EARLY DESCRIPTION OF CHRIST’S PERSONAL APPEARANCE.
The letter purporting to be written by Publius Lentulus, a friend of Pilate, to the Roman Senate, and preserved in St. Anselm’s writings, if not genuine, is supposed to have been fabricated as early as the third century, and is as follows: “In this time appeared a man who lives till now—a man endowed with great powers. Men call Him a great prophet. His own disciples term Him the Son of God. His name is Jesus Christ. He restores the dead to life, and cures the sick of all manner of diseases. This man is of noble and well-proportioned stature, with a face full of kindness and yet firmness, so that the beholders both love Him and fear Him. His hair is the colour of wine, and golden at the root—straight and without lustre—but from the level of the ears curling and glossy, and divided down the centre, after the fashion of the Nazarites. His forehead is even and smooth; His face without blemish, and enhanced by a comely red; His countenance ingenuous and kind; nose and mouth in no way faulty. His beard is thick, of the same colour as his hair, and forked in form. His eyes are blue and extremely brilliant. In reproof and rebuke He is formidable; in exhortation and teaching, gentle and amiable of tongue. None have seen him to laugh; but many, on the contrary, to weep. His person is tall; His hands beautiful and straight. In speaking he is deliberate and grave, and little given to loquacity. In beauty surpassing most men.”
KING AGBARUS WRITING A LETTER TO CHRIST.
Eusebius, who died about 338, mentions the legend about King Agbarus, who sent to Christ by the hand of Ananias, his footman, a letter inviting Him to Edessa, saying that he had heard of the cures performed by Christ, and that he earnestly desired to be cured of a disease. Our Lord replied that He could not come, for His mission to the Jews must be fulfilled; but after His Ascension He would send one of His disciples, who would cure him and all that were with him. Nothing further is known, except that St. John of Damascus, writing in the eighth century, alluding to the story, says that Agbarus also requested Christ’s picture as a means of cure. Others say Agbarus sent a painter to take the likeness, but he found an insurmountable difficulty in the light which beamed from the Lord’s countenance. Christ, knowing the thoughts of the messenger, took His robe, and, pressing it to His countenance, a perfect portrait was left upon it; and thiswas sent to King Agbarus, who was cured thereby. Others add that Ananias, in conveying the portrait, had occasion to stop at Hierapolis, and, fearing to lose it, hid it among some bricks; but a supernatural light surrounded the place, and the image was also copied on a brick lying near the cloth, and this brick was also preserved. The original cloth afterwards found its way to Constantinople, another to Rome, and another to Genoa. The replica of the cloth is shown in St. Sylvester’s, in Rome.
CHRIST’S NOVEL STYLE OF PREACHING.
Dr. Jortin thus happily describes the novel, striking, and permanent beauty of Christ’s style of preaching: “In the spring our Saviour went into the fields and sat down on a mountain, and made that discourse which is recorded in St. Matthew, and which is full of observations arising from the things which offered themselves to His sight. For when He exhorted His disciples to trust in God, He bade them behold the fowls of the air, which were then flying about them, and were fed by Divine Providence, though they did not sow nor reap nor gather into barns. He bade them take notice of the lilies of the field, which were then blown, and were so beautifully clothed by the same power, and yet toiled not, like the husbandmen who were then at work. Being in a place where they had a wide prospect of cultivated land, He bade them observe how God caused the sun to shine and the rain to descend upon the fields and gardens, even of the wicked and ungrateful. And He continued to convey His doctrine to them under rural images, speaking of good trees and corrupt trees—of wolves in sheep’s clothing—of grapes not growing upon thorns, nor figs on thistles—of the folly of casting precious things to dogs and swine—of good measure pressed down, and shaken together and running over. Speaking at the same time to the people, many of whom were fishermen and lived upon fish, He says, ‘What man of you will give his son a serpent, if he ask a fish?’ Therefore, when He said in the same discourse to His disciples, ‘Ye are the light of the world: a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid,’ it is probable that He pointed to a city within their view, situated upon the brow of a hill. And when He called them the salt of the earth, He alluded perhaps to the husbandmen who were manuring the ground; and when He compared every person who observed His precepts to a man who built a house upon a rock, which stood firm; and every one who slighted His word to a man who built a house upon thesand, which was thrown down by the winds and floods,—when He used this comparison, it is not improbable that He had before His eyes houses standing upon high ground, and houses standing in the valley in a ruinous condition, which had been destroyed by inundations.”
THE SENTENCE ON CHRIST.
St. Basil affirms that the high priest caused the Holy Jesus to be led with a cord about His neck; and in memory of that the priests for many ages wore a stole about theirs. But the Jews did it, according to the custom of the nation, to signify He was condemned to death.
Jeremy Taylor says that it cannot be thought but the ministers of Jewish malice used all the circumstances of affliction which in any case were accustomed towards malefactors and persons to be crucified; and therefore it was in some old figures we see our Blessed Lord described with a table appendent to the fringe of His garment, set full of nails and pointed iron, for so sometimes they afflicted persons condemned to that kind of death. And St. Cyprian affirms that Christ did stick to the wood that He carried, being galled with the iron at His heels and nailed even before His execution.
CHRIST APPEARING TO JAMES.
Jeremy Taylor says that after the resurrection Christ appeared also unto James, but at what time is uncertain, save that there is something concerning it in the Gospel of St. Matthew which the Nazarenes of Berea used, and which it is likely themselves added out of report; for there is nothing of it in our Greek copies. The words are these: “When the Lord had given the linen in which He was wrapped to the servant of the high priest, He went and appeared unto James. For James had vowed, after he received the Lord’s Supper, that he would eat no bread till he saw the Lord risen from the grave. Then the Lord called for bread; He blessed it and brake it, and gave it to James the Just, and said, ‘My brother, eat bread, for the Son of man is risen from the sleep of death.’”
By this it would seem to be done upon the day of resurrection; but the relation of it by St. Paul puts it between the appearance which He made to the five hundred and that last to the Apostles, when He was to ascend into heaven.
THE VARIOUS FORMS OF CROSSES.
The early Christian writers even in the second century treated prominently the cross as a symbol of the faith, and it came to be held in high honour. The precise figure of the cross, however, is somewhat doubtful, and various forms have been accepted less simple than that now so familiar. There are modifications according to particular countries and places.
One cross resembles the Hebrew letter T, there being no upper limb above the horizontal line. The Greek Cross is a cross where the four limbs are of equal length. The Latin Cross is that commonly used by Christians, the lower perpendicular limb being at least twice the length of the upper limb. The Cross of the Resurrection has a small banner attached to the upper portion, and the lowest perpendicular limb is much longer than the other three. The Cross of the Baptist has also a smaller scroll attached in like manner. The Patriarchal Cross, or Cross of the Holy Sepulchre, was a Greek Cross brought from the East by the Crusaders, also called the Archbishop’s Cross and the Cross of Lorraine, and it has two transverse bars, one shorter and above the other. The Papal Cross is like the last, but has three transverse bars. The Greek Cross, known in mediæval times as St. Andrew’s Cross, consists of slanting bars, instead of perpendicular and horizontal. There are other fanciful forms of cross, called the Cross of Jerusalem, having a small lip at the end of four equal limbs. The Irish Cross, or Cross of Iona, has a circle placed over the upper part of the cross. There are pectoral crosses more or less fanciful, worn as relics and ornaments of dress.
THE DISCOVERY OF THE HOLY CROSS.
When Constantine triumphed over his enemies by the miraculous power of the cross, he resolved to build a magnificent church in Jerusalem. His mother, St. Helena, then resolved, though eighty years old, to go herself to discover the identical cross there. On her arrival none could tell where it was, as the heathens, it was thought, purposely concealed it from the Christians by burying it under heaps of rubbish, building over it a temple of Venus, and placing there a statue of Jupiter. But Helena persevered, and pulled down these pagan erections, and at a great depth discovered three crosses, and also the nails used and the label or superscription. A difficulty then arose as to which of the three was the cross on which the Saviour was hung. Tosolve this doubt, Bishop Macarius suggested that the three crosses should be carried and shown to a sick and dying lady. Two of the crosses having produced no effect, the third, on being touched by her, cured the patient at once. St. Helena on this was delighted, and built a church on the spot where the cross was found, and she carried part of the cross to Constantinople to her son Constantine: another part was sent to the church at Rome. St. Helena died the same year, in 326. The board on which Christ’s title was printed in red letters was about twelve inches long, and was sent to Rome. The main part of the cross was inclosed in a silver shrine, and given to be kept in Jerusalem by St. Macarius in the church which Helena and Constantine built there. St. Paulinus said that though chips were almost daily cut off from the cross and given to devout persons, yet the sacred wood suffered no diminution. And pieces were taken to all the ends of the earth. The church at Jerusalem was called the Basilica of the Holy Cross.
THE NAILS OF THE CROSS.
The nails of the cross were traced with great devotion. Calvin said there were fifteen. There was one at Rome, one at Sienna, one at Venice, one in the Church of the Carmelites in Paris, and some in other places. A practice arose of filing part of the nail and touching a true nail with other nails, and so giving a kind of sanctity to those. St. Gregory the Great and other popes sent raspings of the chains of St. Peter as relics in the same way. As to the true nails of the cross, it was said St. Helena threw one into the Adriatic Sea to allay a violent storm from which the ship was sinking, whereon the storm at once ceased. St. Ambrose said that Constantine the Great fixed one of the nails in a rude diadem of pearls to be worn on great occasions, and he put another in the costly bridle of his horse as a protection in time of battle.
THIEVES AT THE CRUCIFIXION.
There is an ancient tradition that, when the Holy Family, travelling through hidden paths and solitary defiles, had passed Jerusalem and were descending into the plains of Syria, they encountered certain thieves, who fell upon them; and one of these would have maltreated and plundered them, but his comrade interfered and said, “Suffer them, I beseech thee, to go in peace, and I will give thee forty groats, and likewise my girdle,” which offer being accepted, the merciful robber led the Holy Travellersto his stronghold on the rock, and gave them lodging for the night. And Mary said to him, “The Lord God will receive thee to His right hand, and grant the pardon of thy sins.”
And it was so: for in after-times these two thieves were crucified with Christ, one on the right hand and one on the left; and the merciful thief went with the Saviour into Paradise. The scene of this encounter with the robbers, near Ramla, is still pointed out to travellers, and still in evil repute as the haunt of banditti. The crusaders visited the spot as a place of pilgrimage; and the Abbé Orsini considers the first part of this story as authenticated, but the legend concerning the good thief he admits to be doubtful.
THE SOLDIER WHO PIERCED THE SAVIOUR’S SIDE.
There is a legend that the soldier who pierced the Saviour’s side, whose name was Longinus, was struck with wonder and remorse, and exclaimed, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” He was therefore the first of the Gentiles to be converted. As soon as he had lifted his blood-stained hands to his face, his eyesight, which for years had been weak, was healed. He repented, was baptised, and was for twenty-eight years an ardent missionary. He was then ordered to sacrifice to the false gods, and on refusal said he longed to become a martyr, and told the governor, who was blind, that he would recover his sight only after putting him to death. Accordingly, Longinus was beheaded, and the governor had his sight restored, and became himself also a Christian. St. Longinus, as the first-fruits of the Gentiles, is painted by the artists, and he became the patron saint of Mantua; and the spear with which he pierced the Saviour’s side is preserved among the treasures of St. Peter’s at Rome.
THE LEGEND OF THE CROSS.
A Life of Christ published in 1517 at Troyes told the following story. When Adam, after being banished from Paradise, in his old age felt the approach of death, he sent Seth to Paradise to ask the archangel who kept the gate to give him a balsam that would save him from death. Seth with difficulty traced the way, and on reaching it was transported with wonder and rapture at the dazzling beauty of the scene, and the music, and the glittering sword of the cherub. He had not courage to remember his message; but the angel read his thoughts, and told him that the time of pardon had not yet come, and that four thousand yearsmust roll on before the Redeemer would open the gate to Adam. Nevertheless, as a token of future pardon, he allowed Seth a glimpse of the interior of Paradise, and of the mighty tree on which redemption was to be won. The cherub gave Seth three seeds of this tree, which were to be placed in the mouth of Adam when buried. This was done a few days after Seth’s return, when Adam died and was buried. Out of this grave rose a cedar, a cypress, and a pine. Moses had a rod of one of these trees. The cedar, after many ages, was that of which the Cross of Calvary was made. It was carried off on the plundering of Jerusalem to Persia, but was recovered by Heraclius on September 14th, 615, the day afterwards commemorated as the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS.
The painters of sacred subjects for churches used to divide the stages of the Crucifixion into seven, and latterly into fourteen. The first importation of the stations into Europe was said to be by a citizen of Nuremberg, who returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy City in 1477, and soon after engaged Kraft, a friend of Albert Dürer, to execute seven sculptures for stone pillars to be erected in the city of Nuremberg. The fourteen stations afterwards came to be entitled as follows: (1) Jesus is condemned; (2) Jesus takes the cross; (3) Jesus falls for the first time; (4) Jesus meets His blessed mother; (5) Simon the Cyrenian appears; (6) Jesus meets St. Veronica; (7) Jesus falls for the second time; (8) the daughters of Jerusalem; (9) Jesus falls for the third time; (10) Jesus is stripped of His garments; (11) Jesus is nailed on the cross; (12) Jesus dies on the cross; (13) Jesus is laid in the arms of His blessed mother; (14) the entombment.
THE CROWN OF THORNS, THE SPONGE, AND THE BLOOD.
Not only the cross, but the crown of thorns, also had its history. The crown of thorns had been preserved for several centuries at Constantinople, and had been pledged to the Venetians for a large sum of money, as is stated afterwards in more detail. The crown of thorns was at last given by the Emperor Baldwin II. to St. Louis, King of France, in acknowledgment of the king’s contributions to defend the holy places, and he redeemed it from the Venetians. It was carried in a sealed case by holy religious men from Venice into France; and St. Louis and his family, and prelates and princes, met the holy treasure five leagues beyondSens. The king and his brother were barefoot and in their shirts, and were bathed in tears, and a great procession followed them. It was ultimately lodged in La Sainte Chapelle, the exquisite Holy Chapel at Paris, built for the purpose of receiving it. A part of the cross was also afterwards received and added to the deposit there. The holy sponge used at the Crucifixion was shown at Rome in the church of St. John Lateran tinged with blood. The holy lance was kept at Jerusalem with the main part of the cross. It was afterwards buried at Antioch to preserve it from the Saracens. It was at a later date taken to Jerusalem, and then to Constantinople. It was said the Emperor Baldwin pawned the point of it to raise money, and it was redeemed by St. Louis of France and taken to the Holy Chapel in Paris. At a later date, in 1492, the Sultan sent the lance as a present to Pope Innocent VIII., stating that the point was in the possession of the King of France. The blood of Christ was also shown in some places, particularly at Mantua.
THE PAWNING OF THE CROWN OF THORNS (A.D.1213).
This pawning was as follows. When Baldwin II., Emperor of Constantinople, was hard pressed in 1213, Gibbon relates that the crown of thorns had been preserved in the Imperial Chapel of Constantinople. In his absence the barons of Romania borrowed a sum of 13,134 pieces of gold (about £6,567) on the credit of the crown. They failed to repay the loan, and a rich Venetian, Nicholas Querini, undertook to satisfy the impatient creditors, on condition that the relic should be lodged at Venice, to become his absolute property if not redeemed within a short and definite period. The barons apprised their sovereign of the hard treaty and the impending loss; and as the empire could not redeem the crown, Baldwin was anxious to snatch the prize from the Venetians, and to vest it with more honour and emolument in the hands of the most Christian king, Louis IX. of France. The king’s ambassadors, two Dominicans, were despatched to Venice to redeem and receive the holy crown, which had escaped the dangers of the sea and the galleys of Vataces. On opening a wooden box, they recognised the seals of the Doge and barons, which were applied on a shrine of silver, and within this shrine the monument of the Passion was enclosed in a golden vase. The reluctant Venetians yielded to justice and power. The Emperor Frederick granted a free passage. The King of France and his court advanced as far as Troyes, in Champagne,to meet with devotion the inestimable relic. It was borne in triumph by the king himself, barefoot and in his shirt; and a free gift of 10,000 marks of silver reconciled Baldwin to his loss. The success of this transaction tempted Baldwin to offer, with the same generosity, the remaining furniture of his chapel. A large and authentic portion of the true cross, the baby linen of the Son of God, the lance, the sponge, and the chain of His Passion, the rod of Moses, and part of the skull of John the Baptist, were purchased by Louis IX. for 20,000 marks, and lodged in Sainte Chapelle in Paris.
THE APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS.
Certain books have been written and circulated in the early ages of Christianity which professed to recite events not mentioned in the Four Gospels or New Testament. Though all are spurious and of uncertain authorship, there is, nevertheless, great interest in some of the incidents; and as they were so extensively read by early Christians some account of these is acceptable to all readers of sacred subjects. Though in all ages treated with contempt by the authoritative teachers in the Church, it is easy to comprehend how they came to attract so much notice, for there is an air of simplicity and verisimilitude in some of the incidents, and of course no human being is in a position to affirm or deny the substance of the things thus recorded. Milman says these legends can still be traced in some of our Christmas carols. One of these apocryphal gospels is called the “Protevangelion, or Gospel of James,” who was one of the sons of Joseph the carpenter, and it records incidents of the childhood of Jesus. The existence of this gospel is traced to the fourth century. Another is the “Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, or of the Infancy of Mary and of Jesus,” supposed to be written in the fifth century. Another is the “Gospel of the Nativity of Mary.” This was fathered upon Jerome, and supposed to be written in the fifth century, and it was much read in the Middle Ages. Another is the “History of Joseph the Carpenter,” supposed to belong to the fourth century. Another is the “Gospel of Thomas, or Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus,” said to be written about the middle of the second century. Another is the “Arabic Gospel of the Infancy,” ascribed to the fifth or sixth century. There is also a professed correspondence between Jesus and King Agbarus, part of which is said to belong to the sixth century and part to the third century. There is also the “Gospel of Nicodemus, or Acts ofPilate,” supposed to be written in the second century. There are also Letters and Reports of Pilate and Herod about Christ, professing to narrate facts and incidents of that time. All these gospels or legends abound in miracles and prodigies, some of them very puerile. A translation was published of the above-mentioned legends by B. Harris Cowper in 1867.
FALSE CHRISTS IN DIFFERENT AGES.
False Christs began to appear early, as is mentioned in St. Luke and by Josephus: Jortin mentions other successors. In the reign of Adrian one Barcohab pretended to be Messias. In 434 one Moses Cretensis promised, like Moses, to divide the sea at Crete and deliver the Jews there; and some people, when commanded by him, actually cast themselves into the waves and perished. Again, about 420, the time of Socrates the historian, another impostor appeared. Again, in 520, one Dunaan; one Julian in 529; one Mohammed in 571; another, a Syrian, in 721. In 1138 another in France; in 1157 another in Spain; in 1167 another in Fez. In Arabia, in 1167, another appeared, and was brought before the king, who asked the pretender what sign or miracle he could show in attestation of his power. The man replied, “Cut off my head, and I will return to life again.” The king took him at his word, and the head was cut off, but it never was put on again nor life restored. Again, another appeared in Persia in 1174; another in Moravia in 1176; another, who was also an enchanter, in Persia in 1199; another in Spain in 1497; another in Austria in 1500; another in Cologne in 1509; another in Spain, burnt by the Emperor Charles V., in 1534; another in the East Indies in 1615; another in Holland in 1624; another in Smyrna in 1666, named Sabbatar Sevi, who raised great expectations; another in 1682, named Rabbi Mordecai, a German Jew.
THE SEPTUAGINT BIBLE AND NEW TESTAMENT.
Vast difficulties surround the settlement of the orthodox list of books of the New Testament. The Old Testament was not used as a name in the time of Christ; but the sacred books, or the Law and the Prophets, were the modes of reference, these being read regularly in the synagogues as part of the ceremonial of public worship. In the third century before the Christian era, the Old Testament was translated into Greek, or at least was begun to be so, in order to meet the wants of the Greek-speaking Jews. Ptolemy II. is said to have asked the highpriest at Jerusalem to select skilful elders to make the translation, and a copy was to be deposited in the library at Alexandria. Some think the word “Septuagint” implied that there were seventy translators; others that it only meant that the work was approved by the Alexandrine Sanhedrim. The translation is said to be defective in several passages. The Septuagint came soon to be the standard version, as Hebrew had become almost an unknown language even to the Jews of Palestine. The dates and order of the Gospels have also given rise to interminable controversies. The Apostles all gave oral recollections of the facts of Christ’s life and sayings. The expression “New Testament” did not come into use until the latter part of the second century. A canon was at length settled, though the date is uncertain, expressing the authentic collection of Christian Scriptures. And yet the earliest known list of books of the New Testament was not discovered till the seventeenth century in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, and the original of it was said to be of the date of 150A.D.
ENGLISH VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE.
Mr. Dore says that there is no English Bible known to be in existence earlier than the fourteenth century. But the Psalter and other portions of the Old and New Testament were translated from the Latin into English at various times between the seventh and fourteenth centuries. Three versions in English of the Psalter bear a date soon after 1300. The first entire Bible in English was the work of Nicholas de Hereford and John Wycliffe, about 1380. Tyndale’s New Testament was printed in English about 1525, and he died in 1537. Coverdale’s Bible in the English language was published in 1535. The Genevan Version, published in English at Geneva in 1560, by its singular rendering of Gen. iii. 7, is commonly known as the Breeches Bible. A Roman Catholic translation into English of the New Testament was published at Rheims in 1582, and later at Douai, on the removal of the Roman Catholic College to the latter place. King James I.’s new translation of the Bible, called the Authorised Version, was first published in 1611.
THE DISCIPLES AND APOSTLES OF OUR LORD.
DEATHS OF THE APOSTLES.
St. Matthew suffered martyrdom by being slain with a sword at a distant city of Ethiopia. St. Mark expired at Alexandria, after having been cruelly dragged through the streets of that city. St. Luke was hanged upon an olive tree in Greece. St. John was put into a caldron of boiling oil, but escaped death in a miraculous manner, and was afterwards banished to Patmos. St. Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downward. St. James the Great was beheaded at Jerusalem. St. James the Less was thrown from a lofty pinnacle of the Temple, and then beaten to death with a fuller’s club. St. Philip was hanged against a pillar at Hierapolis, in Phrygia. St. Bartholomew was flayed alive. St. Andrew was bound to a cross, whence he preached to his persecutors till he died. St. Thomas was run through the body with a lance at Coromandel, in the East Indies. St. Jude was shot to death with arrows. St. Matthias was first stoned and then beheaded. St. Barnabas of the Gentiles was stoned by the Jews at Salonica. St. Paul, after various tortures and persecutions, was at length beheaded at Rome by the Emperor Nero.
THE APOSTLES WHO WERE MARRIED.
Eusebius says that Clement, who lived in the first century, gave a statement of those Apostles who continued in the married state. Peter and Philip had children. Philip also gave his daughters in marriage to husbands. Others say that Philip had four virgin daughters who prophesied. Paul does not demur in a certain epistle to mention his own wife, whom he did not take about with him, in order that he might expedite his ministry the better. It is said that Peter, seeing his own wife led awayto execution, was not displeased, and he called out to her in a comforting voice, addressing her by name, “Be sure to remember the Lord!”
PARTICULARS AS TO ST. MATTHEW THE APOSTLE.
Levi was the name of Matthew, who was of Jewish extraction, and was born in Galilee. He was a publican or tax-collector, which was a profession odious among the Jews, as it reminded them of their slavery to the Romans. After the Ascension he preached in Judæa and the neighbouring countries till the dispersion of the Apostles, and a little before the latter date he wrote his gospel, his object being to satisfy the converts of Palestine: while Mark wrote his for the Roman converts; Luke, to oppose the false histories; and John, to oppose the heresies of Cerinthus and Ebion. Matthew afterwards went as apostle to the East. He lived sparingly, ate no flesh, and was a vegetarian. He was in the south and east of Asia, ended in Parthia, and suffered martyrdom at Nadabar. He was said to be honourably interred at Hierapolis. His relics were brought to the West, and in 1080 Pope Gregory VII. said these were kept in a church which bore his name at Salerno. The Apostles each had some mystical animal as an emblem. John had the eagle; St. Luke had the calf; Mark had the lion; and Matthew had a man, to denote Christ’s human generation. The primitive Christians always stood up when the Gospel of Matthew was read, and in many places candles were lighted, though it was day. Thomas Aquinas always read the gospel on his knees.
PARTICULARS AS TO ST. MARK.
St. Mark was born a Jew, and was said to be converted by the Apostles after the Resurrection. He became attached to St. Peter, and was called his disciple. He was sent by St. Peter to found the Church at Aquileia, and was afterwards appointed Bishop of Alexandria, then considered the second city of the world after Rome. He was afterwards a martyr there, having incurred suspicion of being a magician from the miracles he worked. He was tied and dragged about the streets, and thrown over rocks and precipices, and died in 68, three years after St. Peter and St. Paul. His body was afterwards conveyed by stealth to Venice in 815, and was deposited in a secret place in the Doge’s rich chapel of St. Mark, and he is deemed the patron saint of Venice.
THE HOUSE OF ST. MARK.
Jeremy Taylor says that “the house of John, surnamed Mark (as Alexander reports in the life of St. Barnabas), was consecrated by many actions of religion: by our Blessed Saviour’s eating the Passover; His institution of the Holy Eucharist; His farewell sermon; and the Apostles met there in the octaves of Easter, whither Christ came again, and hallowed it with His presence; and there, to make up the relative sanctification complete, the Holy Ghost descended upon their heads in ‘the Feast of Pentecost’; and this was erected into a fair fabric, and is mentioned as a famous church by St. Jerome and Venerable Bede; in which, as Andrichomius adds, ‘St. Peter preached that sermon which was miraculously prosperous in the conversion of three thousand; there St. James, brother of our Lord, was consecrated first Bishop of Jerusalem; St. Stephen and the other were there ordained deacons; there the Apostles kept their first council and compiled their Creed.’”
PARTICULARS OF ST. LUKE THE EVANGELIST.
St. Luke was a native of Antioch, was well educated, and studied and became eminent as a physician. Some think he was converted by St. Paul, and he attached himself to that apostle. He wrote the gospel in 57, four years before his final arrival at Rome. He attended St. Paul to Rome in 61. After the martyrdom of St. Paul, he preached in Italy, Gaul, and Macedonia. It is thought he was crucified at Elæa, in the Peloponnesus, on an olive tree, at the age of eighty-four. His bones were, by order of the Emperor Constantine, in 357 removed from Patras, in Achaia, and deposited in the Church of the Apostles at Constantinople, together with those of St. Andrew and St. Timothy. Some of his relics went to Brescia, some to Nola, some to Findi, and some to Mount Athos. The head of St. Luke was brought to Rome, and laid in the church of the monastery of St. Andrew. Old manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke represent him as surrounded with instruments of writing.
PARTICULARS AS TO ST. BARTHOLOMEW.
There have been differences of opinion as to the identity of St. Bartholomew, some being of opinion that he was the same Nathanael whose simplicity and guilelessness were commended. He was chosen one of the Twelve, and was a witness of the Resurrection. He went after the Ascension as an apostle to theIndies and Persia. He was afterwards in Phrygia, and Lycaonia, and Great Armenia, in which last place he was crucified. Some say he was first flayed alive. In 508 the Emperor Anastasius removed his relics to the city of Duras, in Mesopotamia. Soon after they were translated to the Isle of Lipari, near Sicily, in 809 to Benevento, and in 983 to Rome, and are deposited under the high altar in the Church of St. Bartholomew, in the Isle of Tiber. An arm of the apostle’s body was sent to Edward the Confessor by the Bishop of Benevento, and it was put in Canterbury Cathedral. A fine statue of the apostle is in the cathedral at Milan, representing him flayed alive. The characteristic quality of St. Bartholomew was zeal.
PARTICULARS AS TO ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE.
St. Thomas was a Galilean fisherman, and was made an apostle in 31. He was rather slow in understanding, but of great simplicity and ardour. He offered to go to Jerusalem and die with Christ, when the priests and Pharisees were contriving His death. After the Crucifixion Thomas refused to believe the report of the Resurrection until he actually saw the prints of the nails and felt the very wound in Christ’s side; and Christ, in His condescension to this weakness, allowed him to satisfy himself, whereupon Thomas was prostrated with compunction. After the descent of the Holy Ghost, Thomas went to preach in Parthia, and laboured in Media, Persia, and Bactria, as well as India. He is said to have suffered martyrdom at Meliapor, or St. Thomas’s, on this side the Ganges, on the coast of Coromandel, where his body was discovered pierced with lances. The body was carried to the city of Edessa, and deposited under the great church there with veneration. St. Chrysostom said, in 402, that the sepulchres of only four of the Apostles were then known—namely, Peter, Paul, John, and Thomas. John III., of Portugal, ordered the body of St. Thomas to be searched for at Meliapolis, and when digging there in 1523 a deep vault was discovered, containing the bones of the saint, and part of the lance with which he was slain, and a vial tinged with his blood. The apostle’s body was put in a chest of porcelain adorned with silver. The Portuguese built a new town about this church, and called it St. Thomas’s.
PARTICULARS AS TO ST. SIMEON.
St. Simeon, son of Cleophas or Alphæus and of Mary, sister of the Virgin, and cousin-german of Christ, was about nine yearsolder than Christ. He succeeded his brother St. James the Less as Bishop of Jerusalem in 62. The Christians having been warned to leave Jerusalem, St. Simeon and they departed before Vespasian, general of the Romans, entered and burnt the city. Heresies grew up in the Church before the death of St. Simeon. He was crucified at the age of 120, having governed the Church at Jerusalem about forty-three years.
PARTICULARS AS TO ST. TIMOTHY.
St. Timothy was early adopted as disciple by St. Paul, having been in his youth a great reader of pious books. He was made Bishop of Ephesus before St. John arrived there. Under the Emperor Nerva, in 97, while St. John was still in Patmos, Timothy was slain with stones and clubs by the heathen, owing to his opposing the idolatrous practices then current. His relics were conveyed to Constantinople in 356, in the reign of Constantius, and with those of St. Andrew and St. Luke were deposited under the altar in the Church of the Apostles.
PARTICULARS AS TO ST. BARNABAS.
The Scriptures contain no mention of St. Barnabas after he separated from St. Paul and sailed for Cyprus. Some say he afterwards went to Milan, and became the first bishop there. In an apocryphal work of the fifth century, it is said he suffered martyrdom in Cyprus, being stoned by the Jews, who hated him on account of his unorthodox views. The apostle was buried in the island; but four centuries later his relics were removed to Constantinople, and a church erected and dedicated to him. It is said that at the discovery of the relics of St. Barnabas there was found lying on his breast a copy of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, written in the Hebrew tongue, and as was supposed in St. Barnabas’s own hand. The relics were translated in the seventh century to Milan. Still later, it was said that the body was taken to Toulouse, where also were the bodies of five other apostles: James, the son of Zebedee; Philip; James, son of Alphæus; Simon; and Jude. The head is now exhibited there apart from the body, which reposes in its own shrine. Another head of St. Barnabas is in Genoa, another at Naples, another in Bavaria; and legs and bones and jaw are dispersed in other places. There was extant in the second century an Epistle of St. Barnabas, but its authenticity has long been discredited.
PARTICULARS AS TO ST. TITUS.
St. Titus was born a Gentile, and seems to have been converted by St. Paul. He was afterwards ordained by St. Paul to be Bishop of Crete. He lived to the age of ninety-four, and died in that island. His body was kept with great veneration in the cathedral of Gortyna, the ancient metropolis of the island, and six miles from Mount Ida. This city was destroyed by the Saracens in 823, and the relics could not be discovered. But the head of the saint was conveyed safely to Venice, and is venerated in the ducal basilica of St. Mark.
PARTICULARS AS TO ST. PHILIP THE APOSTLE.
St. Philip, who lived at Bethsaida in Galilee, was, when called to his office, a married man with three daughters, two of whom lived virgins to a great age. It was Philip to whom Jesus proposed the problem how to feed the multitude of five thousand in the wilderness. After the Ascension Philip preached in Phrygia, and was known to Polycarp, and attained a great age. He was buried at Hierapolis, and his relics, it was believed, often saved the city. An arm of St. Philip was sent to Florence in 1204: the body was said to be in the Church of St. Philip and St. James in Rome.
PARTICULARS AS TO ST. ANDREW THE APOSTLE.
St. Andrew the Apostle was a native of Bethsaida, on the banks of Lake Gennesareth, and brother of Simon Peter. St. Andrew became a disciple of John the Baptist, and heard John hail Jesus as the Lamb of God. Believing there was some mysterious significance in this saying, he followed Christ wistfully, and asked where He dwelt, whereon Christ bade him come and see, and that night was spent in His company. The result was that Andrew was the first called of the Apostles; hence called by the Greeks Protoclete. Andrew could not rest till he had told Peter, and he was also called as a disciple. Jesus once lodged at the house of the two brothers, and healed their mother of a fever. Andrew was specially consulted as to the loaves and fishes available to feed the five thousand. After the Resurrection Andrew preached in Scythia, also in Greece, where he confounded all the philosophers. He went also to Muscovy. He was at last crucified at Patræ, in Achaia, and some say it was on an olive tree. His body was carried from Patræ to Constantinople in 357, along with those of Luke and Timothy, and deposited in theChurch of the Apostles. Some of his relics were taken to Milan, Nola, and Brescia; and the French, in 1210, brought some of them to Amalphi. It is a common opinion that the cross of St. Andrew was in the form of the letter X, styled a cross decussate; and it is said his cross was brought from Achaia to the nunnery of Weaune, near Marseilles; then to the abbey of St. Victor, Marseilles, in 1250, and where it is still shown. Part of it was taken to Brussels by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, who founded the Knights of the Golden Fleece, each of whom wears a St. Andrew’s Cross, or the Cross of Burgundy. An abbot of St. Andrew’s, Scotland, also, in 369, brought certain relics from Patræ, and deposited them in a monastery, now the site of St. Andrew’s, and many foreign pilgrims long visited that church. The order of knighthood in honour of St. Andrew was ascribed by the Scots to King Achaius in the eighth century, and James VII. revived it. The collar is of thistles and rue.
HOW ST. ANDREW BECAME PATRON SAINT OF SCOTLAND.
When Angus MacFergus succeeded in 731 to the throne of the Picts, he had several enemies to subdue, and carried his forces across the Firth of Forth to fight the Saxons of Northumbria. A monk, Regulus, at that time brought the relics of the apostle to Scotland. Previous to a great battle in Lothian, St. Andrew appeared to King Angus either in a dream or during the battle with the figure of the St. Andrew’s Cross in the air, and told the king that he (the saint) was defender of his kingdom, and that on the return of the king to his home he must devote one-tenth part of his kingdom in honour of St. Andrew. Angus gained a great victory over the Saxon general, named Athelstane, who fell at the place now called Athelstaneford. After this date St. Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland, up to which time, as Bede says, St. Peter had filled that office. The church at Hexham and the church of St. Andrew’s were both dedicated to St. Andrew, and both possessed relics of the apostle.
JAMES AND JOHN THE APOSTLES.
James and John, the sons of Salome, claimed the two first places in Christ’s kingdom. James was put to death by Herod. As to John, he alone of the Apostles attended the Crucifixion, and was harassed by the spectacle. In his old age, when he survived all the other Apostles and governed all the Churches of Asia, he was arrested at the instance of Domitian, and then taken prisoner to Rome in 95.
ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE.
St. John the Evangelist and Apostle was the son of Zebedee and Salome, a Galilean, and younger brother of St. James the Great. John was a disciple of John the Baptist, and is supposed to have been with Andrew, when the two left the Baptist to follow Christ. John was the youngest of all the Apostles, being about twenty-five when called, and he lived seventy years after the Crucifixion. He lived a bachelor. John went with Peter to the sepulchre on hearing the news from Mary Magdalene, and he outran Peter and had the first view. He and Peter returned to their fishing, and he first recognised Christ walking on the shore. After the meeting of the Apostles, John preached first in Jerusalem, then went to Parthia. He afterwards took charge of all the Churches of Asia. In the persecution of 95, John was apprehended in Asia, and sent to Rome, where he was thrown into a caldron of boiling oil; but he was not injured. He was afterwards banished by Domitian to the isle of Patmos, in the Archipelago, and there he wrote the Revelation. At the death of Domitian in 97, John returned to Ephesus, some months after the martyrdom of St. Timothy there. He was pressed to take charge of that Church. John wore a plate of gold on his forehead, as an ensign of his Christian priesthood. It was to confute the blasphemies of Ebion and Cerinthus, who denied the divinity of Christ, that John composed his gospel in 98, at the age of ninety-two. He also wrote the three epistles. He died in peace at Ephesus at ninety-four, though some ancients said he never died. He was buried on a mountain outside of Ephesus, and his dust was said to be famous for the miracles it wrought.
AS TO ST. JOHN’S GRAVE.
St. Augustine mentions and ridicules a tradition that St. John ordered his own grave to be made, lay down in it, and went to sleep,—still sleeping there, as is manifest by the heaving of the earth over him as he breathes. This was the tradition founded on John xxi. 22, 23, where Jesus said to Peter, “If I will that he [John] tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die.” Some afterwards explained this by saying that John died without pain or change, and immediately rose again in bodily form, and ascended into heaven to rejoin Christ and the Virgin.
ST. JOHN RECLAIMING A YOUNG ROBBER CHIEF.
It was related by Clement of Alexandria that, when St. John was at Ephesus, and before he was exiled to Patmos, he had taken under his care a young man of promising character, and whom he left in charge to a bishop during his own absence. But the youth took to evil courses, and went to the forest and headed a band of robbers and assassins. When John, on returning, asked for the youth and heard this account, he rent his garments, and wept with a loud voice at the faithless guardianship, and called for a horse and rode to the forest in search of the youth. When the latter as captain beheld his old master and instructor, he turned and would have fled from his presence. But St. John by the most fervent entreaties prevailed on him to stop and listen to his words. After some conference, the robber, utterly subdued, burst into tears of penitence, imploring forgiveness; and while he spoke he hid beneath his robe his right hand, which had been sullied with so many crimes. But St. John, falling on his knees before him, seized that blood-polluted hand, and kissed it and bathed it with his tears, and he remained with his reconverted brother till he had by prayers and encouraging words and affectionate exhortations reconciled him with Heaven and with himself. It was also related that two young men had sold all their possessions to follow St. John, and afterwards repented. He, perceiving their thoughts, sent them to gather pebbles and faggots, and on their return changed these into ingots of gold, and said, “Take back your riches and enjoy them on earth, since you regret having exchanged them for heaven!”
ST. JOHN AND HIS PARTRIDGE.
There is a tradition relating to St. John, and which is sometimes represented by the sacred artists—namely, that he had a tame partridge, of which he was fond, and he used to amuse himself with feeding and tending it. It is added that a certain huntsman, passing by with his bow and arrow, was astonished to see the great apostle, so venerable for age and sanctity, engaged in such an amusement. The apostle, however, answered him by asking whether he always kept his bow bent. The huntsman replied that that would be the way to render it useless. The apostle then rejoined, “If you unbend your bow to prevent its becoming useless, I do the same, and unbend my mind for the same reason.”
ST. JOHN’S LAST DAYS.
The Syrian legend as to the last days of St. John says that the apostle once fled in fear and indignation out of a bath that had been polluted by the presence of the heretic Cerinthus. It is also said that at last his whole sermon consisted in these words: “Little children, love one another.” And when the audience remonstrated at the wearisome iteration, he declared that in these words the whole substance of Christianity was found. Many reject the authority of Tertullian, who says that St. John was taken for trial before Domitian at Rome, and plunged into a boiling caldron of oil, from which he came forth unhurt.
TRADITIONS OF ST. JOHN’S TALK.
Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, in 177 had been a pupil of Polycarp, who in his youth had many conversations with St. John, who died about 100. Irenæus writes to a friend thus: “I can tell the very place in which the blessed Polycarp used to sit when he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and his manner of life, and his personal appearance, and the discourses which he held before the people, and how he would describe his intercourse with John and with the rest of those who had seen the Lord, and how he would relate their words. And whatsoever things he had heard from them about the Lord, and about His miracles, and about His teaching, Polycarp, as having received them from eyewitnesses of the life of the Word, would relate altogether in accordance with the Scriptures. To these things I used to listen at the time with attention, by God’s mercy, which was bestowed upon me, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart; and constantly, by the grace of God, I reflect upon them faithfully.” Irenæus says Polycarp told him the story of St. John and Cerinthus. Polycarp, at the age of eighty-six, was ordered to be burnt; but it is said that the fire would not consume his body, which shone like silver, and he was then despatched with a dagger. The Roman pro-consul had ordered him to forswear and revile Christ. But the answer was: “Eighty-and-six years have I served Him, and He hath done me no wrong. How, then, can I speak evil of my King, who saved me?”
A MIRACLE PERFORMED BY ST. JOHN AFTER DEATH.
A miracle attributed to St. John, and represented by some sacred artists, related to the Empress Galla Placidia. She wasreturning from Constantinople to Ravenna with her two children during a terrible storm. In her fear and anguish she vowed to St. John that if she landed safely she would dedicate to his honour a magnificent church. Both events happened; but still, owing to there being no relic to deposit in her church, she remained somewhat dissatisfied. John, however, took pity upon her; for one night, as she prayed earnestly, he appeared to her in a vision, and when she threw herself at his feet to embrace and kiss them he disappeared, but left one of his sandals in her hand, and this has been long preserved. The ancient church at Ravenna of Galla Placidia contained some mosaics, now vanished, but two bas-reliefs refer to the sandal.
ST. JOHN AND EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.
The English monkish chroniclers have also a legend of St. John and King Edward the Confessor. One night a pilgrim accosted the Confessor as he was returning from mass at Westminster, and begged alms for the love of God and St. John. The king, who was merciful, immediately drew from his finger a ring, and delivered it privately to the beggar. Twenty-four years later, two Englishmen, returning from the Holy Land, after being asked questions about their country by a pilgrim, were entrusted with a message to thank their king for the ring he had bestowed, when that pilgrim begged of him many years before, and which he had preserved and now returned; and further to say this—that “the king shall quit the world and come and remain with me for ever.” The travellers, astounded, asked who the pilgrim was, and the answer was, “I am John the Evangelist. Go and deliver the message and ring, and I will pray for your safe arrival.” He then delivered the ring and vanished. The pilgrims praised and thanked God for this glorious vision, went on their journey, repaired to the king, delivered the ring and the message, and were received joyfully and feasted. Then the king prepared himself for his departure from the world. On the eve of the Nativity next following, being 1066, he died, and the ring was left to the Abbot of Westminster, to be for ever preserved among the relics. This legend is represented on the top of the screen of Edward the Confessor’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey, and also was once on one of the windows in Romford Church.
ST. JAMES THE LESS, APOSTLE.
St. James the Less was so called to distinguish him from the other apostle James, either from his smaller stature or his youth.He was also known as James the Just, from his eminent sanctity. He was the son of Alphæus and of Mary, sister of the Virgin Mary, and was some years older than the Saviour, his cousin. He had as brother St. Simeon and also Jude. Christ appeared separately to James and John and Peter after the Resurrection. The Apostles elected James the Less to be Bishop of Jerusalem, and it was said he wore a plate of gold on his head as an ensign of authority. He was unmarried, and never shaved nor cut his hair, and never drank any strong liquor, never ate flesh, nor wore sandals, and the skin of his knees and forehead was said to be hardened like a camel’s hoof from his frequent prayers. He wrote his epistle in Greek, some time after Paul’s epistles were written to the Galatians and to the Romans. He was afterwards, in 62, accused by the Jews of violating the laws, and was sentenced to be stoned to death; but he was first carried to the battlements, in the hope he would recant in public, and on his refusing this he was thrown over and dashed to the ground. He had life enough to rise again on his knees to pray for pardon for his murderers, and was then despatched with stones by the mob. His body was buried near the Temple in Jerusalem, and it was said the city was destroyed for the treatment he received. His relics were brought to Constantinople about 572.
ST. JAMES THE GREAT, APOSTLE.
St. James, the brother of St. John, son of Zebedee and Salome, was called the Great, to distinguish him from the other apostle called James the Less, probably from his small stature. St. James the Great was about ten years older than Christ, and was many years older than his brother John. St. James was a Galilean and a fisherman. He and John and Peter were distinguished by special favours, being admitted to the Transfiguration, and to the Agony in the Garden. Their mother, Salome, in her pride at their devotion, once asked if they were not to sit, one at Christ’s right hand and another at His left. After the Ascension James is said to have left Judæa and visited Spain. He was a bachelor, and very temperate, never eating fish or flesh, and wearing only a linen cloak. He was the first of the Apostles who suffered martyrdom, being beheaded at Jerusalem in 43 by order of Agrippa. His accuser was so struck with James’s courage and constancy that he repented and begged to be executed with James, who turned round and embraced him, saying, “Peace be with you,” and they were beheaded together.The apostle’s body was interred at Jerusalem, but carried by his disciples to Spain at Compostella, where many miracles were wrought and pilgrims flocked. His intercession, it was thought, often protected the Christians against the armies of the Moors.
ST. JAMES THE GREAT IN SPAIN.
The apostle James the Great, after Christ’s ascension, as already said, went to Spain. One day, as he stood on the banks of the Ebro with his disciples, it is said that the Blessed Virgin appeared to him seated on the top of a pillar of jasper, and surrounded by a choir of angels; and the apostle having thrown himself on his face, she commanded him to build on that spot a chapel for her worship, assuring him that all this province of Saragossa, though now in the darkness of paganism, would at a future time be distinguished by devotion to her. He did as the Holy Virgin had commanded, and this was the origin of a famous church, known as Our Lady of the Pillar.
ST. JAMES AT COMPOSTELLA.
Another legend relates that a German noble, with his wife and son, made a pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella, and while lodging at an inn at Tolosa, where the host had a beautiful daughter, she fell in love with the youth, but he refused to listen to her. She then, out of revenge, hid her father’s silver cup in the youth’s wallet, and next morning, on discovering the loss, he was pursued, accused before a judge, and condemned to be hanged. The afflicted parents prayed at the altar of St. Jago or James, and thirty days after, on returning and seeing their son on the gibbet, he suddenly spoke to them, and said he had been very comfortable, for the blessed apostle James had been at his side. The parents at once hastened to the judge to inform him, and he was sitting at dinner. On hearing their report, however, he mocked them, and said their son was as much alive as the fowls in that dish on the table, pointing to the dish; but he had scarcely uttered the words when the fowls rose up full feathered in the dish, and the cock began to crow, to the great admiration of the judge and his officers. Then the judge rose and went to the gibbet, and released the youth and gave him up to his parents, and the fowls were placed under the protection of the church, in the precincts of which they lived, and a long line of progeny after them, as a standing testimony of the miracle then wrought.
MIRACLES OF ST. JAMES THE GREAT.
When the apostle James the Great had founded the faith in Spain, he returned to Judæa, and preached and worked miracles for many years. Once a sorcerer, named Hermogenes, set himself up against the apostle to compete with him, and sent his pupil Philetus to dispute with James. The pupil, on returning and confessing his defeat, was bound with spells by Hermogenes, who dared James to deliver him. James sent his cloak to Philetus’s servant, and this set him free. Hermogenes, being then enraged, caused both James and Philetus to be bound in fetters by demons and brought to him. But a company of angels seized on the demons, and punished them until they went and brought Hermogenes himself bound. On James declining to punish him, the sorcerer felt he was defeated, and cast his books into the sea, and became a disciple of James. At James’s death his body was privately carried away for fear of the Jews, and put on board a ship which was miraculously directed to Spain. During the journey they touched at Galicia; and Queen Lupa, coming to the shore, found that the body had become enclosed with wax. She brought some wild bulls, and harnessed them to the car to tear it asunder; but the bulls were docile as lambs, and drew the body straight into her palace, whereon she was confounded and became a Christian, and built a church to receive the body. St. James is the patron saint of Spain as well as of Galicia; and the church of Compostella, which is dedicated to him, is a shrine visited by pilgrims from all quarters. In some of the pictures St. James is represented sitting on a milk-white horse, encouraging the Spaniards to fight and defeat the Moors.
ST. JAMES OF COMPOSTELLA AND THE SCALLOP-SHELL.
The following is the origin of the emblem of the scallop-shell at Compostella. When the body of the saint was being miraculously conveyed in a ship without sails or oars from Joppa to Galicia, it passed the village of Bouzas, on the coast of Portugal, on the day that a marriage had been celebrated there. The bridegroom, along with his friends, was amusing himself on horseback on the sands, when suddenly his horse grew restless and plunged into the sea. Thereupon the miraculous ship stopped in its voyage, and presently the bridegroom emerged, horse and man, close beside it. The saint’s disciples on board informed the astonished rider who it was who saved him from a watery grave, and explained to him the Christian religion. He was convertedand baptised forthwith. The ship then resumed its voyage, and the knight went galloping back over the sea to rejoin his astonished friends. He told what had happened, and they also were converted, and he baptised his bride with his own hands. It was noticed that when the knight emerged from the sea, both his dress and the trappings of his horse were covered with scallop-shells, and the Galicians ever afterwards took the scallop-shell as the sign of St. James. Those shells were forbidden by the Pope, under the pain of excommunication, to be sold to pilgrims at any other place than the city of Santiago.
PORTRAITS OF ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL.
Lord Lindsay, in his “Christian Art,” says that St. Peter was generally represented in ancient art as blessing and St. Paul as preaching,—the former with white hair and beard, the hair sometimes plaited in three distinct partitions; the latter with a lofty and partially bald brow and long, high nose, as characteristic of the man of genius and the thorough gentleman, as the former is of the warm-hearted, frank, impetuous manly fisherman. The likenesses may be correct; they were current at least in the days of Eusebius in the fourth century, who speaks of their portraits as then of some antiquity. A portrait of St. Paul was said to have come down by tradition from his own time, and to have existed in the days of St. Ambrose and St. Chrysostom, a little later in the same century. The painter Giotto invariably adhered to these traditional types. After his time the heads of living models were often painted for the imaginary apostles.
DEATHS OF ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL.
There is some doubt as to the time and place of the death of St. Peter and St. Paul. The earliest writer, St. Clement, Bishop of Rome, near the end of the first century, alludes to both as suffering martyrdom nearly at the same time, but does not state when or where. A later writer, Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, who lived in the middle of the second century, says they died in Italy at the same period, and tradition of a later date specifies Rome as the place, and that Peter was crucified by Nero in Rome with his head downwards, and the year was 67A.D.
ST. PETER AND HIS DAUGHTER PETRONILLA.
Though the precise spot at Rome where St. Peter was crucified or slain is not settled, the following legend obtained currency.In several churches at Florence and Rome the legend referred to was to this effect. The apostle Peter had a daughter named Petronilla, who accompanied him to Rome from the East. She there fell sick of a grievous infirmity, which deprived her of the use of her limbs. And it happened that, as the disciples were at meat with him in his house, one said to him, “Master, how is it that thou, who healest the infirmities of others, dost not heal thy daughter Petronilla?” And Peter answered, “It is good for her to remain sick.” But that they might see the power that was in the word of God, he commanded her to rise and serve them at table, which she at once did. Having done so, she lay down again, helpless as before. But many years afterwards, being perfected by long suffering, and praying fervently, she was healed. Petronilla was wonderfully fair; and Valerius Flaccus, a young Roman noble who was a heathen, became enamoured of her, and sought her in marriage. As he was very powerful, she feared to refuse him, but begged him to return in three days, and promised that he should then marry her. She prayed earnestly to be delivered from this peril; and when Flaccus returned in three days, prepared to celebrate the marriage with great pomp, he found her dead. The company of nobles thereupon carried her to the grave, in which they laid her, crowned with roses, and Flaccus lamented greatly.
ST. PETER WHEN IN ROME.
When St. Peter went to Rome, it is said that he lodged in the house of a rich patrician named Perdeus, whose wife and two daughters, Prasceles and Prudentiana, were converted. And during the first persecution these daughters devoted themselves to visiting and comforting the martyrs, braving every danger and suffering, and they escaped by a miracle. St. Peter was also said to lodge at Rome in the house of Aquila and Priscilla; and it was there that St. Prisca, a Roman virgin of great beauty, was baptised. She was afterwards thrown to the lions; but they refused to touch her, and she was at last beheaded. St. Peter, when in prison at Rome, was said to have promised to heal Paulina, the sick daughter of the jailer, named Artemius, if he would believe in the true God. But the jailer mocked him, and put him in the deepest dungeon, and told him to see if his God would deliver him from that depth. In the middle of the night Peter and Marcellinus, in shining garments, entered the chamber of Artemius as he lay asleep, who, being struck with awe, fell down and worshipped Christ.
STORY OF THE DEATH OF ST. PETER.
When the day appointed for the execution of St. Peter approached, it is recorded in the legend that the Christians of Rome urged him to escape. He resisted their importunities long, but at last got over the wall of the prison and fled. As, however, he approached the gate of the city, he met our Blessed Lord bearing His cross, just entering. The astonished apostle said, “Lord, whither goest Thou?” The answer was, “I go to Rome to be crucified afresh.” At this St. Peter was smitten to the heart, and with tears returned and delivered himself up to his keepers. The church ofDomine quo Vadisis believed to stand on the very spot of this meeting. Peter was thereafter scourged and led to the top of the Vatican Mount to be executed. He entreated that he might not be crucified in the ordinary way, but might suffer with his head downwards and his feet towards heaven, affirming that he was unworthy to suffer in the same posture wherein his Lord had suffered before him. His body was embalmed and buried in the Vatican. The small church being demolished by Heliogabalus, Peter’s body was removed for a time two miles off, but was brought back before the time of Constantine, who enlarged and rebuilt the Vatican in honour of St. Peter. The Emperor is said to have dug the first spadefuls, and to have carried twelve baskets of rubbish with his own hands, as a beginning, in honour of the twelve Apostles. The relics of St. Peter are numerous. The chains are in the churchAd Vincula; the wooden chair is in the Vatican. The sword with which the ear of Malchus was cut off was anciently preserved at Constantinople, and is shown at Toledo. His cap is at Namur; part of his cloak is at Prague. The bodies of Peter and Paul are said to be both in St. Peter’s Church at Rome.
THE CHURCHES OF ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL AT ROME.
The body of St. Peter was buried immediately after his martyrdom on the Vatican Hill; afterwards it was removed to the cemetery of Calixtus, and brought back to the Vatican. The body of St. Paul was buried on the Ostian Way, where his church now stands. These tombs were visited from the first by crowds of pilgrims. Constantine the Great, after founding the Lateran Church, built seven others at Rome; one of these was the Church of St. Peter on the Vatican Hill, where he suffered martyrdom. Another was the Church of St. Paul, at the site of his tomb on the Ostian Road. A revenue was charged to maintain thesechurches out of the spices imported from Egypt and the East, and lands at Tyre and Alexandria and elsewhere were given as possessions for the same purpose. These churches were built in a magnificent style, so as to vie with the finest structures in the Empire. St. Peter’s was rebuilt in part in 1506 and 1626. The richest treasure consists of relics of St. Peter and St. Paul, which lie under a magnificent altar in a sumptuous vault, called the Confession of St. Peter on the Threshold of the Apostles. Raphael and Michael Angelo were in succession the architects. The area of St. Peter’s Church is 700 feet long by 509 feet wide.
WAS ST. PAUL EVER IN GREAT BRITAIN?
It was at one time believed that St. Paul had entered Great Britain as within his mission, and preached to the natives. But Thackeray, in his “Researches into the State of Ancient Britain” (1843), comes to a conclusion in the negative for the following reasons: (1) There is no mention nor even allusion to it in the New Testament; (2) the statement of his friend Clemens, Bishop of Rome, to the effect that Paul preached to the utmost bounds of the West, is far too vague to be available, and seems only a hyperbolic mode of expressing the magnitude of his labours; (3) there is no probable allusion to Paul’s journey to Britain to be found in the whole range of literature prior to Theodoret, early in the fifth century, and even he does not specify Britain; (4) there is no mention of any such mission to be found in our own historians prior to the Norman Conquest.
ST. PAUL ON AREOPAGUS, QUOTING A POET.
The fact that St. Paul, when addressing the Athenians on the summit of the Areopagus or Hill of Mars, quoted a Greek poet for the saying, “Ye are also his offspring,” has led scholars to search for the originals. And the saying is found in two poets who flourished before the Christian era—namely, Aratius and Cleanthes. There are two other quotations (Titus i. 12; 1 Cor. xv. 33), traced to Epimenides and Callimachus. Some have inferred from these quotations that St. Paul may have been familiar with the poets of Pagan antiquity. But the researches of scholars tend to show that the quotations were only common sayings of the period, and the inferences one way or another as to the Pagan learning of the apostle are mere speculations. The occasion also on which St. Paul spoke on Areopagus has been the subject of discussion, as to whether Paul was at themoment charged with some indictable offence against the sanctity of the gods, or whether there was some inquisition held by authority in order to include Jesus as one of the recognised divinities, or whether it was merely an address at the request of the keen-witted Epicurean and Stoic philosophers of the time. No certain conclusion can be arrived at on these moot points.