually  issued  with  the 
papal  sanction. 


THE    GLOMES    OF   MABY.  233 

Psalm  XV. 
Remember,  0  Lady,  and  speak  favourably  for  us,  and  avert  from  us  the  anger 

of  thy  Son. 

Psalm  XXVI. 

0  Lady,  I  have  loved  the  beauty  of  thy  countenance,  and  I  have  venerated 
thy  holy  majesty. 

Confess  her  name  because  it  is  holy,  and  because  her  marvellous  works  are 
recounted  throughout  all  ages. 

Psalm  CXIX. 
Lead  me  in  the  path  of  thy  mercies,  thou  most  beautiful  of  women,  for  I 
have  desired  thee. 

How  have  I  loved  ihy  law,  0  Lady  ;  thy  meditation  is  always  present  to  me. 
Thy  word  is  a  lamp  unto  my  feet,  and  an  ineffable  light  unto  my  ways. 

In  the  Canticles  and  Hymns,  printed  with  the  Psalter,  we  find : — 

1  will  confess  thee,  Lady,  because  thou  hast  hid  these  things  from  the  wise, 
and  hast  revealed  them  unto  babes. 

Thy  glory  has  covered  the  heavens,  and  the  earth  is  full  of  thy  mercy. 
As  the  child  cannot  live  without  its  nurse,  so  cannot  salvation  be  obtained 
without  our  Lady. 

At  thy  name  let  every  knee  bow,  in  heaven,  on  earth,  and  in  hell. 

Other  similar  works  of  devotion  might  be  quoted.  In  a  modern 
volume  in  English  issued  under  the  highest  authority  we  read  : — 

Modern  heretics  cannot  endure  that  we  should  salute  and  call  Mary  our 
Hope.  They  say  that  God  alone  is  our  Hope,  and  that  He  curses  those  who  put 
their  trust  in  creatures.  This  is  what  the  heretics  say  ;  but,  in  spite  of  it,  the 
Holy  Church  obliges  all  ecclesiastics  and  religious  each  day  to  invoke  and  call 
Mary  by  the  sweet  name  of  our  Hope — the  Hope  of  all. 

0  Immaculate  Virgin,  prevent  thy  beloved  Son,  who  is  irritated  by  our  sins, 
from  abandoning  us  to  the  power  of  the  devil.  .  .  .  Through  thee  we  have  been 
reconciled  to  God.     Thou  art  the  salvation  of  the  whole  world. 

We  often  obtain  more  promptly  what  we  ask  by  calling  on  the  name  of  Mary, 
than  by  invoking  that  of  Jesus. 

Jesus  himself  said,  Were  it  not  for  the  prayers  of  my  Mother,  there  would  be 
no  hope  of  mercy. 

Mary  so  loved  the  world  as  to  give  her  only-begotten  Son.1 

1  The  Glories  of  Mary,  translated  from  the  Italian  of  St.  Alphonsus  Maria  de 
Liguori.  He  founded  the  Order  of  the  Redemptionists  in  1732,  and  died  in 
1782.  The  Imprimatur  runs  thus :  "  We  hereby  approve  of  this  translation  of 
the  Glories  of  Mary,  and  cordially  recommend  it  to  the  faithful. — Nicholas 
Card.  Wiseman,  Archbishop  of  Westminster,  a.d.  1852."  "  We  heartily  com- 
mend this  translation  of  the  Glories  of  Mary  to  all  the  disciples  of  her  Divine 
Son. — |J(  Henry  E.  Archbishop  of  Westminster  [Cardinal  Manning],  Aug.  11, 
1868."  Unhappily  the  Anglican  Church,  in  this  as  in  so  many  other  articles, 
is  doing  her  best  to  overtake  Rome.  Since  the  publication  of  our  first  edition, 
we  have  met  with  the  following  Hymn  to  the  Virgin,  in  a  volume  of  Guild 
Hymns  in  use  in  one  of  our  large  towns : — 


284  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

What  is  this  but  the  "mouth  speaking  blasphemies"?  (Eev. 
xiii.  5.) 

The  Ave-Maria  takes  its  name  from  Gabriel's  salutation,  "  Hail 
Mary,"  and  consists  of  Luke  i.  28  and  42,  with  this  addition,  made 
in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  "  Holy  Mary,  Mother 
of  God,  pray  for  us  sinners,  both  now  and  in  the  hour  of  death. 
Amen."  It  is  placed  in  the  Komish  Missal  on  a  level  with  the 
Lord's  Prayer  and  the  Apostles'  Creed,  and  with  them  forms  the 
basis  of  the  Eosary.1 

The  earliest  festivals  in  honour  of  the  Virgin,  the  Annunciation 
and  the  Purification,  cannot  be  traced  back  further  than  the  sixth 
century.  The  latter  was  also  called  Candlemas,  from  the  multitude 
of  candles  which  were  then  lighted,  as  was  formerly  done  in  the 
heathen  festival  of  the  Lupercalia,  in  the  same  month  of  February.2 
The  feast  of  the  Assumption,  founded  on  the  Gnostic  legend  of 
her  translation  to  Heaven,  became  at  Eome,  in  the  ninth  cen- 
tury, one  of  the  chief  festivals.  Several  others  were  added  in  later 
times. 

Our  sketch  would  be  imperfect  without  a  brief  notice  of  the  de- 
bated doctrine  of  the  Immaculate  Conception.  This  innovation 
having  been  propounded  about  a.d.  1140,  by  some  canons  of  Lyons, 
drew  down  upon  them  the  rebuke  of  the  great  Bernard  :  "  On  the 
same  principle  you  would  be  obliged  to  hold  that  the  conception  of 
her  ancestors  in  an  ascending  line  was  also  a  holy  one ;  since  she 
could  not  otherwise  have  descended  from  them  after  a  worthy  man- 
ner, and  there  would  be  festivals  without  number.  .  .  .  We  ought 

"  Mother  of  Mercy  !  day  by  day, 

My  love  of  thee  grows  more  and  more ; 
Thy  gifts  are  strewn  upon  my  way, 
Like  sands  upon  the  great  sea-shore. 

Get  me  the  grace  to  love  thee  more ; 

Jesus  will  give  it  if  thou  plead  : 
And  Mother !  when  life's  cares  are  o'er, 

O,  I  shall  love  thee  then  indeed ! " 

1  The  origin  of  the  Rosary  is  thus  stated  by  Gieseler :  "  Ever  since  virtue 
was  supposed  to  attach  to  frequent  repetitions  of  forms  of  prayer,  people  natur- 
ally were  in  want  of  means  for  facilitating  and  securing  the  enumeration  of 
them.  Thus  an  Egyptian  monk,  Paulus,  used  to  count  his  prayers  by  the  help 
of  stones ;  Godiva,  an  English  countess  (about  a.d.  1040),  by  a  lace.  In  the  thir- 
teenth century  a  medallion  with  sacred  symbols  on  it,  set  round  with  knobs  for 
counting,  was  in  use.  .  .  .  The  Rosary  is  first  heard  of  among  the  Dominicans 
as  early  as  1270,  under  the  technical  name  of  the  Paternoster." 

1  When  Ceres  searched  with  candles  for  her  daughter  Proserpine,  carried  by 
Pluto  into  the  regions  below. 


THE   IMMACULATE    CONCEPTION.  235" 

not  to  attribute  to  Mary  that  which  belongs  to  Him  only  who  being 
Himself  free  from  sin  can  make  others  holy.  Except  Him,  all  who' 
are  descended  from  Adam  must  say  of  themselves  that  which  one 
of  them  says  in  the  name  of  all,  •  In  sin  did  my  mother  conceive 
me.'  "x  And  a  century  afterwards  the  doctrine  was  attacked  by  the 
celebrated  Dominican,  Thomas  Aquinas,  so  vigorously,  that  he  was 
thought  to  have  utterly  overthrown  and  chased  it  into  oblivion. 
But  his  great  successor  and  opponent  in  the  philosophy  of  the 
Schoolmen,  the  Franciscan  Duns  Scotus,  took  the  fugitive  dogma 
under  his  protection,  and  made  of  it  the  battle-cry  of  the  Fran- 
ciscan order.  Eound  this  symbol  the  two  puissant  armies  waged 
long  and  deadly  war.  When  the  Franciscans  appealed  to  the  reve- 
lations made  to  St.  Birgitta  (Bridget)  in  favour  of  the  Immaculate 
Conception,  the  Dominicans  opposed  to  them  the  visions  of  a  sister 
of  their  own  order,  the  celebrated  Catharine  of  Siena.  But  as  usual 
credulity  was  stronger  than  reason.  Christendom  in  general,  and 
the  University  of  Paris  in  particular,  declared  itself  (a.d.  1389)  in 
favour  of  the  Immaculate  Conception.  Several  Dominican  doctors 
were  forced  to  recant,  and  all  candidates  for  academical  degrees 
were  obliged  to  subscribe  to  the  new  doctrine.2  Since  then  it  has 
become  more  and  more  deeply  rooted  in  the  Koman  Catholic  mind. 
In  1746  Pope  Sixtus  IV.  appointed  an  annual  festival  in  honour  of 
it ;  and  in  1854,  in  the  most  solemn  manner,  it  was  adopted  as  an 
article  of  faith  by  a  general  council  held  at  Borne. 


CHAPTER  III. 
Benedict. 

The  life  of  a  good  man,  under  whose  laws  a  vast  number  of  the  in- 
habitants of  Western  Europe  have  lived  for  thirteen  centuries,  must 
needs  be  worthy  of  our  notice.  Benedict,  and  Pope  Gregory  the 
Great,  who  wrote  his  biography,  are  the  principal  Churchmen  of 
the  sixth  century.8    Yet  the  actual  materials  of  Benedict's  history 

1  Bernard  however  held  that,  "  like  the  Baptist  and  Jeremiah  "  (!),  Mary  was, 
before  her  birth,  cleansed  from  original  sin. 

2  In  1509  four  Dominicans  were  burnt  at  Berne  for  getting  up  fraudulent 
appearances  of  saints  in  order  to  discredit  it. 

8  Gregory  was  three  years  old  at  the  death  of  Benedict.  A  halo  of  legend 
encircled  Benedict's  head  even  during  his  life,  and  his  miracles  probably,  as  in 
the  case  of  Martin  of  Tours,  gathered  little  by  the  lapse  of  time. 


236  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

are  comparatively  scanty,  and  every  incident  of  his  life  is  wrapped 
in  a  thick  haze  of  miraculous  interposition. 

Jovinian  and  Benedict  were  both  monks,  but  their  experience  of 
the  cloister,  and  their  convictions  as  to  the  means  by  which  the 
Church  was  to  be  renovated,  led  them  in  wholly  opposite  directions. 
The  one  saw  that  without  a  return  to  first  principles  and  New 
Testament  teacbing,  the  plague  which  was  wasting  the  Church 
could  never  be  stayed ;  the  other  believed  that  the  monastic  life 
upon  which  the  Church  had  entered  was  her  true  course,  and  that 
what  was  needed  was  only  to  give  to  it  its  proper  direction  and 
consistency.  , 

A  century  had  elapsed  since  Jerome,  Martin  of  Tours,  and  John 
Cassianus  made  Europe  familiar  with  the  monastic  institution. 
The  monastery  at  Marseilles,  founded  by  Cassianus  in  the  early 
part  of  the  fifth  century,  was  a  centre  of  Christian  influence,  and 
amid  the  disorders  caused  by  the  marauding  incursions  of  the 
northern  tribes,  proved  a  great  blessing  to  the  people.  From  this 
convent  and  its  branches  had  gone  forth  many  pious  and  laborious 
bishops.  But  by  the  end  of  this  distracted  century,  the  spirit  of 
monasticism  had  declined  and  its  discipline  grown  lax,  and  the 
monks  are  described  as  roaming  over  the  country,  corrupting  both 
manners  and  religion. 

Benedict  was  born  at  Nursia  in  Central  Italy,1  a.d.  480.  At  the 
age  of  twelve  he  was,  according  to  a  custom  which  prevailed,  sent 
to  Borne  to  be  instructed  in  the  liberal  arts  ;  but  his  pure  young 
spirit  shrank  from  the  corruption  which  he  saw  everywhere  around 
him.  He  longed  for  solitude,  and  at  the  end  of  two  years  fled 
from  Borne,  accompanied  for  the  first  twenty-four  miles  by  the 
nurse  whom  his  parents  had  sent  with  him,  and  who  from  affection 
was  unwilling  to  leave  him.  But  Benedict  still  pursuing  his  object, 
escaped  from  her,  and  proceeding  further,  stopped  at  a  small  village 
not  far  from  the  town  of  Subiaco.2  The  rustic  inhabitants,  pleased 
with  his  modesty  and  sweetness  of  disposition,  allowed  him  to  take 
up  his  abode  in  a  cell  near  their  church.  Here  he  fell  in  with  a 
monk  named  Bomanus,  who  took  him  to  a  cavern  not  far  from  his 
own  cloister  ;  and  in  this  rude  shelter  the  delicately-nurtured  boy 
found  a  home.  His  scanty  food  was  secretly  supplied  by  Bomanus 
from  his  own  small  pittance.  The  cave  lay  at  the  foot  of  the  cliff 
on  which  the  monastery  stood ;  as  there  was  no  path  down  the 
rock,  the  bread  was  lowered  by  a  rope,  a  small  bell  being  attached 

1  In  Umbria,  midway  between  Eome  and  Ancona. 
2  Fifty  miles  east  of  Rome. 


THE  YOUNG  HERMIT    MADE   ABBOT.  237 

to  give  warning.  So  entirely  was  Benedict  cut  off  from  the  world 
that  he  ceased  to  mark  even  the  fasts  and  festivals  of  the  Church. 
At  the  end  of  three  years  his  hiding-place  was  discovered  by  some 
shepherds,  who  at  first  mistook  him  for  a  wild  beast,  but  when 
they  drew  near,  were  melted  into  kindness  by  his  gentle  eloquence. 
Henceforth  the  story  of  his  life  is  a  renewal  of  the  experiences  of 
Paul  and  Anthony  in  the  desert  of  the  Thebais.  There  are  the 
same  heroic  conflicts  with  the  natural  passions,1  the  same  deadly 
battles  with  the  evil  one  under  various  disguises,  the  same  prodi- 
gality of  miracles  wrought  often  for  the  most  trivial  purposes. 

Benedict's  fame  spread  through  the  country,  and  the  place  of 
abbot  in  a  neighbouring  convent  falling  vacant,  the  office  was  con- 
ferred on  him.  His  strength  of  will  was  equal  to  the  sweetness  of 
his  temper,  and  he  warned  the  monks  beforehand  of  the  discipline 
which  he  should  think  it  his  duty  to  enforce.  This  he  did  with  so 
much  severity,  that  in  a  short  time  their  love  was  turned  to  hatred, 
and  they  attempted  to  poison  him.  He  mildly  reproved  them, 
prayed  that  they  might  be  forgiven,  and  withdrew  again  to  his 
grotto.  This  was  no  longer  a  solitude.  The  fame  of  his  miracles 
and  sanctity  drew  multitudes  to  him  even  from  a  distance.  The 
breaking  up  of  society,  consequent  on  the  repeated  irruptions  of  the 
northern  nations,  and  the  rapid  changes  in  government,  possessions, 
and  creed,  drove  men  to  seek  shelter  from  the  storms  of  the  world 
in  that  recluse  life  which  promised  security  from  earthly  vicissi- 
tudes. Men  of  consideration  at  Rome  placed  their  sons  with  Bene- 
dict that  he  might  educate  them  for  the  ascetic  life ;  even  Goths  of 
the  lower  ranks  came  to  him,  and  these  he  employed  in  the  labour 
of  the  field  and  the  garden.  In  a  short  time  there  sprang  up  in 
that  romantic  region,  on  the  peaks  of  the  hills,  and  under  the  oaks 
and  chestnuts  which  clothed  the  ravines,  twelve  monasteries,  each 
containing  twelve  monks  under  a  superior. 

But  Benedict  could  not  remain  at  Subiaco.  To  rid  himself  of  an 
envious  priest,  who  plotted  against  his  life  and  assailed  the  con- 
tinency  of  his  monks,  he  withdrew  with  a  few  followers  to  Monte 
Casino,  fifty  miles  to  the  south-east,  where  they  took  up  their  abode 
in  the  ruins  of  an  ancient  castle.  On  this  mountain  stood  a  temple 
of  Apollo  in  the  midst  of  its  sacred  grove,  and  the  peasants  still 
brought  their  offerings  to  the  pagan  altar.  By  his  eloquent 
preaching  Benedict  diverted  the  people  from  their  idolatry,  taught 
them  the  faith  of  the  Gospel,  and  persuaded  them  to  demolish  the 

8  Effectually  to  mortify  his  sensual  appetite,  he  one  day  stripped  off  his  only 
vestment  of  skins,  and  rolled  himself  in  a  clump  of  thorns  and  briars  which 
was  near  his  grotto. 


288  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

stately  edifice,  with  its  altar,  statue  and  grove.  He  erected  in  its 
place  a  chapel,  dedicated  to  St.  Martin  of  Tours,  and  a  monastery, 
the  germ  of  that  "  great  model  republic  which  gave  its  laws  to 
almost  the  whole  of  Western  Monasticism."  Here  about  the  year 
•5291  he  framed  his  celebrated  Rule,  •'  an  enduring  monument  of 
his  own  spirit,  and  of  the  new  shaping  which,  through  his  instru- 
mentality, was  given  to  the  ccenobitic  life  of  the  West." 

In  the  Benedictine  scheme  the  abbot  is  the  representative  of 
Christ ;  to  him  therefore  all  are  to  yield  obedience,  ready,  cheerful 
and  implicit.  Candidates  are  admitted  for  a  year  on  probation,  at 
the  end  of  which  time  they  take  upon  themselves  the  irrevocable 
vow.  From  the  beginning  poverty,  chastity  and  obedience  had 
been  indispensable  to  the  profession  of  a  monk  ;  Benedict  made 
the  last  still  more  absolute,  and  added  what  was  known  as  the  Vow 
of  steadfastness.  Henceforth  the  door  of  the  monastery  opened  only 
inwards.  Formerly,  if  the  monk  forsook  his  cell  and  married  he 
was  liable  to  penance,  but  his  marriage  was  not  annulled ;  now, 
such  marriages  were  declared,  ipso  facto,  void,  and  the  offender  was 
compelled  to  return.  The  vow,  written  out,  was  laid  upon  the 
altar,  those  who  could  not  write  signing  it  with  their  mark.  The 
property  of  the  novice,  if  not  already  given  to  the  poor,  was  added 
to  the  common  stock  of  the  brotherhood.  The  beds  of  the  monks 
were  often  searched,  and  punishment  followed  the  appropriation  of 
any  valuables.  No  letters  or  presents,  even  from  the  nearest  kin- 
dred, were  to  be  received  without  leave  of  the  abbot,  who  might 
transfer  any  gift  to  another  than  the  one  for  whom  it  was  intended. 
'The  abbot  in  his  turn,  although  absolute,  was  admonished  by  the 
Bule,  to  temper  the  severity  of  discipline  with  the  spirit  of  love  ; 
he  should  show  mercy  and  gentleness  to  the  brethren  while  he 
hated  their  faults  ;  his  own  fallibility  should  ever  be  present  with 
him,  and  he  should  remember  that  "  the  bruised  reed  is  not  to  be 
broken." 

"  The  three  occupations  enjoined  by  Benedict's  system  were  the 
worship  of  God,  reading,  and  manual  labour.  The  adventitious 
advantages  of  the  monastery  were  not  contemplated  by  the  founder ; 
the  object  was  not  to  make  the  wilderness  blossom  with  fertility,  to 
extend  the  arts  of  civilized  life  into  barbarous  regions  ;  it  was  solely 
to  employ  in  engrossing  occupation  that  portion  of  time  which 
could  not  be  devoted  to  worship  and  [meditation] ."  And  in  regard 
to  learning  and  study,  in  which  of  later  times  the  Benedictines 

1  The  same  year  in  which  the  ancient  classic  schools  of  Athens  were  closed 
by  order  of  Justinian.  The  two  events  mark  a  dividing  line  between  ancient 
And  mediaeval  history. 


THE    MONASTIC    BULE.  289 

have  so  highly  distinguished  themselves,  this  was  an  innovation 
quite  foreign  to  the  ideas  of  the  founder  himself,  whom  his  bio- 
grapher describes  as  "  learnedly  ignorant,  and  wisely  unlearned." 
Its  introduction  was  perhaps  chiefly  due  to  the  influence  of  Cassio- 
dorus,  a  contemporary  of  Benedict,  who  in  538  laid  aside  the  high 
office  which  he  held  in  the  State,  and  retired  from  the  world  in 
order  to  found  a  monastery  at  Vivarium  in  Calabria.1 

The  monastic  day  was  equally  divided  between  religious  exercises 
and  labour.  Seven  times2  in  the  twenty-four  hours  prayers  were 
chanted  by  the  brotherhood,  commencing  at  dawn  with  matins, 
before  which  vigils  had  been  sung  already.  The  psalms  were  dis- 
tributed among  these  services  in  such  a  manner  that  they  should 
all  be  chanted  every  week.  Much  time  was  spent  in  learning  them 
by  rote  and  in  reading  the  Scriptures,  Cassianus's  Conferences,  the 
Lives  of  the  Saints,  and  other  "edifying  books."  At  meals  there 
was  reading  aloud  and  no  conversation  was  permitted.  During 
harvest  the  monks  did  not  return  to  the  house,  but  knelt  and  per- 
formed their  religious  service  in  the  fields.  Manual  labour  was 
varied  by  the  teaching  of  children,  sent  to  reside  in  the  cloister  or 
in  daily  attendance  from  the  neighbouring  village.  As  time  went 
on  this  occupation  became  of  more  and  more  importance,  and  gave 
its  literary  shape  to  the  Benedictine  societies. 

In  regard  to  abstinence  the  Kule  was  less  severe  than  amongst 
the  Eastern  monks.  It  was  not  however  from  choice  that  Benedict 
admitted  a  relaxation  of  the  ancient  severity  ;  he  did  so  unwillingly, 
and  only  in  condescension  to  what  was  then  supposed  to  be  the 
gradually  decreasing  vigour  of  the  human  frame!  The  monks 
were  cooks  and  servitors  by  turn.  At  the  end  of  the  week,  the  one 
who  went  off  duty  and  he  who  took  his  place  were  to  wash  the  feet 
of  the  rest.  Two  sorts  of  grain  or  vegetables  were  served  for 
dinner,  with  fruit  or  salad,  and  sometimes  fish  or  eggs,  with  a 
small  measure  of  wine.  A  pound  of  bread  a  day  was  allowed  to 
each.  Indulgence  was  shown  to  the  aged  and  sick.  From  Easter 
to  Pentecost  there  was  no  fast ;  from  Pentecost  till  the  end  of  Sep- 
tember there  were  fasts  on  two  days  of  the  week ;  the  rest  of  the  year 
to  Easter  was  a  perpetual  fast,  with  only  one  (evening)  meal  a  day. 
In  Lent  a  still  more  rigorous  abstinence  was  enjoined,  not  from 
food  only,  but  from  sleep  and  speech.     It  was  strictly  forbidden  to 

1  Cassiodorus  caused  his  monks  to  transcribe  even  the  ancient  classics,  by 
which  means  some  at  least  escaped  destruction. 

a  This  number  is  taken  from  Psalm  cxix.  164.  They  were  (besides  vigils), 
matins  (morning),  prime  (early),  tierce,  sexte,  nones  (third,  sixth,  ninth  hour), 
vespers  (even-tide),  and  compline  (completion  of  the  day). 


240  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

partake  of  food  without  the  walls  ;  if  a  brother  was  obliged  to  be 
absent  the  whole  day,  the  Kule  required  him  to  fast  until  his  return. 
To  take  away  occasions  of  absence,  every  monastery  contained 
within  its  enclosure  a  mill,  a  well,  a  bakehouse,  and  all  other 
needful  appliances.  When  a  monk  was  sent  out  on  necessary 
business  he  was  forbidden  on  his  return  to  dissipate  the  minds  of 
the  brethren  by  relating  his  adventures.  The  occupation  of  every 
monk  was  determined  by  the  abbot,  and  if  any  one  prided  himself 
on  his  skill  in  any  art  or  handicraft  the  Eule  required  him  to 
abandon  it !  The  laws  of  commercial  economy  being  then  but 
little  understood,  the  monasteries,  to  escape  the  reproach  of  covet- 
ousness,  were  accustomed  to  sell  their  productions  under  the  market 
price. 

The  clothing  consisted  of  a  coarse  tunic  or  robe  with  long  sleeves, 
which  served  as  a  shirt;  at  first  white,  afterwards  changed  to 
black.  For  the  offices  of  the  choir,  the  monks  put  on  a  large 
mantle  with,  a  cowl,  also  black,  and  a  scapulary,  consisting  of  two 
pieces  of  cloth  joined  round  the  neck  with  a  hood,  and  hanging, 
one  part  in  front,  the  other  behind.1  Unlike  the  Oriental  monks, 
they  wore  shoes  and  stockings ;  their  girdle  was  narrow  and  of 
leather.  Each  had  two  suits  which  he  himself  kept  in  repair. 
They  slept  in  their  clothes,  shoes  and  girdle,  in  dormitories  of  ten 
or  twenty,  in  separate  beds,  the  young  and  old  intermixed,  with  a 
deacon  to  each  chamber.  The  penalty  for  light  faults  was  the 
smaller  excommunication,  i.  e.,  eating  alone  after  the  others  had 
done.  For  graver  faults,  separation  from  the  table,  from  prayers 
and  from  the  community,  personal  chastisement,  and  last  of  all 
expulsion. 

Silence,  humility,  obedience,  these  were  the  cardinal  virtues  of 
the  cloister  life.  "  Everything,"  remarks  Milman,  "  was  con- 
centrated on  self.  It  was  a  man  isolated  from  his  kind  who  was  to 
rise  to  a  lonely  perfection  ;  all  the  social,  all  patriotic  virtues  were 
excluded."  Humility  was  confounded  with  slavish  fear,  and  a 
false  importance  was  attached  to  the  outward  demeanour.  Bene- 
dict took  no  account  of  the  Lord's  plain  injunction :  "  Thou  when 
thou  fasteth  anoint  thy  head  and  wash  thy  face,  that  thou  be  not 
seen  of  men  to  fast."  Like  Basil  and  Gregory,  he  thought  it 
necessary  that  the  temper  of  the  mind  should  be  exhibited  in  the 
postures  of  the  body.2    The  head  was  to  be  constantly  bowed  down ; 

1  "  This  was  nothing  else  than  the  hooded  frock  of  the  ploughman  and  shep- 
herd, borrowed  from  that  of  the  slave  in  pagan  times,  such  as  Columella  has 
described." 

8  See  ante,  p.  22. 


BENEDICT   AND    TOTILA.  241 

the  eyes  directed  to  the  earth  ;  the  thoughts  to  be  hourly  occupied 
in  self-accusation  for  sin ;  and  the  brethren  were  to  cultivate  the 
state  of  mind  proper  to  those  who  might  at  any  moment  appear 
before  the  Divine  Judgment-seat.  Benedict  persuaded  himself  that 
this  was  the  discipline  which  made  men  free.  "When,"  he  says, 
"  the  monk  has  passed  through  all  these  stages  of  humility,  he  will 
attain  to  that  love  of  God,  which  being  perfect  casts  out  fear,  and 
will  begin  to  practise  naturally  and  from  custom  all  those  rules 
which  he  before  observed  through  fear." * 

Not  long  before  his  death  Benedict  was  visited  by  the  great 
Totila,  at  the  head  of  his  victorious  Ostrogoths.  To  test  his  pro- 
phetic spirit  the  king  dressed  one  of  his  captains  in  his  own  royal 
robes  and  purple  boots,  gave  him  a  numerous  escort,  and  sent  him 
up  to  the  monastery  to  present  himself  as  the  king.  The  moment 
Benedict  perceived  the  captain,  "  My  son,"  he  cried,  "put  off  the 
dress  thou  hast  on,  it  is  not  thine."  Totila  himself  afterwards 
ascended  the  hill,  and  fell  prostrate  at  the  abbot's  feet.  Benedict 
raised  him  up,  solemnly  rebuked  him  for  the  cruelties  he  had 
committed,  and  (so  it  is  said)  foretold  his  conquest  of  Borne,  his. 
passage  over  to  Sicily  and  Greece,  his  reign  of  nine  years,  and  his 
death  during  the  tenth.  The  greater  humanity  which  distinguished 
Totila's  conduct  of  the  war  from  this  time  is  attributed  to  his  inter- 
view with  the  saint. 

Benedict's  twin  sister,  Scholastica,  was  as  devout  as  himself,  and 
equally  powerful  in  attracting  and  ruling  her  own  sex.  She  also  is 
reported  to  have  wrought  miracles.  Her  convent  was  not  far  from 
his  :  they  met  however  once  only  in  each  year.  When  she  lay  on 
her  death-bed,  about  the  year  543,  he  came  to  visit  her,  expecting 
it  might  be  for  the  last  time.  With  the  sisterly  affection  which 
her  artificial  manner  of  life  had  not  been  able  to  quench,  she 
entreated  him  to  rest  for  the  night  under  her  roof.  He  had  never 
passed  a  night  out  of  his  own  monastery,  and  he  refused,  even  at 
her  solicitation,  to  break  his  rule.  Scholastica  bowed  her  head  in 
prayer.  Suddenly  the  serene  sky  was  overcast,  lightnings  flashed 
and  thunders  pealed  above  them,  and  the  rain  fell  in  torrents. 
"  The  Lord  have  mercy  upon  thee,  my  sister,"  said  Benedict, 
"  what  hast  thou  done ? "     "I  prayed  to  thee,"  she  replied,  "  and 

1  "The  Catholic  Church  has  recognized  three  other  rules  besides  that  of  St. 
Benedict,  viz. :  1.  That  of  St.  Basil,  which  is  still  retained  by  the  Oriental 
monks.  2.  That  of  St.  Augustine,  which  is  adopted  by  the  regular  canons,  the 
order  of  the  preaching  brothers  or  Dominicans,  and  several  military  orders. 
3.  The  rule  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  and  his  Mendicant  order  in  the  thirteenth 
century." 

B 


242  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

thou  wouldst  not  hearken  to  me,  but  the  Lord  has  heard  my  prayer. 
Go  now  if  thou  canst."  They  passed  the  night  together  in  spiritual 
conversation.  "  Three  days  afterwards  Benedict,  from  the  window 
of  his  cell,  saw  his  sister  soar  up  to  heaven  in  the  form  of  a  dove." 
He  survived  her  only  forty  days.  A  violent  fever  seized  him.  He 
ordered  her  tomb  to  be  opened,  and  caused  himself  on  the  sixth  day 
to  be  carried  into  the  chapel,  where,  supported  by  his  monks,  he 
received  the  viaticum.  Then  standing  beside  the  open  grave,  at  the 
foot  of  the  altar,  with  his  arms  extended,  he  breathed  out  his  spirit 
in  prayer. 

It  was  an  era  of  convulsion  in  the  political  world.  The  fall  of 
the  Gothic  monarchy  and  the  recon  quest  of  Italy  by  the  generals  of 
Justinian  were  succeeded  by  the  invasion  of  the  Lombards,  under 
their  king  Alboin,  in  568.  Arian  in  name,  but  still  half-pagan  in 
their  nature,  they  crossed  the  Alps,  and  poured  themselves  down 
upon  the  plains  of  Italy.  So  sweeping  was  the  devastation  they 
wrought  that  the  end  of  the  world  was  thought  to  have  come. 
They  were  especially  furious  against  the  monasteries  ;  and  in  580 
they  attacked  the  sanctuary  of  Monte  Casino  by  night,  pillaged  and 
burnt  it.  The  monks  all  escaped,  bearing  with  them,  as  their 
entire  fortune,  the  Rule  written  by  their  founder,  with  the  day's 
measure  of  wine  and  pound  of  bread  which  he  had  prescribed. 
Benedict  is  said  to  have  foreseen  the  event  in  prophetic  vision.  A 
nobleman  with  whom  he  lived  on  familiar  terms  found  him  one 
day  weeping  bitterly.  After  watching  him  for  a  long  time,  and 
perceiving  that  his  tears  did  not  cease,  and  that  they  did  not  pro- 
ceed from  the  ordinary  fervour  of  his  prayers  but  from  profound 
melancholy,  the  nobleman  asked  the  cause.  Benedict  answered  : 
"  This  house  which  I  have  built  and  all  that  I  have  prepared  for 
my  brethren  has  been  delivered  up  to  the  pagans  by  the  sentence  of 
Almighty  God  ;  scarcely  have  I  been  able  to  obtain  that  their  lives 
shall  be  spared." 

But  ere  he  died,  Benedict  was  comforted,  so  we  are  told,  by 
another  vision.  He  saw  his  Rule  go  forth  over  all  Europe,  and 
monasteries  of  his  order  rise  up  in  every  part  of  the  Western 
world.  And  thus,  indeed,  it  came  to  pass.  Except  during  the 
temporary  prevalence  of  Columbanus'  Rule  in  France,  that  of  Bene- 
dict was  paramount  in  Europe  until  the  thirteenth  century,  when  the 
Dominicans  and  Franciscans  partially  eclipsed  it ;  it  formed  the 
model  for  all  other  monastic  orders,  and  was  the  prolific  nursery  of 
missionaries,  authors,  bishops  and  popes. 


PERIOD  III. 


FROM  THE  ACCESSION  OF  POPE  GBEGORY  THE  GREAT,  A.D.  590, 
TO  THE  END  OF  THE  TENTH  CENTURY. 


(     245     ) 

CHAPTER    I. 

Gregory  the  Great. 

The  pontificate  of  Gregory  marks  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the 
<Jhurch.  In  him  the  papacy  came  to  maturity.  Leo  the  Great 
possessed  superior  genius  and  ambition  ;  but  in  his  days  there  was 
still  a  power  higher  than  the  Church,  viz.,  the  Empire.  By  the 
time  of  Gregory  a  great  change  had  taken  place.  The  Western 
Empire  fell  in  476,  and  although  in  the  next  century  Belisarius 
and  Narses  had  recovered  Italy  for  the  Byzantine  Emperors,  it  was 
but  an  ephemeral  flicker  of  the  expiring  flame.  The  political 
horizon  had  fallen  to  a  dead  level, — the  only  figure  which  rises 
above  it  is  the  Roman  pontiff. 

With  Gregory  we  stand  on  the  threshold  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  classic  world  of  antiquity  has  disappeared.  The  language  of 
Borne  has  almost  ceased  to  be  vernacular,  and  is  soon  only  to  be 
met  with  in  the  courts  of  law,  the  Church  and  the  cloister. 
Scarcely  is  there  to  be  found  a  single  man  of  genius  or  learning 
either  in  the  East  or  in  the  West.  The  Eastern  Church,  sunk 
down  under  its  own  corruptions  and  the  weight  of  Byzantine  des- 
potism, is  soon  to  become  an  easy  prey  to  the  Moslem  conquerors. 
The  Church  of  the  West  is  compared  by  Gregory  himself  to  "an 
old  and  shattered  ship,  admitting  the  waters  on  all  sides,  her 
timbers  rotten  and  shaken  by  daily  storms  and  premonitions  of 
wreck." 

In  the  person  of  Gregory  the  bishop  of  Rome  first  became  in  act 
and  influence,  if  not  in  avowed  authority,  a  temporal  sovereign. 
"  His  acts,"  writes  Milman,  "  were  not  the  ambitious  encroach- 
ments of  ecclesiastical  usurpation,  but  were  forced  upon  him  by  the 
purest  motives,  if  not  by  absolute  necessity.  The  virtual  sove- 
reignty fell  to  him  as  abdicated  by  the  neglect  or  powerlessness  of 
its  rightful  owners ;  he  must  assume  it,  or  leave  the  city  and  the 
people  to  anarchy." 

Gregory  was  high-born1  and  wealthy,  and  had  for  some  years 
filled  the  office  of  Roman  praetor ;  but  the  monastic  life  of  Monte 
Casino  captivated  him,  and  on  his  father's  death  he  abandoned  his 
high  office  and  professed  himself  a  Benedictine  monk.    He  sold  his 

1  He  was  born  about  a.d.  540. 


246  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

patrimony,  and  the  wealthy  patrician  who  had  been  used  to  traverse 
the  city  in  silk  and  jewels,  now,  habited  like  a  beggar,  was  to  be 
seen  waiting  on  the  beggars  in  the  hospital  of  the  monastery, 
which  he  had  built  at  the  gate  of  his  paternal  mansion.  He  prac- 
tised the  austerities  of  the  order  with  the  utmost  rigour,  eating 
nothing  but  pulse  which  his  mother  sent  him  ready  soaked  in  a 
silver  porringer.  This  porringer,  which  was  the  only  relic  of  his 
former  splendour,  did  not  long  remain  in  his  hands,  for  one  day  a 
shipwrecked  sailor  coming  to  beg  of  him  as  he  was  writing  in  his 
cell,  Gregory  finding  no  money  in  his  purse,  gave  him  the  bowl. 
Constant  fasts  and  vigils  reduced  him  to  such  a  state  of  debility 
that  he  was  scarcely  able  to  stand. 

Gregory  founded  six  monasteries  in  Sicily  beside  that  in  which 
he  lived  at  Eome.  The  fame  of  his  abstinence  and  charity  took,  as 
was  usual  in  that  age,  the  form  of  miracle,  and  his  monastery  was 
the  perpetual  scene  of  preternatural  wonders.  It  was  whilst  he  was 
still  in  the  convent  that  the  well-known  incident  took  place  which 
led  to  the  conversion  of  our  Saxon  ancestors  ;  it  will  be  related  in 
the  next  chapter.  At  first  it  was  Gregory's  purpose  himself  to 
carry  the  Gospel  into  our  remote  and  at  that  time  barbarous  island. 
He  extorted  the  unwilling  consent  of  the  Pope  (Pelagius  II.)  to 
leave  his  monastery  for  this  purpose,  and  had  actually  set  forth  and 
travelled  three  days'  journey,  when  he  was  overtaken  by  mes- 
sengers sent  to  recall  him.  "  All  Eome  had  risen  in  pious  mutiny 
and  compelled  the  Pope  to  revoke  his  permission." 

Soon  after  his  return  Italy  became  a  scene  of  misery  and  desola- 
tion. The  Lombards  were  wasting  the  peninsula ;  the  feeble 
exarch  of  Eavenna  confessed  he  had  no  power  to  withstand  them  ; 
the  Tiber  at  Eome  overflowed  and  swept  away  the  granaries  of 
corn,  and  a  pestilence  ensued  to  which  the  pope  Pelagius  fell  an 
early  victim,  a.d.  590.  A  successor  had  to  be  found ;  with  one 
voice  the  clergy,  the  senate  and  the  people  summoned  Gregory  to 
the  vacant  chair.  The  prospect  of  the  honour  was  a  burden  to 
him ;  he  wrote  to  the  Eastern  Emperor,  Maurice,  entreating  him 
to  withhold  the  Imperial  consent ;  but  his  letter  was  intercepted, 
a  general  petition  for  his  promotion  was  substituted,  and  an  Im- 
perial rescript  was  received,  confirming  his  election. 

11  Monasticism  ascended  the  papal  throne  in  the  person  of  Gre- 
gory. In  austerity,  in  devotion,  in  imaginative  superstition,  he 
was  a  monk  to  the  end  of  his  days."  Nevertheless  he  possessed  an 
extraordinary  capacity  for  business,  and  devoted  himself  to  his 
manifold  duties  "  with  the  hurried  restlessness  of  the  most 
ambitious   statesman.      Nothing  seems    too   great,   nothing    too 


CHARACTER  OF  GREGORY.  247 

insignificant  for  his  earnest  personal  solicitude;  from  the  most 
minute  point  in  the  ritual,  or  regulations  ahout  the  papal  farms  in 
Sicily,  he  passes  to  the  conversion  of  Britain,  the  extirpation  of 
simony  amongst  the  clergy  of  Gaul,  negotiations  with  the  armed 
conquerors  of  Italy,  or  the  revolutions  of  the  Eastern  Empire." 
But  in  the  midst  of  all  he  panted  for  the  retirement  and  quiet  of 
his  monastic  life.  "  "When  I  lived  in  the  cloister  my  soul  could 
almost  always  keep  in  a  disposition  for  prayer.  But  since  I  have 
undertaken  the  pastoral  office,  my  distracted  soul  can  hardly  ever 
collect  itself.  .  .  .  What  sort  of  watchman  am  I,  who  stand  not  on 
the  height  of  a  mountain,  but  in  the  valley  of  weakness  ?  But  the 
Creator  and  Bedeemer  of  men  is  able  to  impart  to  me,  unworthy  as 
I  am,  vigour  of  life  and  power  of  tongue,  if  from  love  to  Him  I  do 
not  spare  myself." 

The  Boman  Liturgy,  with  the  service  of  the  Mass,  was  settled 
by  Gregory  almost  in  the  same  form  in  which  it  has  remained  to 
the  present  day.  He  arranged  the  order  of  processions  and  the 
vestments  of  the  priests  and  deacons.  His  attention  to  church 
music  is  perpetuated  in  the  Gregorian  Chant ;  he  not  only  instituted 
a  singing  school,  but  himself  taught  the  choristers,  and  the  whip 
with  which  he  admonished  his  inattentive  scholars  was  preserved 
as  a  relic  for  centuries.1 

Gregory's  pontificate  lasted  thirteen  years.  He  died  a.d.  604,  at 
the  early  age  of  54.  In  his  latter  years  he  suffered  much  in  body. 
"For  nearly  two  years,"  he  writes  to  the  patriarch  of  Alexandria, 
11 1  have  been  imprisoned  in  my  bed  by  such  pangs  of  gout,  that  I 
c  an  scarcely  rise  on  great  holidays  to  celebrate  solemn  mass.  And 
the  intensity  of  the  pain  compels  me  immediately  to  lie  down  again, 
that  I  may  be  able  to  endure  my  torture  by  giving  free  course  to 
my  groans." 

Gregory's  character  exhibits  in  a  striking  light  the  contradictions 
of  his  age  and  of  his  office.  He  was  charitable  yet  severe,  humble 
yet  ambitious,  a  lover  of  truth  and  yet  could  stoop  to  gross  flattery, 
a  proficient  in  the  science  of  his  day  and  a  diligent  expositor  of 
Scripture,  and  yet  immersed  in  the  credulity  and  superstition  which 
commonly  belongs  to  ignorance. 

On  the  great  question  of  Slavery,  Gregory  was  an  example  to  the 

1  John  the  Deacon  gives  a  humorous  account  of  the  attempts  of  the  Germans 
(or  Gauls),  two  or  three  centuries  afterwards,  to  perform  the  Gregorian  Chant: 
"  Their  thundering  Alpine  voices  issuing  from  throats  rasped  with  wine,  vainly 
strive  to  give  back  the  sweet  modulation  of  the  chant,  instead  of  which  a  din 
like  that  of  waggons  rumbling  over  the  stones  disturbs  and  exasperates  the 
hearers." 


248  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

Western  Church,  constituting  himself  the  protector  of  what  was 
perhaps  still  the  most  numerous  class  of  the  population.  Un- 
happily, however,  he  was  unable  to  put  a  stop  to  the  slave-trade 
which  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Jews.  On  the  manumission  of  two 
slaves  he  had  a  deed  drawn  up  with  these  golden  words  in  the  pre- 
amble: "  It  is  a  good  and  salutary  thing  when  men  whom  nature 
created  free,  and  whom  the  law  of  nations  has  enslaved,  are 
presented  again  with  the  liberty  in  which  they  were  born."  The 
Western  Churches,  it  may  be  remarked,  were  far  behind  their 
Oriental  brethren  on  this  point.  The  Eastern  monks  refused  to 
keep  slaves,  not  only  because  they  themselves  performed  the  most 
menial  work,  but  because  they  would  not  thus  degrade  the  image 
of  God.  The  good  abbot  Isidore  of  Pelusium,1  interceding  with  a 
nobleman  on  behalf  of  one  of  his  slaves,  wrote  that  "he  could 
hardly  believe  that  a  friend  of  Christ,  who  had  experienced  the 
grace  which  makes  all  men  free,  could  still  own  slaves."  John 
surnamed  the  Alms-Giver,  patriarch  of  Alexandria  from  606  to  616, 
thus  reproved  some  who  treated  their  slaves  with  cruelty :  "  God 
has  not  given  us  servants  that  we  should  beat  them,  but  that  they 
may  serve  us ;  perhaps  not  even  for  this  purpose,  but  rather  that 
they  may  receive  sustenance  out  of  our  abundance.  Tell  me  what 
price  can  purchase  him  who  was  created  after  the  image  of  God  ? 
Hast  thou  who  art  his  master  a  single  member  more  to  thy  body, 
or  hast  thou  a  different  soul  from  him?  Is  he  not  in  all  things  thy 
equal  ?  Pray,  what  is  the  gold  which  is  paid  for  the  right  to  make 
a  slave  of  him,  for  whose  sake  heaven,  earth  and  sea,  and  all  that 
is  therein  were  created ;  to  whom  angels  minister ;  on  whose 
account  Christ  washed  the  disciples'  feet ;  for  whose  sake  Christ 
was  crucified?" 

Devoted  as  Gregory  was  to  ritualism,  he  yet,  like  Ambrose,  caused 
the  consecrated  vessels  of  the  altar  to  be  sold  for  the  redemption  of 
captives  taken  in  war.  To  say  that  Gregory  considered  the  poor 
"would  not  be  to  say  much  of  a  Eoman  bishop ;  his  almsgiving  was 
on  the  most  princely  scale.  The  first  day  in  every  month  he  dis- 
tributed corn,  wine,  cheese,  vegetables,  bacon,  meat,  fish  and  oil ; 
and  every  day  before  he  sat  down  to  his  own  meal,  a  portion  was 
separated  and  sent  out  to  the  hungry  at  his  door.  Being  told  that 
a  beggar  had  died  of  want  in  the  city,  he  imposed  on  himself  a  hard 
penance  as  a  punishment  for  the  neglect  of  his  stewardship.  A 
bishop  newly  appointed  refusing  to  relieve  some  poor  aged  persons 
who  were  on  a  journey,  Gregory  sent  him  a  message.     **  It  seems 

1  He  died  a.d.  431. 


MONKISH    SEVERITY.  249 

strange  to  me  that  one  who  has  clothes,  silver,  and  a  cellar,  should 
have  nothing  to  give  to  the  poor.  Tell  him  that  reading  and 
prayer  will  not  now  be  enough,  that  he  cannot  be  suffered  to  sit 
alone  in  a  corner ;  he  must  help  the  necessitous,  he  must  regard 
the  wants  of  others  as  his  own,  otherwise  his  title  of  bishop  will  be 
only  an  empty  name." l 

With  all  his  benevolence,  Gregory's  government  of  his  monastery 
was  severe  in  the  extreme.  Many  who  embraced  the  monastic  life 
became  weary  of  its  monotony  and  sought  to  return  to  the  world  ; 
for  such  he  had  no  pity.  Nor  was  he  more  indulgent  to  the  faults 
of  those  who  remained  under  his  charge,  He  forgot  Benedict's 
injunction  not  to  break  the  bruised  reed.  A  monk  named  Justus, 
formerly  a  physician,  attended  him  skilfully  and  with  affectionate 
care  during  a  long  illness.  Justus  on  his  death-bed  confessed  to 
his  brother  that  he  possessed  three  pieces  of  gold.  This  was  in 
direct  violation  of  the  rule  of  the  house.  The  money  was  found 
concealed  amongst  some  drugs,  and  Gregory  resolved  to  make  the 
offender  sensible  of  the  enormity  of  his  trespass,  and  to  awe  the 
brotherhood  by  the  terror  of  his  example.  He  suffered  no  one  to 
approach  the  dying  man's  couch,  sending  him  only  the  message 
that  he  died  detested  by  all  the  community.  And  when  the  miser- 
able man  had  breathed  his  last,  his  body,  together  with  the  three 
pieces  of  gold,  was  cast  out  upon  the  dung-hill,  the  whole  convent 
shouting  :  "  Thy  money  perish  with  thee  !  "  At  the  end  of  thirty 
days  Gregory  began  to  relent,  and  permitted  mass  to  be  offered  for 
the  tormented  soul.  This  was  repeated  daily  for  thirty  days  more, 
when  the  spirit  of  Justus  is  said  to  have  appeared  to  his  abbot  and 
assured  him  of  his  release  from  misery. 

The  extravagant  pretensions  of  the  see  of  Rome,  which  had  been 
handed  down  from  bishop  to  bishop  for  successive  generations,  lost 
nothing  in  Gregory's  hands.  The  thorn  in  his  flesh  during  his 
later  days,  was  the  attempt  of  the  patriarch  John  of  Constantinople 
to  set  up  a  rival  claim  for  his  own  see,  by  assuming  the  title  of 
Universal  Bishop.  In  resisting  this  claim  Gregory  tries  to  persuade 
himself  that  he  is  opposing  John  in  the  common  interests  of  the 
Church.  "Is  this  the  time  chosen  by  an  arbitrary  prelate  to  invade 
the  undoubted  rights  of  St.  Peter  by  a  haughty  and  pompous  title  ? 
Am  I  defending  my  own  cause  ?     Is  this  any  special  injury  to  the 

1  A  great  volume  recording  the  name,  age  and  dwelling  of  the  objects  of  Gre- 
gory's bounty  was  long  preserved  in  the  Lateran.  Economically  speaking,  the 
harm  of  such  indiscriminate  charity,  in  pauperising  its  objects,  probably  far 
•outweighed  the  good  that  was  effected.  The  papal  bounty  too  may  have  been 
.a  measure  of  policy,  the  continuance  of  the  Imperial  largess  which  the  Eoman 
citiaens  were  accustomed  to  expect. 


250  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

bishop  of  Eome  ?  It  is  the  cause  of  God,  the  cause  of  the  whole 
Church.  Let  all  Christian  hearts  reject  the  blasphemous  name. 
Whoever  calls  himself  universal  bishop  is  Anti-Christ."  How 
Gregory  or  his  successors  have  reconciled  these  words  with  their 
own  assumptions,  it  is  not  easy  to  see.  To  us  they  seem  to  be  the 
language  of  self-deception.  The  papacy  never  yields  and  never 
forgets,  and  it  is  fair  to  conclude  that  Gregory's  indignant  protest 
w  as  directed  not  so  much  against  the  title  as  against  the  usurpation 
of  it  by  his  rival.1 

The  darkest  stain  on  the  memory  of  this  distinguished  man  is 
found  in  connection  with  this  rivalry.  The  Emperor  Maurice,  who 
seems  always  to  have  thwarted  even  the  best  of  Gregory's  measures, 
countenanced  the  claims  of  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople,  and 
was  besides  himself  reputed  a  heretic.  His  end  was  tragical. 
Phocas,  a  soldier  of  fortune,  "  an  odious  and  sanguinary  tyrant," 
having  risen  in  rebellion  against  him,  caused  Maurice  to  be  dragged 
from  the  sanctuary  to  which  he  had  fled,  and  with  his  five  sons  to 
be  butchered  before  his  face.  The  news  of  the  death  of  the 
Emperor  filled  Gregory  with  exultation,  and  he  launched  out  into 
a  panegyric  on  the  base  usurper  :  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest ! 
who  has  chosen  thee  and  placed  thee  on  the  Imperial  throne  to 
banish  by  thy  merciful  dispositions  all  our  afflictions  and  sorrows. 
Let  the  whole  people  return  thanks  for  so  happy  a  change." 

The  new  Christian  idolatry  which  had  grown  up  during  the 
fourth  and  fifth  centuries  had  by  this  time  become  universal, 
entering  into  the  daily  life  of  all  Christendom.  Every  man  was 
surrounded  by  a  world  of  invisible  beings — angels,  whose  visits 
were  rare,  demons  who  were  continually  on  the  watch  to  seduce  the 
unwary,  and  glorified  saints  who  had  become  the  protectors  of 
mankind  in  the  place  of  God  and  Christ.  The  literature  of  the  age 
(and  Gregory's  pages  are  no  exception)  teems  with  this  invisible 
world.  In  his  Dialogues,  for  example,  a  woman  who  eats  a  lettuce 
without  making  the  sign  of  the  cross,  swallows  with  it  a  devil  and 
becomes  possessed.  The  relics  of  the  martyrs,  those  priceless 
jewels  of  the  Church,  had  now  attained  a  self-defensive  power; 
profane  hands  touching  them  were  withered,  and  such  as  endea- 
voured to  remove  them  were  struck  dead.  "  One  of  the  golden  [?] 
nails  of  the  chains  of  St.  Peter  tempted  the  avarice  of  a  Lombard 
(probably  an  Arian) ;  he  took  out  his  knife  to  sever  it ;  the  awe- 
struck knife  sprang  up  and  cut  his  sacrilegious  throat.     The  Lom- 


1  Cardinal  Bellarmine  endeavours  to  escape  the  difficulty  by  assuming  that 
the  term  episcopus  universalis  is  used  in  two  very  different  senses. 


SUPERSTITION    OF    THE   AGE.  251 

bard  King  and  his  attendants  were  witnesses  of  the  miracle,  and 
stood  in  terror,  not  daring  to  lift  the  fearful  nail  from  the  ground. 
A  Catholic  was  fortunately  found,  by  whom  the  nail  permitted  itself 
to  be  touched ;  this  peerless  gift,  so  avouched,  Gregory  presented 
to  a  distinguished  civil  officer."  When  the  Empress  Constantina, 
the  consort  of  Maurice,  applied  to  Gregory  for  the  head  of  the 
apostle  Paul  or  at  least  some  portion  of  his  body,  to  place  in  a 
church  she  was  building,  Gregory  replied:  "I  neither  can  nor  dare 
grant  that  favour,  for  the  bodies  of  the  holy  apostles,  Peter  and 
Paul,  are  so  resplendent  with  miracles  and  terrific  prodigies  in  their 
own  churches,  that  no  one  can  approach  them  without  great  awe,, 
even  for  the  purpose  of  adoring  them.  ...  I  wished  to  make  some 
alteration  in  the  church  near  the  most  holy  body  of  St.  Paul,  and 
it  was  necessary  to  dig  deep  in  the  neighbourhood  of  his  tomb. 
The  superior  came  to  some  bones  not  at  all  connected  with  his 
sepulchre,  which  he  removed,  but  he  paid  dearly  for  his  rashness. 
He  was  visited  by  a  fearful  apparition  and  died  suddenly.  .  .  .  But 
that  thy  pious  longing  may  not  be  wholly  disappointed,  I  will 
hasten  to  send  thee  some  filings  of  those  chains  which  St.  Paul 
wore  on  his  neck  and  hands,  if  indeed  I  shall  succeed  in  getting 
them  off.  For  since  the  devout  are  continually  begging  permission 
to  take  away  something  from  these  chains,  a  priest  stands  by  with 
a  file ;  and  sometimes  it  happens  that  the  dust  falls  off  easily  and 
instantly  ;  while  at  other  times  the  file  is  long  drawn  over  them, 
and  yet  nothing  is  scraped  off." 1 

In  spite  however  of  superstition  and  prejudice,  Gregory's  opinions 
were  often  sound  and  enlightened.  These  are  his  words  on  the  Christian 
ministry  : — "  The  world  is  full  of  priests,  yet  there  are  but  few  real 
labourers  for  God's  harvest,  since  although  we  have  undertaken  the 
priestly  calling,  we  do  not  fulfil  its  duties.  He  who  is  unable  to 
occupy  the  congregation  with  a  connected  discourse  may  instruct 
individuals  and  edify  them  by  private  conversation.  Let  us  ask 
ourselves,  who  have  been  converted  by  our  tongue  ?  We  have 
received  our  talents  to  trade  with ;  what  profit  have  we  brought  to 


1  Peter's  chains,  as  well  as  those  of  Paul,  were  preserved  at  Eome.  They 
were  originally  two,  the  Neronian  with  which  he  was  bound  by  order  of  the 
Emperor  Nero,  and  the  Herodian  by  which  he  was  attached  to  the  soldiers  in 
the  prison  at  Jerusalem.  The  latter  was  discovered  by  the  Empress  Eudoxia, 
wife  of  Theodosius  II.,  whilst  on  a  pilgrimage,  and  sent  by  her  as  a  precious 
relic  to  Eome,  where  the  moment  it  touched  the  former  it  became  miraculously 
welded  to  it,  and  thus  formed  one  holy  and  inseparable  chain!  In  memory  of 
this  miracle  the  feast  of  the  Chains  of  Peter  was  instituted,  and  is  still  kept  on 
the  1st  of  August.     See  ante,  p.  49,  note. 


252  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

Him  who  said  'occupy  till  I  come ? '  Behold,  He  is  already  come; 
He  is  looking  for  the  profit  from  our  traffic.  What  gain  of  souls 
can  we  show?"  He  does  not  restrict  this  responsibility  to  the 
priesthood.  "  The  priest's  lips  should  teach  knowledge,  for  he  is  a 
messenger  of  the  Lord ;  but  all  may  attain  the  same  high  dignity 
if  they  will.  Whosoever  calls  his  neighbour  from  wicked  ways  to  a 
right  course  of  life,  he  too,  certainly  is  a  messenger  of  the  Lord. 
Hast  thou  no  bread  to  give  to  the  needy  ?  Thou  hast  a  tongue ; 
thou  hast  something  of  more  value  than  bread.  For  it  is  a  greater 
thing  to  refresh  by  the  nourishment  of  the  word  a  soul  destined  to 
■everlasting  life,  than  to  satisfy  the  mortal  body  with  earthly  bread. 
To  the  poorest,  even  the  little  that  he  has  received  will  be  reckoned 
as  a  talent." 

The  Church  of  Eome  venerates  the  name  of  Gregory  as  amongst 
the  wisest  of  her  doctors ;  it  would  have  saved  her  from  infinite  loss 
if  she  had  attended  to  his  counsel  on  the  study  of  Scripture.  It 
^was  his  constant  habit  to  enforce  upon  both  lay  and  clergy  the 
great  duty  of  reading  the  Bible.  One  of  the  Emperor's  physicians 
■excusing  himself  from  this  practice  by  the  distractions  of  the  times, 
■Gregory  wrote  to  him :  "  What  else  are  the  Holy  Scriptures  but  a 
letter  from  the  Almighty  to  his  creatures  ?  If  thou  wert  staying  at 
.a  distance  from  the  court,  and  received  a  letter  from  thy  earthly 
sovereign,  thou  wouldst  not  rest,  thou  couldst  not  sleep,  till  thou 
knew  its  contents.  The  King  of  Heaven,  the  Lord  of  men  and 
angels,  has  sent  thee  his  letter,  giving  thee  directions  how  to  attain 
eternal  life,  and  yet  thou  art  neglecting  to  read  it.  Bestir  thyself,  and 
jreflect  daily  on  thy  Creator's  words.  Learn  to  know  the  heart  of 
God  from  the  words  of  God,  so  that  thou  mayest  yearn  with  ardent 
longing  after  the  Eternal."  To  a  bishop  who  made  a  like  excuse, 
namely,  that  his  duties  left  him  no  leisure  for  reading,1  Gregory 
quoted  Bom.  xv.  4,  and  continued :  "If  the  Holy  Scriptures  were 
written  for  our  comfort  we  ought  the  more  to  read  them  in  propor- 
tion as  we  feel  oppressed  by  the  burden  of  our  distractions."  And 
when  the  bishop,  referring  to  Matt.  x.  19,  "  But  when  they  deliver 
you  up,  be  not  anxious  how  or  what  ye  shall  speak,  for  it  shall  be 
given  you  in  that  hour,  what  ye  shall  speak,"  argued  that  the 
ieachers  of  the  Church  had  no  need  to  study  the  Divine  word,  but 
might  rely  simply  on  the  immediate  revelation  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
Gregory  answered  :  "  The  outward  word  would  have  been  given  us 
to  no  purpose  if,  being  filled  with  the  Spirit,  we  had  no  need  of  it." 

1  The  functions  of  the  bishops,  as  of  the  pope,  were  in  those  unsettled  times 
various  and  burdensome,  including  many  secular  duties. 


GREGORY    ON   REVELATIONS    AND    MIRACLES.  253- 

Elsewhere,  with  an  experience  which  will  find  a  ready  response  in 
Christian  hearts  of  all  times,  he  says :  "  Often  we  believe  our 
conduct  to  be  meritorious,  but  when  we  compare  it  with  the 
Divine  word  we  see  at  how  great  a  distance  we  are  from  per- 
fection." 

Again  Gregory  warns  his  hearers  against  expecting  special  reve- 
lations when  in  possession  of  the  broad  Gospel  truth.  A  woman  in 
a  time  of  mental  anguish  wrote  to  him  that  she  would  give  him  no 
rest  until  he  received  a  special  revelation  that  her  sins  were  for- 
given. Gregory  answered  her,  that  he  was  unworthy  of  a  special 
revelation,  and  referred  her  to  the  fountain  of  the  Eedeemer's 
mercy,  set  open  for  all,  adding,  "  I  know  thou  hast  a  fervid  love  to 
God,  and  I  trust  the  word  spoken  by  the  lip  of  truth  of  another  has 
also  been  spoken  of  thee  :  '  Her  sins,  which  are  many,  are  forgiven, 
for  she  loved  much.'  " 

Like  true  Christian  men  in  all  ages,  Gregory  utterly  disclaimed 
the  false  notion,  that  by  the  mere  profession  of  sound  doctrine,  or 
by  a  zeal  for  religion,  without  holiness,  a  man  can  please  God.  To 
a  certain  bishop  who  boasted  of  the  number  of  heretics  he  had  con- 
verted, Gregory  wrote :  "I  thank  God  that  by  thy  instrumentality 
heretics  have  been  reclaimed  to  the  Church ;  but  thou  must  take- 
care  that  those  who  are  already  in  the  Church,  so  live  as  not  to 
rank  amongst  her  enemies.  For  if  they  do  not  love  what  is  godly, 
but  serve  earthly  lusts,  thou  wilt  be  bringing  up  strange  children  in. 
the  bosom  of  the  Church  itself." 

Very  wisely  does  he  write  concerning  miracles,  leading  the  minds 
of  his  hearers  from  the  visible  to  the  invisible,  from  outward  signs 
to  the  purpose  and  end  of  all  miracles,  the  work  of  God  in  the- 
heart  of  man.  "  When  Paul  came  to  Malta  and  saw  the  island  full 
of  unbelievers,  he  healed  the  father  of  Publius  by  his  prayers  ;  yet 
when  Timothy  was  ill,  he  bade  him  drink  no  longer  water,  but  use 
a  little  wine  for  his  stomach's  sake,  and  his  often  infirmities.  How 
is  it,  0  Paul,  that  thou  miraculously  restorest  the  sick  unbeliever  to- 
health,  and  yet  to  thy  fellow-labourer  prescribest  only  natural 
remedies  like  a  physician  ?  Is  it  not  because  outward  miracles- 
have  for  their  object,  that  souls  should  be  conducted  to  tbe  inward 
miracle  ?  ...  In  order  for  faith  to  grow,  it  must  be  nourished  by 
miracle ;  as  when  we  plant  shrubs  we  pour  water  on  them,  till  we 
see  that  they  have  taken  firm  root  in  the  ground.  The  Church 
works  now  in  a  spiritual  manner  what  it  then  effected  through  the 
Apostles  in  a  bodily  manner.  When  believers  who  have  renounced 
the  language  of  their  former  worldly  life,  cause  holy  truths  to  issue 
from  their  lips,  what  do   they  but   '  speak  with  new  tongues  ?  " 


254  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

When  they  hear  pernicious  connsel,  but  are  not  carried  away  to 
commit  evil  deeds,  do  they  not  '  drink  deadly  poison,  but  it  does  not 
hurt  them  ? '  When  they  see  their  neighbours  weak  in  righteous- 
ness and  give  them  help,  and  strengthen  them  by  their  own 
example,  what  do  they  but  '  lay  their  hand  upon  the  sick  so  that  they 
recover?'  Strive  after  these  miracles  of  love  and  piety,  which  are 
all  the  more  sure  as  they  are  more  hidden.' ' 

That  Gregory  had  a  sense  of  the  danger  of  resting  too  much  on 
miracles,  we  may  see  by  his  letter  to  the  monk  Augustine  in  Britain. 
"  But  my  beloved  brother,  there  is  something  which  along  with  thy 
great  joy  gives  reason  for  much  fear.  Thou  mayest  rejoice  that  the 
souls  of  Englishmen  have  been  led  by  outward  miracles  to  inward 
-grace,  but  thou  ought  to  fear  lest  the  miraculous  works  which  have 
been  performed  should  puff  up  thy  own  weak  mind.  .  .  .  Examine 
thyself  strictly,  learn  correctly  what  thou  thyself  art,  as  well  as 
how  the  grace  of  God  has  shown  itself  amongst  this  people,  for 
whose  conversion  thou  hast  received  the  power  of  working  miracles. 
"Consider  this  power,  not  as  conferred  on  thyself,  but  on  those  for 
whose  salvation  it  has  been  given  thee." 

We  conclude  with  a  few  more  gems  from  the  casket  of  Gregory's 
experience. 

Some  men  ostentatiously  confess  their  faults,  but  when  they  are  reproved  for 
them,  defend  themselves,  and  protest  their  innocence.  This  kind  of  mock  con- 
fession proves  that  they  are  not  really  humble,  but  seek  only  the  merit  of  being 
reckoned  so. 

The  greater  progress  saints  make  in  the  divine  life,  the  more  sensible  are 
they  of  their  own  unworthiness ;  for  in  proportion  as  they  draw  near  to  the 
light  their  deformity  is  made  manifest,  and  the  better  they  become  acquainted 
with  holiness  the  more  completely  do  they  know  and  understand  what  sin  is. 

He  who  dispenses  of  his  earthly  substance  to  his  destitute  neighbour,  but 
■does  not  guard  his  own  life  from  sin,  is  like  a  man  who  should  offer  the  meaner 
gift  to  God,  and  keep  the  more  valuable  for  the  Evil  One. 

It  is  not  enough  that  we  renounce  our  property,  we  must  come  out  of 
ourselves.  We  must  renounce  ourselves  in  that  which  we  have  made  our  - 
selves  through  sin,  and  keep  ourselves  in  that  which  we  have  become  through 
grace. 

True  prayer  consists  not  in  the  words  of  the  lips,  but  in  the  feelings  of  the 
heart ;  for  our  desires,  not  our  words,  fall  as  a  sound  of  power  on  the  secret  ear 
of  God.  If  we  pray  with  our  lips,  but  do  not  desire  with  our  hearts,  our  calling 
upon  God  is  only  a  silence  ;  but  if  we  desire  with  the  fulness  of  our  hearts,  our 
very  silence  is  a  calling  upon  God. 

Unlike  the  Oriental  divines,  Gregory  would  suffer  no  sacrifice  of 
truth  on  any  pretence.  "  It  is  not  allowable,"  he  says,  "  to  make 
use  of  falsehood  even  to  save  life." 


growth  of  the  papal  supremacy.  255 

Note  on  the  Papacy. 

The  papal  supremacy  attained  its  full  proportions,  although  not  its  full 
exercise  of  tyrannical  power,  in  Gregory  I.  In  our  former  work  we  traced  its 
germ  and  the  earlier  stages  of  its  development.1 

Siricius,  bishop  of  Rome,  a.d.  384 — 398,  was  the  first  to  issue  a  Letter  (or 
Decretal)  having  the  force  of  a  law  to  the  Catholic  Church.  In  417,  the  Council 
of  Carthage  sent  to  Innocent  I.  its  canons  respecting  the  Pelagian  controversy 
for  its  sanction.  Innocent  signified  his  satisfaction,  and  gave  them  to  under- 
stand that,  according  to  the  sacred  institutions  of  the  Fathers,  whatever  was 
done  even  in  the  remotest  provinces  could  not  be  complete  until  it  had  come  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  Apostolic  Chair.  But  the  spirit  of  independence  was  not  yet 
quite  extinct.  Notwithstanding  the  dictum  of  Innocent,  the  African  Church 
resolved  that  no  appeal  against  its  jurisdiction  should  lie  beyond  the  sea;  and 
when  his  successor  Zosimus  put  forth  some  canons  of  the  Council  of  Sardica 
as  canons  of  the  great  Council  of  Nicaea,  Augustine's  friend  Alypius  exposed  the 
mistake,  and  at  the  death  of  Zosimus  the  Council  of  Carthage  addressed  the 
new  pope,  Boniface,  in  words  of  bold  and  honest  admonition:  "Now  that 
thou  art  seated  on  the  throne  of  the  Church  of  Borne,  we  hope  we  shall 
no  more  have  to  endure  a  worldly  pride  unworthy  of  the  Church  of  Jesus 
Christ." 

But  this  was  the  last  stroke  for  the  independence  of  the  Church.  Leo  I. 
might  have  paraphrased  the  words  of  Louis  XIV.,  "L'Eglise,  c'est  moi."  "He 
who  disputes  the  primacy  of  the  Apostle  Peter  will  find  himself  powerless  to 
lessen  that  dignity ;  but  puffed  up  by  the  spirit  of  his  own  pride  will  plunge 
himself  into  hell."  This  assumption  on  the  part  of  Leo  was  endorsed  by  the 
youthful  Emperor  Valentinian  III.  By  a  decree  of  the  year  445  he  ordained : 
"  The  primacy  of  the  Apostolic  Seat  being  established  by  the  merit  of  the 
Apostle  Peter,  the  dignity  of  the  City  of  Borne  and  the  sanction  of  a  holy  synod, 
no  pretended  power  shall  arrogate  to  itself  anything  against  the  authority  of 
that  seat.  For  peace  can  be  universally  preserved  only  when  the  whole  Church 
acknowledges  its  ruler." 

At  the  same  time  the  personal  holiness  of  the  pope  was  declared,  and  he  was 
exempted  from  the  judgment  of  his  fellow-men.  Accordingly  in  501,  when 
Pope  Symmachus  was  "  accused  of  many  horrible  crimes,"  the  bishops  refused 
to  sit  in  judgment  upon  him,  because  "  the  merit  and  primacy  of  St.  Peter  and 
the  decrees  of  the  holy  councils  had  conferred  a  supreme  power  on  the  see  of 
Rome,  and  it  was  a  thing  unheard  of  that  the  bishop  of  Borne  should  submit  to 
be  judged  by  his  inferiors."  Ennodius,  bishop  of  Pavia,  went  further  and  de- 
clared that  the  pope  had  no  need  of  reformation,  because  he  who  was  promoted 
to  this  dignity  was  of  necessity  holy,  and  God  would  not  suffer  him  to  be 
corrupted. 

How  succeeding  popes  not  only  maintained  this  assumed  prerogative  of 
holiness  and  of  supremacy  in  the  Church,  but  even  waged  wars,  disposed  of 
thrones,  and  set  their  feet  on  the  necks  of  kings,  is  well  known  to  all  readers 
of  history,  and  it  will  to  some  extent  appear  in  the  following  pages.2 

1  Early  Church  History,  p.  259. 
2  Gregory  II.  in  the  eighth  century  (a.d.  727)  boasted  to  the  Greek  Emperor, 
"  All  the  kings  of  the  West  reverence  the  pope  as  God  upon  earth";  and  Boni- 
face VIII.  (from  1294  to  1303)  declared  it  to  be  essential  to  the  salvation  of 
every  human  being  to  be  subject  to  the  Boman  pontiff.    The  title  of  pope  (papa, 


256  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

This  brief  notice  of  the  growth  of  papacy  would  be  incomplete  without  a 
reference  to  the  Forged  Decretals  of  Isidore.  These  documents,  which  made- 
their  appearance  in  the  ninth  century,  consisted  partly  of  about  one  hundred 
letters  purporting  to  be  written  by  earlier  bishops  of  Home  from  the  time  of  the- 
Apostles,  or  by  their  correspondents,  partly  of  the  acts  of  certain  unknown 
councils.  For  many  centuries,  even  down  to  the  Beformation,  they  were 
accepted  as  genuine  notwithstanding  gross  anachronisms.1  In  these  Decretals 
the  privileges  of  the  clergy,  and  especially  of  the  bishops,  are  magnified,  and 
the  pope  appears  as  the  supreme  head,  law-giver,  and  judge  of  the  Church,  the- 
universal  bishop.  There  was,  it  is  true,  little  or  nothing  new  in  the  hierarchical 
pretensions  here  set  forth  ;  "the  main  outline  of  the  papacy  had  been  marked 
out  four  centuries  earlier  by  Leo  the  Great ;  but  the  consolidation  of  the  scat- 
tered fragments  into  one  body,  the  representation  of  the  later  papal  claims  as 
having  come  down  by  unbroken  tradition  from  the  Apostolic  times,  could  not 
but  produce  a  vast  effect"  in  rendering  the  papal  authority  paramount  in 
Europe. 

Principal  Fairbairn  has  these  pertinent  remarks  on  the  origin  and  growth  of 
the  Eomish  Church  system  :  "  The  old  Religion  had  its  priesthood,  the  new  had 
its  clergy,  and  so  these  two  were  made  parallel.  Once  they  had  been  made 
parallel,  it  was  necessary  to  do  the  same  for  the  worships  ;  and  once  they  were 
assimilated,  the  New  Testament  ceased  to  fulfil  the  Old,  the  Old  reigned  in  the 
New.  And  this  is  what  Cyprian  shows  us;  he  represents  the  victory  of  the 
older  Religion,  the  rejuvenescence  of  Judaism,  the  entrance  of  the  hieratic  idea 

into  the  Kingdom  of  Christ,  changing  it  into  a  kingdom  of  priests The 

clergy  became  the  Church,  the  Church  the  Religion,  and  the  Religion  a  trans- 
formed Roman  empire,  with  the  pope  for  emperor,  bishops  for  procurators,  and 
the  priesthood  for  the  magistrates  and  legionaries  that  levied  the  taxes,  enforced 
the  laws,  upheld  the  unity,  and  maintained  the  peace  of  the  civilized  world. 
Papal  infallibility  is  but  imperial  supremacy  transfigured  and  spiritualized. 
The  Catholic  Church  could  not  have  been  without  Christianity,  but  still  less 
could  it  have  been  without  Roman  imperialism.    It  owes  its  life  to  the  one,  but 

its  distinctive  organization  to  the  other If  the  Church  had  passed  the 

first  five  centuries  of  its  existence  under  an  Oriental  despotism  or  amid  free 
Greek  cities,  its  structure  had  been  altogether  different.  It  seemed  to  vanquish 
the  Empire,  but  the  Empire  by  assimilating  survived  in  it ;  the  name  was  the 
name  of  Christ,  but  the  form  was  the  form  of  Caesar." 

father)  was  not  exclusively  applied  to  the  bishop  of  Rome  till  about  the  year 
521.  The  phrase  Apostolic  See  seems  to  have  been  first  used  by  Zosimus  (417 — 
419).  The  title  of  cardinal  arose  later.  Gregory  the  Great  frequently  speaks  of 
the  "cardinal-presbyters  and  deacons"  of  a  church.  Those  of  the  parish 
churches  in  Rome,  twenty-five  or  twenty-eight,  came  to  be  held  in  special 
honour;  and  in  1059  Pope  Nicholas  II.  formed  these  with  seven  "cardinal 
bishops  "  into  a  college  for  electing  future  popes. 

1  Persons  are  made  to  correspond  with  one  another  who  lived  centuries- 
apart ;  Scripture  is  quoted  in  the  words  of  Jerome's  Vulgate  some  two  hundred 
years  before  Jerome  was  born ;  complaint  is  made  of  the  encroachment  by 
laymen  on  Church  property  in  language  belonging  to  the  period  of  Charles  the 
Great. 


(     257     ) 

CHAPTER  II. 

Christianity  in  Britain. 

The  early  history  of  the  British  Church  is  very  obscure.  The  facts 
relating  to  it,  which  are  known  with  any  degree  of  certainty,  may 
be  enumerated  in  a  few  lines.  By  the  end  of  the  second  century 
the  Gospel  had  spread  through  the  southern  parts  of  the  island  and 
had  begun  to  penetrate  "  beyond  the  Roman  pale";  but  the  legend 
of  St.  Alban,  who  is  reputed  to  have  suffered  martyrdom  in  the 
Diocletian  persecution,  rests  upon  scanty  evidence.1  In  the  reign 
of  Constantine,  three  British  bishops  attended  the  Council  of  Aries, 
a.d.  314.  Bishops  from  Britain  are  again  met  with  at  the  Council 
of  Sardica  (347),  and  at  that  of  Rimini  (359),  where  a  large  num- 
ber were  present  and  subscribed  the  Semi-Arian  Creed.  At  the 
end  of  the  same  century  we  read  of  Ninyas,  a  Welsh  missionary, 
preaching  to  the  Picts  in  Galloway.  He  is  said  to  have  been 
educated  at  Rome,  and  on  his  way  homeward  to  have  visited  Mar- 
tin of  Tours,  who  ordained  him  to  his  missionary  work,  and  whose 
name  he  gave  to  the  church  of  his  new  bishopric  in  Galloway.2 
About  the  same  time  Paula  and  Eustochium  speak  of  pilgrims  from 
Britain  who  came  to  visit  the  holy  places  at  Bethlehem. 

In  the  year  409  the  Romans  abandoned  the  island  ;  and  between 
this  date  and  the  landing  of  the  Jutes  (449),  the  Pelagian  heresy 
was  introduced  into  Britain,  as  Bede  relates,  by  a  bishop  named 
Agricola,  and  the  British  Churches,  unable  by  themselves  to  refute 
the  subtle  arguments  of  the  preacher,  sought  the  aid  of  the  bishops 
of  Gaul.  Germanus  of  Auxerre  and  Lupus  of  Troyes  were  accord- 
ingly sent  to  them,  and  overthrew  the  heretical  teachers  in  a  dispu- 
tation at  St.  Albans  a.d.  429.  Germanus  returned  hither  eighteen 
years  afterwards  to  complete  the  spiritual  victory. 

From  the  time  of  the  Saxon  invasion  we  hear  little  more  of  the 
British  Churches.     In  Gaul,  Italy  and  other  countries  of  the  Em- 

1  See  Early  Church  History,  pp.  113, 307.  The  famous  Glastonbury  legend  of 
Joseph  of  Arimathea  and  the  Sacred  Thorn  is  not  older  than  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury. 

2  There  still  survives,  says  Dean  Stanley,  on  a  lonely  hill  the  contemporary 
grave-stone  of  some  who  would  seem  to  have  been  the  companions  of  Ninyas. 
Being  built  of  stone,  the  church  was  called  the  White  House,  and  is  identified 
by  tradition  with  Whithorn  in  Wigtonshire. 


258  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

pire,  the  conquerors  adopted  the  religion  as  well  as  the  language 
and  manners  of  the  conquered,  but  in  England  the  case  was  widely 
different.  The  conquest  of  this  country  by  the  Saxons,  which  it 
took  a  century  or  two  of  hard  fighting  to  accomplish,  ended  in  the 
complete  subversion  both  of  Koman  civilization  and  of  Christianity, 
and  in  the  substitution  alike  of  the  political  life  and  the  idolatry  of 
the  Germans.  Bede's  harrowing  picture  of  the  Saxon  ravages  may 
perhaps  have  gained  something  in  colouring  by  the  lapse  of  three 
centuries.  "  They  plundered  the  cities  and  country,  marking  their 
course  by  flames  from  one  sea  to  the  other,  and  spreading  them- 
selves over  almost  every  part  of  the  island.  Public  and  private 
buildings  were  alike  destroyed ;  the  priests  were  murdered  at  the 
altars ;  the  bishops  and  their  people  were  indiscriminately  put  to 
the  sword,  until  there  was  none  to  bury  them.  Some  of  the 
wretched  remnant  were  seized  on  the  mountains  and  butchered  in 
heaps.  Others,  spent  with  hunger,  surrendered  themselves  and 
submitted  to  perpetual  slavery  for  the  sake  of  food.  Some  sorrow- 
fully made  for  regions  beyond  the  sea ;  others  remained  behind  to 
lead  in  perpetual  trembling  and  anxiety  a  hard  and  precarious  life 
among  the  forests  and  mountains."  Those  whom  Bede  describes 
as  fleeing  "  beyond  the  sea"  found  refuge  in  Armorica  j1  those  who 
became  serfs  to  the  conquerors  gradually  forgot  their  Christianity ; 
while  such  as  maintained  their  independence  in  the  unconquered 
fastnesses  of  Cornwall,  Wales,  or  Cumberland,  although  they  pre- 
served their  religion,  lost  their  Roman  civilization  and  the  use  of 
the  Latin  tongue.  Thus  Britain  was  withdrawn  from  the  Roman 
world,  and  until  the  mission  of  Augustine  was  regarded  as  a  land  of 
mystery  and  fable. 

One  episode,  however,  pregnant  of  future  blessing  to  Europe, 
belongs  to  the  annals  of  the  British  Church  previous  to  the  Saxon 
conquest.  The  ray  of  historical  light  which  reveals  to  us  Ninyas 
preaching  to  the  southern  Picts,  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  and  begin- 
ning of  the  fifth  centuries,  falls  also  on  the  village  of  Bonaven,  now 
Kilpatrick,  in  Dumbartonshire.  Here  was  born  near  the  year  372, 
Patrick,  called  in  his  native  tongue  Succath.  His  father  was  a 
deacon,  and  appears  also  to  have  held  some  office  in  connection 
with  the  northern  Roman  Wall.  He  gave  his  son  a  good  edu- 
cation. But  the  youth  lived  on  light-hearted  from  day  to  day, 
without  personal  interest  in  religion,  until  in  his  seventeenth  year 
the  course  of  his  life  was  rudely  interrupted. 

Some  pirates  of  the  wild  tribes  of  the  Scots,  who  then  inhabited 

1  Brittany  and  part  of  Normandy. 


CONTERSION    OF   PATRICK.  259 

the  north  of  Ireland,  landed  upon  the  coast  and  carried  him  and  a 
multitude  of  others  away  as  captives.  Patrick  was  sold  to  a 
•chieftain  who  made  him  keeper  of  his  flocks  and  herds.  Affliction 
led  him  to  seek  God,  of  whom  in  the  days  of  youthful  ease  and 
liberty  he  had  been  unmindful.  Abandoned  on  earth,  he  found 
consolation  and  happiness  from  above  ;  and  as  he  wandered  about 
with  his  cattle  he  enjoyed  heavenly  communion  in  prayer  and  quiet 
meditation.  Let  us  hear  his  own  words  written  at  a  later  period 
of  his  life :  "I  was  about  sixteen  years  old  and  knew  nothing  of  the 
true  God,  until,  in  captivity,  He  opened  my  unbelieving  heart,  so 
that,  though  late,  I  thought  of  my  sins  and  turned  to  Him  with  my 
whole  soul.  And  He  who  preserved  me  before  I  could  distinguish 
hetween  good  and  evil,  and  watched  over  me  as  a  Father,  looked 
down  on  my  lowly  condition  and  had  compassion  on  my  youth  and 
ignorance.  Before  He  humbled  me  I  was  like  a  stone  sunk  in  the 
mire,  but  when  He  who  had  power  came,  He  raised  me  in  his 
mercy  and  set  me  on  a  very  high  place.  For  which  cause  I  must 
testify  aloud  in  order  to  make  some  return  for  such  inestimable 
blessings  both  in  time  and  eternity.  The  fear  and  love  of  God," 
he  continues,  "  was  kindled  in  me  ;  faith  grew,  so  that  I  prayed 
often,  one  day  offering  a  hundred  prayers,  and  at  night  almost  as 
many,  and  when  I  passed  the  night  in  the  woods  or  on  the  moun- 
tains, I  rose  up  to  pray  before  daybreak  in  the  snow,  ice  and  rain. 
Yet  I  felt  no  suffering,  nor  was  there  any  sluggishness  in  me,  such 
as  I  now  find,  for  then  the  Spirit  glowed  within  me." 

After  spending  six  years  in  the  service  of  this  chief,  Patrick 
believed  he  heard  a  voice  in  his  sleep  which  promised  him  a  speedy 
return  to  his  native  land,  and  not  many  nights  afterwards  an- 
nounced to  him  that  a  vessel  was  ready  to  take  him.  In  depend- 
ence on  this  call  he  set  out,  and  at  the  end  of  some  days  met  with 
a  ship  on  the  point  of  sailing.  At  first  the  captain  would  not 
receive  the  poor  unknown  youth.  Patrick  fell  on  his  knees  and 
began  to  pray,  and  ere  he  had  finished  the  captain  relenting,  sent 
■one  of  the  sailors  to  call  him.  Through  many  sufferings  and  de- 
liverances he  at  length  reached  his  home.  Ten  years  afterwards 
he  was  a  second  time  taken  prisoner  by  Scottish  pirates,  and  was 
now  carried  to  Gaul,  whence  the  charity  of  Christian  merchants 
again  restored  him  to  his  native  land,  to  the  great  joy  of  his 
parents. 

But  Patrick  could  not  rest  at  home  ;  he  felt  an  irresistible  call  to 
carry  the  message  of  salvation  to  the  people  amongst  whom  he  had 
passed  his  youth,  and  been  born  again  to  the  heavenly  life.  As 
Paul  was  directed  by  the  Lord  to  go  over  to  Macedonia,  so  Patrick 


260  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

deemed  he  received  a  heavenly  summons  to  preach  the  Gospel  to- 
the  people  of  Ireland.  A  man  from  that  country  appeared  to  him 
in  a  dream,  giving  him  a  letter  superscribed,  "  The  words  of  the 
Irish";  and  as  Patrick  read  it,  he  seemed  to  hear  the  simul- 
taneous voices  of  many,  crying  :  "  We  beseech  thee,  child  of  God, 
come  and  again  walk  among  us  ! "  His  feelings  would  not  allow 
him  to  read  further,  and  he  awoke.  Another  night  he  heard  a 
voice  from  Heaven,  the  last  words  of  which  were  intelligible, — 
"  He  who  gave  his  life  for  thee,  He  speaks  in  thee."  He  awoke 
full  of  joy.  A  third  time  he  dreamed,  and  it  was  as  though  there 
was  something  within  him  and  yet  above  him,  praying  with  deep 
sighs.  When  he  awoke  he  called  to  mind  the  Apostle's  words  : 
"The  Spirit  also  helpeth  our  infirmity,  for  we  know  not  how  to 
pray  as  we  ought,  but  the  Spirit  Himself  maketh  intercession  for  us 
with  groanings  which  cannot  be  uttered." 

His  parents  and  friends  strove  to  keep  him  from  his  purpose. 
"  Many  opposed  my  going,  and  said  behind  my  back,  •  Why  does  he 
rush  into  danger  among  the  heathen  who  do  not  know  the  Lord  ? ' 
Gifts  were  offered  to  me  with  tears  if  I  would  remain  at  home ; . 
but  I  did  not  yield  ;  God  overcame  in  me  and  withstood  them  all. 
How,"  he  exclaims,  "should  so  great  and  blessed  a  favour  be 
bestowed  upon  me,  to  know  and  love  God,  and  to  leave  my  parents 
and  native  land,  and  go  to  the  people  of  Ireland  to  publish  the 
Gospel,  and  to  suffer  insults  and  persecution  even  to  bonds  !  More- 
over, if  I  am  found  worthy  I  am  also  ready  to  give  up  my  life 
with  joy  for  his  name's  sake."  Before  commencing  his  missionary 
work  Patrick  went  again  to  Gaul,  the  better  to  prepare  himself  by 
intercourse  with  pious  priests  and  monks. 

His  knowledge  of  the  Irish  language  enabled  him  to  preach  with 
great  readiness  to  the  people.  By  the  sound  of  a  kettle-drum  he 
collected  large  assemblies  in  the  open  air,  to  whom  he  declared  the 
sufferings  of  the  Saviour  for  sinful  humanity  ;  and  the  word  of  the 
Cross  reached  the  witness  for  God  in  the  hearts  of  many.  He  met 
indeed  with  much  opposition,  for  the  Druid  priests  and  national 
bards  whose  influence  was  great,  stirred  up  the  people  against  him. 
But  he  conquered  by  steadfastness  and  faith,  by  glowing  zeal,  and 
by  the  attractive  power  of  love.  His  influence  over  men's  minds  is 
seen  in  the  following  instance.  Coming  in  the  course  of  his  journeys 
to  the  house  of  a  man  of  rank,  his  message  was  received  and  the 
whole  family  were  baptized.  But  one  of  the  sons,  not  contented 
merely  to  profess  the  Gospel,  clave  to  the  Gospel  messenger,  and  in 
spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  his  friends,  forsook  all  to  accompany 
Patrick  in  his  toils  and  dangers.     On  account  of  the  youth's  gentle 


Patrick's  humility.  261 

disposition,  he  received  the  name  of  Benignus,  and  his  sweet  voice 
was  used  to  influence  the  people  hy  the  singing  of  hymns.  At 
Patrick's  death  Benignus  became  one  of  his  successors  in  the 
pastoral  office.  Many  of  the  national  bards  were  converted  by  his 
means,  and  lips  which  had  been  accustomed  to  chant  Druidical 
couplets,  now  sang  the  folly  of  idolatry  and  the  praises  of  God  and 
Christ. 

Patrick  sought  especially  the  conversion  of  the  chiefs.  These 
when  they  allowed  themselves  to  be  stirred  up  by  the  priests 
against  the  new  religion,  could  do  much  harm ;  but  when  they 
embraced  the  Gospel,  their  example  formed  a  counterpoise  to  the 
reverence  felt  for  the  Druids.  Young  men  of  the  lower  rank  who 
seemed  fitted  for  the  ministry  were  by  him  educated  as  teachers. 
He  also  received  and  protected  slaves  who  fled  to  him  from  the 
harsh  treatment  of  their  owners. 

Patrick  was  watchful  against  spiritual  pride.  After  speaking  in 
one  of  his  letters  of  the  miracles  which  God  had  enabled  him  to 
perform,  he  adds :  "  But  let  no  one  on  account  of  such  things 
suppose  that  I  place  myself  on  an  equality  with  the  Apostles,  or 
the  perfected  saints,  for  I  am  a  poor,  sinful,  despicable  man.  Be 
astonished,  ye  who  fear  God,  both  small  and  great,  and  ye  eloquent 
talkers  who  know  nothing  of  the  Lord,  understand  and  examine 
who  it  is  who  has  called  a  simple  person  like  me  to  serve  with  fear 
and  trembling,  yet  faithfully  and  blamelessly,  the  people  to  whom 
the  love  of  Christ  has  led  me."  He  avoided  even  the  semblance  of 
seeking  his  own  glory  or  profit.  When  many  brought  gifts  out  of 
gratitude  to  him  as  their  spiritual  father,  and  pious  women  offered 
him  their  ornaments,  he  refused  them  all,  whilst  he  himself  gave 
presents  to  the  heathen  chiefs  (one  of  whom  had  plundered  and 
imprisoned  him),  in  order  to  secure  peace  for  his  flock,  and  to 
ransom  Christians  from  captivity. 

After  labouring  thirty  years  he  thus  addressed  his  converts :  "I 
•call  God  to  witness  that  I  seek  not  honour  from  you.  May  He 
never  suffer  me  to  lose  the  Church  which  he  has  won  in  this  remote 
corner  of  the  earth.  I  pray  that  He  will  count  me  worthy  to  perse- 
vere in  a  faithful  testimony  until  the  time  of  my  departure,  and 
that  I  may  be  permitted  to  shed  my  blood  for  his  name,  with  my 
•converts  who  are  in  prison,  even  though  my  body  should  obtain  no 
burial,  or  be  torn  in  pieces  by  wild  beasts.  For  beyond  a  doubt  we 
shall  rise  again  with  the  glory  of  the  Redeemer  Jesus  Christ,  for 
we  shall  reign  by  Him,  and  through  Him,  and  with  Him.  The 
visible  sun  rises  daily  for  our  benefit  according  to  God's  command, 
-but  its  splendour  will  not  endure  for  ever  ;  all  the  unhappy  beings 


262  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

who  worship  it  will  suffer  punishment.  But  we  worship  Christ,  the- 
true  Sun  who  will  never  set ;  and  he  likewise  who  does  his  will 
shall  never  set,  but  shall  live  for  ever." 

Patrick  often  desired  to  re-visit  his  native  country,  but  could 
never  find  opportunity  to  leave  his  work.  "  I  am  bound,"  he  says, 
"  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  will  not  hold  me  guiltless  if  I  leave  the- 
work  I  have  begun,  and  I  am  in  fear  also  lest  it  should  fall  to  the 
ground." 

The  Catholic  legend  of  Patrick's  journey  to  Kome,  a.d.  432,  where 
he  was  ordained  by  Pope  Sixtus  III.  as  missionary  to  Ireland,  is 
unsupported  by  historical  evidence.  Like  Ulfilas  with  the  Goths, 
Patrick  is  said  to  have  taught  the  Irish  the  use  of  letters.  After 
his  death  his  disciples  carried  on  his  labours  in  the  spirit  of  their 
master.  The  Scriptures  were  studied,  books  were  collected,  and 
the  monasteries  became  schools  of  missionaries,  so  that  the  country 
acquired  the  title  of  "  The  Island  of  the  Saints."1  In  the  succeeding 
century  the  grateful  church  sent  back  to  Scotland  the  Gospel  which 
she  had  received  from  thence.  The  leader  in  this  work  was  an  abbot 
of  royal  race  named  Columba,  or  as  he  was  called  while  still  a  child, 
from  his  diligent  attendance  at  public  worship,  Columkille  (the  dove 
of  the  Church).  He  crossed  over  to  North  Britain  in  a  wicker  boat 
with  a  small  band  of  monks  about  the  year  563,  and  established 
himself  in  the  little  island  of  Iona,  called  after  him  I-colm-kill,  now 
included  within  Argyleshire.  In  the  course  of  his  missionary  journeys 
he  passed  over  the  Grampians  to  preach  to  the  northern  Picts ;  and 
he  died  in  596,  the  very  year  in  which  the  monk  Augustine  set  out 
from  Borne  for  the  conversion  of  England.  The  monastery  which 
Columba  founded  at  Iona,  and  over  which  he  presided  thirty  years, 
attained  a  wide  reputation  and  became  the  centre  of  religious  life 
to  the  whole  land  of  the  Picts.  There  Biblical  and  other  studies, 
according  to  the  standard  of  those  early  days,  were  carried  on.  Its 
abbots  had  the  control  and  guidance  of  the  bordering  tribes  and 
churches,  and  even  exercised  authority  over  bishops. 

Whilst  the  Gospel  was  thus  taking  root  in  Ireland,  and  extending 
its  beneficent  influence  to  Scotland,  the  original  British  Church, 
which  survived  in  the  fastnesses  of  Wales  and  Cornwall,  would 
seem,  if  we  may  trust  the  invectives  of  Gildas,2  to  have  fallen  into 


1  It  is  possible,  however,  that  this  appellation,  in  Greek  hiera  nesos  {holy 
island),  is  only  a  corruption  of  the  native  name  Eri,  or  Erin. 

3  Gildas,  a  British  or  Irish  Church  writer,  probably  of  the  sixth  century,  but 
whose  history  is  very  obscure,  writes  thus  in  his  epistle  addressed  to  the 
Britons :   "  Britain  hath  clerks,  but  many  of  them  are  deceitful  raveners ; 


GKEGOBY   AND   THE    ENGLISH    SLAVES.  263 

a  worldly  condition.  Nevertheless  the  Welsh  clergy  in  the  sixth 
century,  in  the  events  to  be  presently  related,  showed  signs  of 
religious  life  still  existing  amongst  them. 

Such  was  the  state  of  Christianity  in  these  islands  when  Pope 
Gregory  the  Great  undertook  the  conversion  of  the  Anglo-Saxons. 
The  British  and  the  Irish  Church  had  alike  sprung  up  independent 
of  Borne,  and  the  latter  had  prospered  and  had  embarked  on  the 
aggressive  work  of  the  Gospel  with  little  help,  and  with  no  control, 
from  the  Boman  clergy.  But  neither  the  Welsh  Britons,  nor  the 
missionaries  of  Ireland  and  Iona,  had  made,  so  far  as  we  know,  any 
attempt  to  teach  the  religion  of  Jesus  to  the  rugged,  warlike, 
freedom -loving  Saxons.     This  triumph  was  reserved  for  Kome. 

The  incident  which  led  to  it  is  well  known.  Gregory  the  Great, 
before  he  became  pope,  saw  in  the  forum  at  Borne  some  handsome 
boys,  fair-skinned  and  with  beautiful  hair,  exposed  for  sale.  He 
inquired  whence  they  came.  "  From  the  island  of  Britain."  "  Are 
they  Christians?"  "They  are  still  pagans."  "Alas!"  he  ex- 
claimed, fetching  a  sigh  from  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  "  that  the 
prince  of  darkness  should  possess  such  bright  faces,  that  such  grace 
of  countenance  should  be  devoid  of  inward  grace !  Of  what  nation 
are  they?"  "Angles."  "Bight,"  said  he,  "for  they  have  the 
faces  of  angels,  and  ought  to  be  co-heirs  with  the  angels  in 
heaven.  What  is  the  name  of  their  province  ?  "  "  The  people  of 
that  province  are  called  Deiri."  "  Bight,"  he  said  again,  still 
punning  on  the  answers  he  received,  "  they  must  be  rescued  de  ird 
(from  the  wrath  to  come),  and  won  to  the  mercy  of  Christ.  What  is 
the  name  of  their  king  ?  "  "  ^lla."  "  Alleluia !  Praise  unto  God 
the  Creator  must  be  sung."1 

From  that  moment  Gregory  resolved  upon  the  conversion  of 
Britain.  Unable,  as  we  have  seen,2  to  enter  upon  the  work  in 
person,  he  sent  forth  as  soon  after  his  accession  to  the  papal  chair 
as  the  distracted  state  of  Italy  would  permit,  Augustine,  provost  of 

shepherds  who  are  rather  wolves  prepared  for  the  slaughter  of  souls.  Instruct- 
ing the  laity,  they  are  withal  examples  of  the  most  depraved  vices  and  manners. 
Despising  Christ's  commandments,  they  fulfil  their  own  lusts." 

1  "  It  may  well  be  doubted,"  remarks  Philip  Smith,  "  whether  this  scene 
belongs  to  the  real  history  or  to  the  legends  of  Gregory's  life.  (1)  The  elaborate 
play  on  words  suggest  a  suspicion  that  the  story  is  rather  ben  trovato  than  vero. 
(2)  Bede  does  not  relate  it  in  its  place  as  part  of  the  history  of  the  mission,  but 
brings  it  in  after  as  an  episode.  (3)  The  very  words  in  which  he  introduces  and 
dismisses  the  story  seem  to  mark  it  as  derived  from  those  legendary  histories  of 
Gregory  which  were  popular  in  England,  rather  than  from  the  authentic  records 
copied  for  Bede  at  Canterbury  and  Borne." 

8  See  ante,  p.  246. 


264 


WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 


his  monastery  in  Borne,  accompanied  by  forty  monks.  On  their 
journey  through  Gaul,  as  they  communed  together,  they  became 
alarmed  at  the  danger  of  the  enterprise.  The  Saxon  people  were 
idolaters,  a  fierce  and  barbarous  nation,  and  their  language  strange ; 
it  would  be  folly  to  proceed,  the  only  safe  course  was  to  return 
home.  Accordingly  they  sent  Augustine  back  to  Rome  humbly  to 
entreat  the  pope  to  release  them  from  so  perilous  a  service.  But 
■Gregory  was  not  to  be  turned  aside  from  his  purpose  by  their  fears. 
He  wrote  to  them  :  "  Gregory,  the  servant  of  the  servants  of  God, 
to  the  servants  of  our  Lord.  It  had  been  better  not  to  begin  the 
good  work  than  to  think  of  desisting  from  that  which  has  been 
begun.  Let  not  the  toil  of  the  journey  nor  the  tongues  of  evil  men 
•deter  you ;  but  with  all  possible  earnestness  and  zeal  perform  that 
which  by  God's  direction  you  have  undertaken,  being  assured  that 
great  labour  is  followed  by  a  greater  glory  of  eternal  reward." 

Thus  admonished  they  pursued  their  way,  and  landed  at  Ebbes- 
fleet  on  the  Isle  of  Thanet,  a.d.  597.  The  Gospel  was  not  altogether 
unknown  in  Kent.  King  Ethelbert's  wife  Bertha,  daughter  of  the 
Frankish  king  Charibert,  was  a  Christian,  and  had  brought  with 
her  a  bishop  who  held  divine  service  in  an  old  British  church  out- 
side the  walls  of  Canterbury.  The  king,  on  receiving  a  message 
from  Augustine,  went  down  to  the  shore  to  meet  him,  and  setting 
his  throne  in  the  open  air  for  fear  of  magical  arts,  ordered  the  mis- 
sionaries to  be  brought  into  his  presence.  They  advanced  in  solemn 
procession,  Augustine,  "  the  dark-haired  swarthy  man,  higher  than 
any  of  the  rest  from  his  shoulders  and  upwards,"  at  their  head, 
preceded  by  a  silver  cross  and  the  figure  of  our  Lord  painted  on  a 
board.  As  they  drew  near,  they  chanted  their  litanies  for  the 
salvation  of  the  king  and  his  people.  When  he  had  heard  their 
message,  Ethelbert  said :  "  Your  words  and  offers  are  fair,  but  as 
they  are  new  to  me  and  as  yet  unproved,  I  cannot  forsake  at  once 
the  faith  of  my  nation  which  I  have  so  long  followed."  Neverthe- 
less he  permitted  them  to  reside  in  his  chief  city  of  Canterbury, 
entertained  them  hospitably,  and  allowed  them  to  preach  and  make 
converts.  The  austere  life  of  the  monks,  their  fastings,  vigils, 
prayers  and  preaching,  the  courageous  trust  in  God  which  they 
exhibited,  and  perhaps  above  all  their  miracles,  made  a  powerful 
impression  on  the  rude  people.  By  direction  of  the  pope,  Augustine 
went  to  Aries  to  be  ordained  archbishop  of  the  English  nation,  and 
on  his  return  to  Canterbury  he  found  the  work  had  made  such  rapid 
progress  that  at  the  first  Christmas  festival  the  king  himself  and 
ten  thousand  converts  were  baptized.  The  ceremony  took  place  in 
the  channel  which  divides  the  Isle  of  Sheppey  from  the  mainland. 


CHURCH   AND    STATE. 


265 


Wishing  to  show  Augustine  the  greatest  possible  honour,  Ethel- 
bert  gave  up  to  him  his  own  palace  in  Canterbury,  with  the  Koman- 
British  church  in  the  neighbourhood  for  his  cathedral,  adding  such 
lands  and  possessions  as  were  deemed  necessary  to  support  the 
newly-founded  see.  Thus  Koman  Christianity  became  at  once  the 
established  State  religion  in  the  dominions  of  the  king  of  Kent. 
This  example  was  followed  in  time  by  all  the  other  kingdoms. 
"  Everywhere  the  bishop's  throne  was  set  up  side  by  side  with  the 
king's,  the  kingdom  of  the  one  became  the  bishopric1  of  the  other; 
the  bishops  sat  in  the  Council  of  the  Wise  Men  [Wittenagemote]  as 
equal  with  the  Ealdermen  [the  rank  next  to  the  king] ;  the  clergy 
ranked  with  the  thanes ;  the  laws  of  the  Church  were  laws  of  the 
State " ;  the  union  of  Church  and  State  was  complete.  Outside 
the  walls  of  Canterbury,  Augustine  erected  a  Benedictine  abbey, 
afterwards  called  by  his  name,  which  became  the  parent  seat  of 
learning  in  England. 

The  form  of  Christianity  thus  brought  to  our  forefathers  was 
ritualistic  and  corrupt,  yet  was  it  a  gift  of  incalculable  value.    The 

•  coin  had  been  debased  by  no  small  mixture  of  alloy,  but  the  gold 
was  still  there,  and  it  still  bore  the  Saviour's  image.  The  lamp  of 
truth  burnt  with  a  flickering  light,  yet  it  was  infinitely  better  than 
the  heathen  darkness  which  it  made  manifest.2 

At  first  it  was  Gregory's  purpose  to  have  the  idol  temples  of  the 
Saxons  destroyed,  but  afterwards,  when  a  fresh  band  of  missionaries 
under  abbot  Mellitus  was  sent  to  reinforce  Augustine,  Gregory 
directed  that  the  idols  only  should  be  removed,  and  that  those 
temples  which  were  substantially  built  should  be  suffered  to  remain. 
Sprinkled  with  holy  water,  and  sanctified  by  altars  and  relics,  they 
were  to  be  converted  into  churches.  Like  Gregory  Thaumaturgus,3 
the  pope  even  thought  it  expedient  to  humour  the  ignorant  people 
in  their  ancient  pagan  practices.  "Because,"  so  he  wrote  to 
Mellitus,  "  they  have  been  used  to  slay  many  oxen  in  sacrifice  to 
devils,  let  the  same  solemnities  be  continued  with  a  new  direction, 
so  that  on  the  day  of  the  dedication,  or  the  nativities  of  the  holy 
martyrs,  they  may  build  huts  of  the  boughs  of  trees  round  the 
transmuted  temples,  keep  a  religious  feast  and  slay  and  eat  their 

1  The  Saxon  word  rice  or  ric  signifies  jurisdiction  :  it  forms  part  of  the  name 
Surrey,  south-rice  or  south-ripe. 

2  "  The  Saxons  were  the  fiercest  of  the  Teutonic  race.     On  the  rude  manners 

•  of  the  barbarian  tribes  had  been  engrafted  the  sanguinary  and  brutalizing  habits 
of  the  pirate.  Their  religion  was  as  cruel  as  their  manners ;  they  are  said  to 
have  sacrificed  a  tenth  of  their  principal  captives  on  the  altars  of  their  gods." 

8  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  281. 


266  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

cattle  to  the  praise  of  God,  returning  thanks  to  the  Giver  of  all 
things.  In  this  way,  whilst  some  of  their  old  gratifications  are 
outwardly  permitted  them,  they  may  the  more  readily  attain  unto 
inward  joy.  For  it  is  impossible  to  efface  everything  at  once  from 
their  obdurate  minds ;  he  who  would  ascend  to  the  highest  place 
must  rise  by  degrees."1 

At  the  same  time  the  pope  wrote  to  Ethelbert:  "  Bishop  Gregory, 
to  the  most  glorious  lord  and  my  most  excellent  son  Ethelbert,  King  of 
the  English.  .  .  .  Guard  carefully  the  grace  which  thou  hast  re- 
ceived from  God,  and  hasten  to  promote  the  Christian  faith  among 
thy  people.  Increase  thy  zeal  for  their  conversion ;  edify  them  by 
great  purity  of  life ;  exhort,  terrify,  soothe,  correct,  that  thou  mayst 
find  thy  Eewarder  in  heaven.  For  so  Constantine,  our  most  pious 
Emperor,  recovering  the  Eoman  commonwealth  from  the  perverse 
worship  of  idols,  subjected  the  same  with  himself  to  our  Almighty 
God  and  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thus  transcended  in  fame  former 
princes.  .  .  .  "Willingly  hear,  devoutly  perform,  and  studiously  re- 
tain in  memory  whatsoever  you  shall  be  advised  by  our  most  reverend 
brother  bishop  Augustine,  who  is  instructed  in  the  monastic  rule, 
filled  with  the  knowledge  of  Holy  Scripture,  and  by  the  help  of  God 
endued  with  good  works ;  for  if  you  give  ear  to  him  in  what  he 
speaks  for  God,  God  will  the  sooner  hear  him  praying  for  you.  .  .  . 
I  have  sent  some  small  presents  which  will  not  seem  inconsiderable 
when  accompanied  by  the  blessing  of  the  holy  Apostle  Peter." 

Essex  quickly  followed  Kent  in  receiving  the  Gospel,  and  Lon- 
don, then  within  its  bounds,  was  made  an  episcopal  see,  Mellitus 
being  appointed  the  first  bishop.  During  Augustine's  lifetime 
Christianity  made  no  further  progress  in  Saxon  England. 

«'  The  British  Church  secluded  in  the  fastnesses  of  Wales  could  not 
but  hear  of  the  arrival  of  the  Bomish  missionaries,  and  of  their 
success  in  the  conversion  of  the  Saxons.  Augustine  and  his  fol- 
lowers could  not  but  inquire  with  deep  interest  concerning  their 
Christian  brethren  in  the  remote  parts  of  the  island."  But  when 
they  found  that  the  practices  of  the  British  Churches  differed  in 
some  particulars  from  those  of  Borne,  sympathy  was  changed  into 
coldness  and  suspicion.  His  narrow  monastic  education,  if  not  his 
natural  character,  had  unfitted  Augustine  to  deal  with  an  inde- 
pendent Church.  One  of  his  letters  to  Gregory  asking  his  advice 
on  some  dubious  points  of  discipline  is  still  extant.     Both  his 


1  Koberts  suggests  that  the  custom  of  bringing  deer  at  a  certain  season  into 
St.  Paul's  Church,  London,  and  laying  them  on  the  altar,  was  a  relic  of  this 
indulgence ;  it  was  abolished  at  the  Reformation. 


RITUALISTIC   DIFFERENCES.  267 

questions  and  the  pope's  replies  exhibit  in  a  strong  light  the  weak- 
ness and  even  the  childishness  of  the  monastic  system.  Neverthe- 
less the  pope  shows  a  moderation  and  good  sense  which  Augustine 
would  have  done  well  to  imitate.  "  Thou  knowest,  brother,  the 
custom  of  the  Eoman  Church  in  which  thou  wert  bred.  But  I  direct 
that  if  thou  hast  found  anything  either  in  the  Eoman,  Gallican, 
or  any  other  Church,  which  may  be  more  acceptable  to  Almighty 
God,  thou  shalt  carefully  choose  the  same,  and  teach  it  to  the 
Church  of  the  English,  which  as  yet  is  new  in  the  faith.  '  For 
things  are  not  to  be  loved  for  the  sake  of  places,  but  places  for  the 
sake  of  good  things.'  "  Unhappily  Augustine  acted  in  an  entirely 
opposite  spirit.  He  believed  the  Eoman  discipline  to  be  perfect, 
and  regarded  every  deviation  from  it  as  heretical ;  and  he  aspired 
to  nothing  less  than  the  subjection  of  the  whole  island  to  the 
"Apostolic"  see.1 

Having  received  their  Christianity  before  the  settlement  of  the 
Eoman  ritual  and  hierarchy,  the  Britons  pursued  a  different  prac- 
tice on  several  points.  Their  mode  of  baptism  was  different ;  their 
observance  of  Easter  was  otherwise  regulated ;  they  differed  in 
their  monastic  rules,  and  in  the  form  of  tonsure  of  the  priests ; 
and  (much  more  important)  marriage  was  allowed  to  their  clergy. 
Of  these  divergences,  the  time  of  keeping  Easter  seems,  strange  to 
say,  to  have  taken  the  leading  place  in  the  minds  of  the  Italian 
monks.2  The  Britons  were  not  indeed,  as  the  Eastern  Churches 
had  been,  Quarto-decimanians ;  they  did  not,  following  the  Jewish 
mode  of  reckoning,  keep  our  Lord's  Crucifixion  and  Eesurrection 
according  to  the  day  of  the  month,  regardless  of  the  day  of  the 
week.3  But  a  new  and  more  accurate  method  of  computing  Easter 
had  not  long  been  introduced,  and  had  not  yet  reached  Britain.4 

1  Gregory  and  Augustine  had  already  anticipated  the  spiritual  conquest  of 
Britain,  and  had  planned  a  second  metropolitan  see  at  York,  which,  like  Can- 
terbury, was  to  be  the  centre  of  twelve  bishoprics. 

2  As  to  the  tonsure,  the  Eoman  clergy  shaved  the  crown  of  the  head,  leaving 
a  circle  of  hair,  in  imitation  of  the  crown  of  thorns.  They  called  this  St.  Peter's 
tonsure,  pretending  that  the  apostle  was  so  shorn  in  memory  of  our  Lord's 
passion.  The  British  priests  shaved  the  fore-part  of  the  head  as  far  as  the  ears, 
in  the  form  of  a  crescent,  which  was  called  by  their  adversaries  the  tonsure  of 
Simon  Magus.  There  was  a  third  fashion,  the  Greek  tonsure,  which  was  re- 
ferred to  the  Apostle  Paul  as  its  author,  and  consisted  in  shaving,  or  rather 
closely  clipping,  the  whole  head. 

8  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  237. 
*  The  new  cycle  was  improved  and  settled  by  Dionysius  Exiguus,  a  Scythian 
monk,  who  flourished  in  the  latter  part  of  the  fifth  century.     It  is  to  him  also 
that  we  owe  the  practice  of  dating  events  from  the  birth  of  our  Saviour,  thus, 
looking  upon  this  event  as  the  grand  "turning-point"  of  history. 


268  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

Borne  herself  had  been  late  in  accepting  the  new  calendar,  having 
until  within  three-quarters  of  a  century  observed  the  same  rule  as 
that  still  followed  by  tbe  British  Churches.1  Everything  must 
needs,  however,  be  sacrificed  to  the  idol  of  uniformity  and  of  Boman 
supremacy. 

Augustine  sent  a  message  to  the  British  clergy,  demanding  that 
they  should  lay  aside  their  own  practices,  and  observe  in  all  respects 
the  Boman  discipline.  Dinooth,  abbot  of  their  great  monastery  at 
Bangor,2  unable  to  comprehend  such  an  assumption  of  authority, 
answered :  "  "We  are  all  ready  to  listen  to  the  Church  of  God,  to 
the  pope  of  Borne  and  to  every  pious  Christian,  and  to  show  perfect 
love  to  each,  according  to  his  station,  upholding  him  by  word  and 
deed.  We  know  not  that  any  other  obedience  can  be  required  of 
us  towards  him  whom  you  call  '  the  Father  of  Fathers.'  " 

At  King  Ethelbert's  suggestion  the  Britons  were  invited  to  a 
conference  with  Augustine  and  his  clergy.  They  met,  a.d.  601  or 
602,  on  the  banks  of  the  Severn  in  Gloucestershire,  the  confines  of 
the  kingdom  of  Wessex.  The  conference  was  held  under  an  oak, 
afterwards  known  as  Augustine's  oak.8  It  was  not  to  be  expected 
that  the  parties  should  come  to  an  agreement.  On  the  one  side 
were  unreasonable  demands  urged  with  inflexible  rigour  and 
haughtiness ;  on  the  other  there  was  the  consciousness  of  right, 
supported  by  an  ancient  spirit  of  independence.  "When,"  says 
Bede,  "  after  a  long  disputation,  the  Britons  manifested  no  com- 
pliance with  the  entreaties  and  rebukes  of  Augustine  and  his 
companions,  but  preferred  their  own  traditions  to  the  consensus  of 
all  the  Churches  in  the  world,  the  holy  father  Augustine,  to  put  an 
end  to  this  tedious  contention,  said :  •  Let  us  pray  to  God  for  a 
heavenly  sign  to  direct  us  which  tradition  to  follow.  Let  some 
infirm  person  be  produced,  and  let  us  see  by  whose  prayers  he  shall 
be  made  whole.'"  The  British  unwillingly  consented;  a  blind 
man,  an  Anglo-Saxon,  was  brought,  and  presented  to  the  Welsh 
clergy,  who  prayed  over  him  in  vain.     Augustine  then  knelt  and 

1  Several  times  towards  the  end  of  the  fifth  century  Easter  was  kept  in 
■  different  weeks  by  the  Greek  and  Koman  Churches. 

2  Bangor  signifies  the  sacred  circle.  There  were  no  fewer  than  sixteen  places 
so  named  in  Wales,  besides  the  famous  monastery  on  the  Lough,  near  Belfast. 
Dinooth's  is  supposed  to  be  Bangor-Iscoed,  now  Bangor,  on  the  Dee,  five  miles 
east  of  Buabon. 

8  Not  improbably  near  the  present  Aust  Passage,  anciently  Aust  Clive 
(Southern  Cliffs).  This  was  the  lowest  ferry  on  the  Severn,  and  is  several 
times  mentioned  in  the  Civil  Wars  as  the  landing-place  of  troops  coming  from 
Chepstow.  In  1375  the  prebend  of  Aust  was  given  by  King  Edward  III.  to 
Wicliffe. 


AUGUSTINE   AND    THE   BRITISH  BISHOPS. 

prayed,  and  immediately  the  blind  man  was  restored  to  sight.1 
Still  the  Britons  did  not  yield  ;  they  declared  they  could  do  nothing 
without  the  consent  of  a  larger  number  of  their  clergy.  Their 
seven  bishops  accordingly  came  together,  with  learned  men  from 
the  monastery  of  Bangor.2  But  before  they  ventured  to  renew  the 
conference,  they  consulted  a  hermit  whom  they  held  in  great  vene- 
ration. The  good  man  said  they  might  follow  Augustine  if  he  were 
a  man  of  God.  "  But  how,"  they  asked,  "  are  we  to  know  whether 
he  is  such?"  "If,"  replied  the  hermit,  " he  is  meek  and  lowly  of 
heart,  he  bears  the  yoke  of  Christ  and  offers  it  to  you  ;  but  if  he  is 
stern  and  proud,  he  is  not  of  God,  and  we  may  disregard  his  words." 
"But  how,"  they  asked  again,  "shall  we  discern  this?"  "Let 
the  Eomans,"  said  the  hermit,  "  arrive  first  at  the  place  of  meeting, 
and  if  on  your  approach  the  man  shall  rise  from  his  seat  to  receive 
you,  hear  him  submissively,  for  he  is  the  servant  of  Christ ;  but  if 
he  despises  you  and  remains  seated,  do  you  also  despise  him." 
Augustine,  as  they  drew  near,  kept  his  seat;  upon  which  the 
Britons  charged  him  with  pride,  and  contradicted  all  he  said.  "If," 
answered  Augustine,  "you  will  comply  with  me  in  three  points — 
keep  Easter  duly,  administer  baptism  according  to  the  practice  of 
the  holy  Roman  Apostolic  Church,  and  join  us  in  preaching  the 
word  of  the  Lord  to  the  English, — we  will  tolerate  all  your  other 
divergences  from  our  customs."  They  replied  that  they  would 
consent  to  none  of  those  things  nor  receive  him  as  their  archbishop^ 
The  stern  tones  of  the  Roman  monk  close  the  interview.  "As  you 
will  not  have  peace  with  brethren,  you  shall  have  war  from  foes ; 
aud  as  you  will  not  preach  unto  the  English  the  way  of  life,  you 
shall  suffer  at  their  hands  the  vengeance  of  death." 

"  All  which,"  adds  Bede,  his  gentle  heart  steeled  by  religious 
bigotry,  "  all  which  through  the  Divine  judgment  fell  out  as  Augus- 
tine had  predicted.  The  warlike  king  of  the  Angles,  Ethelfrid, 
having  raised  a  mighty  army,  made  a  vast  slaughter  of  that  per- 

1  Dr.  Hook  is  of  opinion  that  no  such  transaction  as  the  above  ever  occurred- 
"  That  Bede  related  faithfully  the  tradition  of  the  Church  of  Canterbury  no  one 
doubts  ;  but  the  event  recorded  took  place  some  time  between  the  years  600  and 
605.  Bede  finished  his  history  in  731.  ...  If  we  read  his  narrative  atten- 
tively, the  account  of  the  miracle  looks  like  an  interpolation.  He  does  indeed 
say  that  the  Britons  confessed  that  it  was  the  true  way  of  righteousness  which 
Augustine  taught ;  but  the  statement  is  contradicted  by  the  fact  that  he  does 
not  name  a  single  Briton  who  became  a  convert  to  Augustine's  opinion.  ...  I 
treat  the  whole  statement  as  a  mere  '  Canterbury  tale.' " 

3  The  bishoprics  were  Menevia  or  St.  David's,  Llandaff,  Llanbadarn,  Bangor, 
and  St.  Asaph ;  with  perhaps  Gloucester ;  the  seventh  spoken  of  by  Bede  is 
unknown. 


270  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

fidious  nation  at  the  city  of  Caerleon.1  Being  about  to  give  battle, 
he  observed  standing  apart  in  a  place  of  safety,  a  great  company  of 
priests  and  monks,  who  having  fasted  three  days  were  come  to  offer 
prayers  to  God  for  their  people.  '  Although  they  are  unarmed,'  he 
said, '  yet  if  they  cry  to  their  God  against  us,  it  is  the  same  as  if 
they  fought  against  us  ;  let  them  be  first  attacked.'  Twelve  hun- 
dred are  said  to  have  fallen,  only  fifty  saving  themselves  by  flight. 
Thus,"  concludes  Bede's  narrative,  "  was  fulfilled  the  prediction  of 
the  holy  bishop  Augustine  that  these  perfidious  men  should  feel  the 
vengeance  of  temporal  death,  because  they  had  despised  the  offer  of 
eternal  salvation." 

The  relation  between  the  Roman  and  the  British  Churches  is 
thus  summed  up  by  our  quaint  historian  Fuller.  "  Augustine  found 
here  a  plain  religion  (simplicity  is  the  badge  of  antiquity)  practised 
by  the  Britons ;  living  some  of  them  in  the  contempt,  and  many 
more  in  the  ignorance  of  worldly  vanities.  He  brought  in  a  reli- 
gion, spun  with  a  coarser  thread,  though  guarded  with  a  finer 
trimming,  made  luscious  to  the  senses  with  pleasing  ceremonies, 
so  that  many  who  could  not  judge  of  the  goodness,  were  courted 
with  the  gaudiness,  thereof.  We  are  indebted  to  God  for  his  good- 
ness in  moving  Gregory ;  Gregory's  carefulness  in  sending  Augus- 
tine ;  Augustine's  forwardness  in  preaching  here;  but  above  all,  let 
us  bless  God's  exceeding  great  favour,  that  that  doctrine  which 
Augustine  planted  here  but  impure,  and  his  successors  made  worse 
with  watering,  is  since,  by  the  happy  Beformation,  cleared  and 
refined  to  the  purity  of  the  Scriptures." 


CHAPTEK    III. 

The  Gospel  in  Northumbria. 

Step  by  step  Christianity  won  its  way  throughout  the  Heptarchy. 
It  early  found  an  entrance  into  the  great  northern  kingdom,  whose 
capital  was  York. 

Paulinus,  one  of  Augustine's  followers,  was  consecrated  the  first 
bishop  of  York.2    He  had  accompanied  into  the  north  Ethelburga, 

1  Caerleon,  in  Monmouthshire,  the  chief  city  of  Wales,  the  Britannia  Se- 
cunda  of  the  Komans.    But  according  to  Moberly  it  was  Chester. 

2  He  is  described  by  Bede  as  "tall  in  stature,  a  little  stooping,  with  black 
hair,  thin  face,  slender  aquiline  nose,  and  at  once  venerable  and  awful  in 


PAULINUS  AND  THE  CHIEF  MEN  OF  NOETHUMBEIA.       271 

the  Christian  daughter  of  Ethelbert  King  of  Kent,  on  her  marriage 
with  Edwin  King  of  Northumbria,  a.d.  625.  Edwin,  although  still 
Sk  pagan,  was  well  disposed  towards  Christianity.  Being  about  to 
undertake  a  war  against  Quichelm  King  of  the  West  Saxons,  he 
promised  Paulinus,  that  if  by  his  prayers  he  would  procure  him 
victory,  he  would  renounce  his  idols  and  confess  Christ.  Edwin 
was  victorious,  but,  before  making  profession  of  the  Gospel,  he  de- 
sired to  confer  with  his  chief  men  and  councillors,  so  that  if  they 
also  were  of  the  same  mind,  "all  might  together  be  cleansed  in  the 
fountain  of  life."  Paulinus  consented,  and  a  general  council  was 
•convened  a.d.  627,  probably  at  the  royal  villa  on  the  Derwent. 
When  they  were  assembled,  the  king  inquired  of  every  one  in  par- 
ticular what  they  thought  of  the  new  doctrine.  The  chief  priest 
Coifi  was  the  first  to  answer.  "  0  king,  consider  what  this  is  which 
is  now  preached  to  us,  for  the  religion  we  have  hitherto  professed 
has,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  no  virtue  in  it.  For  none  of  thy  people 
has  applied  himself  more  diligently  to  the  worship  of  our  gods  than 
I,  and  yet  there  are  many  who  receive  greater  favours  from  thee, 
and  are  more  prosperous  in  their  undertakings.  If  the  gods  were 
good  for  anything  they  would  favour  me  who  have  been  more  careful 
to  serve  them.  If  therefore  on  examination  thou  findest  these  new 
doctrines  better,  let  us  receive  them  without  delay."  As  soon  as 
he  had  spoken  a  thane  stepped  forward  and  said :  "  The  present 
life  of  man,  0  king,  compared  with  that  part  of  our  existence  which 
is  unknown  to  us,  is  like  the  flight  of  a  sparrow  through  the  hall 
where,  round  a  blazing  fire,  with  thy  nobles  and  servants,  thou 
sittest  at  supper  in  the  winter  time,  whilst  storms  of  rain  and  snow 
rage  without.  The  sparrow  flying  in  at  one  door  and  out  at  the 
other  is  happy  only  during  the  short  space  when  he  is  within  the 
hall ;  as  he  came  from  winter,  so  he  vanishes  into  winter  again.  It 
is  the  same  with  the  short  span  of  man's  life ;  of  what  went  before, 
or  what  is  to  come  after,  we  are  utterly  ignorant.  If  therefore  this 
new  doctrine  can  tell  us  something  more  certain,  it  deserves  to  be 
received."  He  was  followed  by  many  other  elders  and  royal  coun- 
cillors; after  which,  at  Coifi' s  request,  Paulinus  expounded  the 
Christian  doctrine  :  whereupon  the  chief  priest  cried  out :  "I  have 
long  been  sensible  that  there  was  nothing  in  that  which  we  worship, 
because  the  more  diligently  I  sought  after  truth,  the  less  I  found 
it ;  but  now  I  confess  that  in  this  preaching  truth  itself  shines 
forth,  which  is  able  to  confer  on  us  life,  salvation  and  eternal  happi- 

aspect."  This  description  was  derived  by  Bede  through  the  abbot  Deda,  from 
an  aged  man  who  had  himself  been  baptized  by  Paulinus  in  the  Trent. 


272  WITNESSES    FOR    CHEIST. 

ness.  I  advise,  0  king,  that  we  instantly  abandon  and  set  fire  to 
our  unprofitable  temples  and  altars."  When  the  king  inquired  of 
him  who  should  be  the  first  to  profane  the  ancient  sanctuaries,  he 
answered :  "  I ;  for  who  should  more  properly  than  myself  destroy 
those  things  which  through  ignorance  I  worshipped  ?  "  Then  taking 
arms  and  mounting  a  stallion  (neither  of  which  was  lawful  for  a 
priest),  he  rode  to  the  spot  where  the  chief  temple  stood.  The 
people  thought  him  mad,  but  without  heeding  them,  as  soon  as 
he  drew  near,  he  cast  his  spear  against  it  and  defiled  it,  and  at  his 
bidding  his  attendants  burnt  it  with  all  its  precincts.1 

The  king  was  baptized,  and  Christianity  became  the  religion  of 
Northumbria.  The  blessings  of  peace  followed  quickly  in  its  train. 
"  In  those  times,"  says  one  of  our  old  chroniclers,  "  was  so  great  a 
peace  that  a  woman  might  go  from  one  town  to  another  unharmed. 
King  Edwin,"  he  adds,  "  caused  brass  or  iron  cups  to  be  fastened 
beside  the  clear  wells  for  the  refreshment  of  wayfarers,  and  so  good 
justice  did  he  keep,  that  no  man  dared  take  them  away."  But  at 
Edwin's  death  two  ursurpers  who  were  pagans  shared  his  kingdom 
between  them,  and  the  Northumbrians  relapsed  into  idolatry.  The 
eclipse  however  did  not  last  long.  The  two  kings  dying,  Oswald,, 
the  rightful  heir,  ascended  the  throne,  and  restored  the  Christian 
faith.  He  had  been  an  exile  amongst  the  Scots,  where  he  had 
learnt  to  esteem  the  Gospel  as  the  first  of  blessings.  As  soon 
therefore  as  he  was  seated  on  the  throne,  he  sent,  not  to  Borne  or 
to  Canterbury,  but  to  Iona  for  a  missionary  to  teach  the  people 
anew.  It  is  said  that  a  monk  of  austere  manners  was  at  first 
chosen  for  this  service,  but,  unable  to  condescend  to  the  weaknesses 
and  wants  of  a  rude  people,  he  effected  notbing,  and  returned  home 
declaring  that  the  Northumbrians  were  too  barbarous  to  be  in- 
structed. There  was  present  when  the  missionary  gave  in  his 
report,  a  monk  named  Aidan,  severely  ascetic  in  his  personal  habits, 
but  full  of  charity  and  gentleness  towards  others.  This  man  as- 
cribed the  missionary's   want  of  success  to   his  own   fault,    and 

1  This  spot,  called  by  Bede  Godmunddingaham,  that  is,  Protecting  home  of 
the  gods,  is  identified  with  Goodmanham,  near  Market  Weighton,  upwards  of 
twenty  miles  E.S.E.  of  York.  If  this  be  so,  and  if  the  conference  was  held,  as 
it  is  said,  on  the  Derwent,  the  high-priest  must  have  had  a  ride  of  some  twelve 
to  fifteen  miles.  The  village  church,  which  stands  on  the  crown  of  a  gentle 
hill  at  the  southern  edge  of  the  Wolds,  is  supposed  to  occupy  the  site  of  the  old 
shrine.  In  the  lower  part  of  the  tower  are  the  remains  of  a  Norman  doorway, 
and  within  a  porch  on  the  south  side  there  is  a  semi-circular  arch  ;  the  rest  of 
the  church  is  of  various  periods,  none  earlier  than  the  fifteenth  century.  Within 
are  two  stone  fonts,  the  smaller  of  which  is  ancient,  although  there  can  be  no- 
foundation  for  the  tradition  that  Coifi  was  baptized  in  it. 


AIDAN   IN   NOKTHUMBEIA.  273 

suggested  that  he  ought,  like  Paul,  to  have  fed  his  untutored 
hearers  first  with  milk,  until  by  degrees  they  should  have  acquired 
strength  to  receive  more  perfect  counsel.  All  present  exclaimed 
that  Aidan  himself  was  the  fittest  man  for  the  work ;  and  he  was 
accordingly  consecrated  a  bishop  and  sent  into  Northumbria, 
a.d.  635. 

The  king  gave  him,  as  his  episcopal  seat,  the  island  of  Lindis- 
farne,  afterwards  called  Holy  Island,  which  was  visible,  at  a  dis- 
tance of  about  six  miles,  from  his  own  castle  of  Bamborough.  Be- 
tween Aidan  and  the  king  a  warm  friendship  grew  up.  One  Easter 
Day  when  they  were  sitting  at  table  together,  with  a  silver  dish  full 
of  dainties  before  them,  and  were  just  ready  to  bless  the  bread,  the 
king's  almoner  came  suddenly  in  to  tell  him  that  a  multitude  of 
needy  persons  from  all  parts  were  sitting  in  the  street  expecting 
alms  of  him.  The  king  immediately  ordered  the  viands  to  be 
carried  to  the  poor,  and  the  silver  dish  to  be  cut  in  pieces  and 
divided  among  them.  Aidan,  deeply  impressed  with  the  action, 
took  the  king's  right  hand  in  his,  and  said,  "  May  this  hand  never 
perish."  And  so  it  was,  according  to  the  good  old  chronicler,  who 
is  ever  ready  to  credit  the  miraculous  ;  when  the  king  was  slain  in 
battle,  his  right  arm,  which  had  been  severed  from  his  body, 
remained  entire  and  un corrupted,  and  was  preserved  down  to 
Bede's  time  in  a  silver  case  in  St.  Peter's  church,  Bamborough. 

The  first  church  on  Lindisfarne  was  built  after  the  manner  of 
the  Scots,  of  split  oak,  thatched  with  coarse  grass.  Here  Aidan 
preached  to  the  chiefs  and  the  royal  household,  the  king  himself 
acting  as  interpreter.  But  as  soon  as  he  had  mastered  the  English 
language  Aidan  travelled  through  Northumbria,  preaching  and 
conversing  with  the  people.1  "He  taught,"  saysBede,  "no  other- 
wise than  he  lived ;  he  neither  sought  nor  loved  anything  of  this 
world.  He  journeyed  on  foot,  never  using  a  horse  except  when 
compelled  by  some  urgent  necessity.  All  who  bore  him  company, 
whether  shaven  monks  or  laymen,  unlike  the  slothfulness  of  our 
times,  occupied  themselves  in  reading  the  Scriptures  or  learning 
psalms.  If  it  happened,  which  was  but  seldom,  that  he  was  invited  to 
eat  with  the  king,  he  went  with  one  or  two  of  the  clergy,  and  having 
taken  a  small  repast,  made  haste  to  be  gone  in  order  to  read  or  pray* 
Whatever  gifts  he  received  from  the  rich  he  distributed  amongst 
the  poor,  or  expended  in  redeeming  captives,  many  of  whom  he 

1  The  county  of  Durham,  except  some  cultivated  patches  near  its  hamlets 
and  vils,  was  then  in  a  state  of  nature,  large  tracts  of  land  being  covered  with. 
forests  of  magnificent  oak,  the  haunt  of  beasts  of  the  chase. 

T 


274  WITNESSES    FOE   CHBIST. 

educated  as  priests."  "The  religious  habit,"  continues  Bede, 
"was  then  held  in  great  veneration;  so  that  wheresoever  any 
clerk  or  monk  came  he  was  joyfully  received  by  all  as  God's  ser- 
vant; and  such  as  chanced  to  meet  him  upon  the  way  ran  and 
bowed  to  him,  and  rejoiced  to  be  signed  by  his  hands  or  blessed 
with  his  lips.  On  the  Lord's  days  the  people  flocked  eagerly  to  the 
churches  or  monasteries,  not  to  feed  their  bodies,  but  to  hear  the 
word  of  the  grace  of  God.  Priests,  and  clergy  too,  were  so  free 
from  the  plague  of  avarice,  that  no  one  received  lands  or  possessions 
for  building  a  monastery,  unless  it  were  enforced  by  the  ruler  of  the 
country."  Aidan  was  alive  to  the  value  of  education.  He  himself 
taught  twelve  Saxon  youths,  and  as  new  monasteries  were  founded 
they  became  schools  under  the  care  of  the  monks  who  had  followed 
him  from  Scotland. 

As  with  Augustine  and  the  Britons,  the  differences  between  the 
Boman  and  Scoto-Irish  discipline  came  early  into  view,  especially 
the  time  of  observing  Easter.1  Bishop  Aidan  and  the  king  observed 
the  Scottish  rule ;  but  the  queen  had  been  brought  up  in  the  Boman 
practice,  so  that  whilst  her  husband  was  joyfully  celebrating  Easter, 
she  was  still  observing  a  rigorous  fast.  During  Aidan's  lifetime 
this  difference  was  not  suffered  to  disturb  the  peace  of  the  church. 
Bede  generously  remarks  :  "  Although  bishop  Aidan  could  not  keep 
Easter  contrary  to  the  custom  of  those  who  had  sent  him  forth,  yet 
he  took  every  pains  to  promote  piety,  faith  and  charity  after  the 
manner  of  all  holy  men." 

But  after  Aidan's  death  the  diversity  of  practice  soon  led  to  dis- 
sension. Aidan  was  succeeded  in  the  bishopric  by  Finan,  652,  and 
he  again  by  Colman,  661,  both  like  Aidan  monks  from  Iona.  King 
Oswald's  successor,  Oswy,  followed  the  practices  of  the  Scottish 
Church ;  his  queen  Eanfled,  a  Kentish  princess,  was,  like  her  pre- 
decessor, devoted  to  the  Boman  ritual.  Foremost  amongst  the 
Saxons  educated  at  Lindisfarne  was  Wilfrid,  a  youth  of  great 
energy  and  intelligence.  Wishing  to  compare  the  customs  of  the 
Northumbrian  Church  with  those  which  claimed  to  be  Catholic,  he 
was  sent  by  Queen  Eanfled  to  Gaul  and  Borne,  and  came  back  full 
of  zeal  for  the  Boman  usages.  On  his  return  the  king's  son  Alfrid 
made  him  abbot  of  the  monastery  of  Bipon,  displacing  the  Scottish 
monks  for  whom  he  had  founded  that  cloister. 


1  The  intolerance  seems  not  to  have  been  all  on  one  side.  Augustine's  suc- 
cessor in  the  see  of  Canterbury,  Laurentius,  complains  that  the  Scottish  bishop 
Dagan,  coming  into  England,  refused  to  eat  with  him  and  his  fellow  bishops, 
and  even  to  break  bread  in  the  same  house  with  them. 


THE    EASTER    CONTROVERSY.  275 

The  dispute  concerning  Easter  came  to  its  height  in  664,  when 
King  Oswy  called  a  synod  at  Whitby  to  bring  it  to  a  settlement.  On 
the  part  of  the  Scots  appeared  bishop  Colman  and  a  Northumbrian 
bishop  named  Cedd,  who  had  preached  the  Gospel  amongst  the 
East  Saxons  with  great  diligence,  self-denial  and  success.  They 
were  supported  by  the  saintly  Hilda,  in  whose  abbey  the  conference 
was  held,  in  the  presence  of  the  king,  the  queen,  and  Prince  Alfrid. 
On  the  other  side  were  Agilbert  bishop  of  the  West  Saxons,  a 
native  of  Gaul,  and  Wilfrid,  who  from  Agilbert's  ignorance  of 
English  was  the  spokesman  of  the  party.  Bishop  Colman  argued 
for  the  Scottish  practice  from  the  authority  of  the  apostle  John, 
and  the  custom  of  the  churches  founded  by  him.1  Wilfrid  took  his 
stand  upon  the  custom  of  Eome  and  "  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in 
every  land,  except  only  these  Scots  and  their  accomplices  in  obsti- 
nacy, the  Picts  and  Britons,  who  from  these  two  remote  islands  of 
the  ocean  foolishly  fight  against  the  whole  world."  He  ensconced 
himself  in  the  authority  of  Peter,  and  asked  "if  even  the  holy 
Columba  was  to  be  preferred  to  the  apostle  on  whom  Christ  had 
built  his  Church,  and  given  him  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 
On  hearing  this  the  king  exclaimed,  "Is  it  true,  Colman,  that  these 
words  were  spoken  to  Peter  by  our  Lord?"  Colman  answered, 
"  It  is  true,  0  king."  "  Can  you  show  any  such  power  given  to 
your  Columba?"  "  We  cannot,"  replied  Colman.  "  Do  you  both 
agree  that  these  words  were  principally  directed  to  Peter,  and  that 
the  keys  of  heaven  were  given  to  him  by  our  Lord  ?  "  They  both 
answered,  "  We  do."  Upon  this  the  king  declared,  "  I  say  that 
Peter  is  the  doorkeeper,  and  I  will  not  contradict  him,  but  obey 
him  in  all  things,  lest  when  I  come  to  the  gates  of  heaven  there 
should  be  none  to  open  them,  he  who  holds  the  keys  being  my 
adversary."  Bishop  Cedd  submitted;  but  Colman,  says  Bede, 
perceiving  that  his  doctrine  was  rejected  and  his  sect  despised, 
renounced  his  charge  and  went  back  into  Scotland,  accompanied 
by  all  who  would  not  accept  the  Roman  Easter  and  the  Roman 
tonsure.  From  this  hour  the  English  Church  was  wholly  subject 
to  Rome. 

Wilfrid  was  in  course  of  time  appointed  archbishop  of  York,  and 
went  to  France  to  be  consecrated  by   the  Gallic  bishops.     On  his 

1  We  have  seen  that  the  Scots  were  not  Quarto-decimanians  (see  ante,  p.  267). 
"  Colman,"  says  Bede,  "  celebrated  Easter,  not  like  the  Jews,  on  the  fourteenth 
of  the  month,  whatsoever  the  day  of  the  week  might  be,  but  on  the  Lord's  day, 
from  the  fourteenth  to  the  twentieth."  It  may  be  that  Colman  cited  the 
apostle  John  in  a  traditionary  way,  without  clearly  understanding  the  point 
at  issue. 


276  WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST. 

return  the  vessel  was  stranded  on  the  coast  of  Sussex.  This,  the- 
last  kingdom  in  the  Heptarchy  to  he  Christianized,  was  still  almost 
wholly  pagan.  The  savage  inhabitants,  who  were  merciless 
wreckers,  rushed  down  to  plunder  the  ship.  At  their  head  was  a 
priest  who,  like  "  another  Balaam,"  stood  on  a  rising  ground 
uttering  spells  and  curses.  "Wilfrid  on  board  the  vessel,  "like 
Moses  and  Aaron  when  Joshua  fought  with  Amalek,"  withstood 
him  by  fervent  prayer ;  whilst  the  crew  made  a  stout  resistance. 
A  stone  from  a  sling  struck  the  pagan  priest  on  the  forehead,  and 
put  an  end  to  his  enchantments  and  his  life.  His  fall  only  ex- 
asperated the  barbarians.  Thrice  they  renewed  their  attack  upon, 
the  little  band,  and  thrice  they  were  beaten  off.  As  they  were 
preparing  for  a  fourth  assault,  the  returning  tide  floated  the  ship, 
which  sailed  along  the  coast  and  arrived  safely  at  Sandwich,  whence 
they  returned  to  Northumbria. 

After  occupying  the  see  of  York  with  renown  for  several  years, 
"Wilfrid  became  involved  in  disputes  with  the  king,  was  degraded 
from  his  dignity,  and  subjected  to  hardship  and  exile.  In  his 
adversity  he  remembered  the  rude  people  of  Sussex,  and  how 
greatly  they  stood  in  need  of  Christian  teaching.  The  king  and 
queen  of  the  South  Saxons  had  both  been  baptized,  and  there  was 
a  small  monastery  of  five  or  six  Irish  monks  at  Bosham,  near 
Chichester,  who  "  served  the  Lord  in  poverty  and  humility,  but  to 
whom  none  of  the  natives  gave  heed ;  "  with  these  exceptions  Wil- 
frid found  the  kingdom  almost  entirely  heathen.  The  arts  of  life 
were  hardly  better  understood  than  the  precepts  of  the  Gospel. 
Although  the  sea  and  the  rivers  abounded  in  fish,  the  people  had 
no  skill  to  take  any  but  eels.  Wilfrid  made  his  men  collect  the 
eel-nets  and  cast  them  into  the  sea ;  they  caught  three  hundred 
fishes  of  divers  kinds,  one-third  of  which  they  gave  to  the  poor,, 
another  to  the  owners  of  the  nets,  and  kept  one-third  for  them- 
selves. Wilfrid's  preaching  was  very  successful ;  nobles,  priests 
and  people  flocked  to  him  to  be  baptized;  and  the  king  granted  him 
as  the  seat  of  his  bishopric  the  peninsula  of  Selsey,1  with  all  its 
lands,  chattels,  and  inhabitants.  Here  he  established  a  monastery 
and  school,  and  finding  in  his  new  domain  two  hundred  and  fifty 
men  and  women  slaves,  "  all  these,  as  by  baptizing  them  he  saved 
them  from  the  servitude  of  the  devil,  so  by  giving  them  freedom  he 


1  When  Lanfranc  removed  the  episcopal  sees  from  the  villages,  Selsey  was 
transferred  to  Chichester.  In  the  south  aisle  of  the  choir  of  this  cathedral  some 
Saxon  bas-reliefs  brought  from  thence  are  still  to  be  seen. 


GEDM0N.  277 

loosed  them  from  the  yoke  of  human  bondage."     By  this  act  he 
set  a  noble  example.1 

We  have  spoken  of  Hilda.  Whitby  Abbey  contained  houses  for 
men  as  well  as  women,  all  under  the  direction  of  this  "  Northum- 
brian Deborah."2  One  of  the  monks  was  Csedmon,  the  first 
English  poet,  of  whom  Bede  has  left  a  brief  but  charming  notice. 
"  There  was,"  he  writes,  "  a  certain  brother  who,  with  much 
sweetness  and  humility,  made  pious  verses  in  his  native  language. 
Before  he  entered  the  monastery  he  had  lived  many  years  without 
learning  the  art  of  versifying,  so  that  at  entertainments  when  for 
the  sake  of  mirth  all  the  guests  sang  in  turn,  as  soon  as  he  saw  the 
instrument  come  towards  him  he  rose  from  the  table  and  went 
home.  Once  on  a  time,  having  left  the  feast  and  gone  to  the 
stable,  where  it  was  his  business  that  night  to  attend  to  the 
horses,  when  he  had  finished  his  work  he  composed  himself  to 
sleep.  In  his  sleep  One  appeared  to  him  and  said,  •  Caedmon,  sing 
some  song  to  me.'  He  answered,  *  I  cannot  sing ;  I  left  the  enter- 
tainment and  retired  to  this  place  because  I  could  not  sing.'  He 
who  talked  with  him  replied,  '  Thou  shalt  however  sing.'  '  What 
shall  I  sing  ? '  asked  Caedmon.  '  Sing  the  Creation,'  was  the 
answer.     Upon  which  he  sang — 

Nu  we  sceolan  herian  Now  must  we  praise 

heofon-rices  weard.  the  Guardian  of  heaven's  kingdom, 

metodes  mihte  the  Creator's  might, 

and  his  mod-ge-thonc.  and  his  mind's  thought ; 

wera  wuldor-f  aeder.  glorious  Father  of  men ! 

swa  he  wundra  gehwtes  as  of  every  wonder  He, 

ece  dryhten  Lord  eternal, 

-oord  onstealde.  formed  the  beginning. 

he  aerest  gesceop  He  first  framed 

eorthan  bearnum  for  the  children  of  earth 

heofon  to  hrofe  the  heaven  as  a  roof, 

halig  scyppend.  holy  Creator ! 

tha  middangeard  Then  mid  earth 

moncynnes  weard  the  Guardian  of  mankind, 

ece  dryhten  the  eternal  Lord, 

setter  teode  afterwards  produced  ; 

1  The  redemption  of  slaves  was  long  a  principal  duty  of  the  religious  houses. 
In  Doomsday  no  slave  is  registered  in  York,  and  few  in  the  neighbouring 
counties.  At  the  Council  of  Celchyth  (in  Mercia),  a.d.  816,  bishops  were 
directed  by  their  wills  to  free  all  bondsmen  of  English  descent,  whom  the 
Church  had  acquired  during  their  administration. 

2  Several  such  double  monasteries  existed  in  Saxon  England ;  they  seem  to 
have  prospered  for  a  time,  but  were  soon  discontinued. 


278  WITNESSES  FOB   CHRIST. 

firnm  foldan  the  earth  for  men, 

frea  selmihtig.1  the  Lord  almighty. 

"When  he  awoke  he  remembered  what  he  had  sung  in  his  dream; 
and  much  more  to  the  same  effect  came  into  his  mind.  He  went 
to  the  town-reeve  of  "Whitby  to  acquaint  him  with  the  gift  he  had 
received,  and  by  him  was  conducted  to  the  abbess,  to  whom  in  the 
presence  of  many  learned  men  he  told  his  dream  and  repeated  his 
verses.  It  was  seen  by  all  that  the  Lord  had  bestowed  upon  him 
heavenly  grace ;  and  the  abbess  urged  him  to  lay  aside  his  secular 
habit  and  enter  upon  the  monastic  life,  directing  that  he  should  be 
thoroughly  instructed  in  the  Bible.  u  Retaining  in  his  memory  all 
he  learnt,  and  as  it  were  chewing  the  cud,  he  turned  the  sacred 
history  into  most  harmonious  verse.  He  sang  the  creation  of  the 
world,  the  origin  of  man,  the  departure  of  the  children  of  Israel  out 
of  Egypt  and  their  entrance  into  the  land  of  promise  ;  the  incarna- 
tion, passion  and  resurrection  of  our  Lord,  and  his  ascension  into 
heaven,  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the  preaching  of  the 
Apostles,  the  terror  of  the  judgment  to  come,  the  pains  of  hell  and 
the  delights  of  heaven." 

When  the  time  of  his  decease  drew  near,  Csedmon,  being  taken 
sick,  desired  his  attendant  to  prepare  a  room  for  him  in  a  hospital 
which  was  nigh  at  hand.  As  his  master  was  still  able  to  walk  and 
eonverse,  the  attendant  wondered  at  the  order,  but  did  as  he  was 
bid.  The  poet  talked  cheerfully  and  playfully  with  the  other 
inmates  of  the  hospital  until  past  midnight,  when  he  asked  if  they 
had  the  Eucharist.  His  companions  answered,  "What  need  of  the 
Eucharist?  thou  art  not  going  to  die."  "Nevertheless,"  he 
answered,  "bring  me  the  Eucharist."  Having  taken  it  into  his 
hand,  he  asked  whether  they  were  all  of  unruffled  mind  towards 
him,  free  from  all  controversy  and  rancour.  They  answered  they 
were  all  in  perfect  charity,  and  inquired  whether  he  was  in  the 
same  mind  towards  them?  He  replied,  "My  children,  I  am  in 
charity  with  all  the  servants  of  God."  Having  strengthened  him- 
self with  the  heavenly  viaticum,2  he  inquired  if  the  time  was  near 
when  the  brethren  were  to  be  awakened  to  sing  the  Nocturns.  They 
replied,  "  It  is  not  far  off."  He  answered,  "  It  is  well ;  let  us  wait 
for  that  hour  ;  "  and  "  signing  himself  with  the  sign  of  the  holy 
cross,  he  laid  his  head  on  the  pillow,  and  falling  asleep,  so  in  silence 
ended  his  life." 


1  Thorpe,  Cadmon's  Metrical  Bible.    Bede  gives  the  verses  in  Latin ;  King. 
Alfred's  version  of  Bede's  history  gives  Ctedmon's  original  words  as  above. 
3  Death-bed  communion ;  literally,  provision  for  a  journey. 


CUTHBERT  S   VISION. 


279 


Of  Caedmon's  poem  (if  indeed  it  be  his),  only  one  ancient  copy, 
and  that  anonymous,  is  extant,  written  apparently  in  the  tenth 
century.  It  was  given  by  Archbishop  Ussher  to  the  learned  Junius, 
who  printed  it  and  afterwards  bequeathed  it  to  the  Bodleian 
library.  Milton  probably  saw  it  before  he  composed  his  Paradise 
Lost.    The  poem  contains  some  fine  passages.1 

"  Caedmon's  poetry,"  remarks  Milman,  "  was  the  people's  Bible. 
.  .  .  He  chose  by  the  natural  test  of  his  own  kindred  sympathies, 
all  which  would  most  powerfully  work  on  the  imagination,  or  strike 
to  the  heart  of  a  rude  yet  poetic  race." 

In  the  same  year  that  Aidan  died,  so  Bede  relates,  a  youthful 
shepherd  in  the  hill  country  of  Lauderdale,  now  in  the  county  of 
Berwick,  but  then  forming  part  of  Northumbria,  was  watching  his 
flock  by  night,  when  a  company  of  angels  appeared  to  him,  singing 
hymns  of  triumph,  and  bearing  up  to  heaven  a  newly-departed 
soul.  He  awoke  his  fellow- shepherds,  who  only  laughed  at  his 
tale ;  but  when  he  learned  that  bishop  Aidan  had  passed  away  at 
that  very  time,  he  left  them,  and  rode  down  to  Melrose,2  where 


1  Satan's  fall  is  thus  described : — 

Then  was  the  Mighty  angry ; 
The  highest  Ruler  of  heaven 
Hurled  him  from  the  lofty  seat. 

****** 
He  must  seek  the  gulf 
Of  hard  hell-torment, 
For  that  he  had  warr'd  with  heaven's 

Ruler. 
****** 
The  fiend  with  all  his  comrades 
Fell  then  from  heaven  above, 
Through  as  long  as  three  nights  and 

days. 


Satan  harangued, 

Sorrowing  spoke, 

He  who  hell  thenceforth 

Should  rule. 

He  was  erst  God's  angel, 

Fair  in  heaven, 

Until  him  his  mind  urged, 

And  his  pride 

Most  of  all, 


That  he  would  not 

The  Lord  of  Hosts' 

Word  revere. 

Boiled  within  him 

His  thought  about  his  heart 

Hot  was  without  him 

His  dire  punishment. 

Then  spake  he  the  words : 

"  This  narrow  place  is  most  unlike 

That  other  that  we  ere  knew, 

High  in  heaven's  kingdom. 

****** 
0 1  had  I  power  of  my  hands  ! 

Then  with  this  host  I 

But  around  me  lie 

Iron  bonds ; 

Presseth  this  cord  of  chain : 

I  am  powerless ! 

****** 
Here  is  a  vast  fire 
Above  and  underneath ; 
Never  did  I  see 
A  loathlier  landscape ; 
The  flame  abateth  not." 


*  This  was  not  the  identical  Melrose  with  which  Scott  has  made  us  familiar, 
and  which  was  a  later  foundation  a  short  distance  higher  up  the  Tweed. 


280  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

some  Scottish  monks  from  Lindisfarne  had  reared  a  monastic 
house.  Here  he  applied  for  admission  into  the  brotherhood,  and 
was  readily  received.  A  few  years  afterwards  Cuthbert,  for  this 
was  the  name  of  the  shepherd  youth,  made  one  of  that  colony  of 
Scottish  monks,  which  Prince  Alfrid  first  planted  at  Eipon,  and 
then  sent  back  to  their  own  country  to  make  way  for  Wilfrid  and 
his  Anglo-Romans.1  On  his  return  to  Melrose  Cuthbert  devoted 
himself  to  missionary  work,  of  which  there  was  urgent  need,  for  the 
people  around  were  addicted  to  magic  and  sunk  in  ignorance.2 

In  664  he  was  promoted  to  be  prior  of  Lindisfarne,  where  he  set 
an  example  of  devotion  and  self-denial.  As  time  went  on,  the 
spirit  of  asceticism  grew  upon  him,  and  he  forsook  the  island, 
retiring  to  a  solitary  place  on  the  mainland,  and  thence  to  one  of 
the  little  islands  of  Fame,  lying  to  the  southward.  This  islet 
*'  consists  of  a  few  acres  of  ground,  partially  covered  with  grass, 
and  hemmed  around  with  an  abrupt  border  of  basaltic  rock." 
Here  the  more  completely  to  exclude  what  little  was  left  of  the 
outer  world,  he  raised  a  wall  of  turf  and  stone  which  he  could  not 
see  over ;  and  within  this  enclosure  built  an  oratory  and  a  hut  of 
driftwood  thatched  with  straw.  His  cell  had  but  one  window,  and 
this  after  a  while  he  closed,  never  opening  it,  except  to  give  his 
blessing  when  his  brethren  from  Lindisfarne,  or  strangers,  came  to 
seek  it.  At  the  place  of  anchorage  he  set  up  another  cabin  to 
shelter  his  visitors.  On  this  island  he  passed  nine  years.  In  684, 
with  great  difficulty  and  only  by  the  personal  entreaty  of  King 
Egfrid,  who  crossed  over  to  Fame  for  that  purpose,  he  was 
induced  to  abandon  his  hermitage,  and  to  accept  the  bishopric  of 
Lindisfarne. 

For  two  years  Cuthbert  faithfully  discharged  the  episcopal  duties, 
and  then  resigned  his  see  to  retire  again  to  his  beloved  cell,  that  he 
might  die  there  in  peace.  Early  in  686  he  was  seized  with  his 
death-sickness.  Herefrid  prior  of  Lindisfarne  visited  him,  and 
after  receiving  directions  for  his  burial,  went  home,  purposing 
shortly  to  return ;  but  a  storm  arising,  five  days  elapsed  before  he 
could  venture  to  recross.     On  the  sixth  day  Herefrid,  with  a  party 

1  See  above,  p.  274. 

2  He  feared  not  to  travel  in  the  most  inaccessible  districts,  on  rugged  moun- 
tains and  by  toilsome  paths,  where  the  people  alike  from  their  poverty  and 
ignorance  were  quite  neglected  by  others,  and  he  often  remained  away  two  or 
three  weeks,  or  a  month  even,  from  the  monastery,  dwelling  among  the 
mountaineers,  and  teaching  them  both  by  word  and  by  the  example  of  his 
deeds. 


LINDISFABNE.  281 

ef  his  monks,  found  Cuthbert  sitting  in  the  little  guest-chamber  at 
the  landing-place.  For  five  days  and  nights  he  had  not  tasted 
anything  nor  moved  from  the  spot.  The  monks  carried  him  into 
his  oratory,  where  he  uttered  his  last  request,  that  should  they  ever 
he  compelled  to  desert  their  home,  his  remains  should  accompany 
them  wherever  they  went.1  When  he  died,  which  was  at  midnight, 
Herefrid  lighted  a  couple  of  torches  and  waved  them  in  the  air  as  a 
signal  to  Lindisfarne.  Cuthbert  is  said  to  have  wrought  many 
miracles,  the  fame  of  which  after  his  death  spread  far  and  wide,  and 
laid  the  foundation  of  the  extraordinary  influence  and  wealth  of  the 
see  of  Durham. 

Lindisfarne  was  for  many  years  a  centre  of  learning  and  of 
ecclesiastical  power.  Before  the  conversion  of  York  into  a  metro- 
politan see  under  Wilfrid,  its  bishop  wielded  jurisdiction  from  the 
Firth  of  Clyde  to  the  Humber.2  In  how  great  a  degree  art  and 
learning  had  taken  up  their  abode  in  this  remote  corner  of  Christen- 
dom is  seen  in  the  celebrated  Durham  Book,  an  illuminated  copy  of 
the  Gospels  in  the  Vulgate  version  of  Jerome  written  at  this 
period.8  This,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  manuscripts  in  Europe,  is 
&  memorial  of  the  pious  care  of  the  monks  of  Lindisfarne.  One 
abbot  after  another  took  his  part  in  the  labour  of  love.  Eadfrith,* 
who  followed  Cuthbert  in  the  bishopric  and  abbacy,  and  whose 
chief  mission  was  to  spread  the  glory  of  his  predecessor,  began  to 
transcribe  the  work  probably  during  Cuthbert's  lifetime,  and  laid  it 
reverently  on  its  completion  upon  the  shrine  of  the  saint ;  Ethil- 
wald,5  who  succeeded  Eadfrith,  gave  the  covers ;  Billfrith,  the 
anchorite,  wrought  the  ornaments  and  jewelled  work  upon   the 

1  This  charge  was  faithfully  kept ;  but  the  incursions  of  the  Danes  made  its 
fulfilment  a  very  arduous  matter.  For  many  years  the  body  was  carried  about 
to  various  places  in  Northumbria  and  Cumbria,  and  once  was  even  taken  on 
board  a  ship  to  be  conveyed  to  Ireland.  At  last  it  found  a  resting-place  on  the 
summit  of  the  hill  at  Durham,  then  covered  with  wood.  Here  a  church  was 
commenced,  the  parent  of  the  present  stately  cathedral. 

2  The  original  rude  church  was  replaced  by  a  cathedral  of  stone.  This  was 
pulled  down  in  1093,  when  the  see  was  transferred  to  Durham,  and  the  Priory 
Church,  whose  picturesque  ruins  still  adorn  the  island,  was  erected  out  of  its 
materials.  No  trace  now  exists  of  the  original  monastic  buildings.  The  name 
Holy  Island,  in  memory  of  the  martyrs  in  the  Danish  massacre,  was  given  in 
1093.  Some  remains  of  Cuthbert's  cell  are,  it  is  said,  still  to  be  seen  on  Fame 
Island. 

3  It  is  the  earliest  specimen  extant  of  Saxon  calligraphy  and  decoration. 

*  Bishop  from  a.d.  698  to  721. 
5  Bishop  from  a.d.  724  to  740. 


282 


WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 


outside.  Thus  far  it  would  seem  was  the  work  completed  in  the 
early  part  of  the  eighth  century,  and  it  was  not  until  the  middle  of 
the  tenth  that  Aldred  the  priest,  still  animated  as  the  previous 
labourers  had  been  by  devotion  to  the  memory  of  Cuthbert,  added, 
in  a  small  current  hand,  the  interlinear  Saxon  version.  The  book 
was  justly  esteemed  a  priceless  treasure  by  the  island  monks.  They 
bore  it  with  them  when  fleeing  from  the  ravages  of  the  Northmen^ 
Once  in  the  ninth  century  the  monks  were  essaying  to  cross  the 
channel  to  Ireland  when  the  precious  volume  fell  into  the  sea. 
Great  was  their  joy  to  discover  it  three  days  after,  stranded  on  the 
coast  at  Whithorn,  bearing  only  the  stains  of  sea-water,  which  are 
still  visible.  The  book  remained  at  Lindisfarne  until  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  monasteries,  and  has  since  found  its  way  to  the  British 
Museum,  where  it  is  now  preserved.  The  volume  is  a  square  folio, 
written  on  vellum  in  double  columns  in  the  half-uncial  character. 
It  contains  whole-page  pictures  of  the  four  Evangelists,  and  four 
pages  also  of  rich  lace-work  ornament  of  a  Eunic  character  round 
the  figure  of  a  cross.  These  illuminations  with  the  capital  letters 
are  all  richly  and  delicately  coloured.  The  accompanying  chromo- 
graph  represents  rather  more  than  half  the  right-hand  column  of 
folio  83. 

Matthew  v.  3—8. 


bithon  vel-irom 

Eadge    tha  thaerfendo       of-gaste 

[3]  Beati    pauperes      spmiu 

forthon        hiora        is 
quoniam  ipsorum  est 

ric  heofna 

regnum  caelorum 


Eadge  bithon  tha 
thserfende  thcet  is  un 
spoedge  menn 
vel  unsynnige 
forthon  hia 
agan  godes  r[ic] 


T 

M  xxvi 
x 


Eadge  bithon 
[5]         Beati 


tha  milde    forthon 
mites  quoniam 


tha      agnegath 
ipsi  posidebunt 

eortho 
terram 


Forthon  tha  milde 
gbyes  hli'giendr[a] 
eortho 


T  Eadge  bithon  tha  the  gemaenas 

M  xxvn      [4]       Beati        qui      lugunt 

u 
Lu  XLVin  forthon       tha 

quoniam  ipsi 

gefroefred  bithon 
consolabuntur 


nu 
nunc 


i 

: 


p 


£ge* 


8 

3 


•=  i 

H 


Mm 


^  *  fc  J?  ff  *k* 

)r 

Ho    w 

erg*  Sister 


SO 


THE    DUBHAM    GOSPELS. 


283 


T  Eadge  bithon  tha  the  hyncgrath 

M  xxvm    [6]         Beati        qui    esuriunt 


La  xl vii 


M  xxvmi    [7] 


[8] 


[3] 


&   thyrstas  sothfaestnisse 
et  sitiunt    iustitiam 

forthon    tha  ileo 
quoniam    ipsi 

gefylled  bithon  vel  geriorded 
saturabuntur 


Eadge  bithon 
Beati 


milt-heorte 
misericordes 


forthon    hiora  vel  tha 
quoniam        ipsi 

milt-heortnise 
misericordiam 

him  gefylges 
consequentur 

Eadge  bithon  claene    of  hearte 
vel  from 
Beati        mundo  corde 

forthon     tha     god 
quoniam  ipsi  ieum 


Blessed  are    the  poor  of  spirit 
Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit 

for  theirs  is 
for  theirs  is 


(the)  kingdom    of  heaven 
the  kingdom  of  heaven 

Blessed    are  the  mild  (meek) 
[5]      Blessed  are  the      meek 


for 
for 


they  shall      own 
they  shall  inherit 

(the)  earth 
the  earth 

Blessed    are  those    that    mourn 
[4]      Blessed  are  they  that  mourn 

for  they 
for  they 


Eadge  bithon 
tha  the  thyrstas 
&  hyncgras 
after  sothfsest 
nisse  forthon  tha 
gefylled  bithon 
in  ece  lif 


Eadge  bithon  tha- 
claene  hearte 
bute  esuice 
&  eghwoelcum 
facne  forthon 
hia  geseas 
god  in  ecnise 


Blessed  are  the 
destitute  that  is 
poor  men 
[or]  innocent 
for  they 
own  God's 
kingdom 


For  the  mild 
shall  inhabit  (the) 
higher  earth 


shall    be  comforted 
shall  be  comforted 


•384 


WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 


Blessed    are  those  that   hunger 
[6]      Blessed  are  they  that  hunger 

and  thirst    for  truth 

and  thirst  after  righteousness 

for   the  same 
for    they 

shall  be  filled  or  refreshed 
shall  be        filled 

Blessed  are  (the)  merciful 
[7]      Blessed  are  the  merciful 

for  their  or  the 
for      they 

mercy 
mercy 

follows  them 
shall  obtain 

Blessed  are  (the)  clean  of  heart 
[8]      Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart 

for  they  God 
for  they  God 


Blessed  (are) 
those  that  thirst 
and  hunger 
after  truth 
for  they 
shall  be  filled 
in  eternal  life 


Blessed  are  the 
clean-hearted 
without  deceit 
and  wickedness 
every  for 
they  shall  see 
God  in  eternity 


Notes. 

The  interlinear  translation  and  marginal  gloss  are  in  the  Dano-Saxon  dialect, 
which  differs  in  many  particulars  from  the  Anglo-Saxon. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  verses  4  and  5  are  not  in  the  same  order  as  in  our  New 
Testament,  but  are  interchanged.  This  is  their  order  in  the  Vulgate,  which  has 
been  followed  by  Wicliffe.  Tyndale  and  our  modern  translators  follow  the  Greek 
order.  In  verse  4  the  transcriber  has  made  a  mistake,  lugunt  for  lugent.  The 
fragments  of  words  on  the  left  in  the  Chromo  belong  to  the  other  column  of  the 
page. 

The  letters  opposite  verses  [5]  [4]  [6]  [7]  are  the  Eusebian  Canons.  The  M 
with  the  T  above  it  stands  for  Matthew ;  the  x  signifies  the  tenth  canon  or 
table,  the  u  (v)  the  fifth. 

At  the  end  of  John's  Gospel  is  the  following  note : — 

ijl  Eadfrith  biscob  lindis-fearnensis  secclesiae  he  this  boc  aurat  aet  fruma 
gode.  &  sancte  cuthberhte  &  allum  thaem  halgum  gimaenlice  tha  the  in  eolonde 
sint.  &  Ethiluald  lindis-fearneolondinga  biscob  hit  uta  githryde  &  gibelde  sua 
he  uel  cuthae.  &  billfrith  se  oncrae  he  gismiothade  tha  gihrino  thathe  utan  on 
sint  &  hit  gihrinade  mith  golde  &  mith  gimmum  aec  mith  suulfre  ofergylded 
faconleas  feh :  &  Aldred  presbyter  indignus  &  miserrimus  mith  godes  fultummse 
&  sancti  cuthberhtes  hit  ofergloesade  on  englisc.  &  hine  gihamadi  mith  thaem 
thriim  daelum.  Matheus  dael  gode  &  sancti  cuthberhti.  Marcus  dael  thasm 
biscobe.  &  lucas  dael  thaem  hiorode  &  cehtu  ora  seulfres  mith  to  inlade:  & 
sancti  iohannis  dael  for  hine  seolfne  &  feouer  ora  seulfres  mith  gode  &  sancti 
cuthberhti  thsete  he  hcebbe  ondfong  therh  godes  milsae  on  heofnum.  seel  &  sibb 


M0NKWEARM0UTH.  285 

on  eortho  forth-geong  &  githyngo  uisdom  &  snyttro  therh  sancti  cuthberhtea 

earnunga:  >$<  Eadfrith.  oethiluald.  billfrith.  aldred.  hoc  evangelarium  deo  & 
cuthberhto  construxerunt  vel  ornauerunt. 

iff  Eadfrith,  bishop  of  the  Lindisfarne  Church,  (was)  he  (who)  at  the  first 
wrote  this  book  in  honour  of  God  and  St.  Cuthbert,  and  all  the  saints  in  common 
that  are  in  the  island.  And  Ethilwald,  bishop  of  the  people  of  the  Lindisfarne 
island,  made  it  firm  on  the  outside,  and  covered  it  as  well  as  he  could.  And 
Billfrith  the  anchorite,  he  wrought  in  smiths'  work  the  ornaments  that  are  on 
the  outside,  and  adorned  it  with  gold,  and  also  with  gems,  overlaid  with  silver^ 
unalloyed  metal.  And  Aldred,1  an  unworthy  and  most  miserable  priest,  with 
the  help  of  God  and  St.  Guthhert,  glossed  it  above  in  English,  and  made  him- 
self familiar  with  the  three  parts :  Matthew's  part  for  God  and  St.  Cuthbert ; 
Mark's  part  for  the  bishop;  and  Luke's  part  for  the  brotherhood,  and  eight 
oras2  of  silver  for  his  admission ;  and  St.  John's  part  for  himself,  and  four  oras 
of  silver  (deposited)  with  God  and  St.  Cuthbert ;  to  the  end  that  he  may, 
through  God's  mercy,  gain  admittance  into  heaven,  and  on  earth  happiness  and 
peace,  promotion  and  dignity,  wisdom  and  prudence,  through  St.  Cuthbert's 
merits.  |$|  Eadfrith,  ffithilwald,  Billfrith,  (and)  Aldred  made  and  adorned 
this  gospel  book  for  God  and  St.  Cuthbert.3 

The  saintly  Cuthbert  was  yet  living  when,  in  674,  Benedict  Bis- 
cop,  a  noble  Saxon,  obtained  from  King  Egfrid  seventy  hides  of 
land  on  the  north  bank  of  the  river  Wear,  and  founded  the  abbey 
of  Monkwearmouth.  "Its  church,"  as  Bede  informs  us,  "was  a 
magnificent  stone  building  in  the  Boman  style,  and  was  constructed 
by  workmen  brought  over  from  France.  When  it  was  nearly 
finished,  Biscop  sent  again  to  France  for  artificers  skilled  in  making 
glass,  and  those  foreigners  not  only  fashioned  the  windows,  but 
taught  the  natives  the  mystery  of  their  art,  by  which  lamps,  cups, 
and  an  endless  variety  of  useful  and  ornamental  articles  are  formed 
with  wonderful  beauty  and  facility."  Biscop's  zeal  prompted  him 
to  make  several  journeys  to  Borne,  whence  he  brought  back  the  art 
of  Church  music,  many  valuable  books,  and  a  copious  supply  of 
relics  and  pictures  of  Christ,  the  Virgin,  the  Twelve  Apostles,  &c.,. 
with  which  he  adorned  the  roof  and  walls  of  his  church.4 

Biscop's  fabric  has  not  wholly  perished.     The  church  still  stands 

Supposed  by  some  writers  to  be  the  same  with  Aldred  the  provost,,  whose 
name  appears  in  the  Durham  Kitual  about  a.d.  970  ;  but  this  is  uncertain.  It 
is  considered,  however,  that  the  Dano-Saxon  gloss  belongs  to  the  period  just 
mentioned,  namely,  the  latter  half  of  the  tenth  century. 

2  The  ora  had  two  values,  but  was  commonly  reckoned  at  sixteen  pence. 

3  In  the  foregoing  description  and  elucidation  of  the  Durham  Book,  we  are 
specially  indebted  to  Joseph  Cohen  of  Woolwich  for  kind  and  valuable  assist- 
ance. 

4  The  plate  and  vestments  for  the  service  of  the  church  also  came  from 
abroad. 


WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 


in  a  third-rate  street  of  the  busy  town  of  Sunderland,  a  memorial  of 
England's  religious  zeal  in  the  vigour  of  her  childhood.  The  west 
porch  and  west  wall  are  the  very  same  that  Benedict's  skilful  work- 
men from  France  raised  under  his  eye,  and  on  which  Bede,  in  his 


Monkwearmouth  Church. 


youthful  wonder,  gazed  with  so  much  delight.  In  proof  of  this  the 
plan  of  the  church  and  its  style  of  ornamentation  agree  exactly  with 
those  of  other  "  Saxon"  churches  of  the  seventh  and  eighth  cen- 
turies. There  is  also  a  close  and  curious  resemblance  between  the 
fragments  of  sculpture  remaining  on  the  Monkwearmouth  stones 
and  the  illuminations  in  the  Lindisfarne  Gospels.  Considering, 
remarks  G.  F.  Browne,  how  very  few  there  must  have  been  who 
carried  the  art  of  "  Irish  ornamentation "  to  perfection,  the  hand 
which  in  so  felicitous  a  manner  handled  the  chisel  at  Monkwear- 
mouth was  not  improbably  the  same  which,  more  than  twenty 
years  afterwards,  drew  the  exquisite  designs  of  the  Lindisfarne 
Book.  One  of  the  fragments  of  the  artist's  work  is  a  corner  of  a 
sculptured  stone  of  yellowish  tint  built  into  the  wall  of  the  vestry, 


THE    IBISH    OKNAMENTATION. 


287 


and  which  may  perhaps  be  a  portion  of  the  memorial  slab  laid  over 
the  body  of  Benedict  himself,  hard  by  the  altar  of  his  church.1  It 
is  presented  in  the  following  woodcut,  together  with  a  pattern  from 
one  of  the  four  great  pages  of  interlacements  in  the  manuscript. 


Fragment  of  Sculpture  from  Monkwearmouth  Church. 


Corner  of  a  Page  of  Ornamentation,  Durham  Book. 
1  Mr.  Browne  has  kindly  permitted  us  to  copy  his  drawing  of  the  sculpture. 


288  WITNESSES    FOB    CHRIST. 

In  682  Biscop  founded  the  sister  monastery  of  Jarrow  on  the- 
Tyne,  whither  he  transferred  seventeen  monks  of  the  Wearmouth 
Convent  under  the  direction  of  a  learned  priest  named  Ceolfrid.1 
Ceolfrid  was  a  pattern  of  discipline,  a  collector  of  books,  and  a 
great  lover  of  Eome.  After  a  while  he  was  appointed  by  Biscop, 
abbot  of  Wearmouth  as  well  as  of  Jarrow.  He  died  a.d.  716  at 
Langres,  in  France,  on  his  way  toward  Borne,  where  he  intended 
to  end  his  days.  Bede  has  left  a  description  of  Ceolfrid's  farewell 
to  his  [flock.  The  scene  is  the  monastery  of  Monkwearmouth. 
"Early  in  the  morning  of  the  4th  of  June,  after  mass  had  been 
sung  in  the  church  of  the  blessed  Virgin  mother  of  God,  and  also- 


Jarrow  Church. 

in  the  apostle  Peter's,  and  all  present  had  received  the  Holy  Com- 
munion, the  abbot  girded  himself  for  his  pilgrimage.  The  brethren 
crowded  into  the  church,  where  Ceolfrid,  after  kindling  the  incense 
and  praying  before  the  altar,  stood  upon  the  steps,  and,  with  the 
flaming  censer  in  his  hand,  gave  the  salutation  of  peace.   From  the 

1  The  church  was  dedicated  a.d.  684.  The  present  building,  with  a  few 
remnants  of  the  ancient  priory,  now  converted  into  cottages,  stands  at  the 
north  end  of  the  smoky  and  unsightly  hive  of  industry  which  still  bears  the 
honoured  name  of  Jarrow.  It  occupies  a  breezy  though  gentle  eminence  on 
the  south  shore  of  the  Tyne,  overlooking  its  broad  and  shallow  waters.  The- 
church  has  been  modernised,  but  in  this  case,  as  in  that  of  Monkwearmouth^ 
the  base  of  the  square  tower  is  supposed  to  be  the  actual  work  of  Biscop. 


CE0LFRID  S    FAREWELL. 


289 


church  they  proceeded,  mingling  their  sobs  with  the  Litany,  into 
the  oratory  of  St.  Lawrence.  Here  Ceolfrid  uttered  his  last  fare- 
well, and  exhorted  them  to  preserve  love  to  one  another,  and  to 
correct  offenders  according  to  the  Gospel.  He  forgave  all  who  had 
ever  incurred  his  displeasure,  and  craved  the  same  forgiveness  for 


Ceolfrid's  Farewell.    Designed  for  Edward  Backhouse  by  W.  B.  Scott. 

himself,  if  on  his  part  he  had  treated  any  too  rigorously;  and 
begged  to  be  remembered  in  their  prayers.  They  come  to  the  river  ; 
they  exchange  again,  amid  their  tears,  the  kiss  of  peace,  and  all 
bow  the  knee  whilst  he  prays  aloud.  He  enters  the  boat,  his 
companions  entering  also,  the  deacons  carrying  a  golden  cross  and. 


WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

lighted  tapers.     He  crosses  the  stream,  does  reverence  to  the  cross, 
and  mounting  his  horse,  disappears." 

Both  Benedict  Biscop  and  Ceolfrid  had  a  part  in  the  education 
of  "Venerable  Bede,"  the  glory  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Church.  This 
remarkable  man  was  born  about  the  year  673,  and  at  the  age  of 
seven,  whilst  the  church  was  in  building,  was  brought  to  Biscop  at 
Monkwearmouth  to  be  instructed  in  the  rudiments  of  learning,  and 
initiated  in  the  discipline  of  the  cloister.  When  only  nineteen, 
being  under  the  canonical  age,  he  was  made  deacon,  at  thirty  was 
ordained  priest,  and  afterwards  became  abbot  of  the  monastery  of 
Jarrow,  numbering  at  that  time  600  monks  and  scholars.    Here  he 


Eeputed  Chair  of  Bede,  Jarrow. 

spent  his  life,  giving  daily  instruction  in  the  Scriptures  and  all  the 
other  learning  of  the  age ;  not  a  few  of  his  disciples  catching  the 
enthusiasm  of  his  gentle,  humble  spirit.  Bede's  life  seems  to  have 
flowed  on,  "like  a  calm  river,  within  the  pleasant  banks  of  study, 
teaching,  and  devotional  exercises."1  He  tells  us  he  never  wan- 
dered far  from  his  own  cloister,  and  we  have  no  account  of  any 
journey  extending  beyond  York.  His  death  happened  in  735,  in 
his  sixty-third  year. 


1  "  I  have  ever  held  it  sweet  either  to  learn,  to  teach,  or  to  write."  He  says 
also  that  he  took  part  in  the  domestic  work  of  the  monastery,  "  the  winnowing 
and  threshing  of  corn,  giving  milk  to  the  lambs  and  calves,  and  the  work  of  the 
garden,  kitchen,  and  bakehouse." 


bede's  last  days.  '291 

His  disciple  Cuthbert,  afterwards  abbot  of  Jarrow,  has  left  a 
touching  description  of  Bede's  last  days  in  a  letter  to  a  fellow-pupil. 
"I  have  read  with  much  satisfaction  in  thy  letters  that  masses  and 
holy  prayers  are  diligently  celebrated  by  you  for  our  father  and 
master  Bede,  beloved  of  God,  on  which  account  it  is  the  more 
pleasing  to  me  to  gratify  thy  desire,  and  to  relate  how  he  departed 
this  world.     Although  much  troubled  with  shortness  of  breath,  he 
was  cheerful  and  joyful,  till  the  day  of  our  Lord's  Ascension,  reading 
lessons  to  us  and  singing  psalms,  and  giving  thanks  to  God  night 
and  day  with  expanded  hands.     He  sang  the  sentence  of  St.  Paul, 
'  It  is  dreadful  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  living  God,'  and  also 
the  song  in  our  English  tongue  [to  the  effect] ,  '  No  man  is  so  wise 
as  to  dispense  with  the  examination  of  his  account  before  his  de- 
parture.'1    He  sang  also  antiphons  according  to  our  custom:  '0 
Glorious  King,  Lord  of  Powers,  who  triumphing  this  day,  didst 
ascend  above  the  heavens ;  do  not  forsake  us  orphans ;  but  send 
down  upon  us  the  Father's  promised  Spirit  of  Truth.'     When  he 
came  to  that  word  'do  not  forsake  us,'  he  burst  into  tears  and 
wept  much,  and  an  hour  afterwards  he  repeated  what  he  had  begun. 
We  hearing  it,  wept  with  him;  by  turns  we  read,  and  by  turns 
we  wept,  nay,  we  always  read  with  tears.      He   often  repeated, 

•  God  scourges  every  son  whom  he  receives,'  and  the  saying  of  St. 
Ambrose :  '  I  have  not  so  lived  among  you  as  to  be  ashamed  to  live 

•  on;  but  I  do  not  fear  to  die  because  our  Lord  is  good.'2  He  had 
two  works  in  hand  during  those  days — the  translation  of  the  Gospel 
of  St.  John  into  our  own  tongue,  and  a  selection  from  the  Book 
of  Notes  of  Bishop  Isidore — which  he  laboured  to  finish,  saying, 

*  I  would  not  leave  my  children  anything  erroneous,  or  have  them 
toil  fruitlessly  after  my  death.'  On  the  Tuesday  before  Ascension 
his  breathing  became  more  difficult,  and  his  feet  began  to  swell ; 
but  he  passed  the  day  pleasantly,  dictating  and  saying,  '  Go  on 
quickly,  I  know  not  how  long  I  shall  abide,  or  whether  my  Maker 
will  soon  take  me  away.'  Again  on  Wednesday,  he  desired  we 
would  write  with  speed,  and  when  we  had  finished  we  made  the 
customary  procession  with  the  relics  of  the  saints  till  the  third 
hour.  Then  one  of  us  who  was  with  him  said,  '  Most  dear  master, 
there  is  still  one  chapter  of  the  Gospel  untranslated,  is  it  trouble- 
some to  thee  to  be  asked  any  more  questions  ? '  He  answered,  '  It 
is  no  trouble,  take  thy  pen  and  write  fast.'  But  at  the  ninth  hour 
he  said  to  me,  '  Run  and  bring  hither  the  priests  of  the  monastery.' 
When  they  came,  '  The  rich,'  he  said,  '  can  make  presents  of  silver 

1  See  ante,  p.  154.  2  See  ante,  p.  70. 


WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

and  gold ;  I  have  none  of  these,  but  with  love  and  joy  I  present  my 
brethren  with  what  God  has  given  me.'  Thus  saying  he  distributed 
amongst  them  a  few  peppercorns  and  grains  of  frankincense,  with 
some  church  cloths,  and  charged  them  diligently  to  say  masses  and 
prayers  for  him.  '  It  is  time,'  he  said,  '  I  returned  to  Him  who 
formed  me  out  of  nothing.    I  have  lived  long,  my  merciful  judge 


Death  of  Bede.     Designed  for  Edward  Backhouse  by  W.  B.  Scott. 

well  foresaw  my  life  for  me;  the  time  of  my  dissolution  draws  near;: 
I  desire  to  be  dissolved,  and  to  be  with  Christ.'  Much  more  he 
spoke,  and  passed  the  day  joyfully  till  the  evening,  when  the 
lad  said,  'Dear  master,  there  is  yet  one  sentence  to  write.'  He 
answered,  '  Write  quickly.'  Presently  afterwards  the  youth  said 
again,  '  Now  it  is  finished.'  He  replied,  '  Thou  hast  said  the  truth, 
it  is  ended.  Hold  my  head  in  thy  hands ;  it  is  a  great  satisfaction  to- 
me to  sit  opposite  to  the  holy  place  where  I  have  been  wont  to  pray,. 


bede's  leakning.  298 

that  I  may  call  upon  my  Father,  singing,  '  Glory  he  to  the  Father, 
and  to  the  Son,  and  to  the  Holy  Ghost.'  With  these  words  he 
breathed  his  last,  and  we  doubt  not  his  soul  was  borne  by  angels 
•unto  heavenly  joys." 

Bede  wrote  many  books,  the  most  renowned  of  which  is  his 
Ecclesiastical  History  of  Britain.1  In  his  attainments  he  was  abreast 
•of  all  the  learning  and  science  of  the  age.  Under  Benedict  Biscop 
and  Ceolfrid  he  enjoyed  exceptional  advantages.  "Nowhere  else 
•  could  he  acquire  at  once  the  Irish,  the  Boman,  the  Gallician,  and 
the  Canterbury  learning."2  Bede  understood  Greek,  and  had  some 
knowledge  of  Hebrew,  was  well  acquainted  with  the  Latin  poets,  and 
familiar  with  the  works  of  the  Fathers.8  There  was  at  that  time  no 
spot  on  this  side  the  Alps  more  luminous  than  Jarrow  :  in  Ireland 
and  France,  the  light  of  knowledge  was  fast  waning.  The  culture 
of  Jarrow  passed  over  to  the  school  of  York,  which  was  fostered, 
though  not  founded  by  Bede ;  and  Alcuin,  the  most  illustrious  pupil 
of  that  school,  carried  the  lamp  of  learning  across  the  sea  to  the 
■court  of  Charles  the  Great,  before  the  ravages  of  the  Danes  plunged 
England  again  into  barbarism.4 

Bede's  Homilies  on  the  Gospels  contain  many  bright  spiritual 
thoughts.  Take  the  following  example  (John  ii.  1-11).  "  ■  And 
when  they  wanted  wine,  the  mother  of  Jesus  said  to  him,  They  want 
wine.  Jesus  said  to  her,  "Woman,  what  have  I  to  do  with  thee  ? 
Mine  hour  is  not  yet  come.'  In  nowise  did  He  who  commands  us 
to  honour  father  and  mother  intend  to  dishonour  his  mother; 
still  less  did  He  mean  to  deny  that  she  was  his  mother,  from  whom 
He  had  condescended  to  be  born.  But  in  that  He  was  about  to 
perform  a  miracle,  He  signified  that  He  had  not  received  from  his 
temporal  mother  that  divine  nature  which  He  was  proceeding  to 
.exhibit,  but  that  He  had  enjoyed  it  eternally  from  the  Father. 
1  What,  0  woman,  is  there  in  common  between  my  Deity,  which 

1  It  was  translated  from  the  Latin  into  Anglo-Saxon  by  King  Alfred. 

2  Theodore,  seventh  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  668-690,  was  a  Greek,  a 
native  of  Paul's  city  of  Tarsus.  He  was  accompanied  to  England  by  the  abbot 
Adrian.  They  brought  with  them  a  valuable  library,  and  are  regarded  as  the 
founders  of  English  scholarship.  The  larger  monasteries  were  converted  into 
schools  of  learning,  Canterbury  being  the  chief.  "  Many  of  their  disciples," 
says  Bede,  "  are  still  living,  who  are  as  well  versed  in  Greek  and  Latin  as  in 
their  native  tongue." 

8  Copies  of  the  Vulgate  New  Testament  and  of  Cassiodorus  on  the  Psalms  in 
Bede's  own  handwriting  are  in  the  Chapter  Library  at  Durham. 

4  It  is  said  on  King  Alfred's  accession,  a.d.  872,  not  a  single  priest  was  to  be 
found  south  of  the  Thames  who  understood  the  daily  Latin  service  which  he 
-muttered. 


294  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

I  have  always  held  indissolubly  with  the  Father,  and  the  human 
nature  which  I  have  received  from  thee  ?    The  hour  is  not  yet  come  ■ 
when  by  dying  I  may  show  the  prevailing  nature  of  the  humanity . 
which  I  have  received  from  thee :   I  must  previously  exhibit  the ; 
power  of  the  Eternal  Deity  in  great  signs.'  " 

After  the  death  of  Bede,  we  hear  nothing  of  the  two  monasteries 
of  Monkwearmouth  and  Jarrow  until  the  fatal  year  870,  when,  with 
Lindisfarne  and  the  other  religious  houses  on  the  coast,  they  were : 
utterly  destroyed  by  the  Danes,  and  monks,  priests  and  people  put  j 
to  the  sword. 

Two  hundred  years  afterwards  they  were  restored  by  Aldwin,  a 
Mercian  monk,  but  in  1083  were  deprived  of  their  independent 
existence,  and  became  cells  of  Durham  Cathedral. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

Beitish  Missionaries  to  the  German  Nations. 

We  must  retrace  our  steps  to  give  some  account  of  the  work  of  the 
Irish  and  English  missionaries  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  These 
messengers  were  amongst  the  most  faithful  Witnesses  for  Christ 
from  the  sixth  to  the  ninth  century.  In  those  days  Ireland  was 
perhaps  the  first  of  the  nations  in  knowledge  and  gospel  charity,; 
and  the  Irish  Church,  so  far  from  being  the  most  docile  and  devoted 
of  Rome's  servants,  stood  forth  almost  alone  to  resist  her  arbitrary 
will. 

The  leader  of  this  band,  who  commenced  his  missionary  travels 
seven  years  before  the  arrival  of  Augustine  in  England,  was  Colum- 
banus.1  He  was  born  about  543  a.d.  in  the  province  of  Leinster, 
and  educated  in  the  monastery  of  Bangor,  on  Belfast  Lough,  founded 
and  governed  by  the  abbot  Comgall.  At  the  age  of  thirty  he 
conceived  the  idea  of  preaching  the  gospel  to  the  pagan  nations 
of  Germany,  some  knowledge  of  whom  had  come  into  Ireland 
through  France.  The  seed  of  Christianity  had  been  early  planted 
in  those  parts  of  Germany  which  were  subject  to  the  Roman  Em- 
pire, but  when  these  countries  were  overrun  by  barbarous  pagan 
tribes,  the  precious  plant  was  trodden  down  and  almost  eradicated. 

1  Not  to  be  confounded  with  Columba  of  Iona  spoken  of  in  the  last  chapter, 
who  was  born  forty  years  before. 


COLUMBANUS.  295 

Columbanus  felt  within  him,  as  his  biographer  expresses  it,  "that 
fire  which  our  Saviour  said  He  came  to  kindle  on  the  earth."  The 
abbot  gave  him  twelve  young  men  as  his  companions.  Arriving  in 
Gaul  they  found  the  need  of  Christian  teaching  in  some  parts  of 
that  country  so  urgent,  that,  being  invited  to  remain,  they  settled 
in  a  forest  of  the  Vosges  mountains  in  the  country  of  the  Burgun- 
dians.  Columbanus  purposely  chose  a  spot  which  had  first  to  be 
reclaimed  by  the  severe  labour  of  his  monks,  in  order  that  they 
might  acquire  greater  power  of  self-denial  and  of  control  over  the 
sensuous  nature,  and  might  also  show  the  untutored  people  how  to 
till  the  soil.  At  first  they  had  nothing  to  live  upon  but  herbs  and 
the  bark  of  trees ;  but  Columbanus  had  great  faith  in  prayer,  and 
the  answers  he  received  were  so  remarkable  that  he  came  to  be 
regarded  as  one  highly  favoured  by  God.  One  of  the  brothers  fell 
ill ;  no  suitable  food  for  him  was  to  be  had.  At  the  end  of  three 
days,  spent  by  Columbanus  and  his  monks  in  prayer,  a  man  pre- 
sented himself  at  the  door  of  the  convent  leading  horses  laden  with 
sacks  of  provisions.  He  told  them  he  had  come  in  obedience  to  a 
sudden  impulse  to  assist  those  who  from  love  to  Christ  were 
enduring  such  privations  in  the  wilderness.  At  another  time  a 
stranger  priest,  to  whom  Columbanus  showed  his  granary,  expressed 
his  surprise  that  so  small  a  store  should  suffice  for  the  wants  of  so 
many;  upon  which  Columbanus  replied:  "Let  men  but  rightly 
serve  their  Creator,  and  they  are  secure  from  starvation,  as  it  is 
written  in  the  thirty- seventh  psalm,  •  I  have  never  seen  the  righteous 
forsaken,  nor  his  seed  begging  bread.'  It  is  easy  for  that  God  to 
replenish  the  barrel  with  meal,  who  with  five  loaves  of  bread 
satisfied  the  five  thousand." 

Columbanus  found  monachism  in  France  in  a  state  of  decay,  and 
the  rule  of  Benedict  almost  forgotten.  By  his  exhortations  and 
example  the  enthusiasm  for  the  monastic  life  revived,  and  was  spread 
throughout  France :  the  three  great  houses  of  Anegray,  Luxeuil,  and 
Fontaines  were  founded  by  him.  He  gave  to  his  monks  a  new  and 
stringent  rule,  borrowed  from  the  rigid  discipline  of  the  Irish  and 
Scottish  monasteries.  All  self-will  was  to  be  mortified ;  all  the 
motions  of  the  body  and  even  the  tone  of  the  voice  were  regulated, 
chastisement  following  upon  every  transgression.1  Perpetual  silence 

1  Six  strokes  were  the  penalty  for  calling  anything  one's  own,  omitting  to  say 
Amen  after  the  abbot's  blessing,  or  to  make  the  sign  of  the  cross  on  one's  spoon 
or  candle,  talking  at  meals,  or  failing  to  repress  a  cough  at  the  beginning  of  a 
psalm.  Ten  strokes  were  the  punishment  for  striking  the  table  with  a  knife,  or 
for  spilling  beer  upon  it.  For  heavier  offences  the  number  rose  as  high  as  two 
hundred,  but  in  no  case  were  more  than  twenty-five  to  be  inflicted  at  once.   An- 


296  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

was  imposed,  except  on  urgent  occasions.  Meat  and  wine,  with 
which  Benedict  had  indulged  the  weak  and  ailing,  were  forbidden 
to  all.  One  meal  only  was  allowed,  namely,  in  the  evening. 
"  These  excessive  severities,"  says  Montalembert,  "  discouraged  no 
one.  Columbanus  up  to  the  last  day  of  his  life  saw  an  army  of 
disciples  collect  around  him,  in  sanctuaries  more  numerous  and 
illustrious  than  those  of  Benedict.  .  .  .  The  genius  of  Columbanus 
hovers  over  the  whole  of  the  seventh  century,  of  all  the  centuries 
the  most  fertile  in  the  number  and  fervour  of  its  monastic  establish- 
ments. "But,"  he  is  obliged  to  add,  "before  the  century  was  com- 
pleted the  rule  of  the  great  Irishman  was  everywhere  replaced  by 
the  spirit  and  laws  of  his  immortal  predecessor."  It  was,  in  fact, 
impossible  that  so  inhuman  a  discipline  should  in  the  end  sup- 
plant Benedict's  wiser  rule,  or  should  long  survive  the  life  of  its 
founder. 

Columbanus,  however,  was  not  altogether  devoid  of  tenderness, 
and  his  command  over  men  was  unbounded.  Once  he  was  sum- 
moned from  the  solitude  to  which  he  had  retired,  by  the- tidings  that 
nearly  all  his  monks  in  the  monastery  of  Luxeuil  were  sick.  He 
hastened  thither  and  commanded  them  to  rise  up  and  go  to  work 
in  the  barn  at  threshing  out  corn.  At  the  sound  of  his  voice  many 
of  them,  forgetting  their  malady,  rose  up  and  went  to  work.  Very 
soon,  however,  he  bade  them  desist,  and  telling  them  that  they 
must  allow  a  little  refreshment  to  their  bodies  exhausted  by  disease, 
he  placed  food  before  them  ;  they  ate  and  became  well.  Like  good 
men  in  all  ages,  Columbanus  found  retirement  for  reading  and 
meditation  necessary  to  his  spiritual  life,  and  he  might  be  seen 
from  time  to  time  wending  his  way  into  the  dense  forest  for  this 
purpose,  bearing  on  his  shoulder  a  copy  of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 
Although  he  insisted  on  the  punctilious  observance  of  outward 
practices,  and  imposed  on  his  monks  many  devotional  exercises 

selm,  archbishop  of  Canterbury  in  the  reign  of  William  Eufus,  rebuked  this 
discipline  of  the  stick  still  practised  in  his  time.  An  abbot  complained  to  him 
that  the  youths  under  his  care  were  incorrigible,  notwithstanding  all  the  stripes 
he  administered.  "You  are  always  beating  your  boys,"  replied  Anselm;  "what 
sort  of  men  will  they  grow  up?  "  "  Stupid  and  brutish,"  answered  the  abbot 
"  What  else  can  you  expect,"  said  Anselm,  "  when  you  educate  men  into 
brutes?"  "Is  that  our  fault,"  answered  the  abbot;  "we  try  to  compel  them 
in  all  manner  of  ways  to  be  better,  and  yet  we  effect  nothing."  "You  compel 
them !  "  exclaimed  Anselm.  "  If  you  were  to  plant  a  tree  in  your  garden,  and 
pen  it  in  on  all  sides  so  that  it  could  not  spread  out  its  branches  in  any 
direction,  and  should  afterwards  transplant  it,  what  kind  of  a  tree  would  it 
become?  A  useless  stock  with  crooked,  tangled  branches.  And  whose  fault 
would  it  be  but  yours  who  caged  it  in  this  unnatural  fashion  ?  " 


COLUMBANUS'    INDEPENDENT    SPIRIT.  297 

which  could  not  fail  to  become  mechanical,  yet  he  was  careful  to 
remind  them  that  everything  depends  on  the  temper  of  the  heart. 

In  his  intercourse  with  popes  and  bishops  Columbanus  main- 
tained the  independent  spirit  of  the  Scoto-Irish  Church.  He  wrote 
to  Popes  Gregory  the  Great  and  Boniface  IV.  on  the  vexed  question 
of  the  time  for  keeping  Easter,  exhorting  the  former  to  reconsider 
the  Paschal  Cycle  by  which  this  festival  was  determined,  without 
blindly  following  any  former  pope.  "A  living  dog,"  he  said,  "may 
be  better  than  a  dead  lion."  He  adduced  the  memorable  example 
of  the  bishops  Polycarp  and  Anicetus  in  the  second  century,  who 
each  maintained  his  own  practice  on  this  very  question,  and  yet 
remained  in  mutual  charity  and  unity.1  He  set  the  Church  of 
Jerusalem  above  that  of  Rome ;  and  he  admonished  Pope  Boni- 
face IV.  that  in  proportion  as  the  dignity  of  the  Roman  bishops 
was  great,  so  ought  their  care  to  be  great,  lest  by  perversity  they 
should  lose  it :  "  He  only,"  he  told  him,  "  is  the  true  key-bearer  of 
the  kingdom  of  Heaven,  who  by  true  knowledge  opens  the  door  for 
the  worthy,  and  shuts  it  upon  the  unworthy,  and  he  who  acts 
otherwise  can  neither  open  nor  shut." 

Columbanus'  boldness  in  rebuking  sin  brought  upon  him  the  ill- 
will  of  the  Frankish  king  Thierry  II.  and  his  wicked  grandmother 
Brunehaut,  and  in  610  he  was  banished  from  the  kingdom,  and 
ordered  to  be  taken  back  to  Ireland.  But  the  veneration  he  had 
inspired  and  the  loftiness  with  which  he  vindicated  his  spiritual 
office  were  such  that  it  was  some  time  before  any  one  would  venture 
to  execute  the  order,  and  the  attempt  when  it  was  at  length  made 
was  defeated  by  a  storm. 

Instead  of  returning  home  he  and  his  companions  proceeded  to 
Switzerland.  His  chief  disciple  was  Gallus,2  a  well-educated  young 
man,  inflamed  with  zeal  against  the  pagan  idolatry.  At  Tugium 
{the  modern  Zug)  he  set  fire  to  the  temples  of  the  Alemanni  (or 
Suevi),  and  threw  their  idols  into  the  lake.  The  people  rose 
against  him ;  the  monks  were  compelled  to  fly,  and  Columbanus, 
forgetful  of  his  Master's  spirit,  devoted  the  whole  race  of  the  bar- 
barians to  perdition.  Coming  to  the  Lake  of  Constance  they  were 
met  by  a  Christian  priest,  who  directed  them  to  the  remains  of  a 
Roman  castle  called  Pregentia,3  where  they  took  up  their  abode. 
Here  they  rebuilt  a  ruined  church,  and  supported  themselves  by 
fishing  and  horticulture.     In  common  with  the  whole  region  of  the 

1  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  97. 

2  In  Erse,  Callech. 

3  Bregetium,  Bregenz,  at  the  eastern  end  of  the  lake. 


298  WITNESSES    FOB    CHRIST. 

Alps  the  country  had  become  re-paganised,  and  the  chief  objects  of 
worship  were  three  statues  in  gilded  brass.  At  a  festival  in  honour 
of  these  idolYthe  people  assembled  in  unusual  numbers,  partly  out 
of  curiosity  to  see  the  strangers.  Gallus  preached  to  them  in  their 
own  language,  and  then  broke  their  idols  in  pieces  and  threw  them 
into  the  lake. 

At  the  end  of  three  years  Columbanus  left  Pregentia,  and  crossing 
the  Alps  into  Italy  founded,  near  the  city  of  Pavia,  the  celebrated 
monastery  of  Bobbio,  a.d.  613.1  Gallus  having  fallen  sick  was  left 
behind.  On  his  recovery  he  made  his  way  into  the  forest  on  the 
south  shore  of  the  lake,  where  he  erected  an  oratory  with  huts  for 
his  companions,  and  began  to  instruct  the  rude  inhabitants  of  the 
country.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  monastery  of  St.  Gall, 
the  most  illustrious  in  Switzerland  both  for  learning  and  afterwards 
for  wealth  and  political  influence.     Gallus  died  about  a.d.  630. 

The  next  missionary  from  our  islands  of  whom  we  shall  speak, 
emanated  not  from  the  Irish  but  from  the  Saxon  or  Anglo-Roman 
Church.  This  was  Winfrid,  better  known  in  history  as  Boniface,  a 
name  given  to  him  by  the  pope.  He  was  a  man  of  extraordinary 
energy,  and  his  labours  in  the  mission-field  attained  great  success. 
He  had  no  sympathy  with  the  independence  of  the  British  Churches*, 
but  on  the  contrary  constituted  himself  the  ally  and  instrument  of 
the  papal  see  in  extending  the  Boman  discipline  over  a  large  por- 
tion of  Central  Europe,  and  in  quenching  every  spark  of  independent 
practice  and  thought. 

Boniface  was  born  at  Crediton  in  Devonshire  in  the  year  680, 
and  trained  in  a  convent  at  or  near  Exeter.  "  The  passion  for 
foreign  travel,  which  seemed  innate  in  the  monks  of  the  British 
islands,  combined  with  the  nobler  desire  of  devoting  his  life  to  the 
conversion  of  pagan  nations,  constrained  him  to  leave  his  native 
land."  From  715  to  722  he  laboured  mostly  in  Friesland,  but  in 
the  latter  year,  seeing  in  a  dream  the  prospect  of  an  abundant  har- 
vest amongst  the  tribes  in  the  interior  of  Germany,  he  directed  his 
course  to  Hesse  and  Thuringia. 

During  one  of  his  journeys  he  arrived  at  a  nunnery  in  the  dis- 
trict of  Treves,  on  the  banks  of  the  Moselle.  After  service  the 
abbess  and  her  guests  repaired  to  the  common  hall,  and  as  was 
customary  a  portion  of  Scripture  was  read  during  meal-time.  The 
reader  was  Gregory,  a  lad  of  fifteen,  a  nephew  of  the  abbess,  and 

1  "An  outpost  of  the  Catholic  faith  in  the  midst  of  the  Arian  Lombards." 
Afterwards  famous  for  its  library,  and  especially  for  its  numerous  palimpsests 
(books  written  over  more  ancient  works  from  scarcity  of  parchment).  Colum- 
banus died  here,  a.d.  615. 


BONIFACE    BINDS   THE    GEBMAN   CHUBCHES    TO    BOME.  299 

but  lately  returned  from  school.     Boniface  was  pleased  with  the 
way  in  which  the  boy  read  his  Latin  Vulgate,  and  asked  whether  he- 
understood  what  he  had  read  ?     The  boy,  mistaking  his  question,, 
read  the  words  a  second  time.     "  Nay,  my  son,"  said  the  mis- 
sionary, "  that  is  not  what  I  meant.     I  know  thou  canst  read  well 
enough,  but  canst  thou  translate  the  passage  into  thy  own  mother- 
tongue  ?"     The  lad  confessed  he  was  unable  to  do  so,  upon  which 
Boniface  himself  translated  it  into  German,  and  then  made  it  the 
ground  of  a  brief  exhortation  to  the  company.     His  words  fell  on 
the  listening  ear  of  the  young  Gregory  like  the  spark  which  kindles 
a  flame,  and  the  boy  was  seized  with  an  unconquerable  desire  to 
accompany  the  preacher  in  his  mission,  declaring  that  if  he  was 
not  provided  with   a  horse  he  would  go  on  foot.     He  is  known 
amongst  the  band  of  mediaeval  missionaries  as  Gregory  of  Utrecht. . 
The  next  year  Boniface  was  summoned  to  Borne  by  Pope  Gregory 
II.,  who  consecrated  him  bishop  over  all  the  Churches  he  should 
found  in  Germany,  giving  him  permission  to  travel  whithersoever 
he  would.     On  this  occasion  he  took  a  solemn  oath  of  implicit 
obedience  to  the  Apostolic  see.      Kneeling  at  the  tomb  of  the 
Apostle  Peter,  he  uttered  the  words  :  "I  promise  thee,  the  chief  of 
the  apostles,  and  thy  representative  Pope  Gregory  and  his  succes- 
sors, that  with  God's  help  I  will  abide  in  the  unity  of  the  Catholic 
faith  ;  and  if  ever  I  find  that  the  conduct  of  the  presiding  officers 
of  churches  contravenes  the  ancient  decrees  and  ordinances  of  the 
Fathers,  I  will  have  no  fellowship  with  such  men,  but  will  obstruct 
them  all  I  can,  and  if  unable  to  stop  them,  will  report  their  con- 
duct faithfully  to  the  pope."   By  this  transaction,  observes  Neander, 
the  question  was  settled  whether  the  German  Church  should  be  in- 
corporated into  the  system  of  the  Boman  hierarchy,  or  whether 
there  should  proceed  from  it  a  reaction  of  freer  Christian  develop- 
ment.1    This  last  would  have  taken  place  if  the  more  free-minded 
British  and  Irish  missionaries  who  were  scattered  among  the  Ger- 
man populations  had  acquired  the  preponderance.     At  Borne  the 
danger  which  threatened  from  this  quarter  was  well  understood, 
and  the  commission  which  Boniface  received  was  not  only  to  con- 
vert the  pagans,  but  quite  as  much  to  bring  back  to  orthodoxy 
and  obedience   those   whom    "  unauthorized "   teachers   had  led 
astray. 

Although  Boniface  had  thus  bound  himself  hand  and  foot  to 
Borne,  there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  as  to  his  zeal  in  labouring 
to  turn  the  rude  tribes  from  the  darkness  of  paganism  to  the  light 

1  Such  a  reaction  did  occur,  but  eight  centuries  had  first  to  pass  away. 


300  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

of  the  Gospel.  By  the  year  739  he  had  baptized  nearly  a  hundred 
thousand  of  the  inhabitants  of  Thuringia  and  the  neighbouring  dis- 
tricts. These  wholesale  conversions,  in  effecting  which  he  was 
powerfully  seconded  by  the  authority  of  Charles  Martel,  were  no 
doubt  many  of  them  merely  nominal ;  but  the  suppression  of 
idolatry,  the  abandonment  of  savage  heathen  customs  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  Christian  worship  and  instruction,  must  have  effected  a 
great  revolution  in  the  minds  and  habits  of  the  people. 

Boniface  maintained  frequent  intercourse  with  England.  The 
monasteries  he  founded  were  peopled  with  monks  and  nuns  from 
^this  country,  who  introduced  various  arts,  and  took  with  them 
books  for  the  instruction  of  the  youth.  From  Daniel  bishop  of 
Winchester,  Boniface  received  wise  counsel  for  his  missionary 
work ;  and  Eadburga,  abbess  of  Minster  in  the  Isle  of  Thanet, 
supplied  him  with  clothes  and  books,  amongst  which  was  a  copy  of 
Peter's  Epistles,  written  in  gold  letters,  to  excite  the  admiration  of 
the  ignorant  people  who  came  to  hear  him.  His  eyes  being  weak, 
he  asked  his  former  teacher,  the  abbot  Wimbert,  to  have  a  copy  of 
the  Prophets  engrossed  for  him  in  plain  large  characters  and  with- 
•out  abbreviations. 

Boniface's  oath  to  oppose  such  as  were  not  in  harmony  with  the 
Eomish  tradition,  did  not  remain  a  dead  letter.  He  had  several 
encounters  with  Church  teachers  of  this  description.  One  of  these 
was  Clement,  an  Irish  missionary,  of  whom  nothing  is  known  save 
that  he  was  married,  that  he  defended  from  Scripture  the  marriage 
•of  bishops,  and  that  he  denied  the  writings  of  Jerome,  Augustine, 
and  Gregory  the  Great,  and  tbe  canons  of  councils,  to  be  binding 
on  Christians.  Another  was  Virgilius,  also  a  native  of  Ireland, 
who  was  preaching  the  Gospel  in  Bavaria.  An  ignorant  priest 
having,  in  the  case  of  a  baptism,  pronounced  the  Latin  formula  in- 
correctly, Boniface  declared  the  baptism  to  be  invalid.  Virgilius 
protested,  and  appealed  to  the  pope,  who  decided  in  his  favour. 
His  heresy  indeed  seems  to  have  been  scientific  rather  than  theolo- 
gical, for  when  he  afterwards  presented  himself  as  a  candidate  for 
one  of  the  bishoprics  founded  by  Boniface,  the  latter  refused  to 
accept  him  because  he  held  the  "  unscriptural  opinion  that  the 

•  earth  is  a  globe,  and  that  consequently  there  are  other  men  living 
under  our  feet."  This  time  the  pope  agreed  with  Boniface,  and 
directed  that  Virgilius  should  be  deposed  from  his  priestly  office. 
Virgilius  seems,  however,  to  have  succeeded  in  exculpating  himself 
at  Kome,  for  he  afterwards  became  bishop  of  Salzburg  and  was 

•  enrolled  amongst  the  "saints." 

That  the  anti-Romish  opinions  promulgated  by  the  Irish  mis- 


PROTESTANTS   IN    EUROPE   IN    THE    EIGHTH    CENTURY.  801 

sionaries  in  France  and  Germany  were  widely  diffused  is  evident 
from  a  letter  written  to  Boniface  by  Pope  Zacharias  (a.d.  741-752)- 
"  Thou  hast  found  men  wandering  about,  more  numerous  than  the- 
Catholic  priests,  and  not  ordained  by  Catholic  bishops.  False- 
vagabonds  are  they,  adulterers,  murderers,  effeminate,  sacrilegious 
hypocrites,  tonsured  slaves  who  have  fled  from  their  masters.  They 
meet  with  their  abettors  in  conventicles,  and  exercise  their  ministry 
in  strange  places,  such  as  the  cellars  of  country-houses  where  their 
stupid  folly  may  be  concealed  from  the  bishops."  The  pope's  im- 
putation of  immoral  conduct  must  be  taken  for  what  it  is  worth  ; 
the  fact  is  established,  on  the  best  authority,  that  there  existed  in 
the  eighth  century  in  the  heart  of  Europe,  numerous  teachers  and 
congregations  of  Christians  who  were  independent  of  the  See  ol 
Home,  and  protested  against  its  errors. 

But  the  malpractices  and  superstitions  of  Borne  were  sometimes 
too  glaring  for  the  honest  English  heart  of  Boniface.  He  fearlessly 
rebuked  Pope  Zacharias  for  allowing  money  to  be  demanded  as  tha 
price  of  an  archbishop's  pall.  In  a  letter  to  the  same  pope  he- 
complains  of  the  bad  example  set  at  Borne  to  simple  pilgrims  from 
Germany;  of  the  heathenish  practices  allowed  there  on  the  first  of 
January;  and  of  the  public  sale  of  amulets,  which  the  women 
bought  to  hang  round  their  arms.  "  When,"  he  says,  "  the  people 
return  and  report  that  such  things  are  done  under  the  very  eyes  of 
thy  Holiness,  my  Christian  instructions  are  not  a  little  hindered  of 
their  effect." 

As  his  age  increased,  the  sphere  of  Boniface's  authority  and 
influence  widened.  He  was  appointed  archbishop  of  Mentz,  and  it 
was  by  his  hand  that  Pepin  the  Little  was  anointed  king.  But  his 
indefatigable  labours  were  now  drawing  to  their  close.  Committing 
his  administrative  work  to  younger  men,  he  set  out  in  the  beginning 
of  the  year  755  on  a  mission  to  Friesland,  the  scene  of  his  early 
ministry,  under  the  firm  persuasion  that  he  should  never  return. 
In  the  book-chest  which  he  took  with  him  wherever  he  went,  he 
carried  his  shroud,  desiring  that  after  his  death  his  body  might  be 
conveyed  to  the  great  monastery  of  Fulda,  in  Hesse,  which  he  had 
founded.  With  a  small  retinue  of  clergy,  monks  and  servants, 
some  fifty  in  all,  he  embarked  in  a  boat  on  the  Bhine,  and  descended 
towards  the  Zuyder  Zee.  The  little  band  traversed  the  country, 
founded  churches,  and  baptized  thousands  of  converts.  It  was  the 
fourth  of  June ;  they  had  planted  their  tents  on  the  banks  of  a 
small  stream  near  Dokkum,  in  the  north  of  Friesland.  During 
the  day  a  large  number  of  new  converts  had  been  in  attendance, 


802  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

and  were  to   return  on  the   morrow  to  receive  the  rite  of  con- 
firmation. 

Early  the  next  morning  Boniface  heard  at  a  distance  the  sound 
of  an  approaching  multitude,  and  full  of  joy  came  from  his  tent  to 
meet  them.  But  he  soon  found  out  his  mistake.  The  clash  of 
weapons  announced  other  than  a  friendly  purpose.  In  fact  the 
pagan  priests,  maddened  by  the  success  of  Boniface  and  his  coad- 
jutors, had  devoted  the  very  day  appointed  for  public  admission 
into  the  Church,  to  vengeance  on  behalf  of  their  gods.  They  seem 
also  to  have  been  lured  by  the  gold  and  silver  vessels  which  they 
supposed  Boniface  to  carry  about  with  him.  On  their  approach  the 
younger  Christians  drew  swords  to  defend  their  bishop,  but  he 
checked  the  ineffectual  resistance.  Taking  the  relics  in  his  hands, 
and  exhorting  his  attendants  not  to  fear  those  who  were  able  only 
to  kill  the  body,  but  to  confide  in  their  Lord  who  would  soon 
bestow  upon  them  the  reward  of  everlasting  glory,  he  calmly 
awaited  the  issue.  He  had  not  long  to  wait.  Laying  his  head 
upon  a  volume  of  the  gospels,  he  received  the  fatal  blow  :  most  of 
his  followers  perished  with  him.  He  was  in  his  seventy-fifth  year. 
According  to  his  desire  his  body  was  carried  up  the  Bhine,  and 
buried  in  the  monastery  of  Fulda.1 

Boniface  was  followed  by  Willehad,  a  Northumbrian,  who 
preached  in  Friesland  and  North  Germany,  commencing  in  the 
district  where  his  predecessor  was  slain.  With  him  the  stream  of 
missionaries  from  Ireland  and  England  to  the  continent  seems  to 
have  come  to  an  end. 

In  receiving  the  German  converts  into  the  Church,  the  formula 
made  use  of  was  very  simple.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  this  bap- 
tismal vow,  written  down  by  the  priest  and  responded  to  by  the 
catechumen,  takes  us  back  to  the  infancy  of  the  German  language. 
German  literature  may  be  said  to  have  commenced  with  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Church  by  Boniface.  The  art  of  writing  cannot,  out- 
side the  Roman  pale,  be  traced  back  much  if  at  all  earlier  than  the 
eighth  century,  and  for  a  long  time  the  clergy  were  its  only  posses- 
sors. The  earliest  known  transcript  of  the  vow  is  preserved  in  the 
cathedral  of  Merseburg  in  the  Prussian  province  of  Saxony,  and 
was  written  in  the  eighth  century.  The  following  is  a  fac-simile 
of  it : — 

1  Boniface  is  distinguished  from  other  missionaries  of  his  age,  in  that  not  a 
single  miracle  is  recorded  of  him.  A  modern  historian  says  of  him :  "  No 
missionary  has  been  more  eminent  in  labours  since  the  Apostle  Paul." 


BAPTISMAL    VOW.  803 


Ati<3Lutt'j-ax  1«chfiijT";''  j-xctaxxbu^ 

Interrogatio  Sacerdotis. 

Forsahhistu  unholdun  ?    Ih  farsahu. 
Gilaubistu  in  Got  Fater  Almahtigan  ?    Ih  gilaubu. 
Gilaubistu  in  Christ  Gotes  Sun  Nerienton  ?    Ih  gilaubu. 
Gilaubistu  in  Heiligangeist  ?    Ih  gilaub. 

The  priest  asks. 

Dost  thou  forsake  the  devil  ?    I  forsake. 

Dost  thou  believe  in  God  the  Father  Almighty  ?    I  believe. 

Dost  thou  believe  in  Christ  the  Son  of  God,  the  Saviour  ?    I  believe. 

Dost  thou  believe  in  the  Holy  Spirit  ?    I  believe. 


CHAPTEK    Y. 

The  Mohammedan  Conquest. 

The  subversion  of  the  Eastern  Church  by  Mohammed  and  his  suc- 
cessors should  afford,  one  would  suppose,  ample  material  for  the 
Church  historian  to  record.  On  the  contrary,  this  chapter  in  his- 
tory is  one  of  the  briefest  and  most  barren.  Within  a  short  space 
of  years  Syria,  Phoenicia,  Mesopotamia,  and  Egypt  abjured  the 
cross  and  prostrated  themselves  before  the  crescent.  In  her  early 
days,  when  the  Church  was  poor,  despised,  and  few  in  number,  she 
successfully  resisted  the  whole  weight  and  power  of  the  Eoman 
Empire ;  now  that  she  had  become  wealthy  and  dominant,  she  had 
not  inward  strength  to  withstand  the  first  onset  of  a  false  religion. 
Some  resistance,  it  is  true,  was  offered  to  the  invaders,  but  it  was 
with  the  sword,  not  with  the  Spirit ;  the  annals  of  those  years  are 
barren  of  acts  of  faith.  Where  were  the  prophets  boldly  pro- 
claiming  the    divine  judgments, — the   apologists, — the   scholarly 


804  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

athletes  wrestling  with  error, — the  confessors, — the  martyrs  ?  The 
Eastern  Churches  were  like  costly  garments  in  some  tropical 
country,  into  which  the  white  ants  have  found  their  way ;  to  the 
eye  they  are  beautiful  and  perfect  as  when  they  were  fashioned,  but 
at  the  first  rude  touch  they  crumble  to  dust. 

It  may  be  argued  that  the  two  cases  were  different.  Roman 
paganism  sought  wholly  to  stamp  out  Christianity  ;  Mohamme- 
danism, which,  it  must  be  confessed,  shot  some  rays  of  truth  into 
the  dark  places  of  the  earth,  respected  and  even  reverenced  the 
religion  of  Christ.  This  reverence  however  was  in  profession  rather 
than  in  reality.  The  ancient  Church  would  never  have  consented, 
no  Church  in  which  the  Spirit  of  Christ  dwelt  could  have  consented, 
to  the  treacherous  compact  by  which  the  Eastern  Christians  in  the 
seventh  century  purchased  immunity  from  the  Moslems. 

There  is  no  need  to  dwell  upon  the  causes  which  produced  this 
deplorable  collapse ;  they  have  given  their  distinctive  features  to  the 
foregoing  pages,  as  well  as  to  the  volume  to  which  the  present  work 
is  a  sequel.1  "  What  Mohammed  and  his  caliphs  found,"  writes 
Isaac  Taylor,  "  in  all  directions  whither  their  scimitars  cut  a  path 
for  them,  was  a  superstition  so  abject,  an  idolatry  so  gross  and 
shameless,  Church  doctrines  so  arrogant,  Church  practices  so  disso- 
lute and  so  puerile,  that  the  strong-minded  Arabians  felt  themselves 
inspirited  anew  as  God's  messengers  to  reprove  the  errors  of  the 
world,  and  authorized  as  God's  avengers  to  punish  apostate 
Christendom.  The  son  of  the  bond-woman  was  let  loose  from  his 
deserts,  to  'mock'  and  to  chastise  the  son  of  the  free-woman."2 
The  eloquent  apologist  for  Monachism  thus  describes  the  part 
played  by  monks  and  clergy  in  the  cowardly  surrender  of  the  for- 
tress at  the  first  summons  of  the  enemy.  "After  an  age  of  un- 
paralleled virtue  and  truthfulness,  after  having  presented  to  the 
monastic  life  of  all  ages,  not  only  immortal  models,  but  also  a  kind 
of  ideal  almost  unattainable, — the  monastic  order  allowed  itself  to 
be  overcome,  through  all  the  Byzantine  Empire,  by  that  enfeeble- 
ment  and  sterility  of  which  Oriental  Christianity  has  been  the 
victim.  .  .  .  The  monks  of  the  East  sank  gradually  into  nothing- 
ness. Intoxicated  by  the  double  influence  of  courtierism  and  theo- 
logical discord,  they  yielded  to  all  the  deleterious  impulses  of  that 

1  Another  cause  is  to  be  found  in  the  cruel  persecution  of  the  Paulicians. 
See  below,  Chap.  VI. 

2  Of  the  seventh  century  Mosheim  writes:  "In  this  barbarous  age  religion 
lay  expiring  under  a  motley  and  enormous  heap  of  superstitious  inventions,  and 
had  neither  the  courage  nor  the  force  to  raise  her  head  or  display  her  natural 
charms  to  a  darkened  and  deluded  world." 


MOHAMMED   AND   HIS   RELIGION.  805 

declining  society,  of  whose  decay  despotism  was  at  once  the  result 
and  the  chastisement.  .  .  .  They  could  neither  renovate  the  society 
which  surrounded  them,  nor  take  possession  of  the  pagan  nations 
which  snatched  away  every  day  some  new  fragment  of  the  empire. 
They  knew  no  better  how  to  preserve  the  Church  from  the  evil  in- 
fluences of  the  Byzantine  spirit.  Even  the  deposit  of  ancient 
knowledge  escaped  from  their  debilitated  hands.  They  have  saved 
nothing,  regenerated  nothing,  elevated  nothing.  They  ended,  like 
all  the  clergy  of  the  East,  by  becoming  slaves  of  Islamism  and 
accomplices  of  schism." 

Mohammed  was  born  about  a.d.  570  ;  and  his  flight  from  Mecca 
to  Medina,  which  forms  the  era  of  the  Moslems  under  the  name  of 
the  Hegira,  took  place  in  622.  Before  his  death  in  632,  he  had 
subdued  all  Arabia  and  had  commenced  the  reduction  of  Syria. 
His  successors  prosecuted  the  conquests  thus  begun.  In  637 
Jerusalem  was  taken ;  two  years  later  the  subjugation  of  Syria  was 
completed,  and  that  of  Egypt  in  641.  Persia  followed  and  North 
Africa  ;  and  in  711  the  victorious  Arabs,  known  in  Europe  under 
the  name  of  the  Moors  whom  they  had  conquered,  crossed  over  into 
Spain,  and  subjugated  that  country  in  about  two  years.  Thence 
they  overran  France  as  far  as  the  Loire,  when  the  great  victory  of 
Charles  Martel  in  732  effectually  checked  their  progress  in  Western 
Europe. 

Mohammed  was  not  ignorant  of  the  Bible,  and  he  borrowed  from 
it  both  in  theology  and  morality.1  But  the  truth  of  which  he  thus 
possessed  himself  was  inextricably  mixed  with  errors  and  absurdi- 
ties ;  and  the  Koran,  notwithstanding  the  respect  with  which  its 
author  speaks  of  Christ,  contains  no  trace  of  the  doctrine  of  Be- 
demption.2  He  proclaimed  it  as  his  mission  to  carry  through  the 
earth  the  knowledge  of  the  one  God  and  of  himself  as  his  prophet, 
and  he  waged  relentless  war  against  idolatry,  "  Believe  or  die,'* 
was  the  sole  alternative  offered  to  the  pagan.     Towards  the  Jews 

1  "  His  acquaintance,  however,  both  with  the  Old  and  New  Testament  was 
small,  fragmentary  and  inaccurate,  not  derived  from  the  Scriptures  themselves, 
but  from  Talmudic  legends  and  apocryphal  gospels,  and,  as  we  may  confidently 
affirm,  not  drawn  at  first  hand  even  from  these." 

2  Some  missionaries  in  1831  visited  in  the  prison  at  Cape  Town  a  Hottentot 
under  sentence  of  death.  He  was  a  Mohammedan  convert,  and  was  attended  by 
the  Moslem  teacher.  The  missionaries  requested  him  the  next  time  the  priest 
came,  to  ask  if  the  Mohammedan  religion  afforded  any  means  of  relieving  the 
conscience  from  the  burden  of  sin  ?  At  their  next  interview  they  inquired  what 
answer  the  teacher  had  given.  "  He  confessed,"  said  the  Hottentot,  "  that  no 
provision  exists  for  such  a  need ;  on  which  I  told  him  that  I  renounced  a  reli- 
gion which  afforded  no  ray  of  hope  for  the  anguish  of  a  wounded  conscience." 


306  WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST. 

and  Christians,  "  the  people  of  the  Book,"  as  he  styled  them,  he 
assumed  a  different  attitude ;  they  were  not  required  to  embrace 
the  faith  of  Islam,  but  were  suffered,  under  certain  conditions  in- 
cluding the  payment  of  tribute,  to  worship  in  their  own  way. 
Nevertheless  the  oppression  to  which  they  were  subjected,  and  the 
bribes  which  were  held  out  to  converts,  drew  multitudes  over  to  the 
new  religion.  Whole  populations  of  Christians  at  once  embraced 
the  faith  of  the  conquerors  ;  and  the  sacred  land  of  Israel  and  the 
birth-place  and  original  home  of  Christianity  have  ever  since  been 
trampled  under  foot  by  the  followers  of  the  false  Prophet. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Paulicians.1 

From  the  time  when  Jerome  so  successfully  quenched  the  sparks  of 
light  struck  by  Jovinian  and  Vigilantius,  we  meet  with  no  attempt 
to  reform  the  Church  for  more  than  two  hundred  years.  Her 
slumber,  which  grew  ever  more  profound,  was  not  disturbed  until 
the  seventh  century,  when  a  religious  awakening  took  place  in  the 
East. 

The  birthplace  of  the  Paulician  movement  was  Armenia,  and  the 
root  from  which  it  sprang  is  thought  to  have  been  the  remnant 
of  the  Marcionites,  that  sect  of  Gnostics  which  may  be  described  as 
the  most  spiritual,  as  it  was  the  most  enduring.2  As  in  the  case  of 
"Vigilantius  and  Jovinian,  no  information  has  come  down  to  us 
respecting  this  sect  except  from  adverse  sources. 

The  origin  of  the  Church  is  traced  to  the  following  circumstance. 
In  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century  there  resided  at  the  village  of 
Mananalis,  not  far  from  Samosata,  a  man  named  Constantine,  who 
gave  hospitable  entertainment  to  a  certain  deacon  returning  from 
-captivity,  probably  among  the  Saracens.  The  grateful  deacon  pre- 
sented his  host  with  a  manuscript  containing  the  Gospels  and 
Paul's  Epistles,  neither  of  which,  as  it  would  appear,  he  had  ever 
seen  before.  Constantine  applied  himself  earnestly  to  the  study  of 
these  sacred  books,  especially  of  the  Epistles,  which  made  a  deep 
impression  upon  him,  and  gave  an  entirely  new  direction  to  his 

1  So  named,  it  is  supposed,  from  the  Apostle  Paul,  whose  writings  they  espe- 
cially valued. 

2  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  57. 


CONSTANTINE    AND    SERGIUS.  307 

•thoughts  and  to  his  life.  Unhappily  his  mind  was  preoccupied 
with  the  Oriental  dualistic  ideas  familiar  in  the  Gnostic  systems, 
which  represented  the  creation  of  the  world  as  the  work  of  a  spirit 
atenmity  with  the  perfect  God  ;  and  when  he  read  in  the  New 
Testament  of  the  opposition  of  darkness  to  light,  flesh  to  spirit, 
and  the  world  to  God,  he  seems  to  have  mixed  this  pure  Christian 
teaching  with  the  alloy  which  he  had  derived  from  the  Marcionites. 
None  the  less  however  did  Constantine  believe  himself  called  to 
stand  forth  as  an  apostolical  reformer.  He  laboured  with  great 
assiduity  in  his  work  of  reformation  twenty- seven  years,  and  made 
many  converts,  both  from  the  Church  and  from  the  followers  of  the 
Persian  sage  Zoroaster.  The  progress  of  the  new  society  naturally 
provoked  persecution  ;  Constantine  was  stoned,  and  a  large  number 
of  his  disciples  were  burned  alive.  During  the  next  generation  the 
sect  was  rent  by  schism,  and  at  the  same  time  the  advancing  sword 
of  the  Saracen  conquerors  obliged  many  to  leave  their  native 
country  and  to  seek  a  new  home  in  Asia  Minor.  Here  they  were 
in  danger  of  extinction,  when  a  new  leader  arose  and  led  them 
back  to  the  path  of  service  and  suffering. 

This  was  a  young  man  named  Sergius,  a  native  of  a  village  in 
Galatia,  who  had  been  brought  up  in  the  Catholic  Church.  He  was 
one  day  addressed  by  a  Paulician  woman  in  the  following  manner  : 
"  I  hear,  sir,  that  thou  excellest  in  science  and  erudition,  and  art  a 
man  of  high  moral  character  ;  tell  me  then,  why  dost  thou  not  read 
the  sacred  Gospels?"  "Because,"  answered  Sergius,  "it  is  not 
lawful  for  us  of  the  laity  to  read  those  books,  but  only  for  the 
priests."  The  woman  replied,  "It  is  not  as  thou  supposest,  for 
there  is  no  respect  of  persons  with  God.  He  willeth  all  men 
to  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth.  But  your  priests  corrupt 
the  word  of  God,  and  would  conceal  the  mysteries  which  are  con- 
tained in  the  Gospels,  and  this  is  the  reason  why  detached  portions 
only  of  Scripture  are  read  in  the  churches."  She  then  asked  him 
of  whom  it  was  that  our  Lord  spoke  (Matt.  vii.  22,  23),  who  had 
prophesied  in  his  name  and  wrought  miracles,  but  whom  He  would 
nevertheless  refuse  to  own ;  or  who  were  the  sons  of  the  kingdom 
of  whom  our  Lord  says  that  they  should  be  thrust  out  of  it  (Matt. 
viii.  12).  "  They  are  those,"  said  she,  "  whom  you  call  saints,  of 
whom  you  say  that  they  work  miraculous  cures,  and  expel  evil 
spirits,  those  whom  you  honour,  whilst  you  neglect  to  honour  the 
living  God."  These  words  sank  deep  into  the  heart  of  Sergius. 
Like  his  predecessor  Constantine,  he  commenced  at  once  to  study 
Paul's  Epistles ;  and  was  not  slow  to  perceive  the  wide  difference 
which  existed  between  the  teaching  of  the  Apostle  and  the  effete 


808  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

forms  of  the  State  religion.  At  the  same  time,  like  Constantine,  he 
seems  to  have  suffered  his  theology  to  be  marred  by  the  Gnostic 
Dualism. 

For  thirty  four  years1  Sergius  preached  and  taught  with  inde- 
fatigable zeal,  traversing  every  province  of  Asia  Minor.  "I  have," 
he  said,  "  run  from  east  to  west  and  from  north  to  south,  till  my 
knees  were  weary,  preaching  the  Gospel  of  Christ."  Like  the 
Apostle  he  supported  himself  by  his  own  hands,  following  the  trade 
of  a  carpenter.  His  strict  morality  and  gentle  manners  extorted 
commendation  even  from  his  enemies,  although  they  pretended  to 
regard  these  virtues  as  so  many  marks  of  hypocrisy.  In  his  teach- 
ing it  was  his  custom  to  present  first  the  practical  requirements  of 
Christianity,  and  afterwards,  when  he  had  gained  the  ear  of  his 
audience,  to  inveigh  against  the  dominant  Church.  Many  of  the 
laity  were  attracted  by  his  preaching,  and  even  monks,  nuns  and 
priests  became  his  willing  auditors.  An  involuntary  testimony  to 
his  character,  as  well  as  to  the  extent  of  his  influence,  is  borne  by 
the  Catholic  historian.  He  styles  him,  "the most  mighty  champion 
of  the  devil,  a  fierce  wolf  in  a  sheepskin  who  has  changed  many 
from  sheep  into  wolves ;  a  deceitful  pretender  to  virtue,  who,  under 
this  disguite,  has  beguiled  many,  and  who  has  trodden  under  foot 
the  Son  of  God  [the  mass]  and  counted  the  blood  of  the  covenant 
an  unholy  thing."  Sergius  indeed,  if  his  words  have  been  faithfully 
reported,  became  intoxicated  with  his  own  success.  In  one  of  his 
letters  to  his  flock  are  these  words :  "I  am  the  porter  and  the 
Good  Shepherd,  and  the  leader  of  the  body  of  Christ,  and  the  light 
©f  the  house  of  God.  I  am  with  you  always,  even  unto  the  end  of 
the  world ;  for  though  I  may  be  absent  in  the  body,  yet  I  am  with 
you  in  the  Spirit." 

At  first  the  missionary  labours  of  Sergius  fell  within  a  favourable 
period.  There  was  in  the  Greek  Church  at  this  time  a  small 
handful  of  ecclesiastics  who  considered  it  unchristian  to  coerce 
heretics  with  the  sword,  declaring  that  priests,  whose  duty  it  is  to 
lead  men  to  repentance,  ought  not  to  be  partakers  in  the  shedding 
of  blood.  Influenced  by  these  enlightened  men,  or  impatient  of 
the  domination  of  the  bishops,  the  Emperor  Nicephorus2  refused  to 
be  the  tool  of  the  hierarchy  in  the  persecution  of  dissenters.  So 
long  as  he  lived  therefore  the  Paulicians  enjoyed  tranquillity.  But 
when  Michael  I.8  succeeded  to  the  throne  the  conditions  were 
changed.  At  the  instance  of  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  it  was 
determined  to  compel  all  heretics  to  return  to  the  Catholic  Church. 


i  a.d.  801—835.  s  a.d.  802—811.  »  a.d.  811—813. 


PERSECUTION    OF   THE    PAULICIANS.  809 

The  milder  of  the  clergy  remonstrated.  Theodore,  abbot  of  the 
monastery  of  Studium  in  Constantinople,1  although  a  zealous 
defender  of  the  Church-faith,  and  even  a  fanatical  supporter  of 
image-worship,  honourably  distinguished  himself  on  this  occasion. 
Writing  to  the  bishop  of  Ephesus,  who  had  declared  that  to  put 
Manichaeans  to  death  was  "  a  glorious  work,"  he  asks :  "  How  sayest 
thou  ?  Our  Lord  commanded  that  the  tares  and  the  wheat  should 
grow  together  until  the  harvest;  how  then  canst  thou  call  the 
j-ooting  up  of  the  tares  a  '  glorious  work? ' "  He  quotes  Chrysos- 
tom  on  the  same  Scripture  passage  :  "  This  the  Lord  spoke,  fore- 
seeing that  wars  would  be  waged  and  blood  shed  and  slaughter 
perpetrated.  We  are  not  to  kill  heretics,  else  would  war  rage  for 
ever  in  the  earth.  And  if  ye  begin  to  use  the  sword  and  slay 
heretics,  many  saints  also  will  inevitably  be  destroyed  with  them." 
"Which  thing,"  adds  Theodore,  "has  already  happened  in  our 
time.  Neither  ought  we  to  pray  against  the  teachers  of  error  but 
for  them,  as  our  Lord  prayed  on  the  Cross  for  those  who  knew  not 
what  they  did." 

But  a  few  individual  voices  availed  nothing  against  the  dominant 
spirit.  Iconoclasts  and  image-worshippers  alike  concurred  in 
persecuting  the  heretical  sects.  Leo  the  Armenian,2  successor  to 
Michael,  although  hostile  to  image- worship,  sent  a  bishop  and  an 
abbot  to  coerce  the  Paulicians  into  conformity.  In  the  discharge 
of  their  commission  these  inquisitors  acted  at  Cynoschora  with  such 
severity  that  the  inhabitants  rose  up  and  slew  them.  To  escape 
the  Imperial  vengeance,  the  insurgents  fled  to  that  part  of  Armenia 
which  had  received  the  faith  of  Islam,  where  they  were  received 
with  open  arms.  They  soon  fell  into  a  lawless  manner  of  life,  and 
joined  the  Saracens  in  their  incursions  into  the  Imperial  provinces. 
Against  these  excesses  Sergius  set  his  face,  but  his  remonstrances 
were  unheeded.  After  governing  the  community  in  their  new 
location  for  several  years,  whilst  he  was  one  day  at  work  in  the 
mountain  alone,  felling  timber  for  his  trade,  he  was  attacked  by  a 
Catholic  zealot  who  wrested  his  axe  from  his  hand  and  cleft  him  in 
twain,  a.d.  835. 

For  a  few  years  the  Paulicians  enjoyed  some  repose ;  but  on  the 
re-establishment  of  image-worship  under  the  regency  of  Theodora 
in  842,  the  work  of  extermination  was  resumed.  All  endeavours 
to  win  them  back  to  the  Church,  either  by  arguments  or  threats, 
being  unsuccessful,  the  sword  was  once  more  unsheathed  against 

1  And  thence  called  Studites. 
2  a.d.  813—820. 


810  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

them.  The  slaughter  was  terrible  in  the  extreme,  rivalling  that  of 
the  Albigenses  and  Waldenses  at  a  later  period.  It  is  said  that  no 
fewer  than  100,000  persons  were  put  to  death. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  eighth  century,  a  numerous  body  of  this 
people  had  been  transported  into  Thrace  and  Bulgaria  by  the 
Emperor  Constantine  Copronymus  ;  whither  also,  about  the  year 
970,  another  and  still  larger  migration  from  Armenia  took  place  by 
direction  of  the  Emperor  John  Zimisces.  They  were  chosen  on 
account  of  their  valour  to  guard  the  Balkan  frontier  of  the  Greek 
Empire,  and  were  planted  near  Philippopolis. 

The  Paulicians  were  by  no  means  free  from  errors.  If  we  may 
trust  the  evidence  which  has  come  down  to  us,  they  rejected  the 
Old  Testament,  with  the  Epistles  of  Peter  and  some  other  portions 
of  the  New.  Many  may  be  ready  to  doubt  the  claim  of  such  hetero- 
dox professors  to  be  true  "Witnesses  for  Christ,  and  justly  indeed  in 
the  later  stages  of  their  history,  when  they  became  a  military  power. 
But  with  all  their  errors  and  faults,  they  wrought  a  good  work  in 
the  midst  of  a  corrupt  Church,  leading  a  godly  life,  and  on  many 
most  important  doctrines  pointing  men  back  to  the  first  principles 
of  the  Gospel.  Thus  they  maintained  that  the  multiplication  of 
external  rites  had  imperilled  the  true  life  of  religion.  They  con- 
tended against  dependence  on  the  magical  effect  of  the  Sacraments, 
the  use  of  which  indeed  they  entirely  discarded.  It  was,  they 
declared,  by  no  means  Christ's  intention  to  institute  water- baptism 
as  a  perpetual  ordinance ;  by  baptism  He  meant  the  cleansing  work 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  So  too,  they  held  that  eating  the  flesh  and 
drinking  the  blood  of  Christ  consists  in  coming  into  vital  union 
with  Him  through  his  word.  They  despised  the  wood  of  the  cross,, 
then  an  object  of  universal  adoration,  and  protested  against  the 
worship  of  the  Virgin  Mary.  Although  their  doctrines  fostered  the 
practice  of  strict  morality  no  trace  is  to  be  found  of  the  ascetic 
spirit ;  on  the  contrary,  they  treated  the  Church  fasts  with  con- 
tempt. Learning  from  the  New  Testament  that  all  believers  are- 
one  in  Christ,  they  rejected  the  distinction  of  clergy  and  laity,  audi 
protested  against  the  assumption  of  the  Jewish  priesthood  by  the* 
Christian  minister.  They  had  amongst  them  rulers  and  Church 
officers,  but  these  were  not  distinguished  by  dress  or  badge,  any 
more  than  by  a  supposed  peculiar  holiness. 

Out  of  the  Paulicians  and  a  kindred  sect  called  the  Euchitesr 
arose  the  Bogomiles,1  in  whom,  as  in  the  former,  a  clearer  insight 
into  spiritual  truth  than  that  of  the  Church  around  them   was 

1  Slavonic :  Bog,  God  ;  z'milui,  have  mercy. 


THE    BOGOMILES.  311 

marred  by  visionary  fancies,  even  so  far  as  to  deny  that  Christ  had 
a  real  body.  The  sect  was  widely  spread  through  the  Greek 
Empire.  A  venerated  monk,  Constantine  Chrysomalos,  who  by 
his  writings  contributed  to  the  diffusion  of  their  doctrines,  was  con- 
demned at  a  synod  held  at  Constantinople  in  1140.  He  taught 
that  "all  singing  and  prayer,  all  participation  in  the  outward  rites 
of  the  Church,  and  study  of  the  Scriptures,  is  vain  unless  accom- 
panied by  that  inward  change  by  which  man  is  delivered  from  the 
power  of  evil."  Contemporary  with  him  was  Niphon,  also  a  monk, 
who  by  his  pious  and  strict  life  won  universal  reverence.  He  was 
ignorant  of  classical  learning,  but  familiar  with  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
and  he  maintained  correspondence  with  many  bishops,  especially  in 
Cappadocia.  This  man  was  condemned  by  the  Patriarch  Michael 
to  perpetual  confinement  in  a  monastery ;  but  Michael's  successor 
Cosmas,  a  man  of  singular  piety  and  benevolence,  restored  him  to 
liberty  and  made  him  his  table  companion.  As  Cosmas  refused  to 
abandon  Niphon  after  the  latter  had  been  condemned  by  a  synod, 
sentence  of  deposition  was  passed  upon  himself,  upon  which  he  re- 
torted that  it  was  "the  Church  which  was  corrupt,  and  that  he  him- 
self was  like  Lot  in  the  midst  of  Sodom." 

The  Bogomile  doctrines  spread  from  Thrace  and  Bulgaria  to  the 
Sclavonian  country  of  Bosnia,  which  thus  in  the  twelfth  century 
became  the  seat  of  a  numerous  Protestant  Church.  The  pope,  who 
at  this  very  time  was  attempting  to  extinguish  in  Western  Europe 
the  light  which  two  centuries  before  had  been  kindled  by  the  Pauli- 
cian  missionaries,  extended  his  powerful  arm  towards  the  East  to 
bring  back  the  Bosnians  to  the  Catholic  faith.  He  succeeded  for  a 
while  in  recovering  the  Ban  or  sovereign,  who  was  also  the  head  of 
the  sect,  but  a  few  years  afterwards,  1199,  that  prince  fell  again 
into  heresy,  and  his  dominions  became  the  asylum  for  the  persecuted 
Albigenses,  1207 — 1218.1  As  soon  however  as  the  work  of  extir- 
pation in  Languedoc  and  Provence,  begun  by  Pope  Innocent  III., 
was  completed,  his  successors  again  endeavoured  to  strangle  the 
reformed  religion  in  the  Bosnian  mountains.  The  brother  of  the 
King  of  Hungary  was  the  De  Montfort  of  this  new  crusade,  and  in 
1236  invaded  Bosnia  with  a  large  army.  Similar  inroads  were 
repeated  for  more  than  two  centuries ;  the  country  was  laid  waste, 
cities  were  sacked,  heretics  burned,  butchered,  and  cast  into  dun- 
geons. But  the  faith  of  the  Bogomiles  was  exceedingly  tenacious 
of  life  ;  and  in  the  fifteenth  century  we  find  them  still  as  numerous 
as  ever,  and  making  common  cause  with  the  followers  of  John 

1  See  below,  Part  iv.  chap.  7. 


812  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

Huss.  In  1459  the  Ban  Stephen,  a  Catholic,  made  a  last  attempt 
to  root  out  his  dissenting  subjects,  and  it  is  said  drove  away  40,000 
of  them  into  the  Herzegovina.  The  expulsion  however  of  this 
large  number  did  little  to  diminish  the  strength  of  the  party  at 
home,  and  in  1463,  the  Turkish  conquest  of  the  Balkan  cut  short 
all  such  arbitrary  proceedings,  and  once  for  all  delivered  the 
oppressed  people  from  their  Christian  tyrants.  They  refused  to 
strike  a  blow  for  their  sovereign,  and  even  hastened  to  surrender  to 
the  infidels  their  towns  and  fortresses.1 


CHAPTER   VII. 

Witnesses  from  the  Eighth  to  the  Tenth  Century. 

It  is  a  matter  for  devout  thanksgiving  to  the  Divine  Head  of  the 
Church  that  during  the  darkest  period  of  its  history  a  succession  of 
true  Witnesses  was  always  found,  by  whom  either  the  life  of 
Christianity  was  preserved  or  the  much  needed  work  of  reformation 
attempted. 

One  of  the  most  illustrious  of  these  was  our  countryman  Alcuin.* 
He  was  born  of  a  noble  Northumbrian  family,  in  the  same  year  in 
which  Venerable  Bede  finished  his  course,  a.d.  735,  and  was 
brought  up  from  infancy  in  the  school  at  York.  His  master  was 
Ethelbert,  afterwards  archbishop  of  York.  The  course  of  instruc- 
tion embraced  a  fair  knowledge  of  the  Latin  poets  and  of  the  Greek 
Fathers,  with  as  much  Hebrew  as  could  be  learnt  from  the  study 
of  Jerome.  The  library  contained  books  in  all  these  three  lan- 
guages, and  included  the  works  of  Aristotle  and  Cicero.  Alcuin 
succeeded  Ethelbert  as  head  of  the  school,  which  reached  its 
highest  reputation  under  his  direction,  many  youths  from  distant 
places  resorting  thither. 

Charles  the  Great  (Charlemagne)  was  then  the  chief  patron  of 
learning  in  Europe.     The  ignorance  this  monarch  perceived  in  the 

1  The  intelligent  traveller  from  whom  we  have  derived  this  information  dis- 
covered, in  the  mountain  gorges,  many  singular  sepulchres.  They  bore  upon 
them  various  devices,  but  very  seldom  the  figure  of  the  cross ;  the  Bosnians  of 
the  present  day  call  them  the  tombs  of  the  Bogomiles. 

2  See  ante,  p.  293,  where  we  have  already  spoken  of  Alcuin's  part  in  carrying 
the  learning  of  Jarrow  and  York  to  the  Continent  of  Europe. 


ALCUIN    AND   CHARLES    THE  GREAT.  818 

abbots  and  bishops  caused  him  to  issue  a  circular  letter,  exhorting 
them  to  the  diligent  pursuit  of  literary  studies  that  they  might 
better  understand  the  mysteries  of  holy  writ.  For  the  promotion 
of  the  same  object  he  founded  his  celebrated  Palatine  School.1 

Alcuin  several  times  visited  France  and  Italy,  and  was  on  two 
occasions  presented  to  Charles,  who  in  781  urged  him  to  join  his 
•court  and  assist  him  in  his  educational  work.  Accordingly  he 
removed  to  France  about  782,  and  was  endowed  by  Charles  with 
the  revenues  of  two  monasteries.  Here,  besides  directing  the  Pala- 
tine School  and  organising  others  on  the  same  model,  he  employed 
himself  in  writing  and  revising  books  for  educational  and  ecclesi- 
astical purposes,  and  in  correcting  the  Vulgate  translation  of  the 
Bible,  which,  through  the  negligence  and  ignorance  of  transcribers, 
had  become  in  many  places  unintelligible.  On  the  occasion  of 
Charles's  coronation  as  Emperor  at  Eome,  a.d.  800,  Alcuin  sent 
him  a  copy  of  this  great  work. 

Charles  himself  did  not  disdain  to  become  Alcuin's  pupil,  and 
calls  him  his  "most  beloved  teacher  in  Christ."  He  frequently 
sought  his  help  in  difficult  passages  of  Scripture,  and  when  absent 
kept  up  a  familiar  correspondence  with  him,  in  which  Alcuin  was 
accustomed  to  express  his  opinions  with  great  freedom.  The  King's 
studies  embraced  the  chief  sciences  of  the  age.  "  He  spent,"  says 
Eginhardt,  "  much  time  with  Alcuin,  the  most  learned  man  of  the 
day,  in  acquiring  rhetoric  and  logic,  and  especially  astronomy.  He 
learned  from  him  the  art  of  computation,  and  with  profound 
thought  and  skill  calculated  the  courses  of  the  planets."2  The 
other  savants  of  the  court  often  joined  the  King  and  Alcuin  in  their 
studies  :  the  royal  daughters  were  also  admitted. 

In  790  Alcuin  returned  to  Northumbria,  but  after  two  years  we 
find  him  again  on  the  Continent,  where  in  the  disputations  which 
arose  with  certain  heretics,  he  appeared  on  the  orthodox  side.  The 
abbacy  of  St.  Martin  at  Tours  becoming  vacant  in  796,  Charles 
sent  him  thither  to  restore  its  decayed  discipline,  and  to  institute  a 

1  Schola  Palatina,  school  of  the  palace.  Aix-la-Chapelle,  and  Ingelheim 
near  Bingen,  were  the  Emperor's  chief  residences.  The  school  probably  followed 
the  court. 

2  The  king  delighted  in  the  works  of  Augustine,  especially  his  City  of  God. 
For  want  of  early  practice,  he  himself  could  never  succeed  in  learning  to  write ; 
although  he  kept  his  tablets  and  writing-book  under  the  pillows  of  his  couch,  it 
was  all  to  no  purpose,  those  rigid  fingers  so  long  accustomed  to  grasp  the  sword 
could  not  bend  themselves  to  the  pen.  D.  Ceillier,  however,  thinks  that  Egin- 
hardt in  this  passage  meant  only  that  Charles  tried  in  vain  to  imitate  the 
beautiful  characters  of  the  manuscripts  in  his  library. 


314  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

school.     He  died  there  a.d.  804,  and  was  buried  within  the  church 
of  St.  Martin. 

Alcuin  was  deeply  impressed  with  the  importance  of  the  preaching 
of  the  Gospel  and  of  Bible-study  ;  and  was  accustomed  to  press 
upon  the  bishops  the  necessity  for  the  latter  as  a  preparation  for 
the  former.  "  Without  the  holy  Scriptures,"  he  wrote  to  the  clergy 
of  Canterbury,  "  it  is  impossible  to  come  to  the  right  knowledge  of 
God ;  and  if  the  blind  lead  the  blind,  both  fall  into  the  ditch."  But 
he  was  far  from  restricting  the  study  of  the  word  to  ecclesiastics,, 
and  desired  that  the  Emperor  should  have  diligent  searchers  of 
Scripture  among  his  ministers  of  state.  He  was  opposed  to  the 
taking  of  human  life  even  by  the  authority  of  the  magistrate.  His 
name  is  associated  with  the  stand  made  by  the  Gallic  clergy  in  this 
age  against  image-worship.  After  the  Iconoclastic  strife  in  the 
East  had  raged  for  three-quarters  of  a  century,  the  Second  Council 
of  Nicaea,  a.d.  787,  by  its  ninth  canon  solemnly  established  the 
worship  of  images.  But  in  794,  when  a  great  number  of  bishops1 
from  all  parts  of  Charles's  dominions  assembled  in  council  at  Frank- 
fort, this  canon  was  rejected  by  a  large  majority.  This  bold  step 
is  thought  to  have  been  due  in  no  little  degree  to  the  influence  of 
Alcuin,  supported  by  his  Imperial  master.  To  the  English  scholar 
some  writers  attribute  also  the  famous  edicts  issued  by  authority  of 
the  Emperor,  and  known  as  the  Capitularies  and  the  Caroline  Books,. 
in  which,  although  images  and  pictures  in  churches  were  still  re- 
tained as  ornaments,  and  to  keep  alive  the  memory  of  pious  men 
and  pious  deeds,  all  kinds  of  adoration,  even  reverence  for  them,  is 
condemned.2 

1  Said  to  have  numbered  about  300. 
2  The  opposition  of  the  Gallic  clergy  to  image-worship  dates  from  an  earlier 
period  than  that  of  Charles  the  Great.  In  the  seventh  century  Serenus,  bishop 
of  Marseilles,  observing  that  the  worship  of  images  was  spreading  amongst  the 
rude  Franks  of  his  diocese,  caused  the  statues  and  pictures  of  the  saints  to  be 
cast  out  of  the  churches.  Pope  Gregory  the  Great,  whilst  professing  to  com- 
mend his  motives,  censured  the  rashness  with  which  he  had  acted,  advancing 
the  very  unsafe  plea  that  images  are  especially  useful  for  newly-converted 
people.  Nothing  can  be  weaker  than  the  language  of  the  pope's  rebuke. 
"  Where,"  he  asks,  "  is  the  bishop  who  ever  did  the  like  ?  If  nothing  else  could 
hinder  thee,  ought  thou  not  to  have  refrained  from  the  very  singularity  of  the 
the  act  ?  Ought  thou  not  to  have  been  afraid  of  making  people  believe  that 
thou  thought  thyself  the  only  wise  person  in  the  world  ?  "  When  the  Icono- 
clastic Emperor  Leo  the  Isaurian  was  endeavouring  by  main  force  to  purge  the 
Eastern  churches  of  their  pictures,  Pope  Gregory  II.  wrote  to  him :  "  Only  try 
thy  experiment  here.  Go  into  the  schools  where  the  children  are  learning  to 
read  and  write,  and  tell  them  thou  art  the  opponent  of  images ;  they  would  in- 
stantly throw  their  tablets  at  thy  head,  and  thus  the  ignorant  will  teach  thee 
perforce  what  thou  wilt  not  learn  from  the  wise." 


CLAUDE    OF    TURIN.  315' 

Claude  of  Turin. — But  the  most  strenuous  of  the  Frankish 
opponents  of  image-worship  flourished  under  Charles's  successor. 
This  was  Claude  bishop  of  Turin,  who  may  justly  be  styled  the 
Protestant  of  his  age.  He  forms  a  connecting  link  between  Jovi- 
nian  and  Vigilantius  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  and  those 
evangelical  Churches  which  sprang  up  in  France  and  Italy  in  the 
eleventh  and  twelfth. 

Claude  was  a  native  of  Spain,  and  like  Alcuin  joined  that  band 
of  learned  men  from  various  countries  which  adorned  the  court  of 
Charlemagne.  He  was  appointed  by  the  Emperor's  son  Louis, 
surnamed  the  Pious,  who  was  then  keeping  his  court  in  Auvergne, 
to  be  his  domestic  chaplain.  Claude  was  a  diligent  student  of 
the  New  Testament,  and  like  Leo  the  Isaurian  in  the  East,  was 
probably  anxious  to  vindicate  Christianity  from  the  reproach  of 
idolatry  cast  on  it  by  the  Mohammedans.  Louis  himself  despised 
image- worship,  and  when  he  came  to  the  throne  he  sent  Claude 
to  fill  the  episcopal  chair  of  Turin  (circa  822)  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  giving  a  check  to  the  idolism  to  which  the  Italians  had 
abandoned  themselves. 

With  too  eager  haste  Claude  began  to  declaim  against  the  pre- 
vailing superstition,  and  to  order  all  the  statues  and  pictures  of  the 
saints,  the  crosses  and  votive  offerings,  to  be  flung  out  of  the 
churches.  The  prejudices  of  the  people  were  violently  shocked, 
and  their  discontent  manifested  itself  in  popular  tumults.  "  I 
found,"  he  writes,  "  the  churches  full  of  the  lumber  of  consecrated 
gifts,  and  because  I  alone  began  pulling  down  what  all  adored,  I 
was  calumniated  by  all.  Unless  the  Lord  had  helped  me  I  had 
been  swallowed  up  alive."  He  owed  his  safety  to  the  fear  of  the 
Frankish  arms ;  which  fear  also  seems  to  have  restrained  the  pope, 
Paschal  I.,  from  taking  overt  action  against  him.  Of  this  pope  he 
said :  "  He  only  is  apostolic  who  is  the  keeper  of  the  Apostle's 
doctrine,  not  he  who  boasts  of  being  seated  in  the  Apostle's  chair 
and  yet  does  not  keep  the  Apostle's  charge ;  for  the  Lord  says : 
•  The  Scribes  and  Pharisees  sit  in  Moses'  seat.' " 

Claude  had  a  friend,  Theodemir,  an  abbot,  who  used  to  ply  him 
with  theological  questions,  and  was  thus  the  occasion  of  his  writing 
several  of  his  treatises.  All  the  while,  however,  Theodemir  seems 
to  have  been  playing  a  double  part,  his  real  object  being  to  convict 
Claude  of  heresy.  On  the  publication  of  the  bishop's  commentary 
on  the  1st  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  he  brought  charges  of  un- 
sound doctrine  against  him,  before  an  assemblage  of  bishops  and 
nobles.  Hearing  of  this  ungenerous  proceeding  Claude  wrote  to 
him  :  "  May  the  Lord  who  is  the  witness  of  my  life,  and  who  gave 


816  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

me  this  work  to  do,  forgive  thee."  Theodemir  was  unable  to  sub- 
stantiate the  charges,  and  changing  his  mode  of  attack  assailed  the 
bishop  with  his  pen.  In  his  reply,  Claude  declared  that  he  held 
firmly  to  the  unity  of  the  Church,  but  that  he  would  always  with 
'God's  help  fight  against  superstition  and  error.  "  If  those  who 
say  they  have  cast  off  idolatry,  worship  the  images  of  the  saints, 
then  they  have  not  forsaken  their  idols  but  only  changed  their 
names.  If  men  are  to  be  worshipped,  it  would  be  mnch  better  to 
worship  the  living  than  the  dead.  If  the  works  of  God's  hands, 
the  stars  of  heaven  for  example,  ought  not  to  be  worshipped,  much 
less  ought  the  work  of  men's  hands.  Whoever  seeks  from  any 
creature  in  heaven  or  on  earth  the  salvation  which  he  should  seek 
from  God  alone,  is  an  idolater."  He  sternly  rebuked  the  adoration 
of  the  Cross.  **  What  these  men  do  is  quite  a  different  thing  from 
what  God  has  commanded.  God  has  commanded  us  to  bear  the 
Cross,  not  to  adore  it ;  they  are  for  adoring  it  because  they  are  un- 
willing to  bear  it."  With  equal  boldness  he  contended  against 
pilgrimages  :  "  Foolish  men,  undervaluing  spiritual  instruction,  go 
to  Eome  to  attain  everlasting  life.  One  gets  no  nearer  to  St.  Peter 
by  finding  oneself  on  the  spot  where  his  body  was  buried,  for  the 
soul  is  the  real  man."  Claude's  free  opinions  gave  great  offence  in 
high  quarters,  and  the  Emperor  was  persuaded  to  commission  Jonas 
bishop  of  Orleans  to  write  a  refutation  of  his  errors.  But  this  was 
not  published  until  after  Claude's  death.1 

It  is  not  only  as  a  destroyer  of  images  and  a  caster-out  of  crosses 
that  the  name  of  Claude  of  Turin  is  inscribed  upon  the  Church's 
record.  He  had  largely  imbibed  the  spirit  of  Paul's  Epistles,  to 
the  study  of  which  he  especially  gave  himself,  as  well  as  to  the 
writings  of  Augustine  ;  and  in  all  his  Scripture  Commentaries,  he 
makes  practical  Christianity  his  great  aim,  With  him  "  heavenly 
grace  is  the  source  of  true  sanctification  ;  the  state  of  the  heart,  the 
test  of  moral  worth  ;  love  to  God  apart  from  all  reference  to  reward , 


1  The  Gallic  clergy  of  that  day  were  equally  in  unison  with  Claude  on  the 
•  question  of  pilgrimages,  as  they  were  on  that  of  images.  The  Second  Council 
of  Chalons,  in  813,  declared :  A  pilgrimage  to  Rome  or  to  St.  Martin  of  Tours  is 
accounted  a  panacea.  By  it  careless  ecclesiastics  imagine  themselves  cleansed 
from  sin,  and  qualified  to  perform  their  office ;  laymen  suppose  they  may  sin 
with  impunity  ;  nobles,  that  they  may  practise  extortion  on  their  dependents ; 
whilst  beggars  find  in  it  a  crutch  for  their  mendicancy.  Men  are  so  foolish  as 
to  suppose  that  their  sins  are  purged  by  the  mere  sight  of  a  holy  place,  un- 
mindful of  the  words  of  St.  Jerome,  that  it  is  no  merit  to  have  seen  Jerusalem, 
but  to  have  lived  a  godly  life  there.     See  ante,  p.  50,  note. 


AGOBABD  AND  ANSCHAB.  817 

the  essence  of  the  Christian  temper ;  worship  of  God  in  the  spirit, 
the  characteristic  of  true  piety." x 

The  truth  which  Claude  preached,  commended  as  it  was  by  his- 
exemplary  life,  attracted  many  followers,  so  that  Theodemir  com- 
plains of  him  as  having  founded  a  new  sect  which  had  spread  from 
Italy  through  France  even  into  Spain.2  We  do  not,  it  is  true,  meet 
with  any  society  which  bore  his  name,  nor  even  with  the  traces  of 
any  association  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  his  doctrines,  but 
whenever  in  succeeding  ages  God's  messengers  declared  the  simple 
Gospel  truth  in  the  countries  where  Claude's  influence  had  been 
exerted,  there  was  a  remarkable  readiness  to  receive  it ;  and  it  is 
well  known  that  the  Waldensian  Church,  which  came  into  note  in 
the  twelfth  century,  claimed  Claude  of  Turin  for  its  spiritual 
ancestor. 

Another  enlightened  Witness,  contemporary  with  Claude,  was 
Agobard,  archbishop  of  Lyons  from  about  810  to  840  a.d.  He 
wrote  a  tract  against  image-worship,  in  which  he  says  :  "  If  Heze- 
kiah  broke  the  brazen  serpent,  made  by  God's  express  command, 
because  the  mistaken  multitude  began  to  worship  it  (for  which  act 
his  piety  was  highly  commended),  much  more  now  ought  the  images 
of  the  saints,  which  were  never  set  up  by  God's  command  but  are 
absolutely  human  inventions,  to  be  broken  and  ground  to  powder."3 
Many  bishops  of  Aquitaine  and  Narbonne  supported  Agobard,  but 
the  light  which  thus  shone  over  Southern  France  was  only  transient. 
Under  Charles  the  Great's  successors  civil  and  religious  order  de- 
clined, and  men's  consciences  were  for  a  time  held  in  fetters  even 
stronger  than  before  by  an  ignorant  and  worldly  clergy. 

Anschab,  styled  the  Apostle  of  the  North,  was  born  near  Amiens 
in  801.  From  the  works  of  Christian  love  of  this  remarkable  man,, 
and  the  revelations  with  which  he  was  favoured,  we  see  how  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  condescended  to  dwell  with  his  children,  even  in 
the  darkest  days  of  the  Church.  Influenced  by  a  pious  mother, 
until  his  fifth  year,  Anschar  seems  to  have  received  religious  im- 
pressions in  his  opening  mind  when  a  very  young  child.  During 
his  school-days  evil  communications  dimmed  these  early  revelations. 
They  were  not  effaced  however,  and  he  was  recalled  to  thoughtful- 

1  Claude's  teaching  reminds  us  of  Vigilantius,  and  it  is  worthy  of  note  that 
Jonas  accuses  Claude  of  maintaining  the  heresy  of  that  early  reformer. 
2  Jonas  states  that  Germany  was  also  infected. 

■  Strange  to  say,  Agobard's  name  is  to  be  found  in  the  Eomish  Hagiography- 
(lives  of  the  saints),  whilst  his  Treatise  on  Pictures  is  placed  in  the  Index  Expur- 
gatorius  (catalogue  of  writings  prohibited  by  the  Church) ! 


318  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

ness  by  a  night  vision.  He  imagined  himself  to  be  standing  in  a 
slippery  place,  thick  with  mire,  from  which  he  was  unable  to  extri- 
cate himself.  Not  far  off,  on  a  safe  and  pleasant  path,  he  beheld  a 
graceful  woman  handsomely  attired,  accompanied  by  several  others 
in  white  garments,  one  of  whom  was  his  own  mother.  He  would 
gladly  have  gone  over  to  them,  but  the  slippery  ground  held  his 
feet.  As  they  drew  nearer  he  heard  the  richly-adorned  lady,  who 
appeared  to  be  the  Virgin  Mary,  say  to  him,  "  My  son,  wilt  thou 
■come  to  thy  mother  ?"  And  when  he  answered  that  he  would  fain 
do  so  if  he  could,  she  replied  :  "  If  thou  wishest  to  join  us,  thou 
must  eschew  vanity  and  diligently  pursue  a  serious  life."  From 
this  time  a  change  came  over  him  ;  instead  of  play  he  gave  himself 
to  reading  and  meditation. 

In  the  convent  of  Corbie  near  Amiens,  whither  he  was  sent  when 
still  a  youth,  he  had  another  vision  in  which  the  glory  of  Heaven 
was  revealed  to  him.  He  was  transported  to  the  assembly  of  the 
blessed,  and  their  united  hymn  of  praise  filled  his  soul  with  in- 
expressible delight.  All  had  their  faces  turned  towards  the  east, 
where  was  a  splendour  of  surpassing  brilliancy  and  giving  forth  the 
most  beautiful  colours.  "  The  splendour  was  so  illimitable,"  says 
Anschar,  "that  I  could  see  neither  beginning  nor  end ;  and  although 
I  looked  round  on  all  sides  I  could  perceive  only  the  superficial  ap- 
pearance, I  could  not  see  that  which  dwelt  within  the  centre  of  this 
light.  Yet  I  believe  He  was  there  whom  the  angels  desire  to  look 
upon  ;  for  from  thence  proceeded  a  flood  of  glory  which  shed  its 
effulgence  over  the  whole  assembly.  He  was  in  all,  and  all  were  in 
Him.  He  satisfied  all  their  wants,  and  was  their  guiding  soul ;  He 
hovered  over  them,  and  was  their  support  from  beneath."  Peter 
and  John,  who  appeared  as  Anschar's  guides,  led  him  right  in  face 
of  this  boundless  light,  whence  a  voice  came  forth  full  of  unutterable 
sweetness  :  "  Go  hence,  and  return  to  Me  with  a  crown  of  martyr- 
dom." At  these  words  the  adoring  host  became  silent,  and  with 
bowed  and  reverent  faces  worshipped.  "  When  I  heard  the  words," 
continues  Anschar,  "  I  was  sad  because  I  was  obliged  to  go  back  to 
the  world,  but  was  comforted  with  the  promise  that  I  should  return 
from  it  hereafter." 

Two  years  afterwards  he  had  a  third  vision.  He  had  been 
■engaged  in  prayer  in  a  small  chapel  to  which  he  was  wont  to  retire, 
and  when  he  rose,  there  entered  at  the  door  a  person  of  noble 
countenance  clad  in  Jewish  garb,  whose  eyes  shone  like  the  light. 
He  perceived  that  it  was  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  fell  at  his  feet. 
As  he  lay  prostrate  he  heard  a  voice  bidding  him  stand  up  ;  and 
-when  in  trembling  awe  he  stood  before  the  Lord,  and  was  not  able 


THE  APOSTLE  OF  THE  NOBTH.  819 

to  look  upon  His  countenance  for  the  brightness  of  the  light  which 
beamed  from  His  eyes,  he  heard  the  same  voice,  full  of  tenderness, 
saying  to  him  :  "  Confess  thy  sins  that  thou  mayest  be  justified." 
Anschar  answered  :  "  Lord,  why  need  I  tell  them  to  Thee  ?  Thou 
knowest  all,  nothing  is  hid  from  Thee."  The  Lord  replied:  "  I 
indeed  know  all  things,  but  yet  it  is  my  will  that  men  should  con- 
fess their  sins  to  Me  that  they  may  receive  forgiveness."  Upon 
this  he  knelt  and  made  confession,  and  the  Lord  said  :  "  Fear  not, 
I  am  He  who  blotteth  out  thy  trangressions."  With  these  words 
the  Saviour  vanished,  and  Anschar  went  his  way  full  of  joy  and 
•confidence.  At  another  time,  on  receiving  again  the  same  assur- 
ance of  forgiveness,  he  inquired,  "  Lord,  what  wouldst  Thou  have 
me  to  do  ?"  The  answer  came  :  "  Go  preach  the  Word  of  God  to 
the  tribes  of  the  heathen." 

At  the  head  of  the  seminary  of  Corbie  was  the  learned  Paschasius 
Radbert,  and  Anschar,  his  most  industrious  pupil,  was  promoted  to 
be  his  assistant.  In  822  a  colony  of  monks  from  this  abbey  settled 
on  a  fertile  spot  in  the  valley  of  the  Weser,  and  gave  the  name  of 
their  parent  cloister  (in  German)  Corvey  to  the  new  house,  which 
became  one  of  the  chief  monasteries  beyond  the  Rhine.  Anschar 
was  one  of  the  colonists.  The  Jutland  king  Harald,  who  had  just 
been  baptized  at  Ingelheim,  being  about  to  return  home,  the  Em- 
peror Louis  the  Pious  proposed  he  should  be  accompanied  by  a 
gospel  preacher.  Wala  the  abbot  of  Corvey  recommended  Anschar 
for  this  mission,  and  when  the  Emperor  asked  the  young  man  if  he 
was  willing  for  God's  glory  to  accompany  King  Harald,  he  replied 
that  he  was  not  only  willing  but  eager  to  go.  Many  tried  to  dis- 
hearten him  by  representing  the  savage  character  of  the  Northmen 
and  the  evil  nature  of  their  idolatry,  but  he  adhered  steadfastly  to 
his  purpose,  and  retiring  alone  to  a  vineyard  prepared  himself  by 
reading  the  Scriptures  and  prayer  for  the  great  undertaking. 

For  upwards  of  forty  years  Anschar  laboured  incessantly  in  Den- 
mark, Sweden  and  the  north  of  Germany,  enduring  disappointment, 
distress,  hardship  and  persecution,  through  which  nothing  but  an 
unshaken  trust  in  God  could  have  supported  him.  Once  when  an 
army  of  Northmen  sacked  and  burned  the  town  where  he  was, 
together  with  his  church  and  monastery,  leaving  him  barely  time 
to  save  the  church  vessels,  he  exclaimed,  as  he  surveyed  the  deso- 
late scene  :  "  The  Lord  gave,  and  the  Lord  hath  taken  away, 
blessed  be  the  name  of  the  Lord."  His  love  of  meditation  and 
prayer  led  him  to  construct  a  cell,  which  he  called  his  "place  of 
quiet  and  penitence,"  and  to  which,  with  a  few  companions  who 
were  like-minded,  he  from  time  to  time  withdrew.     But  he  never 


820  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

suffered  this  to  interfere  with  his  apostolic  duties,  only  resorting  to 
his  retreat  to  renew  his  spiritual  life  after  long  and  arduous  toil. 
He  was  in  the  habit  of  disciplining  himself  by  severe  mortifications, 
but  conscious  how  easily  self-exaltation  is  engendered  by  such  out- 
ward austerities,  he  prayed  to  God  for  grace  to  save  him  from  this 
danger.  Too  humble  to  aspire  after  miraculous  gifts,  he  neverthe- 
less could  not  prevent  the  coming  of  sick  persons  from  distant 
parts,  who  hoped  to  be  restored  by  his  prayers.  When  however 
such  a  hope  was  expressed  he  would  say  :  "  Could  I  deem  myself 
worthy  to  ask  miracles  of  the  Lord,  I  would  beseech  Him  to  grant 
me  this  one  miracle,  that  He  would  make  of  me  a  holy  man." 

Being  attacked  with  his  mortal  sickness  Anschar's  only  regret 
was  that  the  hope  inspired  by  his  early  dream,  that  he  should  die  a 
martyr's  death,  was  not  to  be  fulfilled.  He  often  said  his  bodily 
pains  were  less  than  his  sins  deserved,  repeating  the  words  of  Job, 
"  Have  we  received  good  from  the  hand  of  the  Lord,  and  shall  we 
not  receive  evil  ?"  Travail  of  spirit  for  the  souls  of  those  who  were 
about  him,  and  especially  for  the  conversion  of  the  Danes  and 
Swedes,  occupied  him  to  the  end.  Having  received  the  bread  and 
wine,  he  prayed  that  God  would  forgive  all  who  had  done  him 
wrong,  frequently  also  repeating  the  words,  "Have  mercy  upon  me, 
0  God,  according  to  Thy  loving-kindness :  be  merciful  to  me,  a 
sinner ;  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit";  and  so,  with  his 
eyes  uplifted,  he  died,  as  he  had  wished,  on  the  anniversary  of  the 
Purification  of  the  Virgin,  a.d.  865. 

After  Anschar's  death  it  was  still  only  by  slow  degrees  and  with 
frequent  repulses  that  Christianity  made  its  way  in  Denmark. 
Gorm  the  Old,  who  died  about  the  year  935,  clung  to  his  ancestral 
heathenism  and  persecuted  the  Christian  missionaries,  whilst  his 
wife  Thyra,  a  beautiful  and  virtuous  lady,  had  become  a  Christian, 
and  with  her  husband's  permission  maintained  her  own  chapel 
and  priests.  Their  son,  Harald  II.,  surnamed  Blaatand  (Blue- 
tooth), professed  the  faith  of  his  mother,  and  removed  his  court 
from  Ledra,  the  ancient  seat  of  the  worship  of  Odin,  to  Boskilde  in 
Zealand,  where  he  erected  a  cathedral.  He  continued  however  to 
make  the  old  palace  at  Jellinge,  near  Veile  in  Jutland,  his  usual 
place  of  residence. 

Here  he  buried  Gorm  and  Thyra,  and  piled  over  their  tombs  two 
huge  circular  barrows,  which  still  remain.  Gorm's  mound  is  about 
40  ft.  high  and  670  ft.  round  at  the  base.1     Thyra's  is  rather 

1  It  is  not  an  exact  circle,  the  two  diameters  being  about  204  and  224  feet 
respectively. 


THE    JELLINGE    MOUNDS. 


821 


smaller,  and  covers  a  rude  wooden  chamber  22  ft.  long,  8  ft.  broad,, 
and  5  ft.  high.  As  there  is  no  chamber  under  the  large  barrow,  it 
is  probable  that  both  bodies  were  buried  beneath  the  smaller.  Both 
mounds  have  been  opened.     Thyra's  chamber  contained,  amongst 


Thyra's  Cross  and  Cup. 

other  relics,  a  silver  cup  lined  with  gold,  about  2  inches  high ;  a 
small  bronze  cross  thinly  coated  with  gold  ;  two  figures  of  birds  in 
copper ;  a  small  piece  of  fine  red  silk  ;  and  an  end  of  wax  candle. 
In  the  other  mound  very  little  was  discovered. 


Between  the  graves  stands  a  church,  not  so  old  as  the  mounds^ 
but  yet  very  ancient ;  and  near  the  church  are  two  blocks  of  reddish 


WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

granite.1  The  larger  of  these  is  three-sided,  about  7  ft.  6  in.  in 
height  and  20  ft.  round  at  the  base.  On  one  side  is  carved  the 
dragon,  the  pagan  emblem  of  Scandinavia ;  on  another  a  figure  of 
Christ,  with  the  arms  extended,  as  on  the  Cross  ;  and  on  the  third 
side,  which  is  the  largest,  is  an  inscription  in  Eunic  characters, 
continued  also  in  the  lower  part  of  the  other  two. 


••HMTtfclTVIMkB' 


1  Both  the  blocks  have  been  removed  from  their  original  site. 


RUNIC    MONUMENT.  323 


In  Roman  characters  it  reads  thus  : — 

Haraltr  kunukr  bad  gaurva 
kubl  dausi  aft  Gurm  fadur  sin 
auk  aft  Thourvi  mudur  sina  sa 
Haraltr  jas  sor  van  Tanmaurk 

ala  auk  Nurviak 

auk  T  ( .  n )  kristno. 

Xing  Harald  had  these  memorials  made  of  Gorm  his  father  and  Thyra  his 
mother ;  the  same  Harald  who  won  for  himself  all  Denmark  and  Norway,  and 
(made  the  Danish  people  ?)  Christians. 

The  smaller  stone  is  6  ft.  3  in.  in  height ;  it  hears  a  short  but 
significant  inscription. 

Gurmur  Kunugr  gardi  kubl  dusi  aft  Thurvi  kunu  sina  Tanmarkar  but. 
King  Gorm  made  this  memorial  of  Thyra  his  wife,  Denmark's  ornament.1 

The  place  of  these  monuments  is  now  far  from  the  highways  of 
men,  and  full  of  repose.  "From  the  blue  fiord,  on  whose  shore 
the  little  town  of  Veile  spreads  itself,  we  ascended,"  says  a  recent 
traveller,  "  some  200  or  300  ft.  through  picturesque  woods  to  a 
table-land;  passing  broad  fields  of  corn  ready  for  the  sickle,  and 
quaint  farm-houses  and  barns,  the  very  image  of  the  toys  we  played 
with  in  our  childhood.  There  are  few  hedges,  and  between  the 
corn  patches  are  long  ribands  of  grass,  where  the  cattle  feed 
tethered  to  stakes,  and  tended  by  a  boy.  On  a  ridge  to  the  right, 
before  entering  the  hamlet  of  Jellinge,  were  seen  five  large  barrows. 

1  Or  Saviour,  or  trust ;  the  word  is  doubtful.  The  above  woodcuts  are  taken 
from  a  model  of  the  stone  presented  to  the  writer  by  Walter  Morris,  with  the 
help  of  the  lithographs  in  Professor  Kornerup's  valuable  and  elaborate  work, 
Kongehphiene  i  Jellinge,  Copenhagen,  1875,  for  a  copy  of  which  we  are  indebted 
to  the  kindness  of  the  author.  The  particulars  in  the  text  are  also  derived  from 
this  work.  The  similarity  between  the  Irish  school  of  ornament  and  the  figures 
on  the  Eunic  monuments  is  very  noticeable :  compare  the  above  woodcuts  with 
the  fragment  of  sculpture  from  Monkwearmouth  church  and  the  square  of  lace- 
work  ornament  from  the  Durham  Book,  ante,  p.  278. 


824  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

Here  in  this  corner  of  the  earth  now  so  tranquil,  in  the  rude  palace 
long  since  decayed,  the  old  sea-kings  a  thousand  years  ago  hung  up 
their  weapons,  glutted  themselves  with  flesh  and  cups  of  mead, 
roared  out  their  idol- songs  to  Odin,  and  recounted  their  deeds  of 
plunder  and  merciless  slaughter,  with  which,  from  century  to  cen- 
tury, they  made  the  shores  of  England,  Normandy,  France  and 
Sicily  to  groan  and  tremble."1 

Nilus. — We  turn  again  to  the  South  of  Europe.  Nilus  was  a 
monk  of  Greek  origin,  and  a  native  of  Eossana  in  Calabria  (South 
Italy),  where  he  was  born  in  910.a  He  did  not  stand  forth  as  a 
reformer ;  he  did  not  see  that  the  dense  growth  of  superstition 
which  encumbered  the  Church  must  be  cut  down  and  cleared  away 
before  the  good  seed  could  have  room  to  take  root  and  grow. 
Nevertheless  his  eye  being  single,  his  soul  was  full  of  light ;  and  if 
those  who  saw  his  course  of  life  and  heard  his  words  of  evangelical 
wisdom  had  been  willing  to  follow  him,  the  light  of  gospel  truth 
might  have  broken  forth  in  Southern  Italy  even  in  that  dark  age. 

Although  the  founder  of  several  monasteries,  he  did  not  place 
his  dependence  on  monastic  austerities  or  spiritual  marvels.  In 
consonance  with  the  superstitious  temper  of  the  age,  the  thought 
would  often  occur  to  him,  whilst  engaged  in  prayer  or  in  singing, 
"Look  towards  the  altar;  perhaps  thou  wilt  see  an  angel,  or  a 
flame  of  fire,  or  the  Holy  One  Himself,  for  such  sights  many  others 
have  seen."  But  being  inwardly  admonished  that  thoughts  like 
these  grow  out  of  spiritual  pride,  he  would  resolutely  shut  his  eyes 
and  give  himself  up  the  more  to  penitential  exercise,  wrestling  with 
his  soul  till  the  sweat  trickled  from  his  forehead.  Once  when  he 
was  occupied  with  writing,  reading  and  singing  in  St.  Peter's  at 
Eome,  he  was  beset  with  these  temptations.  Throwing  himself 
before  the  altar  he  prayed,  "  Lord,  thou  knowest  that  I  am  weak; 
have  compassion  on  me  and  relieve  me  of  this  conflict."  Thus 
lying  he  fell  asleep,  and  saw  a  vision.  He  beheld  Christ  hanging 
on  the  cross,  separated  from  him  only  by  a  thin  white  curtain.  He 
cried  out,  "  Lord  have  mercy  upon  me,  and  bless  thy  servant." 
The  Saviour  from  the  cross  extended  his  right  hand  three  times 
over  him.  He  awoke,  and  the  temptation  was  gone.  The  disciple 
who  gives  this  account  adds :  "  What  much  fasting  and  watching 
could  not  effect,  was  effected  by  thus  humbling  himself  before  the 
Lord,  and  by  a  knowledge  of  his  own  weakness." 

1  Private  diary  of  a  journey  in  Denmark,  July,  1882. 
2  He  is  called  Nilus  the  Younger  to  distinguish  him  from  the  venerable  monk- 
of  the  same  name  who  resided  on  Mount  Sinai  in  the  fifth  century. 


THE    MONK   NILUS.  325 

Like  Anschar,  he  was  of  a  humble  spirit.  Being  asked  by  a 
father  to  heal  his  son,  a  demoniac,  he  excused  himself,  saying  he 
had  never  prayed  for  the  gifts  of  healing  the  sick  or  casting  out 
demons ;  what  he  had  asked  was  that  God  would  grant  him  the 
forgiveness  of  his  sins  and  deliverance  from  wicked  thoughts.  He 
endeavoured  however  to  comfort  the  father,  by  representing  to  him 
that  the  involuntary  possession  in  the  case  of  his  son  by  one  evil 
spirit,  was  a  far  lighter  affliction  than  the  readiness  to  serve  them 
all  which  is  manifested  in  a  wicked  life. 

Some  nobles  and  ecclesiastics  came  one  day  to  prove  Nilus  with 
hard  questions.  When  he  saw  them  he  said  within  himself :  "They 
.are  come  to  entangle  me  in  empty  talk.  Lord  Jesus,  free  us  from 
the  devices  of  Satan,  and  grant  that  we  may  think  and  speak  and 
do  what  is  well  pleasing  to  Thee."  When  he  had  so  prayed  he 
opened  at  hazard  the  book  he  had  in  his  hand,  a  biography  of  a 
pious  monk,  and  made  a  mark  in  the  place  ;  and  as  soon  as  his 
visitors  had  saluted  him  and  sat  down,  he  gave  the  book  to  one,  who 
was  a  privy-councillor,  to  read  where  he  had  marked.     The  privy- 

•  .councillor  read:  "Scarcely  one  in  ten  thousand  attains  to  sal- 
vation." All  exclaimed  with  one  voice:  "God  forbid!  whoever 
says  that  is  a  heretic.  If  it  be  so,  we  have  all  been  baptized  in 
vain  ;  in  vain  we  adore  the  Cross ;  in  vain  we  partake  of  the 
Eucharist;  in  vain  we  call  ourselves  Christians."  Whereupon 
Nilus  quietly  remarked :  "  Suppose  I  should  prove  to  you  that 
Basil,  Chrysostom,  Theodore  Studites,  the  Apostle  Paul,  and  the 

•  Gospel,  all  declare  the  same  thing,  what  would  you  say,  you  who  by 
your  own  wicked  lives  gainsay  the  words  of  holy  men  ?  I  tell  you 
that  by  all  these  observances  you  gain  nothing  in  the  sight  of  God. 
Unless  you  become  truly  virtuous  not  one  of  you  can  be  saved."  At 
this  all  sighed  and  exclaimed,  "  Woe  to  us,  miserable  sinners ! " 
Nicolas,  an  officer  of  the  Imperial  guard,  who  trusted  in  his  alms- 
giving, now  spoke:  "Yet  Christ  said,  ' He  who  gives  to  a  poor  man 
but  a  cup  of  cold  water  shall  not  lose  his  reward.' "  To  which 
Nilus  replied :  "  That  was  spoken  to  the  poor,  that  none  might  offer 
as  an  excuse  his  having  no  wood  wherewith  to  prepare  warm  water. 
But  what  wilt  thou  do  who  robs  the  poor  even  of  the  cup  of  cold 
water  ?  "  Next  a  nobleman,  a  man  of  immoral  life,  referred  to  the 
example  of  Solomon,  "a  wonderful  man  and  greatly  commended  in 
the  Bible  ;  was  he  not  saved  ?  "  "  What  concern  of  ours  is  it," 
replied  Nilus,  "  whether  Solomon  was  saved  or  lost  ?  Not  to  him 
but  to  us  it  is  said  '  every  one  that  looketh  on  a  woman  to  lust  after 
.her  hath  committed  adultery  with  her  already  in  his  heart.'  But 
of  Solomon  we  do  not  read  as  we  do  of  Manasseh,  that  after  having 


826  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

sinned  he  repented."  Here  one  of  the  priests  impertinently  struck 
in  with  the  question,  "What  was  the  forbidden  fruit  in  Paradise  ?" 
"  A  crab  apple,"  answered  Nilus.  And  when  all  laughed,  he  added : 
"  Such  a  question  deserved  such  an  answer." 

The  Imperial  chamberlain,  coming  in  state  to  a  neighbouring 
castle,  was  offended  that  Nilus  did  not  present  himself  before  him 
with  the  other  abbots.  But  when  he  heard  of  Nilus'  independent 
character,  he  was  still  more  desirous  to  see  him.  As  soon  as  he 
entered  the  room  the  chamberlain  was  struck  with  awe  at  his  pre- 
sence, and  sent  for  a  copy  of  the  Gospels,  in  order  that  if  any 
matter  of  importance  should  pass  between  tbem,  it  might  be  ratified 
by  oath.  But  Nilus  reproved  him,  reminding  him  of  what  Christ, 
said  of  swearing  in  His  sermon  on  the  mount.  "  Why,"  he  asked, 
"dost  thou  furnish  an  occasion  to  mistrust  thy  words;  and  why 
dost  thou  begin  our  conference  by  transgressing  tbe  word  of  the 
Lord?  He  wbo  is  ready  on  slight  occasions  to  take  an  oath,  will 
also  be  ready  to  utter  a  falsehood." 

Nilus'  countryman  John,  archbishop  of  Placenza,  a  man  of  a 
restless  worldly  spirit,  became  entangled  in  an  alliance  with  the 
Boman  usurper  Crescentius,  who  after  expelling  Gregory  V.  set  up 
.Tobn  as  pope  in  his  place.1  Nilus  wrote  to  him,  prophetically 
warning  him  of  the  consequences  of  his  ambition,  and  calling  upon 
him  to  renounce  the  honours  he  had  so  unworthily  gained,  and  to 
retire  from  the  world.  His  words  found  no  entrance;  but  within  a- 
year  the  doom  which  Nilus  had  foreseen  fell  upon  the  unhappy 
man.  Gregory  was  restored  to  his  chair  by  the  arms  of  the 
German  Emperor  Otho  III.,  and  a  cruel  revenge  was  wreaked  on 
the  archbishop.  His  eyes  were  put  out,  and  his  tongue  and  his 
nose  cut  off,  and  in  this  deplorable  condition  he  was  thrown  into  a 
dungeon.  Nilus  was  in  his  monastery  at  Gaeta  when  he  received 
the  tidings  of  John's  fall  and  the  barbarity  practised  upon  him. 
Although  now  upwards  of  eighty  years  of  age,  sick  and  infirm  (it 
being  besides  Lent,  when  he  gave  himself  to  penitential  devotions), 
he  forgot  all  in  his  sympathy  with  the  sufferer,  and  quitting  his  cell 
travelled  immediately  to  Borne.  Presenting  himself  before  the 
Emperor,  he  asked  to  be  put  into  the  same  dungeon  with  the  arch- 
bishop, that  they  might  do  penance  together  for  their  sins.  The 
Emperor  promised  to  comply ;  but  presently,  instead  of  this,  the 
archbishop  was  exposed  to  new  and  more  public  ignominy.  Upon 
this  Nilus  boldly  told  both  pope  and  Emperor  that  their  offence  was 


1  His  name  is  commonly  omitted  in  the  tables  of  the  popes;  when  introduced 
he  is  called  John  XVI. 


NILUS    ON    DIVERSITIES    OF   CHURCH    PRACTICE.  827 

not  so  much  against  the  wretched  man  as  against  God ;  and  that  as 
they  had  broken  their  word  and  shown  no  mercy,  so  they  themselves 
could  expect  no  mercy  from  God.  The  youthful  Emperor  was 
touched,  and  invited  Nilus  to  ask  any  favour  he  pleased.  "  I  have 
nothing  to  ask  of  thee,"  was  the  Christian  reply,  "but  that  thou 
wilt  not  trifle  with  the  salvation  of  thy  own  soul.  Emperor  though 
thou  art,  thou  must  die  like  other  men,  and  appear  before  the 
judgment-seat  of  God,  to  render  an  account  of  all  thy  deeds,  good 
and  bad."  The  Emperor  burst  into  tears,  and  taking  the  crown 
from  his  head,  begged  the  man  of  God  to  give  him  his  blessing. 

In  order  to  do  Nilus  honour,  the  monks  of  the  venerable  abbey 
of  Monte  Casino,  the  mother  of  all  the  Benedictine  houses,  invited 
him  to  celebrate  mass  in  their  church  in  the  Greek  tongue.  At 
first  he  refused,  saying:  "  How  shall  we  (Greeks),  who  are  every- 
where humbled  on  account  of  our  sins,  sing  the  Lord's  song  in  a 
strange  land  ?  "  Afterwards  however  he  consented,  and  sang  a 
hymn  composed  by  himself  in  praise  of  St.  Benedict.  When  the 
hymn  was  ended,  the  conversation  turned  on  the  diversity  between 
the  Greek  and  Latin  Churches  as  to  fasting  on  the  Jewish  Sabbath.1 
Nilus  gave  his  opinion  in  the  words  of  Paul :  "  '  Let  not  him  that 
eateth,  set  at  nought  him  that  eateth  not ;  and  let  not  him  that 
eateth  not,  judge  him  that  eateth,  for  God  hath  received  him.' 
Whether  we  eat,  or  ye  fast,  let  all  be  done  to  the  glory  of  God."  He 
then  adduced  the  older  Church  teachers,  who  favoured  the  Greek 
custom  ;  but  added  :  "  We  will  not  however  contend  about  this;  if 
the  Jews  did  but  honour  Christ  crucified  as  their  Lord,  I  should 
take  no  offence,  even  though  they  fasted  on  Sunday.  .  .  .  Every- 
thing depends  on  the  state  of  mind  in  which  a  thing  is  done.  We 
do  right  not  to  fast  on  the  Sabbath,  in  opposition  to  the  Mani- 
chseans,  who  reject  the  Old  Testament ;  and  ije,  from  your  point  of 
view,  are  bound  to  fast  on  that  day,  in  order  to  purify  your  souls 
for  the  celebration  of  the  day  following,  consecrated  to  our  Lord's 
resurrection." 

Nilus  being  near  his  end,  the  governor  of  Gaeta  proposed  that 
when  he  died,  his  body  should  be  brought  into  the  city  for  burial, 
so  that  his  sacred  bones  might  serve  as  a  protection  to  the  town. 
His  humility  was  shocked  at  the  prospect  of  receiving  such  venera- 
tion ;  and  he  determined  that  the  people  of  Gaeta  should  not  know 
where  he  was  buried.  Accordingly  he  mounted  his  horse  and  took 
his  way  towards  Kome,  saying  to  his  monks  as  he  bade  them  fare- 
well :  "  Sorrow  not :  I  go  to  prepare  a  place  and  a  monastery,  where 

1  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  95. 


328  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

all  my  brethren  and  scattered  children  will  meet  me  again."  On 
arriving  at  Tusculum,1  he  rode  into  the  small  convent  of  St.  Agatha, 
saying:  "  Here  is  my  final  resting-place."  His  friends  in  Eome 
invited  him  to  continue  his  journey  to  the  city,  that  he  might  per- 
form his  devotions  at  the  tombs  of  Peter  and  Paul ;  but  he  answered : 
"He  who  has  faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard-seed  may  even  in  this  spot 
honour  the  memory  of  the  Apostles."  He  begged  the  monks  that 
when  he  died  they  would  not  delay  his  burial,  and  that  they  would 
not  lay  his  body  in  a  church  nor  erect  any  monument  over  him ; 
but  if  they  wished  to  distinguish  his  grave,  they  should  raise  over 
it  a  seat  for  wayfaring  men,  such  as  he  had  always  been,  to  rest 
themselves  upon.  For  two  days  before  he  died  he  lay  with  no  other 
sign  of  life  than  a  murmur  of  his  lips,  and  a  slight  motion  of  his 
hands  making  the  sign  of  the  cross.  One  of  the  monks  putting  his 
ear  to  his  mouth,  heard  the  words  :  "  Then  shall  I  not  be  ashamed 
when  I  have  respect  to  all  thy  commandments."  He  fell  asleep, 
without  a  struggle,  a.d.  1005. 


The  hymn  which  follows  is  by  Joseph  Studites  who,  in  the  ninth 
century,  lived  many  years  at  the  court  of  Constantinople.  It 
approaches  more  nearly  to  modern  hymns  of  Christian  experience 
than  perhaps  any  other  which  has  come  down  to  us. 

THE    BETUBN    HOME. 

Safe  home,  safe  home  in  port ! 

Eent  cordage,  shattered  deck, 

Torn  sails,  provisions  short, 

And  only  not  a  wreck  ; 
But  oh  !  the  joy  upon  the  shore 
To  tell  our  voyage  perils  o'er  ! 

The  prize,  the  prize  secure  ! 

The  athlete  nearly  fell ; 

Bare  all  he  could  endure, 

And  bare  not  always  well : 
But  he  may  smile  at  troubles  gone 
Who  sets  the  victor-garland  on  ! 

No  more  the  foe  can  harm : 

No  more  of  leaguered  camp, 

And  cry  of  night-alarm, 

And  need  of  ready  lamp  : 
And  yet  how  nearly  he  had  failed, — 
How  nearly  had  that  foe  prevailed ! 

1  Near  the  modern  Frascati,  ten  miles  S.E.  of  Borne. 


THE    RETURN    HOME.  829 

The  lamb  is  in  the  fold 

In  perfect  safety  penned : 

The  lion  once  had  hold 

And  thought  to  make  an  end : 
But  One  came  by  with  wounded  side, 
And  for  the  sheep  the  Shepherd  died. 

The  exile  is  at  Home  ! 

0  nights  and  days  of  tears, 

0  longings  not  to  roam, 

0  sins  and  doubts  and  fears, — 
What  matter  now  (whate'er  men  say) 
The  King  has  wiped  those  tears  away ! 

0  happy,  happy  Bride  ! 

Thy  widowed  hours  are  past ; 

The  Bridegroom  at  thy  side ; 

Thou  all  his  own  at  last ! 
The  sorrows  of  thy  former  cup 
In  full  fruition  swallowed  up 


PERIOD    IV. 


FROM    THE    TENTH   CENTUET   TO    THE    TERMINATION    OF    THE 
CRUSADE  AGAINST   THE  ALBIGENSES,  A.D.  1229. 


(     333     ) 


CHAPTEK    I. 

Monastic  Life  in  the  Middle  Ages. — Cluny. 

"  My  rule 
Is  left  a  profitless  stain  upon  the  leaves ; 
The  walls,  for  abbey  reared,  turned  into  dens ; 
The  cowls,  to  sacks  choked  up  with  musty  meal. 

Mortal  flesh 

Is  grown  so  dainty,  good  beginnings  last  not 
From  the  oak's  birth  unto  the  acorn's  setting." 

— Benedict,  in  Dante. 

In  the  foregoing  pages,  the  reader  cannot  fail  to  have  remarked  how 
the  lofty,  though  mistaken,  object  of  Benedict  was,  as  time  went 
on,  more  and  more  lost  sight  of,  and  the  separation  from  the  world 
at  which  he  aimed  swallowed  up  in  the  vortex  of  civil  and  political 
life.  In  name  and  dress,  in  the  unnatural  and  corrupting  abnega- 
tion of  marriage,  and  in  the  daily  round  of  ceremonies  often  unpro- 
fitable, not  to  say  idolatrous,  the  monk  lived  apart ;  but  in  all 
beside,  not  only  in  the  petty  affairs  of  his  own  township,  but  also  in 
the  government,  in  diplomacy,  and  even  in  the  wars  of  principalities 
and  empires,  he  was  foremost  both  as  adviser  and  actor.  Instead 
of  the  cloister  excluding  the  world,  the  world  had  taken  possession 
of  the  cloister.  "  Most  monks,"  remarks  Mosheim,  "  did  not  even 
know  that  the  rule  they  had  bound  themselves  to  follow  was  called 
the  rule  of  St.  Benedict."  The  time  for  reformation  was  fully 
come  ;  but,  unhappily,  the  reformation  took  place  on  the  old  un- 
natural lines.  "Catholic  efforts  of  revival  all  took,  with  more  or 
less  rigidity,  the  monastic  form,  and  their  successive  failure  is  due 
to  the  inherent  weakness  of  monasticism.  It  sets  before  men  an 
unnatural  and  impossible  ideal.  It  substitutes  for  the  social  and 
domestic  virtues  upon  which  the  world  rests,  an  ascetic  and  self- 
regarding  type  of  holiness.     It  is  the  attempt 

'  to  wind  ourselves  too  high  for  sinful  men  beneath  the  sky,' 

and  so  is  peculiarly  exposed  to  reaction,  laxity,  corruption.  The 
story  of  all  monastic  orders,  truly  told,  is  one  of  perpetual  striving 
after  a  holiness  which  hungers  and  thirsts  after  self-denial,  and  finds 
no  self-maceration  too  hard ;  then  of  slow  falling-away  into  for- 
mality, idleness,  self-indulgence,  open  vice  :  and  a  period  once  more 
of  enthusiastic  reform,  and  repentant  return  to  the  old  ideal." 


384  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

Early  in  the  tenth  century  a  successful  attempt  to  restore  the 
monastic  discipline  was  made  at  Cluny,  in  Burgundy.  This 
monastery  was  founded  in  908  by  the  abbot  JBerno,  to  whom 
William  the  Pious,  Duke  of  Aquitaine,  gave  the  village  of  Cluny 
with  the  neighbouring  lands.  Upon  Odo,  the  second  abbot,  the 
mantle  of  Benedict  may  be  said  to  have  fallen.  He  not  only 
revived  the  strict  rule  of  the  latter,  but  added  fresh  observances  and 
regulations,  and  through  his  influence  the  old  austerity  of  the 
monastic  life  reasserted  its  sway  throughout  Europe.  Odo  had 
been  a  schoolmaster  and  precentor  of  the  cathedral  at  Tours,  and 
came  of  a  good  stock.  He  says  of  his  father  :  "He  seemed  to  be  a 
different  sort  of  person  from  men  of  the  present  day ;  for  he  had  by 
heart  the  histories  of  the  ancients  and  the  Novella1  of  Justinian. 
At  his  table  there  was  always  the  reading  of  the  Gospel."  Odo 
himself,  when  he  became  a  monk,  possessed  a  library  of  a  hundred 
volumes. 

In  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  successive  popes  rivalled 
each  other  in  showering  privileges  upon  Cluny.  Calixtus  II., 
having  nothing  further  to  bestow,  took  his  own  ring  from  his  finger 
and  placed  it  on  that  of  the  abbot,  declaring  that  for  the  future  the 
abbot  of  Cluny  should  be  ex  officio  a  Boman  cardinal,  and  that  the 
Cluniacs  should  have  the  priviledge  of  continuing  to  celebrate  mass, 
if  ever  the  kingdom  should  be  placed  under  an  Interdict.  The 
monastery  besides  coined  money  like  a  sovereign  State,  and  Louis 
VI.  styled  it  "  the  noblest  member  of  his  kingdom." 

In  1122  Peter  of  Montvoissier  was  chosen  abbot.  "When  I  was 
raised  to  the  office,"  he  wrote,  "  I  found  a  large  monastery,  religious 
and  famous,  but  with  a  very  insufficient  revenue ;  300  monks  or 
more,  and  provision  for  only  one  hundred,  crowds  of  guests,  and 
always  an  infinite  number  of  poor."  2  Peter  was  a  man  of  a  wise 
and  charitable  spirit.8  To  a  recluse  he  wrote  :  "  Thy  outward 
separation  from  the  world  will  avail  thee  nothing  without  the  only 
firm  bulwark  against  besetting  sins  within  the  soul — the  Saviour. 
By  union  with  Him  and  by  following  Him  in  his  sufferings,  thou 
wilt  be  safe  against  the  attacks  of  all  thy  enemies."  And  to  a 
prior:  "  Of  what  avail  is  all  the  fasting  in  the  world  to  him  who 
has  no  love  ?  Abstain  if  thou  wilt  from  flesh  and  from  fish ;  torture 
thy  body,  give  no  sleep  to  thy  eyes ;  spend  the  night  in  vigils  and 

1  This  was  the  title  of  the  latest  portion  of  the  great  body  of  law  compiled 
in  the  reign  of  Justinian. 

2  Seventeen  thousand  poor  were  annually  relieved  at  the  gates. 

3  Like  Chrysostom  and  Augustine,  and  many  other  great  men  in  the  Church, 
he  had  enjoyed  the  inestimable  blessing  of  a  pious  mother. 


PETEB   THE   VENERABLE.  335 

the  day  in  toil ;  still  willing  or  unwilling  thou  must  hear  the 
Apostle  :  •  And  if  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned  but  have  not  charity 
it  profiteth  me  nothing.' "  Monk  though  he  was,  he  had  no  sym- 
pathy with  that  immolation  of  the  natural  affections  which  was 
required  by  the  rules  of  Basil  and  of  Benedict.  "  The  good  man," 
he  says,  writing  to  a  monk,  "  ought  not  to  fly  from  his  kinsmen  and 
friends  for  fear  of  contamination ;  he  should  seek  to  win  them  by 
wholesome  admonitions.  Instead  of  being  afraid  of  their  earthly 
affections,  he  should  communicate  to  them  his  own  heavenly  love. 
It  is,"  he  adds,  "in  the  recesses  of  the  heart  alone  that  the  true 
despiser  of  the  world  finds  the  true  solitude,  where  no  stranger 
enters,  where  without  audible  utterance  is  heard  the  gentle  voice  of 
the  Master  discoursing  with  us."  To  one  of  a  kindred  mind  with 
himself  he  says  :  "  When  I  would  search  with  thee  into  the  mys- 
teries of  Scripture,  thou  wast  always  ready  to  join  me  with  the 
greatest  delight.  When  I  would  converse  with  thee  on  worldly 
science  (always  under  the  guidance  of  divine  grace),  I  found  in  thee 
a  ready  mind  and  an  acute  discernment.  0,  how  often,  with  the 
doors  shut,  and  Him  alone  for  our  witness  who  is  never  absent 
when  discourse  turns  upon  Himself,  have  we  held  solemn  converse, 
on  the  hardness  of  man's  heart,  the  entanglements  of  sin,  the  mani- 
fold snares  of  wicked  spirits,  the  economy  of  salvation  by  the  incar- 
nation and  sufferings  of  the  Son  of  God,  the  dreadful  day  of  the 
last  judgment."  His  charity  became  almost  proverbial.  He  de- 
clined to  express  an  opinion  regarding  a  deceased  heretic,  lest  he 
should  bring  a  false  accusation  against  a  dead  man. 

Hence  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  Peter,  whilst  he  laboured 
for  the  restoration  of  good  manners  and  a  holy  life,  made  no  effort 
to  restore  the  severe  rule  of  Benedict.  This  was  reserved  for  the 
founders  of  two  new  religious  houses  which  were  just  then  coming 
into  note,  Citeaux  and  Clairvaux.  Between  the  great  Bernard, 
who  rendered  both  these  monasteries  illustrious,  and  whose  history 
is  presently  to  be  related,  and  Peter,  there  existed  indeed  a  close 
and  life-long  friendship  ;  but  it  was  scarcely  possible  that  the  in- 
dulgence of  relaxed  discipline  on  the  one  side,  and  the  determination 
to  return  to  primitive  austerity  on  the  other,  should  not  sooner  or 
later  bring  them  into  collision. 

An  occasion  of  difference  between  the  convents  of  Cluny  and 
Clairvaux  had  arisen  before  Peter  became  abbot.  Bernard,  who 
quitted  Citeaux  for  Clairvaux  in  1115,  took  with  him  a  young  kins- 
man, noble  and  wealthy,  named  Robert,  for  whom  he  had  a  pater- 
nal affection.  The  young  man  however  soon  grew  restless  under 
the  severe  and  unrelenting  discipline  to  which  he  was  subjected, 


886  WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST. 

and  availed  himself  of  the  first  opportunity  to  leave.  His  parents- 
in  his  childhood  had  promised  him  to  Cluny,  and  the  ahbot  Pontius 
was  unwilling  to  lose  so  valuable  a  possession.  Hearing  probably 
tbat  Eobert  sighed  for  deliverance,  he  sent  his  prior  to  bring  him 
away.  In  spite  of  his  own  vow  and  of  Bernard's  remonstrances 
the  youth  left  Clairvaux,  and  accompanied  the  prior  to  Cluny.  The 
matter  was  considered  so  important  as  to  be  referred  to  the  pope, 
who  affirmed  the  claim  of  the  elder  monastery.  In  the  hope  of 
moving  him  to  a  voluntary  return,  Bernard  wrote  Robert  a  letter 
of  four  folio  pages,  full  of  alternate  wrath  and  tenderness.  He  now 
reproves  the  youth  as  a  prodigal,  gone  away  to  indulge  in  riotous 
living,  and  now  chides  himself  for  the  harsh  enforcement  of  austeri- 
ties, too  severe  for  a  lad  brought  up  in  the  softness  of  secular  life. 
The  prior  who  had  enticed  Robert  away  comes  in  for  a  large  share 
of  Bernard's  wrath.  Bernard's  entreaties  were  in  vain  so  long  as 
Pontius  ruled  ;  but  when  Peter  succeeded  to  the  abbacy  he  gratified 
his  friend  by  sending  back  the  young  kinsman,  who  expiated  his 
six  years  of  truant  indulgence  by  more  than  sixty  of  submission  to 
the  Cistercian  rule. 

At  length  the  dissension  between  the  two  abbeys,  which  for  some 
years  had  been  smouldering,  burst  forth  into  a  flame.  The  Cluniacs 
spoke  of  the  Cistercians  as  upstart  Pharisees,  whilst  these  denounced 
the  former  as  apostates..  In  1125  Bernard,  urged  by  the  abbot  of 
St.  Thierry,  seized  the  pen,  and  in  a  long  and  eloquent  letter  which 
he  called  his  Apology,  enumerated  the  abuses  which  had  crept  into 
the  monastic  life.1  They  dispense  (he  says)  with  the  year's  novi- 
tiate, and  receive  back  renegades  as  often  as  they  choose  to  come. 
They  have  discontinued  the  regular  fasts,  retaining  only  a  shadow 
of  them,  and  this  more  from  shame  towards  man  than  from  the 
fear  of  God.  They  have  come  to  despise  manual  labour  ;  neither 
the  authority  of  Scripture  nor  their  vow  being  able  to  withdraw 
from  their  bosom  the  hands  become  delicate  through  idleness.  The 
pious  practices  of  pouring  water  on  the  hands  of  the  guests,  washing 
their  feet  and  the  like,  have  disappeared.  They  possess  parish 
churches,  receive  first-fruits  and  tithes,  and  claim  for  their  own, 
towns,  villages,  peasants,  tolls  and  taxes.  And  when  such  unlaw- 
ful revenues  are  challenged  they  defend  them  at  law,  so  that  monks 
are  seen  conducting  causes,  and  thus  in  heart  turning  back  to 
Egypt  and  Sodom. 

Bernard  then  proceeds  to  the  personal  life  of  the  brethren,  upon 

1  He  does  not  confine  his  censure  to  Cluny,  but  extends  it  to  the  rich  and 
luxurious  monasteries  in  general. 


BERNARD  ON  THE  LUXURIES  OF  THE  CLOISTER.         887 

which  theme  his  words  are  vehement.  "  I  am  astonished  to  see 
among  monks  such  intemperance  in  eating,  in  drinking,  in  clothes, 
in  bed-covering,  in  horse-trappings,  in  buildings.  ...  At  meals  no 
man  asks  his  neighbour  for  the  heavenly  bread ;  there  is  no  con- 
versation concerning  the  Scriptures,  none  concerning  the  salvation 
of  souls ;  but  small  talk,  laughter,  and  idle  words  fill  the  air.  And 
while  the  ear  is  tickled  with  gossip  and  news,  the  palate  is  stimu- 
lated by  dainties  ;  dish  after  dish  is  set  on  table,  and  to  make  up 
for  the  small  privation  of  meat  a  double  supply  of  fish  is  provided. 
"Who  can  say,  to  speak  of  nothing  else,  in  how  many  forms  eggs  are 
cooked  ?  The  dishes  are  even  made  to  charm  the  eye  as  well  as  the 
taste  ;  and  although  the  stomach  complains  that  it  is  full,  curiosity 
is  still  excited.  As  for  wine,  directly  we  become  monks  we  seem  to 
be  afflicted  with  weak  stomachs,  and  set  ourselves  in  a  praiseworthy 
manner  to  follow  the  weighty  advice  of  the  apostle  and  take  a  little 
wine ;  but  for  some  unexplained  reason  the  qualification  of  a  little 
is  disregarded.  You  may  see  a  cup  half  full  carried  three  or  four 
times  backwards  and  forwards,  in  order  that  out  of  several  wines 
smelled  and  sipped  the  most  potent  may  be  selected.  Have  we  not 
heard  that  in  some  monasteries  on  great  festivals  the  wines  are 
mixed  with  honey  and  powdered  with  spices  ?  Is  this  too  for  our 
stomach's  sake  and  our  often  infirmities  ?  .  .  .  I  have  heard  that 
strong  hearty  young  men  are  accustomed  to  place  themselves  in 
the  infirmary  for  the  purpose  of  regaling  on  those  viands  which  the 
rule  allows  only  to  the  utterly  debilitated.  In  order  to  distinguish 
these  invalid  monks  they  carry  a  stick  in  their  hands,  a  most  neces- 
sary token ! " 

Next  as  to  clothing  and  style  of  living.  "  This  habit  of  ours, 
formerly  a  sign  of  humility,  is  by  the  monks  of  our  day  turned  into 
an  occasion  of  pride.  The  knight's  cloak  and  the  monk's  cowl  are 
cut  from  the  same  piece  of  cloth.  When  you  want  to  buy  a  cowl, 
you  rush  through  the  towns,  visit  the  markets  and  fairs,  dive  into 
the  merchants'  houses,  turn  over  their  goods,  undo  their  bundles, 
feel  the  cloth  with  your  fingers,  hold  it  to  your  eyes  or  to  the  sun, 
and  if  anything  coarse  or  faded  appears  you  reject  it.  .  .  .  What 
kind  of  humility  is  it  in  an  abbot  to  take  his  progress  with  a  retinue 
of  hairy  men  ?  I  have  seen  one  with  sixty  horses  in  his  train. 
You  would  think  them  to  be  not  fathers  of  monasteries  but  lords  of 
castles,  not  shepherds  of  souls  but  princes  of  provinces.  Then 
there  is  the  baggage, — table-cloths,  cups  and  basins,  candlesticks, 
ornaments  of  the  beds.  My  lord  abbot  cannot  go  more  than  four 
leagues  from  home  without  taking  all  his  furniture  with  him,  as  if 
he  were  bound  for  the  wars  or  had  to  traverse  a  desert.    Is  it  quite 

z 


838  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

impossible  to  wash  one's  hands  in  and  drink  from  the  same  vessel  ? 
Will  your  candle  burn  nowhere  but  in  that  golden  or  silver  candle- 
stick of  yours  ?  Is  sleep  impossible  except  upon  a  variegated  mat- 
tress or  under  a  foreign  coverlet  ?  Could  not  the  same  servant 
harness  the  mule,  wait  at  dinner,  and  make  the  bed  ?  If  such  a 
multitude  of  men  and  horses  is  necessary,  why  not  carry  with  us 
our  provisions,  and  thus  relieve  from  an  intolerable  imposition 
those  who  entertain  us  ?" 

Bernard  has  something  to  say  of  the  grand  and  decorated 
churches  of  which  that  of  Cluny  was  one  of  the  most  magnificent.1 
On  this  subject  he  manifests  a  degree  of  enlightenment  beyond  his 
age,  regarding  art  much  in  the  same  aspect  as  that  presented  in  a 
previous  chapter,  namely,  as  a  hindrance  to  true  worship.2  He 
censures  the  vast  height  of  the  roof,  the  inordinate  length  and 
superfluous  width  of  the  building,  costly  polishing  and  strange 
designs  which,  by  attracting  the  eyes  of  the  worshipper,  hinder  the 
soul's  devotion  ;  these  things,  he  says,  remind  him  of  the  old  Jewish 
ritual.  "  By  the  sight  of  such  costly  vanities  men  are  prompted  to 
make  gifts  to  the  church  rather  than  to  pray  there.  The  beautiful 
picture  of  some  saint  is  exhibited — the  brighter  the  colours,  the 
greater  the  sanctity — and  men  run  to  kiss  it.  The  chandeliers 
hanging  from  the  roof,  and  the  tall  trees  of  brass  in  the  place  of 
candlesticks,  fashioned  with  wonderful  skill,  are  all  studied  with 
precious  stones,  glittering  almost  as  bright  as  the  lights  themselves. 
What  do  you  suppose  is  the  object  of  all  this  ?  The  repentance  of 
the  contrite,  or  the  admiration  of  the  beholders  ?  0  vanity  of 
vanities !  The  church's  walls  are  resplendent,  but  the  poor  are  not 
there.  The  curious  find  wherewith  to  amuse  themselves,  but  the 
wretched  find  no  consolation  in  their  misery.  .  .  .  Again,  in  the 
cloisters,  what  is  the  meaning  of  those  ridiculous  monsters,  of  that 
deformed  beauty,  that  beautiful  deformity,  before  the  very  eyes  of 
the  brethren  as  they  read  ?  What  are  unclean  monkeys  there  for, 
or  ferocious  lions,  or  monstrous  centaurs,  or  soldiers  or  huntsmen  ? 
Such  an  endless  variety  of  forms  appears  everywhere,  that  it  is 
more  pleasant  to  read  in  the  stone-work  than  in  books,  to  spend 
the  day  in  admiring  these  oddities  than  in  meditating  on  the  Divine 
law.  For  God's  sake,  if  we  are  not  ashamed  of  these  absurdities, 
why  at  least  do  we  not  grieve  at  the  cost  of  them  ?" 

1  This  church,  which  at  the  time  of  Bernard's  Apology  had  been  thirty-five 
years  in  building,  was  finished  in  1130.  It  was  the  wonder  of  Christendom.  It 
was  580  feet  long  and  120  wide,  was  supported  by  sixty-eight  massive  columns, 
and  lighted  by  300  windows. 

2  Ante,  p.  227. 


BERNARD  AND  PETER'S  BROTHERLY  CORRESPONDENCE.      839 

To  all  these  charges  Peter  makes  but  a  feeble  defence.  His  case 
is  perhaps  strongest  on  the  possession  of  the  lands  and  villages 
which  had  been  lavishly  conferred  by  former  lords  upon  the  abbey. 
Land  in  the  hands  of  the  monks  was  generally  better  administered 
than  by  lay  owners.  Secular  masters  too  often  imposed  hard  ser- 
vice upon  their  serfs  and  treated  them  as  mere  chattels,  whilst  the 
rule  of  the  monks  was  light  and  considerate;  they  regarded  the 
peasants,  not  as  slaves,  but  as  brothers,  and  maintained  them  when 
they  fell  into  sickness  and  indigence.  On  the  question  of  labour 
Peter  makes  a  very  lame  defence.  "How,"  he  piteously  asks, 
"  are  a  languid  set  of  men,  barely  kept  alive  on  their  vegetable  diet, 
to  bear  labour  in  the  field,  exposed  to  heat,  rain  and  cold,  which 
peasants  and  ploughmen  find  it  hard  to  endure  ?  This  is  not  only 
impossible,  but  it  would  be  indecent.  Does  it  not  appear  most  in- 
decent that  monks,  who  are  to  abide  in  the  cloister  and  devote 
themselves  intensely  to  silence,  prayer,  reading  and  meditation, 
should  put  aside  these  things  for  vulgar  rustic  labour." 

But  Peter  and  Bernard  knew  one  another's  worth  ;  their  souls 
were  made  for  mutual  sympathy ;  and  after  this  temporary  ruffle 
their  correspondence  was  continued  in  the  most  brotherly  spirit. 
Their  epistles  abound  in  playful  and  affectionate  sallies,  and  are  a 
fine  specimen  of  medieval  letter-writing.  We  must  find  space  for 
a  few  sentences.  Peter  writes  to  Bernard  : — "  I  am  thankful  to  be 
so  excellently  well  placed,  being  as  thou  art  pleased  to  write,  an 
actual  inmate  of  thyself,  so  that  if  I  should  become  cold  I  shall  un- 
doubtedly soon  grow  warm  again,  thus  cherished  by  thy  heart  of 
charity.  .  .  .  The  messenger  coming  to  Cluny,  and  not  finding  me, 
neither  brought  on  nor  forwarded  thy  letter,  but  left  it  there.  At 
length  I  got  it  from  the  sub-prior,  to  whom  it  had  been  entrusted. 
Immediately  my  soul  was  drawn  out,  so  drawn  out  that  I  did  what 
I  never  remember  to  have  done,  except  in  reverence  to  the  Holy 
Scriptures  ;  as  soon  as  I  had  read  thy  letter,  I  kissed  it.  And  that 
I  might  excite  a  greater  love  for  thee,  I  read  it  over  again  to  those 
around  me." 

Bernard  to  Peter  : — "  I  wish  I  could  send  thee  my  mind  just  as  I 
send  thee  this  letter.  Thou  wouldst,  I  am  sure,  read  most  clearly 
what  the  finger  of  God  has  written  on  my  heart,  has  impressed  on 
my  marrow,  of  love  to  thee.  ...  I  say  this  because  my  Nicholas 1 
(aye,  and  thine  too),  being  vastly  moved  in  spirit  himself,  has 
moved  me,  affirming  that  he  saw  a  letter  from  me  addressed  to 
thee,  which  contained  some  unkind  expressions.     Believe  one  who 

1  His  secretary. 


840  WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST. 

loves  thee,  that  there  neither  rose  in  my  heart  nor  issued  from  my 
lips  anything  which  could  offend  the  ears  of  thy  blessedness.  The 
fault  is  owing  to  the  multitude  of  business ;  so  that  my  scribes  do 
not  well  remember  what  I  tell  them.  They  sharpen  their  style  too 
much,  and  it  is  out  of  my  power  to  look  over  what  I  have  ordered 
to  be  written."  Again  :  "  I  saw  thy  letter,  and  flew  to  shut  myself 
up  with  that  Nicholas  whom  thy  soul  loveth.  I  read  over  and  over 
again  the  sweetness  that  flowed  from  it.  I  grieved  that  I  was  not 
able  to  answer  according  to  my  feelings,  because  the  evil  of  the  day 
called  me  away.  For  a  vast  multitude,  out  of  almost  every  nation 
under  heaven,  had  assembled.  It  was  my  place  to  answer  every 
one  ;  because  for  my  sins  I  was  born  into  the  world  that  I  might  be 
confounded  with  many  and  multifarious  anxieties." 

Both  Bernard  and  Peter  reposed  confidence  in  this  secretary, 
Nicholas,  who  was  a  very  active  servant,  wrote  pious  letters,  and 
was  "  brimful  of  sacred  and  philosophical  learning."  He  belonged 
originally  to  Cluny  and  it  was  Peter's  desire  to  have  him  again. 
"  When  thy  holiness  was  at  Cluny,"  so  writes  Peter,  "  thou  asked, 
•  What  dost  thou  want  with  Nicholas  ? '  I  answered,  '  It  is  no  great 
matter.'  But  I  confess  to  thee,  dearest  friend,  they  were  the  words 
of  wounded  feeling  rather  than  of  truth.  I  had  one  thing  in  my 
heart  and  another  on  my  tongue.  What  my  mind  tacitly  suggested 
was,  '  Why  repeat  thy  wishes  so  often ;  as  thou  hast  been  denied 
thy  request  twice  before,  thou  mayest  perhaps  now  be  denied  a 
third  time.'  Let  my  confession -avail  me — for  what  ?  That  thou 
shouldst  send  Nicholas,  and  not  only  now,  but  whenever  I  shall  ask 
for  him." 

The  truth  is,  however,  that  Nicholas  was  unworthy  the  con- 
fidence of  either.  Writing  some  time  afterwards  to  pope  Eugenius 
III.,  Bernard  says :  "  We  have  been  in  peril  from  false  brethren, 
and  many  forged  letters  under  counterfeits  of  our  seals  have  gone 
forth.  Thus  compelled,  I  have  laid  aside  that  seal,  and  use  the 
new  one  which  thou  seest,  containing  both  a  figure  of  me  and  my 
name."  And  later:  "That  Nicholas  has  gone  forth  from  us,  be- 
cause he  was  not  of  us  ;  and  he  has  gone  out,  too,  leaving  very 
dirty  footmarks  behind.  I  had  seen  through  the  man  a  long  time, 
but  I  waited  in  the  expectation  that  either  God  would  convert  him, 
or  that  like  Judas  he  would  betray  himself;  and  this  has  happened. 
Besides  books  and  specie  in  gold  and  silver,  there  were  found  upon 
him  three  seals — his  own,  the  prior's,  and  one  of  mine,  and  that 
not  the  old  but  the  new  one,  which  I  had  been  forced  by  his  tricks 
and  rogueries  to  alter.     Who  can  say  to  how  many  persons  he 


bernabd's  seal.  341 

has  written  just  what  he  pleased,  in  my  name,  without  my  know- 
ledge?" 

We  give  one  more  short  paragraph  from  Peter's  correspondence, 
being  part  of  a  letter  written  to  his  own  notary,  who  was  devoting 


Bernard's  Seal ;  size  of  the  original.  The  Seal  is  of  brass,  and  represents  Ber- 
nard in  his  monkish  dress,  with  shaven  hair  and  chin,  seated  on  a  folding  chair, 
the  arms  of  which  terminate  in  a  serpent's  head.  In  one  hand  he  holds  a 
crozier ;  in  the  other,  what  has  been  taken  for  a  book  or  a  church-door.  The 
incription  is :  |J<  Sigillum  :  Bernakdi  :  Abbatis  :  Clarevall.  The  absence 
of  the  letter  S  (Sancti)  before  Bebnardi  is  a  strong  proof  of  genuineness ; 
Bernard  was  canonized  a  few  years  after  his  death. 

himself  to  the  study  of  the  classics.  Ever  since  the  time  of  Ter- 
tullian  and  Clement  of  Alexandria,  the  use  of  classic  literature  had 
been  a  subject  of  contention  in  the  Church.  Peter  ranged  himself 
on  the  prohibitory  side  ;  but  although  his  sentence  and  counsel 
cannot  be  endorsed,  the  Christ-like  spirit  which  inspired  his  pen  is 
a  worthy  example  for  every  student.  "  Truth,  looking  from  heaven, 
and  compassionating  the  misery  of  mortals,  and  taking  the  likeness 
of  sinful  flesh,  cries :  '  Come  unto  Me  all  ye  tbat  labour  and  are 
heavy-laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest.'  .  .  .  See  now,  without  the 
study  of  Plato,  or  the  subtleties  of  Aristotle,  the  place  and  the  way 
of  happiness  are  discovered.  Let  man  quit  the  teacher's  chair,  for 
the  God-man  sits  down  to  teach,  and  says  :  '  Blessed  are  the  poor 
in  spirit,  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven.'  Why  dost  thou  seek 
through  thousands  of  words  and  multiplied  labours  what  thou 
mayest  obtain  in  plain  language  and  with  little  labour  ?  Why  dost 
thou  recite  with  the  comedians,  lament  with  the  tragedians,  deceive 
with  the  poets,  and  be  deceived  with  the  philosophers  ?  " 

After  the  death  of  Peter  the  Venerable,  Cluny  lost  its  lustre.  It 
continued  to  be  learned,  wealthy  and  powerful,  but  its  spiritual 
lamp  was  dimmed.  The  Cluniacs  excelled  in  the  arts  of  calli- 
graphy and  illumination,  and  from  the  twelfth  century,  owing  to 


342  WITNESSES    FOR    CfiRIST. 

their  labours  and  those  of  the  Cistercian  and  Carthusian  com- 
munities, there  was  a  vast  increase  in  the  number  of  books.  Cluny 
itself  possessed  a  rich  library  of  Greek  and  Latin  authors. 

In  1245,  when  Pope  Innocent  IV.  was  a  fugitive  in  France,  and 
the  prelates  and  abbots  rallied  round  him,  the  prior  of  Cluny  pre- 
sented him  with  eighty  palfreys  splendidly  caparisoned,  besides  a 
large  sum  of  money,  and  a  palfrey  each  for  the  twelve  cardinals ; 
and  in  return  he  was  appointed  by  the  pope  his  master  of  the 
horse. 

From  this  time  we  hear  but  little  of  Cluny  until  the  Revolution. 
At  the  suppression  of  the  monasteries,  the  monks  were  driven  out 
and  the  destruction  of  the  buildings  was  decreed  by  the  Republic. 
The  mayor  of  Cluny,  anxious  to  save  so  magnificent  a  monument, 
went  himself  to  Paris  and  petitioned  that  it  might  be  converted 
into  a  hospital  for  invalid  soldiers.  But  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Commune,  eager  to  make  money  of  the  materials  and  the  site,  pre- 
sented a  remonstrance,  alleging  that  the  vicinity  of  the  military 
veterans  would  corrupt  the  morals  of  the  town.  The  remonstrance 
prevailed.  The  church  was  first  demolished  ;  the  south  bell-tower 
and  a  chapel  enclosing  a  tomb,  supposed  to  be  that  of  Peter  the 
Venerable,  alone  being  left :  the  bells  were  melted  into  cannon  for 
the  Republican  armies.  The  abbey  walls  offered  so  formidable  a 
resistance  that  a  detachment  of  troops  was  called  in  to  assist  in  the 
work  of  destruction.  "  When  this  was  accomplished,  when  the  last 
offending  buttress  had  been  battered  down,  the  people  made  a  pile 
of  the  paintings,  statues  of  wood,  and  carved  work,  and  setting  fire 
to  them  in  the  public  square,  celebrated  their  triumph  by  dancing 
round  with  yells  and  shouting.  Some  years  afterwards,  on  his  way 
to  assume  the  iron  crown  of  Lombardy,  Napoleon  passed  through 
the  department.  At  a  town  where  he  stopped  to  change  horses,  he 
was  met  by  a  deputation  from  the  commune  with  a  request  that  he 
would  honour  them  by  taking  Cluny  in  his  route.  '  Begone  1 '  was 
the  stern  reply.  '  You  are  a  race  of  Vandals  ;  you  have  suffered 
your  grand  and  beautiful  church  to  be  sold  and  destroyed  ;  I  shall 
not  visit  Cluny.'" 

What  remains  of  the  abbey,  besides  the  church  itself,  has  been 
converted  into  an  Ecole  normale  professionnelle.  The  library  has 
been  taken  to  Paris,  but  a  few  relics  are  still  preserved  on  the  spot, 
e.g.,  the  long  crook  with  which  the  monks  used  to  set  apart  the 
abbot's  tenth  sheaf  in  the  fields ;  a  massive  chest  and  escritoire, 
and  some  weighty  coffers  of  oak,  which  were  the  abbot's  "port* 
manteaux"  when  he  travelled.  The  town  of  Cluny  grew  up  round 
the  great  ecclesiastical  edifice.     Its  streets  are  narrow  and  winding, 


THE   LIBRARY  AND   SCRIPTORIUM.  843 

and  at  the  present  time  ill-kept.  They  abound  in  quaint  houses, 
some  dating  from  the  twelfth  century. 

Amongst  the  numerous  apartments  and  offices  of  a  monastery, 
the  library  and  scriptorium  held  an  important  place.  The  formation 
of  a  library  at  that  day  was  a  great  undertaking.  Books  were  few, 
for  parchment  was  dear,  and  writing  was  a  rare  art,  the  more  so  as 
the  language  in  which  it  was  practised  was  almost  exclusively  Latin. 
There  was  but  little  trade  in  books,  at  least  north  of  the  Alps. 
They  were  to  be  purchased  chiefly  at  certain  Italian  monasteries, 
in  which  manuscripts  were  multiplied  for  sale.  It  was  usual  for 
neighbouring  convents  to  lend  one  another  their  manuscripts  to  be 
copied  :  sometimes  these  were  sent  long  distances  for  this  purpose. 
Peter,  abbot  of  Cluny,  writing  to  the  prior  of  Chartreuse,  tells  him 
that  he  had  sent  him  the  lives  of  Gregory  Nazianzen  and  Chry- 
sostom,  with  Ambrose's  treatise  Against  Symmachvs.  He  had  not 
sent  Hilary  On  the  Psalms,  because  there  was  in  his  copy  the 
same  defect  as  in  the  prior's.  Prosper  Against  Cassianus  he  did 
not  possess,  but  had  sent  into  Aquitaine  for  it.  He  begs  the  prior 
to  let  him  have  the  greater  volume  of  Augustine,  containing  his 
correspondence  with  Jerome,  because  a  great  part  of  his  own  copy, 
whilst  lying  at  one  of  the  cells,  had  been  eaten  by  a  bear  !  Some- 
times books  were  lent  on  the  condition  that  a  copy  should  be  re- 
turned with  the  volume. 

The  scriptorium,  at  first  a  small  cell,  gradually  grew,  in  the 
larger  monasteries,  to  be  a  spacious  chamber,  where  many  writers 
were  employed  who  daily  sat  down  to  their  work  in  a  very  business- 
like manner.  The  abbot  of  St.  Martin's  at  Tournay  used  to  exult 
in  "  the  number  of  writers  the  Lord  had  given  him."  In  his 
scriptorium  (not  one  of  the  largest)  "  a  dozen  young  monks  were 
to  be  seen,  seated  in  perfect  silence,  at  writing  tables  furnished 
with  every  appliance.  Here  were  transcribed  all  Jerome's  com- 
mentaries on  the  prophets,  all  the  works  of  Pope  Gregory  the  Great, 
and  whatever  the  abbot  could  lays  his  hands  upon,  of  Augustine, 
Ambrose,  Isidore,  Bede  and  Anselm."  Nor  was  the  work  of  the 
transcriber  always  confined  to  men.  Diemudis,  a  nun  of  Wesso- 
brunn  in  Bavaria,  was  very  skilful  in  the  art.  Besides  office  books 
for  the  Church  service,  she  engrossed  "in  a  most  beautiful  cha- 
racter" copies  of  the  Gospels  and  Epistles,  an  entire  Bible  in  two 
volumes,  and  another  in  three,  with  portions  of  the  works  of  many 
of  the  Fathers. 

The  work  of  the  transcriber  was  laborious.  Some  have  left  furtive 
side-notes  by  which  we  may  see  what  was  passing  in  their  minds. 
One  prays  his  patron  saint  to  deliver  him  from  his  toil ;  another 


844  WITNESSES    FOE    CHEIST. 

longs  to  be  off  from  his  ink  that  he  may  console  himself  with  a  cup 
of  wine ;  a  third  gives  thanks  that  the  day  is  drawing  to  a  close. 
More  devout  is  the  prayer  in  a  very  early  French  Visigothic  manu- 
script (eighth  century) :  "  Vouchsafe,  0  Lord,  to  bless  this  scrip- 
torium of  thy  servants,  and  all  who  labour  therein  ;  that  whatso- 
ever sacred  writings  shall  be  here  written  or  read,  may  be  received 
with  understanding,  and  bear  good  fruit."  Very  often  we  meet 
also  with  a  solemn  imprecation,  sometimes  in  verse,  on  the  head  of 
any  miscreant  who  should  abstract  the  volume.  The  cloister  rule 
of  silence  gave  rise  to  a  language  of  signs.  In  the  library  the  sign 
for  a  book  was  to  move  the  hand  as  if  turning  over  the  leaves,  to 
which  was  added  a  particular  sign  for  the  Missal,  Gospels,  Epistles, 
Psalms,  the  Rule,  and  so  on.  When  the  monk  wanted  a  heathen 
author  he  was  to  scratch  his  ear  like  a  dog. 

Every  great  house  had  its  peculiar  style  of  writing,  so  that  in 
many  cases  the  parentage  of  a  given  manuscript  is  easy  to  be  de- 
termined. The  several  houses  vied  with  one  another  in  the  beauty 
of  their  calligraphy  and  the  splendour  of  their  capital  letters,  which 
gleamed  with  gold,  silver,  and  vermilion.  These  illuminated  copies 
were  show-books,  to  be  brought  out  on  high  festival  days. 


CHAPTER    II. 

Monastic  Life  in  the  Middle  Ages  (continued). —  CIteaux. 

From  Cluny  we  must  travel  some  leagues  in  a  north-easterly  direc- 
tion, still  in  Burgundy,  to  note  the  foundation  of  a  rival  house, 
which  was  to  eclipse  that  renowned  convent,  if  not  in  privileges  and 
wealth,  yet  in  its  influence  on  the  religious  life  of  Christendom. 
This  was  Citeaux  (in  Latin,  Cistercium),  twelve  miles  south  of 
Dijon,  then  a  wilderness  covered  with  woods  and  briars. 

Two  brothers  of  the  noble  house  of  Molesme  (a  castle  south-east 
of  Troyes)  were  riding  through  a  forest  on  their  way  to  a  tourna- 
ment. Suddenly  each  was  seized  with  the  temptation  to  murder 
the  other,  and  thus  secure  the  whole  of  their  paternal  inheritance. 
They  both  wrestled  with  the  dark  phantom,  and  mastered  it.  Some 
years  afterwards  they  passed  together  again  along  the  same  dreary 
road,  and  the  recollection  of  their  former  temptation  came  back  to 
them.  They  shuddered  at  the  fearful  power  of  the  enemy,  hastened 
to  confess  themselves  to  a  hermit,  and  then  disclosed  to  each  other 
what  had  been  their  secret  thoughts.     With  one  accord  they  re* 


FOUNDATION   OF   CITEAUX.  345 

solved  to  abandon  a  world  which  bred  such  dreadful  suggestions, 
and  devote  themselves  to  God.  Accordingly  they  gathered  around 
thern  in  the  forest  of  Colan,  near  the  family  estate,  a  small  com- 
munity which  grew  into  a  monastery,  one  of  the  brothers,  Kobert, 
being  made  the  first  abbot.     It  was  affiliated  to  Cluny. 

The  course  of  the  new  monastery  did  not  run  smooth.  Eobert 
was  a  zealous  disciplinarian  ;  the  major  part  of  the  monks  were  lax 
and  ungovernable.  The  more  earnest  members  of  the  community, 
weary  of  seeing  the  rules  of  the  order  perpetually  disregarded,  asked 
permission  of  the  abbot  to  withdraw  to  some  other  place  where  they 
might  serve  God  without  distraction.  Eobert  not  only  gave  them 
permission,  but  declared  that  he  would  himself  accompany  them. 
Having  obtained  the  sanction  of  the  papal  legate,  he  himself  with 
his  prior,  and  with  Stephen  Harding  an  Englishman,  and  eighteen 
other  monks,  left  Molesme  (a.d.  1098)  to  seek,  as  Milman  expresses 
it,  "a  more  complete  solitude,  a  more  obstinate  wilderness  to  tame, 
more  sense-subduing  poverty,  more  intense  mortification."  Such 
a  spot  they  found  at  Citeaux. 

It  was  not  the  object  of  this  little  band  to  found  a  new  order  of 
monks,  but  rather,  as  had  been  the  case  at  Cluny,  to  recall  the 
monastic  life  to  the  original  spirit  and  strict  rule  of  Benedict.1 
Fuller  quaintly  puts  the  case  :  "  As  mercers,  when  their  old  stuffes 
begin  to  tire  in  sale,  refresh  them  with  new  names  to  make  them 
more  vendible ;  so,  when  the  Benedictines  waxed  stale  in  the 
world,  the  same  order  was  set  forth  in  a  new  edition,  corrected  and 
amended  under  the  names,  first  of  Cluniacs  : — these  were  Bene- 
dictines sifted  through  a  finer  search,  with  some  additionals  invented 
and  imposed  upon  them  by  Odo,  abbot  of  Cluny  ;  secondly  Cister- 
cians, so  called  from  one  Eobert,  living  in  Cistercium  in  Burgundy 
aforesaid;  he  the  second  time  refined  the  drossy  Benedictines."2 

It  was  perhaps  in  order  to  signify  more  plainly  his  intention,  that  they 
changed  the  colour  of  their  garments  from  black  to  white. 

2  Citeaux  was  not  the  only  attempt  at  reformation  in  this  period  on  the  part 
of  those  who  aimed  only  at  the  correction  of  abuses,  unconscious  that  the 
foundations  themselves  were  out  of  course.  A  pious  and  learned  ecclesiastic 
named  Bruno,  shocked  at  the  profanation  of  holy  things  which  he  daily  wit- 
nessed in  the  archbishopric  of  Cologne,  sought  refuge  in  a  life  of  the  strictest 
asceticism.  With  twelve  companions,  about  the  year  1084,  he  settled  himself 
down  in  the  wild  valley  of  Chartreux  (Carthusium)  not  far  from  Grenoble, 
founding  the  abbey  since  known  as  La  Grande  Chartreuse,  where  they  spent 
their  day  in  silence,  devotional  exercises,  study,  and  manual  labour.  They 
employed  their  leisure  hours  in  transcribing  manuscripts.  The  Carthusians 
enjoyed  the  rare  merit  of  long  maintaining  unaltered  their  strict  mode  of  living 
and  contemplative  habits,  even  when  their  order  had  become  famous  and  their 
monasteries  richly  endowed. 


846  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

"  These  monks  of  Citeaux,"  saysMorison,  describing  their  habits  in 
the  early  days,  "  though  very  wonderful,  do  not  tempt  one  to  join. 
They  actually  keep  the  whole  of  St.  Benedict's  rule  literally,  not 
conventionally  and  with  large  allowances,  as  is  usual  [even]  in  the 
strictest  houses.  They  eat  but  one  meal  a  day,  and  have  risen 
twelve  hours  from  their  hard  couches,  and  sung  psalms,  and  worked 
in  the  fields,  before  they  get  even  that.  They  never  taste  meat, 
fish,  grease  or  eggs,  and  even  milk  only  rarely.  Their  dress  con- 
sists of  three  garments,  and  those  of  the  coarsest  wool.  Their 
church  shows  no  attempt  towards  picturesque  beauty,  but  in  all 
things  aims  at  the  austerest  simplicity."1 

For  a  while  it  seemed  as  though  the  experiment  would  prove  a 
failure.  The  little  community,  unrecruited  from  without,  was 
thinned  by  death  ;  a  season  of  scarcity  bringing  with  it  an  epidemic 
sickness.  But  just  at  the  moment  when  affairs  were  at  their 
worst,  new  elements  of  life  were  infused.  Bobert  being  by  com- 
mand of  the  pope  obliged  to  return  to  his  former  charge  at  Molesme, 
Alberic  his  prior  was  elected  abbot  in  his  room,  and  on  Alberic's 
death  in  1109,  Stephen  succeeded  to  the  vacant  seat.  Stephen 
Harding  was  a  native  of  Sherborne  in  Dorsetshire,2  and  was  in- 
structed in  the  priory  at  that  place  in  reading,  writing,  music,  and 
the  services  of  the  Church.  Under  the  tyrannical  rule  of  William 
the  Conqueror  he  fled  to  Scotland,  and  thence  removed  to  Paris, 
where  he  applied  himself  to  the  study  of  Holy  Scripture  and  Biblical 
learning.  After  visiting  Rome  to  view  the  tombs  of  the  martyrs 
he  joined  Robert  at  Molesme,  and  thence  accompanied  him  to 
Citeaux.  Stephen  was  a  man  of  piety,3  extensive  learning,  and 
large  administrative  capacity.  He  conceived  the  project  of  retaining 
in  intimate  connection  with  Citeaux  all  the  religious  houses  which 
should  spring  from  it.     A  general  chapter  of  the  heads  of  these 

1  "The  crosses  were  of  iron  or  painted  wood;  the  lamps,  candlesticks,  cen- 
sers, of  brass  or  iron,  and  the  chalices  of  silver  gilt." 

2  Sherborne  had  long  been  an  ecclesiastical  centre,  having  been  made  an 
episcopal  town  in  a.d.  705,  when  Aldhelm,  abbot  of  Malmesbury,  was  appointed 
to  the  see  (since  become  that  of  Salisbury).  Aldhelm  was  a  member  of  the 
royal  family  of  Wessex,  and  a  man  of  activity,  who  did  much  to  spread  monastic 
Christianity  in  the  west  of  England.  He  is  the  first  Englishman  whose  writings 
have  come  down  to  us  ;  they  are  however  of  little  interest. 

8  It  is  related  of  him  that  when  entering  the  church  for  even-song  he  was 
observed  to  press  his  finger  forcibly  upon  the  latch  of  the  door,  as  if  he  would 
leave  the  impression  of  a  seal.  Being  asked  the  meaning  of  the  action,  he 
replied:  "The  thoughts  which  occupy  me  during  the  day  in  the  management 
of  the  monastery,  I  leave  here,  and  bid  them  remain  until  I  call  for  them  to- 
morrow morning  after  praiset" 


THE    BARON    TESSELIN.  347 

houses  was  to  be  held  yearly,  for  the  transaction  of  the  common 
affairs  and  for  the  weal  of  the  whole  order ;  and  the  abbot  of 
Citeaux  was  himself  to  visit  at  least  once  a  year  all  the  affiliated 
houses.  The  document  in  which  this  scheme  was  embodied  was 
called  the  Charter  of  Charity.  Of  Stephen's  erudition  we  have  con- 
vincing proof  in  the  corrected  edition  of  the  Latin  Vulgate,  which 
with  the  help  of  some  learned  Jews,  he  made  from  Hebrew  manu- 
scripts.1 

But  it  was  not  altogether  or  even  mainly  to  the  Charter  of 
Charity,  that  Citeaux  was  indebted  for  its  rescue  from  decay  or 
oblivion. 

Some  fifteen  miles  north,  two  miles  beyond  Dijon,  stood  the 
castle  of  Fontaines,  whose  ruins  are  still  to  be  traced.  It  crowned 
a  hill-summit,  and  commanded  a  fair  prospect  of  the  city,  and 
beyond  it  of  the  fruitful  plain  of  the  Saone  in  which  Citeaux  lay, 
bounded  by  the  mountains  of  the  Cote  d'Or.  Here  dwelt  the 
wealthy  baron  Tesselin,  vassal  and  friend  of  the  Duke  of  Bur- 
gundy. He  was  a  true  knight,  the  very  mirror  of  chivalry,  as 
gentle  as  he  was  brave.  Being  at  one  time  drawn  into  a  quarrel, 
it  was  agreed  to  settle  the  matter  by  single  combat.  Tesselin  was 
the  stronger  of  the  two,  and  victory  would  have  been  easy,  but  his 
soul  was  disquieted.  The  fear  of  the  divine  judgments  weighed 
upon  him  ;  and  he  resolved  to  be  reconciled  to  his  adversary.  And 
so  when  the  time  came  and  the  two  champions  appeared  at  the 
place  of  meeting,  instead  of  drawing  his  sword  Tesselin  frankly 
gave  up  the  point  in  dispute.  His  wife  Alith  was  a  pious  and 
charitable  lady.  She  sought  out  the  poor,  relieved  their  sick,  and 
"  cleansed  their  cups  and  vessels  with  her  own  hands."  In  her 
latter  years  she  rivalled  the  devotions  and  austerities  of  the  nuns, 
setting  before  her,  alas  !  that  mistaken  pattern  "  of  self-sacrifice  and 
holiness  which  alone  was  attractive  and  beautiful  in  that  age."  So 
great  was  her  reputation  that  when  she  died,  the  abbot  of  St. 
Benignus  in  Dijon  (now  the  cathedral)  came  to  Fontaines  and 
begged  her  body  as  a  most  precious  treasure.  He  and  his  monks 
bore  it  away  on  their  shoulders,  and  were  met  by  a  large  con- 
course of  people  with  crosses  and  tapers,  who  accompanied  them  to 
the  church  where  they  buried  her.2  To  Tesselin  and  Alith  was 
born,  in  1091,  a  son,  the  Bernard  of  whom  we  have  just  spoken. 

The  work,  written  on  vellum  in  six  folio  volumes,  is  still  preserved  in  the 
city  library  of  Dijon.    Its  date  is  1110.     It  is  carefully  and  clearly  engrossed. 

2  Alith' s  chair,  or  what  is  traditionally  believed  to  be  such,  is  still  to  be  seen 
in  the  Ducal  Palace  (now  the  Hotel  de  Ville)  at  Dijon.  It  is  of  inlaid  oak, 
roomy  and  comfortable.    In  the  same  hall  is  also  to  be  seen  Bernard's  wooden 


348  Witnesses  for  christ. 

The  boy  was  sent  in  due  time  to  the  church -school  of  Chatillon, 
where  he  distinguished  himself  by  his  progress,  and  was  remarked 
as  being  not  only  studious  but  fond  of  retirement  and  "marvel- 
lously cogitative."  His  mother  had  destined  him  for  the  Church, 
but  after  her  death  the  young  nobles,  his  companions,  sought  to 
win  him  to  their  company  by  pleasures  and  adventures.  Finding 
these  inducements  too  weak  to  tempt  so  ardent  and  soaring  a  spirit, 
they  set  before  him  a  more  insidious  bait.  The  nations  of  Europe 
were  at  this  time  arousing  themselves  from  the  slumber  of  the 
tenth  century,  and  an  extraordinary  enthusiasm  for  literature  and 
philosophy  was  springing  up,  especially  in  France  ;  the  young  men 
who  had  previously  aspired  to  honour  only  by  the  weapons  of  war, 
now  sought  it  by  those  of  dialectics.  It  was  at  this  very  period  that 
Abelard,  having  overcome  his  rival  William  of  Champeaux,  was 
lecturing  in  Paris  to  a  vast  concourse  of  students.  For  some  time 
Bernard  was  dazzled  by  the  allurements  of  this  new  path  to  glory. 
But  the  impression  made  upon  him  by  his  mother's  teaching  and 
example  survived  long  after  her  death,  and  could  not  be  effaced 
even  by  this  temptation.  Her  image  was  constantly  before  him ; 
he  pondered  over  the  discourses  she  had  held  with  him,  and  the 
plans  she  had  formed  for  him  ;  and  his  ardent  imagination  led  him 
to  believe  that  she  appeared  visibly  and  rebuked  him  for  his  in- 
decision. Journeying  alone  to  visit  two  of  his  brothers  in  the  camp 
of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  who  was  then  laying  siege  to  the  Castle 
of  Grancy,  he  thought  he  again  beheld  her  and  heard  her  speaking 
to  him  in  the  same  accents  of  reproof.  Eetiring  into  a  church  by 
the  roadside,  "he  lifted  his  hands  towards  heaven,  and  with  a 
torrent  of  tears  poured  forth  his  heart  like  water  in  the  presence  of 
his  Lord." 

This  was  the  turning-point.  When  he  arose  from  his  knees,  he 
solemnly  vowed  that  he  would  become  a  monk.  Not  satisfied  with 
this,  he  at  once  sought  to  induce  his  kindred  to  follow  him  into  the 
cloister.  In  this  endeavour  he  displayed  "  that  commanding  per- 
sonal ascendancy,  that  overpowering  influence  of  spirit,  which 
hardly  met  with  a  defeat  during  his  whole  life."  His  uncle,  the 
opulent  Count  of  Touillon,  of  high  renown  in  arms,  was  the  first  to 
join  him.  Bartholomew  and  Andrew,  his  two  younger  brothers, 
made  but  small  resistance  to  his  earnest  appeal.  The  eldest,  Guido, 
who  had  wife  and  children,  was  harder  to  win,  but  at  length  he  too 
yielded.     Gerard,  the  second  in  age,  a  brave  and  prudent  knight, 

cup  which  he  used  at  Citeaux,  now  bound  with  brass,  and  the  crozier  of  Robert, 
the  first  abbot,  curiously  carved  and  ornamented. 


BERNARD   ENTERS    CITEAUX.  849 

despised  this  sudden  resolution  of  the  rest  as  an  impulse  of  levity, 
and  withstood  all  Bernard's  solicitations.  "  I  know,  my  brother," 
rejoined  Bernard,  "  that  it  is  suffering  alone  which  will  bring  thee 
to  reflection."  Then  placing  his  hand  on  Gerard's  side  :  "  It  shall 
come  to  pass,  and  quickly  too,  that  a  lance  shall  pierce  thee  here, 
and  make  a  way  to  thy  heart  for  the  counsel  of  salvation  which 
thou  now  despisest."  A  few  days  afterwards,  when  engaged  in 
fighting,  Gerard  was  surrounded  and  carried  off  captive  with  a 
spear  in  his  side.  "  I  turn  monk,"  he  exclaimed,  "  monk  of 
Citeaux  I"1 

Many  of  the  new  votaries  being  married,  Bernard  caused  a  nun- 
nery to  be  erected  at  Jouilli  near  Dijon  for  their  wives,  Guido's 
consort  being  appointed  the  first  abbess.  He  then  led  his  followers, 
about  thirty  in  number,  to  Chatillon,  where  during  six  months  in 
rigorous  seclusion  they  prepared  themselves  for  the  monastic  life. 
At  the  end  of  that  time,  Bernard  and  his  brothers  returned  to  Fon- 
taines to  take  a  final  leave  of  their  paternal  home.  Nivard,  the 
youngest  son,  was  playing  with  some  other  children  in  the  street,2 
and  Guido  addressing  him  said,  "  See,  my  brother,  the  whole  of 
our  paternal  inheritance  will  now  devolve  on  thee."  To  which  the 
boy  answered:  "What,  do  you  take  heaven  for  yourselves,  and 
leave  me  only  the  earth  ?  This  is  no  fair  division."  He  afterwards 
joined  the  fraternity  ;  and  the  old  baron,  full  of  grief  at  the  loss  of 
his  sons,  retired  to  Clairvaux  soon  after  the  establishment  of  that 
abbey,  and  himself  took  the  vows. 

It  did  not  accord  with  Bernard's  self-denying  purpose  to  make 
choice  of  any  of  the  richer  and  more  illustrious  abbeys  ;  he  selected 
the  poor  and  struggling  convent  of  Citeaux.  This  house,  then  of 
fifteen  years'  foundation,  was,  as  has  been  said,  reduced  to  a  very 
low  condition.  On  a  memorable  day,  not  only  in  the  history  of 
Citeaux,  but  in  that  of  the  world,  Bernard,  then  twenty-two  years 
of  age,  presented  himself  with  thirty  companions  at  the  gate  of  the 
monastery.  This  was  in  the  year  1113.  Many  of  the  little  com- 
pany were  of  noble  rank,  and  all  were  animated  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree  with  the  enthusiastic  spirit  of  their  leader. 

Although  the  rule  of  the  convent  was  excessively  severe  it  was  in- 
sufficient to  satisfy  Bernard's  craving  after  spiritual  life.  In  him 
the  spirit  of  the  ancient  Egyptian  monks  may  be  said  to  have  re- 


1  The  story  of  Guido's  submission  is  fearful.  Bernard  pursued  his  work  of 
proselytism  so  pitilessly  that  mothers  hid  their  sons,  and  wives  their  husbands, 
at  his  approach. 

2  An  ancient  narrow  street  still  runs  down  from  the  crest  of  the  hill  where  the 
castle  stood. 


850  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

visited  the  earth.  He  dwelt  alone,  save  when  on  his  knees  with  the 
rest  in  the  choir.  He  passed  whole  days  "  in  ecstatic  contem- 
plation, so  that  seeing  he  saw  not,  and  hearing  he  heard  not.  Time 
given  to  sleep  he  regarded  as  lost."  Of  the  scanty  food  which  he 
took,  rather  to  avert  death  than  to  sustain  life,  his  unconscious 
taste  lost  all  perception,  whether  it  was  nauseous  or  wholesome. 
Extreme  weakness  of  stomach  followed  these  severities,  yet  "his 
dauntless  spirit  never  yielded."  So  long  as  he  was  ahle  he  joined 
the  other  monks  in  their  hard  manual  labour  ;  and  when  obliged 
to  give  up  such  work,  he  turned  to  lighter  but  more  menial  offices, 
that  he  might  supply  by  humility  his  deficiency  in  toil. 

"  The  visits  of  his  friends  who  were  still  in  the  world  were  a 
source  of  great  disquiet  to  him.  Their  conversation  brought  back 
thoughts  and  feelings  which  he  had  determined  to  leave  for  ever. 
After  their  departure,  on  one  occasion,  he  went  to  attend  the  office 
of  Nones,  and  as  usual  lifted  his  mind  to  prayer  ;  but  immediately 
found  that  God's  grace  and  favour  were  not  vouchsafed  as  before. 
That  idle  talk  was  evidently  the  cause.  The  next  time  they  came 
he  was  prepared.  Stopping  his  ears  with  little  wads  of  flax,  and 
burying  his  head  deep  in  his  cowl,  although  exposed  for  an  hour  to 
their  conversation,  he  heard  nothing,  and  even  spoke  nothing  except 
a  few  words  to  edification." 

When  at  work  in  the  fields,  Bernard  was  accustomed  "  to  look 
through  nature  up  to  nature's  God."  "  Any  knowledge  of  divine 
things  that  I  may  possess,"  he  wrote  in  after  years,  "  or  any 
facility  in  explaining  Holy  Scripture,  has  been  obtained  through 
mediation  and  prayer  in  the  fields,  with  none  but  the  beeches  and 
oaks  for  my  teachers."  "  Believe  me,"  he  wrote  to  a  celebrated 
teacher  of  the  speculative  philosophy,  "  thou  wilt  find  more  in  woods 
than  in  books,  and  trees  and  stones  shall  teach  thee  that  which  thou 
canst  not  learn  from  man."1  Especially  were  the  sufferings  of  our 
Lord  the  theme  of  his  meditation.  He  compared  this  exercise  to 
the  bundle  of  myrrh  which  the  Spouse  in  the  Canticles  gathers 
with  pious  care  to  plant  in  her  bosom.  "  From  the  very  beginning 
of  my  conversion,  my  brethren,"  so  he  expresses  himself  in  one  of 
his  sermons,  "  feeling  my  own  great  deficiency,  I  took  this  nosegay, 
composed  of  all  the  sufferings  and  pains  of  my  Saviour,  of  the 
privations  He  submitted  to  in  his  childhood,  the  labours  He  endured 
in  his  preaching,  the  fatigue  He  underwent  in  his  journeyings,  his 

1  "  This  our  life,  exempt  from  public  haunt, 
Finds  tongues  in  trees,  books  in  the  running  brooks, 
Sermons  in  stones,  and  good  in  everything." 
Had  Shakspeare  read  Bernard? 


Bernard's  departure  from  citeaux.  851 

watchings  in  prayer,  his  temptations  in  fasting,  his  tears  of  com- 
passion, the  snares  laid  for  his  words,  his  perils  among  false 
brethren,  the  outrages,  spitting,  smiting,  mockery,  insults,  nails. 
In  these  contemplations  I  find  relief  from  sadness,  moderation  in 
success,  and  safety  on  the  highway  of  life.  My  most  sublime 
philosophy  is  to  know  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified." 

Bernard's  reputation  soon  drew  so  many  votaries  to  Citeaux,  that 
the  convent  became  too  small  to  receive  them.  The  very  year  in 
which  he  was  admitted  a  colony  was  settled  at  La  Ferte,  on  the 
river  Grone ;  the  next  year  another  was  planted  at  Pontigny  ;  and 
in  1115  Bernard  himself  was  selected  by  Stephen  to  go  forth  and 
found  a  new  monastery  in  such  place  as  he  might  choose.  Twelve 
monks,  representing  the  twelve  Apostles,  were  chosen  to  accompany 
him,  of  whom  four  were  his  brothers,  one  his  uncle  and  another  a 
kinsman.  After  divine  service  in  the  church,  Stephen  placed  a 
cross  in  Bernard's  hands,  who  at  the  head  of  his  little  band  solemnly 
walked  forth  from  Citeaux.  "  When,"  says  the  Cistercian  Chronicle, 
"Bernard  and  his  twelve  monks  silently  took  their  departure,  al- 
though nothing  was  to  be  heard  but  the  voices  of  those  who  were 
singing  the  hymns,  you  might  have  seen  tears  in  the  eyes  of  all 
present." 

Notwithstanding  Bernard's  departure  the  fame  of  Citeaux  daily 
increased,  and  candidates  for  the  white  cowl  flocked  thither  in  over- 
whelming numbers.  Within  fifty  years  of  its  foundation  it  could 
reckon  as  belonging  to  it  five  hundred  affiliated  abbeys  or  nunneries ; 
by  the  commencement  of  the  next  century  these  had  increased  to 
eighteen  hundred ;  and  at  one  time,  it  is  stated,  there  were  no  fewer 
than  ten  thousand.1 

Much  good  doubtless  was  effected  by  the  planting  of  so  many 
religious  houses,  glowing  with  the  ardour  of  their  first  love.  But 
this  good  was  not  unmixed.  The  charity  of  their  Charter  did  not 
extend  to  those  who  differed  from  them.  When  the  Church  began 
to  take  systematic  action  for  the  suppression  of  heresy,  it  was 

1  Most  of  the  great  English  abbeys,  Tintern,  Bievaulx,  Fountains,  Furness, 
Netley,  were  Cistercian.  The  first  of  the  order  in  this  country  was  Waverley  in 
Surrey,  founded  1128.  "The  order,"  says  a  Eoman  Catholic  writer,  "took  to 
itself  all  the  quiet  nooks,  valleys,  and  pleasant  streams  of  Old  England,  and 
gladdened  the  soul  of  the  labourer  by  its  constant  bells.  Its  agricultural 
character  was  peculiarly  suited  to  the  country."  "  The  Cistercians,"  says  Mrs. 
Green,  "  founded  their  houses  amongst  the  desolate  moorlands  of  Yorkshire,  in 
solitary  places  which  had  known  no  inhabitants  since  the  Conqueror's  ravages, 
or  amongst  the  swamps  of  Lincolnshire.  One  hundred  and  fifteen  monasteries 
were  built  during  the  nineteen  years  of  Stephen's  reign,  more  than  had  been 
founded  in  the  whole  previous  century ;  113  were  added  during  Henry's  reign,'' 


852  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

Cistercian  monks  whom  the  pope  chose  to  confute  and  brow-heat  the 
reformers,  and  to  incite  their  fellow-citizens  against  them ;  it  was 
Cistercian  monks  who  everywhere  traversed  the  land  preaching  with 
furious  zeal  the  crusade  against  the  Albigenses  ;  and  an  abbot  of 
Citeaux  itself  was  the  inspiring  genius  and  leader  of  the  detestable 
enterprise.1 

After  a  time,  as  might  be  expected,  abuses  crept  into  the  Cister- 
cian monasteries,  and  discipline  began  to  hang  down  her  hands.  A 
fruitful  source  of  mischief  was  that  the  patron  of  a  monastery,  on 
the  death  of  the  abbot,  sometimes  conferred  the  revenues  on  some 
kinsman  or  favourite  in  commendam,  as  it  was  called.  These  abbots 
in  commendam  were  often  not  monks  at  all ;  some  never  visited  the 
abbeys  whose  revenues  they  enjoyed;  others  "  quietly  established 
themselves  in  the  house  with  wife  and  children  ;  and  the  tramp  of 
soldiers,  the  neighing  of  horses  and  baying  of  hounds,  made  the 
cloister  more  like  a  knight's  castle  than  a  place  dedicated  to  God's 
service." 

Some  remains  of  the  ancient  monastery  of  Citeaux  still  exist, 
and  form  part  of  a  large  reformatory  for  boys  which  covers  the 
original  site. 


CHAPTEE   III. 

Monastic  Life  in  the  Middle  Ages  (concluded). 
Clairvaux,  and  Bernard. 

We  left  Bernard  and  his  twelve  disciples  filing  out  from  the  walls 
of  Citeaux.  They  took  a  northerly  direction,  and  after  a  journey 
of  about  ninety  miles  arrived  at  La  Ferte  on  the  river  Aube,  in 
Champagne,  between  Troyes  and  Chaumont.  Four  miles  beyond 
this  little  town  lies  a  shallow  valley  encircled  by  thickly-wooded 
hills.  It  was  once  a  haunt  of  robbers,  and  was  called  from  the 
abundance  of  the  plant  which  grew  there,  the  Valley  of  Wormwood ; 
but  after  Bernard  settled  at  the  spot  its  name  was  changed  to  the 
Bright  Valley  (Claravallis,  Clairvaux).  The  little  company  arrived 
in  June,  and  began  at  once  to  provide  for  shelter  and  sustenance. 
"  The  rude  fabric  which  they  raised  was  long  preserved  by  pious 
veneration.     It  consisted  of  a  building  covered  by  a  single  roof, 

1  See  below,  chap.  7. 


Bernard's  faith.  358 

under  which  chapel,  dormitory  and  refectory  were  all  included. 
The  bare  earth  served  for  floor  ;   the  windows  were  scarcely  wider 
than  a  man's  hand.      Immediately  above  the  refectory  was  the 
sleeping  apartment,  a  loft  reached  by  a  ladder.      The  beds  were 
boxes  or  bins  of  planks,  a  small  space  hewn  out  with  an  axe  allowing 
room  for  the  sleeper  to  get  in  or  out.     The  inside  was  strewn  with 
chaff  or  dried  leaves.     At  tbe  summit  of  the  ladder  was  the  abbot's 
cell,  a  framework  of  boards  was  his  bed,  with  two  logs  of  wood  for 
his  pillows."     The  toil  of  building  left  tbe  brethren  but  little  time 
to  provide  themselves  with  food.    They  had  taken  possession  of  the 
wilderness  too  late  in  the  year  to  sow  the  ground,  and  the  neigh- 
bouring farmers,  who  at  first  ministered  to   their   wants,   soon 
became  familiar  with  their  sanctity  and  their  necessities,  and  ceased 
to  regard  either.     Their  food  was  bread  made  of  barley  and  millet, 
with  beech-leaves  cooked  in  brine,  and  when  these  failed  there  was 
nothing  left  but  nuts  and  roots.    Their  clothes  too  were  wearing  out. 
The  hearts  of  the  brethren,  stout  as  they  were,  began  to  quail : 
"  they  would  not  remain  in  this  valley  of  bitterness,  they  would 
return  to  Citeaux."     It  was  all  Bernard  could  do  to  prevent  them. 
He  had  recourse  to  prayer.     As  he  prayed,  he  thought  he  heard  a 
voice  from  heaven  :  "  Arise,  Bernard,  thy  prayers  are  heard."     On 
which    the   monks    said,  "  What  didst  thou  ask  of  the  Lord  ?  " 
"  Wait,  and  ye  shall  see,  ye  of  little  faith,"  was  the  reply;  and 
presently  ^here  came  a  stranger,  who  gave  the  abbot  ten  livres. 
Another  time  their  supply  of  salt  failing,  Bernard  said  to  one  of  the 
brethren,  "  Guibert,  saddle  the  ass,  go  to  the  fair  and  buy  us  salt." 
Guibert  answered,  "Where  is  the  money?"     "Take  faith,"  replied 
Bernard,  "  for  as  to  money,  I  know  not  when  we  shall  have  any  ; 
but  He  who  is  above  holds  my  purse  in  his  hands."     The  monk 
smiled  and  rejoined,  "  It  seems  to  me,  father,  that  if  I  go  empty- 
hauded,  I  shall  return  empty-handed."    "Nevertheless  go,"  replied 
the  abbot,  "  and  go  in  faith.    I  tell  thee  our  Treasurer  will  be  with 
thee,  and  will  supply  all  thou  needest."      Guibert  received  his 
abbot's  benediction  and  went,  though  still  more  than  doubtful  of 
the  issue.     On  the  way  he  met  a  priest  who  inquired  his  business. 
Guibert  told  his  errand,  and  made  known  the  indigent  state  of  his 
convent ;    the  compassionate  priest,  taking  him  to  his  own  house, 
gave  him  half  a  bushel  of  salt  and  fifty  shillings.      On  Guibert's 
return  with  his  panniers  filled,  Bernard  said  to  him,  "I  tell  thee, 
my  son,  no  one  thing  is  so  necessary  to  a  Christian  as  faith  ;  keep 
hold  of  faith,  and  it  will  be  well  with  thee  all  the  days  of  thy 
life." 

After  this  crisis  was  over,  brighter  days  opened  on  Clairvaux. 

2a 


354  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

Indeed,  as  Morison  observes,  the  way  to  fame  for  a  new  monastery 
seems  to  have  been  "  first  of  all  to  get  nearly  extinguished  by  cold 
and  hunger."  Stephen  Harding  had  appointed  Bernard  abbot  of 
the  new  foundation.  The  appointment  was  incomplete  without 
episcopal  ordination.  Bernard  received  this  at  the  hands  of  William 
of  Champeaux,  mentioned  above.  Through  his  emaciated  frame 
and  features,  and  homely,  not  to  say  ragged  apparel,  the  bishop 
discerned  the  lofty  intellect  and  unquenchable  spirit  which  dwelt 
in  so  frail  a  tabernacle,  and  became  his  admirer  and  steadfast 
friend. 

The  labours  and  anxieties  through  which  he  had  passed,  added 
to  his  own  excessive  austerities,  brought  Bernard  to  the  brink  of 
the  grave.  William,  hearing  of  his  dangerous  condition,  came  to 
visit  him,  hoping  to  induce  him  to  spare  himself  and  take  rest. 
But  Bernard  would  hear  of  no  relaxation,  either  of  his  duties  or 
austerities ;  whereupon  William  set  off  for  Citeaux.  He  found  the 
chapter  assembled,  and  asked  permission  to  direct  and  manage 
Bernard  for  one  year.  The  leave  was  granted,  and  Bernard, 
obedient  to  the  commands  of  his  superiors,  resigned  himself  into 
William's  hands.  The  latter  caused  a  small  cottage  to  be  built 
outside  the  monastery  walls,  where  Bernard  was  to  dwell,  relieved 
from  the  monastic  regimen,  and  from  the  daily  care  of  the  abbey. 
How  far  this  prescription  so  affectionately  intended  was  successful, 
may  be  learnt  from  his  friend  and  biographer,  the  abbot  of  St. 
Thierry,  who,  accompanied  by  another  abbot,  visited  him  in  his 
hut.  "  It  was  about  this  time  (1116),  that  my  visits  to  Clairvaux 
began.  I  found  the  saint  enjoying  a  state  of  perfect  tranquillity, 
and  living  to  God  as  though  he  already  tasted  the  delights  of  Para- 
dise. When  I  entered  the  chamber  and  beheld  the  lodging  and  the 
guest,  a  feeling  of  veneration  came  over  me  as  if  I  had  been 
approaching  the  altar  of  God.  He  welcomed  us  with  gracious 
kindness,  and  when  we  inquired  how  he  fared,  and  how  he  liked 
his  new  mode  of  life,  '  Excellent  well,'  he  replied,  with  his  usual 
benevolent  smile,  •  I  who  have  hitherto  ruled  over  rational  men,  am 
now  by  the  just  judgment  of  God  obliged  to  submit  myself  to  an 
irrational  being.'  This  he  spoke  concerning  a  conceited  quack  to 
whose  care  he  had  been  entrusted,  and  who  undertook  to  cure  him. 
When  we  sat  down  to  table,  I  expected  to  find  his  diet  suited  to  the 
state  of  so  precious  an  invalid,  but  he  was  served  on  the  contrary, 
by  the  doctor's  orders,  with  lumps  of  rancid  butter  and  other  viands 
so  revolting,  that  a  healthy  man  pinched  by  hunger  would  hardly 
have  touched  them.  We  were  indignant,  and  could  scarce  restrain 
ourselves  from  breaking  the  rule  of  silence,  and  reproaching  the 


THE  VALLEY  OF  CLAIBVAUX.  355 

•empiric  as  a  sacrilegious  homicide.  But  he  to  whom  all  this  was 
•done  took  it  all  with  indifference,  and  approved  of  everything.  His 
sense  of  taste  seemed  dead ;  water,  he  said,  was  the  only  thing 
pleasant  to  him,  cooling  the  fever  of  his  throat  and  mouth.  I 
tarried  with  him  a  few  days.  I  thought  I  saw  all  around  me  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth,  crossed  hy  the  old  pathways  of  our 
fathers,  the  Egyptian  monks,  and  the  recent  footsteps  of  some  men 
of  our  own  time.  The  golden  age  seemed  to  have  returned  in 
Clairvaux." 

The  whole  convent  was  animated  by  Bernard's  spirit  and  ex- 
ample. Men  of  illustrious  descent  who  had  played  a  distinguished 
part  on  the  theatre  of  the  world,  now  toiled  in  the  sweat  of  their 
brow,  and  practised  the  extreme  of  self-denial.  His  biographer 
ihus  describes  the  scene  which  presented  itself  on  entering  the 
valley.  "  It  was  a  dreary  spot,  enclosed  by  gloomy  woods  and 
rugged  hills,  and  as  the  traveller  came  down  the  slope  he  saw  the 
valley  full  of  men  industriously  occupied,  but  in  profound  silence, 
only  interrupted  by  the  sound  of  the  implements  and  hymns  of 
praise.  So  solemn  was  the  stillness  that  strangers  forbore  to  speak 
on  any  but  sacred  subjects,  until  they  had  passed  beyond  its 
precincts." 

At  the  expiration  of  the  year,  Bernard  hastened  to  throw  off  the 
surveillance  of  the  empiric,  and  to  resume  his  abbatial  duties.  But 
his  health  had  been  too  far  undermined  to  bear  the  convent  rule, 
and  he  was  compelled  again  to  retire  into  a  separate  dwelling.  It 
is  instructive  to  find  that  in  after-years  he  lamented  the  youthful 
enthusiasm  which  had  led  him  thus  to  waste  his  strength.1 

Some  remarkable  anecdotes  are  told  of  Bernard's  faith  and  of  his 
power  over  men.  During  one  of  his  visits  to  Paris,  a.d.  1125,  he 
was  requested  to  lecture  in  the  schools.  He  did  so,  dilating  on 
"  the  true  philosophy," — contempt  for  the  world,  and  voluntary 
poverty  assumed  for  Christ's  sake.  To  his  surprise  and  grief  his 
discourse  made  no  impression ;  not  one  of  his  hearers  was  converted. 
Eeturning  to  the  house  of  the  archdeacon  with  who  m  he  lodged,  he 
fell  immediately  to  prayer ;  as  his  soul  waxed  more  and  more  fer- 
vent, he  was  overcome  with  a  torrent  of  tears,  and   his  sobs  and 

1  He  thus  warns  beginners  against  the  excesses  of  asceticism.  "  It  is  your 
self-will  which  teaches  you  not  to  spare  nature,  nor  listen  to  reason.  I  fear 
lest  beginning  in  the  Spirit  you  will  end  in  the  flesh.  Do  you  not  know  that  a 
messenger  of  Satan  of  ten  clothes  himself  as  an  angel  of  light?  God  is  Wisdom, 
and  requires  a  love  which  unites  itself  with  wisdom.  The  cunning  enemy  has 
no  surer  means  of  banishing  love  from  the  heart  than  by  seducing  men  to  walk 
imprudently,  and  not  according  to  reason." 


856  WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST. 

groans  were  heard  outside  the  room.  The  archdeacon  inquired 
what  could  be  the  cause  of  such  grief  ?  A  monk  who  knew  Bernard 
well  replied:  "That  wonderful  man,  inflamed  by  the  fire  of  charity 
and  entirely  absorbed  in  God,  cares  for  nothing  in  this  world,  save 
only  to  recall  the  wandering  to  the  ways  of  truth,  and  to  gain  their 
souls  to  Christ ;  and  because  he  has  been  sowing  the  word  of  life 
in  the  schools  and  has  gathered  no  fruit  in  the  conversion  of  the 
clerics,  he  thinks  God  is  angry  with  him.  Hence  this  storm  of 
groans  and  tears ;  I  confidently  anticipate  that  a  full  harvest  to- 
morrow will  compensate  for  to-day's  sterility."  The  next  morning 
Bernard  preached  again  and  with  a  very  different  result ;  for  as 
soon  as  his  sermon  was  over,  several  of  his  hearers  expressed  their 
desire  to  become  monks.  Taking  these  with  him  he  set  out  for 
Clairvaux,  and  passed  the  night  at  St.  Denis.  The  next  day  how- 
ever, instead  of  continuing  his  journey  homewards,  he  said,  "  We 
must  return  to  Paris,  there  are  still  some  there  who  belong  to  us." 
As  they  re-entered  the  city  they  saw  three  ecclesiastics  coming  to- 
wards them,  at  the  sight  of  whom  Bernard  exclaimed  :  "  God  has 
helped  us;  behold  those  for  whom  we  returned!"  When  the  clerics 
came  near,  they  addressed  him  :  "  0  most  blessed  father,  hast  thou 
come  back  to  us  who  desired  thee  so  much  ?  We  were  minded  to 
follow,  but  hardly  hoped  to  overtake  thee."  "  I  knew  it,  beloved," 
he  replied ;  "we  will  now,  by  God's  grace,  go  on  together."  They 
accompanied  him  to  Clairvaux,  and  continued  under  its  rule  the 
remainder  of  their  lives. 

A  wider  scene  now  opens  before  us.  In  1130,  on  the  death  of 
Pope  Honorius  II.,  two  rival  factions  contended  for  the  possession 
of  the  papal  chair.  One  chose  the  Cardinal  of  St.  Angelo,  who 
took  the  name  of  Innocent  II. ;  the  other,  the  Cardinal  of  St.  Mary 
Trastevere,  who  was  styled  Anacletus  II.  The  latter,  with  the 
assistance  of  Robert  the  Norman,  Duke  of  Sicily,  made  himself 
paramount  in  Rome,  and  compelled  his  opponent  to  take  refuge  in 
Prance.  Bernard  passionately  espoused  the  cause  of  the  exiled 
pope,  and  it  was  mainly  through  his  means  that  the  trans- Alpine 
kingdoms,  France,  Germany  and  England,  recognised  Innocent  as 
the  lawful  successor  of  Peter.  In  the  course  of  the  long  journeys 
he  undertook  with  this  object,  he  had  an  interview  with  our  king 
Henry  I. : — "  the  wisest  soldier-statesman  of  his  age,  face  to  face 
with  the  greatest  monk  of  Christendom."  They  met  at  Chartres. 
"  Henry  was  undecided  as  to  which  pope  would  suit  him  best.  His 
own  clergy  had  a  leaning  towards  Anacletus;  that  might  be  a 
reason  for  him  to  choose  Innocent."  "Art  thou  afraid,"  asked 
Bernard,  "of  incurring  sin  by  acknowledging  Innocent?     Bethink 


THE    MONASTERY   REBUILT.  857 

thee  how  to  answer  to  God  for  thy  other  sins ;  that  one  leave  to 
me,  I  will  account  for  it."     Henry  joined  the  party  of  Innocent. 

Innocent  paid  a  visit  to  Clairvaux.  "  He  was  met  by  a  tattered 
flock  of  Christ's  poor,  preceded  by  a  cross.  They  came  on  in 
solemn  silence,  every  eye  fixed  on  the  ground ;  no  prying  curiosity 
watching  and  following  the  movements  of  the  brilliant  cavalcade. 
The  pope  and  bishops  were  moved  to  tears  at  the  sight  of  so  much 
austerity  and  self-restraint.  The  plain  unornamented  church,  the 
bare  walls  of  the  monastery,  offered  nothing  to  the  Eomans  either 
to  admire  or  wish  for.  The  hard  fare  of  the  monks  appeared  more 
wonderful  still.  If  by  chance  a  fish  was  to  be  had,  it  was  placed 
before  the  pope  alone." 

When  the  tide  turned  in  Innocent's  favour  and  he  ventured  into 
Italy,  Bernard  accompanied  him.  As  they  drew  near  to  Milan, 
"the  whole  population  came  out  to  meet  the  saint,  as  far  as  the 
seventh  milestone.  Nobles  and  common  people,  on  horse,  on  foot, 
all  proceeded  to  welcome,  with  an  incredible  reverence,  the  man  of 
God  ;  they  kissed  his  feet  and  sought  to  pluck  even  the  hairs  from 
his  garment."  Equal  rejoicing  manifested  itself  on  the  way  as  he 
returned  to  Clairvaux.  "  Wherever  he  passed  the  shepherds  came 
from  their  hills  and  the  rustics  from  their  fields,  if  it  might  be  only 
to  behold  him  afar  off  and  implore  his  blessing  ;  and  when  they 
had  seen  him  they  went  back  to  their  huts,  rejoicing  with  one 
another  that  they  had  seen  the  saint  of  God." 

At  the  end  of  twenty  years  from  its  foundation,  the  monastery 
had  outgrown  its  walls,  not  the  original  barn  of  wood  only,  but  the 
stone  buildings  by  which  that  structure  had  been  replaced.  The 
prior  with  a  few  others  of  the  brethren  came  to  Bernard  in  his 
cottage  to  consult  him.  "Tbe  saint  was  in  the  heavens,"  says  his 
biographer,  "  and  they  obliged  him  to  come  down  and  listen  to 
their  sublunary  business."  At  first  he  appeared  unwilling  to  make 
any  change.  "  Our  present  stone  buildings,"  he  said,  "  have  been 
•erected  at  great  cost  and  labour.  If  we  sacrifice  all  this,  worldly 
people  may  call  us  fickle,  or  may  say  that  too  much  riches  have 
made  us  mad.  In  truth,  however,  we  have  not  the  money;  he  who 
intends  to  build  a  tower  must  first  sit  down  and  count  the  cost, 
otherwise  it  will  be  said  of  him,  '  This  man  began  to  build  and  was 
not  able  to  finish.'  "  They  answered  that  God  who  sent  them  so 
many  brethren  would  doubtless  provide  the  means  of  erecting 
buildings  for  tbem.  Bernard  was  delighted  with  their  faith,  and 
gave  his  consent.  Help  poured  in  abundantly,  "  bishops,  nobles, 
merchants,  without  being  pressed,  gave  liberally  ;   labourers  were 


358  WITNESSES    FOR    CHEIST. 

hired,  and  the  monks  themselves  fell  vigorously  to  work,"  so  that 
the  new  edifice  was  soon  completed. 

We  come  now  to  an  incident   which   exhibits  in  the   darkest 
colours  the  spiritual  arrogance  of  the  Eomish  Church.     In  the  part 
he  played  on  this  occasion,  Bernard  showed  himself  not  inferior  to 
Ambrose  or  even  to  Hildebrand.1    William  Count  of  Aquitaine  had 
espoused  the  part  of  Pope  Anacletus,  and  had  thrust  out  from  their 
sees  the  bishops  of  Poictiers  and  Limoges,  who  favoured  the  cause 
of  Innocent,  replacing  them  by  creatures  of  his  own.     For  this 
offence  he  was  excommunicated  by  Innocent ;  and  the  papal  legate, 
Geoffrey,  bishop  of  Chartres,  was  sent  into  Aquitaine  to  procure  the 
reinstatement  of  the  deposed  bishops.      Unable  to  contend  against 
William,  he  entreated  Bernard  to  lend  him  his  powerful  assistance. 
They  met  the  count  at  Parthenay.2  Bernard  and  Geoffrey  employed 
all  their  arguments  and  influence  to  induce  him  to  restore  the 
bishops,  and  even  threatened  him  with   the  fate  of  Dathan  and 
Abiram.     The  count  heard  them  patiently,  and  replied  that  he  was 
ready  to  acknowledge  Innocent  and  Anacletus,  but  as  to  the  expelled 
bishops,  nothing  in  the  world  should  induce  him  to  receive  them 
again ;    they  had  offended  him  beyond  forgiveness.     Finding  the 
count  intractable,  Bernard  and  Geoffrey,  with  those  who  might 
lawfully  do  so,  entered  the  church,  William  as  an  excommunicated 
person  remaining  outside,  standing  by  the  door.      Going  up  to  the 
altar,  Bernard  performed  the  "  overwhelming  miracle  "  of  the  Mass,, 
and  then  with  the  Host  in  his  hand,  and  in  a  transport  of  religious 
fury,  came  forth  to  the  count.     Not  now  with  words  of  entreaty, 
but  with  flashing  eyes  and  in  a  voice  of  thunder  he  thus  addressed- 
him.     "  We  have  entreated  thee,  and  thou  hast  spurned  us.     The 
united  band  of  God's  servants  have  implored  thee,  and  them  too 
thou  hast  spurned.     Behold  the  Virgin's  Son,  the  Head  and  Lord 
of  that  Church  which  thou  persecutest,  thy  Judge  is  here  into  whose 
hands  thy  soul  must  fall.     Wilt  thou  spurn  Him  also,  wilt  thou 
despise  Him  as  thou  hast  done  his  servants  ?  "     A  silence  as  of 
death  fell  upon  the  terrified  spectators,  who,  bowing  their  heads  in 
prayer,  waited  in   expectation  of  an   immediate  judgment  from 
heaven.     The  count,  when  he  saw  the  awful  countenance  of  Ber- 
nard, in  whose  hands  he  verily  believed  his  Judge  and  Lord  to  be 
at  that  moment  holden,  became  stiffened  in  every  limb,  and  fell 


i  For  the  former,  see  ante,  pp.  66-69.     Hildebrand  (Pope  Gregory  VII.),. 
sixty  years  before  the  period  at  which  we  are  now  arrived,  had  compelled  the 
Emperor  Henry  IV.  of  Germany  to  stand  as  a  penitent  for  three  days  outside 
the  gates  of  Canossa,  thinly  clad  and  fasting,  with  the  ground  deep  in  snow. 
2  Not  far  from  Poictiers. 


MALACHY,    BISHOP    OF    CONNAUGHT.  359 

insensible  to  the  ground.  Raised  up  by  his  attendant  knights,  he 
could  neither  speak  nor  see,  and  again  fell  with  his  face  on  the 
grass,  foaming  at  the  mouth.  Bernard  came  close,  and  pushing 
him  with  his  foot,  told  him  to  stand  up  and  hear  the  judgment  of 
God.  "Here,"  he  said,  " is  the  bishop  of  Poictiers ;  go  and  be  re- 
conciled to  him.  Eestore  him  to  his  see,  whence  thou  hast  expelled 
him."  The  poor  man  heard,  although  he  neither  dared  nor  was 
able  to  speak,  and  went  at  once  to  the  bishop,  gave  him  the  kiss  of 
peace,  and  reinstated  him  in  his  office.  Soon  the  count  was  in 
friendly  converse  with  Bernard,  who  admonished  him  for  tbe 
future  to  avoid  such  impious  doings,  lest  he  should  in  the  end 
weary  out  the  Divine  patience. 

The  history  of  Bernard's  life  introduces  us  to  an  ecclesiastical 
descendant  of  the  good  Patrick,  and  shows  us  into  how  abject  a 
condition  the  once  flourishing  and  evangelizing  Church  of  Ireland 
had  fallen. 

Malachy  was  consecrated  bishop  of  Connaught  at  the  age  of 
thirty  years.  He  soon  discovered  that  he  had  been  appointed, 
"  not  to  rule  over  men,  but  over  beasts,  so  insolent  were  they  in 
their  manners,  so  deadly  in  their  rites,1  so  unbelieving  in  religion, 
so  rebellious  against  discipline,  so  filthy  in  their  lives.  They  were 
Christians  in  name,  but  pagans  in  reality.  They  would  not  pay 
tithes  nor  first-fruits,  nor  enter  the  bonds  of  wedlock,  nor  make 
confession,  nor  perform  penance."  In  these  untoward  circumstances 
Malachy  did  what  he  could.  "  He  passed  whole  nights  sleepless, 
his  hands  lifted  to  God  in  prayer ;  he  rebuked  the  rebels  publicly 
and  privately,  and  when  they  would  not  come  to  church,  ran  after 
them  through  the  streets,  and  searched  the  city 2  for  such  as  he 
might  win  to  Christ." 

Celsus,  the  primate,  by  his  will  appointed  Malachy  his  successor ; 
but  the  Irish  had  the  vicious  custom  of  regarding  the  episcopal  office 
as  an  heirloom,  which  ought  not  to  be  suffered  to  go  out  of  the 
family;  and  Maurice,  and  after  him  Nigellus,  of  the  "wicked  seed" 
which  had  occupied  the  see  of  Armagh  for  two  hundred  years,  suc- 
ceeded for  a  while  in  keeping  Malachy  out  of  his  office.  In  the  end 
Nigellus  yielded,  and  Malachy,  to  consolidate  his  authority,  made  a 
journey  to  Rome  to  solicit  the  pallium  (archbishop's  cloak).3    In 

1  Does  this  point  to  any  remains  of  Druidical  sacrifices  ? 

2  Probably  Tuam. 

3  This  vestment  was  bestowed  by  the  pope  upon  archbishops,  at  first  as  a 

token  of  augmented  dignity  and  indicative  of  vicarial  authority,  but  by  the  eighth 

century  it  had  come  to  be  conferred  on  all  bishops  as  a  badge  of  subordination 

to  the  "  Apostolic  See." 


360 


WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 


crossing  France  he  halted  at  Clairvaux.  Bernard  gave  him  a 
cordial  reception.  He  wondered  to  see  so  holy  and  active  a  servant 
of  Christ  from  so  barbarous  a  nation.  "  I  was  refreshed,"  he  says, 
"  by  his  look  and  word,  and  rejoiced  as  much  as  in  all  riches."  At 
Eome  Pope  Innocent  II.  condoled  with  him  on  the  length  of  his 
journey,  and  appointed  him  his  legate  in  Ireland  ;  but  when  he 
asked  for  the  pallium,  told  him  that  if  he  would  summon  a  general 
council  of  the  bishops,  clergy  and  chief  men  of  the  country,  who 
should  send  a  deputation  to  Eome,  it  should  be  granted.  Then 
taking  the  mitre  from  his  own  head  he  placed  it  on  Malachy's, 
giving  him  also  the  stole  and  maniple  which  he  himself  wore. 
Malachy  spent  a  month  in  the  city,  making  a  round  of  the  holy 
places  for  prayer. 

Nine  years  afterwards  he  repeated  his  journey  to  solicit  the  pal- 
lium, and  on  the  way  again  visited  Clairvaux.  He  had  been  only  a 
few  days  in  the  abbey  when  he  was  seized  with  fever.  The  monks 
were  emulous  in  their  efforts  to  relieve  and  restore  him ;  but  he 
foresaw  that  his  days  were  numbered.  On  the  former  occasion  he 
had  entreated  the  pope  for  permission  to  live  and  die  at  Clairvaux, 
but  his  request  had  been  refused.  "  Now,"  he  said  to  the  monks, 
"  I  shall  not  be  baulked  of  my  desire ;  He  who  has  led  me  to  the 
place  which  I  sought  will  not  deny  me  the  end  I  have  wished  for. 
This  poor  body  will  find  its  resting-place  here,  and  as  concerns  my 
soul,  the  Lord  will  provide,  who  saves  those  who  place  their  hope 
in  Him."  When  he  was  to  receive  extreme  unction,  he  would  not 
allow  the  brethren  to  go  up  to  the  cell  where  he  lay,  but  came  down 
to  them,  and  having  taken  the  viaticum  returned  to  his  bed.  None 
could  believe  he  was  dying.  "  His  countenance,"  says  Bernard, 
"  was  not  pale,  nor  his  forehead  wrinkled,  nor  his  eyes  sunken,  nor 
his  flesh  wasted.  Such  grace  was  in  his  body,  such  glory  in  his 
•countenance,  as  even  the  hand  of  death  could  not  efface.  With 
psalms  and  hymns,"  he  continues,  "  we  followed  our  friend  on  his 
homeward  journey.  He  died  in  his  fifty-fourth  year,  at  the  place 
and  time  he  had  chosen  and  foretold." 

We  have  referred  to  the  scholastic  theology  which  arose  about 
the  end  of  the  eleventh  century.  From  the  time  of  a  controversy 
•on  the  Lord's  Supper  between  Lanfranc,  archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
and  Berengar  of  Tours,  the  relish  for  the  treatment  of  theology  by 
the  method  of  logic,  as  opposed  to  tradition,  spread  through  Europe 
with  astonishing  rapidity.  Lanfranc's  disciple  Anselm,  archbishop 
of  Canterbury  in  1109,  is  regarded  as  the  first  of  the  Schoolmen. 
Paris  was  the  chief  seat  of  the  new  philosophy ;  and  next  to  it, 
after  the  year  1200,  was  Oxford.     The  most  distinguished  teacher 


ABELARD    CONDEMNED.  861 

;at  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century  was  Bernard's  friend, 
William  of  Champeaux,  who  taught  in  the  cathedral- school  at 
Paris  with  great  reputation,  until  the  superior  genius  of  his  famous 
pupil,  Peter  Abelard,  threw  him  into  the  shade.1 

Abelard  pursued  the  theological  speculations  to  which  Origen  in 
the  third  century  had  pointed  the  way,  and  with  even  a  more 
daring  spirit.  His  lectures  awakened  in  the  youthfal  students  an 
enthusiastic  admiration  both  for  himself  and  his  philosophy.  The 
bishops  and  higher  clergy  took  alarm,  and  a  council  was  summoned 
at  Soissons  by  the  papal  legate,  before  which  Abelard  was  cited  as 
a  heretic,  a.d.  1121.  He  was  condemned  without  even  being 
allowed  to  explain  or  defend  his  opinions.  "  The  council,"  he 
says,  "  without  discussion  or  examination,  compelled  me  to  burn 
my  book"  (his  Treatise  on  the  Divine  Trinity  and  Unity)  "  with  my 
own  hands.  And  so  it  was  burnt  amid  general  silence."  When 
he  rose  to  expound  his  belief  in  his  own  words,  his  judges  said 
there  was  no  necessity  for  anything  beyond  the  recital  of  the  Atha- 
nasian  Creed,  "  a  thing  which  any  boy  could  do."  Thus  saying, 
they  placed  before  him  a  copy  of  the  creed,  as  though  it  had  been 
something  altogether  new  to  him.  It  was  notorious  that  Abelard 
•could  not  consistently  subscribe  the  creed,  that  all  he  had  written 
was  in  contravention  of  it,  yet  he  wanted  the  moral  courage  to 
stand  by  his  principles.  Origen  would  have  taught  him  otherwise, 
because  in  Origen  the  lofty  flight  of  the  intellect  was  controlled 
and  regulated  by  a  large  measure  of  the  love  of  Christ,  and  by  the 
humility  of  a  child  of  God.2  "I  read  the  creed,"  says  Abelard, 
11  as  well  as  I  could  amidst  sobs,  sighs  and  tears  ;  and  then,  like  a 
convicted  criminal,  was  delivered  over  to  the  abbot  of  St.  Medard, 
to  be  kept  in  close  custody  in  his  monastery."  Nevertheless  this 
arbitrary  condemnation  by  the  synod  of  Soissons  only  increased 
his  fame. 

Bernard  occupied  in  theology  a  position  the  very  opposite  to  that 
of  Abelard.  Holding  that  the  mysterious  doctrines  of  revelation  are 
beyond  the  reach  of  intellectual  analysis,  he  condemned  every  de- 
parture from  the  received  teaching  of  Scripture  upon  divine  things. 
Abelard  had  asked :  "  Why  may  not  God,  by  an  act  of  his  will 

1  See  ante,  p.  348. 
2  The  honour  paid  to  intellectual  superiority  blinds  men  to  the  infinitely 
greater  worth  of  moral  integrity.  It  is  common,  for  example,  to  style  Galileo  a 
martyr  of  science,  and  to  condone  his  abjuration  before  Pope  Urban  VIII.  of 
the  cosmical  truth  that  the  earth  moves  round  the  sun.  But  he  would  have  left 
a  far  nobler  name,  and  been  a  far  greater  benefactor  to  mankind,  if  he  had  stood 
faithful  to  his  own  conscience,  and  set  an  example  of  fidelity  to  truth. 


362  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

alone,  forgive  men  their  sins,  and  deliver  them  from  the  power  of 
Satan  ?     What  need  is  there  in  order  to  this,  of  the  sufferings  of 

Christ  ?     Christ  before  his  passion  forgave  many  their  sins 

How  can  God  become  reconciled  to  man  through  the  death  of  his 
Son,  when  this  death  could  not  happen  without  involving  the  sin 
of  so  many  who  crucified  Him,  which  sin  was  certainly  far  greater 
than  Adam's,  the  partaking  of  a  forbidden  apple  ?  If  God  was  so 
angry  on  account  of  that  first  sin,  how  can  He  be  appeased  in  the 
case  of  so  many  far  greater  sins  ?  How  unjust  and  cruel  tbat  God 
should  require  the  blood  of  an  innocent  person  as  the  price  of  par- 
doning so  many  guilty  ! "  Accordingly  he  looked  upon  the  incar- 
nation and  passion  of  the  Son  of  God  as  simply  a  manifestation  of 
divine  love,  and  inferred  that  the  "  amazing  grace  shown  us  by 
God,  who  gave  his  own  Son  to  become  man  and  suffer  for  us,  must 
enkindle  in  us  such  love  in  return,  as  to  make  us  ready  to  endure 
all  suffering  for  his  sake."  In  like  manner  he  denned  redemption 
to  be,  "that  supreme  love  which  is  enkindled  in  us  by  Christ's 
passion,  a  love  which  not  only  delivers  us  from  the  bondage  of  sin, 
but  acquires  for  us  the  true  freedom  of  God's  children."  To  which 
Bernard  justly  replied  :  "  Did  Christ  then  merely  teach  righteous- 
ness ;  did  He  not  also  bestow  it  ?  Did  He  exhibit  love  only  ;  did  He 
not  also  infuse  it  ?  .  .  .  "Who  denies  that  other  ways  of  redemption, 
justification,  and  deliverance  were  possible  to  the  Almighty  ?  But 
this  can  make  nothing  against  the  way  and  method  which  He  has 
chosen.  We  cannot  fathom  the  holy  will  of  God,  but  we  can  feel 
the  effect  of  the  work,  we  can  be  sensible  of  its  benefit.  Why  did 
He  accomplish  that  by  the  blood  of  Christ  which  He  might  have 
accomplished  by  a  word  ?  Ask  Himself.  It  is  vouchsafed  to  me 
to  know  that  the  fact  is  so,  but  not  why  it  is  so.  Sball  the  creature 
say  to  the  Creator,  •  Why  hast  Thou  formed  me  thus  ?  '  .  .  .  It  was 
not  the  death  of  Christ,  in  itself,  but  his  will  in  freely  offering  Him- 
self, tbat  was  acceptable  to  God ;  and  because  tbis  precious  death, 
procuring  the  downfall  of  sin,  could  only  be  brought  about  by  sint 
God  had  not  therefore  pleasure  in  the  sin,  but  used  it  for  good. 
God  did  not  require  the  death  of  his  Son,  but  accepted  it  when 
offered  ;  He  did  not  thirst  for  blood,  but  for  man's  salvation." 

Abelard  would  test  revelation  by  reason ;  he  defines  faith  to  be 
merely  "an  opinion  concerning  that  which  does  not  yet  appear." 
Bernard  replies  :  "  He  professes  to  explain  all  things  by  reason, 
even  those  which  lie  beyond  the  limits  of  reason ;  he  thus  fights 
both  against  faith  and  reason,  for  what  is  more  contrary  to  reason 
than  tbrough  reason  to  seek  to  soar  above  reason  ?  And  what  is 
more  contrary  to  faith  than  to  refuse  our  belief  to  that  which  we 


BERNARD  AND  ABELARD.  363" 

cannot  attain  by  reason  ?  .  .  .  Far  be  it  from  us  to  leave  aught  be- 
longing either  to  our  faith  or  our  hope  in  an  empty  opinion,  so  as  to 
be  removed  from  the  sure  and  steadfast  foundation  of  truth  ; — truth 
confirmed  by  God  through  prophecies  and  miracles,  established 
and  sanctified  by  the  Offspring  of  the  Virgin,  the  blood  of  the  Be- 
deemer,  the  glory  of  the  Eesurrection.  With  which  outward  cer- 
tainty we  connect  the  inward :  '  The  Spirit  Himself  beareth  witness 
with  our  spirit  that  we  are  children  of  God.'  ...  I  behold  three- 
several  objects  in  the  work  of  redemption — the  example  of  humility,. 
God  emptying  Himself;  the  measure  of  love  extending  even  to- 
death,  death  on  the  cross ;  the  mystery  of  redemption,  whereby 
death  itself  is  annihilated.  ...  It  is  one  thing  to  follow  Jesus,  it 
is  another  to  cleave  to  Him  through  love, — it  is  another  still  to  feed 
upon  his  flesh  and  blood.  To  follow  Him  is  a  wholesome  resolve  ; 
to  cling  to  and  embrace  Him  is  a  noble  joy  ;  to  feed  upon  Him  is  a 
holy  life,  for  He  is  that  bread  of  life  which  cometh  down  from 
heaven,  and  giveth  life  to  the  world,  and  what  is  resolve  or  joy 
without  life?" 

Between  two  such  champions,  both  zealous  and  both  confident, 
it  was  scarcely  possible  that  a  personal  encounter  should  long  be 
deferred.  Bernard  drew  up  an  appeal  to  the  pope,  cardinals, 
princes  and  bishops  to  repress  the  arch-heretic,  whom  he  designated- 
as  Arius,  Nestorius,  Pelagius  all  in  one,  and  scattered  it  broadcast 
over  Europe.  Abelard  to  protect  himself  persuaded  the  archbishop 
of  Sens,  whom  Bernard  had  offended,  and  who  was  about  to  preside 
over  a  numerous  synod  (a.d.  1140),  to  summon  Bernard  to  attend, 
and  at  the  same  time  gave  out  that  he  was  going  to  meet  the  great 
abbot  of  Clairvaux  in  logical  combat.  At  first  Bernard  hesitated : 
"  When  all  fly  before  his  face,  he  selects  me,  the  least  of  all,  for 
his  antagonist."  But  when  he  found  that  Abelard's  disciples 
asserted  that  he  did  not  dare  to  meet  their  master,  he  accepted  the 
challenge.  "  I  declined,"  he  says,  "partly  because  I  was  but  a 
youth  and  he  a  man  of  war  from  his  youth,  partly  because  I  hold 
it  unmeet  to  submit  matters  of  faith  which  are  grounded  on  the 
sure  and  steadfast  truth  to  the  subtleties  of  human  argumentation. 
....  Finally  I  yielded,  not  without  great  reluctance  and  many 
tears,  to  the  counsel  of  my  friends,  and  came  to  the  appointed 
place  at  the  appointed  time,  unprepared  except  with  those  words  of 
Scripture  :  *  Take  no  thought  how  or  what  ye  shall  speak  :  for  it 
shall  be  given  you  in  that  hour  what  ye  shall  speak ' ;  and,  '  The 
Lord  is  my  helper ;  I  will  not  fear ;  what  shall  man  do  unto 
me?'" 

The  original  object  of  the  meeting  at  Sens  was  an  exhibition  of 


864  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

relics,  and  as  the  occasion  was  intended  to  be  a  very  solemn  one, 
the  king,  Louis  VII.,  was  present  with  a  multitude  of  bishops, 
abbots  and  nobles.  Abelard  came  with  a  troop  of  disciples  :  Ber- 
nard with  two  or  three  of  his  monks.  The  synod  was  held  in  the 
church  of  St.  Stephen.  The  question  of  Abelard's  heresies  came 
up  on  the  second  day.  Abelard  entered,  and  walked  up  through 
the  midst  of  the  assembly,  which  was  for  the  most  part  inimical  to 
him.  As  he  passed  one  of  his  fellow-schoolmen  he  whispered  the 
proverb,  "  When  thy  neighbour's  house  is  burning,  thine  too  is  in 
danger."  Bernard  stood  in  a  pulpit,  with  Abelard's  book  before 
him,  from  which  he  caused  to  be  read  aloud  the  passages  he  had 
marked  for  reproof,  condemnation  or  explanation.  But  the  reading 
had  hardly  begun,  when  to  the  amazement  of  all  Abelard  rose,  re- 
fused to  hear  more  or  to  answer  any  questions,  and  saying  he 
appealed  to  Borne  abruptly  left  the  assembly.  The  synod  however 
c©ntinued  its  sitting,  and  did  not  suffer  his  heretical  opinions  to  go 
uncondemned.  They  were  read  and  re-read,  and,  say  the  bishops 
in  their  letter  to  the  pope,  "  proved  to  be  not  only  false,  but  plainly 
heretical,  both  by  most  evident  reasons,  and  also  by  testimonies 
from  Augustine  and  others  of  the  Fathers,  brought  forward  by  the 
abbot  of  Clairvaux." 

Abelard  proceeded  towards  Borne  with  the  intention  of  personally 
pressing  his  appeal.  Passing  through  Burgundy,  he  put  up  at 
Cluny.  Peter  the  Venerable  received  him  with  a  guileless  charity. 
Abelard's  heresies  were  as  hateful  to  him  as  to  any  one,  but  with 
him  charity  was  above  everything.  He  wrote  to  the  pope  : — 
"  Master  Peter  (Abelard),  as  he  lately  came  from  France,1  came  to 
Cluny.  He  told  me  that,  being  oppressed  by  the  attacks  of  certain 
persons  who  had  branded  him  with  the  name  of  heretic,  which  he 
detested,  he  had  appealed  to  Borne  and  was  going  thither  for  pro- 
tection. I  exhorted  him  to  seek  Bernard,  in  company  with  the 
abbot  of  Citeaux,  and  to  remove  and  expunge  from  his  books  what- 
soever he  had  written  offensive  to  Catholic  ears.  They  went  to- 
gether to  Clairvaux,  and  on  their  return  Peter  told  us  how  he  met 
Bernard,  and  that  the  old  animosities  between  them  were  removed. 
Urged  by  me,  he  has  chosen  for  himself  a  dwelling-place  in  Cluny, 
where  I  beseech  thee  to  permit  him  to  end  his  days,  which  per- 
chance will  not  be  many."  Abelard  did  not  in  fact  long  survive. 
On  his  death  in  1142  the  abbot  of  Cluny  wrote  to  Abelard's  friend, 
Heloise  :  "  A  long  letter  would  be  insufficient  to  unfold  the  humility 

1  Burgundy  was  not  at  this  time  part  of  France,  but  was  ruled  by  its  own 
.sovereign  duke. 


BERNAKD  ON  THE  CORRUPTIONS  OF  ROME.  36& 

and  devotion  of  Master  Peter's  behaviour.  He  was  sparing  in  his 
food  and  dress,  and  all  that  related  to  his  body  ;  he  read  con- 
tinually ;  he  prayed  often ;  he  was  always  silent,  unless  the  con- 
versation of  the  monks,  or  a  public  discourse  in  the  convent,  drew 
him  out  of  himself.  Having  become  more  infirm,  I  sent  him  to 
Chalons,  because  of  the  softness  of  the  climate.  There,  so  far  as 
his  malady  would  permit,  he  suffered  not  a  moment  to  pass  in 
which  he  did  not  either  pray,  read,  write  or  dictate  ;  and  so  the 
divine  visitor  found  him,  not  like  many,  slumbering,  but  on  the 
watch." 

Two  years  before  he  died,  Bernard  wrote  a  long  letter  to  one  of 
his  disciples  of  the  same  name  with  himself  upon  his  elevation  to 
the  papal  chair  under  the  title  of  Eugenius  III.  It  was  in  effect  a 
diatribe  on  the  corruptions  of  Rome,  and  is  a  monument  of  his 
honesty  and  fearlessness.  In  reading  it  we  are  reminded  of  the 
language  of  Cyprian  when  he  took  a  survey  of  heathendom,  and  of 
Salvian  when  he  probed  the  festering  sores  of  that  degenerate 
Christianity  which  had  taken  the  place  of  heathendom.1  Rome  in 
fact  had  never  changed,  but  pagan  or  Christian  had  always  shown 
herself  ambitious,  mercenary,  carnal.  "  The  grasping,  the  simoni- 
acal,  the  sacrilegious,  the  adulterous,  the  incestuous  and  all  such 
like  monsters  of  humanity,"  writes  Bernard,  "  flock  to  Rome,  in 
order  either  to  obtain  or  to  keep  ecclesiastical  honours  at  the  hands 
of  the  pope.  .  .  .  Whom,"  he  asks  of  Eugenius,  "  canst  thou  men- 
tion in  that  vast  city,  who  received  thee  as  pope  without  the  inter- 
vention of  a  reward  or  the  hope  of  one  ?  For  the  future  thou  wilt 
have  no  plan  from  which  they  will  consider  thou  hast  a  right  to  ex- 
clude them,  no  secret  into  which  they  will  not  thrust  themselves ; 
and  if  thy  porter  were  to  cause  only  a  little  delay  to  any  one  of 
them  at  thy  doorway,  I  should  not  like  to  be  in  that  porter's  place. 
.  .  .  They  are  cunning  to  do  evil,  but  how  to  do  good  they  know 
not.  They  are  hateful  to  heaven  and  earth,  on  both  of  which  they 
have  laid  violent  hands ;  impious  they  are  towards  God,  seditious 
and  envious  among  themselves,  cruel  towards  strangers  ;  loving  no 
man,  they  are  loved  of  none.  They  cannot  endure  subjection,  yet 
are  incapable  of  ruling  ;  faithless  to  their  superiors,  intolerable  to 
their  inferiors.  They  are  shameless  in  asking  favours,  truculent  in 
refusing  them,  importunate  to  receive,  restless  till  they  do  receive, 
ungrateful  when  they  have  received.  They  are  great  promisers,. 
but  scanty  performers ;  most  subtle  flatterers  and  most  biting  de- 
tractors ;  natural  dissemblers  and  malicious  traitors.     Among  such 

1  See  Early  Church  History,  p.  6,  and  ante,  p.  180. 


■366  WITNESSES    FOB    CHEIST. 

men,  thou,  their  pastor,  movest  about  in  gold  and  gorgeous  ap- 
parel. .  .  .  We  nowhere  read  that  Peter  went  about  adorned  with 
precious  stones  and  decked  with  gold  and  silks  ;  nor  mounted  on  a 
milk-white  horse  and  surrounded  with  guards,  nor  attended  by 
swarms  of  servants  :  herein  thou  art  a  follower,  not  of  the  apostle 
Peter,  but  of  the  Emperor  Oonstantine.1  .  .  .  What  do  the  sheep 
get  of  all  this  ?  If  I  might  speak  out,  it  is  demons,  rather  than 
sheep,  which  graze  in  these  pastures.  ...  Is  it  not  unbecoming  in 
thee  to  have  no  law  but  thy  own  will,  and  because  there  is  no 
tribunal  before  which  thou  canst  be  called,  to  exert  thy  power  and 
despise  reason  ?  Art  thou  greater  than  thy  Lord  who  said,  '  I  came 
not  to  do  mine  own  will'?"2 

But  the  end  was  drawing  nigh.  Bernard  could  no  longer  take 
solid  food ;  even  liquids  gave  him  pain ;  and  sleep  forsook  his 
couch.  A  little  while  before  his  death  he  dictated  these  words  : 
4i  Pray  to  the  Saviour,  who  willeth  not  the  death  of  a  sinner,  that 
He  do  not  delay  my  departure,  and  yet  that  He  will  be  pleased  to 
keep  guard  over  it.  By  your  prayers  sustain  him  who  has  no 
merits  of  his  own,  that  the  enemy  of  our  salvation  may  find  no 
place  open  to  his  attacks."  He  died  in  1153,  at  the  age  of  sixty- 
three  years. 

From  Augustine  to  Luther  the  Church  records  no  name  so  illus- 
trious as  that  of  Bernard.  What  has  been  already  related  of  him 
portrays  the  leading  features  of  his  character.  One  word  more  as 
to  his  humility.  Strangely  transported  as  he  sometimes  was  with 
sacerdotal  pride,  it  was  nevertheless  one  of  his  chief  cares  to  culti- 
vate a  humble  spirit.  "He  often  told  us,"  writes  his  secretary, 
*'  that  when  he  was  in  the  midst  of  honours  and  flattering  atten- 
tions he  seemed  to  lose  his  personality ;  he  imagined  himself  as 
absent,  and  all  that  was  going  on  before  him  as  a  dream.  But 
when  he  conversed  with  the  simple-minded  of  his  monks  he  re- 
joiced to  find  himself  again,  and  to  be  as  it  were  in  his  own  person. 

1  In  respect  of  this  pomp  he  adds,  "  I  counsel  thee  to  submit  to  it  from 
regard  to  the  customs  of  the  times,  but  not  to  seek  it  as  a  thing  becoming  or 
•due  to  thee." 

2  A  contemporary  of  Bernard  uses  language  if  possible  even  stronger  :  "  Turn 
to  the  citizens  of  Babylon  (Rome)  and  observe  what  manner  of  people  they  be, 
and  in  what  ways  they  walk.  Come  hither  to  the  top  of  the  mountain  that 
thou  mayest  behold  all  the  habitations  of  the  damned  city.  Look  on  her  princes 
and  judges,  cardinals  and  archbishops,  the  very  seat  of  the  Beast.  Every  day 
they  are  intent  on  doing  evil,  insatiably  occupied  with  works  of  iniquity.  They 
offer  things  sacred  for  sale  ;  they  purchase  iniquity,  and  labour  with  all  their 
might  that  that  may  not  descend  alone  to  hell." 


SPLENDOUR  OF  THE  ABBEY.  367 

He  often  declared  that  he  never  spoke  in  any  company,  however 
humble,  without  a  feeling  of  awe  coming  over  him  ;  he  would  have 
preferred  to  be  silent  had  he  not  been  moved  by  the  pricks  of  con- 
science, the  fear  of  God,  and  brotherly  love."  This  testimony  is 
confirmed  by  all  his  friends  and  disciples.  Luther  calls  him  "a 
man  so  godly,  holy,  and  chaste,  that  he  is  to  be  commended  and 
preferred  before  all  the  Fathers.  Being  grievously  sick,"  he  adds, 
*4  and  having  no  hope  of  recovery,  he  put  not  his  trust  in  his  life  of 
singleness,  wherein  he  had  lived  most  chastely,  nor  in  his  good 
works  and  deeds  of  charity,  whereof  he  had  done  many  ;  but  re- 
moving them  far  out  of  his  sight,  and  receiving  the  benefit  of  Christ 
by  faith,  he  said,  '  I  have  lived  wickedly  ;  but  Thou  Lord  Jesus 
dost  possess  the  kingdom  of  heaven  by  double  right :  first,  because 
Thou  art  the  Son  of  God ;  secondly,  because  Thou  bast  purchased 
it  by  thy  death  and  passion.  The  first  Thou  keepest  for  thyself  as 
thy  birthright ;  the  second  Thou  givest  to  me,  not  by  the  right  of 
my  works,  but  by  the  right  of  thy  grace.'  " 

In  person  Bernard  was  rather  above  the  middle  height  and  ex- 
ceedingly spare,  his  whole  body,  to  use  the  words  of  the  monkish 
chronicler,  "  being  most  delicate  and  without  flesh."  He  was  of  a 
clear  and  sanguine  complexion,  with  a  beard  slightly  inclining  to 
red.  His  countenance  was  serene  and  heavenly,  and  an  expression 
of  "  angelical  purity  and  dove-like  simplicity  "  beamed  in  his  eyes, 
which  are  scarcely  ever  spoken  of  by  his  contemporaries  without 
the  addition  of  the  epithet  columbinus.1 

Before  Bernard  had  been  many  years  dead,  the  abbey  was  rebuilt 
in  a  magnificent  style,  and  the  abbots  and  monks,  forgetful  of  his 
prayers  and  tears  and  the  example  of  his  dedicated  life,  turned  aside 
into  that  course  of  wealth  and  ease  which  he  had  so  strenuously 
censured  in  Cluny.  Instead  of  a  plain  house  arose  a  palace,  of 
which  the  dormitories,  refectory,  chapter-house  and  library  were 
finished  in  the  most  richly  decorated  style,  and  adorned  with 
statues  of  Bernard  and  his  fellow-monks.  In  process  of  time  the 
abbot  was  raised  to  the  rank  of  a  bishop,  having  under  his  rule  in 
France  eighteen  abbeys,  twenty-eight  nunneries,  and  forty-one 
abbeys  commendatory,  besides  forty  in  foreign  countries.  His 
annual  income  was  90,000  francs,  besides  1072  quarters  of  wheat 
and  700  hogsheads  of  wine,  and  the  tolls  of  forges  and  forests,  with 

1  The  well-known  hymn,  "Jerusalem  the  Golden,"  was  not  written  by  Ber- 
nard of  Clairvaux,  but  by  a  contemporoary  of  the  same  name,  a  monk  of  Cluny 
under  Peter  the  Venerable.  This  Bernard  was  born  of  English  parents  at 
Morlaix  in  Brittany. 


368  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

other  perquisites.  By  way  of  recreation  from  the  fatigues  of 
office  he  possessed  a  superb  country-house  half  a  league  from  the 
monastery,  with  a  chapel  carved  aud  gilded  and  a  choice  gallery  of 
pictures. 

The  Eeformation  period  brought  no  material  change  to  the 
monastic  orders  in  Catholic  countries,  but  by  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  century  these  had  become  so  corrupt  that  a  general 
reform  was  resolved  on  by  the  pope.  To  this  the  abbot  and  monks 
of  Clairvaux  offered  a  stout  resistance,  and  enlisted  on  their  side 
the  all-powerful  Eichelieu  ;  and  when  disgusted  by  their  irregu- 
larities he  gave  them  over  to  the  papal  commissioners,  as  a  last 
expedient  they  persuaded  their  Cistercian  brethren  to  join  them  in 
electing  Eichelieu  himself  general  of  the  order.  Eichelieu  accepted 
the  dignity,  still  insisting  on  reform,  but  before  his  measures  were 
ripe  he  died,  a.d.  1642.  No  reform  was  effected ;  the  old  abuses 
continued  and  new  enormities  were  perpetrated,  until  the  abbey 
fell  to  pieces  by  the  weight  of  its  own  corruption.  When,  in  1793, 
the  Eevolution  like  a  whirlwind  overthrew  everything  that  bore 
the  name  of  religion,  there  were  but  forty-five  monks  left  to  be  ex- 
pelled from  the  once  saintly,  powerful  and  populous  convent  of 
Clairvaux. 

The  abbey  was  confiscated,1  and  some  time  afterwards  converted 
into  a  Depot  de  Mendicite.  Some  years  ago  it  was  re-constructed  as 
a  prison  or  House  of  Industry  for  the  reformation  of  criminals. 
From  1400  to  2000  convicts  are  usually  here  confined.  The  prison 
itself  is  surrounded  by  an  inner  wall,  beyond  which  is  another 
nearly  three  miles  in  extent,  enclosing  the  buildings  of  the  ad- 
ministration, with  barracks,  orchards,  gardens  and  corn-fields. 
The  prisoners  are  employed  in  manufactures  of  various  kinds,  the 
products  of  their  labour  being  sold  to  the  trade  at  a  low  price.  On 
the  nearest  hill  is  a  colossal  statue  of  Bernard,  stretching  out  his 
hands  over  the  valley.  From  his  feet  you  look  down  into  the 
nearer  courts  of  the  prison  ;  and  when  you  are  weary  of  meditating 
on  the  busy  hive  of  malefactors,  pursuing  their  silent  and  com- 
pulsory tasks,  whom  however  you  do  not  see,  you  may  in  imagina- 
tion substitute  for  the  prison  the  abbey  such  as  it  was  in  the  time 
of  the  great  monk.  Then  too  the  valley  was  full  of  labourers,  but 
they  were  drawn  from  the  noble  and  the  free  ;  their  labour  was 
equally  arduous,  but  it  was  the  labour  of  Christian  love  ;  there 


1  The  books  and  manuscripts  were  taken  to  Troyes,  and  are  now  in  the  city 
library.  Amongst  the  latter  is  Bernard's  Bible,  engrossed  about  the  time  of  his 
birth,  with  marginal  notes  probably  by  his  own  hand. 


THE    NEW   COVENANT.  369 

reigned  over  them  a  stillness  as  profound,  but  it  was  the  stillness 
of  religious  devotion.  Bernard  and  his  monks  missed,  as  we 
believe,  the  plain  and  simple  pathway  of  Christian  service,  yet  we 
must  never  forget  that  the  ground  and  aim  of  their  life  was  God's 
commands,  Christ's  love,  and  man's  salvation. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

The  Paulicians  in  Westekn  Eueope. 

"  I  will  put  my  law  in  their  inward  parts,  and  in  their  heart  will 
I  write  it ;  and  I  will  be  their  God,  and  they  shall  be  my  people. 
And  they  shall  teach  no  more  every  man  his  neighbour,  and  every 
man  his  brother,  saying,  Know  the  Lord  :  for  they  shall  all  know 
me,  from  the  least  of  them  unto  the  greatest  of  them,  saith  the 
Lord :  for  I  will  forgive  their  iniquity,  and  their  sin  will  I  remember 
no  more."  Thus  Jeremiah  in  prophetic  vision  portrays  the 
character  of  the  New  Covenant.  The  fulfilment  of  this  prophecy 
is  the  theme  of  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  who 
repeats  it  word  for  word,  introducing  it  by  declaring  that  Christ, 
who  has  obtained  a  more  excellent  ministry  than  Aaron,  is  the 
mediator  of  this  new  and  better  covenant.  In  these  words  the 
relation  of  the  Christian  Church  to  God  is  plainly  set  forth.  The 
Old  Covenant  required  a  human  priest  as  mediator,  in  the  New  the 
believer  is  brought  near  to  God  through  Christ,  the  only  possible 
mediator.  In  the  Old  Covenant,  first  Moses,  and  afterwards  the 
priests,  received  heavenly  gifts  and  dispensed  them  to  the  people, 
and  the  people  in  their  turn  brought  offerings  to  the  priests  to  be 
presented  to  God  through  their  mediation.  But  in  the  New  Cove- 
nant, the  Gospel  of  the  free  grace  of  God,  the  heavenly  gifts  are 
poured  down  direct  into  the  hearts  of  the  believers,  and  their  sins 
forgiven,  without  the  intervention  of  any  priest  or  mediator  but 
Christ  alone.  It  was  the  rejection  of  this  grand  truth  that  led  the 
Church  into  a  labyrinth  of  error.  Instead  of  proclaiming  the 
liberty  of  the  New  Covenant,  she  reimposed  on  men's  consciences 
the  old  Levitical  yoke,  laden  with  burdens  more  numerous  and 
heavier  than  before.  The  preaching  of  the  Qospel  is  a  holy 
obligation,  the  instruction  of  the  ignorant  is  a  blessed  work,  the 
shepherding  and  ruling  of  the  Church,  "  not  for  filthy  lucre,  or  as 
lording  it  over  the  charge,"  is  an  honourable  office;  but  to  create 

2b 


370  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

anew  an  order  of  men  to  whom  the  gifts  and  offices  of  the  Spirit 
are  limited,  and  to  place  the  rest  of  mankind  at  a  distance  from 
God,  with  no  access  to  the  sanctuary  but  through  that  order,  is 
virtually  to  deny  the  New  Covenant,  and  to  make  the  word  of  God 
of  no  effect. 

The  attempts  at  reformation  described  in  these  pages  were  so 
many  acts  of  returning  faith  in  the  fulfilment  of  Jeremiah's  pro- 
phecy. The  reformers  had  a  sight  of  that  goodly  inheritance  which 
the  Saviour  had  purchased  for  them,  and  they  strove  according  to 
their  means  to  take  possession  of  it  both  for  themselves  and  for  all 
mankind.  Some  of  them  were  but  partially  enlightened,  and  their 
mistakes  were  lamentable ;  yet  inasmuch  as  by  their  means  the 
lamp  of  truth  was  kept  alive,  they  have  a  strong  claim  on  our 
gratitude;  and  it  may  be  asserted  that  in  respect  of  Christian 
doctrine,  as  well  as  of  purpose  and  manner  of  life,  they  are  far 
better  entitled  to  a  place  in  Church  history,  than  are  those  who 
sought  to  smother  their  testimony. 

Our  notice  of  the  monasteries  has  brought  us  to  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury ;  we  have  now  to  go  back  about  200  years  in  order  to  mark  the 
dawn  of  evangelical  truth  in  Western  Europe. 

The  tenth  century  is  often  spoken  of  as  the  midnight-hour  of  the 
Church's  history.  The  Romish  historians  do  not  attempt  to  conceal 
the  deplorable  condition  into  which  she  had  then  fallen.  "  Behold," 
says  Cardinal  Baronius,  that  devoted  champion  of  the  papacy,  "  the 
900th  year  of  the  Redeemer,  the  commencement  of  a  new  century, 
which  by  reason  of  its  ruggedness  and  barrenness  of  good  has  been 
■called  the  Iron  Age,  by  the  deformity  of  its  exuberant  evil,  the 
Leaden  Age,  and  by  its  poverty  of  writers,  the  Dark  Age.  The 
holy  Roman  Church  which  had  been  without  spot  or  wrinkle,  with 
what  filth  was  it  her  fate  then  to  be  bespattered  !  .  .  .  How  foul 
was  her  face,  when  abandoned  women  bore  rule,  at  whose  will  sees 
were  changed,  bishops  presented,  and  false  pontiffs,  their  lovers, 
intruded  into  Peter's  chair !  .  .  .  Then  was  Christ  evidently  in  a 
<leep  sleep  in  the  ship,  and  the  ship  itself  covered  with  the  waves." 

But  even  the  darkness  of  the  tenth  century  was  illumined  here 
.and  there,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  monk  Nilus,  by  streaks  of  golden 
light.  Scarcely  also  had  it  closed  than  a  new  era  began  to  dawn, 
— an  era  during  which  the  Cburch  will,  we  may  trustfully  believe, 
never  entirely  relapse  into  the  former  darkness,  but  by  however 
slow  degrees,  and  amid  whatever  dense  clouds  and  fearful  storms, 
will  pursue  an  upward  course  towards  the  goal  of  final  glory.  To 
trace  the  commencement  of  this  new  epoch  is  the  object  of  the  pre- 
sent chapter. 


THE    CATHARI.  871 

Transplanted  into  Thrace  by  Constantine  Copronymus  in  the 
•eighth  century,  and  again  by  John  Zimisces  in  the  tenth,1  the 
Paulicians  gradually  made  their  way  into  Western  Europe.  ' '  Taking 
their  course  from  Dalmatia,  they  spread  into  Italy,  where  they 
found  a  soil  ready  prepared  to  receive  their  tenets ;  for  ancient 
Manicheism  had  struck  its  roots  so  deep  that  the  united  efforts  of 
emperors  and  popes  had  not  been  able  to  tear  them  up."  Men's 
minds  were  everywhere  ready  to  hear  the  gospel  message.  A 
craving  for  Scriptural  knowledge  and  more  soul-satisfying  food  than 
the  effete  Church  was  able  to  supply  had  arisen  in  the  countries  of 
the  West ;  and  many  of  the  clergy  even  were  ready  to  welcome  any 
protest  against  ecclesiastical  corruption. 

Some  of  the  sects  which  now  made  their  appearance  sprang  up 
independently  of  Oriental  influence.  "The  Cathari"  (the  most 
general  name  given  to  the  reformers)  "  were,"  observes  Neander, 
■"  by  no  means  all  like-minded  or  of  a  common  origin."  Many 
derived  no  more  from  the  Paulicians  than  their  first  impulse  and 
their  acquaintance  with  the  Bible.  Once  aroused  to  a  living 
religion,  their  faith  and  practice  developed  itself  in  its  own  peculiar 
manner.  Others  needed  no  such  impulsion ;  "in  them  the  de- 
votional study  of  the  Bible  produced  a  practical  mysticism."  All 
however  in  addition  to  the  peculiar  Gnostic  tenets  which  were  so 
deep-rooted,2  aimed  at  the  restoration  of  the  Church  to  its  spiritual 
and  apostolic  simplicity.  They  disclaimed  those  dogmas  which 
had  been  added  to  the  primitive  Christian  faith,  such  as  purgatory, 
and  the  intercession  of  saints,  together  with  the  whole  hierarchical 
system.  "  The  sacraments,"  said  some  of  them,  "can  in  nowise  be 
efficaciously  administered  by  the  degenerate  priests  of  the  dominant 
Church,  because  the  question  is  not  one  of  externals,  but  of  the  in- 
ward intention,  in  which  these  men  are  wanting.  The  true  baptism 
is  that  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  whereby  men  are  inwardly  purified,  the 
baptism  by  water  being  merely  symbolical ;  infant  baptism  is  useless, 
because  infants  are  incapable  either  of  faith,  of  purpose  of  amendment, 
or  of  the  reception  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  true  signification  of 
the  Lord's  Supper  is  also  spiritual,  imparting  union  with  Christ  as 
the  true  bread  of  the  soul ;  as  our  Lord  says  (John  vi.  63),  '  the 
flesh  profiteth  nothing.'  "     They  seem  to  have  rejected  or  wildly 

1  See  ante,  p.  310. 
2  Both  contemporary  writers  and  most  modern  historians  call  these  sectaries 
Manichseans,  but  their  doctrines  connect  them  with  the  Gnostics  rather  than 
with  Manes.      All  our  information  regarding   them    comes    through    their 
-enemies. 


872  WITNESSES    FOK   CHRIST. 

distorted  the  Old  Testament  revelation ;  and  yet  at  the  same  time  to 
have  accepted  the  precepts  of  Christ  in  their  faithful  and  literal 
sense,  condemning  war,  the  shedding  of  blood,  and  all  asseveration 
beyond  the  simple  Yea  and  Nay. 

"  There  must,"  remarks  Neander,  "have  been  something  pecu- 
liarly affecting  and  animating  in  the  private  assemblies  of  these 
heretics.  Those  who  wished  to  be  admitted  into  their  society  were 
to  come  to  them  by  night ;  the  doors  were  closed,  and  the  walls 
hung  with  lights.  The  brethren  in  devout  silence  formed  a  circle, 
into  which  the  president,  holding  a  copy  of  the  Gospels  in  his 
hand,  introduced  the  novice ;  and  after  a  short  discourse,  in  which 
he  exhorted  him  to  ground  his  belief  and  hope  of  eternal  salvation 
on  God  alone,  he  set  the  book  on  his  head,  prayed  the  Lord's 
prayer,  and  uttered  over  him  the  first  words  of  the  gospel  of  John, 
The  new  member  then  gave  to  the  president,  and  to  all  in  succession* 
the  kiss  of  brotherhood;  they  united  in  prayer,  and  he  was  hence- 
forward regarded  as  a  brother."1  For  a  while  these  sects  increased 
without  being  regarded  as  heretical,  for  they  waged  no  open  war 
with  the  Church ;  they  frequented  the  public  worship  in  order  to 
escape  suspicion,  and  if  questioned  concerning  their  faith,  they  re- 
peated the  Apostles'  Creed.  It  was  only  in  secret  that  they  sought 
to  disseminate  their  tenets  ;  and  their  unobtrusive  piety  and  active 
benevolence  had  won  for  them  the  love  and  esteem  of  all  men  before 
the  discovery  of  their  heresy. 

The  new  opinions  first  made  their  appearance  in  Italy.2  In  945 
Atto  bishop  of  Vercelli  wrote  to  his  flock:  "There  are  amongst  you 
many  persons  who  despise  the  divine  service  of  the  Church  ;  these 
men,  who  utter  only  words  of  brute  ignorance  and  simplicity,  you, 
forsaking  your  holy  mother  the  Church  and  the  priests,  call  pro- 
phets." Besides  agreeing  with  the  Cathari  in  regard  to  the 
"  sacraments,"  and  the  unlawfulness  of  oaths  and  of  the  taking  of 
life,  the  "prophets"  maintained  that  the  law  of  Moses  is  no  rule  for 
Christians ;  that  man  cannot  be  saved  by  faith  without  works ;  and 
that  the  Church  has  no  authority  to  persecute  any,  even  the  wicked. 
They  also  avowed  the  untenable  dogma  of  the  Novatians  and 
Donatists8  that  the  Church,  even  as  an  outward  institution,  can 

1  Admission  into  the  community  was  followed  in  due  time  by  adoption  into 
the  inner  circle  of  the  Perfect.    This  was  called  Consolamentum. 

2  Some  writers  refer  the  origin  of  this  early  dissent  to  a  period  antecedent 
to  the  arrival  of  the  Paulicians — to  Claude  of  Turin,  or  even  to  the  primitive 
ages  of  the  Church. 

3  See  ante,  p.  146. 


ENTHUSIASTS   IN   PIEDMONT    AND   CHAMPAGNE.  373 

consist  of  good  men  only.  They  are  represented  as  being  decent  in 
their  deportment,  modest  in  their  dress  and  discourse,  and  irre- 
proachable in  their  morals :  their  bishops  and  deacons  were 
mechanics  who  maintained  themselves  by  their  industry.  By  the 
year  1040  they  had  become  very  numerous  at  Milan,  which  was 
their  chief  centre. 

In  the  time  of  Heribert  archbishop  of  Milan,1  there  was  a  sect 
whose  head- quarters  were  at  the  Castle  of  Montfort,  near  the  town 
of  Asti  in  Piedmont.  Many  of  the  clergy  and  laity  were  numbered 
amongst  its  adherents,  and  it  was  protected  by  the  nobles.  If  the 
accounts  which  their  enemies  have  transmitted  are  at  all  to  be 
relied  upon,  the  tenets  of  these  enthusiasts  were  of  a  very  mystical 
kind,  resembling  those  of  the  Euchites  and  Bogomiles.2  Moreover 
they  rejected  marriage,  married  persons  being  admitted  amongst 
them  only  on  the  condition  of  living  apart ;  they  led  a  life  of 
prayer  and  rigid  abstinence,  and  renounced  all  earthly  possessions. 
The  archbishop  despatched  a  military  force  against  the  castle, 
which  was  taken,  and  a  number  of  prisoners  were  conveyed  to 
Milan.  They  were  led  into  the  market-place,  on  one  side  of  which 
stood  a  cross,  on  the  other  a  pile  of  burning  wood,  and  were  told  to 
take  their  choice,  either  to  bow  before  the  cross  and  confess  the 
Catholic  faith,  or  to  plunge  into  the  flames.  A  few  chose  the  for- 
mer ;  but  the  greater  number,  covering  their  faces  with  their  hands, 
rushed  into  the  fire  and  were  consumed.  Some  years  later  (a.d. 
1075)  Pope  Gregory  VII.  (Hildebrand),  writing  to  the  King  of 
Denmark,  tells  him  of  a  province  not  far  from  Borne  occupied  by 
heretics,  and  invites  him  to  send  one  of  his  sons  with  a  small  force 
to  conquer  it.  Why  the  pope  did  not  borrow  a  sword  nearer  home 
for  the  extirpation  of  this  new  growth  we  are  not  told. 

This  side  the  Alps  the  Paulician  doctrines  first  attracted  attention 
in  Champagne,  where  a  Manichaean  named  Fortunatus  is  said  to 
have  converted  the  prince  of  the  country,  and  where  the  archbishop 
of  Bheims  who  had  imbibed  the  heresy  was  compelled  to  abjure, 
a.d.  991.  One  of  the  converts,  described  as  a  Catharist,  put  away 
his  wife,  and  destroyed  the  cross  and  the  image  of  Christ.  He  had 
many  followers.  He  was  reduced  to  silence  by  the  bishop  of  Chalons. 
In  the  province  of  Aquitaine  (Guienne),  in  1010,  and  again  in  1017, 
certain  heretical  teachers  are  accused  of  "  persuading  the  people  to 
deny  baptism,  the  sign  of  the  Holy  Cross,  the  Church, -and  the 
Bedeemer  of  the  world  Himself,  the  veneration  of  the  saints,  lawful 

1  About  the  year  1028. 
2  See  ante,  p.  310. 


874  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

marriage,  and  the  eating  of  flesh,  by  which  means  they  turned 
away  many  simple  persons  from  the  faith."1 

The  earliest  instance  of  ecclesiastical  action  in  France  against 
the  new  heresy,  of  which  we  have  any  account,  took  place  at 
Orleans  a.d.  1022.  An  Italian  lady  sojourning  in  that  city,  com- 
municated the  doctrine  she  had  learned  in  her  own  country  to 
several  of  the  clergy,  especially  to  two  canons  of  the  "  Holy  Cross," 
Stephen,  confessor  to  Queen  Constantia,  and  Lisoius.  Amongst 
the  converts  was  Herebert,  chaplain  to  Arefaste  a  knight  of  Bouen- 
The  chaplain  boasted  to  his  patron  that  Orleans  was  blessed  above 
all  other  cities  with  the  light  of  true  wisdom.  Arefaste  suspecting 
heresy,  communicated  what  he  had  heard  to  Duke  Eichard,  who 
reported  it  to  the  king,  by  whose  command  he  went  to  Orleans  to 
investigate  the  matter.  The  more  completely  to  do  this  he  feigned 
himself  a  disciple,  and  for  the  protection  of  his  own  soul  from  the 
poison  of  the  heresy,  by  the  advice  of  an  aged  priest  of  Chartres,  he 
received  the  Communion  daily.  Supposing  they  had  to  do  with  an 
honest  inquirer,  Stephen  and  Lisoius  unfolded  to  him  their  doctrine 
without  reserve.  They  declared,  so  Arefaste  reported,  that  Christ 
was  not  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  did  not  suffer  for  mankind,  was 
not  really  laid  in  the  tomb,  and  did  not  rise  from  the  dead ;  that 
water-baptism  cannot  wash  away  sins ;  and  that  the  consecrating 
words  of  the  priest  cannot  convert  the  bread  and  wine  into  the  body 
and  blood  of  Christ ;  that  it  is  a  vain  thing  to  make  prayers  to  the 
saints  and  martyrs ;  and  that  works  of  righteousness  and  charity 
cannot  purchase  eternal  life.2  "  If,"  objected  the  pretended  in- 
quirer after  truth,  "lam  not  to  look  to  good  works  for  salvation, 
tell  me  I  pray  you  what  I  may  look  to,  lest  I  fall  into  despair."  He 
was  answered  that  in  their  further  instructions  they  would  show 
him  how  he  might  be  cleansed  from  every  stain  of  sin,  and  receive 
the  Holy  Spirit  by  the  laying  on  of  their  hands  ;  and  that  then  he 
should  eat  heavenly  food,  and  often  see  angels,  with  whom  he 
should  travel  whither  he  pleased  with  ease  and  despatch.      The 

1  There  is  no  doubt  that  some  of  these  sects  trod  in  the  footsteps  of  the 
monks  and  hermits  both  as  to  celibacy  and  fasting.  In  some  instances,  how- 
ever, the  charge  that  they  rejected  marriage  probably  meant  no  more  than  that 
they  "  denied  it  to  be  a  '  sacrament,'  and  disputed  the  endless  impediments  of 
affinity  created  by  the  Bomish  Church."  At  the  Diet  of  Worms  Aleander 
absurdly  accused  Luther  of  "  shamefully  vilifying  the  unalterable  law  of  holy 
marriage." 

2  Another  account  makes  them  reject  the  revelation  of  the  Scriptures  with 
regard  to  creation  and  the  Trinity,  and  deny  the  necessity  of  a  virtuous  life  and 
the  future  punishment  of  the  wicked. 


THE  MAKTYRS  OF  ORLEANS.  875 

heavenly  food  they  spoke  of  he  interpreted  to  be  nightly  orgies,  at 
which,  as  was  reported  of  the  Early  Christians,  they  indulged  in 
Thyestean  banquets. 

Whilst  Arefaste  was  thus  deceitfully  collecting  evidence,  King 
Robert  arrived  with  his  queen  at  Orleans;  and  the  next  day, 
having  caused  the  chief  men  of  the  party  to  be  apprehended 
at  one  of  their  private  meetings,  he  assembled  a  council  of  bishops, 
before  whom  they  were  brought  in  chains  for  trial.  Called  upon  to 
confess  their  faith,  they  did  this  in  so  guarded  a  manner  as  to  afford 
no  ground  for  accusation.  But  when  Arefaste  stood  forward  and 
recounted  the  conversations  he  had  had  with  them,  and  reminded 
them  of  their  boast  that  neither  torture  nor  death  would  ever  move 
them,  they  admitted  the  charges  and  said  they  had  long  held  such 
doctrines.  Nay  more,  they  asserted  their  expectation  that  both 
their  judges  and  all  the  world  would,  sooner  or  later,  embrace  the 
same  faith ;  and  as  to  the  fire  with  which  they  were  threatened, 
they  spoke  as  though  they  expected  to  be  delivered  from  it  unhurt. 
Their  last  words  to  the  council  were  :  "  Speak  to  those  who  mind 
earthly  things  and  who  believe  the  figments  of  men  written  on 
parchment ;  to  us  who  have  the  law  written  on  the  heart  by  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  relish  nothing  but  what  we  have  learned  from 
God,  the  things  you  speak  of  are  vain.  Cease  therefore  to  question 
us ;  do  with  us  as  you  will ;  for  now  we  see  our  King  ready  to  re- 
ceive us  to  heavenly  joys  at  his  right  hand."  After  a  nine  hours* 
examination  they  were  condemned  to  death  ;  and,  such  of  them  as 
were  priests  being  first  stripped  of  their  clerical  vestments,  they 
were  led  away,  thirteen  in  number,  to  a  great  fire  kindled  outside 
the  city  walls.  As  they  passed  the  church-door,  Queen  Constantia 
with  a  stick  struck  her  confessor  Stephen,  and  dashed  out  one  of 
his  eyes.  When  they  were  bound  to  the  stake,  a  smile  was  seen  on 
their  faces  which  continued  even  in  the  midst  of  the  flames.1  Ten 
of  those  who  were  burnt  were  canons,  the  remaining  three  being 
laymen  of  distinction.  Two,  a  priest  and  a  nun,  drew  back.  The 
corpse  of  another  canon  who  had  died  in  the  heresy  three  years 
before  was,  at  the  command  of  the  bishop,  exhumed  and  cast  out 
on  the  highway. 

1  This  is  the  statement  of  the  more  copious  narrator.  The  other  principal 
authority,  Glaber  Rodulphus,  says,  "  they  leaped  exulting  into  the  flames,  but 
no  sooner  felt  the  heat  than  they  cried  out  that  they  had  been  deceived,  and 
were  about  to  perish  for  ever.  The  by-standers  moved  with  pity  made  efforts  to 
draw  them  out,  but  it  was  too  late;  they  were  reduced  to  ashes."  He  adds 
that  others  of  the  sect  being  afterwards  discovered  were  put  to  death  in  the 
same  manner. 


376  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

What  was  the  real  creed  of  these  confessors  it  is  difficult  to  say  ; 
it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  all  we  know  of  them  is  derived  from 
the  evidence  of  a  spy  and  the  records  of  a  prejudiced  court.  Such 
testimony  is  to  be  received  with  the  utmost  caution.  The  charge 
of  abominable  practices  is  in  direct  contradiction  to  their  known 
character,  since  their  enemies  themselves  bear  witness  to  their 
intelligence  and  the  purity  of  their  lives. 

Thus  for  the  first  time  in  Europe  were  men  burnt  at  the  stake 
by  the  Church  which  called  herself  Christian.  This  deed  marks 
the  beginning  of  the  saddest  era  in  the  history  of  the  Church.  To 
France  was  offered  the  priceless  boon  of  a  revival  in  religious  life. 
She  knew  not  the  day  of  her  visitation,  and  quenched  the  upspring- 
ing  light  in  blood.  She  did  not  foresee  the  long  and  dark  reign  of 
injustice  and  cruelty  she  was  then  inaugurating,  and  how  when  the 
bitter  cup  was  full,  it  would  be  given  back  to  her  to  drink  to  the 
very  dregs.  The  Auto-da- Fes  of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries 
were  the  forerunners  of  the  sanguinary  crusades  against  the  Albi- 
genses,  Waldenses  and  Huguenots,  and  more  remotely,  of  the 
national  infidelity  and  the  French  Eevolution.  Again  and  again, 
with  a  remorseless  hand,  the  salt  was  cast  out,  until  notbing 
remained  to  save  the  nation  from  corruption.  If  the  attempts  at 
reformation  so  often  renewed  in  France  had  had  free  course,  the 
unbelief  of  the  eighteenth  century  had  surely  never  so  stifled  the 
voice  of  truth  as  to  leave  the  nation  a  prey  to  tbe  curse  of  intellec- 
tual without  spiritual  life.  The  seeds  of  this  bitter  harvest  were 
sown  in  the  blazing  faggots  of  Orleans. 

Three  years  after  the  burning  at  Orleans  we  find  similar  opinions 
reappearing  at  Arras  in  French  Flanders.  In  1025  Gerhard,  arch- 
bishop of  Cambray  and  Arras,  being  in  the  latter  city,  was  informed 
that  a  new  kind  of  heresy  had  been  introduced  by  certain  Italians, 
"  who  disputed  against  the  sacraments  of  the  Church  and  overthrew 
the  established  religion."  The  accused  were  cast  into  prison, 
brought  before  the  bishop  and  examined  as  to  their  faith  and 
manner  of  life.  They  answered  that  they  were  the  disciples  of  one 
Gundulph,  an  Italian,  by  whom  they  had  been  instructed  in  the 
gospels  and  epistles — the  only  Scriptures  which  they  acknowledged 
— and  that  they  adhered  to  these  in  word  and  life.  They  discarded 
the  use  of  the  bread  and  wine,  and  rejected  water-baptism,  especially 
the  baptism  of  infants.  They  condemned  images,  denied  the 
sanctity  of  churches,  altars  and  crosses,  and  disapproved  of  incense, 
oil  and  bells.  They  condemned  marriage,  and  asserted  that  funeral 
rites  were  invented  by  the  priests  to  gratify  their  avarice,  and  that 
it  mattered  nothing  where  the  dead  were  interred.     They  objected 


THE  REFORMERS  OF  ARRAS.  377 

-to  penance  as  then  practised,  and  denied  that  the  sins  of  the  dead 
can  be  expiated  by  masses  or  by  gifts  to  the  poor.  They  protested 
against  the  difference  of  rank  amongst  the  clergy,  and  in  their  zeal 
for  a  spiritual  Christianity,  they  denied  the  divine  authority  of 
Church  offices.  They  summed  up  the  doctrines  of  Christ  and  the 
Apostles  in  these  few  comprehensive  articles  :  "To  forsake  the 
world,  to  overcome  the  flesh,  to  support  one's  self  by  labour,  to 
injure  no  one,  to  love  the  brethren."  The  bishop  was  a  prudent 
man.  Desiring  the  reclamation,  not  the  destruction,  of  these 
seceders,  he  ordered  his  clergy  and  the  monks  to  fast  and  pray  for 
them,  whilst  he  himself  reasoned  with  them  in  a  laborious  and 
temperate  manner.  To  afford  them  time  for  reflection,  he  remanded 
them  to  prison  for  three  days ;  at  the  end  of  which,  whether 
influenced  by  the  bishop's  arguments,  or  by  the  thickness  of  the 
prison  walls,  or  by  the  fear  of  a  worse  fate,  they  submitted  and  sued 
for  pardon.  A  paper  of  retractation  was  drawn  up  which  they 
signed,  and  they  were  then  dismissed  in  peace  with  the  episcopal 
benediction.  But  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  recantation  was  in 
Latin,  a  language  they  did  not  understand,  and  that  it  was  explained 
to  them  by  an  interpreter. 

Several  councils  for  the  suppression  of  heresy,  one  at  Charroux 
near  Poictiers  in  1028,  another  at  the  royal  city  of  Rheims  in  1049, 
and  a  third  at  Toulouse  in  1056,  serve  to  show  how  wide-spread  the 
religious  fermentation  had  become.1  By  the  last  two  all  who  kept 
company  with  the  heretics  were  declared  to  be  excommunicate. 
About  the  same  time  Berengar,  head  of  the  Public  School  at  Tours, 
drew  much  attention  by  assailing  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation. 
His  writings  were  condemned,  1050 — 1055,  by  several  councils,  and 
lacking  the  fortitude  of  a  martyr  he  recanted.2  Besides  maintain- 
ing that  the  Lord's  Supper  was  to  be  a  spiritual,  not  an  outward 
communion,  he  is  said  to  have  rejected  the  baptism  of  infants,  and 
marriage ;  and  to  have  declared  that  the  see  of  Rome  is  the  seat  of 
Satan. 

In  the  midst  of  the  emulation,  shown  by  the  bishops  for  the 
detection  and  extinction  of  heresy,  it  is  refreshing  to  meet  with  the 
name  of  one  who  protested  manfully,  and  so  far  as  we  know  single- 

1  Other  localities  are  mentioned.  The  infection  extended  even  to  Goslar,  in 
the  Harz  Mountains,  where  in  1052  some  "Manichseans  "  were  put  to  death  by 
order  of  the  Emperor  Henry  III. 

2  When  Lanfranc,  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  reproached  him  with  changing 
his  opinions  on  coming  to  Rome,  Berengar  replied:  "Human  wickedness  by 
outward  force  can  extort  a  recantation  from  human  weakness  ;  but  it  is  God's 
Almighty  power  alone  that  can  effect  a  change  of  conviction." 


378  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

handed,  against  the  intolerant  spirit  of  the  times.  This  was  Waso, 
bishop  of  Liege,  who  died  about  1047.  During  the  spread  of 
heretical  tenets  in  the  diocese  of  Chalons-sur-Marne,  his  opinion 
was  asked  on  the  right  mode  of  dealing  with  heretics.  In  the 
spirit  of  Theodore  Studites,1  he  answered :  "  Although  such  doc- 
trines must  be  condemned  as  unchristian,  yet  after  the  example  of 
our  Saviour  we  are  bound  to  bear  with  those  who  hold  them.  The 
parable  of  the  wheat  and  the  tares  teaches  us  not  at  once  to  con- 
demn sinners,  but  to  wait  with  long-suffering  for  their  repentance. 
By  the  servants  who  were  for  pulling  up  the  tares  as  soon  as  they 
appeared,  are  to  be  understood  over-hasty  priests.  Those  who  are 
of  the  tares  to-day  may  to-morrow  bring  forth  good  fruit;  and 
whilst  we  are  thinking  of  exercising  justice  by  punishing  the 
wicked  we  may  be  counteracting  the  purposes  of  Him  who  wills 
not  the  death  of  the  sinner,  but  seeks  by  patience  and  long-suffering 
to  bring  back  all  to  repentance.  Let  these  men  be  reserved  then 
to  the  last  harvest  of  the  great  Master  of  the  house,  for  whose 
sentence  we  ourselves  also  must  wait  with  fear  and  trembling.  He 
can  make  those  who  now  fight  against  us,  occupy  in  that  heavenly 
country  a  higher  place  than  we.  And  we  bishops  ought  certainly 
to  remember  that  we  did  not,  at  our  ordination,  receive  from  God 
any  vocation  to  slay,  but  only  the  vocation  to  make  alive." 

In  this  century  the  attempts  at  reformation  were  of  a  sporadic 
nature,  often  questionable  as  to  Scriptural  doctrine,  and  avoiding 
rather  than  courting  publicity.  In  the  next  century  we  shall  come 
upon  a  clearer  faith,  a  wider  and  more  general  action,  and  a  fear- 
less assault  on  the  stronghold  of  ecclesiastical  abuses. 


CHAPTEK    V. 

The  Beformers  of  the  Twelfth  Century. 

The  first  noteworthy  preacher  of  the  reformed  doctrines  in  this 
century  is  a  priest  named  Peter  of  Brueys.  Through  the  diligent 
study  of  the  New  Testament  he  had  acquired  a  clear  conception  of 
the  worship  of  God  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  Eegarding  faith  as 
necessary  to  baptism,  he  rejected  the  baptism  of  infants  ;  and  when 
in  consequence  of  re-immersing  those  who  joined  them  his  followers 
were  called  Anabaptists,  they  demurred  to  the  name,  alleging  that 

1  See  ante,  p.  309. 


PETER    OF   BRUEYS.  879 

the  baptism  performed  in  infancy  was  no  baptism  at  all.  He  rejected 
the  celebration  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  holding  that  Christ  once  for 
all,  before  He  suffered,  having  broken  His  body  in  the  bread  and 
distributed  it  to  His  disciples,  the  same  thing  could  not  be  repeated. 
He  vehemently  opposed  the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  which  he  regarded 
as  the  pillar  on  which  the  dominion  of  the  priesthood  chiefly  rested. 
"  Trust  not,"  he  exclaimed  to  the  people,  "  in  your  misleading 
clergy,  when  they  pretend  to  produce  for  you  the  body  of  Christ 
and  to  deliver  it  to  you  for  the  salvation  of  your  souls."  He  con- 
demned prayers,  offerings  and  alms  for  the  dead.  "  The  state  of  a 
man  after  death,"  he  said,  "depends  on  his  conduct  during  life,, 
nothing  that  is  done  afterwards  can  be  of  any  avail."  Burdened 
with  the  pomp  of  public  worship,  the  multiplied  ceremonies  which 
had  converted  it  into  a  mechanical  service,  and  the  artificial 
chanting  which  affected  the  senses  rather  than  the  heart,  he  says  :. 
"  God  is  mocked  by  such  services ;  He  to  whom  pious  feeling  alone 
is  acceptable  is  neither  brought  near  by  loud  vociferation,  nor  pro- 
pitiated by  musical  melodies."  In  like  manner  he  despised  conse- 
crated buildings  :  "  God  is  to  be  worshipped  in  the  shop  or  in  the 
market-place  equally  as  in  the  church ;  He  hearkens  to  the  sincere 
suppliant  whether  praying  before  an  altar  or  in  a  workshop." 

But  although  Peter  had  a  clear  insight  into  the  teaching  of  the 
New  Testament,  he  was  far  from  having  imbibed  its  genuine  spirit. 
Lamentably  deficient  in  judgment  and  charity,  he  suffered  his  zeal 
to  betray  him  into  fanaticism.  He  not  only  condemned  the  super- 
stitious reverence  for  the  Cross,  but  insisted  that  as  the  memorial 
of  Christ's  sufferings,  every  representation  of  it  ought,  by  way  of 
avenging  His  death,  to  be  cast  away  and  destroyed.1  This  maxim 
was  carried  out  by  his  followers  only  too  literally.  On  a  certain 
Good  Friday  they  brought  together  all  the  crucifixes  they  could 
collect,  and  making  of  them  a  great  fire,  roasted  meat  thereat  and^ 
invited  every  one  to  partake.  They  even  proceeded  to  pull  down 
altars,  scourge  priests,  and  compel  monks  to  marry,  "What  other 
result,"  asks  Neander,  "  could  be  anticipated  from  the  spirit  of  un- 
bridled liberty  pervading  so  rude  an  age,  when  we  see  that  at  the 
more  advanced  era  of  the  Reformation,  all  the  caution  of  the 
reformers  was  insufficient  to  prevent  men  from  confounding  earthly 
licentiousness  with  Christian  freedom,  and  to  restrain  the  wild 
bursts  of  human  passion  ?" 

Peter  preached  first  in  Dauphine,  his  native  country ;  being 
driven  thence,  he  travelled  up  and  down  for  twenty  years  in  Gas- 
cony,  Languedoc  and  Provence,  waging  war  against  superstition, 

1  In  this  respect  he  resembled  Claude  of  Turin.     See  ante,  p.  315. 


380  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

and  making  many  proselytes.  "  In  Provence  there  was  nothing  to 
be  seen  but  Christians  re-baptized,  churches  profaned,  altars  pulled 
down,  and  crosses  burnt."  But  about  1124,  being  at  the  city  of 
St.  Gilles  in  Languedoc,  Peter,  at  the  instigation  of  the  clergy,  was 
seized  by  an  infuriated  mob,  hurried  away  and  burnt  at  the  stake, 
"  thus  passing,"  says  even  the  large-hearted  Peter  of  Cluny,  "  from 
temporal  to  eternal  fire." 

In  1119  a  council  at  Toulouse  issued  the  following  canon  in 
reference  to  Peter  and  other  schismatics.  "  We  condemn  as  here- 
tics, and  exclude  from  the  Church  of  God,  those  who  under  the 
pretence  of  religion  reject  the  Sacrament  of  the  body  and  blood  of 
Jesus  Christ,  Infant  Baptism,  Priesthood,  Holy  Orders,  and  lawful 
Marriage  ;  and  we  enjoin  that  they  should  be  suppressed  by  the 
secular  power." 

Not  many  years  afterwards,  Peter  of  Cluny,  being  on  a  tour  in 
Gascony,  set  himself  to  repair  the  breaches  which  he  everywhere 
found  in  the  Church.  He  drew  up  a  refutation  of  the  errors,  as  he 
deemed  them  to  be,  of  the  PetrObrusians  (the  followers  of  Peter  de 
Brueys),  and  sent  it  to  the  bishops  of  the  province,  telling  them 
that  it  was  their  duty  by  preaching  to  drive  the  sectaries  from  their 
hiding-places,  and  if  unable  of  themselves  to  do  this  they  must  in- 
voke the  secular  power.  "  But  since,"  he  says,  "  it  becomes 
Christian  charity  to  labour  rather  for  the  conversion  than  for  the 
extirpation  of  heretics,  authority  and  reason  are  the  great  means  to 
be  employed,  so  that  if  they  profess  themselves  to  be  Christians, 
they  may  bow  to  the  one,  or  if  they  desire  to  be  considered  as  men, 
they  may  acknowledge  the  other."  1 

Whilst  the  abbot  of  Cluny  was  thus  unconsciously  seeking  to 
quench  gospel  light,  a  denizen  of  his  own  cloisters  had  been  visited 
by  heavenly  illumination  and  prepared  to  be  a  Witness  for  the 
truth.  This  was  Henry  of  Lausanne,  a  monk  of  Cluny  and  a 
deacon,  who,  like  Peter,  taking  the  New  Testament  for  his  guide, 
saw  that  the  Gospel  points  to  a  life  of  practical  activity,  not  to  one 
of  contemplative  inaction,  and  felt  himself  called  to  minister  to  the 
wants  of  the  people,  who  were  either  totally  neglected  or  led  astray 
by  a  hireling  clergy.  Accordingly  he  sallied  forth  in  his  monkish 
attire,  and  waiting  for  no  invitation  took  up  his  abode,  in  one  house 
after  another,  preaching  the  spiritual  life,  and  contented  with  such 
fare  as  was  set  before  him. 

From  Lausanne,  where  he  appears  to  have  first  preached,  he 

,     1  The  abbot  traces  the  new  doctrines  to  the  Cottian  Alps,  "  whence,"  he 
.says,  "  they  had  spread  over  all  the  south  of  France." 


HENRY    OF    LAUSANNE.  381 

came  into  Central  France.  Men  like-minded  joined  him  as  he  went 
along,  and  an  apostolical  society  was  formed  under  his  direction. 
Having  no  controversy,  as  Peter  of  Brueys  had,  with  the  symbol  of 
the  Saviour's  passion,  he  caused  to  be  carried  before  him  a  banner 
on  which  was  worked  a  figure  of  the  cross,1  as  an  invitation  to  all 
men  to  take  up  the  cross  of  Christ.  At  first  he  confined  himself  to 
preaching  repentance,  and  denouncing  that  sham  Christianity  in 
which  the  fruits  of  a  godly  life  are  wanting.  Soon  however  he 
proceeded  to  warn  men  against  a  worldly-minded  clergy,  those  false 
guides  whose  teaching  and  example  did  more  to  promote  wicked- 
ness than  to  restrain  it.  Especially  he  attacked  their  unchastity  ;. 
and  less  enlightened  than  his  compatriot  on  the  subject  of  celibacy, 
he  joined  the  monks  in  supporting  the  harsh  decrees  of  Gregory 
VII.  (Hildebrand)  against  the  married  clergy.2 

Henry's  appearance  was  such  as  of  itself  to  command  attention. 
The  rapid  changes  in  his  countenance  are  likened  by  the  con- 
temporary chronicler  to  "  a  ruffled  and  tempestuous  sea.  He  was 
as  yet  very  young;  he  wore  short  hair,  his  beard  shaved;  was 
large  in  stature,  but  very  sorrily  clothed ;  walked  apace,  and  bare- 
footed even  in  the  hardest  time  of  winter.  His  ordinary  retreats 
were  the  cottages  of  peasants ;  he  lived  all  day  under  porticoes ; 
ate  and  slept  on  some  hill  or  other  in  the  open  air.  The  women 
cried  him  up  for  a  great  Servant  of  God," — it  is,  as  usual,  a  hostile 
pen  which  is  describing  him — "  and  gave  out  that  no  person  could 
have  a  greater  faculty  than  he  of  converting  the  most  obdurate 
hearts  ;  and  that  he  was  endued  with  the  spirit  of  prophecy,  to 
discern  the  most  inward  recesses  of  the  conscience,  and  the  most 
private  sins.  He  had  a  natural  eloquence,  and  a  tone  of  voice  re- 
sembling thunder."  Contrited  under  the  searching  ministry  of 
this  Whitfield  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  people  hastened  to  confess 
their  sins  and  to  renounce  their  loose  manner  of  life. 

On  Ash-Wednesday  a.d.  1116,  two  of  Henry's  disciples  in  the 
garb  of  penitents  appeared  with  their  banner  at  Le  Mans,  the  chief 
city  of  the  province  of  Maine.  They  came  to  see  if  their  master 
might  visit  the  city  as  a  preacher  of  repentance  during  the  season 
of  Lent.  Henry's  fame  had  preceded  him,  and  the  messengers 
"were  received  by  the  people  as  angels."  The  bishop  Hildebert,  a 
discreet  and  pious  man,  gave  them  a  friendly  reception,  Henry  not 
having  as  yet  come  under  suspicion  of  heresy.  Himself  about 
starting  for  Rome,  the  bishop  gave  directions  to  his  archdeacon 

1  Or  it  may  have  been  an  iron  cross  od  a  staff. 
2  Gregory  was  pope  from  1073  to  1085. 


882  WITNESSES    FOR    OHEIST. 

that  Henry  should  have  liberty  to  preach.  The  effect  of  his 
preaching  was  wonderful.  Not  only  were  the  common  people 
drawn  and  bound  to  him  by  an  invisible  chain,  but  the  younger 
clergy  eagerly  gathered  round  him,  and  prepared  a  stage  in  a  public 
place  from  whence  he  could  be  heard  by  the  whole  city.  Neverthe- 
less the  higher  clergy  set  their  faces  against  him,  and  when  the 
•citizens,  in  revenge,  withdrew  from  the  churches  and  insulted  the 
priests,  they  applied  for  protection  to  the  civil  power.  At  the  same 
time  they  addressed  a  letter  to  Henry  upbraiding  him  with  abusing 
the  confidence  reposed  in  him,  and  with  instigating  the  people  to 
schism,  sedition  and  heresy.  They  forbade  him  under  pain  of 
excommunication  to  preach  in  any  part  of  the  diocese.  Henry  re- 
fused to  recognize  their  authority,  and  when  the  prohibitory  letter 
was  read  in  public  he  shook  his  head  at  every  sentence,  and  ex- 
claimed, "Thouliest!"  Not  the  working- classes  only,  but  sub- 
stantial citizens  looked  up  to  Henry  as  their  spiritual  guide  ;  gold 
and  silver  were  freely  placed  at  his  disposal,  so  that  if  he  had  been 
actuated  by  sordid  motives  he  might  easily  have  made  himself  rich. 
If  he  failed  to  restrain  his  own  and  the  people's  passions  in  the 
good  cause  he  had  at  heart,  he  did  not  at  least  use  his  great  in- 
fluence for  his  own  emolument,  but  only  to  raise  the  moral 
■character  of  the  people.  Although  he  insisted  on  the  celibacy  of 
the  clergy,  Henry  strenuously  promoted  marriage  amongst  the  laity, 
striving  to  break  down  the  arbitrary  barriers  of  relationship  which 
the  Church  had  set  up,  as  well  as  those  of  caste  which  had  grown 
up  between  the  free-born  and  the  serfs.  He  also  set  himself  against 
the  prevalent  custom  of  choosing  a  wife  for  the  sake  of  her  dowry. 
When  Hildebert  returned  from  Rome  he  found  the  tone  of  feeling 
in  Le  Mans  strangely  altered.  He  himself  was  no  longer  received 
with  the  customary  demonstrations  of  joy  and  reverence.  His 
episcopal  blessing  was  despised.  "  We  have,"  said  the  people, 
"  another  father,  priest  and  intercessor,  more  virtuous  in  life,  more 
eminent  in  knowledge,  more  exalted  in  authority.  The  clergy  hate 
him  because  they  are  afraid  that  by  means  of  the  Scriptures  he  will 
■expose  their  vices,  their  incontinence  and  their  false  doctrine." 
Hildebert  as  we  have  said  was  a  prudent  man  ;  he  saw  the  danger 
of  attempting  to  put  down  Henry's  influence  by  force.  Accordingly 
he  sought  a  private  interview,  in  which  he  prevailed  upon  him, 
either  by  authority  or  argument,  quietly  to  leave  the  diocese  and 
betake  himself  to  some  other  field.1 

1  "  The  bishop,"  says  Milman,  "bade  him  repeat  the  Morning  Hymn,  which 
finding  he  was  unable  to  do,  he  concluded  him  to  be  a  poor  ignorant  man." 


HENRY   OF    LAUSANNE.  383 

Notwithstanding  the  allusion  just  made  to  the  false  doctrines  of 
the  priests,  it  does  not  appear  that  Henry,  whilst  he  was  at  Le  Mans, 
made  any  distinct  attack  either  upon  the  dogmas  or  the  ceremonial 
of  the  Church.  It  was  otherwise  when,  directing  his  course  south- 
ward, he  came  to  the  country  in  which  Peter  of  Brueys  had  already 
laboured.  The  abbot  of  Cluny  in  his  treati  se  speaks  of  Henry  of 
Lausanne  as  the  heir  to  Peter's  wickedness.1  Here  Henry  pub- 
lished a  tract  against  the  abuses  of  the  Church,  in  which  he  gave  a 
more  systematic  shape  to  the  teaching  of  his  predecessor.  The 
clergy  were  greatly  alarmed,  and  the  archbishop  of  Aries,  having 
succeeded  in  getting  possession  of  Henry's  person  (a.d.  1134), 
carried  him  to  the  Council  of  Pisa,  at  which  Pope  Innocent  II. 
presided.  By  this  council  he  was  pronounced  a  heretic,  and  placed 
under  the  custody  of  Bernard  of  Clairvaux.  Recovering  his  liberty, 
he  returned  to  the  south  of  France,  and  recommenced  preaching 
around  Toulouse  and  Albi,  where  the  anti-Romish  tendencies  were 
strong  and  were  favoured  by  the  feudal  lords  who  were  striving  to 
render  themselves  independent  of  their  sovereigns.  Here  he  laboured 
for  ten  years  with  remarkable  success.2  Bernard  of  Clairvaux, 
whose  watchful  eye  took  in  the  whole  Gallic  Church  with  its  wants 
and  perils,  roused  himself,  and  called  upon  the  count  of  St.  Gilles 
and  Toulouse  to  put  down  the  heresy.  "  We  have  heard,"  he  tells 
him,  "  what  great  things  Henry  the  heretic  is  doing  every  day  in 
the  churches  of  God,  wandering  up  and  down,  a  ravenous  wolf  in 
sheep's  clothing.  The  churches  are  without  people;  the  people 
without  priests ;  the  priests  without  becoming  reverence ;  and 
Christians  without  Christ.  The  invocation  of  saints,  offerings  for 
the  dead,  pilgrimages,  festivals,  are  all  neglected,  and  baptism  is 
denied  to  infants,  who  are  thus  robbed  of  salvation." 

Pope  Eugenius  III.,  who  had  been  driven  from  Rome  by  a  rival 
and  was  keeping  his  court  at  Avignon,  saw  the  necessity  of  adopting 
•energetic  measures  if  the  new  heresy  was  to  be  prevented  from  over- 
spreading the  land.  He  sent  into  Languedoc  the  cardinal  bishop 
Alberic  of  Ostia,  who  however  refused  to  undertake  the  task  unless 
Bernard  would  go  with  him.  "  Henry,"  he  said,  "  is  an  antago- 
nist, who  can  only  be  put  down  by  the  vanquisher  of  Abelard  and 
of  Arnold  of  Brescia."  Bernard's  strength  was  failing,  and  he 
hesitated ;  but  his  old  zeal  for  the  Church  prevailed,  and  he  set  out 
for  the  heretical  provinces,  where  he  not  only  preached  with  extra- 

1  Milman  says  Henry  joined  Peter,  and  after  the  latter  was  burned  retired 
into  Gascony. 

2  His  followers  were  called  after  him  Henricians. 


384  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

ordinary  success,  but  is  said  to  have  performed  many  miracles- 
The  legate  had  come  in  all  the  pomp  of  office  with  a  train  of 
attendant  clergy.  The  intelligent  weavers  and  the  spiritually- 
minded  priests  who  had  left  the  Eomish  communion  despised  such 
show,  and  set  his  authority  at  nought.  But  Bernard's  appearance, 
which  refuted  the  common  charge  that  the  ecclesiastics  had  all 
become  worldly,  produced  a  totally  different  impression.  At  Albi, 
a  focus  of  the  defection,  a  vast  multitude  assembled  to  hear  him. 
In  his  discourse  he  examined  in  succession  the  several  articles  of 
the  heresy,  and  showed  their  deviation  from  the  Koman  Catholic 
faith,  and  then  called  upon  the  people  to  declare  which  of  the  two- 
they  would  choose.  Carried  away  by  his  eloquence  and  the  mastery 
of  his  spirit,  they  exclaimed  that  they  abhorred  heresy,  and  were 
desirous  only  to  return  to  the  bosom  of  the  Church.  "  Return, 
then,"  replied  Bernard,  "  and  that  we  may  the  better  distinguish 
those  who  are  sincere,  let  all  true  penitents  lift  up  their  hands."  It 
is  said  that  every  hand  was  lifted  up. 

The  bishops  once  more  laid  hands  on  Henry,  and  he  was  carried 
in  chains  before  a  council  held  at  Rheims  in  1148.  Here  he  was- 
condemned  to  death,  but  at  the  intercession  of  archbishop  Samson, 
who  presided,  and  who  deprecated  the  shedding  of  blood,  the  sen- 
tence was  commuted  to  "  imprisonment  for  life,  with  meagre  diet, 
that  he  might  be  brought  to  repentance." 

At  the  same  time  there  was  a  stirring  in  the  provinces  of  Peri- 
gueux,  Guienne  and  Dauphine.  In  Perigueux,  a  monk  named 
Pontius  drew  away  from  the  Catholic  Communion  nobles,  clerics, 
monks  and  nuns.  He  preached  the  same  doctrine  as  Henry, 
treated  the  Host  with  the  utmost  contempt,  and  seems  to  have 
altogether  rejected  the  bread  and  wine.  It  is  said  the  most  un- 
lettered peasant  who  joined  him  acquired  in  a  week  sufficient  know- 
ledge of  Scripture  to  put  the  priests  to  silence.  The  followers  of 
Pontius  were  credited  by  the  common  people  with  being  con- 
summate sorcerers.  Especially  it  was  impossible  to  bind  them. 
"Loaded  with  chains,  stowed  carefully  in  a  wine  butt  turned 
bottom  upwards,  and  well  watched  by  a  strong  guard,  they  yet  in 
the  morning  were  found  to  have  evaporated,  as  it  were,  and  were 
not  seen  again  till  they  chose  to  show  themselves."  A  letter  to 
Pope  Lucius  II.  from  Dauphine  in  1144,  complains  that  the  plague 
of  heresy  has  broken  out  in  that  province.  "  Baptism,  the  Mass, 
and  the  imposition  of  hands  by  the  priests,  are  counted  for  nothing. 
The  sectaries  have  their  neophytes,  their  priests  and  even  their 
bishops,  as  we  have.  Every  part  of  France,"  it  is  added,  "  is  cor- 
rupted by  the  poison  issuing  from  this  province." 


THE  COUNCILS  OF  TOURS  AND  LOMBEBS.  885 

The  Catholic  world  now  began  to  awake  to  the  magnitude  of  the 
danger  with  which  it  was  threatened,  and  to  devise  comprehensive 
measures  to  avert  it.      In  1162  Pope  Alexander  III.,  who  like 
Eugenius  had  fled  from  Eome   to  Avignon,  declared  that  every 
secular  prince  who  should  not  employ  his  authority  for  the  sup- 
pression of  heresy  should  be  accursed ;  and  the  next  year  he  called 
a  council  at  Tours  for  the  purpose  of  giving  effect  to  this  declara- 
tion.    A  large   number  of  bishops,   abbots,   priests  and  laymen,, 
chiefly  French  and  English,  assembled  ;  and  the  decrees  issued  by 
them  constitute  the  first  solemn  act  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  which 
can   properly   be   called  inquisitional.      "  There   has,"    they  say, 
14  sprung  up  in  the  country  about  Toulouse  a  damnable  heresy r 
which  creeping  on  like  a  cancer,  has  spread  into  Gascony  and  in- 
fected many  other  provinces.     Serpent -like  it  conceals  itself  in  its 
own  windings,  and  glides  along,  threatening  danger  to  the  simple 
and  unwary."     As  an  antidote  to  this  poison,  they  prescribe  the 
same  remedy  which,  a  few  years  ago,  was  made  so  much  use  of  in 
Ireland  for  political  purposes.      "  Wherefore   we    command    all 
bishops  and  priests  to  keep  a  watchful  eye  upon  the  heretics,  and. 
to  forbid  all  men  under  pain  of  excommunication  to  harbour  or 
assist  or  trade  with  them,  that  so,  through  deprivation  of  the  benefits 
of  society,  they  may  be  forced  to  repent  of  their  error.     And  who- 
soever shall  attempt  to  oppose  this  decree  shall  be  smitten  with  the 
same  anathema."1     To  which  these  words  were  added:  "Foras- 
much as  they  frequently  assemble  in  hiding-places,  let  such  con- 
venticles be  closely  searched,  and  if  the  attenders  be  found  guilty,, 
let  them  be  restrained  with  canonical  severity." 

A  few  years  afterwards  (1176),  a  party  of  Henricians  (called  by 
themselves  Boni-Humines,  Good  Men)  were  apprehended  in  Langue- 
doc,  and  brought  before  a  council  at  Lombers  near  Albi.  They 
held  that  the  sacrament  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  may  be 
consecrated  by  every  good  man,  whether  priest  or  layman.  Re- 
specting confession,  they  would  go  no  further  than  the  apostle 
James:  "Confess  your  sins  one  to  another,  and  pray  one  for 
another  that  ye  may  be  healed."  They  regarded  all  oaths  as  un- 
lawful. Of  the  Scriptures,  they  received  only  the  New  Testament 
and  such  parts  of  the  Old  as  are  referred  to  by  Christ  Himself  or 
his   apostles.      They  held  that  when  men  of  unworthy  lives  are 

1  On  Alexander's  return  to  Eome  he  held  a  general  council  (the  third  Lateran,. 
a.d.  1179),  at  which  the  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Tours  were  re-enacted  with 
additional  severities.  His  successor  Lucius  III.,  at  the  Council  of  Verona, 
a.d.  1184,  made  a  law  of  the  same  kind,  and  with  a  still  nearer  approach  to  the 
office  of  the  Inquisition. 

2c 


386  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

ordained  to  the  priesthood  they  are  not  priests  or  bishops,  but 
hypocrites.  When  the  president  of  the  council,  after  citing  many 
Scripture  passages,  proceeded  to  pass  sentence  on  them  as  heretics, 
they  retorted  that  it  was  he  who  was  a  heretic  and  not  they,  and 
that  they  were  not  careful  to  answer  him  further,  because  the  Lord 
had  commanded  to  beware  of  false  prophets.  Then  turning  to  the 
people  they  made  a  Catholic  confession  in  accordance  with  the 
-creed  of  the  Church,  and  to  which  little  or  no  exception  could  be 
taken;  but  when  required  to  swear  to  it  they  refused,  because 
Christ  has  forbidden  all  swearing.  Their  confession  was  in  con- 
sequence held  to  be  invalid,  and  they  were  condemned  accordingly. 
Their  symathisers  however  seem  to  have  been  too  powerful  to  allow 
the  punishment  to  follow. 

The  next  place  to  be  stained  by  the  red  hand  of  persecution  is 
Vezelay  in  Burgundy.  This  little  town  was  famous  for  a  Bene- 
dictine monastery  founded  in  the  ninth  century,  and  rendered 
especially  sacred  by  the  supposed  relics  of  Mary  Magdalene  brought 
thither  in  the  tenth.  The  town  and  the  church  (the  latter  being 
now  the  only  remains  of  the  monastery)  crown  the  summit  of  a 
steep  hill,  and  are  conspicuous  from  all  the  country  around.  The 
pleasant  river  Cure  flows  far  below,  and  the  prospect  looking  up  the 
winding  valley  to  the  south,  and  the  granite  ravines  to  the  north, 
is  one  of  the  most  picturesque  in  Central  France.  The  abbey- 
church,  a  magnificent  structure,  was  a  great  shrine  of  pilgrimage, 
and  attracted  commerce  and  wealth  to  the  town. 

Several  notable  events  happened  at  Vezelay  in  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury. Here  in  1146  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  preached  the  second 
Crusade,  Louis  VII.,  with  his  Queen,  the  beautiful  and  haughty 
Eleanor,  and  a  great  train  of  nobles  and  retainers  coming  there  to 
meet  him.  The  castle  being  too  small  they  assembled  on  an  ad- 
jacent hill,  where  a  platform  was  erected  for  the  king  and  the 
preacher.  Both  wore  the  white  cross.  Bernard  in  his  eloquence 
rivalled  Peter  the  Hermit  at  Clermont  in  the  previous  century,  and 
when  he  had  spoken  the  whole  multitude  rent  the  air  with  shouts 
of  "  Crosses,  crosses!  "*  They  crowded  to  the  stage  to  receive  the 
holy  badge  which,  in  the  words  of  an  eye-witness,  "he  flung  abroad 
rather  than  distributed."    The  great  sheaf  of  crosses  he  had  brought 

1  On  another  occasion  Bernard  "preached  to  the  Knights  Templars,  then  in 
the  dawn  of  their  valour  and  glory.  The  Koran,"  says  Milman,  "  is  tame  to 
this  fierce  hymn  of  battle.  '  The  Christian  who  slays  the  unbeliever  in  the  Holy 
War  is  sure  of  his  reward,  more  sure  if  he  is  slain.  The  Christian  glories  in 
the  death  of  the  pagan,  because  Christ  is  glorified ;  by  his  own  death  both  he 
himself  and  Christ  are  still  more  glorified.' " 


THE  HERETICS  OF  VEZELAY.  387 

being  dispersed,  he  tore  up  his  own  garments  to  satisfy  the  eager 
claimants,  and  as  long  as  he  remained  in  the  town  he  did  nothing 
•else  than  make  crosses.1  Another  famous  event  is  the  excommuni- 
cation of  his  adversaries  pronounced  in  1165  by  Thomas  a  Becket 
in  this  church.  Again  a  few  years  later,  in  1180,  Eichard  Coeur 
de  Lion  and  the  French  King  Philip  Augustus,  with  a  splendid 
host  of  mail-clad  knights  and  men-at-arms,  lodged  at  Vezelay  on 
their  way  to  the  third  Crusade.  These  events  filled  the  trumpet  of 
iame.  What  we  are  about  to  relate  is  an  obscure  transaction  which 
has  to  be  sought  in  the  by-ways  of  history. 

Two  years  after  Becket  had  anathematized  his  enemies,  a  few 
ignorant  men,  to  whom  the  names  of  Publicani  and  Telonarii  are 
;given,  were  apprehended  at  Vezelay  on  a  charge  of  heresy.  They 
were  put  to  the  torture,  but  nothing  tangible  being  elicited  they 
were  remanded  by  the  abbot  to  separate  prisons.  The  clergy  in 
alarm  collected  their  whole  strength  to  convert  or  crush  this  hand- 
iul  of  poor  Christian  men.  The  archbishops  of  Lyons  and  Nar- 
bonne  came  to  the  monastery,  with  the  bishops  of  Nevers,  Laon 
,and  Nismes,  and  many  abbots  and  learned  theologians,  and  were 
occupied  sixty  days  with  the  examination  and  judgment.  The 
accused  were  pronounced  guilty  of  denying  everything  but  God ; 
but  this  may  mean  no  more  than  that  they  would  not  subscribe  the 
errors  which  a  faithless  Church  had  engrafted  on  the  truth.  They 
were  condemned  for  rejecting  "the  sacraments,  infant-baptism,  the 
Eucharist,  the  sign  of  the  life-giving  cross,  holy  water,  consecrated 
churches,"  tithes  and  oblations,  marriage,  the  monastic  life  and  the 
priesthood.  Two  of  them  were  disposed  to  recant,  and  were  allowed 
the  water  ordeal.  One  passed  through  safe ;  the  other  case  being 
more  doubtful,  the  man  was  plunged  again,  and  condemned,  to  the 
general  satisfaction.  But  the  abbot  having  still  some  doubt,  he  was 
put  to  a  death  less  tormenting  than  the  flames.  Then  the  abbot 
appealed  to  the  assembly :  "  What,  my  brethren,  think  ye  we  ought 

1  Regarding  this  crusade,  Dean  Waddington  observes,  "  the  history  of  reli- 
gious war  has  not  recorded  any  expedition  at  the  same  time  more  fatal  or  more 
fruitless.  After  two  or  three  years  of  suffering  and  disaster  almost  uninter- 
rupted, a  miserable  remnant  of  survivors  returned  to  relate  their  misfortunes 
and  marvel  at  their  discomfiture.  A  general  outcry  was  raised  against  St.  Ber- 
nard ;  innumerable  widows  and  orphans  demanded  of  the  prophet  their  hus- 
bands and  their  sires ;  or  at  least  they  claimed  the  sacred  laurels  which  he  had 
promised.  .  .  .  He  asserted  that  his  prophecies  were  only  conditional ;  that  in 
foretelling  the  success  of  the  crusaders,  he  had  assumed  their  righteousness  and 
the  purity  of  their  lives ;  that  their  own  enormous  crimes  had  averted  or  sus- 
pended the  designs  of  Providence  ! " 


388  WITNESSES   FOR    CHEIST. 

to  do  with  those  who  persevere  in  their  obstinacy?"  The  whole 
assembly  shouted:  "Let  them  be  burned!  let  them  be  burned!" 
Accordingly  they  were  carried  down,  seven  in  number,  to  the 
neighbouring  valley  of  Ecouan  and  burned.  We  do  not  even  know 
the  names  of  these  martyrs. 

"  They  lived  unknown 
Till  persecution  dragged  them  into  fame, 
And  chased  them  up  to  heaven.     Their  ashes  flew 
— No  marble  tells  us  whither.    With  their  names 
No  bard  embalms  and  sanctifies  his  song : 
And  history  so  warm  on  meaner  themes 
Is  cold  on  this." 

Again,  at  Arras  in  Flanders  in  1183,  four  heretics,  called  Pate- 
rini,  after  examination  in  the  presence  of  the  archbishop  of  Eheims 
and  the  count  of  Flanders,  were  committed  to  the  flames.  At  a 
council  held  at  Sens  in  1198,  the  abbot  of  St,  Martin  in  Nevers 
was  deposed,  and  the  dean  of  the  cathedral  suspended  on  an  accu- 
sation of  belonging  to  the  sect  of  the  Publicani.  Some  of  the 
doctrinal  views  propounded  in  this  age  were  highly  spiritual.  The 
abbot  Joachim,  who  at  first  presided  over  the  monastery  of  Corace 
in  Calabria  and  afterwards  founded  that  of  Floris,  says  :  "  So  long 
as  we  see  only  through  a  glass,  darkly,  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  cling. 
to  symbols,  but  when  the  Spirit  of  truth  shall  come  and  shall  teach 
us  all  truth,  what  further  need  shall  we  have  of  symbols  ?" 

Persecution,  in  the  unsystematic  way  in  which  it  was  then  carried 
out,  seems  to  have  done  little  towards  effecting  its  object.  We  find 
the  archbishop  of  Narbonne  complaining  to  Louis  VII.  towards  the 
end  of  his  long  reign :  "  We  are  pressed  with  many  calamities,, 
among  which  there  is  one  which  most  of  all  affects  us,  namely r 
that  the  Catholic  faith  is  extremely  shaken  in  this  our  diocese ;  and 
St.  Peter's  boat  is  so  violently  tossed  by  the  waves  that  it  is  in 
danger  of  sinking."  In  1178  a  delegation  of  papal  visitors  de- 
scribes Toulouse  as  "  the  abomination  of  desolation,  where  the 
heretics  exercise  the  chief  power  over  the  people  and  lord  it  among 
the  clergy."  About  the  same  year  an  edict  cited  by  Hoveden 
speaks  of  the  "  heretics  whom  some  call  Cathari,  others  Publicani, 
others  Paterini,  as  being  on  the  increase  in  Gascony,  Albi  and 
other  places,  and  no  longer  exercising  their  impiety  in  private,  but 
stalking  abroad."  In  like  manner  Stephen  of  Tournay,  writing  to 
John  de  Bellesmains  bishop  of  Poictiers,  1181,  describes  Langue- 
doc,  Gascony  and  Septimania  (Roussillon)  as  countries  where  in- 
fidelity had  taken  root,  and  inconceivable  treachery  and  trouble 
prevailed.     "  In  my  passage  to  Toulouse,"  he  says,  "  whither  the 


ARNOLD    OF   BRESCIA.  S89 

king  sent  me,  I  saw  the  walls  of  half-ruined  churches  and  half- 
burnt  monasteries,  and  where  formerly  stood  the  dwellings  of  men, 
now  only  the  abode  of  wild  beasts."1 

Thus  before  fifty  years  had  elapsed  from  the  date  of  Bernard's 
progress  in  Languedoc,  the  whole  south  of  France  may  be  said  to 
have  swarmed  with  Protestants,  who  in  the  next  century  received 
the  general  name  of  Albigenses.2 

A  similar  movement  was  at  work  in  Italy.  Unhappily  we  know 
little  of  the  men  by  whom  it  was  carried  on.  The  name  chiefly 
known  to  history  is  associated  with  a  political  revolution.  Arnold, 
a  priest  of  Brescia  in  Lombardy,  conceived  the  idea  of  bringing 
*back  the  priestly  order  to  the  apostolic  pattern.  Not  the  luxury 
and  debauchery  of  the  clergy  only,  but  their  possession  of  worldly 
property,  and  their  interference  with  secular  business,  seemed  to 
him  at  variance  with  the  teaching  of  the  New  Testament.  Like 
the  French  Beformers,  he  held  that  worldly  ecclesiastics  were  not 
only  unfit  to  discharge  the  priestly  functions,  but  were  in  fact  not 
bishops  or  priests  at  all,  and  that  the  secularised  Church  was  no 
longer  the  House  of  God.  His  life  corresponded  with  his  doctrines ; 
he  assumed  the  monastic  garb,  and  lived  in  poverty  and  ascetie 
severity.  Brescia  and  the  Lombard  cities  in  general  were  ripe  for 
such  teaching ;  his  invectives  against  the  pope  and  the  bishops  fell 
on  his  hearers  like  a  spark  on  tow.  His  eloquence  is  described  by 
Bernard  as  "  sweet  yet  powerful,  sharp  as  a  sword  yet  soft  as  oil." 
The  agitation  spread  to  Borne.  Pope  Innocent  II.  hastened  to 
interfere,  and  by  a  decree  of  the  second  Lateran  Council,  1189, 
Arnold  was  condemned  and  banished  from  Italy.  He  fled  to  France 
and  thence  to  the  Alps,  where  he  may  have  rekindled  the  embers 
still  remaining  of  the  teaching  of  Claude  of  Turin  three  centuries 

1  To  the  same  effect  testifies  a  troubadour,  who  sang  the  destruction  of  the 
heretics :  "  This  heresy,  which  the  Lord  cursed,  had  in  its  power  the  whole  land 
from  Beziers  to  Bordeaux." 

3  The  names  under  which  the  reformers  were  known  were  numerous.  Cathari 
is  Greek  for  Puritans ;  it  was  often  corrupted  into  Gazari.  Publicani  or  Poplicani 
is  taken  to  be  a  corruption  of  Paulicani  (Du  Cange) ;  and  as  the  name  so  cor- 
rupted (our  Publicans)  is  in  the  Latin  Vulgate  the  equivalent  of  telonai,  the 
tax-farmers  of  the  New  Testament,  the  heretics  were  also  called  Telonarii. 
Poplicani  was  sometimes  corrupted  into  Piphles.  Bulgari  (French,  Bougres) 
plainly  connects  them  with  Bulgaria,  part  of  the  Balkan  country  colonized  by 
the  Paulicians.  In  Italy  the  usual  designation  was  Paterini  (otherwise  Patel- 
lini),  derived,  according  to  Mosheim,  from  the  name  of  a  place  where  they  held 
their  meetings;  according  to  others  it  signifies  smooth  and  flattering  hypo- 
crites. Tisserands  (weavers)  has  already  been  referred  to,  as  also  Boni-Homines 
(in  Provencal,  Bos  Homos). 


390  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

before.  The  Church  of  the  Waldenses  has  inscribed  Arnold's  name 
as  well  as  Claude's  in  her  spiritual  genealogy.  Bernard  wrote  to 
the  pope  to  secure  Arnold's  person  and  to  burn  his  books  :  but  he 
remained  unharmed  in  Switzerland  five  years,  and  then  reappeared 
in  Home.  The  political  agitation  set  going  by  his  impassioned 
preaching  had  produced  a  revolution  in  that  city.  The  people  had 
thrown  off  both  papal  and  imperial  rule,  and  had  reinstated  the 
ancient  government  by  consuls.  The  Republic  lasted  ten  years,  at 
the  end  of  which  time  its  inherent  weakness,  and  the  combined 
power  of  the  Emperor  Frederic  I.  and  Pope  Adrian  IV.  caused  its 
destruction.  Arnold  was  given  up  to  the  authorities,  and  hanged 
at  Rome  by  order  of  the  prefect.  His  body  was  burned  and  his 
ashes  thrown  into  the  Tiber,  lest  his  bones  should  be  preserved  as 
relics  by  the  Romans  who  were  devoted  to  him. 

Later  in  the  twelfth  century  we  find  Protestant  doctrines  making 
alarming  progress,  especially  in  the  north  of  Italy.  The  head- 
quarters of  the  sectaries  were  at  Milan.  In  1199  a  papal  lieutenant 
was  slain  at  Orvieto  ;  and  in  1207  Innocent  III.  went  himself  to 
Viterbo  to  "  sponge  out  the  filthiness  of  the  Paterini  with  which 
the  city  was  violently  infected."  Warned  of  his  approach,  the 
Paterini  fled.  Search  was  made  for  all  their  harbourers,  abettors 
and  defenders ;  their  houses  were  razed  to  the  ground,  their  pro- 
perty seized,  and  unlimited  power  given  to  the  city  authorities  to 
extinguish  the  heresy. 

If  now  we  look  towards  the  Rhine  we  shall  find  the  same  tokens 
of  religious  fermentation.  In  the  year  in  which  Henry  of  Lau- 
sanne was  put  to  death,  1147,  Evervinus,  provost  of  Steinfeld, 
near  Cologne,  wrote  thus  to  Bernard :  "  There  have  been  lately 
some  heretics  discovered  amongst  us,  two  of  whom  stood  forth 
before  an  assembly,  the  lord  archbishop  himself  and  many  of  the 
nobility  being  present,  and  maintained  their  tenets  from  the  words 
of  Christ  and  the  Apostles.  But  when  they  could  proceed  no 
further,  they  desired  that  a  day  might  be  appointed  when  they 
might  bring  more  skilful  advocates,  promising  if  these  should  fail 
to  return  to  the  Church.  Whereupon,  after  they  had  been  ad- 
monished for  three  days,  and  were  still  unwilling  to  repent,  the 
people,  incited  by  overmuch  zeal,  seized  upon  them,  and  hurried 
them  to  the  stake,  where  they  perished.  What  is  most  wonderful 
in  all  this  is,  that  they  bore  the  flames  not  only  with  patience,  but 
with  joyfulness,  so  that  I  should  be  glad,  holy  father,  if  thou 
couldst  tell  me  how  these  members  of  the  devil  could  exhibit  a 
courage  and  constancy  scarcely  to  be  found  in  the  most  pious  of 
the   faithful.      These   people,"   he  continues,    "  assert  that    the 


DOCTRINES   OF    THE    REFORMERS.  391 

Church  is  to  be  found  with  them  only,  because  they  alone  tread  in 
Christ's  footsteps,  and  lead  an  apostolic  life.  '  We  are  Christ's 
poor,'  they  say  ;  '  we  have  no  certain  abode,  but  flee  from  city  to 
city,  like  the  apostles  and  martyrs,  enduring  persecution ;  and  this 
notwithstanding  that  we  lead  a  holy  life  with  fasting  and  absti- 
nence, persevere  day  and  night  in  prayers  and  labours,  and  from 
the  world  seek  only  what  is  necessary  to  preserve  life.  As  for  you, 
ye  have  peace  with  the  world  because  ye  are  of  the  world.'  That 
which  we  call  the  sacrament  they  stigmatize  as  a  shadow  and  a 
mere  tradition  of  men,  but  they  themselves  at  their  daily  meals, 
according  to  the  example  of  Christ  and  his  Apostles,  consecrate  by 
the  Lord's  Prayer  their  meat  and  drink  into  the  body  and  blood  of 
Christ  to  nourish  themselves  therewith.  Besides  water-baptism, 
they  baptize,  so  they  pretend,  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  fire,  alleging 
the  testimony  of  John  the  Baptist,  and  assert  that  every  one  of  the 
elect  has  power  to  baptize  and  to  consecrate  at  their  meals  the  body 
and  blood  of  Christ.  In  their  diet  they  use  neither  meat  nor  milk ; 
they  also  condemn  marriage,  the  reason  of  which  I  could  not 
discover."  x 

Evervinus  then  proceeds  to  speak  of  another  kind  of  heretics, 
through  whose  dissensions  with  the  former  both  sects  had  been 
discovered.  "These,"  he  says,  "deny  that  the  body  of  Christ  is 
laid  on  the  altar,  because  the  priests  have  lost  the  power  of  conse- 
cration. They  reject  infant-baptism  as  not  requiring  faith.  Second 
marriages  they  look  upon  as  adultery.  They  put  no  confidence  in 
the  intercession  of  the  saints,  nor  in  fasting  and  penance,  because 
at  whatsoever  time  a  sinner  repents  his  sins  are  forgiven ;  nor  in 
the  fire  of  purgatory,  because  souls,  as  soon  as  they  leave  the  body, 
enter  either  into  rest  or  punishment,  as  saith  Solomon :  ■  In  the 
place  where  the  tree  falleth,  there  shall  it  be.'  Those  who  were 
burned  told  us  their  heresy  had  been  hidden  from  the  time  of  the 
ancient  martyrs,  and  had  been  preserved  in  Greece  and  some  other 
countries.  We,  therefore,  holy  father,"  he  concludes,  "entreat 
thee  to  use  thy  vigilance  against  these  manifold  mischiefs,  and 
direct  thy  pen  against  these  wild  beasts  of  the  reeds ;  not  deeming 
it  sufficient  to  answer  us  that  the  tower  of  David  to  which  we  may 
flee  is  fortified  with  bulwarks,  that  a  thousand  bucklers  hang  on  its 
walls,  all  shields  of  mighty  men.  For  the  sake  of  us  who  are 
simple  and  slow  of  understanding  be  pleased  to  gather  all  these 
arms  into  one  place  that  they  may  be  readily  found,  and  mighty  to 
resist  these  monsters.   For  those  of  them  who  have  returned  to  the 

1  Marriage  by  a  Eomish  priest  should  probably  be  understood,  for  in  the 
same  account  the  wives  of  the  heretics  are  spoken  of. 


392  WITNESSES   FOB    CHRIST. 

Church  tell  us  that  these  people  are  everywhere  to  be  found  in 
great  numbers,  and  amongst  them  are  many  of  our  clergy  and 
monks." 

Bernard  was  just  then  writing  his  discourses  on  the  Canticles, 
and  in  two  of  these,  under  the  text,  "  Take  us  the  foxes,  the  little 
foxes  that  spoil  the  vineyards  "  (ii.  15),  he  disposes  of  the  heretics. 
"  Inquire  of  them  the  author  of  their  sect,  and  they  will  assign 
none.  All  other  pests  of  this  stamp  have  had  their  founders,  and 
been  called  by  their  name ;  as  the  Manichaeans  from  Manes,  the 
Arians  from  Arius,  the  Nestorians  from  Nestorius ;  but  this  heresy 
has  no  title,  for  it  is  not  derived  from  man,  nor  received  through 
man,  but  from  demons.  That  they  are  not  convinced  by  reasons 
is  because  they  understand  them  not ;  nor  corrected  by  authority, 
because  they  acknowledge  it  not ;  nor  influenced  by  persuasion, 
because  they  prefer  death  to  conversion.  I  approve  the  zeal  of 
those  who  were  so  ready  to  inflict  the  punishment,  but  I  do  not 
applaud  the  deed,  because  faith  should  spring  from  persuasion,  not 
from  force.  Yet  it  is  unquestionably  better  that  such  should  be 
restrained  by  the  sword  than  be  suffered  to  seduce  others  into  their 
own  error.  .  .  .  Those  who  wonder  that  the  offenders  went  to  exe- 
cution, not  with  fortitude  only,  but  as  it  appears  even  with  joy, 
have  not'observed  how  great  is  the  power  of  the  devil  over  the 
hearts  as  well  as  the  bodies  of  such  as  have  given  themselves  up  to 
him.  The  constancy  of  martyrs  and  the  pertinacity  of  heretics 
have  nothing  in  common ;  in  the  one  it  is  the  fruit  of  piety,  in  the 
other  it  is  nothing  but  obduracy."  The  admissions,  however, 
which  Bernard  elsewhere  makes  outweigh  all  the  reproach  which 
lie  casts  upon  this  despised  people :  "  If  you  interrogate  them 
respecting  their  faith,  nothing  can  be  more  Christian ;  if  as  to  their 
conversation,  nothing  can  be  more  blameless  ;  and  what  they  say 
they  confirm  by  their  deeds.  They  attack  no  one,  they  circumvent 
no  one,  they  defraud  no  one.  Their  faces  are  pale  with  fasting. 
They  eat  not  the  bread  of  idleness,  but  labour  with  their  own 
hands.  Where  is  now  the  fox  ?  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them.  Women  forsake  their  husbands,  and  husbands  their  wives, 
to  join  them  ;  clergy  and  priests,  quitting  their  people  and  their 
churches,  are  found  among  them,  unshorn  and  unshaven,  herding 
with  weavers  and  spinsters." 

Tidings  of  the  heresy  and  of  the  cruel  death  of  its  authors  came 
to  the  ears  of  the  pious  Hildegarde,  abbess  of  St.  Eupert  on  the 
Rhine,   one  of  the  most  enlightened  women  of   the  day.1      Her 

i  Hildegarde  was  as  bold  as  she  was  wise.  The  German  clergy  at  that  time 
had  sunk  into  a  depraved  condition ;    she  thus  addressed  the  ecclesiastics  of 


THE    CATHARI.  393 

judgment  was  that  such  offenders  should  be  deprived  of  their  goods 
and  driven  from  the  Church,  but  not  put  to  death,  for  even  they, 
she  said,  bear  the  image  of  God.  Hildegarde's  opinion  represents 
the  limit  of  toleration  which  the  gentlest  and  most  charitable  spirits 
in  that  age  were  prepared  to  grant.  Even  Peter  the  Venerable 
would  have  found  it  hard  to  go  further.  The  real  temper  of  the 
time  is  seen  in  the  reply  which  William  of  Paris  made  to  the  same 
reformers  when  they  referred  to  our  Lord's  parable  of  the  tares  and 
the  wheat.  "  Christ,"  so  writes  this  dutiful  son  of  papal  Rome, 
•"  could  not  mean  that  the  tares  should  be  spared  at  the  expense  of 
the  wheat.  Whenever  the  ungodly  increase  to  the  injury  of  God's 
people  they  must  be  extirpated.  It  is  true  that  those  who  belong 
to  the  tares  may  possibly  be  converted  into  wheat,  but  tbis  is  a 
matter  of  uncertainty ;  whereas  that  by  their  means  the  wheat  is 
being  changed  into  tares  is  a  matter  of  perfect  certainty.  A  few 
tares  are  sufficient  to  choke  a  large  field  of  wheat.  Very  rare  and 
•difficult  is  it  to  convert  a  heretic,  but  very  easy  and  common  to 
subvert  the  faithful." 

The  Cathari  of  whom  these  Cologne  reformers  were  a  branch  are 
said  further  to  have  rejected  the  authority  of  tradition,  priestly  as- 
sumption, pilgrimages  and  the  worship  of  saints  and  images,  to 
have  practised  a  rigid  asceticism,  and  laid  great  stress  on  good 
works.  Some  denied  the  lawfulness  of  war,  objected  to  capital 
punishment,  and  would  admit  of  no  other  asseveration  than  a  simple 
yea  and  nay.  They  were  zealous  in  disseminating  their  principles, 
travelling  from  village  to  village,  and  from  house  to  house.  Fre- 
quenting as  merchants  fairs  and  markets,  they  used  the  intercourse 
of  trade  as  a  means  of  introducing  their  tenets.  They  did  not  de- 
spise learning,  but  sent  their  sons  to  Paris  for  education.  A  beau- 
tiful feature  of  their  life  was  the  close  fellowship  which  subsisted 
between  the  members.  As  was  the  case  in  the  early  days  of 
Christianity,  every  stranger  who  brought  from  the  brethren  a  letter 
of  recommendation  met  with  a  hospitable  reception ;  whilst  a  liberal 
collection  was  made  for  such  as  fell  into  indigenee. 

A  few  years  later,  a.d.  1160,  the  same  people  are  described  by 
Eckbert,  abbot  of  Schonauge  in  Treves :  "  They  are  increased  to 
such  multitudes  that  the  Church  of  God  is  in  much  danger.  They 
are  well-armed  with  passages  of  holy  Scripture.      They  boast  that 

Cologne:  "By  the  teaching  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  which  are  the  out-pouring 
of  the  sacred  fire  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  ye  should  be  the  fathers  of  the  Church  ; 
but  ye  are  debased  and  fallen,  being  devoted  to  the  pursuit  of  riches  and  all 
vanity.  Under  the  pretence  that  you  cannot  attend  to  everything,  you  have 
abandoned  the  teaching  of  your  people." 


394  WITNESSES    FOK   CHRIST. 

the  true  faith  and  worship  of  Christ  is  nowhere  to  be  found  but  in 
their  meetings,  which  they  hold  in  cellars  and  weaving-rooms.  In 
such  underground  dwellings  they  lead  as  they  pretend  the  life  of  the 
apostles.  They  scoff  at  the  ringing  of  bells,  piously  used  in  our 
churches,  by  which  men  are  warned  to  pray  for  the  dead  and 
reminded  of  their  own  end.  As  for  the  mass  they  utterly  contemn 
it,  and  they  pretend  that  the  blessed  pope  Sylvester  [in  the  fourth 
century]  was  the  Antichrist  of  whom  Paul  speaks,  and  that  since 
his  time  the  Church  is  dead." 

In  1163  some  Cathari  (from  Flanders),  four  men  and  one  young 
girl,  again  ventured  to  approach  Cologne,  and  took  up  their  abode 
secretly  in  a  barn  near  the  city.  But  as  they  did  not  attend  public 
worship  on  the  Lord's  day  they  were  seized  by  the  neighbours  and 
brought  before  the  priests.  After  a  long  examination,  in  which 
they  steadfastly  persisted  in  their  doctrines  and  in  their  resolution 
not  to  conform  to  the  Eomish  worship,  they  were  excommunicated, 
and  delivered  over  to  the  secular  arm.  Being  led  out  of  the  city, 
they  were  committed  to  the  flames,  but  through  the  compassion  of 
the  by-standers  the  girl  was  held  back,  in  the  hope  that  terrified  by 
the  torment  of  the  others  she  might  recant.  Her  ardour  however 
was  equal  to  that  of  her  companions ;  loosing  herself  by  a  sudden 
effort  she  sprang  into  the  flames  and  was  consumed. 

In  1160  a  little  band  of  zealous  reformers  came  from  Germany  to- 
England  to  preach  the  truth  which  they  had  learned.  They  were 
known  under  the  name  of  Publicani ;  and  the  history  of  their  un- 
successful mission  is  related  by  one  of  our  monkish  chroniclers, 
William  of  Newbury,  who,  full  as  he  is  of  detestation  for  the  heresy, 
is  little  aware  how  moving  an  appeal  to  posterity  he  is  making  on 
their  behalf.  Nothing  in  the  annals  of  the  martyrs  is  more  touching 
than  the  patience,  the  undeserved  suffering  and  pitiful  death  of 
these  witnesses,  obscure  on  earth,  but  crowned  (we  may  believe) 
with  everlasting  glory  on  high. 

"There  were  of  these  vagrants,"  writes  the  chronicler,  "men 
and  women  over  thirty.  Dissembling  their  error  they  entered  the 
country  quietly,  their  object  being  the  propagation  of  that  pestilen- 
tial heresy.  Their  leader,  one  Gerard,  was  in  some  small  measure 
literate,  the  rest  were  evidently  uninstructed  and  rustic.  During 
their  sojourn  in  England  they  added  to  their  company  one  only,  a 
woman,  who  was  circumvented  by  their  poisonous  whisperings,  and 
fascinated,  so  it  is  reported,  by  magical  arts.  They  could  not  long 
be  concealed.  Inquiries  concerning  them  were  made  by  some  per- 
sons out  of  curiosity,  and  being  foreigners,  they  were  apprehended, 
and  kept  in  public  custody. 


THE    PUBLICANI   IN    ENGLAND.  395  ' 

"  The  king,  Henry  II.,  unwilling  either  to  dismiss  or  punish 
them  without  investigation,  ordered  a  council  of  bishops  to  be 
assembled  at  Oxford.  Before  this  council  the  accused  answered, 
through  the  mouth  of  one  who  was  instructed  amongst  them,  that 
they  were  Christians,  and  revered  the  doctrine  of  the  Apostles. 
Being  interrogated  on  the  several  articles  of  our  sacred  faith,  they 
answered  rightly  indeed,  concerning  the  nature  of  the  heavenly 
Physician,  but  perversely  concerning  the  remedies  whereby  he 
deigns  to  heal  man's  moral  infirmity ;  for  they  spoke  against  the 
divine  sacraments,  expressing  detestation  of  holy  baptism,  the  Eu- 
charist, and  marriage ;  and  wickedly  derogating  from  the  Catholic 
unity  to  which  these  divine  aids  belong.  When  they  were  pressed 
with  arguments  from  holy  Scripture,  they  answered  that  they 
believed  as  they  had  been  taught,  but  were  unwilling  to  dispute 
concerning  their  faith.  Then  being  admonished  to  do  penance, 
and  to  be  re-united  to  the  body  of  the  Church,  they  spurned  that 
salutary  counsel.  The  threats  too  which  were  piously  held  up 
before  them,  in  order  that  they  might  retract  through  fear — if 
through  no  other  motive, — they  treated  with  derision,  absurdly 
applying  to  themselves  those  words  of  our  Lord,  •  Blessed  are  they 
that  have  been  persecuted  for  righteousness'  sake,  for  theirs  is  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.'  Then  the  bishops  in  order  that  the  heretical 
poison  might  not  spread,  having  publicly  pronounced  them  heretics, 
delivered  them  over  to  the  Catholic  prince  for  the  infliction  of 
corporal  punishment. 

"  Henry's  sentence  was  that  the  mark  of  heretical  infamy  should 
be  branded  on  their  foreheads,  and  that  they  should  be  publicly 
beaten  with  rods  out  of  the  city,  strictly  enjoining  that  no  one 
should  presume  either  to  receive  them  under  his  roof,  or  minister 
to  them  any  consolation.  The  sentence  having  been  proclaimed, 
they  were  led  forth  to  that  most  just  punishment,  and  they  went 
rejoicing  with  light  steps  ;  their  teacher  going  before  them  and 
singing,  '  Blessed  are  ye  when  men  shall  reproach  you.'  To  such  a 
pitch  had  the  spirit  of  seduction  deceived  them!  The  woman 
whom  they  had  led  astray,  induced  by  fear  of  suffering,  left  them, 
confessed  her  error  and  obtained  reconciliation.  But  the  hateful 
company  of  heretics  underwent  the  just  penalty  of  being  cauterized 
on  their  foreheads ;  their  leader  suffering  the  disgrace  of  a  double 
branding,  one  on  the  forehead,  and  one  round  the  chin.  Further, 
their  garments  being  cut  down  to  the  girdle,  they  were  publicly 
scourged,  and  with  the  sounding  of  the  whip  cast  out  of  the  city. 
After  which,  through  the  inclemency  of  the  weather  (for  it  was 
winter),  and  as  no  one  showed  them  even  the  slightest  act  of  com- 
passion, they  perished  miserably." 


(     396     ) 

CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Waldenses. 

The  ground  over  which  we  have  hitherto  travelled  in  tracing  the 
spread  of  the  reformed  doctrines  has  been  very  various.  In  some 
instances  the  clearer  insight  of  the  reformers  into  the  nature  of  the 
New  Covenant  has  been  darkened  by  strange  delusions  and  by 
doubts  respecting  the  authority  of  the  Old  Testament.  In  others 
an  honest  and  well-founded  testimony  against  the  innumerable 
abuses  of  the  Church  has  been  weakened  by  an  uncharitable  and 
even  anarchical  spirit.  We  have  indeed  found  many  Protestants 
sound  in  doctrine  and  examplary  in  life  ;  but  it  is  not  until  we  come 
to  the  Waldenses  that  we  meet  with  a  united  Church  both  holding 
a  pure  faith,  and  animated  by  a  charitable  spirit. 

Peter  Waldo  was  a  citizen  of  Lyons,  who  had  become  rich  by 
usurious  practices.  One  day  whilst  he  was  attending  a  civic  as- 
sembly, one  of  the  company  suddenly  expired.  The  event  power- 
fully impressed  him ;  the  fate  of  his  fellow-citizen  might  at  any 
time  be  his  own.  In  this  frame  of  mind  his  attention  was  arrested 
on  a  Sabbath  (a.d.  1173)  by  hearing  a  troubadour  in  the  streets  of 
the  city  recite  passages  from  a  Eomaunt  called  the  Life  of  St.  Alexis. 
Waldo  took  the  minstrel  home  with  him  that  he  might  hear  the 
whole  poem  and  converse  with  him  on  the  momentous  subject  of 
the  Christian  life. 

The  next  morning  he  went  to  a  priest  of  high  reputation,  to  ask 
how  he  should  attain  to  holiness.  "  If  thou  wouldst  be  perfect," 
was  the  answer,  "go  sell  all  thou  hast  and  give  to  the  poor." 
Waldo,  who  was  prepared  to  make  any  sacrifice  to  obtain  what  he 
sought,  obeyed  the  injunction  to  the  letter.  He  converted  his 
property  into  money  for  the  use  of  the  poor,  fed  all  who  came  to 
him  three  days  in  the  week,  placed  his  two  daughters  in  a  convent, 
and  publicly  announced  his  intention  to  abandon  the  service  of 
mammon  for  that  of  God.  At  the  same  time  he  invited  his  fellow- 
citizens  to  follow  his  example.  His  wife,  alarmed  at  his  conduct, 
entreated  the  archbishop  of  Lyons  to  put  a  check  to  her  husband's 
imprudent  zeal.  Not  even  episcopal  authority  however  could  damp 
his  ardour  ;  he  persevered  in  his  life  of  self-denial,  and  was  joined 
by  a  number  of  companions,  who  formed  themselves  into  a  frater- 


THE  BIBLE  IN  THE  VULGAB  TONGUE.  397 

nity  under  the  name  of  the  Poor  Men  of  Lyons.  A  season  of 
famine  gave  them  ample  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  charity. 

At  first  Waldo  and  his  disciples  were  conspicuous  only  by  the 
sanctity  of  their  lives  ;  soon  however  they  began  to  attract  notice 
by  their  censure  of  the  rapacity  and  corrupt  manners  of  the  monks 
and  clergy.  To  this  grave  cause  of  offence  another  was  presently 
added.  Longing  to  know  more  of  the  Scriptures  than  could  be 
learnt  from  the  Church  lessons  or  from  sermons,  Waldo  conceived 
the  design  of  translating  the  Bible  into  the  vernacular  tongue,  the 
Gallo-Provencal1  idiom.  With  this  object  he  obtained  the  assist- 
ance of  three  scholars — Bernard  of  Ydros,  afterwards  held  in  great 
estimation  among  the  Dominican  Friars  ;  Stephen  of  Ansa,  who 
was  promoted  to  a  benefice  in  Lyons ;  and  John  of  Lugio,  who  be- 
came the  head  of  a  religious  congregation  in  Lombardy.  The  last 
alone  of  the  three  remained  faithful  in  after-time  to  the  reformer. 
Stephen  made  the  translation,  which  was  revised  by  John,  and 
transcribed  by  Bernard  for  the  use  of  the  copyists.  The  whole  of 
the  New  Testament,  the  Psalms  and  many  other  books  of  the  Old,, 
were  thus  for  the  first  time  rendered  accessible  to  the  bulk  of  the 
people.  At  the  same  time  Waldo  made  a  collection  of  passages 
from  the  Fathers  in  illustration  of  Scripture,  especially  from  Am- 
brose, Jerome,  Augustine  and  Gregory  the  Great. 

Taking  with  them  the  precious  books  which  had  thus  been  pre- 
pared, the  master  and  his  disciples  went  forth  into  the  streets  and 
houses  of  the  city  and  into  the  neighbouring  villages,  everywhere 
declaring  the  Gospel  message  with  ardour  and  success.  In  imita- 
tion of  the  seventy  disciples  they  went  two  and  two  without  staff 
or  script,  their  feet  being  shod  with  wooden  sandals.2  In  some  few 
places  the  churches  were  opened  to  them  by  the  clergy;  more 
usually  they  preached  and  expounded  in  the  streets  and  on  the 
highways.  The  fears  and  jealousy  of  the  priests  could  not  suffer 
such  a  work  to  go  on  unhindered,  and  the  archbishop  of  Lyons 
issued  an  order  forbidding  Waldo  and  his  companions  to  expound 
the  Scriptures  or  to  preach.  But  the  Spirit  of  truth  by  which  they 
were  inspired  was  not  thus  to  be  silenced.  Conscious  of  integrity, 
and  willing  to  believe  that  reason  and  justice  were  still  to  be  found 
in  the  Catholic  Church,  two  of  Waldo's  followers  made  a  journey  to 
Borne  (1179)  to  see  Pope  Alexander  III.  and  solicit  his  approbation 

1  Or  Gallo-Roman. 
2  In  French,  Sabots,  Latin  Sabates,  whence  they  were  called  Sabatati  (or 
Insabatati).     Coming  afterwards  into  greater  freedom  of  spirit,  they  discarded 
these  outward  tokens  of  poverty  and  asceticism. 


398  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

of  their  work.  They  carried  with  them  their  translation  of  the 
Bible.  The  pope  received  them  graciously  and  expressed  his  appro- 
bation of  their  profession  of  voluntary  poverty.1  The  third  Lateran 
Council  was  then  in  session,  one  of  whose  objects  was  the  reforma- 
tion of  abuses  in  the  Church.  Waldo's  petition  was  referred  by 
the  pope  to  the  council,  which  after  deliberating  upon  it  appointed 
a  commission  to  inquire  into  the  tenets  and  objects  of  the  fra- 
ternity. 

One  of  the  commissioners,  an  Englishman,  Walter  Mapes,2  has 
left  notes  of  the  conference.  "  These  people,"  he  says,  "have  no 
settled  place  of  abode,  but  go  about  the  country  barefoot,  two  and 
two,  clad  in  woollen  garments ;  they  possess  no  private  property, 
but  like  the  Apostles  have  all  things  in  common."  He  describes 
them  as  "uneducated  laymen  with  whom  it  was  not  worth  while 
for  the  council  to  trouble  itself  " ;  but  this  was  a  mere  affectation  of 
contempt,  since  he  evidently  regarded  them  as  a  formidable  power. 
"  They  have  begun  in  a  humble  manner,  because  they  had  not  yet 
acquired  any  firm  footing,  but  if  we  once  suffer  them  to  gain  an 
entry,  we  ourselves  shall  be  driven  out."  The  pope  however  did 
not  think  it  wise  to  put  an  extinguisher  upon  the  work,  but  granted 
to  Waldo  and  his  friends  a  limited  license  to  preach,  subject  to  the 
control  of  the  clergy.8 

Up  to  this  time  the  conduct  of  the  "  Poor  Men  of  Lyons  "  had 
afforded  no  ground  for  ecclesiastical  censure ;  "  they  had  acted 
only  as  dutiful  sons  of  the  Catholic  Church.  It  was  a  monkish 
legend  which  led  Waldo  to  forsake  the  world ;  it  was  to  a  priest  that 
he  went  for  spiritual  counsel;  he  had  placed  his  daughters  in  a 
convent ;  the  volume  which  the  Church  professed  to  take  as  her 
rule  of  faith  was  his  constant  study,  and  his  translators  were  mem- 
bers of  the  priestly  order."  So  far  was  he  from  any  purpose  of 
forsaking  the  Church,  or  resisting  authority,  that  for  a  time  he  and 
his  followers  forbore  to  preach  except  within  the  limits  imposed  by 
the  pope.  At  length  their  zeal,  quickened  by  the  opposition  of  the 
clergy,  who  could  not  endure  a  fervour  which  shamed  their  own 
lukewarmness,  could  no  longer  be  restrained.  They  threw  off  the 
shackles  of  ecclesiastical  control,  and  declared  the  truth  in  the 

1  Gilly  says  Waldo  himself  went  to  the  pope,  who  "embraced  him." 

2  He  was  canon  of  Salisbury,  archdeacon  of  Oxford  and  some  time  chaplain  to 
Henry  H. 

3  Milman  adds :  "  Their  knowledge  of  Scripture  seems  to  have  perplexed 
John  of  Salisbury  [another  English  divine,  made  bishop  of  Chartres],   who 

•writes  of  them  with  the  bitterness  of  a  discomfited  theologian." 


THE  POOK  MEN  OF  LYONS.  399 

liberty  of  the  Spirit ;  and  when  commanded  to  abstain  altogether 
from  preaching,  they  made  the  same  answer  as  Peter  and  John 
before  the  council :  "  Whether  it  be  right  in  the  sight  of  God  to 
hearken  unto  you  rather  than  unto  God,  judge  ye."  Upon  this 
they  were  reproached  with  presumptuously  usurping  the  apostolic 
office,  and  threatened  with  the  severest  penalties.  But  they  dis- 
regarded the  menace,  and  in  consequence  by  order  of  the  archbishop 
of  Lyons  were  deprived  of  the  ordinances  of  religion  and  driven 
into  exile.  This  sentence  was  followed  at  the  Council  of  Verona  in 
1184,  under  the  presidency  of  Pope  Lucius  III.,  by  a  formal  act  of 
excommunication.  "  To  quench  the  malignity  of  divers  heresies, 
which  of  late  time  have  sprung  up  in  most  parts  of  the  world,  .  .  . 
we  declare  all  Cathari,  Paterini,  those  who  call  themselves  the 
Poor  Men  of  Lyons  [and  others] ,  to  lie  under  a  perpetual  anathema. 
„  .  .  We  direct  that  every  bishop,  once  or  twice  in  the  year,  shall 
visit  the  parishes  in  which  it  is  reported  that  heretics  dwell,  and 
there  cause  two  or  three  men  of  good  credit,  or  if  need  be  the  whole 
neighbourhood,  to  declare  on  oath  if  they  know  of  any  heretics  in 
that  place,  or  any  that  frequent  private  meetings,  or  differ  from  the 
common  conversation  of  mankind." 

Before  we  follow  the  Lyons  brotherhood  in  their  exile,  mention 
must  be  made  of  an  attempt  by  a  succeeding  pope,  Innocent  III., 
to  retain  these  ardent  men  within  the  pale  of  the  Church.  That 
sagacious  pontiff  endeavoured  to  transform  the  community  into  a 
monkish  association  of  poor  Catholics,  to  whom,  subject  to  the  con- 
trol of  the  bishops,  permission  was  to  be  granted  to  preach  and 
expound  the  Scriptures.  As  Waldo  and  his  followers  looked  upon 
oaths  and  the  shedding  of  blood  as  unchristian,  the  pope  made  a 
show  of  conceding  to  them  exemption  both  from  judicial  swearing  and 
military  service  ;  but  this  exemption  was  rendered  nugatory  by  the 
•  clause  which  was  added :  "  So  far  as  this  may  be  done  without 
prejudice  or  offence  to  any,  and  with  the  sanction  of  the  secular 
rulers."  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  however  that  any  concession  by 
the  papal  see  would  have  brought  Waldo's  Gospel  work  within 
Romish  lines.  As  it  was  there  was  little  disposition  on  the  part  of 
the  bishops  to  promote  the  pope's  scheme. 

Thus  cast  out  of  their  native  land,  Waldo  and  his  disciples 
spread  themselves  in  all  the  countries  around,  Provence,  Langue- 
-doc,  France,  Lombardy,  Italy,  Germany,  and  Spain.1    Everywhere 

1  That  they  met  with  great  success  in  the  last-named  country  is  shown  by  an 
edict  of  Ildefonso,  King  of  Aragon,  a.d.  1194.  .  .  "  We  do  command  and  charge 
the  Waldenses,  Insabatati,  otherwise  called  the  Poor  Men  of  Lyons,  and  all 
-other  heretics,  who  cannot  be  numbered,  being  excommunicate  from  the  holy 


400  WITNESSES   FOB    CHRIST. 

they  found  the  soil  prepared  to  receive  the  precious  grain  of  truth. 
In  some  places  doubtless  the  word  which  they  preached  came  to  the 
hearers  like  a  new  gospel ;  in  others  it  was  as  a  fertilizing  shower 
falling  upon  seed  sown  by  former  generations,  but  long  hid  in  the 
earth. 

Peter  for  a  while  preached  in  Dauphine,  but  the  persecution  was 
too  hot  to  permit  of  his  remaining  so  near  Lyons ;  he  fled  north- 
wards, and  took  refuge  in  Picardy.  Here  he  gathered  many  fol- 
lowers, rich  as  well  as  poor  ;  and  his  adherents  became  so  numerous 
that  the  French  king  Philip  Augustus,  at  the  instigation  of  the 
clergy,  sent  an  army  against  them.  Three  hundred  country-houses 
of  the  gentry  were  demolished,  several  towns  sacked,  and  the  fugi- 
tives pursued  into  Flanders,  where  many  of  them  were  burned. 
From  Picardy  "Waldo  passed  into  Bohemia,  where  he  was  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  papal  police.  Here  he  founded  a  Church,  sheltered 
and  safe,  which  became  so  numerous  that  Reinerius  Saccho,  writing 
half  a  century  after  Waldo's  deatb,  speaks  of  forty-one  societies  in 
the  diocese  of  Passau  alone  ;  and  in  1315  the  number  of  communi- 
cants was  estimated  at  80,000.*  Of  Waldo's  last  days  and  death  no 
record  has  come  down  to  us. 

Reinerius,  who  was  originally  a  Catharist,  but  who  became  a  tool 
of  the  papal  inquisition,  in  his  endeavour  to  blacken  the  memory  of 
the  Waldenses,  unwittingly  discloses  the  causes  of  their  success. 
He  admits  the  ignorance,  immorality  and  profanity  of  the  Romish 
clergy,  and  owns  that  the  craftsmen  amongst  the  heretics,  after 
toiling  all  day,  gave  up  the  night  to  learning  and  teaching,  and 
that  many  of  them  knew  the  whole  of  the  New  Testament  by  heart. 
In  Provence  and  the  cities  of  Lombardy  there  were,  he  says,  more 
schools  of  heretics  than  of  theologians ;  forty-one  were  counted 
within  the  bishopric  of  Pavia.  They  blasphemously  taught,  he 
tells  us,  that  the  Romish  Church  is  the  harlot  of  the  Apocalypse, 
and  the  pope  the  head  of  all  error  ;  that  in  the  Eucharist  transub- 

Church,  to  depart  out  of  our  dominions  ;  and  that  whosoever  shall  presume  to 
receive  the  said  Waldenses  or  other  heretics  into  their  houses,  and  supply  them 
with  meat  or  any  other  succour,  shall  thereby  incur  the  indignation  of  Almighty 
God,  as  well  as  ours,  and  shall  have  his  goods  confiscated  and  be  punished  as  if 
he  were  actually  guilty  of  high  treason.  .  .  .  Furthermore  (though  this  may 
seem  contrary  to  our  duty  and  to  reason),  we  grant  to  these  wicked  miscreants 
respite  till  the  day  after  All  Saints'  day  ;  but  all  who  shall  not  be  gone  by  that 
time,  or  at  least  preparing  for  their  departure,  shall  be  spoiled,  beaten,  cudgelled, 
and  shamefully  entreated." 

1  The  French  historian  De  Thou  (a.d.  circa  1600)  tells  us  that  the  followers 
of  Waldo  were  still  extant  in  Bohemia  in  his  day,  and  were  called  Picards. 


PERSECUTION    OF   THE    WALDENSES.  401 

stantiation  does  not  take  place  in  the  hand  of  him  who  unworthily 
consecrates,  but  in  the  mouth  of  him  who  worthily  receives  ;  that 
the  mass  is  a  vain  thing  invented  for  the  sake  of  gain ;  that  there 
is  no  such  state  as  purgatory,  for  as  the  tree  falls  there  it  shall  be  ; 
and  lastly,  that  whatsoever  is  taught  that  cannot  be  proved  by 
Scripture  is  to  be  accounted  false.1 

Still  more  valuable  is  the  testimony  of  Innocent  III.  himself, 
contained  in  a  letter  addressed  to  the  Christians  of  Metz,  a.d.  1199. 
The  archbishop  of  that  city  had  informed  him  that  a  large  number 
of  laymen  and  women  presumed  in  their  secret  meetings  to  "  belch 
out"  to  one  another  the  gospels  and  other  books  of  Scripture  in 
the  Gallic  speech,  and  to  preach  by  turns.  The  pope  admits  that 
the  "desire  to  understand  the  divine  Scriptures,  and  zeal  in  ex- 
horting in  accordance  with  the  same,  is  not  blameworthy  but  rather 
to  be  commended  ;  "  but  censures  the  secrecy  with  which  the  here- 
tics held  their  meetings,  their  assumption  of  the  office  of  preaching, 
their  mocking  the  "  simplicity"  of  the  priests,  and  their  despising 
the  fellowship  of  those  who  did  not  adopt  their  views.  From 
another  letter  of  the  pope  it  appears  that  the  archbishop  had  not 
accused  them  of  any  errors  of  faith  or  doctrine. 

Except  in  Bohemia,  persecution  everywhere  tracked  the  steps  of 
the  Waldenses.  Stephen  of  Bourbon  relates  that  he  was  present 
in  a  certain  place  when  eighty  persons  of  this  sect  were  condemned 
to  the  flames ;  and  Alberic,  in  his  chronicle,  speaks  of  the  immola- 
tion of  182  at  one  time,  which  he  calls  "  a  sacrifice  well-pleasing  to 
the  Lord."  Thirty-five  perished  in  one  fire  at  Bingen,  at  Mayence 
eighteen,  and  eighty  at  Strasburg. 

The  branch  of  Waldo's  followers  which  has  attained  the  greatest 
historical  celebrity  is  that  which  settled  in  the  valleys  of  Piedmont. 
Here  they  became  fused  with  an  ancient  Protestant  community,  of 
which  we  have  several  times  in  our  survey  caught  a  glimpse  ;  and 
it  is  to  the  united  Church  thus  formed  that  the  name  of  Vaudois  or 
Waldenses  has  been  especially  applied.  Such  seem  to  be  the  facts 
of  the  case,  but  it  must  be  observed  that  the  question  of  origin 
has  been  the  subject  of  animated  and  protracted  controversy, 
some  writers  contending  that  the  Mountain  Church  of  Piedmont 
had  no  existence  prior  to  the   immigration  of  the  followers  of 

1  Peter  de  Vaux-Cernay  names  as  the  four  chief  errors  of  the  Waldenses,  the 
wearing  of  sandals  like  the  Apostles,  the  denial  of  the  lawfulness  of  oaths,  and 
of  taking  human  life  on  any  ground,  and  the  assertion  that  any  man  without 
episcopal  ordination  "could  make  the  body  of  Christ."  Another  opponent 
classes  amongst  their  heresies  the  maxim  that  all  lying  is  a  mortal  sin ! 

2d 


402  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

Waldo  ;  others  that  it  dates  from  the  time  of  Constantine  the 
Great.1 

The  Waldenses  themselves  do  not  appear  to  share  in  either  of  the 
above  opinions ;  they  refer  their  origin  to  Claude  of  Turin.2  In  the 
year  1805,  Napoleon  Bonaparte  went  to  Milan  to  place  the  iron 
crown  of  Lombardy  on  his  own  head  ;  on  his  way,  a  deputation  of 
the  Vaudois  clergy  waited  upon  him  at  Turin  with  an  address  from 
their  Church.  Their  speaker  was  M.  Peyran,  a  man  of  learning 
and  of  a  fine  Christian  character,  who  thus  relates  the  interview. 
Addressing  himself  to  M.  Peyran  in  a  tone  of  unusual  condescension, 
Napoleon  began : 

You  are  one  of  the  Protestant  clergy  of  this  country  ? 

Peyran.     Yes,  sire,  and  moderator  of  the  Vaudois  Church. 

Napoleon.     You  are  schismatics  from  the  Church  of  Rome. 

Peyran.  Not  schismatics  I  hope,  but  separatists  for  conscience' 
sake,  on  grounds  which  we  hold  to  be  Scriptural. 

NapoUon.  You  have  had  brave  men  among  you.  But  your 
mountains  are  your  best  defence.  Csesar  found  some  trouble  in 
making  his  way  through  your  defiles  with  five  legions.  Is  Arnaud's 
Rentree  Glorieuse  accurate  ?s 

Peyran.  Yes,  sire  ;  but  we  believe  that  our  people  were  aided  by 
Divine  Providence. 

1  "  Confusion,"  remarks  Gieseler,  "  has  been  introduced  by  both  friend  and 
foe  into  the  history  of  the  Waldenses.  At  first  they  were  confounded  with  the 
Cathari  or  Albigenses  by  Catholics,  in  order  to  represent  them  as  Manichseans, 
by  Beformed  writers,  in  order  to  clear  the  Albigenses  also  from  the  charge  of 
Manichseism.  Further,  the  origin  of  the  Waldenses  is  often  referred  to  an 
earlier  period  than  that  of  Peter  Waldensus,  though  it  is  so  clearly  proved  by 
the  witness  of  contemporaries  that  he  is  the  founder  of  the  sect." 
2  See  ante,  p.  317. 

8  This  refers  to  an  episode  in  the  great  persecution  of  the  Vaudois  under 
Louis  XIV.  of  France  and  their  own  sovereign,  Duke  Victor  Amadeus  II.  The 
cruelty  of  the  French  general  Catinat  marks  this  transaction  as  one  of  the 
foulest  blots  on  the  page  of  history.  In  1689,  800  of  the  Piedmontese  exiles 
who  had  taken  refuge  in  Switzerland  set  out  under  one  of  their  pastors,  Henry 
Arnaud,  to  regain  their  native  valleys,  and  in  the  course  of  their  march  heroi- 
cally maintained  their  position  against  overwhelming  numbers  among  the 
mountains  of  Angrogna,  until  the  nefarious  alliance  between  the  king  of  France 
and  the  duke  of  Savoy  was  dissolved.  The  dissolution  of  this  alliance  was 
succeeded  by  hostilities  between  the  two  powers,  and  in  the  new  turn  which 
was  thus  given  to  affairs,  the  faithful  Vaudois,  forgetting  their  wrongs,  freely 
shed  their  blood  in  the  service  of  Victor  Amadeus.  It  is  deplorable  to  relate 
that  on  the  return  of  peaee  and  his  reinstatement  to  power,  the  duke  suffered 
himself  to  become  the  tool  of  the  pope  and  the  French  king,  interdicting  all 
communication  between  the  Vaudois  and  the  French  Protestants,  and  expelling 
from  the  valleys  3000  of  the  latter,  who  had  found  an  asylum  there. 


BONAPAKTE  AND  PEYRAN.  408 

Napoleon.     How  long  have  you  formed  an  independent  Church  ? 

Peyran.  From  the  days  of  Claude,  bishop  of  Turin,  about  the 
year  820. 

Napoleon.     What  stipend  have  your  clergy  ? 

Peyran.     We  have  no  fixed  stipend  at  present. 

Napoleon.     You  used  to  have  a  pension  from  England  ? 

Peyran.  Yes,  sire  ;  the  kings  of  Great  Britain  have  always  been 
our  protectors  and  benefactors  till  recently. 

Napoleon.     How  is  that  ? 

Peyran.  The  Eoyal  pension  has  been  withheld  ever  since  we 
became  your  Majesty's  subjects. 

Napoleon.     Are  you  organized  ?* 

Peyran.     No,  sire. 

Napoleon.  Draw  out  a  memorial ;  send  it  to  Paris  ;  you  shall  be 
organized  immediately. 

Whatever  may  have  been  its  precise  origin,  or  the  derivation  of 
its  name,  it  is  certain  that  the  Waldensian  Church  at  the  close  of 
the  twelfth  century  stands  forth  in  the  face  of  all  Europe,  as  the 
foremost  and  clearest  witness  to  the  authority  of  the  New  Testament 
and  the  spiritual  nature  of  the  Gospel. 

This  Church  possesses  some  early  manuscripts,  amongst  whieh 
may  be  noticed  a  poem  entitled  The  Noble  Lesson.2  It  is,  says  Mil- 
man,  "  a  remarkable  work,  from  its  calm  almost  unimpassioned 
simplicity.  It  is  a  brief,  spirited  statement  of  the  Biblical  history 
of  man,  with  nothing  of  fanatic  exaggeration,  nothing  even  of  rude 
vehemence ;  it  is  the  perfect  clear  morality  of  the  Gospel.  The 
close  which  arraigns  the  clergy  has  nothing  of  angry  violence ;  it 
calmly  expostulates  against  their  persecutions,  and  its  strongest 

1  A  law  for  the  organization  of  the  Protestant  Churches  in  France  had  been 
promulgated  in  1802,  but  some  years  elapsed  before  it  was  completely  carried 
out. 

2  For  the  date  of  this  manuscript  see  note  at  the  end  of  this  chapter.  A 
valuable  collection  of  Waldensian  manuscripts,  including  The  Noble  Lesson,  was 
brought  to  England  by  Sir  Samuel  Morland,  Cromwell's  ambassador  to  the  duke 
of  Savoy  (1650).  Some  days  before  Morland  left  England,  archbishop  Ussher 
sent  for  him  to  his  chamber,  and  charged  him  to  use  his  utmost  diligence  in 
inquiring  after,  and  to  spare  no  cost  in  purchasing  such  manuscripts  and 
authentic  documents  as  might  throw  light  on  the  ancient  doctrine  and  discipline 
of  the  Waldensian  Churches ;  declaring  "there  was  nothing  in  the  world  he 
was  more  curious  and  impatient  to  know  as  being  a  point  of  exceeding  great 
weight  and  moment  for  stopping  the  mouths  of  popish  adversaries,  and  dis- 
covering the  footsteps  of  our  religion  in  those  dark  intervals  of  the  eighth, 
ninth,  and  tenth  centuries."  The  manuscripts  collected  by  Morland  were 
bound  in  six  volumes  and  deposited  in  the  library  of  Cambridge  University. 


404  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

sentence  is  an  emphatic  assertion  that  the  power  of  absolving  from 
mortal  sin  is  in  neither  cardinal,  bishop,  abbot,  pope,  but  in  God 
alone."     The  reader  will  be  interested  in  a  few  lines. 

O  brethren  hear  a  noble  lesson ! 
We  ought  often  to  watch  and  pray, 

For  we  see  the  world  is  near  its  end. 

****** 

A  thousand  and  a  hundred  years  have  been  already  completed, 

Since  it  was  written  that  we  are  in  the  last  time. 

****** 

Whosoever  will  do  good  works 

Ought  to  begin  with  paying  honour  to  God  the  Father ; 

He  ought  likewise  to  call  upon  his  glorious  Son,  the  dear  Son  of  holy  Mary, 

And  on  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  shows  us  the  way. 

These  three  are  the  holy  Trinity,  and  the  only  God,  who  ought  to  be  invoked, 

Full  of  all  power,  all  wisdom,  and  all  goodness.1 

The  author  then  gives  a  summary  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment history  ;  after  which  he  contrasts  the  two  dispensations. 

The  Ancient  Law  permits  divorce ; 

But  the  New  forbids  to  marry  her  who  is  put  away, 

[  Saying]  what  God  has  joined  let  no  man  separate. 

The  Old  Law  forbids  perjury  only ; 

But  the  New  says,  Swear  not  at  all, 

And  let  thy  speech  be  no  more  than  yea  and  nay. 

The  Old  Law  commands  to  fight  against  enemies  and  render  evil  for  evil ; 

But  the  New  says,  Avenge  not  thyself, 

But  leave  vengeance  to  the  heavenly  king, 

And  let  those  live  in  peace  who  do  thee  harm  ; 

And  thou  shall  find  pardon  with  the  heavenly  king. 

The  Old  Law  says,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  friend,  and  hate  thy  enemy ; 

But  the  New  says,  Thou  shalt  no  more  do  this, 

But  love  your  enemies,  and  do  good  to  those  who  hate  you, 

And  pray  for  them  who  persecute  you,  and  seek  occasion  against  you  ; 

That  ye  may  be  the  children  of  your  Father  who  is  in  heaven. 

The  Old  Law  commands  to  punish  malefactors ; 

1  "O  frayre  entende  unanobla  Ley?on. 
Sovent  deven  velhar  e  istar  en  oreson, 

C.  nos  veen  aquest  mont  esser  presdel  chavon. 

****** 

Ben  ha  mil  e  cent  an  compli  entierament, 

Que  fo  scripta  lora,  C.  son  al  derier  temp. 

****** 

M.  cas9una  persona  que  vol  ben  obrar, 

Lonor  de  Dio  lo  payre  deo  esser  al  commencar. 

E  apelar  en  aina  lo  sio  glorios  filli  car  filli  de  Santa  Maria, 

E  lo  Sanct  Sprit  que  nos  don  bona  via. 

Aquisti  3.  la  Sancta  Trenita  enayma  un  Dio,  devon  esser  aura, 

Plen  de  tota  poysen?a  e  de  tota  sapien9a  e  de  tota  bronta." 


MANNER   OF   LIFE    OF   THE    WALDENSES.  405 

But  the  New  says,  Pardon  all  people, 

And  thou  shalt  find  pardon  with  the  Father  Almighty  ; 

For  if  thou  dost  not  pardon  thou  shalt  not  be  saved. 

The  author  excuses  the  persecutors  of  the  Apostles  and  early 
Christians,  because  they  had  not  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  con- 
trasts with  them  those  who  in  his  day  called  themselves  Christians, 
and  yet  were  persecutors.  The  successors  of  the  Apostles,  he  avers, 
had  continued  down  to  his  time,  but  because  of  persecution  were 
hardly  able  to  show  themselves. 

The  rekindling  of  the  lamp  of  Gospel  truth  in  the  valleys  of 
Piedmont,  stirred  up  the  envy  and  malevolence  of  the  priesthood. 
In  1198  at  the  instance  of  the  bishop  of  Turin,  the  German  Em- 
peror Otho  IV.  issued  a  decree  for  the  expulsion  from  the  diocese  of 
"  the  heretical  Waldenses  and  all  who  sow  the  tares  of  falsehood." 
In  1220  a  certain  count  Thomas  and  the  magistrate  of  Pignerol 
made  a  joint  order,  M  that  whosoever  should  show  hospitality  to  any 
Waldensian  man  or  woman  should  pay  a  fine  of  ten  soldi."  It 
does  not  fall  within  our  limits  to  trace  the  subsequent  history  of 
this  Church.  Persecutions,  conflicts  and  scenes  of  massacre  were 
witnessed  in  one  valley  or  another  by  nearly  every  age  from  the 
year  1300  to  the  Eeformation,  and  again  from  the  Eeformation  to 
the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

We  have  seen  what  Eeinerius  Saccho  has  to  say  respecting  the 
doctrines  of  the  Waldenses.  His  testimony  to  their  manner  of  life 
is  equally  valuable.  He  describes  the  heretics  under  the  general 
name  of  Cathari,  but  especially  distinguishes  the  Leonists  (Poor 
Men  of  Lyons).  The  date  is  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
"  The  Waldenses  are  older,  more  universal,  more  orthodox  and 
more  sanctimonious  than  any  other.  They  are  sedate  and  modest ; 
they  have  no  pride  in  clothes,  wearing  such  as  are  neither  costly 
nor  mean.  To  avoid  fraud  and  oaths,  they  eschew  commerce  and 
live  by  manual  labour;  even  their  teachers  are  shoemakers  and 
weavers.  They  do  not  amass  wealth,  are  temperate  in  meat  and 
drink,  avoid  taverns  and  dances,  and  are  of  chaste  life.  They 
resort  to  a  crafty  device  to  gain  the  ear  of  the  noble  and  great.  In 
the  guise  of  pedlars  they  carry  about  jewels  and  ornaments  of  dress 
which  they  show  to  ladies  and  gentlemen.  When  one  of  them  has 
disposed  of  his  rings  and  kerchiefs,  and  is  asked,  '  Hast  thou  any- 
thing more  to  sell,'  he  answers,  '  I  have  jewels  more  precious  than 
these  which  I  will  show  thee  if  thou  wilt  not  betray  me  to  the 
priests.'  On  receiving  the  required  assurance,  he  says,  '  I  have  a 
gem  so  brilliant,  that  by  its  light  a  man  may  see  God ;  another 
which  radiates  such  a  flame  as  to  kindle  the  love  of  God  in  the 


406 


WITNESSES    FOE    CHE1ST. 


heart  of  its  possessor'; — and  so  on.  By  these  jewels  he  means 
passages  of  Holy  Scripture  in  their  several  applications,  and  he 
begins  to  recite  some  of  them  ;  such  as  the  Annunciation,  or  our 
Lord's  discourse  after  washing  his  disciples'  feet.  Then  when  he 
sees  his  hearers  are  interested,  he  repeats  the  woes  pronounced  by 
Christ  on  the  Pharisees ;  and  if  asked  of  whom  these  imprecations 
are  to  be  understood,  he  answers,  of  the  clergy  and  the  monks. 
After  which  the  heretic  draws  a  comparison  between  the  Komish 
Church  and  his  own  sect.  ...  In  prayer  they  are  very  reverent, 
kneeling  in  silence  when  they  leave  their  beds  in  the  morning, 
before  and  after  noon-day,  and  at  night.  Before  they  eat  they 
give  thanks,  the  eldest  of  the  company  saying  in  their  vernacular 
tongue  :  '  God  who  blessed  the  five  loaves  and  the  two  fishes  in  the 
desert,  bless  this  table  and  that  which  is  upon  it  (then  they  all 
make  the  sign  of  the  Cross),  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,, 
and  the  Holy  Ghost.'  And  when  they  rise  from  table  the  eldest 
amongst  them  repeats  the  doxology;  'Worthy  is  the  Lamb  that 
hath  been  slain,  to  receive  the  power,  and  riches,  and  wisdom,  and 
might,  and  glory,  and  blessing';  adding,  'God  plentifully  reward. 
all  our  benefactors  ;  the  God  who  hath  given  us  food  for  the  body, 
vouchsafe  to  us  also  the  life  of  the  Spirit,  and  be  with  us,  and  we 
with  Him  for  ever ! '  ;  all  the  company  meanwhile  raising  their 
clasped  hands  towards  heaven." 


The  Waldensian  Candlestick  (Convallium  antiquissivia  Insignia).    See  John  i.5. 
From  Leger,  Histoire  des  Eglises  Evangeliques  de  Piemont. 


THE    NOBLE    LESSON.  407 

Note  on  The  Noble  Lesson. 
The  line  of  this  poem  quoted  above  at  page  40  — 

A  thousand  and  a  hundred  years  have  been  already  completed, 
was  thought  until  recently  to  determine  its  age,  namely,  the  12th  century. 
Some  difference  of  reading  however  in  the  Cambridge  MSS.  from  those  which 
have  been  followed  by  historians  has  within  the  last  few  years  thrown  doubts 
upon  this  date  Mr.  Bradshaw,  the  late  librarian  of  the  University,  examining 
the  MS.  in  its  possession  (a  diminutive  quarto  on  paper),  discovered  an  erasure 
before  the  word  cent,  and  with  a  magnifying-glass  made  out  that  the  figure  4 
had  once  occupied  the  space  : 

Ben  ha  mil  e  4  cent  an  compli  entierement. 
He  also  found  a  single  first  leaf  of  another  copy  of  the  poem,  in  which  are  four 
c's  between  e  and  cent : 

Ben  ha  mil  e  cccc  cent  anz  compli  entierament. 
This  discovery  removes  the  poem  to  the  15th  century.    It  is  true  that  the 
reading  hitherto  received  is  supported  by  a  manuscript  of  the  poem  in  the  Uni- 
versity College,  Dublin,  and  another  in  the  Public  Library,  Geneva  ;  the  former 
reading 

Ben  ha  mil  e  cet  an  cpli  entierament ; 
the  latter, 

Ben  ha  mil  ecet  ancz  compli  entieramt ; 

but  Mr.  Bradshaw  has  pronounced  these  copies  to  be  later  than  the  Cambridge  ; 
and  whilst  there  would  be  an  obvious  motive  for  altering  1400  into  1100,  there 
could  be  none  for  changing  1100  into  1400.  Accordingly  some  deductions  in  the 
first  edition  of  this  work  drawn  from  the  supposed  earlier  date  of  the  poem  are 
now  omitted.  We  tender  our  thanks  to  W.  G.  Searle,  Vicar  of  Hockington,  and 
to  the  librarians  of  the  Cambridge,  Geneva  and  Dublin  libraries,  for  their  kind 
assistance  in  this  matter. 


CHAPTEK  VII. 

The  Crusade  against  the  Albigenses. 

The  last  of  the  Crusades,  when  the  Shepherd  handed  his  stray  sheep  over 
to  the  wolves,  and  bigotry,  consecrating  license,  ran  riot  from  Provence  through 
Languedoc. — Times. 

The  name  Albigenses  is  not  that  of  a  sect,  but  is  a  generic  term 
covering  a  wide  group  of  Christian  communities,  spread  over  the 
whole  south  of  France  —  Cathari,  Paterini,  Tisserands,  Petro- 
brusians,  Henricians,  Boni-Homines,  Waldenses ;  and  it  seems 
not  to  have  been  used  prior  to  the  Crusade  of  which  we  are  about 
to  speak.  Some  of  these  sects,  as  we  have  already  seen,  were  the 
offspring  of  the  Paulicians  of  Thrace,  and  clung  to  the  Oriental 
theosophy  and  the  practice  of  severe  asceticism ;  others  were 
indigenous,  and  were  of  two  kinds,  those  which  were  chiefly  dis- 


408  WITNESSES    FOE   CHEIST. 

tinguished  by  their  opposition  to  the  Romish  priesthood  and  super- 
stitions ;  and  those  which,  especially  after  the  preaching  of  Waldo, 
upheld  the  part  of  sound  Biblical  reformers.  From  one  cause  or 
other  the  land  teemed  with  Christian  people  in  revolt  against  the 
ruling  Church.  The  heresy  was  not  confined  to  the  lower  or  even 
the  middle  ranks.  If  not  the  princes  themselves,  yet  in  many 
instances  their  wives  and  families  were  deeply  implicated  in  the 
religious  insurrection,  the  greater  part  of  the  daughters  of  the 
nobility  being  brought  up  in  the  educational  establishments  of  the 
Perfects,  who  lived  together  in  monastic  style. 

Side  by  side  with  this  religious  life  there  flourished  another  life 
of  a  very  different  kind.  The  nobles  and  knights  of  Languedoc 
and  Provence,  although  not  less  warlike,  were  more  cultivated  and 
perhaps  more  luxurious  than  any  in  Europe.  It  was  a  land  of 
castles  and  tournaments,  the  very  focus  of  chivalry,  where  counts 
and  barons  "  vied  with  each  other  in  splendour  and  gallantry.  The 
count  of  Toulouse  and  his  vassals  had  been  amongst  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  the  Crusaders,  and  had  brought  home  many  usages 
of  Oriental  luxury."  It  was  too  the  land  of  song.  The  troubadours 
of  Provence  opened  to  Europe  a  new  world  of  romance  and  poetry; 
in  their  lays  they  touched  many  themes,  sacred  and  profane,  but 
especially  love,  which  they  sang  in  voluptuous  strains.  Moreover 
the  soil  was  fertile,  the  people  industrious,  the  cities  wealthy ;  earth 
could  boast  no  fairer  region. 

In  1198  there  ascended  the  papal  throne  a  learned  ecclesiastic 
named  Lothaire  Conti,  then  aged  thirty-seven  years,  who  took  the 
title  of  Innocent  III.  Rome  has  never  seen  an  abler  or  more 
ambitious  pontiff.  "Pious  and  virtuous  in  private  life,"  his  sole 
aim  as  pope  was  to  make  the  papal  see  supreme  over  all  Christian 
states,  princes  and  people,  and  to  this  object  he  sacrificed  every 
Christian  principle.  He  commenced  his  reign  with  an  assumption 
for  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  an  epithet  strong  enough  : 
"  Ye  see  what  manner  of  servant  the  Lord  hath  set  over  his  people, 
the  vicegerent  of  Christ,  the  successor  of  Peter.  He  stands  between 
God  and  man ;  below  God,  above  man  ;  less  than  God,  more  than 
man.  He  judges  all,  is  judged  by  none,  for  it  is  written  :  '  I  will 
judge.'  "  Innocent  saw  that  so  long  as  the  south  of  France  con- 
tinued in  a  state  of  revolt  the  papacy  itself  was  insecure.  In  the 
words  of  Sismondi,  "  both  from  character  and  policy  he  came  at 
once  to  the  conclusion  that  no  measures  must  be  kept  with  the 
sectaries.  If  they  were  not  crushed,  if  the  whole  race  was  not 
exterminated,  and  Christendom  struck  with  terror,  the  mischief 
would  spread,  and  the  intellectual  fermentation  which  was  every- 


THE    PAPAL   MEASURES.  409 

where  going  on  would  involve  the  whole  world  in  universal  confla- 
gration." 1 

In  the  very  first  year  of  his  pontificate  Innocent  addressed  a 
letter  to  the  archbishops,  bishops,  princes  and  counts  in  the  south 
of  France,  declaring  the  Cathari,  Paterini,  Waldenses  and  all  other 
heretics2  to  be  outlaws,  and  calling  upon  the  temporal  lords  to  con- 
fiscate, banish  and  put  to  death  all  who  should  persist  in  their 
heresy.  Spiritual  indulgences,  with  the  possession  of  the  confis- 
cated estates,  were  promised  to  all  who  should  obey  this  mandate. 
At  the  same  time  he  sent  two  Cistercian  monks  as  his  legates  to 
see  that  these  orders  were  carried  into  effect.  But  the  lords  of  the 
•great  fiefs  were  not  to  be  caught  by  either  the  spiritual  or  the  tem- 
poral bait,  and  the  pope's  bull  remained  a  dead  letter. 

Stronger  measures  were  required.  The  pope  chose  two  other 
Cistercians,  Peter  of  Castelnau,  and  Eaoul,  whom  he  invested  with 
extraordinary  powers,  the  whole  episcopal  authority  in  the  provinces 
being  transferred  to  them.  They  went  first  to  Toulouse,  and 
extorted  from  the  count  and  the  civic  authorities  an  oath  to  expel 
the  Boni-Homines  from  the  land.  Still  nothing  was  actually  done ; 
"  Toulouse  the  deceitful3  went  on  in  its  calm  tolerance."  A  third 
legate  was  now  added,  Arnold  d'Amauri,  abbot  of  Citeaux,  than 
whom  no  fitter  tool  could  have  been  found  for  the  work. 

Thus  reinforced  the  papal  legates  again  set  forth,  and  travelled 
through  the  land  from  city  to  city  with  great  pomp,  a  retinue  in  rich 
attire,  and  a  vast  cavalcade  of  horses  and  sumpter  mules.  Wherever 
they  came  they  admonished  the  heretics  to  return  to  the  true 
Church,  and  exhorted  the  faithful  to  assist  in  compelling  them. 
Their  usual  text  was,  "  Who  will  rise  up  for  me  against  the  evil 
doers  ?  Who  will  stand  up  for  me  against  the  workers  of  iniquity  ?  " 
And  the  sermon  generally  ended  with :  "  You  see,  most  dear 
brethren,  how  great  the  wickedness  of  the  heretics  is,  and  by  what 
pious  methods  the  Church  labours  to  reclaim  them.     But  these  all 

1  "  Innocent  was  charitable  to  the  poor  who  surrounded  his  palace,  steeled 
against  the  wretch  who  deviated  from  his  faith — generous  in  the  profusion  of 
his  private  expenditure,  avaricious  in  the  exactions  which  he  levied  for  the 
apostolical  treasury — humane  in  his  mere  social  relations,  merciless  in  the  exe- 
cution of  his  ecclesiastical  projects — pious  in  the  expressions  of  internal  devo- 
tion, impious  and  blasphemous  in  his  repeated  profanation  of  the  name  of  God 
and  of  the  cross  of  Christ."  To  English  readers  he  is  best  known  as  compelling 
King  John  to  do  penance  and  receive  back  his  kingdom  as  a  papal  fief. 

2  The  pope  acknowledges  that  the  heretics  performed  works  of  love,  but 
ascribes  these  to  dissimulation  in  order  to  obtain  proselytes. 

3  Tolosa,  tota  dolosa,  says  the  monk  of  Vaux-Cernay. 


410  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

prove  ineffectual;  therefore,  though  with  great  reluctance  and' 
grief,  our  holy  mother  the  Church  calls  together  against  them  the 
Christian  army.  If  then  you  have  any  zeal  for  the  faith,  if  any 
concern  for  the  honour  of  God,  if  you  would  enjoy  the  benefit  of 
this  great  indulgence,  come  and  receive  the  sign  of  the  cross  and 
join  yourselves  to  the  army  of  the  crucified  Saviour." 

On  their  second  circuit  the  legates  fell  in,  near  Montpellier,  with 
the  Spanish  bishop  of  Osma  in  Castile,  who  was  travelling  north- 
ward. He  was  accompanied  by  Dominic,  a  Spaniard  of  noble 
family,  who  burned  with  hatred  against  the  heretics.  "  The 
dejected  legates  bitterly  mourned  their  want  of  success.  •  How 
expect  success  with  this  secular  pomp  ? '  replied  the  severer 
Spaniards.  '  Sow  the  good  seed  as  the  heretics  sow  the  bad.  Cast 
off  those  sumptuous  robes,  renounce  those  richly-caparisoned  pal- 
freys, go  barefoot,  without  purse  and  scrip,  like  the  Apostles ;  out- 
labour,  out-fast,  out-discipline  these  false  teachers.'  The  Spaniards 
were  not  content  with  words  only;  the  bishop  of  Osma  and  Dominic 
sent  back  their  own  horses,  stripped  themselves  to  the  rudest 
monkish  dress,  and  led  the  way  on  the  spiritual  campaign.  The 
legates  were  constrained  to  follow." 

But  this  new  demonstration  met  with  no  better  success  than  the 
former.  The  monks  indeed,  accustomed  to  the  subtleties  of  the 
schools,  often  puzzled  their  opponents  ;  but  even  this  was  far  from 
being  always  the  case.  We  have  a  note  of  one  of  these  conferences, 
in  which  the  legates  were  completely  silenced.  It  took  place  at 
Montreal,  near  Carcassonne,  in  the  year  1206.  On  this  occasion 
the  Albigenses  challenged  the  Catholics  to  a  public  disputation  on 
the  errors  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  Many  bishops  and  monks,  in- 
cluding Peter  of  Castelnau,  the  bishop  of  Osma  and  Dominic,  were 
present.  Two  noblemen  and  two  commoners  were  chosen  as  arbi- 
trators. It  was  agreed  that  the  side  which  could  not  maintain  its 
opinions  by  Scripture  should  be  considered  as  vanquished.  Arnold 
Hot,  an  Albigensian  pastor,  propounded  six  theses  :  I.  That  the 
mass  was  not  instituted  by  Christ  or  his  Apostles.  II.  That  tran- 
substantiation  is  an  invention  of  man,  and  an  erroneous  doctrine ; 
and  that  the  worship  of  the  Host  is  manifest  idolatry.  III.  That 
the  Church  of  Rome  is  not  the  Spouse  of  Christ,  but  the  Church  of 
confusion,  the  mother  of  abomination,  drunk  with  the  blood  of  the 
saints.  IV.  That  the  prayers  of  the  living  are  not  profitable  for 
the  dead.  V.  That  purgatory  is  a  human  invention  devised  to 
gratify  the  avarice  of  the  priests.  VI.  That  prayer  ought  not  to 
be  made  to  the  saints.  These  propositions,  or  some  of  them, 
Arnold  sent  in  writing  to  one  of  the  bishops  who  demanded  a 


ARNOLD    HOT    CONFUTES    THE    PAPAL   LEGATES.  411 

fortnight  to  prepare  his  answer.  On  the  appointed  day  the  bishop 
appeared  with  a  voluminous  paper  which  was  read.  Arnold  under- 
took to  reply  to  it  extempore,  if  the  judges  and  the  audience  would 
give  him  time ;  so  long  a  treatise  he  said  would  require  a  long 
answer.  This  was  granted,  and  Arnold  discoursed  for  several 
hours  each  day  on  four  days  in  succession,  and  tins  with  so  much 
skill  that  his  opponents  would  gladly  have  been  elsewhere ;  for  he 
made  it  evident  that  though  the  bishop  had  written  much  he  had 
proved  nothing.  In  conclusion,  Arnold  challenged  his  opponents 
to  prove  from  Scripture  that  the  mass  was  instituted  by  Christ  and 
sung  by  his  Apostles  in  the  same  manner  as  it  was  accustomed  to 
be  sung  in  the  churches.  This  the  bishops  could  not  do,  and 
Arnold  followed  up  his  advantage  by  asserting  that  the  Lord's 
Supper  is  not  the  mass.  " If,"  said  he,  "the  mass  were  the  Lord's 
Supper,  there  would  after  the  consecration  be  all  there  was  before ; 
but  in  your  mass  no  bread  is  left,  for  by  transubstantiation  the 
bread  has  vanished;  wherefore  the  mass  cannot  be  the  Lord's 
Supper,  in  which,  as  we  all  know,  there  is  bread  still.  Jesus 
Christ  brake  bread,  and  Paul  brake  bread ;  but  the  priest  breaks 
the  body,  not  bread ;  wherefore  the  priest  neither  does  what  Jesus 
Christ  did  nor  what  St.  Paul  did."  Upon  this  the  monks,  bishops, 
legates  and  priests  rose  up  abruptly  and  left  the  assembly,  fearful 
lest  the  faith  of  the  audience  in  the  mass  should  be  altogether 
shaken. 

For  eight  years  did  the  papal  emissaries  preach,  dispute,  and 
threaten  in  vain.  "  Why,"  they  demanded  of  the  Catholic  inhabi- 
tants, "  why  do  you  not  drive  the  heretics  out  of  the  country  ?  " 
"  We  cannot,"  was  the  answer;  "we  have  been  brought  up  with 
them,  they  are  our  kindred  ;  besides,  we  see  the  goodness  of  their 
lives." 

A  more  drastic  remedy  was  needed.  There  yet  remained  the 
sword  of  the  secular  power ;  and  Innocent  was  not  troubled  with 
scruples.  He  hastened  to  summon  the  princes  to  his  side,  and  with 
malicious  cunning,  cast  his  eyes  on  the  sovereign  of  the  land  as  the 
fit  executioner  of  the  papal  vengeance  upon  his  own  people. 

Kaymond,  sixth  count  of  Toulouse,  was  a  "  gay,  voluptuous,1 
generous  man,  without  strength  of  character  enough  to  be  either 
heretic  or  bigot."  Some  of  his  feudal  lords,  the  king  of  Aragon, 
and  himself  were  at  war  with  one  another.  The  legates  peremptorily 
called  on  the  belligerent  parties  to  make  peace  and  to  combine 
their  forces  against  the  heretics.     Kaymond  declined  to  obey  the 

1  He  had  three  wives  living  at  the  same  time. 


412  WITNESSES    FOB    CHKIST. 

summons ;  upon  which  Peter  of  Castelnau  issued  sentence  of  excom- 
munication against  him,  and  placed  his  territory  under  an  interdict ; 
and  Innocent  from  his  lofty  seat  addressed  to  him  a  letter  "  perhaps 
unexampled  in  the  furious  vehemence  of  its  language.  It  had  no 
superscription,  for  it  was  to  a  man  under  sentence  of  excommuni- 
•  cation.  •  If  with  the  prophet,  I  could  break  through  the  wall  of 
thy  heart,  I  would  show  thee  all  its  abominations.  .  .  .  Who  art 
thou,  who,  when  the  illustrious  king  of  Aragon  and  the  other  nobles, 
a,t  the  exhortation  of  our  legates,  have  consented  to  terms  of  peace, 
alone  looking  for  advantage  in  war,  like  a  carrion  bird  preying  on 
carcases,  refusest  all  entreaties  ?  Impious,  cruel  and  direful  tyrant, 
thou  art  so  far  gone  in  heretical  pravity  that  thou  hast  said  thou 
wouldst  find  a  bishop  of  the  heretics  who  would  prove  his  faith  to 
be  better  than  that  of  the  Catholics.'  " 

The  blow  followed  sharp  upon  the  word.  A  papal  letter  was 
addressed  to  the  king  of  France,  his  nobles  and  all  his  Christian 
subjects,  and  to  sundry  other  princes,  commanding  them  to  take  up 
arms  for  the  suppression  of  the  heretics,  and  placing  their  lands 
whilst  so  engaged  under  the  special  protection  of  St.  Peter  and  the 
pope.  The  estates  and  goods  of  the  heretics  were  to  be  divided 
amongst  those  who  should  take  part  in  this  holy  enterprise ;  the 
interest  of  their  debts  was  to  cease  ;  and  the  same  spiritual  indul- 
gence was  to  be  granted  them  as  for  a  crusade  in  the  Holy  Land. 
At  the  same  time  Peter  of  Castelnau  secretly  stirred  up  the  lords 
of  Languedoc  against  Eaymond.  The  latter  in  alarm  hastened  to 
make  peace  with  his  enemies,  by  which  act  he  fondly  supposed 
himself  to  be  delivered  from  the  excommunication.  "  But  the  in- 
-  exorable  Peter  stood  before  him,  reproached  him  to  his  face  with 
cowardice,  accused  him  of  perjury  and  of  abetting  heresy,  and  re- 
newed the  excommunication  in  all  its  plenitude." 

At  this  crisis  (a.d.  1208)  a  deplorable  event  took  place.  The 
legates  were  crossing  the  Rhone  when  Peter  of  Castelnau  was 
transfixed  with  a  lance  by  a  servant  of  Raymond  and  died  almost 
instantly.1  Suspicion  naturally  fell  upon  the  count,  but  his  inno- 
cence of  the  crime  has  been  satisfactorily  proved.  The  pope  however 
.at  once  assumed  his  guilt,  and  ordered  his  excommunication  to  be 
published  throughout  the  provinces  every  Sunday  and  Holy-day ; 
the  only  terms  on  which  he  could  look  for  pardon  being  the  expul- 
sion of  all  heretics  from  his  dominions.  Innocent  moreover  seized 
the  moment  of  public  indignation  at  this  crime  to  quicken  the  tardy 

1  He  lived  only  long  enough  to  breathe  out,  "  God  pardon  them,  as  I  pardon 
them." 


THE    ALBIGENSIAN    WAR. 


418- 


zeal  of  the  king  of  France  and  the  princes.  "  Up,  soldiers  of 
Christ !  Up,  most  Christian  king  !  hear  the  cry  of  blood  ;  aid  us 
in  wreaking  vengeance  on  these  malefactors." 

The  call  was  promptly  responded  to.    Political  ambition,  the 
appetite  for  plunder,  the  chivalrous  passion  for  war  and  enterprise, 
were  all  called  into  activity,  whilst  the  conquest  of  a  wealthy  country 
close  at  hand  offered  an  easier  way  to  win  heaven  than  the  long 
and  costly  journey  to  Palestine  and  a  perilous  warfare  amongst  its 
stony  hills.     From  all  parts  of  France  knights  and  armed  men 
assembled  at  Lyons  in  countless  numbers.    Hopeless  of  resisting  so* 
mighty  a  force,  Eaymond  submitted.     The  terms  of  his  pardon 
were  cruel.     After  surrendering  seven  of  his  chief  castles,  "  he  was 
led,  naked  to  the  girdle,  to  the  porch  of  the  abbey-church  [it  was  at 
Valence] ,  and  in  the  presence  of  the  legates  and  twenty  bishops, 
before  the  Eucharist,  with  relics  and  the  wood  of  the  true  cross,  his^ 
hand  laid  on  the  Gospels,  he  acknowledged  the  justice  of  his  ex- 
communication, and  swore  full  allegiance  to  the  pope  and  to  his- 
legate."      Then  with  a  rope  round  his  neck,  and  scourged  on  his 
naked  shoulders  as  he  went,  he  was  led  past  the  tomb  of  the 
murdered  Castelnau,  up  to  the  high  altar,  where  he  received 
absolution. 

But  his  relentless  enemies  were  still  unsatisfied ;  his  humiliation 
was  not  yet  complete.  He  himself  must  take  up  the  cross  against 
his  own  loyal  subjects ;  "  he  must  appear  at  the  head,  he  must 
actually  seem  to  direct  the  operations  of  the  invading  army ;  "  for 
the  war,  so  it  was  pretended,  was  not  waged  against  the  princes  or 
people  of  Languedoc,  but  against  the  heretics.  "  Never  in  the 
history  of  man,"  such  are  Milman's  words,  "  were  the  great  eternal 
principles  of  justice,  the  faith  of  treaties,  common  humanity,  so 
trampled  under  foot  as  in  the  Albigensian  war.  Never  was  war 
waged  in  which  ambition,  the  consciousness  of  strength,  rapacity, 
implacable  hatred,  and  pitiless  cruelty  played  a  greater  part.  And 
throughout  the  war  it  cannot  be  disguised  that  it  was  not  merely 
the  army  of  the  Church,  but  the  Church  itself  in  arms.  Papal 
legates  and  the  greatest  prelates  headed  the  host  and  mingled  in  all 
the  horrors  of  the  battle  and  the  siege.  In  no  instance  did  they 
interfere  to  arrest  the  massacre,  in  some  cases  urged  it  on."  Arnold 
was  the  captain-general  of  the  host.  Fulk  bishop  of  Toulouse,  for- 
merly a  dissolute  troubadour,  and  the  deadly  enemy  of  count  Eay- 
mond, might  be  regarded  as  the  second  in  command.  The  arch- 
bishops and  bishops  led  the  several  armies  in  person.  The  head 
engineer  was  the  archdeacon  of  Paris.  Peter,  monk  of  Vaux-Cernay, 
attendant   on  his  uncle,  the  abbot  of  that  monastery,  was  the 


414  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

historian  of  the  crusade,  and  in  his  history  he  revels  in  all  the  deeds 
of  blood.  With  him  "  the  heretic  was  a  beast  of  prey,  to  be  slain 
wherever  he  might  be  found."  The  chief  secular  leaders  were  the 
duke  of  Burgundy,  the  count  of  Nevers,  the  count  of  St.  Pol,  and 
Simon  de  Montfort.1 

It  does  not  belong  to  our  purpose  to  follow  in  all  its  harrowing 
detail  the  course  of  the  war.  The  historians  of  the  time  depict,  in 
vivid  colours,  the  march  of  the  armed  host,  the  siege  and  sack  of 
towns  and  castles,  the  heroic  defence  of  despairing  garrisons,  the 
massacres,  the  burnings,  the  endless  barbarities.  They  do  not 
however  take  us  into  the  sanctuary.  Who  shall  describe  the  terror 
which  seized  the  Churches  at  the  approach  of  the  pitiless  host  ? 
Who  can  count  the  tears  and  prayers  which  were  poured  out  in 
secret,  day  and  night,  in  thousands  of  chambers  ;  the  trembling  of 
ihe  feeble-minded ;  the  wrestling  of  the  strong  man  that  he  might 
have  faith  to  confess  Christ  in  the  presence  of  the  sword,  the  gibbet, 
or  the  stake ;  the  mortal  shrinking  of  those  who  had  a  name  to  live 
and  yet  were  dead  ?  Or  who  shall  tell  how,  when  faith  had  fully 
laid  hold  of  Christ,  the  peace  of  God  flowed  into  the  soul,  lifting  it 
above  all  the  terrors  of  earth  and  hell  ?  Some  of  the  Churches,  as 
we  have  seen,  looking  deeper  into  the  Gospel  than  even  Zwingle  or 
Luther,  held  that  Christ's  disciple  cannot  use  the  sword.  Were 
these  faithful  in  the  hour  of  trial  ?  The  perpetual  din  of  arms,  the 
shouts  of  triumph,  the  sbrieks  of  woe,  the  cries  of  despair  drown 
these  gentler  voices.  History  in  this  case,  as  in  so  many  others, 
has  filled  her  page  with  the  coarser  and  the  meaner  traits,  leaving 
the  nobler  and  more  spiritual  to  be  revealed  at  the  last  day. 

In  the  spring  of  1209  the  crusading  army  was  put  in  motion .  The 
first  blow  fell  on  the  brave  young  viscount  of  Beziers,  nepbew  to 
Raymond.  Crowds  of  people  from  the  surrounding  country  had 
taken  refuge  in  the  city.  When  the  army  arrived  under  its  walls, 
the  bishop,  who  had  given  to  the  legate  the  names  of  the  suspected, 
exhorted  the  "  faithful "  to  deliver  these  up,  and  so  save  themselves 
from  ruin.  "  Tell  the  legate,"  was  the  noble  reply  of  the  Catholic 
citizens,  "  that  rather  than  commit  such  baseness,  we  will  devour 
•our  own  children."  The  city  was  stormed,  and  the  inhabitants 
massacred.  When  the  crusaders  asked  the  abbot  of  Citeaux,  "  Sir, 
how  shall  we  do  ?  we  cannot  distinguish  between  the  good  and  the 
bad,"  he  answered  in  the  memorable  words:  "Kill  all,  God  will 
know  his  own."     At  tbe  same  time  he  wrote  to  the  pope  :  "  We 

1  This  man,  created  Earl  of  Leicester  by  King  John,  was  father  to  the  Simon 
de  Montfort  who  led  the  English  barons  against  King  Henry  III. 


ATROCITIES    OF    THE    CRUSADE.  415 

have  spared  neither  rank,  sex  nor  age;  about  20,000  have  perished 
by  the  sword ;  the  whole  city  is  spoiled  and  burnt,  the  divine  venge- 
ance wonderfully  raging  against  it."  In  one  church  alone  7,000 
were  slain.  The  viscount  escaped  and  threw  himself  into  Carcas- 
sonne, to  which  the  crusaders  now  laid  siege.  Water  failed,  a 
pestilence  broke  out,  and  the  unhappy  town  surrendered  ;  most  of 
the  inhabitants  were  permitted  to  leave,  and  wandered  amongst  the 
woods  and  mountains  in  an  utterly  destitute  condition.  Three 
hundred  knights  gave  themselves  up  on  promise  of  their  lives  and 
liberty.  But  Simon  acted  on  Innocent's  maxim,  "To  keep  faith  with 
those  who  have  it  not  is  an  offence  against  the  faith."  They  were 
burnt  alive.  The  viscount  was  kept  close  prisoner  and  soon 
died,  not  without  suspicion  of  being  poisoned  by  order  of  Simon  de 
Montfort. 

Now  arose  the  question,  to  which  of  the  victorious  leaders  the 
viscount's  lands  should  be  given,  as  "  the  first-fruits  of  the  con- 
quest." The  duke  of  Burgundy  disdainfully  refused  them,  saying 
"  he  had  plenty  of  domains  and  lordships,  without  taking  what 
would  disinherit  the  viscount  of  Beziers,  to  whom  he  thought  they 
had  done  evil  enough  without  despoiling  him  of  his  inheritance." 
His  example  was  followed  by  the  counts  of  Nevers  and  St.  Pol,  but 
Simon  de  Montfort  had  no  such  scruples.  He  accepted  the  pro- 
ferred  spoil,  and  was  invested  on  the  pope's  authority  with  all  the 
lands  conquered  or  to  be  conquered  during  the  Crusade. 

Raymond  had  submitted  ;  he  was  with  the  crusading  army  ;  but 
it  was  necessary  for  the  reduction  of  Languedoc  that  he  should  be 
completely  separated  from  the  other  feudal  lords,  and  reduced  to  a 
.cipher.  The  legates  demanded  of  him  the  instant  surrender  of  all 
heretics  in  his  dominions,  with  all  their  possessions.  The  count  in 
dismay  appealed  to  the  pope,  and  went  himself  to  Rome.  Innocent 
received  him  with  smooth  words,  and  gave  him  absolution.  Never- 
theless he  had  to  appear  before  a  council  in  order  to  purge  himself 
from  the  charge  of  abetting  heresy.  At  the  same  time  Innocent 
wrote  to  the  legates  :  "  We  counsel  you  to  use  guile,  as  the  Apostle 
Paul  did.  Leave  for  a  time  the  count  of  Toulouse,  employing 
towards  him  a  wise  dissimulation,  that  the  other  heretics  may  be 
the  more  easily  defeated,  and  that  afterwards  we  may  crush  him 
when  he  shall  be  left  alone." 

Meanwhile  the  Crusade  went  forward.  Five  hundred  castles  and 
towns  either  surrendered  without  resistance,  or  yielded  after  a  short 
siege.  The  defenders  were  massacred,  hanged,  burned  or  mutilated. 
Minerve,  a  fortress  of  great  strength,  made  a  long  and  vigorous 
resistance ;  but  provisions  and  water  failed,  and  the  garrison  was 


416  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

forced  to  capitulate.  One  of  the  articles  provided  that  such  of  the 
heretics  as  recanted  should  he  spared.  A  fierce  knight  was  indig- 
nant at  such  leniency  1  "Fear  not,"  replied  Arnold,  who  was- 
himself  vexed  with  the  article,  "  they  will  be  very  few  who  will  be 
spared."  The  crusaders  marched  into  the  castle  singing  the  Te 
Deum.  The  Albigenses  had  assembled,  the  men  in  one  house,  the 
women  in  another,  and  on  their  knees  in  prayer,  awaited  the  end. 
The  abbot  of  Vaux-Cernay  exhorted  the  men  to  return  to  the  true 
Church.  He  was  interrupted  by  a  unanimous  cry :  "  Your  labour 
is  in  vain ;  we  have  renounced  the  Church  of  Rome  ;  neither  death 
nor  life  shall  make  us  abandon  our  faith."  He  then  proceeded  to 
the  women,  whom  he  found  equally  resolute  and  more  enthusiastic- 
Next  came  Simon  de  Montfort.  He  had  raised  a  great  pile  of  wood : 
pointing  to  it  he  said,  "  Return  to  the  Catholic  faith,  or  ascend 
that  pile."  No  one  moved.  The  pile  was  set  on  fire,  until  the 
square  was  filled  with  flame,  and  the  heretics  were  marched  out. 
One  hundred  and  forty  of  the  Perfect,1  commending  their  souls  to 
God,  rushed  of  their  own  accord  into  the  flames. 

"When  the  count  of  Toulouse  offered  to  justify  himself  before  the 
council  (which  met  at  St.  Gilles),  he  found  his  enemies  so  utterly 
implacable  that  he  burst  into  tears ;  upon  which  Theodisc,  a  canon 
sent  by  the  pope  to  assist  Arnold,  mockingly  cried  out,  "  How  great 
soever  the  flood  of  waters  they  will  not  reach  to  God."  The  terms 
proposed  by  the  council  were  preposterous;  compliance  with  them 
was  impossible.  The  count  heard  them  with  bitter  laughter ;  and 
seeing  that  his  utter  ruin  was  resolved  upon,  quitted  the  town,  and 
rode  off  to  Toulouse  to  put  himself  at  the  head  of  his  people.  He 
was  received  with  enthusiasm.  This  event  changed  the  aspect* 
although  not  the  character  of  the  war.  It  was  still  the  Church  em- 
ploying the  secular  arm  for  the  extirpation  of  heresy  ;  but  it  was 
also  a  prince  and  his  people  defending  their  lands  and  liberties 
against  a  foreign  enemy.2 

The  war  was  carried  on  with  undiminished  fury.  Before  Lavaur, 
five  leagues  from  Toulouse,  the  bishops  and  legates  amid  the 
horrible  tumult  of  the  siege  stood  chanting,  "  Come  Holy  Ghost !  " 
The  capture  of  this  fortress  was  followed  by  a  frightful  carnage. 
The  commander,  with  eighty  nobles  and  knights,  were  brought 
before  De  Montfort.      He  ordered  them  to  be  hanged ;   the  over- 

1  See  ante,  pp.  372,  408. 
2  The  French  (in  the  annals  of  the  period,  Franks)  were  almost  as  much 
foreigners  to  the  people  of  Provence  and  Languedoc  as  the  English  were  to  the 
Welsh  before  the  reign  of  Edward  I. 


THE  POPE    OVERBORNE. 


417 


loaded  gibbets  broke  down,  and  the  survivors  were  hewn  in  pieces. 
Geralda,  the  Lady  of  Lavaur,  "  from  whose  door  no  poor  man  was 
ever  turned  away,"  was  thrown  into  a  well,  and  huge  stones  rolled 
down  upon  her.  Men,  women  and  children  were  indiscriminately 
massacred  ;  "  after  which,"  says  the  monk  of  Vaux-Cernay,  **  our 
pilgrims,  collecting  the  innumerable  heretics  the  castle  contained, 
burned  them  alive  with  the  utmost  joy."  In  1211,  although  the 
cities  of  Toulouse  and  Montauban  were  still  uncaptured,  De  Mont- 
fort  assumed  the  title  of  Sovereign  Prince  of  Languedoc.  At  the 
same  time,  the  legate  Arnold  was  made  archbishop  and  even  duke  (!) 
of  Narbonne ;  the  abbot  of  Vaux-Cernay  received  the  bishopric  of 
Carcassonne ;  and  other  monks  wealthy  benefices. 

But  now  complaints  began  to  be  made  to  the  pope  against  De 
Montfort  and  Arnold  :  they  had  seized  the  lands  of  good  Catholics,, 
and  amongst  others  some  territory  of  the  king  of  Aragon,  who  was 
related  to  Kaymond,  and  supported  his  cause.  At  the  same  time 
Kaymond  offered  to  surrender  his  dominions  in  favour  of  his  son, 
against  whom  there  was  no  suspicion  of  heresy.  The  pope  saw 
that  the  time  had  come  to  check  the  career  of  conquest ;  moreover 
he  regarded  the  young  Eaymond  with  personal  favour ;  neverthe- 
less he  found  himself  powerless  to  arrest  or  control  the  terrible 
engine  he  had  set  in  motion.  The  churchmen  of  the  Crusade 
would  listen  to  no  terms.  In  their  reply  to  the  pope's  letter  they 
exclaim  :  "  Arm  thyself  with  the  zeal  of  Phinehas  !  annihilate  Tou- 
louse, that  Sodom  and  Gomorrha,  with  all  the  wretches  it  contains ; 
let  not  the  tyrant,  the  heretic  Eaymond,  nor  even  his  young  son, 
lift  up  his  head ;  already  more  than  half-crushed,  crush  them  to 
the  very  uttermost."     Innocent  was  forced  to  yield. 

In  1213  at  Muret,  Simon  de  Montfort  totally  defeated  the  com- 
bined forces  of  Count  Eaymond  and  the  king  of  Aragon,  who  was 
slain  on  the  field.  The  city  of  Toulouse  submitted,  and  was  spared 
only  because  De  Montfort  was  unwilling  to  destroy  his  newly- 
acquired  capital.  Its  walls  however,  as  well  as  those  of  Narbonne, 
were  thrown  down.  At  a  council  at  Montpellier  in  1215,  De 
Montfort  was  formally  invested  with  the  "  sovereignty  of  the  whole 
land ;  all  the  native  princes  were  deposed  ;  and  the  ancient  house 
of  Toulouse,  hitherto  the  greatest  territorial  principality  in  France, 
was  stripped  of  everything." 

The  same  year  the  pope  assembled  the  fourth  Lateran  Council, 
one  of  the  largest  ever  held.1    Its  avowed  objects  were  the  correc- 

1  It  was  attended  by  seventy-one  archbishops,  four  hundred  and  twelve 
bishops,  eight  hundred  and  sixty  abbots  or  priors,  besides  princes  and  other 

2  E 


418  WITNESSES    FOE   CHRIST. 

tion  of  abuses  and  corrupt  manners  in  the  Church,  the  extinction 
of  heresy,  and  a  new  crusade  against  the  Turks.  In  reference  to 
the  first,  Innocent  spoke  out  boldly  :  "  It  is  time,  as  the  apostle 
saith,  that  judgment  should  begin  at  the  House  of  God.  The  cor- 
ruption that  is  in  the  world  proceeds  chiefly  from  the  clergy !  " 
Nevertheless  this  matter  was  soon  suffered  to  drop.  The  third 
object  was  effected  in  the  sixth  crusade  under  Innocent's  successor, 
Honorius  III.  The  second,  as  we  have  seen,  was  in  a  fair  way  of 
being  accomplished.  But  the  council  now  made  new  and  more 
stringent  regulations,  and  decreed  that  "  persons  suspected  of 
heresy,  unless  they  can  clear  themselves,  are  to  be  smitten  with 
the  anathema  and  shunned  by  every  one  ;  and  if  they  persist  for  a 
year  in  excommunication  they  are  to  be  condemned  as  heretics. 
The  temporal  lord  who  shall  neglect  to  purge  his  land  from  here- 
tical defilement  is  to  be  excommunicated,  and  after  one  year  his 
territories  are  to  be  taken  possession  of  by  Catholics,  who  may 
sweep  off  the  heretics  and  purify  the  faith.  All  who  resist  the  de- 
cisions of  the  council  are  pronounced  infamous,  incapable  of  holding 
any  public  office,  exercising  civic  rights,  bequeathing  property,  or 
having  heirs  to  their  estates.  In  distress  none  are  to  show  them 
pity  ;  after  death  none  are  to  give  them  Christian  burial."  The 
council  then  proceeded  to  dispose  of  the  conquered  provinces. 
Count  Eaymond  was  for  ever  excluded  from  the  sovereignty  of  the 
land ;  but  Provence,  and  some  other  fiefs  yet  unconquered,  were  to 
be  reserved  for  his  son,  if  when  he  came  of  age  he  should  show 
himself  obedient  to  the  Church. 

The  decree  of  the  council  regarding  the  sovereignty  of  Languedoc 
was  not  arrived  at  without  strenuous  resistance  on  the  part  of  the 
princes  who  had  lost  their  estates.  The  result  was  a  renewal  of 
the  war.  Raymond  with  his  son  again  threw  himself  upon  his 
people  ;  many  of  the  captured  cities  opened  their  gates  to  him,  and 
De  Montfort's  party  were  driven  out  of  Toulouse.  But  the  Albi- 
genses  were  not  strong  enough  to  hold  the  city  ;  it  was  retaken  by 
the  crusaders,  its  fortress  demolished,  and  the  inhabitants  plun- 
dered to  the  last  piece  of  cloth  and  last  measure  of  meal.  Once 
more  the  patriots  drove  the  foreigners  out  of  the  city,  but  this 
success  availed  them  little.  Innocent  was  dead,  but  Honorius 
carried  on  the  work  of  extermination  in  a  spirit  even  more  relentless 
than  his  predecessor.  A  new  crusade  was  preached,  and  De  Mont- 
fort  and  the  French  lords  again  beleaguered  the  town  (a.d.  1217). 

laymen.    So  great  was  the  concourse  that  the  good  bishop  of  Amain  was  suffo- 
cated in  the  throng. 


DEATH   OF   DE   MONTFORT.  419 

The  abbot  of  Citeaux  harangued  the  army :  "  You  are  about  to  re- 
conquer the  city,  to  break  into  the  houses,  out  of  which  no  single 
soul,  man  nor  woman,  shall  escape  alive  !  not  one  shall  be  spared, 
in  church,  in  sanctuary,  in  hospital  !  It  is  decided  in  the  secret 
counsels  of  Rome  that  the  deadly  and  consuming  fire  shall  pass 
over  it." 

"  But  the  counsels  of  Eome  were  not  those  of  Divine  Providence." 
Simon  de  Montfort  had  constructed  a  movable  wooden  tower  called 
the  Cat,  which  with  its  paw,  an  immense  beam  armed  with  iron 
hooks,  laid  hold  of  the  walls.  The  besieged  in  a  sortie  got  possession 
of  the  machine  and  were  about  to  set  fire  to  it.  De  Montfort  was  at 
mass  when  the  news  was  brought  to  him.  "  Let  me,"  he  cried, 
"  finish  the  service,  and  behold  the  sacrament  of  our  redemption." 
Another  messenger  arrived  :  "Hasten  to  the  rescue,  our  men  can 
hold  out  no  longer."  "  I  will  not  stir,"  he  answered,  "  until  I  have 
seen  my  Saviour."  As  soon  as  the  priest  lifted  up  the  Host  he  ex- 
claimed still  kneeling,  "  Now  let  thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  for 
mine  eyes  have  seen  thy  salvation."  He  then  called  for  his  arms, 
and  putting  himself  at  the  head  of  his  old  warriors  he  once  more 
repulsed  the  Toulousians.  He  was  standing  beside  the  Cat  which 
he  had  recaptured,  when  an  enormous  stone  thrown  from  the  wall 
by  a  catapult  struck  him  on  the  head  and  stretched  him  lifeless  on 
the  ground.  The  crusaders  maintained  the  siege  a  month  longer, 
after  which  time  they  were  forced  to  abandon  it.1 

A  few  years  afterwards  (1222)  Kaymond  died,  and  being  exeom- 
municate,  his  body  could  not  be  buried  in  holy  ground  ;  it  remained 
uninterred  in  the  sacristry  of  the  Knights  Templars  for  300  years. 
The  war  still  lingered  on,  even  after  the  heresy  had  to  all  appear- 

1  The  Albigenses  thus  celebrated  their  deliverance  : — 

La  mort  du  Loup,  The  death  of  the  wolf, 

ou  de  Simon  de  Montfort.  Simon  de  Montfort. 

Montfort  Montfort 

Es  mort !  Is  dead ! 

Es  mort !  Is  dead  ! 

Es  mort !  Is  dead ! 

Viva  Tolosa,  Long  live  Toulouse, 

Ciotat  gloriosa,  City  glorious, 

Et  poderosa !  And  powerful ! 

Tornan  lo  paratge  et  l'onor  !  Nobility  and  honour  return ! 

Montfort  Montfort 

Esmort!  Is  dead  1 

Es  mort !  Is  dead ! 

Es  mort !  Is  dead  ! 


420  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

anee  been  stamped  out;  it  was  not  until  1229  that  peace  was 
finally  made.1  The  younger  count  Eaymond  was  permitted  to 
receive  absolution,  but  not  before  he  had  undergone  the  same  cruel 
indignities  as  his  father.  "He  rose  from  his  knees,  no  longer 
sovereign  of  the  south  of  France,  but  a  vassal  of  limited  dominions- 
His  father  on  his  penance  renounced  seven  castles,  the  son,  seven 
provinces." 

Amongst  the  sources  from  which  this  dark  history  is  derived  is 
the  contemporary  lay  of  a  Provencal  poet,  entitled  History  of  the 
Crusade  against  the  Albigensian  Heretics.2  Its  merit  as  a  history  is 
great,  and  its  statement  of  facts  is  considered  of  equal  authority 
with  the  prose  chroniclers  of  the  time.  The  author  was  for  the 
most  part  an  eye-witness  of  what  he  relates.  The  effect  at  Rome 
of  the  news  of  Castelnau's  murder  is  graphically  described. 

From  Cantos  V.— VIII. 

When  the  pope  heard  the  news 

That  his  legate  had  been  slain,  it  fell  heavy  upon  him. 

But  he  restrained  his  rising  anger, 

And  began  to  pray  to  St.  James  of  Compostella, 

And  to  St.  Peter  who  is  buried  in  the  chapel  of  Eome. 

When  he  had  made  his  prayer  he  put  out  the  taper, 

And  there  come  to  him  brother  Arnold,  abbot  of  Citeaux, 

Master  Milon  speaking  Latin, 

And  the  twelve  cardinals  all  in  a  circle. 

The  resolve  was  made  by  which  this  whirlwind  was  set  in  motion, 

By  which  so  many  men  were  to  perish,  cleft  asunder, 

By  which  many  a  fair  maiden  and  many  a  noble  dame 

Were  to  be  left  without  robe  or  mantle. 

The  abbot  of  Citeaux,  who  had  been  sitting  with  his  head  down, 

Bose  and  stood  against  a  marble  pillar, 

1  "  In  this  war,"  says  Sismondi,  "  the  slaughter  had  been  prodigious,  the 
massacres  universal,  the  terror  profound.  .  .  .  Hundreds  of  villages  had  seen 
all  their  inhabitants  butchered  with  a  blind  fury,  without  the  crusaders  giving 
themselves  the  trouble  to  examine  whether  they  contained  a  single  heretic.  The 
crusading  armies,  said  to  have  amounted  at  one  time  to  500,000  men,  were  un- 
disciplined, without  pay,  and  without  magazine,  and  all  the  harvests  of  the 
peasants,  all  the  provisions  and  merchandise  of  the  citizens,  were  rapaciously 
seized  on  every  occasion.  .  .  .  There  was  scarcely  a  peasant  in  whose  family 
some  one  had  not  been  cut  off  by  the  sword  of  De  Montfort's  soldiers ;  not  one 
but  had  repeatedly  witnessed  the  ravaging  of  his  property  by  them.  More  than 
three-fourths  of  the  knights  and  landed  proprietors  had  been  spoiled  of  their 
castles  and  fiefs." 

2  The  original  manuscript,  which  is  unique,  is  in  the  National  Library  at 
Paris.  It  is  embellished  with  thirteen  drawings,  mostly  war-scenes,  and  appears 
to  be  of  the  second  half  of  the  thirteenth  century. 


THE  ARMY  OP  THE  CHURCH.  421 

And  said  to  the  pope,  "By  St.  Martin,  my  lord, 

We  speak  too  many  words  and  make  too  much  noise. 

■Cause  letters  to  be  written  in  Latin, 

As  it  shall  seem  good  to  you,  and  I  will  straightway  set  forth 

To  carry  them  into  France  and  through  the  Limousin, 

To  Poictou,  Auvergne,  and  as  far  as  Perigord. 

Proclaim  indulgences  through  all  these  countries 

As  far  as  Constantinople  and  in  every  land." 

Whereupon  the  pope  with  a  sad  countenance 

Answered,  "Brother,  go  to  Carcassonne, 

And  to  Toulouse  the  great,  which  is  on  the  Garonne, 

You  shall  lead  the  host  against  the  miscreant  race. 

•Give  to  the  faithful  pardon  for  sins  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ, 

And  entreat  them,  exhort  them  from  me 

To  drive  the  heretics  from  their  midst." 

Behold,  the  abbot  prepares  himself  to  set  forth  at  the  hour  of  nones.1 

He  rides  forth  from  the  city  at  full  spur. 

He  betakes  himself  to  Citeaux,  where,  according  to  custom, 

All  the  monks  in  white  robes  and  tonsured 

Were  assembled  in  full  chapter, 

At  the  feast  of  the  Holy  Cross  which  is  kept  there  in  summer. 

In  the  presence  of  the  whole  monastery  he  chants  the  mass. 

The  mass  finished,  he  begins  to  preach. 

He  tells  them  he  brings  the  words  of  the  council, 

And  shows  to  each  the  bull  with  the  seals. 

By  him  and  others  it  is  displayed  everywhere 

As  far  as  Holy  Christendom  extends, 

In  France  and  in  all  the  other  kingdoms. 

As  soon  as  they  hear  of  the  pardon  of  their  sins  the  people  put  on  the  cross  ; 

And  never  I  think  was  so  great  a  host  gathered 

As  this  against  the  heretics  and  the  Sabbati.2 

The  duke  of  Burgundy  donned  the  cross  ; 

The  count  of  Nevers  and  many  other  lords. 

I  will  not  speak  of  the  cost  of  the  gold  embroidery  and  silk  for  the  crosses, 

Which  they  wore  on  the  right  side  of  the  breast.3 

I  take  no  count  of  their  coats  of  mail, 

Of  their  charges  and  their  ensigns ; 

Or  of  their  horses  cased  in  iron ; 

God  never  made  Latinist  or  clerk  so  learned 

Who  could  reckon  up  the  half  or  the  third ; 

•Or  even  write  the  names  of  the  priests  and  the  abbots 

Assembled  in  the  host  under  Beziers, 

Outside  the  walls  in  the  open  country. 

The  poet  is  nowhere  more  graphic  than  in  his  narration  of  the 
•debates  in  the  Lateran  Council  on  the  appropriation  of  the  con- 

1  Three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 

a  See  ante,  p.  397. 

In  the  Crusades  against  the  Saracens  the  cross  was  worn  on  the  shoulder. 


422  WITNESSES    FOR   CHRIST. 

quered  provinces.  It  opens  with  the  lines  which  our  artist  has 
copied  from  the  frontispiece  of  M.  C.  Fauriel's  edition.1  They  are 
appended  in  Koman  type  with  a  translation. 


d  t^nm^»r;c%Ui^A.4bpmt;cilmnJx)9,  — 


3 


f  cf  uoi5ut3  dumui'  on  cf  ca^taooe* 


oi  one  no  ttafdc^iiiimt-mil^fpl^Aiini^tos. 
(WTofaomt&fbiK  dCauincnt  epzOB*     — 

»  C5Uc3ac£cclcma.qncrtmocmmm0^ — - 


Canto  CXLHI. 

Cant  la  cortz  es  complida  es  mot  grans  lo  ressos 

Del  senhor  Apostoli  ques  vers  religios 

Lai  fo  faitz  lo  concilis  e  la  legacios 

Dels  prelatz  de  glieza  que  lai  foron  somos 

Cardenals  e  avesques  e  abatz  e  priors 

E  comtes  e  ves  comtes  de  motas  regios 

Lai  fol  corns  de  Tholosa  e  sos  filhs  bels  e  bos 

Quez  vengutz  dEnglaterra  ab  petitz  cumpanhos 

E  trespasec  per  Fransa  per  motz  Iocs  perilhos 

Car  gent  nArnaut  Topina  li  menet  a  rescos 


1  In  the  original  these  lines  are  surmounted  by  a  drawing  of  the  Trouba- 
dour in  a  castle,  book  in  hand,  reciting  his  lay  to  a  group  of  noble  ladies  and 
knights. 


THE    COUNCIL    AT    ROME.  423 

E  ces  vengutz  a  Roma  on  es  sagracios 

E  mandec  lApostolis  que  reconciliatz  fos 

Quano  no  nasquec  de  maire  nulhs  plus  avinens  tos 

Quel  es  adreitz  e  savis  e  de  gentils  f aisos  .   , . 

E  del  milhor  linage  que  sia  ni  anc  fos 

De  Fransa  e  dEnglaterra  e  del  comte  nAnfos 

E  fo  il  corns  de  Foih  ques  avinens  e  pros 

E  denant  lApostoli  gietans  agenholos 

Per  recobrar  las  terras  que  foron  dels  pairos 

LApostolis  regarda  lef ant  e  sas  f aisos 

E  conosc  do  linatge  e  saub  las  falhizos 

De  glieza  e  de  clercia  que  son  contrarios 

De  pietat  e  dira  nal  cor  tant  doloiros  : 

Quen  sospira  en  plora  de  sos  olhs  ambedos.  2 

When  the  court  is  complete,  great  is  the  uproar, 

[The  court]  of  the  lord  pope  (apostle),  true  chief  of  religion. 

There  was  held  the  council  and  the  assembly 

Of  the  prelates  of  the  Church,  who  had  been  all  convoked  ; 

Cardinals  and  bishops  and  abbots  and  priors, 

And  counts  and  viscounts  of  many  lands. 

There  was  the  count  of  Toulouse  and  his  son,  fair  and  good, 

Who  had  arrived  from  England  with  young  companions, 

Having  traversed  France  through  many  dangerous  places 

Well  and  secretly  guided  by  Arnold  Topina. 

He  is  arrived  in  Eome,  the  city  of  sacred  things. 

The  pope  is  desirous  he  should  be  reconciled  [to  the  Church ;] 

For  never  bore  mother  a  child  more  comely, 

More  adroit,  more  sensible  or  of  more  engaging  mien ; 

To  say  nothing  of  lineage,  the  most  noble  which  is  or  has  been, 

In  France,  in  England,  or  [in  the  domains]  of  count  Alphonso. 

The  count  de  Foix  was  there  also,  comely  and  brave. 

[The  count  of  Toulouse  and  his  son] ,  throwing  themselves  on  their  knees  before 

the  pope 
Beg  again  the  lands  which  belonged  to  their  fathers. 
The  pope  looks  upon  the  child  and  his  [princely]  bearing. 
He  is  acquainted  with  his  lineage,  he  knows  the  wrongs  [he  has  suffered] 
From  the  Church  and  the  clergy,  his  enemies ; 
With  pity  and  care  his  heart  is  so  troubled, 
That  he  sighs  over  them  and  weeps  with  both  his  eyes. 

The  heretics  had  been  exterminated  or  reduced  to  silence.  Their 
public  worship  had  ceased  ;  their  teachers  had  perished  or  escaped 
to  foreign  countries ;  the  few  faithful  who  survived  preserved  their 
lives  only  by  burying  the  secret  of  their  faith  in  their  own  bosoms, 
fearful  even  of  communicating  it  to  their  children.  But  the  root  of 
the  hated  plant  still  remained  in  the  earth,  and  whenever  political 
occasion  served,  the  proscribed  came  out  of  their  hiding-places,  to 
the  dismay  of  the  dominant  Church.     It  was  reserved  for  the 


424  WITNESSES   FOR   CHRIST. 

Inquisition,  that  new  engine  which  for  half  a  century  had  been 
maturing,  to  put  the  finishing  stroke  to  the  work. 

During  the  war  Dominic  had  founded  at  Toulouse  an  order  of 
preachers  for  the  defence  of  the  Church  against  heretics.  In  1216 
the  new  order  received  the  papal  sanction,  and  taking  the  name  of 
its  founder  became  one  of  the  great  Mendicant  orders.1  Dominic 
was  of  a  severe,  enthusiastic  and  bigoted  nature  ;  he  is  said  to  have 
sanctioned  all  the  barbarities  of  the  war.2  To  his  first  band  of 
preachers  he  added  another  corps,  which  he  called  Christ's  Militia. 
These  were  all  gentlemen,  wearing  a  handsome  court  dress,  and  a 
sword  which  they  were  sworn  to  use  against  heretics.  They  were 
assisted  by  their  wives,  who  were  distinguished  by  a  dress  of 
mingled  black  and  white.8 

For  a  while  the  inquisition  for  heretics  remained  in  the  hands  of 
the  bishops.  At  a  council  held  at  Toulouse  in  1229,  statutes  were 
framed  for  their  direction  in  the  duty  of  wiping  out  all  lingering 
traces  of  heresy.*  The  bishops  were  to  appoint  a  priest  and  two  or 
three  laymen  of  good  repute  in  every  parish,  who  should  be  sworn 

1  There  were  several  other  mendicant  orders,  the  most  famous  of  which  was 
that  of  the  Franciscans  or  Minor  Friars.  It  was  instituted  about  the  same 
time  as  the  Dominicans  by  Francis  d'Assisi,  an  Italian,  and  had  for  its  object 
the  restoration  of  apostolic  poverty  and  labour  in  strict  obedience  to  the  see 
Borne.  Francis  was  remarkable  for  susceptibility  to  religious  impressions,  and 
love  to  God  and  man.  In  him  grace  and  self -mortification  strove  long  for  the 
mastery.  Once  whilst  painfully  ruminating  on  some  scenes  of  his  earlier  life, 
the  assurance  of  the  forgiveness  of  all  his  sins  flowed  into  his  heart  and  filled 
him  with  joy,  so  that  he  is  said  for  a  time  to  have  laid  aside  his  austerities.  But 
the  mistaken  notions  of  the  age  seem  again  to  have  prevailed,  so  that  when  one 
night  he  thought  he  heard  a  voice  say,  "  There  is  not  a  sinner  in  the  world 
whom  God  would  not  forgive  if  he  turned  to  Him,  but  he  who  destroys  himself 
by  severe  exercises  of  penance  will  never  find  mercy,"  he  was  unable  to  accept 
the  lesson,  and  concluded  it  was  the  voice  of  the  deceiver.  Still  later  however 
truth  again  became  uppermost ;  and  he  ceased  to  regard  self -mortification  as  in 
itself  of  any  value,  but  solely  as  a  means  to  promote  purity :  love  appeared  to 
him  to  be  the  soul  of  all. 

•  The  gravest  charges  of  cruelty  have  been  brought  against  Dominic,  and 
they  are  supported  by  Boman  Catholic  authorities.  Milman  however  points 
out  that  these  charges  are  not  to  be  found  in  contemporary  writers,  but  appear 
first  in  the  Dominican  authors  of  the  following  century,  who  to  honour  their 
leader,  boast  of  his  infuriate  zeal  in  destroying  the  heretics. 

8  These  military  brethren  and  sisters,  because  they  were  attached  to  the  first 
family  or  order,  yet  not  subject  to  its  rule,  were  styled  familiares,  familiars,  a 
name  which  afterwards  became  notorious  in  the  history  of  the  Inquisition. 

4  The  acts  of  this  council  were  foreshadowed  by  those  of  Tours,  Lombers, 
Verona  and  the  third  Lateran,  already  referred  to,  and  also  by  that  of  Avignon, 
A.D.  1209. 


THE    INQUISITION.  425 

to  search  out  heretics  in  houses,  caverns  and  other  hiding-places, 
And  report  them  to  the  bishop,  or  to  the  lord  of  the  place.  The 
lords  were  required  to  make  a  similar  search  in  villages,  houses  and 
woods  ;  and  if  any  lord  should  suffer  a  heretic  to  take  refuge  on  his 
domain,  he  was  to  be  himself  punished.  Houses  wherein  the  guilty 
had  found  shelter  were  to  be  pulled  down.  Converted  heretics  were 
not  to  live  in  a  village  suspected  of  heresy;  "and  to  show  their 
■detestation  of  their  former  error  they  were  to  wear  a  yellow  cross 
on  each  breast."  Persons  M  converted  against  their  will  "  were  to 
be  kept  in  perpetual  imprisonment.1  A  list  was  to  be  made  of  the 
inhabitants  in  each  parish.  Every  male  over  fourteen,  and  every 
female  over  twelve,  was  to  swear  that  they  utterly  renounced 
heresy,  and  would  persecute  and  inform  against  heretics.  All  who 
refused  were  to  be  written  as  suspected  of  heresy,  as  well  as  all 
who  failed  to  confess  and  communicate  three  times  in  the  year.2 

The  episcopal  tribunal,  being  too  tardy  or  too  indulgent,  was 
soon  superseded  by  that  of  the  Dominican  Friars  (afterwards  ap- 
pointed by  Gregory  IX.3  to  be  the  standing  papal  inquisitors). 
These  active  and  zealous  emissaries  of  the  Church  were  untram- 
melled by  custom,  institutions,  or  public  opinion,  and  subject  to 
no  authority  but  that  of  the  pope.  Finding  the  provisions  of  the 
Council  of  Toulouse  insufficient  for  their  hideous  work,  they  in- 
vented new  safeguards  for  the  purity  of  the  faith.  The  witnesses 
were  now  concealed  from  the  accused,  criminals  were  admitted  to 
give  evidence,  confession  was  extorted  by  torture.  In  the  exami- 
nation of  the  accused  the  interrogatories  were  framed  like  a  net, 
from  which,  if  there  was  the  least  shadow  of  suspicion,  it  was  im- 
possible to  escape.  So  flagrant  was  the  injustice  thus  perpetrated 
that  in  1284,  the  year  following  that  in  which  the  new  court  was 
opened,  the  inhabitants  of  Narbonne  rose  against  it,  whilst  in  the 
next  year  the  inquisitors  were  driven  out  of  Toulouse,  and  in  1242 
four  of  them  were  murdered  in  that  city.  But  all  was  of  no  avail ; 
the  iron  grip  of  the  oppressor  closed  tighter  and  tighter  upon  its 
victims,  and  for  many  generations  there  was  none  to  deliver. 

1  The  condemned  under  this  statute  appear  not  to  have  been  consigned  to 
ordinary  prisons ;  it  is  provided  "  that  they  be  enclosed  in  a  wall  "  (in  muro  in- 
eludantur)  in  such  a  manner  that  they  may  have  no  power  of  corrupting  others ; 
and  when  they  were  brought  up  for  judgment  they  were  said  to  be  brought 
"  out  of  the  wall "  (educti  de  muro). 

2  This  Council  of  Toulouse  is  also  noted  as  being  the  first  at  which,  by  a 
formal  enactment,  the  laity  were  forbidden  to  read  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Aged 
persons  might  possess  a  Latin  Psalter,  a  breviary,  or  the  Hours  of  the  Virgin, 
but  were  strictly  forbidden  to  have  even  these  books  in  a  translation  into  a 
vulgar  tongue. 

3  1241—1243. 


426  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

The  mode  of  procedure  in  these  detestable  courts  is  to  be  learned 
from  a  book  of  instructions  still  extant,  compiled  for  the  use  of  the 
inquisitors  in  Carcassonne  and  Toulouse.  "  The  accused  is  to  be 
sworn  on  the  Gospels  that  he  will  fully  declare  all  he  knows  of  the 
crime  of  heresy,  or  Vaudoisie,  as  well  concerning  the  living  as  the 
dead.  If  he  conceals  or  denies  anything,  he  is  to  be  put  in  prison 
and  kept  there  until  he  confesses  ;  but  if  he  tells  the  truth  his 
confession  is  written  down.  When  a  sufficient  number  have  con- 
fessed to  make  a  '  sermon,'1  the  inquisitors  convoke  some  juris- 
consults, preachers,  and  the  bishops,  to  whom  they  submit  a  short 
extract  from  the  confession  of  each  accused  person,  but  without 
the  name.  The  counsellors  having  considered  the  same,  give  sen- 
tence :  Let  this  man  perform  penance  ;  let  the  other  be  immured  ; 
a  third  is  to  be  delivered  over  to  the  secular  arm.  The  following 
Sunday  the  inquisitors  summon  the  prisoners  before  them,  class  by 
class,  and  pronounce  the  sentences,  first  in  Latin,  then  in  French. 
Those  who  are  delivered  to  the  secular  arm  are  not  to  be  burned 
the  same  day." 

In  order  to  reclaim  as  many  as  possible,  other  and  secret  in- 
structions were  at  the  same  time  given  to  the  inquisitors.  "  He 
who  is  most  deeply  sunk  in  heresy  may  sometimes  be  brought  back 
by  the  hope  of  life,  if  he  confess  his  errors  and  denounce  others. 
If  he  refuses  to  do  this,  let  him  be  shut  up  in  prison  and  be  told 
there  are  witnesses  against  him,  and  that  if  once  convicted  there 
will  be  no  mercy  for  him.  At  the  same  time  let  his  food  be 
diminished,  for  fear  and  suffering  will  help  to  bring  him  down.2 
Let  none  approach  him  but  two  adroit  believers,  who  cautiously^ 
and  as  if  they  had  compassion  upon  him,  may  advise  him  to  con- 
fess, with  promise  of  his  life.  Let  them  say  to  him,  '  Be  not 
afraid  to  confess,  if  thou  hast  believed  in  these  men  when  they  said 
such  and  such  things.  If  thou  hast  listened  to  them,  assisted 
them,  or  confessed  to  them,  it  was  because  thou  loved  all  whom 
thou  believed  to  be  good  people,  and  because  thou  knew  nothing 
evil  respecting  them.  The  same  might  happen  to  men  much  wiser 
than  thyself.'  If  he  should  begin  to  soften,  and  to  admit  that  he 
has  heard  the  teachers  speak  concerning  the  gospels  or  epistles,  he 
must  then  be  asked,  but  cautiously,  if  they  denied  Purgatory,  or 

1  What  was  afterwards  called  an  Auto-da-Fe  (Act  of  Faith)  was  at  this  time 
styled  a  General  Sermon  of  Faith,  because  the  proceedings  of  these  gaol  de- 
liveries were  opened  by  a  sermon. 

9  The  devil,  when  he  sought  to  overcome  our  Lord,  made  use  of  his  exhausted 
condition  after  the  forty  days'  fast. 


TRUTH    IMMORTAL.  4 27 

prayers  for  the  dead,  or  what  they  had  to  say  about  the  sacraments 
of  the  Church.  He  must  be  treated  warily,  for  if  questioned 
bluntly  he  will  not  answer,  because  he  will  suspect  that  you  wish 
to  take  advantage  of  him.  These  are  very  subtle  foxes,  and  you 
can  only  take  them  by  subtlety.  Note  also  that  the  inquisitor 
ought  always  to  suppose  a  fact,  and  inquire  only  respecting  the  cir- 
cumstances. For  example,  he  should  ask,  '  How  many  times  hast 
thou  confessed  thyself  to  the  heretics'  ?  or ;  'In  what  chamber  in 
thy  house  have  heretics  slept '  ?  And  when  a  heretic  either  does  not 
make  full  confession,  or  does  not  accuse  his  accomplices,  you  must, 
in  order  to  terrify  him,  say,  '  We  see  how  it  is  :  think  of  thy  soul, 
fully  renounce  thy  heresy,  for  thou  art  about  to  die.'  If  then  he 
says,  '  Since  I  must  die,  I  had  rather  die  in  my  own  faith,'  then  it 
is  certain  that  his  repentance  is  feigned,  and  he  may  be  delivered 
up  to  justice."1 

At  length  the  tragedy  was  played  out ;  the  fruitful  land  had  been 
turned  into  a  desert ;  the  heretical  Church  lay  prostrate  as  one 
dead.  It  was  as  when  the  High  Priests  and  the  Eoman  governor 
joining  hands,  had  crucified  the  Lord  of  life.  It  was  laid  in  the 
tomb  ;  a  great  stone  was  rolled  to  the  mouth  and  sealed  ;  and  the 
watch  was  set.  But  Truth,  like  Him  who  bears  her  name,  is  im- 
mortal. Hardly  had  the  note  of  Gospel  freedom  died  away  in 
Languedoc,  than  it  was  taken  up  by  Wicliffe  in  England,  and  after 
him  by  Huss  in  Bohemia,  whilst  in  every  age  down  to  the  Befor- 
mation  a  clear  and  continuous  testimony  issued  from  the  mountains 
of  Piedmont.  Borne,  it  is  true,  flattered  herself  that  the  witnesses 
were  at  length  slain,  to  rise  no  more.  "  As  the  sixteenth  century 
opened,"  says  Mosheim,  "no  danger  seemed  to  threaten  the 
Boman  pontiff.  The  agitations  excited  in  former  centuries  by  the 
Waldenses,  Albigenses,  Beghards,  and  Bohemians,  had  been  sup- 
pressed and  extinguished  by  craft  and  the  sword.  The  surviving 
remnant  of  the  Waldenses  lived  hardly,  pent  up  in  the  narrow 
limits  of  the  Piedmontese  valleys ;  the  Bohemians  through  their 
weakness  and  ignorance  could  attempt  nothing.  .  .  .  The  bishops 
of  Borne  reigned  secure  and  free  from  all  fear,  and  indulged  their 
lusts  and  all  their  vicious  propensities  as  freely  as  their  innate  de- 

1  Augustine,  although,  alas  !  he  gave  his  sanction  to  persecution,  set  his  face 
against  falsehood  and  treachery.  Being  asked  whether  it  was  not  lawful  to 
make  use  of  lies  to  discover  the  Priscillianists  who  lied  to  conceal  their  error, 
he  declared  that  the  Catholics  who  feigned  themselves  Priscillianists  were  worse 
than  the  Priscillianists  who  feigned  themselves  Catholics. 


428  WITNESSES   FOR    CHRIST. 

pravity  demanded."  x  At  the  fifth  Lateran  Council,  ninth  session 
(1514),  the  preacher  of  the  day  exclaimed  :  "  Now  no  one  gain- 
sayeth,  there  is  none  to  oppose ! " ;  and  in  the  bull  issued  by  Leo  X. 
•for  its  dissolution  (March,  1517)  he  congratulates  the  council  on 
having  happily  and  successfully  accomplished  all  the  objects  for 
which  it  had  been  called,  amongst  which  was  the  total  extirpation  of 
■heresies. 

But  the  popes  were  like  Belshazzar  drinking  at  the  feast  when, 
lo,  a  strange  handwriting  appeared  upon  the  wall.  In  the  self- 
same year,  at  mid-day  on  the  81st  of  October,  the  eve  of  the 
festival  of  All  Saints,  an  Augustinian  monk  named  Martin,  the 
son  of  Hans  Luther,  and  a  professor  in  the  university  of  Wit- 
tenberg, nailed  with  his  own  hand  on  the  outer  pillars  of  the  great 
church  of  that  city  ninety-five  theses,  the  effect  of  which  was  to 
shake  the  huge  fabric  of  Popery  to  its  foundation.  The  long  dark 
night  of  apostacy  was  over.     The  day  had  dawned. 

Conclusion.  The  office  of  the  Church  of  Christ  is  to  witness  for 
Him,  and  this  function  was  fulfilled  in  her  early  days  when  "with 
great  power  gave  the  apostles  their  witness,"  and  when  the  servant 
followed  his  Lord  in  humility  of  life.  But  if  we  ask  the  question, 
how  far  has  the  outward  Church  maintained  her  witness,  the 
answer  furnished  by  these  pages  will  be  a  mournful  one. 

In  our  former  work  we  saw  that  departures  from  primitive  sim- 
plicity took  place  at  a  very  early  period  of  the  Church's  life.  The 
•establishment  of  Christianity  by  Constantine  as  the  religion  of  the 
Empire  brought  in  new  errors.  The  stormy  blasts  of  persecution 
had  tended  to  preserve  a  pure  and  living  faith ;  but  the  sun  of 
worldly  prosperity  favoured  the  growth  of  new  corruptions,  by  which 

1  These  popes  were  Alexander  VI.,  Julius  II.  and  Leo  X.  It  is  said  that 
•John  Huss  and  his  friend  Jerome  of  Prague  predicted  the  Eeformation.  Whilst 
in  his  dungeon  at  Constance,  a  few  nights  before  his  martyrdom,  Huss  "  dreamed. 
It  seemed  as  if  some  pictures  of  Christ,  which  he  had  been  painting  on  the  walls 
■of  his  oratory,  were  effaced  by  the  pope  and  the  bishops.  The  dream  afflicted 
him.  But  the  next  night  he  dreamed  again,  and  seemed  to  see  painters  more 
in  number,  and  with  more  of  effect,  restoring  the  pictures  of  Christ.  He  told 
the  dream  to  his  friends.  '  I  am  no  vain  dreamer,'  he  said  ;  '  but  hold  for  cer- 
tain that  the  image  of  Christ  shall  never  be  effaced.  They  wished  to  destroy 
it ;  but  it  shall  be  painted  afresh  in  the  hearts  of  gospel-preachers  better  than 
myself.  And  awaking  as  it  were  from  the  dead,  and  rising  from  the  grave,  I  shall 
rejoice  with  exceeding  great  joy.'  "  His  fellow-martyr  Jerome  even  named  the 
time,  a  hundred  years  to  come.  To  his  judges  he  said,  "  You  are  condemning 
me  an  innocent  man,  unjustly  and  wickedly;  but  I  appeal  to  the  most  high  and 
righteous  judge — God  Almighty,  that  within  a  hundred  revolving  years  ye  shall 
answer  for  it  in  his  presence."     Huss  was  burned  in  1415,  Jerome  in  1416. 


THE    BY-WAYS    OF   ERROE.  429' 

the  witness  of  the  Church  to  her  Lord  was  continually  obscured. 
The  fourth  century,  rich  as  it  is  in  churchmen  of  surpassing  genius 
as  well  as  piety,  left  the  Church  far  more  burdened  by  human  in- 
ventions than  before.  In  the  dreary  controversies  of  the  two  suc- 
ceeding ages,  it  was  as  though  the  witness  for  Christ  had  fallen  to 
a  mere  intellectual  contention  for  his  existence  and  attributes.  It 
fell  to  a  yet  lower  ebb  during  the  long  dark  period  which  followed, 
a  period  in  which  monkery  with  all  its  accessories  dominated  the 
Church,  and  which  saw  also  the  rise  and  the  palmy  days  of  the 
papal  power.  The  weight  of  tradition  pressed  ever  more  heavily 
upon  the  free  spirit  of  the  believer,  whilst  between  the  disciple  and 
his  Lord  intervened  a  pretentious  priesthood  and  an  army  of  glori- 
fied saints  and  virgins.  When  the  Church  had  thus  become 
degenerate  and  lost  to  her  pristine  duty,  the  doctrine  of  infallibility 
came  in  as  a  crowning  sin  to  crystallize  her  deformity,  and  to  cut 
off  all  hope  of  reform. 

But  the  Lord  "left  not  Himself  without  witness"  ;  and  it  has 
been  the  main  purpose  of  these  volumes  to  show  how,  from  one  age 
to  another,  men  were  visited  and  enlightened  by  the  Spirit  of  Christ,, 
and  made  ready  to  testify  of  Him.  In  some  of  these  witnesses  the 
truth  was  mixed  with  error :  in  many  the  professing  Church  saw 
only  heretics,  and  invoked  the  powers  of  the  world  to  put  out  the 
light  they  held  up.  Such  were  the  early  reformers  of  the  fourth 
and  ninth  centuries,  and  such  were  those  who  from  the  eleventh 
century  onward  never  suffered  the  torch  of  truth  to  be  wholly 
quenched  in  Western  Europe.  An  honourable  place  too  must  be- 
given  to  the  missionaries,  who,  although  their  eyes  were  not  opened 
to  the  corruptions  of  the  professing  Church,  bore  witness  in  their 
Christ-like  lives  to  the  love  of  their  Saviour. 

It  is  not  unprofitable  for  us,  nay,  it  is  necessary  to  a  just  dis- 
cernment of  the  present  times,  to  inquire  what  were  the  by-paths 
on  which  the  Church  went  astray,  and  how  it  came  to  pass  that  the 
witness  she  was  called  to  bear  became  almost  wholly  lost.  No  one 
cause  of  her  declension  has  been  probably  so  potent  as  the  setting- 
up  of  a  priesthood.  The  Lord  Jesus  designed  his  Church  to  be  a 
brotherhood ;  and  the  only  human  priesthood  mentioned  in  the 
New  Testament  is  that  of  all  believers.  Jewish  and  pagan  ideas, 
with  the  natural  craving  for  distinction  and  rule,  combined  to  esta- 
blish an  order  of  human  mediators.  From  this  grand  mistake  has 
flowed  untold  mischief  and  loss,  both  to  the  laity  and  to  the  clergy 
themselves.  The  life  of  the  Church  is  the  life  of  its  individual 
members,  and  when  these  are  resting,  not  upon  the  Saviour  who 
bore  their  sins,  but  upon  their  fellow-men  who  "  confess  and  absolve 


430  WITNESSES    FOR    CHRIST. 

them,"1  upon  rites  and  ceremonies  apart  from  the  worship  of  the 
heart,  upon  angels  and  saints  from  the  Virgin  Mary  downwards, 
then  the  life  of  the  Church  as  the  body  of  Christ  is  at  an  end. 

Next  to  the  priesthood,  the  ascetic  element  has  had  perhaps  the 
largest  share  in  destroying  this  spiritual  life.  It  was  early  in  the 
Church's  history  when  the  idea  first  took  root,  that  man  can  lead  a 
holier  life  by  withdrawing  from  the  world  than  by  remaining  in  it. 
Fostered  by  the  fourth-century  Fathers,  monachism  became  a  great 
power,  and  during  the  dark  ages  it  flourished  like  a  fungus-growth 
upon  the  decaying  Church.  "  The  Son  of  Man  came  eating  and 
drinking  "  and  dwelling  amongst  his  brethren,  giving  us  in  that 
holy  and  perfect  life  no  ascetic  example.  It  was  a  spirit  alien  to 
the  Saviour's  teaching  which  created  the  monastic  system,  in  which 
the  rule  of  the  cloister  took  the  place  of  personal  holiness,  and 
which  thus  struck  a  fatal  blow  at  the  responsibility  of  each  disciple 
for  a  faithful  life.  It  is  true  that  Bernard  and  many  other  monks 
bore  a  true  witness  for  Christ,  but  this  must  not  blind  us  to  the 
errors  of  the  system  under  which  they  lived,  and  which  caused 
superstition  to  be  mixed  with  their  faith,  and  spiritual  arrogance 
with  their  humility. 

Throughout  the  period  under  review,  the  Church  was  intolerant 
of  any  departure  from  her  doctrine  or  practice.  It  was  the  spirit  of 
the  self-willed  disciples  :  "We  forbad  him  because  he  followeth  not 
with  us."  When  her  own  days  of  persecution  were  over  and  she 
acquired  power,  the  Church  became  herself  a  persecutor.  It  was 
in  vain  that  here  and  there  some  of  her  enlightened  sons  taught 
in  a  more  Christ-like  spirit ;  the  course  once  entered  upon  must 
be  followed  to  the  bitter  end,  until  the  cup  of  iniquity  should 
be  full. 

The  crowning  error  of  the  Komish  Church  is  the  claim  to  infalli- 
bility, a  claim  not  merely  presumptuous  but  self-ruinous ;  for  it 
effectually  closes  the  path  of  return  to  first  principles,  and  every 
avenue  to  a  purer  and  higher  state.  Whatever  has  been  decreed 
and  done  (such  is  the  pretension)  is  right.  Has  a  priesthood  more 
exacting  than  that  of  Levi  been  set  up  ?  Have  rites  and  ceremonies 
been  multiplied  ?  Has  a  mock- sacrifice  been  instituted  ?  These 
are  irrevocable  parts  of  the  Church's  fabric.      The  worship  of  the 


1  Philip  II.  of  Spain  is  said  to  have  sent  the  following  to  his  confessor  a  few 
days  before  he  died :  "  Father  confessor  1  as  you  occupy  the  place  of  God,  I 
protest  to  you  that  I  will  do  everything  you  shall  say  to  be  necessary  for  my 
being  saved  ;  so  that  what  I  omit  doing  will  be  placed  to  your  account,  as  I  am 
ready  to  acquit  myself  of  all  that  shall  be  ordered  to  me." 


A    HOPEFUL    FUTURE.  481 

saints  and  of  Mary,  and  all  the  cumbrous  system  belonging  to  it, 
are  fixed  for  ever.  Was  it  right  in  past  centuries  to  burn  heretics 
and  to  employ  against  them  the  detestable  engine  of  the  Inquisition  ? 
Then  it  is  right  now ;  it  will  be  so  again.  There  may  be  hope  for 
all  men  and  for  all  institutions,  excepting  only  the  "  infallible  ;  " 
for  such  there  is  none. 

But  if  the  records  of  the  Church  seem  too  often  to  be  an  "inven- 
tory of  human  error,"  of  good  marred  by  abounding  evil,  we  must 
still  acknowledge  with  thankful  hearts  the  faithfulness  of  God. 
Even  in  the  darkest  times  and  through  all  the  Church's  wanderings, 
He  has  not  failed  to  raise  up  true  witnesses,  or  to  keep  alive  the 
lamp  of  truth  ;  and  now  we  look  hopefully  forward  to  yet  brighter 
days.     "  Heaven's  light  for  ever  shines ;  earth's  shadows  flee." 


482  WITNESSES    FOB    CHRIST. 


AUTHORITIES. 


In  the  First  Edition  the  Authorities  were  cited  with  full  particulars  in  foot- 
notes. To  save  space  the  notes  have  been  omitted  in  this  edition,  and  a  list  of 
the  principal  authors  is  subjoined  instead. 


Socrates  Scholasticus,  Sozomen,  Theodoret,  Sulpicius  Severus,  Ammianus- 
Marcellinus,  Augustine,  Bede ;  with  occasional  reference  to  others  of  th& 
Fathers. 

Smith  and  Cheetham,  '  Dictionary  of  Christian  Antiquities.' 

Smith  and  Wace,  '  Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography.' 

Neander,  '  Church  History,'  '  Memorials  of  Christian  Life,'  •  St.  Bernard.' 

Mosheim,  ■  Institutes  of  Ecclesiastical  History.' 

Gieseler,  '  Ecclesiastical  History.' 

Milman,  '  History  of  Christianity.' 

Bobertson,  '  History  of  the  Church.' 

Schaff ,  '  Nicene  Christianity.' 

Philip  Smith,  '  Students'  Ecclesiastical  History.' 

Roberts,  'Church  Memorials.' 

Waddington,  '  History  of  the  Church.' 

Newman,  '  Church  of  the  Fathers.' 

Buffner,  '  Fathers  of  the  Desert.' 

Du  Pin,  '  History  of  Ecclesiastical  Writers.' 

Isaac  Taylor,  '  Ancient  Christianity.' 

B.  T.  Smith,  « St.  Basil  the  Great.' 

Ullmann,  '  Gregory  of  Nazianzum.' 

Scott,  'Ulfilas,'  and  an  Article  by  Dr.  Hodgkin  in  the  'Edinburgh  Beview.' 

Stephens,  'Life  of  St.  Chrysostom.' 

Cutts,  '  St.  Jerome  and  St.  Augustine.' 

Elliott,  '  Horse  Apocalypticse.' 

'  The  Church  in  the  Middle  Ages.' 

Maitland,  '  The  Dark  Ages.' 

Morison,  '  Life  and  Times  of  St.  Bernard.' 

Jones,  '  Ecclesiastical  History.' 

Allix,  '  Ancient  Churches  of  Piedmont,  Albigenses.' 

Many  other  writers  have  been  occasionally  consulted. 

The  editor  finds  that  the  notice  of  Malachy  in  the  preceding  pages  (  pp.  359,. 
360)  is  derived  too  exclusively  from  his  Life  by  Bernard  of  Clairvaux.  For  a 
more  impartial  estimate  of  Malachy's  character  and  work  the  reader  is  referred 
to  Dr.  Healy's  Ancient  Irish  Church. 


INDEX. 


A. 

Abelard,  348,  361 

Acacius,  78,  84,  89 

Acta  Sanctorum,  53  n.,  169  n. 

Adeodatus,  137 

Adrian,  abbot,  293  n 

Adrianople,  battle  near,  37,  54 

Adulatory  titles,  123  n. 

Aerius,  182 

Africa,  North,  154 

Agilbert,  275 

Agobard,  317 

Aidan,  273 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  313  n. 

Alaric,  9,  124 

Alban,  St.,  257 

Alberic,  346,  383 

Albi,  383 

Albigenses,  352,  389 

Alboin,  242 

Alcuin,  312,  &c. 

Aldhelm,  346  n. 

Aldred,  282 

Aldwin,  294 

Aleander,  374  n. 

Alexander    of    Hierapolis,   211  ;    III. 

pope,  385  ;  VI.  pope,  428  n. 
Alexandrian  School,  201 
Alfred,  king,  293  n. 
Alfrid,  prince,  274 
Alith,  347 
Almsgiving,  167 
Altars,  159,  376 
Alypius,  134,  255 
Ambo,  81 

Ambrose,  61,  &c,  135,  162,  183 
Ammianus  Marcellinua,  5,  181 
Ammonius,  11 
Anacletus  II.  pope,  356 
Anastasia,  40 
Anastasius,  203 
Anatolius,  218 
Andreas,  210  n. 
Annunciation,  Feast  of,  234 
Anschar,  317,  &c. 
Anselm,  295  n.,  360 
Anthimus,  30 
Anthony,  11  n,  15,  138 
Anthusa,  71 
Antioch,  Council  of,  92;  see  of,  42, 112 


Antiochian  School,  201,  &c. 

Antiochus  of  Ptolemais,  84,  89 

Apocryphal  Gospels,  231 

Apollinaris,  44,  201,  210 

Aquinas,  Thomas,  235 

Arcadius,  Emperor,  69,  77, 193 

Archimandrite,  207 

Arefaste,  374 

Arians,  5,  14,  36  n.,  62,  84 

Arianzus,  16 

Ariminum,  Creed  of,  24,  52 

Aristotle,  134 

Arius,  4 

Armorica,  258 

Arnaud,  Waldensian  pastor,  402  n. 

Arnold  of  Citeaux,  409  ;  of  Brescia,  389 

Arras,  376,  388 

Arsacius,  94 

Art  in  Worship,  227 

"Assumption  "  of  the  Virgin,  230 

Astrologers,  133 

Asylum,  80,  125  n 

Athanasian  Creed,  13  n.,  361 

Athanasius,  5,  6,  10,  &c.,  36,  149  n., 

162,  163,  166 
Athens,  16,  18  n. 
Atticus  of  Constantinople,  95 
Attila,  221  n. 
Atto  of  Vercelli,  372 
Audius,  52 
Augustine,   of  Hippo,   37   n.,   74  n., 

105  n.,  121,  128,  130,  &c,  162,  171, 

185  ;  monk,  254,  263 
Augustinian  order,  141  n. 
Aureole,  226 

Auxentius  of  Dorostorus,  51,  55 
Ave  Maria,  234 
Avignon,  383 

B. 
Babylon,  49 

Bamborough  Castle,  273 
Bangor,  268,  294 
Baptism,  72,  161,  371,  376,  377,  378, 

384,  387 
Baptismal  vow,  302 
Barbatianus,  185 
Baronius,  370 
Barsumas,  516 
Basil,  15,  16,  &c,  109,  128,  161,  169, 

172 

2  F 


434 


INDEX. 


Basilius,  71,  73 

Becket,  Thomas  a,  387 

Bede,  258,  269,  274,  277,  290,  &c. 

Belisarius,  223 

Bellarmine,  169  n.,  250  n. 

Bells,  187  n.,  376 

Benedict  of  Nursia,  235,  &c. 

Benignus,  261 

Berengar,  360,  377 

Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  335,  &c,  352, 

&c,   383,   386;    Morlaix,    367  n. ; 

Ydros,  397 
Berno,  334 
Bertha,  Queen,  264 
Bethlehem,  117 
Billfrith,  281 
Biscop,  285 
Bishops,  182 
Blesilla,  113 

Blood,  shedding  of,  384,  393,  399 
Boa,  183  n. 
Bobbio,  298 
Bogomiles,  310 
Bohemia,  400 
Bollandists,  169  n. 
Bonaven, 258 
Bonaventura,  232 
Boniface  IV.  pope,  297;  VIII.  pope, 

255  n. 
Boniface,  missionary,  298 
Boni  Homines,  385 
Bonosus,  231 
Borri,  175 
Bosham,  276 
Bosnia,  311 

Brahmanism,  166  n.,  173 
Braithwaite,  124 
Bregenz,  297 

Brethren,  the  Tall,  11,  85 
Britain,  49  n.,  106  n.,  257,  &c. 
Bruno,  345  n. 
Buddhism,  174 
Bulgarians,  389  n. 
Bull-fights,  10  n. 
Burgundians,  9,  295 
Burgundy,  duke  of,  364  n. 


C. 


Csedmon,  277,  &c. 

Cffilestius,  150 

Caerleon,  270 

Csesarea  in  Cappadocia,  96 

Calagorris,  186 

Calixtus  II.  pope,  334 

Candidian,  count,  205 

Candlemas,  234 

Canterbury,  264 

Carcassonne,  415 

Cardinal,  256  n. 

Caroline  Books,  314 

Carthage,  131,  133,  145;  Council  of, 

150 ;  Conference  at,  145 
Carthusians,  345  n. 


Cassiacum,  140 

Cassianus,  John,  176,  236 

Cassiodorus,  239 

Cathari,  371,  393 

Catholic,  8  n. 

Cedd,  275 

Celcyth,  Council  of,  277  n. 

Celestine,  204,  212 

Celibacy,  194 

Celsus  of  Armagh,  359 

Ceolfrid,  288 

Chalcedon,  Council  of,  218 

Chalons,  Council  of,  316 

Charlemagne  (Charles  the  Great), 

312 
Charles  Martel,  300 
Charroux,  Council  of,  377 
Chartreuse,  La  Grande,  345  n. 
Chichester,  276 
Chrysostom,  23  n.,  70,  &c,  161,  163, 

166,  167,  170,  180 
Church,  the,  144,  146 
Cicero,  110,  131 
Circumcelliones,  148  n. 
Circus,  180 

Cistercians,  336,  342,  352 
Citeaux,  335,  344,  &c. 
Clairvaux,  335,  352,  Ac. 
Classical  studies,  131,  341 
Claude  of  Turin,  315,  &c. 
Cleanliness,  189 
Clement  of    Alexandria,   165  ;    Irish 

missionary,  300 
Clovis,  51  n. 
Cluny,  333,  &c. 
Codex  Argentius,  56 
Cohen,  Joseph,  285 
Coifi,  271 
Colman,  274 
Cologne,  heretics  of,  390 
Columba,  262 
Columbanus,  294,  &c. 
Comana,  99 
Comgall,  abbot,  294 
Commendam,  In,  352 
Compline,  239  n. 
Constans,  emperor,  4 
Constantia,  queen,  374 
Constantine  Chrysomalos,  monk,  311 ; 

Copronymus,   emperor,    310,    371 ; 

the  Great,  3,  94 ;  II.,  4 ;  founder  of 

the  Paulicians,  306 
Constantinople,  8,  41 
Constantius,  emperor,  4,  24,  193 
Corbie,  abbey,  318 
Corvey,  319 

Cosmas,  monk,  13  n. ;  patriarch,  311 
Crediton,  298 
Crescentius,  326 
Cross,  the,  316,  379 
Crucifix,  379 
Crusades,  386 
Cucusus,  96 
Cuthbert,  279,  &c,  291 


INDEX. 


435 


Cyprian,  365 

Cyril  of  Alexandria,  201,  &c,  232 

D. 
Dagan,  274  n. 
Dalmatius,  207 
Damasus,  27  n.,  116,  126 
Dames,  293,  294 
Daniel  of    Winchester,  300  ;    pillar 

saint,  179 
Dauphine  379,  400 
Decretals,  183,  256 
Deer  in  St.  Paul's  Church,  266  n. 
Demophilus,  40 

Demosthenes,  Imperial  cook,  33,  47 
Denmark,  319 
Desiderius,  192 
De  Thou,  400  n. 
Dianius,  24 
Diemudis,  343 
Dijon,  347 
Dinooth,  268 
Diodorus  of  Tarsus,  202 
Dionysius  Exiguus,  267  n. 
Dio-petes,  206  n. 
Dioscorus,  214 
Dokkum,  301 
Dominic,  410,  424 
Dominicans,  235,  241  n.,  242 
Domnus,  214 
Donatists,  143,  &c. 
Donatus,  109 
Dorotheus,  174  n. 
Druids,  260 
Duns  Scotus,  235 
Du  Pin,  197  n. 
Durham,  273,  281,  294 ;  Book,  281 

E. 
Eadburga,  300 
Eadfrith,  281 
Eanfled,  274 
Easter,  267,  297 
Ebbesfleet,  264 
Eckbert,  393 
Edessa,  212 

Edwin,  king  of  Northumbria,  271 
Egfrid,  285 
Eginhardt,  313 

Eleanor,  queen  of  France,  386 
Emmelia,  15 

Emperors,  semi-divine  homage,  91 
Ennodius,  225 
Ephesus,  Councils,  205,  215 
Ephrem,  10  n. 
Epiphanius,  85,  113,  230 
Erasmus,  128 
Essex,  266 

Ethelbert  of  York,  312  ;  king,  264 
Ethelburga,  270 
Ethelfrid,  269 
Ethilwald,  281 

Eucharist,  101»  161)  371, 376, 377, 379, 
384,  387 


Euchites,  310 

Eudoxia,  82,  &c. 

Eugenius  III.  pope,  340,  365,  383 

EunapiuSj  167  n. 

Eusebian  canons,  56 

Eusebius  of  Cresarea  in  Cappadocia, 
25,  27;  of  Dorylaeum,  203;  monk, 
174  n.;  of  Nicomedia,  51;  of  Sa- 
mosata,  28,  31 

Eustathius,  20  n. 

Eustochium,  113 

Eutropius,  77,  &c. 

Eutyches,  202,  214 

Eutychians,  214 

Evagrius,  218 

Evervinus,  390 

Evetheus,  97 

Exarch,  27 

Exuperius,  194 


Fabiola,  115  n.,  120 

Facundus,  223 

Fairbairn,  256 

Familiars,  424 

Fame  Islands,  280 

Fasting,  165 

Faustus,  167  n. 

Felix,  63, 187 

Ferte,  La,  351,  352 

Flavian,  76,  214 

Flowers,  160 

Fontaines,  295,  347 

Fortunius,  144 

Forty  martyrs,  29 

Fountains  Abbey,  361  n. 

Francis  d'Assisi,  424  n. 

Franciscans,  235,  241  n.,  242 

Franks,  50 

Freeman,  226 

Friesland,  298,  301 

Frithigern,  54 

Fulda,  301 

Fulk,  413 

Fuller,  270,  345 

Furness  Abbey,  351  n. 

G. 

Gaeta,  327 
Galileo,  361  n. 
Galloway,  257 
Gallus,  297 
Gazari,  389  n. 
Genseric,  153 
Geoffrey,  358 
George,  St.,  169  n. 
Geralda,  417 
Gerard,  348 
Gerhard,  376 
Germanus,  232,  257 
Gervasius,  63 
Gibbon,  13 
Gieseler,  234  n. 


486 


INDEX. 


Gildas,  262 

Gilles,  St.,  380 

Gladiators,  9,  134 

Glass,  285 

Glastonbury,  257  n. 

Gnostics,  3U6 

Godiva,  234  n. 

Goodmanham,  272  n. 

Gorm,  320 

Goslar,  377  n. 

Goths,  37,  50,  53,  79 

Grace,  153 

Gratian,  7 

Gregorian  chant,  247 

Gregory  Nazianzen,  9,  11  n.,  16,  &c, 

77,  83,  112,  163,  170,  180  n.,  231 ; 

of  Nyssa,  6,  29,  161,  163,  170 ;  I. 

pope,  172,  245,  &c.,263,  297,  314  n. ; 

II.  pope,  255  n.,  314  n. ;   V.  pope, 

326;    VII.  pope,  358  n.,  373;    IX. 

pope,   425  ;  Thaumaturgus,  15  ;  of 

Utrecht,  299 
M  Green,  Mrs.,  351  n. 
Guibert,  353 
Guido,  348 
Gundulph,  376 

H. 

Harald,  319,  320 
Heathen,  4  n. 
Hebrew,  126 
Henricians,  383  n. 
Henry  IV.,  emperor,  358  n. 
Henry  I.  of  England,  356 
Henry  H.  of  England,  395;  of  Lau- 
sanne, 380,  &c. 
Heloise,  364 
Helvidius,  114,  231 
Heraclius,  emperor,  232 
Herefrid,  280 
Heresy,  8  n. 
Herebert,  373 
Hilary,  5,  6 
Hilda,  275 
Hildebert,  381 
Hildegarde,  392 
Hippo,  141 
Hodgkin,  5  n. 

Holy  Spirit,  36,  45,  142  ;  water,  387 
Home  synod,  215 
Homer,  118,  130 

Homo-ousian  and  Homoi-ousian,  6 
Honorius,  emperor,  9,  69,  147,   150, 
183  ;  II.  pope,  356  ;  III.  pope,  418 
Hook,  269  n. 
Hooker,  13,  36  n.,  214 
Hooper,  170 
Hosius,  6 
Host,  159  n. 

Hottentot,  Mohammedan,  305  n. 
Hours,  128 
Huguenots,  147 
Huns,  50,  53,  119 


Huss,  428  n. 
Hypsistarians,  16 


I-colm-kill,  262 

Iconoclasts,  309,  314 

Idolatry,  Christian,  250 

Idols,  272,  297 

Image-worship,  314,  376 

Immaculate  conception,  284 

Incense,  376 

Index  expurgatorius,  317  n. 

Infallibility,  papal,  430 

Ingelheim,  313  n.,  319 

Innocent  I.  pope,  255 ;  II.  pope,  356, 

360,  383,  389 ;  III.  pope,  311,  390, 

399  ;  IV.  pope,  342 
Inquisition,  385,  424 
Iona, 262 
Ireland,  259,  262 
Irenseus,  on  Mary,  230 
Irish  ornamentation,  286 
Isaurians,  97,  124 
Isidore,  monk,  11 ;  of  Pelusium,  11  n., 

248 ;  of  Seville,  256 


Jameson,  Mrs.,  227 

Jarrow,  288,  294 

Jellinge,  320 

Jeremiah's  prophecy,  369 

Jerome,  6,  37  n.,  73,  109,  Ac,  162, 
176, 184,  &c,  231 ;  of  Prague,  428  n. 

Jerusalem,  7, 116 

"  Jerusalem  the  Golden,"  367  n. 

Jessopp,  Dr.,  37  n. 

Jews,  305 

Joachim,  388 

Joannites,  95 

John  the  Almsgiver,  224  n,  248 ;  of 
Antioch,  205,  210  ;  de  Bellesmains, 
388 ;  of  Constantinople,  249  ;  the 
Deacon,  247  n. ;  king  of  England, 
414  n. ;  of  Jerusalem,  150;  of  Lugio, 

397  ;  of  Placenza,  326  ;  of  Salisbury, 

398  n.  ;  Zimisces,  310,  371 
Jonas,  bishop  of  Orleans,  316 
Joppa,  120 

Jordanes,  52, 54 

Joseph  Studites,  328 

Jovian,  7 

Jovinian,  114,  182,  &c. 

Julian  the  Apostate,  6,  18,  25,  167 

Julius  Africanus,  73 ;  Soranus,  53 

Junius,  F.,  279 

Justin  Martyr,  149  n.,  230 

Justina,  64 

Justinian  L,  94  n.,  226,  232 

Justus,  249 

Jutland,  319 

K. 
Kent,  264 
Kilpatrick,  258 


437 


Koran,  305 
Kornerup,  323  n. 


Lampon,  204 

Lanfranc,  360,  377  n. 

Languedoc,  385,  408 

Lateran  Council,  385 

Latin,  127 

Latvia,  172 

Laurentius,  274  n. 

Lavaur,  416 

Leo  the  Armenian,  309 ;  the  Isaurian, 

315;    I.  pope,  217,  256;   X.  pope, 

428  n. 
Libanius,  16,  71 
Liberius,  6 
Library,  343 
Lindisfarne,  273,  294 
Lisoius,  374 
Liturgy,  247 
Lombards,  246 
Lombers,  Council  of,  385 
Louis  the  Pious,  315 ;  VI.  of  France, 

334  ;  VII.  of  France,  364,  386,  388 
Lucilla,  172 
Lucius  II.  pope,  384  ;  III.  pope,  385, 

399 
Lupercalia,  234 
Lupus,  257 
Luthardt,  229 
Luther,  70,  367,  374  n. 
Luxeuil,  296 
Lyons,  396 

M. 

Macrina,  15,  48 

Madonna,  227 

Magic,  74 

Mai,  56  n. 

Maitland,  113 

Malachy,  359 

Malchus,  111 

Manicheism,  132,  371 

Manning,  Cardinal,  233  n. 

Mans,  Le,  381 

Marcella,  112,  125 

Marcellinus,  144 

Marcian,  218 

Marcionites,  306 

Marriage,  267,  373 

Martin  of  Tours,  51  n.,  58,  &c,  186  ; 

Abbe,  217 
Martinmas,  60 
Martyn,  Henry,  99  n. 
Mary,  165,  201,  225,  229 
Mary-worship,  227,  &c. 
Mass,  159  n.,  379,  384 
Maurice,  archbishop,  359 ;  emperor,  250 
Meletius,  42,  211 
Mellitus,  266 
Melrose,  279 
Memnon,  205 


Memory,  the,  157 

Merseburg,  302 

Metropolitan,  27 

Michael,  patriarch,  311 ;  I.  emperor, 

309 
Middle  ages,  245 
Middleton,  168 

Milan,  4,  6,  135,  357,  373,  390 
Milman,  127,  177,  202,  217  n.,  230, 

245,  279,  345,  382  n.,  386  n.,  398  n. 
Milton,  279 
Minerve,  415 
Ministry,  the  true,  251 
Miracles,  253 
Modestus,  33 
Mohammed,  303,  &c. 
Molesme,  344 
Monachism,  173,  238 
Monastic  life,  75,  333,  &c. 
Monkwearmouth,  285,  294 
Monnica,  130 
Monophysites,  222 
Monothelite,  222  n. 
Montalembert,  296,  304 
Monte  Casino,  237,  327 
Montesquieu,  176 
Montfort,  Simon  de,  414 
Morison,  346,  354 
Morland,  403  n. 
Morris,  323  n. 
Mosheim,  222  n.,  304,  333 
Mozley,  152 

N. 
Nabor,  63 
Napoleon,  342 
Narbonne,  425 
Narses,  232 

Natural  goodness  of  man,  149  n. 
Neander,  185,  299,  371 
Nebridius,  136 
Nectarius,  69  n.,  77 
Neo-Cassarea,  15 
Neo-Platonists,  137 
Nestorians,  201,  <fec,  212 
Nestorius,  151  n.,  202,  &c. 
Netley,  351  n. 
New  Covenant,  369 
Newman,  Cardinal,  60,  194 
Nicsea,  28,  96, 218 
Nicene  Creed,  8 
Nicephorus,  emperor,  308 
Nicholas  II.  pope,  256  n. ;  secretary, 

340 
Nilus,  324,  &c. 
Nimbus,  226 
Ninyas,  257 
Niphon, 311 
Nitria,  117 
Nivard,  348 

Noble  Lesson,  The,  403,  407 
Nola,  187 
Nones,  239  n. 
Nonna,  16 


438 


INDEX. 


Northmen,  282,  319 
Northumbria,  270,  &c. 
Novatian,  146 
Novella,  334 
Nursia,  236 

0. 

Oak,  Augustine's,  268 ;   synod  of  the, 

87 
Oaths,  385 
Odo,  abbot,  334 
Olympias,  83,  94 
Ora  pro  nobis,  111 
Origen,  23,  120,  163,  190,  361 
Orleans,  374 
Orosius,  150 
Osma,  410 
Ostrogoths,  53 
Oswald,  274 
Oswy,  274 
Otho  III.  emperor,  326 ;  IV.  emperor, 

405 
Oxford,  360 


Pagan,  4  n. 

Palatine  school,  313 

Palladius,  72,  87,  175  n. 

Pallium,  359 

Pammachius,  183 

Pantheon,  167,  168 

Papacy,  255 

Paris,  355,  360 

Parthenay,  358 

Paschal  I.  pope,  315 

Paschasius  Kadbert,  319 

Paterini,  388 

Patrick,  258,  &c. 

Paul,  St.,  chains  of,  251 

Paul,  the  hermit,  129 

Paula,  113,  123 

Paulicians,  306,  &c,  369,  &c. 

Paulina,  113 

Paulinus,  of  Nola,  186 ;  of  York,  270 

Paulus,  234  n. 

Pelagius,  149 

Penance,  377 

Penitents,  159 

Pepin,  301 

Pera,  86 

Perfect,  the,  372 

Persecution,  14 

Peter,  St.,  250;   of  Brueys,  378,  &c. ; 

of  Castelnau,  409,  412;    de   Vaux 

Cernay,  413,  417;    the  Venerable, 

334,  &c,  364,  380 
Petilian,  145 
Petrobrusians,  380 
Petrus  Gnapheus,  231 
Peyran,  402 
Pharetrius,  96 
Philip   Augustus,    387,    400;    II.   of 

Spain,  430 
Philippopolis,  310 


Philocalia,  23 
Philostorgius,  51 
Phocas,  St.,  169  n. 
Picardy,  400 
Picts,  258 

Pictures  in  churches,  187 
Pilgrimages,  49,  316 
Pillar  saints,  178 
Piphles,  389  n. 
Pisa,  council  of,  383 
Pityus,  98 
Plato,  118,  149  n. 
Plautus,  110 
Poictiers,  58 
Pontigny,  351 
Pontitianus,  138 
Pontius,  336,  384 
Pope,  papa,  123  n.,  255 
Possidonius,  154 
Posting  system,  186 
Postumian,  188 
Praetextata,  114 
Prayer,  107 
Preaching,  142 
Predestination,  153 
Priesthood,  100 
Prime,  239  n. 
Principia,  125 
Priscillian,  59 
Proclus,  203,  211,  232 
Protasius,  63 
Provence,  380,  400 
Prudentius,  171 
Publicum,  387,  394 
Pulcheria,  99 
Pulpit  eloquence,  76 
Purification,  festival  of,  234 
Pusey,  171  n. 

Q. 

Quarto-decimanians,  267 
Quichelm,  271 

E. 

Eaoul,  409 

Bavenna,  225 

Baymond  of  Toulouse,  411,  &c. 

Beinerius  Saccho,  400 

Belies,  172,  192 

Bepentance,  107 

Bheginus,  205 

Bheims,  oouncil,  377,  384 

Ric,  265 

Bichard  I.,  387 

Bichelieu,  368 

Bievaulx,  351  n» 

Biparius,  191 

Eipon,  280 

Bobber  Synod,  217 

Bobert,  king  of  France,  375 ;  of  Clteauxj 

336 
Eoberts,  27  n„  103  n.,  128,  202,  266 
Bobertson,  8 


INDEX. 


489 


Bomanus,  236 

Rome,  9,  124 

Rosary,  234 

Rosweyd,  169  n. 

Ruffner,  149  n.,  163 

Ruflnus,  67,  109,  120,  149  n.,  190 

Runic,  322 

S. 
Saba,  52 
Sabatati,  397  n. 
Sabbath,  327 
Sacraments,  371 
Saints,  167,  169  n.,  172,  193 
Salvian,  180 
Samosata,  306 
Samson,  384 
Saracens,  306 
Sarmateo,  185 
Sasima,  30 
Satyrus,  162 
Saxons,  258 
Schaff,  152,  155,  224 
Scholastica,  241 
Scot,  150  n. 
Scott,  54 
Scriptorium,  343 

Scriptures,  105,  189,  252,  314,  397 
Seleucia,  96 
Selsey,  276 
Sens,  363,  388 
Serenus,  314  n. 
Sergius,  307 
Severian,  82,  89 
Sexte,  239  n. 
Shakspeare,  350 
Sherborne,  346  n. 
Simeon  Stylites,  178 
Simonians,  213 
Simplician,  70,  137 
Sin,  106,  151 

Singing  in  churches,  311,  379 
Siricius,  116,  183,  255 
Sismondi,  420  n. 

Sixtus  in.  pope,  262;  IV.  pope,  235 
Slavery,  224  n.,  247 
Smith,  Philip,  263 
Soissons,  council,  361 
Sophia,  St.,  40, 94 
Sozomen,  51 
Spain,  399 
Stanley,  257  n. 
Stephen,  of  Ansa,  397 ;  of  Bosnia,  312 ; 

of  Orleans,  374 ;  Harding,  345, 346, 

351 ;  of  Tournay,  388 
Stigmata,  170 
Stilicho,  70 
Subiaco,  336 
Suevi,  9,  297 
Sulpicius  Severus,  59,  118,  171,  186, 

188  n. 
Sunderland,  286 
Supper,  see  Eucharist 
Sussex,  276 


Sweden,  319 
Symbolism,  143  n. 
Symmachus,  135,  255 
Syrianus,  12 


Tapers,  192 

Taylor,  L>aac,  129,  155,  165,  173,  178, 

304 
Telemachus,  10 
Telonarii,  387,  389  n. 
Tessihn,  347 
Teutons,  50 
Thagaste,  130,  141 
Theatre,  180 
Theodemir,  315 
Theodisc,  416 
Theodora,  309 
Theodore,  of  Canterbury,  293  n. ;  of 

Mopsuestia,  73,  149  n.,  202 ;  Studi- 

tes  309 
Theodoret,  205,  210,  221 
Theodoric,  225 
Theodorus,  74  n. 
Theodosius  I.,  7,  40,  58,  65,  69,  172 ; 

II.,  99,  202,  205 
Theophilus,  78,  85,  90 
Theotimus,  85 
Theotokos,  201 
Thessalonica,  67 
Thierry,  126 ;  II.  king  of  the  Franks, 

297 ;  St.,  336,  354 
Three  Chapters,  the,  224 
Thuringia,  300 
Thyra,  320 
Tierce,  239  n. 
Timotheus,  223 
Tintern  Abbey,  351  n. 
Tisserands,  389  n. 
Toleration,  14,  45,  104 
Tonsure,  267 
Totila,  241 

Toulouse,  377,  380,  385,  388 
Tours,  385 
Traditions,  128 
Trent,  council  of,  127,  153 
Trinity,  156 
Troubadours,  408 
Troyes,  368  n. 
Truthfulness,  73 
Tuam,  359  n. 
Tuke,  227 
Tusculum,  328 
Tyana,  30 

U. 
Ulfilas,  50,  &o. 
Urban  VIII.  pope,  361  n. 
Ursicinus,  27  n. 
Ussher,  279,  403 


Valence,  413 

Valens,  7,  13,  26,  33,  74  n. 


440 


INDEX. 


Valentinian  I.,  7  ;  II.,  7,  64,  65;  III., 

255 
Valerius,  141 
Vandals,  9,  153 
Veile,  320 
Vespers,  239  n. 
Vezelay,  386 
Victor,  188 

Victor  Amadeus  II.,  402  n. 
Victorinus,  137 
Vigilantius,  186,  &c. 
Vigils,  239  n. 
Virgil,  118,  130 
Virgilius,  300 
Virgin,  see  Mary 
Virginity,  162 
Visigoths,  9,  53 
Votive-offerings,  160 
Vow,  monastic,  238 
•  Vulgate,  126,  313 


W. 


Waddington,  387  n. 
Waldenses,  396,  &c. 
Walter  Mapes,  398 
Waso,  378 


Waverley,  351  n. 

Westcott,  127 

Whitby,  275,  277 

Whithorn,  282 

Wicliffe,  268  n.      - 

Wilfrid,  274,  275,  &c. 

Willehad,  302 

William,  of  Aquitaine,  358 ;  the  Pious, 

334  ;  of  Champeaux,  348,  354,  361 ; 

the  Conqueror,  346 ;   of  Newbury, 

394  ;  of  Paris,  393 
Wimbert,  300 
Wiseman,  Cardinal,  233  n. 
Wittenberg,  428 
Wormwood,  Valley  of,  352 
Worship,  public,  103,  158 


Y. 


York,  275,  281,  293 


Z. 

Zacharias,  pope,  301 
Zosimus,  150,  255 
Zug,  297 


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TRIED   EDITION. 
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BACKHOUSE   AND   TYLOR'S   EARLY   CHURCH 

HISTORY. 

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"From  beginning  to  end  it  is  as  engrossing  as  a  novel." — Graphic. 

SECOND   EDITION. 
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WITNESSES  EOR  CHRIST.    By  the  same  Authors. 

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THE    HUGUENOTS    IN    THE     SEVENTEENTH 

CENTUEY.    By  Charles  Tylok. 
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Uniform  with  the  above,  460  pp.     Plates.     5s.  net. 

THE    CAMISARDS. 

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