Simon fell in love with a woman named Luna, and, while waiting to marry her, he proposed to St. Peter, to Zacchæus, to Lazarus, to Nicodemus, to Dositheus, and to several others, that they should become his disciples. Dositheus answered him at once with a blow from a stick; but the stick having passed through Simon's body as if it had been smoke, Dositheus worshipped him and became his lieutenant, after which Simon married his mistress and declared that she was Luna herself, descended from heaven to marry him.
But enough of the Confessions of St. Clement. It must, however, be remarked that in the ninth book the Chinese are spoken of under the name of Seres as the justest and wisest of mankind. After them come the Brahmins, to whom the author does the justice that was rendered them by all antiquity. He cites them as models of soberness, mildness, and justice.
XXIII.
St. Peter's Letter to St. James, and St. Clement's Letter to the same St. James, brother of the Lord, governor of the Holy Church of the Hebrews at Jerusalem, and of all churches. St. Peter's Letter contains nothing curious, but St. Clement's is very remarkable. He asserts that Peter declared him bishop of Rome before his death, and his coadjutor; that he laid his hands upon his head, and made him sit in the episcopal chair in the presence of all the faithful; and that he said to him, "Fail not to write to my brother James as soon as I am dead."
This letter seems to prove that it was not then believed that St. Peter had suffered martyrdom, since it is probable that this letter, attributed to St. Clement, would have mentioned the circumstance. It also proves that Cletus and Anacletus were not reckoned among the bishops of Rome.
XXIV.
St. Clement's Homilies, to the number of nineteen. He says in his first homily what he had already said in his confessions—that he went to St. Peter and St. Barnabas at Cæsarea, to know whether the soul was immortal, and the world eternal.
In the second homily, No. xxxviii., we find a much more extraordinary passage. St. Peter himself, speaking of the Old Testament, expresses himself thus: "The written law contains certain false things against the law of God, the Creator of heaven and earth; the devil has done this, for good reasons; it has also come to pass through the judgments of God, in order to discover such as would listen with pleasure to what is written against Him," etc.
In the sixth homily St. Clement meets with Appian, the same who had written against the Jews in the time of Tiberius. He tells Appian that he is in love with an Egyptian woman and begs that he will write a letter in his name to his pretended mistress to convince her, by the example of all the gods, that love is a duty. Appian writes a letter and St. Clement answers it in the name of his pretended mistress, after which they dispute on the nature of the gods.
XXV.
Two Epistles of St. Clement to the Corinthians. It hardly seems just to have ranked these epistles among the apocryphal writings. Some of the learned may have declined to recognize them because they speak of "the phoenix of Arabia, which lives five hundred years, and burns itself in Egypt in the city of Heliopolis." But there is nothing extraordinary in St. Clement's having believed this fable which so many others believed, nor in his having written letters to the Corinthians.
It is known that there was at that time a great dispute between the church of Corinth and that of Rome. The church of Corinth, which declared itself to have been founded first, was governed in common; there was scarcely any distinction between the priests and the seculars, still less between the priests and the bishop; all alike had a deliberative voice, so, at least, several of the learned assert. St. Clement says to the Corinthians in his first epistle: "You have laid the first foundations of sedition; be subject to your priests, correct yourselves by penance, bend the knees of your hearts, learn to obey." It is not at all astonishing that a bishop of Rome should use these expressions.
In the second epistle we again find that answer of Jesus Christ, on being asked when His kingdom of heaven should come: "When two shall make one, when that which is without shall be within, when the male shall be female, when there shall be neither male nor female."
XXVI.
Letter from St. Ignatius the martyr to the Virgin Mary, and the Virgin's answer to St. Ignatius:
"To Mary the Mother of Christ, from her devoted Ignatius: You should console me, a neophyte, and a disciple of your John. I have heard several wonderful things of your Jesus, at which I have been much astonished. I desire with all my heart to be informed of them by you, who always lived in familiarity with Him and knew all His secrets. Fare you well. Comfort the neophytes, who are with me from you and through you. Amen."
"The Holy Virgin's Answer to Her Dear Disciple Ignatius:
"The Humble Servant of Jesus Christ: All the things which you have learned from John are true; believe in them; persevere in your belief; keep your vow of Christianity. I will come and see you with John, you and those who are with you. Be firm in the faith; act like a man; let not severity and persecution disturb you, but let your spirit be strengthened and exalted in God your Saviour. Amen."
It is asserted that these letters were written in the year 116 of the Christian era, but they are not therefore the less false and absurd. They would even have been an insult to our holy religion had they not been written in a spirit of simplicity, which renders everything pardonable.
XXVII.
Fragments of the Apostles. We find in them this passage: "Paul, a man of short stature, with an aquiline nose and an angelic face. Instructed in heaven, said to Plantilla, of Rome, before he died: 'Adieu, Plantilla, thou little plant of eternal salvation; know thy own nobility; thou art whiter than snow; thou art registered among the soldiers of Christ; thou art an heiress to the kingdom of heaven.'" This was not worthy to be refuted.
XXVIII.
There are eleven Apocalypses, which are attributed to the patriarchs and prophets, to St. Peter, Cerinthus, St. Thomas, St. Stephen the first martyr, two to St. John, differing from the canonical one, and three to St. Paul. All these Apocalypses have been eclipsed by that of St. John.
XXIX.
The Visions, Precepts, and Similitudes of Hermas. Hermas seems to have lived about the close of the first century. They who regard his book as apocryphal are nevertheless obliged to do justice to his morality. He begins by saying that his foster-father had sold a young woman at Rome. Hermas recognized this young woman after the lapse of several years, and loved her, he says, as if she had been his sister. He one day saw her bathing in the Tiber; he stretched forth his hand, drew her out of the river and said in his heart, "How happy should I be if I had a wife like her in beauty and in manners." Immediately the heavens opened, and he all at once beheld this same wife, who made him a courtesy from above, and said, "Good morning, Hermas." This wife was the Christian Church; she gave him much good advice.
A year after, the spirit transported him to the same place where he had seen this beauty, who nevertheless was old; but she was fresh in her age, and was old only because she had been created from the beginning of the world, and the world had been made for her.
The Book of Precepts contains fewer allegories, but that of Similitudes contains many. "One day," says Hennas, "when I was fasting and was seated on a hill, giving thanks to God for all that he had done for me, a shepherd came, sat down beside me, and said, 'Why have you come here so early?' 'Because I am going through the stations,' answered I. 'What is a station?' asked the shepherd. 'It is a fast.' 'And what is this fast?' 'It is my custom.' 'Ah!' replied the shepherd, 'you know not what it is to fast; all this is of no avail before God. I will teach you that which is true fasting and pleasing to the Divinity. Your fasting has nothing to do with justice and virtue. Serve God with a pure heart; keep His commandments; admit into your heart no guilty designs. If you have always the fear of God before your eyes—if you abstain from all evil, that will be true fasting, that will be the great fast which is acceptable to God.'"
This philosophical and sublime piety is one of the most singular monuments of the first century. But it is somewhat strange that, at the end of the Similitudes, the shepherd gives him very good-natured maidens—valde affabiles—to take care of his house and declares to him that he cannot fulfil God's commandments without these maidens, who, it is plain, typify the virtues.
This list would become immense if we were to enter into every detail. We will carry it no further, but conclude with the Sibyls.
XXX.
The Sibyls.—What is most apocryphal in the primitive church is the prodigious number of verses in favor of the Christian religion attributed to the ancient sibyls. Diodorus Siculus knew of only one, who was taken at Thebes by the Epigoni, and placed at Delphos before the Trojan war. Ten sibyls—that is, ten prophetesses, were soon made from this one. She of Cuma had most credit among the Romans, and the sibyl Erythrea among the Greeks.
As all oracles were delivered in verse, none of the sibyls could fail to make verses; and to give them greater authority they sometimes made them in acrostics also. Several Christians who had not a zeal according to knowledge not only misinterpreted the ancient verses supposed to have been written by the sibyls, but also made some themselves, and which is worse, in acrostics, not dreaming that this difficult artifice of acrosticizing had no resemblance whatever to the inspiration and enthusiasm of a prophetess. They resolved to support the best of causes by the most awkward fraud. They accordingly made bad Greek verses, the initials of which signified in Greek—Jesus, Christ, Son, Saviour, and these verses said that with five loaves and two fishes He should feed five thousand men in the desert and that with the fragments that remained He should fill twelve baskets.
The millennium and the New Jerusalem, which Justin had seen in the air for forty nights, were, of course, foretold by the sibyls. In the fourth century Lactantius collected almost all the verses attributed to the sibyls and considered them as convincing proofs. The opinion was so well authorized and so long held that we still sing hymns in which the testimony of the sibyls is joined with the predictions of David:
Solvet sæclum in favilla,Teste David cum Sibylla.
This catalogue of errors and frauds has been carried quite far enough. A hundred might be repeated, so constantly has the world been composed of deceivers and of people fond of being deceived.
But let us pursue no further so dangerous a research. The elucidation of one great truth is worth more than the discovery of a thousand falsehoods. Not all these errors, not all the crowd of apocryphal books have been sufficient to injure the Christian religion, because, as we all know, it is founded upon immutable truths. These truths are supported by a church militant and triumphant, to which God has given the power of teaching and of repressing. In several countries it unites temporal with spiritual authority. Prudence, strength, wealth are its attributes, and although it is divided, and its divisions have sometimes stained it with blood, it may be compared to the Roman commonwealth—constantly torn by internal dissensions, but constantly triumphant.
It is still a question among the learned whether the Emperor Julian was really an apostate and whether he was ever truly a Christian. He was not six years old when the Emperor Constantius, still more barbarous than Constantine, had his father, his brother, and seven of his cousins murdered. He and his brother Gallus with difficulty escaped from this carnage, but he was always very harshly treated by Constantius. His life was for a long time threatened, and he soon beheld his only remaining brother assassinated by the tyrant's order. The most barbarous of the Turkish sultans have never, I am sorry to say it, surpassed in cruelty or in villainy the Constantine family. From his tenderest years study was Julian's only consolation. He communicated in secret with the most illustrious of the philosophers, who were of the ancient religion of Rome. It is very probable that he professed that of his uncle Constantius only to avoid assassination. Julian was obliged to conceal his mental powers, as Brutus had done under Tarquin. He was less likely to be a Christian, as his uncle had forced him to be a monk and to perform the office of reader in the church. A man is rarely of the religion of his persecutor, especially when the latter wishes to be ruler of his conscience.
Another circumstance which renders this probable is that he does not say in any of his works that he had been a Christian. He never asks pardon for it of the pontiffs of the ancient religion. He addresses them in his letters as if he had always been attached to the worship of the senate. It is not even proved that he practised the ceremonies of the Taurobolium, which might be regarded as a sort of expiation, and that he desired to wash out with bull's blood that which he so unfortunately called the stain of his baptism. However, this was a pagan form of devotion, which is no more a proof than the assembling at the mysteries of Ceres. In short, neither his friends nor his enemies relate any fact, any words which can prove that he ever believed in Christianity, and that he passed from that sincere belief to the worship of the gods of the empire. If such be the case they who do not speak of him as an apostate appear very excusable.
Sound criticism being brought to perfection, all the world now acknowledges that the Emperor Julian was a hero and a wise man—a stoic, equal to Marcus Aurelius. His errors are condemned, but his virtues are admitted. He is now regarded, as he was by his contemporary, Prudentius, author of the hymn"Salvete flores martyrum". He says of Julian:
Ductor fortissimus armis,Conditor et legum celeberrimus; ore manuqueConsultor patriæ; sed non consultor habendusReligionis; amans tercentum millia divumPerfidus ille Deo, sed non est perfidus orbi.Though great in arms, in virtues, and in laws,—Though ably zealous in his country's cause,He spurned religion in his lofty plan,Rejecting God while benefiting man.
His detractors are reduced to the miserable expedient of striving to make him appear ridiculous. One historian, on the authority of St. Gregory Nazianzen, reproaches him with having worn too large a beard. But, my friend, if nature gave him a long beard why should he wear it short? He used to shake his head. Carry thy own better. His step was hurried. Bear in mind that the Abbé d'Aubignac, the king's preacher, having been hissed at the play, laughs at the air and gait of the great Corneille. Could you hope to turn Marshal de Luxembourg into ridicule because he walked ill and his figure was singular? He could march very well against the enemy. Let us leave it to the ex-Jesuit Patouillet, the ex-Jesuit Nonotte, etc., to call the Emperor Julian—the Apostate. Poor creatures! His Christian successor, Jovian, called himDivusJulianus.
Let us treat this mistaken emperor as he himself treated us. He said, "We should pity and not hate them; they are already sufficiently unfortunate in erring on the most important of questions." Let us have the same compassion for him, since we are sure that the truth is on our side. He rendered strict justice to his subjects, let us then render it to his memory. Some Alexandrians were incensed against a bishop, who, it is true, was a wicked man, chosen by a worthless cabal. His name was George Biordos, and he was the son of a mason. His manners were lower than his birth. He united the basest perfidy with the most brutal ferocity, and superstition with every vice. A calumniator, a persecutor, and an impostor—avaricious, sanguinary, and seditious, he was detested by every party and at last the people cudgelled him to death. The following is the letter which the Emperor Julian wrote to the Alexandrians on the subject of this popular commotion. Mark how he addresses them, like a father and a judge:
"What!" said he, "instead of reserving for me the knowledge of your wrongs you have suffered yourselves to be transported with anger! You have been guilty of the same excesses with which you reproach your enemies! George deserved to be so treated, but it was not for you to be his executioners. You have laws; you should have demanded justice," etc.
Some have dared to brand Julian with the epithets intolerant and persecuting—the man who sought to extirpate persecution and intolerance! Peruse his fifty-second letter, and respect his memory. Is he not sufficiently unfortunate in not having been a Catholic, and consequently in being burned in hell, together with the innumerable multitude of those who have not been Catholics, without our insulting him so far as to accuse him of intolerance?
On the Globes of Fire said to have issued from the Earth to prevent the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem under the Emperor Julian.
It is very likely that when Julian resolved to carry the war into Persia he wanted money. It is also very likely that the Jews gave him some for permission to rebuild their temple, which Titus had partly destroyed, but of which there still remained the foundations, an entire wall, and the Antonine tower. But is it as likely that globes of fire burst upon the works and the workmen and caused the undertaking to be relinquished. Is there not a palpable contradiction in what the historians relate?
1. How could it be that the Jews began by destroying (as they are said to have done) the foundations of the temple which it was their wish and their duty to rebuild on the same spot? The temple was necessarily to be on Mount Moriah. There it was that Solomon had built it. There it was that Herod had rebuilt it with greater solidity and magnificence, having previously erected a fine theatre at Jerusalem, and a temple to Augustus at Cæsarea. The foundations of this temple, enlarged by Herod, were, according to Josephus, as much as twenty-five feet broad. Could the Jews, in Julian's time, possibly be mad enough to wish to disarrange these stones which were so well prepared to receive the rest of the edifice, and upon which the Mahometans afterwards built their mosque? What man was ever foolish and stupid enough thus to deprive himself at great cost and excessive labor of the greatest advantage that could present itself to his hands and eyes? Nothing is more incredible.
2. How could eruptions of flame burst forth from the interior of these stones? There might be an earthquake in the neighborhood, for they are frequent in Syria, but that great blocks of stone should have vomited clouds of fire! Is not this story entitled to just as much credit as all those of antiquity?
3. If this prodigy, or if an earthquake, which is not a prodigy, had really happened would not the Emperor Julian have spoken of it in the letter in which he says that he had intended to rebuild this temple? Would not his testimony have been triumphantly adduced? Is it not infinitely more probable that he changed his mind? Does not this letter contain these words:
"Quid de templo sua dicent, quod, quum tertio sit eversum, nondum hodiernam usque diem instauratur? Hæc ego, non ut illis exprobarem, in medium adduxi, utpote qui templum illud tanto intervallo a ruinis excitare voluerim; sed ideo commemoravi, ut ostenderem delirasse prophetas istos, quibus cum stolidis aniculis negotium erat".
"What will they (the Jews) say of their temple which has been destroyed for the third time and is not yet restored? I speak of this, not for the purpose of reproaching them, for I myself had intended to raise it once more from its ruins, but to show the extravagance of their prophets who had none but old women to deal with."
Is it not evident that the emperor having paid attention to the Jewish prophecies, that the temple should be rebuilt more beautiful than ever and that all the nations of the earth should come and worship in it, thought fit to revoke the permission to raise the edifice? The historical probability, then, from the emperor's own words, is, that unfortunately holding the Jewish books, as well as our own, in abhorrence, he at length resolved to make the Jewish prophets lie.
The Abbé de la Blétrie, the historian of the Emperor Julian, does not understand how the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed three times. He says that apparently Julian reckoned as a third destruction the catastrophe which happened during his reign. A curious destruction this! the non-removal of the stones of an old foundation. What could prevent this writer from seeing that the temple, having been built by Solomon, reconstructed by Zorobabel, entirely destroyed by Herod, rebuilt by Herod himself with so much magnificence, and at last laid in ruins by Titus, manifestly made three destructions of the temple? The reckoning is correct. Julian should surely have escaped calumny on this point.
The Abbé de la Blétrie calumniates him sufficiently by saying that all his virtues were only seeming, while all his vices were real. But Julian was not hypocritical, nor avaricious, nor fraudulent, nor lying, nor ungrateful, nor cowardly, nor drunken, nor debauched, nor idle, nor vindictive. What then were his vices?
4. Let us now examine the redoubtable argument made use of to persuade us that globes of fire issued from stones. Ammianus Marcellinus a pagan writer, free from all suspicion, has said it. Be it so: but this Ammianus has also said that when the emperor was about to sacrifice ten oxen to his gods for his first victory over the Persians, nine of them fell to the earth before they were presented to the altar. He relates a hundred predictions—a hundred prodigies. Are we to believe in them? Are we to believe in all the ridiculous miracles related by Livy?
Besides, who can say that the text of Ammianus Marcellinus has not been falsified? Would it be the only instance in which this artifice has been employed?
I wonder that no mention is made of the little fiery crosses which all the workmen found on their bodies when they went to bed. They would have made an admirable figure along with the globes.
The fact is that the temple of the Jews was not rebuilt, and it may be presumed never will be so. Here let us hold, and not seek useless prodigies.Globi Hammarum—globes of fire, issue neither from stones nor from earth. Ammianus, and those who have quoted him, were not natural philosophers. Let the abbé de la Blétrie only look at the fire on St. John's day, and he will see that flame always ascends with a point, or in a cloud, and never in a globe. This alone is sufficient to overturn the nonsense which he comes forward to defend with injudicious criticism and revolting pride.
After all, the thing is of very little importance. There is nothing in it that affects either faith or morals; and historical truth is all that is here sought for.
Their Lives, their Wives, their Children.
After the article "Apostle" in the Encyclopædia, which is as learned as it is orthodox, very little remains to be said. But we often hear it asked—Were the apostles married? Had they any children? if they had, what became of those children? Where did the apostles live? Where did they write? Where did they die? Had they any appropriated districts? Did they exercise any civil ministry? Had they any jurisdiction over the faithful? Were they bishops? Had they a hierarchy, rites, or ceremonies?
There is extant a letter attributed to St. Ignatius the Martyr, in which are these decisive words: "I call to mind your sanctity as I do that of Elias, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, and the chosen disciples Timothy, Titus, Evadius, and Clement; yet I do not blame such other of the blessed as were bound in the bonds of marriage, but hope to be found worthy of God in following their footsteps in his kingdom, after the example of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Isaiah, and the other prophets—of Peter and Paul, and the apostles who were married."
Some of the learned assert that the name of St. Paul has been interpolated in this famous letter: however, Turrian and all who have seen the letters of Ignatius in the library of the Vatican acknowledge that St. Paul's name appears there. And Baronius does not deny that this passage is to be found in some Greek manuscripts:Non negamus in quibusdam græcis codicibus.But he asserts that these words have been added by modern Greeks.
In the old Oxford library there was a manuscript of St. Ignatius's letters in Greek, which contained the above words; but it was, I believe, burned with many other books at the taking of Oxford by Cromwell. There is still one in Latin in the same library, in which the wordsPauli et apostolorumhave been effaced, but in such a manner that the old characters may be easily distinguished.
It is however certain that this passage exists in several editions of these letters. This dispute about St. Paul's marriage is, after all, a very frivolous one. What matters it whether he was married or not, if the other apostles were married? His first Epistle to the Corinthians is quite sufficient to prove that he might be married, as well as the rest:
"Have we not power to eat and to drink? Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas? Or I only and Barnabas, have not we power to forbear working? Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges?"
It is clear from this passage that all the apostles were married, as well as St. Peter. And St. Clement of Alexandria positively declares that St. Paul had a wife. The Roman discipline has changed, which is no proof that the usage of the primitive ages was not different.
Very little is known of their families. St. Clement of Alexandria says that Peter had children, that Philip had daughters, and that he gave them in marriage. The Acts of the Apostles specify St. Philip, whose four daughters prophesied, of whom it is believed that one was married, and that this one was St. Hermione.
Eusebius relates that Nicholas, chosen by the apostles to co-operate in the sacred ministry with St. Stephen, had a very handsome wife, of whom he was jealous. The apostles having reproached him with his jealousy, he corrected himself of it, brought his wife to them and said, "I am ready to yield her up; let him marry her who will." The apostles, however, did not accept his proposal. He had by his wife a son and several daughters.
Cleophas, according to Eusebius and St. Epiphanius, was brother to St. Joseph, and father of St. James the Less, and of St. Jude, whom he had by Mary, sister to the Blessed Virgin. So that St. Jude the apostle was first cousin to Jesus Christ.
Hegesippus, quoted by Eusebius, tells us that two grandsons of St. Jude were informed against to the emperor Domitian as being descendants of David and having an incontestable right to the throne of Jerusalem. Domitian, fearing that they might avail themselves of this right, put questions to them himself, and they acquainted him with their genealogy. The emperor asked them what fortune they had. They answered that they had thirty-nine acres of land, which paid tribute, and that they worked for their livelihood. He then asked them when Jesus Christ's kingdom was to come, and they told him "At the end of the world." After which Domitian permitted them to depart in peace; which goes far to prove that he was not a persecutor. This, if I mistake not, is all that is known about the children of the apostles.
According to Eusebius, James, sur named the Just, brother to Jesus Christ, was in the beginning placed firston the episcopal throneof the city of Jerusalem; these are his own words. So that, according to him, the first bishopric was that of Jerusalem—supposing that the Jews knew even the name ofbishop. It does, indeed, appear very likely that the brother of Jesus Christ should have been the first after him, and that the very city in which the miracle of our salvation was worked should have become the metropolis of the Christian world. As for theepiscopal throne, that is a term which Eusebius uses by anticipation. We all know that there was then neither throne nor see.
Eusebius adds, after St. Clement, that the other apostles did not contend with St. James for this dignity. They elected him immediately after the Ascension. "Our Lord," says he, "after His resurrection, had given to James, surnamed the Just, to John and to Peter the gift of knowledge"—very remarkable words. Eusebius mentions James first, then John, and Peter comes last. It seems but just that the brother and the beloved disciple of Jesus should come before the man who had denied Him. Nearly the whole Greek Church and all the reformers ask, Where is Peter's primacy? The Catholics answer—If he is not placed first by the fathers of the church, he is in the Acts of the Apostles. The Greeks and the rest reply that he was not the first bishop; and the dispute will endure as long as the churches.
St. James, this first bishop of Jerusalem, always continued to observe the Mosaic law. He was a Rechabite; he walked barefoot, and never shaved; went and prostrated himself in the Jewish temple twice a day, and was surnamed by the JewsOblia, signifying the just. They at length applied to him to know who Jesus Christ was, and having answered that Jesus was the son of man, who sat on the right hand of God, and that He should come in the clouds, he was beaten to death. This was St. James the Less.
St. James the Greater was his uncle, brother to St. John the Evangelist, and son of Zebedee and Salome. It is asserted that Agrippa, king of the Jews, had him beheaded at Jerusalem. St. John remained in Asia and governed the church of Ephesus, where, it is said, he was buried. St. Andrew, brother to St Peter, quitted the school of St. John for that of Jesus Christ. It is not agreed whether he preached among the Tartars or in Argos; but, to get rid of the difficulty, we are told that it was in Epirus. No one knows where he suffered martyrdom, nor even whether he suffered it at all. TheActsof his martyrdom are more than suspected by the learned. Painters have always represented him on a saltier-cross, to which his name has been given. This custom has prevailed without its origin being known.
St. Peter preached to the Jews dispersed in Pontus, Bithynia, Cappadocia, at Antioch, and at Babylon. The Acts of the Apostles do not speak of his journey to Rome, nor does St. Paul himself make any mention of it in the letters which he wrote from that capital. St. Justin is the first accredited author who speaks of this journey, about which the learned are not agreed. St. Irenæus, after St. Justin, expressly says that St. Peter and St. Paul came to Rome, and that they entrusted its government to St. Linus. But here is another difficulty: if they made St. Linus inspector of the rising Christian society at Rome, it must be inferred that they themselves did not superintend it nor remain in that city.
Criticism has cast upon this matter a thousand uncertainties. The opinion that St. Peter came to Rome in Nero's reign and filled the pontifical chair there for twenty-five years, is untenable, for Nero reigned only thirteen years. The wooden chair, so splendidly inlaid in the church at Rome, can hardly have belonged to St. Peter: wood does not last so long; nor is it likely that St. Peter delivered his lessons from this chair as in a school thoroughly formed, since it is averred that the Jews of Rome were violent enemies to the disciples of Jesus Christ.
The greatest difficulty perhaps is that St. Paul, in his epistle written to the Colossians from Rome, positively says that he was assisted only by Aristarchus, Marcus, and another bearing the name of Jesus. This objection has, to men of the greatest learning, appeared to be insurmountable.
In his letter to the Galatians he says that he obliged James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, to acknowledge himself and Barnabas as pillars also. If he placed James before Cephas, then Cephas was not the chief. Happily, these disputes affect not the foundation of our holy religion. Whether St. Peter ever was at Rome or not, Jesus Christ is no less the Son of God and the Virgin Mary; He did not the less rise again; nor did He the less recommend humility and poverty; which are neglected, it is true, but about which there is no dispute.
Callistus Nicephorus, a writer of the fourteenth century, says that "Peter was tall, straight and slender, his face long and pale, his beard and hair short, curly, and neglected—his eyes black, his nose long, and rather flat than pointed." So Calmet translates the passage.
St. Bartholomew is a word corrupted from Bar. Ptolomaios, son of Ptolemy. The Acts of the Apostles inform us that he was a Galilean. Eusebius asserts that he went to preach in India, Arabia Felix, Persia, and Abyssinia. He is believed to have been the same as Nathanael. There is a gospel attributed to him; but all that has been said of his life and of his death is very uncertain. It has been asserted that Astyages, brother to Polemon, king of Armenia, had him flayed alive; but all good writers regard this story as fabulous.
St. Philip.—According to the apocryphal legends he lived eighty-seven years, and died in peace in the reign of Trajan.
St. Thomas Didymus.—Origen, quoted by Eusebius, says that he went and preached to the Medes, the Persians, the Caramanians, the Baskerians, and the magi—as if the magi had been a people. It is added that he baptized one of the magi, who had come to Bethlehem. The Manichæans assert that a man who had stricken Thomas was devoured by a lion. Some Portuguese writers assure us that he suffered martyrdom at Meliapour, in the peninsula of India. The Greek Church believes that he preached in India, and that from thence his body was carried to Edessa. Some monks are further induced to believe that he went to India, by the circumstance that, about the end of the fifteenth century, there were found, near the coast of Ormuz, some families of Nestorians, who had been established there by a merchant of Moussoul, named Thomas. The legend sets forth that he built a magnificent palace for an Indian king named Gondaser: but all these stories are rejected by the learned.
St. Matthias.—No particulars are known of him. His life was not found until the twelfth century by a monk of the abbey of St. Matthias of Treves. He said he had it from a Jew, who translated it for him from Hebrew into Latin.
St. Matthew.—According to Rufinus, Socrates, and Abdias, he preached and died in Ethiopia. Heracleon makes him live a long time and die a natural death. But Abdias says that Hyrtacus, king of Ethiopia, brother to Eglypus, wishing to marry his niece Iphigenia, and finding that he could not obtain St. Matthew's permission, had his head struck off and set fire to Iphigenia's house. He to whom we owe the most circumstantial gospel that we possess deserved a better historian than Abdias.
St. Simon the Canaanite, whose feast is commonly joined with that of St. Jude.—Of his life nothing is known. The modern Greeks say that he went to preach in Libya, and thence into England. Others make him suffer martyrdom in Persia.
St. Thaddæus or Lebbæus.—The same as St. Jude, whom the Jews in St. Matthew call brother to Jesus Christ, and who, according to Eusebius, was his first cousin. All these relations, for the most part vague and uncertain, throw no light on the lives of the apostles. But if there is little to gratify our curiosity, there is much from which we may derive instruction. Two of the four gospels, chosen from among the fifty-four composed by the first Christians, were not written by apostles.
St. Paul was not one of the twelve apostles, yet he contributed more than any other to the establishment of Christianity. He was the only man of letters among them. He had studied under Gamaliel. Festus himself, the governor of Judæa, reproaches him with being too learned; and, unable to comprehend the sublimities of his doctrine, he says to him,"Insanis, Paule, multæ te litteræ ad insaniam convertunt". "Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad."
In his first epistle to the Corinthians he calls himselfsent. "Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are ye not my work in the Lord? If I am not an apostle unto others, yet, doubtless, I am unto you," etc.
He might, indeed, have seen Jesus while he was studying at Jerusalem under Gamaliel. Yet it may be said that this was not a reason which could authorize his apostleship. He had not been one of the disciples of Jesus; on the contrary, he had persecuted them, and had been an accomplice in the death of St. Stephen. It is astonishing that he does not rather justify his voluntary apostleship by the miracle which Jesus Christ afterwards worked in his favor—by the light from heaven which appeared to him at midday and threw him from his horse, and by his being carried up to the third heaven.
St. Epiphanius quotes Acts of the Apostles, believed to have been composed by those Christians called Ebionites, or poor, and which were rejected by the Church—acts very ancient, it is true, but full of abuse of St. Paul. In them it is said that St. Paul was born at Tarsus of idolatrous parents—utroque parente gentili procreatus—that, having come to Jerusalem, where he remained some time, he wished to marry the daughter of Gamaliel; that, with this design, he became a Jewish proselyte and got himself circumcised; but that, not obtaining this virgin (or not finding her a virgin), his vexation made him write against circumcision, against the Sabbath, and against the whole law.
"Quumque Hierosolymam accessisset, et ibidem aliquandiu mansisset, pontificis filiam ducere in animum induxisse, et eam ab rem proselytum factum, atque circumcisum esse; postea quod virginem eam non accepisset, succensuisse, et adversus circumcisionem, ac sabbathum totamque legem scripsisse."
These injurious words show that these primitive Christians, under the name of the poor, were still attached to the Sabbath and to circumcision, resting this attachment on the circumcision of Jesus Christ and his observance of the Sabbath; and that they were enemies to St. Paul, regarding him as an intruder who sought to overturn everything. In short, they were heretics; consequently they strove to defame their enemies, an excess of which party spirit and superstition are too often guilty. St. Paul, too, calls them "false apostles, deceitful workers," and loads them with abuse. In his letter to the Philippians he calls them dogs.
St. Jerome asserts that he was born at Gisceala, a town of Galilee, and not at Tarsus. Others dispute his having been a Roman citizen, because at that time there were no Roman citizens at Tarsus, nor at Galgala, and Tarsus was not a Roman colony until about a hundred years after. But we must believe the Acts of the Apostles, which were inspired by the Holy Ghost, and therefore outweigh the testimony of St. Jerome, learned as he might be.
Every particular relative to St. Peter and St. Paul is interesting. If Nicephorus has given us a portrait of the one, the Acts of St. Thecla, which, though not canonical, are of the first century, have furnished us with a portrait of the other. He was, say these acts, short in stature, his head was bald, his thighs were crooked, his legs thick, his nose aquiline, his eyebrows joined, and he was full of the grace of God.—Statura brevi, etc.
These Acts of St. Paul and St. Thecla were, according to Tertullian, composed by an Asiatic, one of Paul's own disciples, who at first put them forth under the apostle's name; for which he was called to account and displaced—that is, excluded from the assembly; for the hierarchy, not being then established, no one could, properly speaking, be displaced.
It appears that they were all equal. Equality was the great principle of the Essenians, the Rechabites, the Theraputæ, the disciples of John, and especially those of Jesus Christ, who inculcated it more than once.
St. Barnabas, who was not one of the twelve apostles, gave his voice along with theirs. St. Paul, who was still less a chosen apostle during the life of Jesus, not only was equal to them, but had a sort of ascendancy; he rudely rebukes St. Peter.
When they are together we find among them no superior. There was no presiding, not even in turn. They did not at first call themselves bishops. St. Peter gives the name ofbishop, or the equivalent epithet, only to Jesus Christ, whom he callsthe inspector of souls. This name ofinspectororbishopwas afterwards given to the ancients, whom we callpriests; but with no ceremony, no dignity, no distinctive mark of pre-eminence. It was the office of the ancients or elders to distribute the alms. The younger of them were chosen by a plurality of voices to serve the tables, and were seven in number; all which clearly verifies the reports in common. Of jurisdiction, of power, of command, not the least trace is to be found.
It is true that Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead for not giving all their money to St. Peter, but retaining a small part for their own immediate wants without confessing it—for corrupting, by a trifling falsehood, the sanctity of their gifts; but it is not St. Peter who condemns them. It is true that he divines Ananias' fault; he reproaches him with it and tells him that he has lied to the Holy Ghost; after which Ananias falls down dead. Then comes Sapphira; and Peter, instead of warning, interrogates her, which seems to be the action of a judge. He makes her fall into the snare by saying, "Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much." The wife made the same answer as her husband. It is astonishing that she did not, on reaching the place, learn of her husband's death—that no one had informed her of it—that she did not observe the terror and tumult which such a death must have occasioned, and above all, the mortal fear lest the officers of justice should take cognizance of it as of a murder. It is strange that this woman should not have filled the house with her cries, but have been quietly interrogated, as in a court of justice, where silence is rigidly enforced. It is still more extraordinary that Peter should have said to her, "Behold the feet of them which have carried thy husband out at the door, and shall carry thee out"—on which the sentence was instantly executed. Nothing can more resemble a criminal hearing before a despotic judge.
But it must be considered that St. Peter is here only the organ of Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost; that it is to them that Ananias and his wife have lied, and it is they who punish them with sudden death; that, indeed, this miracle was worked for the purpose of terrifying all such as, while giving their goods to the Church, and saying that they have given all, keep something back for profane uses. The judicious Calmet shows us how the fathers and the commentators differ about the salvation of these two primitive Christians, whose sin consisted in simple though culpable reticence.
Be this as it may, it is certain that the apostles had no jurisdiction, no power, no authority, but that of persuasion, which is the first of all, and upon which every other is founded. Besides, it appears from this very story that the Christians lived in common. When two or three of them were gathered together, Jesus Christ was in the midst of them. They could all alike receive the Spirit. Jesus was their true, their only superior; He had said to them:
"Be not ye called rabbi; for one is your master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon earth; for one is your father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters; for one is your master, even Christ."
In the time of the apostles there was no ritual, no liturgy; there were no fixed hours for assembling, no ceremonies. The disciples baptized the catechumens, and breathed the Holy Ghost into their mouths, as Jesus Christ had breathed on the apostles; and as, in many churches, it is still the custom to breathe into the mouth of a child when administering baptism. Such were the beginnings of Christianity. All was done by inspiration—by enthusiasm, as among the Therapeutæ and the Judaïtes, if we may for a moment be permitted to compare Jewish societies, now become reprobate, with societies conducted by Jesus Christ Himself from the highest heaven, where He sat at the right hand of His Father. Time brought necessary changes; the Church being extended, strengthened, and enriched, had occasion for new laws.
It is not at all uncommon for a person under strong emotion to see that which is not. In 1726 a woman in London, accused of being an accomplice in her husband's murder, denied the fact; the dead man's coat was held up and shaken before her, her terrified imagination presented the husband himself to her view; she fell at his feet and would have embraced him. She told the jury that she had seen her husband. It is not wonderful that Theodoric saw in the head of a fish, which was served up to him, that of Symmachus, whom he had assassinated—or unjustly executed; for it is precisely the same thing.
Charles IX., after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, saw dead bodies and blood; not in his dreams, but in the convulsions of a troubled mind seeking for sleep in vain. His physician and his nurse bore witness to it. Fantastic visions are very frequent in hot fevers. This is not seeing in imagination; it is seeing in reality. The phantom exists to him who has the perception of it. If the gift of reason vouchsafed to the human machine were not at hand to correct these illusions, all heated imaginations would be in an almost continual transport, and it would be impossible to cure them.
It is especially in that middle state between sleeping and waking that an inflamed brain sees imaginary objects and hears sounds which nobody utters. Fear, love, grief, remorse are the painters who trace the pictures before unsettled imaginations. The eye which sees sparks in the night, when accidentally pressed in a certain direction, is but a faint image of the disorders of the brain.
No theologian doubts that with these natural causes the Master of nature has sometimes united His divine influence. To this the Old and the New Testament bear ample testimony. Providence has deigned to employ these apparitions—these visions—in favor of the Jews, who were then its cherished people.
It may be that, in the course of time, some really pious souls, deceived by their enthusiasm, have believed that they had received from an intimate communication with God that which they owed only to their inflamed imaginations. In such cases there is need of the advice of an honest man, and especially of a good physician.
The stories of apparitions are innumerable. It is said to have been in consequence of an apparition that St. Theodore, in the beginning of the fourth century, went and set fire to the temple of Amasia and reduced it to ashes. It is very likely that God did not command this action, in itself so criminal, by which several citizens perished, and which exposed all the Christians to a just revenge.
God might permit St. Potamienne to appear to St. Basilides; for there resulted no disturbance to the state. We will not deny that Jesus Christ might appear to St. Victor. But that St. Benedict saw the soul of St. Germanus of Capua carried up to heaven by angels; and that two monks afterwards saw the soul of St. Benedict walking on a carpet extended from heaven to Mount Cassino—this is not quite so easy to believe.
It may likewise, without any offence to our august religion, be doubted whether St. Eucherius was conducted by an angel into hell, where he saw Charles Mattel's soul; and whether a holy hermit of Italy saw the soul of Dagobert chained in a boat by devils, who were flogging it without mercy; for, after all, it is rather difficult to explain satisfactorily how a soul can walk upon a carpet, how it can be chained in a boat, or how it can be flogged.
But, it may very well be that heated brains have had such visions; from age to age we have a thousand instances of them. One must be very enlightened to distinguish, in this prodigious number of visions, those which came from God Himself from those which were purely the offspring of imagination.
The illustrious Bossuet relates, in his funeral oration over the Princess Palatine, two visions which acted powerfully on that princess, and determined the whole conduct of her latter years. These heavenly visions must be believed since they are regarded as such by the discreet and learned bishop of Meaux, who penetrated into all the depths of theology and even undertook to lift the veil which covers the Apocalypse.
He says, then, that the Princess Palatine, having lent a hundred thousand francs to her sister, the queen of Poland, sold the duchy of Rételois for a million, and married her daughters advantageously. Happy according to the world, but unfortunately doubting the truths of the Christian religion, she was brought back to her conviction, and to the love of these ineffable truths by two visions. The first was a dream in which a man born blind told her that he had no idea of light, and that we must believe the word of others in things of which we cannot ourselves conceive. The second arose from a violent shock of the membranes and fibres of the brain in an attack of fever. She saw a hen running after one of her chickens, which a dog held in his mouth. The Princess Palatine snatched the chick from the dog, on which a voice cried out: "Give him back his chicken; if you deprive him of his food he will not watch as he ought." But the princess exclaimed, "No, I will never give it back."
The chicken was the soul of Anne of Gonzaga, Princess Palatine; the hen was the Church, and the dog was the devil. Anne of Gonzaga, who was never to give back the chicken to the dog, wasefficacious grace.
Bossuet preached this funeral oration to the Carmelite nuns of the Faubourg St. Jacques, at Paris, before the whole house of Condé; he used these remarkable words: "Hearken, and be especially careful not to hear with contempt the order of the Divine warnings, and the conduct of Divine grace."
The reader, then, must peruse this story with the same reverence with which its hearers listened to it. These extraordinary workings of Providence are like the miracles of canonized saints, which must be attested by irreproachable witnesses. And what more lawful deponent can we have to the apparitions and visions of the Princess Palatine than the man who employed his life in distinguishing truth from appearance? who combated vigorously against the nuns of Port Royal on the formulary; against Paul Ferri on the catechism; against the minister Claude on the variations of the Church; against Doctor Dupin on China; against Father Simon on the understanding of the sacred text; against Cardinal Sfondrati on predestination; against the pope on the rights of the Gallican Church; against the archbishop of Cambray on pure and disinterested love. He was not to be seduced by the names, nor the titles, nor the reputation, nor the dialectics of his adversaries. He related this fact; therefore he believed it. Let us join him in his belief, in spite of the raillery which it has occasioned. Let us adore the secrets of Providence, but let us distrust the wanderings of the imagination, which Malebranche calledla folle du logis. For these two visions accorded to the Princess Palatine are not vouchsafed to every one.
Jesus Christ appeared to St. Catharine of Sienna; he espoused her and gave her a ring. This mystical apparition is to be venerated, for it is attested by Raymond of Capua, general of the Dominicans, who confessed her, as also by Pope Urban VI. But it is rejected by the learned Fleury, author of the "Ecclesiastical History." And a young woman who should now boast of having contracted such a marriage might receive as a nuptial present a place in a lunatic asylum.
The appearance of Mother Angelica, abbess of Port Royal, to Sister Dorothy is related by a man of very great weight among the Jansenists, the Sieur Dufossé, author of the"Mémoirs de Pontis". Mother Angelica, long after her death, came and seated herself in the church of Port Royal, in her old place, with her crosier in her hand. She commanded that Sister Dorothy should be sent for and to her she told terrible secrets. But the testimony of this Dufossé is of less weight than that of Raymond of Capua, and Pope Urban VI., which, however, have not been formally received.
The writer of the above paragraphs has since read the Abbé Langlet's four volumes on "Apparitions," and thinks he ought not to take anything from them. He is convinced of all the apparitions verified by the Church, but he has some doubts about the others, until they are authentically recognized. The Cordeliers and the Jacobins, the Jansenists and the Molinists have all had their apparitions and their miracles."Iliacos inter muros peccatur et extra."
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF PLATESA.A, B, C, OR ALPHABET.ABBÉ.ABBEY—ABBOT.ABLE—ABILITY.ABRAHAM.ABUSE.ABUSE OF WORDS.ACADEMY.ADAM.ADORATION.ADULTERY.AFFIRMATION OR OATH.AGAR, OR HAGAR.ALCHEMY.ALKORAN;ALEXANDER.ALEXANDRIA.ALGIERS.ALLEGORIES.ALMANAC.ALTARS, TEMPLES, RITES, SACRIFICES, ETC.AMAZONS.AMBIGUITY—EQUIVOCATION.AMERICA.AMPLIFICATION.ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.ANECDOTES.ANGELS.ANNALS.ANNATS.ANTHROPOMORPHITES.ANTI-LUCRETIUS.ANTIQUITY.APIS.APOCALYPSE.ANTI-TRINITARIANS.APOCRYPHA—APOCRYPHAL.APOSTATE.APOSTLES.APPARITION.