THE CROWN OF THORNS BROUGHT TO FRANCE (A.D.1240).
Matthew Paris’s account is this: In 1240 France exulted inrepeated favours of our Lord Jesus Christ, for besides being rewarded with the body of the Confessor Edmund, who had removed himself from England, it was rejoiced by obtaining our Lord’s crown of thorns from Constantinople. Baldwin, Emperor of Constantinople, had sent word that if the French King would give him effectual pecuniary assistance, he, the Emperor, would, in consideration of his old ties of friendship, give him the veritable crown of our Lord, which the Jews had woven and placed on His head when about to suffer on the cross for the redemption of the human race. The French King, by the advice of his council, willingly agreed to this, and, with his mother’s concurrence, liberally sent a large sum of money to the Emperor, whose treasury had been exhausted by continual wars, and this supply inspired the said Baldwin with confident hopes of obtaining a victory over the Greeks. In return for this great benefit obtained from the King, the Emperor, according to promise, faithfully sent to him the crown of Christ, precious beyond gold or topaz. It was therefore solemnly and devoutly received, to the credit of the French kingdom, and indeed of all the Latins, in grand procession, amidst the ringing of bells and the devout prayers of the faithful followers of Christ, and was placed with due respect in the King’s Chapel at Paris.
THE KING OF FRANCE SHOWS THE HOLY CROSS (A.D.1241).
Matthew Paris says that in 1241 the French King and his mother, Blanche, gave a large sum of money to the Saracens, in order to obtain possession of the holy cross of our Lord. The cross had at first been bought by the Venetians, then pawned by Baldwin, and at last was sold to the French King. This cross, on reaching Paris, was placed in a carriage, in which sat the King, his mother, his wife, and brothers, in presence of the archbishops and nobles, and a countless host of people who were awaiting the glorious sight with great joy of heart. After all had worshipped it with due reverence and devotion, the King himself, barefooted, ungirt, and with head bare, and after a fast of three days, carried it in wool to the cathedral church of the Blessed Virgin at Paris. The two queens also followed on foot. They also carried the crown of thorns, which the Divine mercy had given to France the year before, and raising it on high on a similar carriage, presented it to the gaze of the people. When they arrived at the cathedral church, all the bells in the city were set ringing; and after special prayers had been solemnly read, the King returned to his palace, carrying his cross, his brothers carrying the crown,and the priests following in a regular procession—a sight more solemn or more joyful than which the kingdom of France had never seen. The King ordered a chapel of handsome structure, suitable for the reception of the said treasure, to be built near his palace, and in it he afterwards placed the said relics with due honour. Besides these, there were in the same beautiful chapel the garment belonging to Christ, the lance—that is to say, the iron head of the lance—the sponge, and other relics besides.
THE BLOOD OF CHRIST AT WESTMINSTER (A.D.1247).
Matthew of Westminster says that about the year 1247 the blood of Christ, which was preserved in the Holy Land as a most precious treasure, was sent and presented to the lord the King of England (Henry III.) by a certain brother of the Hospital, who also sent the treasure written by the lord the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the masters of the body of knights of the Temple and Hospital, who all with unanimous goodwill and prompt devotion sent and gave and presented this treasure to the lord the King; and he consigned it to his own special house in the church of St. Peter, at Westminster, on the day of the translation of St. Edward, giving it to that church out of his own spontaneous magnificence and liberality. He also on the same day obtained from the bishops who were then present an indulgence of six years and one hundred and sixteen days for all those who came to worship the holy relics and the presence of the Lord. And about the year 1249 the preaching brothers brought a stone of white marble, which ever since the time of Christ had borne the print of the Saviour in the Holy Land; and the inhabitants of the Holy Land asserted that that impression was the print of the footstep of Christ when He was ascending into heaven. And the aforesaid lord the King gave it as a noble present to the church of Westminster, as he had, a little while before, given it the blood of Christ.
THE DISCOVERY OF ST. STEPHEN’S RELICS (A.D.415).
Though Stephen was the first martyr, nobody knew for near four hundred years where his body was buried, except that it was at Caphargamala or borough of Gamaliel, twenty miles from Jerusalem. Lucian, the priest of that place, in 415 was one night asleep or half awake, when suddenly a comely old man, of venerable garb and long white beard, with a golden wand, entered the baptistery and told Lucian to go to Jerusalem and ask Bishop John to come and open the tomb where lay Stephen, who was stoned by the Jews, and whose body was exposed to wild beasts; but they wouldnot touch it. Whereupon the body was taken away by Gamaliel and buried in a particular spot near the body of Nicodemus. Lucian asked who this venerable messenger was, and the answer was, “I am Gamaliel, who instructed Paul.” The vision appeared several times to Lucian, as well as others, giving further particulars. The search was afterwards made, and three coffins found, one of which was Stephen’s, at the opening of which the earth shook and an agreeable odour issued. Many miracles were wrought by these relics, and they were carried amid singing of psalms and hymns to the church of Sion at Jerusalem. Portions of the relics were carried to Spain by Orosius, and there caused many sudden conversions. Some also were given to St. Austin for his church of Hippo. In 444 the Empress Eudocia built a stately church about a furlong from Jerusalem, where Stephen’s relics were translated, the site being supposed to be that where he was stoned to death.
THE RELICS OF ST. DUNSTAN AT GLASTONBURY (A.D.1184).
As Dunstan, who died 988, was a most domineering and imperious monk in his day, and stood up for his order, his bones were sacred. When Glastonbury Abbey, after a great fire in 1184, was rebuilt, there was a great stirring up of relics which were placed in shrines. Amongst others the St. Dunstan relics gave rise to a quarrel between the monks of Glastonbury and those of Canterbury, which lasted some four centuries. There was an old monk at Glastonbury, named John Canan, who was believed to be the sole depositary of the secret of Dunstan’s burying-place, and a boy named John Waterleighe was employed to get at the secret. The old monk, in circuitous phrase, told the boy at last that the place was near the door where the holy water was sprinkled, and this was divulged, and the other monks lifted a stone and found a wooden chest plated with iron. The prior and all the convent assembled to see it opened, and they found some of the bones of Dunstan and a ring, in one half of which was a picture curiously worked. There was a crown and the wordsanctusunder it, so that they all were confident these were the right relics. The relics were accordingly solemnly placed in a shrine covered with gold and silver. When the monks of Canterbury heard of this they were profoundly agitated, for they drew pilgrims chiefly under the belief that their own abbey had the better part of the saint. The rival monks wrote furious letters against each other; and intrigues continued at Canterbury with varying success till the time of the Reformation.
JOHN HUSS ON RELICS (A.D.1401).
John Huss, born 1369, became a stirring preacher, and was appointed in 1401 to officiate at the chapel of Bethlehem, where poor people chiefly attended. The archbishop of that time was anxious to check some of the current superstitions, and used Huss as a means to that end. One matter caused great wonder. A knight had destroyed a church some years before, but left a stone altar standing. In one of the cavities were found three wafers coloured red, as if with blood. Though such a colour is naturally produced in bread and similar substances long exposed to moisture, there being a fungus gradually formed, which under the microscope is easily seen, but to the naked eye having a close resemblance to blood, the ignorant multitude at once accepted this as a miracle, symbolical of the blood of Christ; and extraordinary excitement grew up, and pilgrimages were made from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia, in order to view it. The monks and clergy encouraged the wonder. The archbishop, shocked by such a scandal, appointed a committee of three, one of whom was Huss, to examine and report. Huss drew up a report reflecting on this and many similar relics as entire delusions, and hinting that they were put forward merely by greedy ecclesiastics for base purposes. He reviewed the history of these impostures, and also exposed another fraud, about a silver hand hung up by a citizen of Prague in a church, and which was long believed to be in testimony of a lame hand of the donor being miraculously cured, though there had been really no cure, as hundreds could attest.
POWER OF THE CRUCIFIX DURING THE PLAGUE (A.D.1649).
The extent to which images and their makers have produced effects on excitable crowds was shown during the plague of Malaga in 1649. A certain statue of Christ at the column carved for the cathedral by Giuseppe Micael, an Italian, performed prodigies of healing, and bade fair to rival that holy crucifix sculptured at Jerusalem by Nicodemus, and possessed by the Capuchins of Burgos, which sweated on Fridays and wrought miracles all the week. While the pestilence was yet raging, the sculptor stood one evening musing near the door of the sanctuary where his work was enshrined, but with so sorrowful a countenance that a friend, hailing him from afar, according to the usages of plague-stricken society, inquired the cause of his sadness. “Think you,” said the artist, “that I have anything more to look for on earthafter seeing and hearing the prodigies and marvels of this sovereign image which my unworthy hands have made? It is an old tradition among the masters of our craft that he shall soon die to whom it is given to make a miraculous image.” And Giuseppe erred not in his presentiment; his chisel’s task was done. Within eight days the dead-cart carried him to the gorged cemetery of Malaga. His fame was long preserved by his statue, which obtained the name of the “Lord of Health.”
THE POPE PURCHASES THE HEAD OF ST. ANDREW (A.D.1461).
In 1461 great excitement was caused in Rome by the arrival of Thomas Palæologus, brother of the last Byzantine emperor, who had been driven from Greece, and brought with him from Patras, the supposed place of St. Andrew’s martyrdom, a head of that saint. The Pope (Pius II.), on hearing of this venerable relic, eagerly entered into a treaty and secured it, notwithstanding that many princes were his competitors. The head was brought, with much ceremony, from Ancona, and was met at Narni by Bessarion and other cardinals, and on its arrival in Rome it was received with extraordinary reverence. Invitations were at once sent out by the Pope on the same terms as for a jubilee, and great crowds flocked from all parts. The head was carried to St. Peter’s by a procession attended by thirty thousand torches, while the palaces and houses along the route were hung with tapestry and filled with altars. The weather was exceptionally fine, and the procession filed from the Flaminian gate. The Vatican basilica was splendidly illuminated, and the Pope addressed the holy relic in an eloquent and impressive speech, the delivery of which was interrupted by frequent tears, sobs, and beating of breasts. When the ceremony was concluded, the head of St. Andrew was deposited beside that of St. Peter.
PILGRIMAGE TO WALSINGHAM (A.D.1061).
In 1061 an obscure widow, inhabiting a small village on the wild and tempestuous coast of Norfolk, by erecting a little chapel resembling that at Nazareth, where the Virgin was saluted by the angel Gabriel, was able to impart a renown to that village which extended to all England. Erasmus thus described it in his time: “Not far from the sea, about four miles, there standeth a town living almost on nothing else but upon the resort of pilgrims. There is a college of canons there, supported by their offerings. In the church is a small chapel, but all of wood,whereunto, on either side, at a narrow and little door, are such admitted as come with their devotions and offerings. Small light there is in it, and none other than by wax tapers, yielding a most dainty and pleasant smell; nay, if you look into it, you would say it is the habitation of heavenly saints, so bright and shining all over with precious stones, with gold and silver.” Camden also mentions that princes have repaired to this chapel, walking thither barefoot.
A WINTER PILGRIMAGE IN SWITZERLAND (A.D.1110).
Abbot Rodolph, about 1110, describes his pilgrimage across the Alps: “We were detained at the foot of Mount Jove (Great St. Bernard), in a village called Restopolis, from which we could neither advance nor retreat, in consequence of the heavy snow. At length the guides conducted us as far as St. Remi, which is on the same mountain, where we found a vast multitude of travellers, and where we were in danger of death from the repeated falls of snow from the rocks. We were detained there till at length the guides said they would lead us, but demanded a heavy price. Their heads and hands were guarded with skins and fur, and their shoes armed with iron nails, to prevent them from slipping on the ice, and they carried long spears in their hands, to feel their way over the snow. It was very early in the morning, and with great fear and trembling the travellers celebrated and received the holy mysteries, as if preparing themselves for death. They contended with each other who should first make his confession; and since one priest did not suffice, they went about the church confessing their sins to each other. While these things were passing within the church with great devotion, there was a lamentable shout heard in the street; for the guides, who had left the town to clear the way, were suddenly buried under a great fall of snow, as if under a mountain. The people ran to save them, and pulled them out—some dead, some but half alive, others with broken limbs. Upon this we all returned to Restopolis, where we passed the Epiphany. Upon the weather clearing, we again set out, and succeeded, happily, in passing the profane Mount of Jove.” St. Aderal of Troyes made twelve pilgrimages to Rome on foot. He passed the Apennines in a season of intense cold barefooted, that he might suffer something for Jesus Christ, and he used to beat the rocks with bare feet.
PILGRIMS TO CANTERBURY (A.D.1179).
In 1179 Louis VII., King of France, in the disguise of acommon pilgrim visited Canterbury as a humble supplicant at the tomb of À Becket, for the restoration of sanity to the Dauphin, a prayer that was instantly complied with. Louis proved his sincerity by offering a rich cup of gold and the famous stone called Regal of France, which Henry VIII. appropriated to his own use for a thumb ring. The great St. Thomas not only attended to the prayers of mankind and restored eyes, limbs, and even life to hundreds; but, to evince his power and exhibit his tenderness to all animated nature, frequently, at the intercession of the monks, restored to life dead birds and beasts. The Pope naturally encouraged these enthusiastic feelings, though it is rather surprising that his holiness Pope Alexander should cause a liturgy to be composed and read, in which our Saviour is supplicated to redeem mankind, not by His holy blood, but by that of the saint. Indeed, to such an extent was the adoration of Becket carried that it nearly absorbed all other devotion. In one year the offerings at the altar of the Deity at Canterbury amounted to £3 2s.6d.; at the Virgin’s, £63 5s.6d.; and at Becket’s, £832 12s.3d.And in another year £954 6s.3d.was received at Becket’s altar, only £4 1s.8d.at the Virgin’s, while at that of the Deity the oblation did not amount to one farthing!
THE FATHERS.
ORIGEN, CHAMPION OF ORTHODOXY (A.D.253).
When a persecution was raging against the Christians about 206, Leonidas and his son Origen were among the suspected. Leonidas was beheaded. Origen, then aged seventeen, was also eager to meet the same fate, and he would have been beheaded also, but his mother privily in the night season conveyed away his clothes and his shirt. Whereupon, more for shame to be seen than for fear to die, he was constrained to remain at home. He was zealous, however, and wrote to his father, telling him not to change for his and his mother’s sake. Then Origen, to assist his mother and six brothers, kept a school, and afterwards was made a bishop. He was a great worker, lived sparingly, and went barefoot. He wrote as much as seven notaries and so many maids could pen every day. The number of his books was six thousand volumes. He encouraged and comforted all the martyrs, and was a redoubted champion of doctrines.
ST. AMBROSE, CHAMPION OF HIS ORDER (A.D.397).
St. Ambrose, who died 397, was not only the great advocate and defender of the order of virginity, but he displayed a high sense of dignity in guarding the purity of his church. He refused to allow the Emperor Marcellus to enter the church because he was stained with the blood of Gratian. He also opposed the Empress Justina in her Arian tendencies. He was also the champion who opposed the orator Symmachus, who pleaded for retaining the old heathen idols in their old places of worship. When the Emperor Theodosius, in the fourth century, had ordered what most people considered a brutal massacre at Thessalonica of seven thousand persons as they were sitting in a circusto witness a race, and this by way of punishment for a previous riot in the city, all eyes were turned to the Bishop of Milan to avenge this outrage. When the Emperor reached the city some days later, the bishop avoided meeting him, but wrote a letter, in which he said: “So bloody a scene as that at Thessalonica is unheard of in the world’s history. I had warned and entreated you against it. You yourself recognised its atrocity. You endeavoured to recall your decree. And now I call on you to repent.” Soon after, when Ambrose came back to Milan, the Emperor, as usual, presented himself at the hour of service. Ambrose met him in the porch, and thus spoke: “It seems your majesty has not repented of the heinousness of your murder. Your imperial power has darkened your understanding, and stood between you and the recognition of your sin. Consider the dust from which you spring. How can you uplift in prayer the hands which still drip with innocent blood, or receive into such hands the body of the Lord! Depart; add not sin to sin. Find in repentance the means of mercy which can restore you to health of soul.” The Emperor humbled himself. For eight months as a penitent he abstained from presenting himself at Divine service. During the penance Theodosius bitterly complained that the Church of God was opened to slaves and beggars, but to him was closed, and with it the gates of heaven. He tried once to gain admittance, but Ambrose sternly refused until the Emperor promised to show openly his repentance by taking his place in the church among the penitents. The spirit displayed by Ambrose in this episode raised his reputation, and has left an example to all future bishops when contending against absolute power.
WHY ST. AMBROSE FELL ASLEEP AT MASS.
St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, died in 397, on the day which he himself had predicted. On that day Severinus, Bishop of Cologne, asked his archdeacon if he heard any sounds in the air. The latter stood erect and listened, and then answered, “I hear voices as of those singing in heaven, but what they may be I know not.” And Severinus was then informed that these were the songs of angels as they carried Martin up to heaven. At that same hour also the blessed Ambrose was celebrating Mass at Milan, and the custom was, that the reader should not begin to read till the bishop nodded to him. And when he would have begun standing before the altar, the blessed Ambrose fell asleep on the altar. Though many saw this, no man presumed to wake him, till after two or three hours had elapsed, when they spoke to him, saying,“The hour has passed by; let my lord the bishop command the lector to read, for the people are waiting and already are very weary.” And Ambrose bade them not be disturbed, for that his brother Martin had departed from the flesh, and he had just been attending his funeral. And greatly astonished, and noting the day and hour, they afterwards discovered that at that very time the blessed Martin had been buried at Tours, where the whole city and neighbourhood had followed him with hymns and tears to the grave.
SOME SAYINGS OF ST. AMBROSE.
It was related that an obstinate heretic who went to hear St. Ambrose preach, only to confute and mock him, beheld an angel visible at his side and prompting the words the saint uttered. On seeing this, the scoffer was self-convicted and became a convert. One day St. Ambrose, calling at the house of a Tuscan nobleman, was hospitably received, and began to inquire into the condition of his host, who replied, “I have never known adversity—every day has seen me increasing in fortune, in honours and possessions; I have a numerous family of sons and daughters, who have never caused me a moment of sorrow; I have a multitude of slaves, to whom my word is law; and I have never suffered either sickness or pain.” On hearing this, Ambrose rose suddenly from the table and said, “Let us make haste to quit this roof ere it fall upon us, for the Lord is not here!” And he had scarcely left the house when an earthquake shook the ground and swallowed up the palace and all its inhabitants. The church, the basilica of St. Ambrogio Maggiore at Milan, is one of the oldest and most interesting in Christendom, and was founded in 387. Though rebuilt and restored at least twice, it still retains the form of the primitive churches, with doors of cypress wood. On the front of the high altar, which is all of plates of gold enamelled with precious stones, are represented in relief scenes from the life of our Saviour.
ST. AMBROSE AND THE RELICS OF ST. GERVASIUS.
One of the points which stagger modern Christians about St. Ambrose and St. Augustine is their enthusiastic and apparently genuine belief in saints’ relics. When St. Ambrose was asked to consecrate a new church, and he consented on condition that he should have some new relics to place therein, the relics were soon forthcoming. He professed that he was told in a dream where the relics of Gervasius and another saint were buried. Thebodies were afterwards found in the spot indicated and placed in the new church. Ambrose delivered impassioned and fanciful harangues during the proceedings, claiming for these relics that they had expelled demons and restored sight to a blind butcher named Severus, who merely touched them. Mosheim, Gibbon, and Isaac Taylor treat all this as a mere trick or imposture. But others are not prepared to come to any decision, as next to nothing is known as to the circumstances under which all these events or apparent events happened. The expelling of demons may be explained by some hysterical excitement; and the blindness may have been something more or less temporary. Ambrose, however, apparently had the most unfeigned belief in the miracles, and he related the whole story to his sister Marcellina in a letter which does not savour of knavery. St. Augustine, at a later date, also related similar miracles worked by the same relics, which he vouches to be true.
ST. JEROME’S LIFE OF PAUL, THE FIRST HERMIT (A.D.400).
St. Jerome, in his Life of Paul, the first hermit, says that Paul, when a boy, suspecting his life to be in danger, fled to the wilderness, and found a convenient great cave in which to live. “In this beloved dwelling,” says Jerome, “offered him as it were by God, Paul spent all his life in prayer and solitude, while the palm tree gave him food and clothes; as to which, lest it should seem impossible to some, I call Jesus and His holy angels to witness that I have seen monks, one of whom, shut up for thirty years, lived on barley bread and muddy water; another, in an old cistern, which in the country speech they call the Syrian’s bed, was kept alive on five figs each day. These things therefore will seem incredible to those who do not believe, for to those who do believe all things are possible.” St. Paul the hermit, in his one hundred and thirteenth year, was visited by Antony, who was ninety, Paul being in a dying state in a sequestered cell. Antony was sent on a message, and on his return Paul was found on his knees with hands uplifted as if in prayer, but was quite dead. Antony, according to previous instructions, wished to bury the saint, but had no spade, and sat down to consider how he was to proceed. Forthwith, as Jerome relates, two lions came running from the desert tossing their manes, fearless and innocent as doves. They went straight to the corpse, crouched, wagged their tails and roared, and then began to claw the ground and dig a deep place, large enough to hold a man. When they had finished they came to Antony, dropped their necks, and licked his hands and feet, asif praying for a blessing. Antony praised God, who taught the dumb animals, and without whose word not a leaf drops nor one sparrow falls to the ground; and then signing with his hand to the lions, they went away peaceably to the desert from which they came.
ST. JEROME’S REFLECTIONS ON PAUL THE HERMIT.
St. Jerome, after narrating the life and death of Paul, the first hermit, thus concludes: “I am inclined at the end of my treatise to ask those who know not the extent of their patrimonies, who cover their houses with marbles, who sew the price of whole farms into their garments with a single thread, What was ever wanting to this naked old man? Ye drink from a gem; he satisfied nature from the hollow of his hands. Ye weave gold into your tunics, he had not even the vilest garment of your bondslave. But, on the other hand, to that poor man Paradise is open; you, gilded as you are, Gehenna will receive. He, though naked, kept the garment of Christ; you, clothed in silk, have lost Christ’s robe. Paul lies covered with the meanest dust to rise in glory; you are crushed by wrought sepulchres of stone, to burn with all your works. Spare, I beseech you, yourselves; spare at least the riches which you love. Why do you wrap even your dead in golden vestments? Why does not ambition stop amid grief and tears? Cannot the corpses of the rich decay save in silk? I beseech thee, whosoever thou art that readest this, to remember Jerome the sinner, who, if the Lord gave him choice, would much sooner choose Paul’s tunic with his merits than the purple of kings with their punishments.”
ST. JEROME WITH THE LION AND THE ASS.
A legend of St. Jerome, who died 420, relates that one evening as he sat within the gates of his monastery at Bethlehem, a lion entered, limping as in pain, and all the brethren when they saw the beast fled in terror. But Jerome arose, and went forward to meet the lion as though it had been a guest. And the lion lifted up his paw, and Jerome, on examining it, found that it was wounded by a thorn, which he extracted; and he tended the lion till it was healed. The grateful beast remained with his benefactor, and Jerome confided to him the task of guarding the ass, which was employed in bringing firewood from the forest. On one occasion, the lion having gone to sleep while the ass was at pasture, some merchants passing by carried away the ass, and the lion, after searching for him in vain, returned to the monasterywith drooping head as one ashamed. St. Jerome, believing that it had devoured its companion, commanded that the daily task of the ass should be laid upon the lion, and that the faggots should be bound on its back, to which it magnanimously submitted, until the ass should be recovered, which was in this wise. One day, the lion having finished its task, ran hither and thither, still seeking its companion, and it saw a caravan of merchants approaching, and a string of camels, which, according to the Arabian custom, was led by an ass. And when the lion recognised its friend it drove the camels into the convent, and so terrified the merchants that they confessed the theft and received pardon from St. Jerome. Hence the lion is often introduced into the pictures of St. Jerome.
THE DEATHBED OF ST. JEROME.
The ancient biographer Peter de Natalibus thus describes the last hours of Jerome: As Jerome’s death drew near, he commanded that he should be laid on the bare ground and covered with sackcloth, and calling the brethren around him, he spoke sweetly to them, and exhorted them in many holy words, and with tears received the blessed Eucharist. And sinking backwards again on the earth, his hands crossed on his heart, he sang theNunc Dimittis, which being finished, suddenly a great light as of the noonday sun shone round about him, within which light angels innumerable were seen by the bystanders in shifting motion. And the voice of the Saviour was heard inviting him to heaven, and the holy doctor answered that he was ready. And after an hour that light departed, and Jerome’s spirit with it. And at that very hour Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, was sitting in his cell meditating a treatise on the beatific vision, and had begun an epistle to Jerome, consulting him on that mystery, when an ineffable light with a fragrant odour filled his cell, and a voice came to him therefrom, reproving him of presumption for deeming that, while yet in the flesh, he could comprehend the eternal beatitude. And Augustine demanding who spoke to him, the voice answered, “Jerome’s soul, to whom thou writest, for I am this very hour loosed from the flesh, and on my way to heaven.” And after Augustine had asked him many questions concerning the joys of heaven, the angelic nature, and the Blessed Trinity, and Jerome had answered thereto, the light and the voice departed.
ST. JEROME’S EPISTLES.
Mr. Roberts, in his “Church Memorials,” speaks of St. Jeromeas follows: The various letters of Jerome to Helvidius, Jovinian Vigilantius, and even to Augustine, leave the fact unquestionable that he was a man of great infirmity of temper, disposed alike to depreciate the merits of others and unduly exalt his own. To the exercise of his vituperative talents it must be owned that we are indebted for some of his most vigorous productions. Few of his corresponding friends were without some experience of the rough discipline of his pen. Ruffinus says he spared none, neither monk nor maiden. Ambrose and Didymus and Chrysostom himself shared his reproaches. Those who submitted to the obligation of celibacy on the ostensible ground of religious abstinence were among the rare objects of his eulogy. He breaks out in his writings into gross and unwarrantable sallies against the matrimonial estate, and exalting above all comparison with it the felicity of virgins. His opinions on this subject appear to have arisen out of the self-sufficiency of his own brain, which led him to consult his own fervid impressions and prejudices rather than the teaching of Divine wisdom. But after making all necessary deductions from the dignity and deserts of Jerome on the score of prejudice and passion, our obligations to him remain very great, not only for his admirable contributions to the stores of sacred learning in all its departments, but for his strenuous and efficacious advocacy of the truth as it is set forth in the oracles of God. Lessons of practical piety and discriminating Christian prudence not seldom flowed from his able pen.
ST. CHRYSOSTOM’S ELOQUENCE AS A PREACHER (A.D.407).
St. Chrysostom became noted for the eloquence of his sermons soon after he was ordained a presbyter in 386. One of his sermons at a time when the people were given to riots ended thus: “When you return home, converse on these subjects with all your house, as some, when returning from the meadows, take home to their families garlands of roses or violets or some such flowers; others branches laden with fruit from the gardens; or the superfluous dainties from costly feasts in like manner. When you depart home, carry admonitions to your wives, your children, your dependants. For these counsels are more profitable to you than flowers, fruit, or feasts. These roses never wither; these fruits never decay; these meats never corrupt. The former impart a transitory pleasure; the latter insure a lasting advantage, an enjoyment both present and to come. Let us thus occupy ourselves instead of the accustomed anxiety with which we trouble to ask each other, ‘Has the Emperor heard of the things thathave happened? Is he incensed? What sentence has he pronounced? Has any one appeased him? Can he persuade himself to utterly destroy so great and populous a city?’ Casting these and the like cares upon God, we shall do well to heed only the observance of His commandments. Thus will all our present sorrows pass away.”
ST. CHRYSOSTOM ON THE WEAK POINT OF MONKERY.
Though St. Chrysostom was himself a hermit for six years, he thus, in the height of the mania for monkery, exposed the weakness of that practice in one of his sermons: “Those who forsake the city, the favour and society of men, and cease to instruct others, are apt to excuse themselves by saying that they must not become dead to godliness. How much better were it to become more dead to godliness, and to profit others rather than remain on the heights looking down on their perishing brethren! For how shall we overcome our enemies if the greater part of us have no heed to godliness, and those who have a heed to it withdraw from the order of battle? No deed can be truly great unless it impart benefit to others. This is manifest from the example of him who returned the talent, which he had received, whole, because he had added naught to its value. Wherefore, my brethren, though ye fast, though ye sleep upon the bare ground, though ye strew yourselves with ashes, though ye mourn without ceasing, yet if ye do no good to any one, ye shall have done no great thing, for this was the chief care of those great and holy men who were in the beginning. Examine closely their lives, and ye will see clearly that none of them ever looked to his own interest, but to that of his neighbour. If ye seek not the advantage of your neighbour, ye cannot attain unto salvation.”
ST. CHRYSOSTOM ON PEOPLE SPEAKING IN CHURCH.
St. Chrysostom, who died 407, in his homily on the text, “Brethren, be not children in understanding,” thus rebuked the habits of his people in church: “The church itself is a house, or rather worse than any house. For in a house one may see much good order. But here great is the tumult, great the confusion, and our assemblies differ in nothing from a vintner’s shop, so loud is the laughter, so great the disturbance: as in baths, as in markets, the cry and tumult is universal. And these things occur here only: since elsewhere it is not permitted even to address one’s neighbour in the church, not even if one have recognised a long-absent friend; but these things are done without, and veryproperly. For the church is no barber’s or perfumer’s shop, nor any other merchant’s warehouse in the market-place, but a place of angels, a place of archangels, a palace of God, heaven itself. As therefore if one had rent the heaven and had brought thee in thither, though thou shouldst see thy father or thy brother, thou wouldst not venture to speak, so neither here ought one to utter any other sound but those which are spiritual. For in truth the things in this place are also a heaven. Here the buffoon who is moving laughter or the giddy woman who collects vast crowds is listened to; but when God is speaking from heaven on subjects so awful, we behave ourselves more shamelessly than dogs.”
ST. AUGUSTINE WITNESSING TWO MIRACLES.
St. Augustine in 426 relates two miracles which he himself witnessed. Two persons, Paul and Palladia, brother and sister, natives of Cæsarea, were afflicted with excessive trembling in their limbs. They had visited many places in search of a cure, and at last were directed by a venerable person, who appeared in a vision to Paul, to go to the church at Hippo, where St. Stephen’s relics had been deposited a year before. One Easter Sunday Paul was praying before the relics, when he suddenly fell and lay motionless, as if asleep, but without trembling. The spectators were astonished, and uncertain whether to raise him up or leave him alone. He rose up soon quite healed, whereon the congregation began to praise God and shouted with joy. They ran to another part of the church to tell St. Augustine, who was already beginning the service. He next day made Paul and his sister sit in a raised part of the church, the one healed, the other trembling, and after a general discourse thus concluded: “Now, listen to what we have heard of this miracle. During the stoning of St. Stephen a stone which had struck him on the elbow rebounded on a believer who was present. He took it up and kept it. This man was a sailor, whom chance at last brought to Ancona, and he knew by revelation that he was to leave this stone there. A chapel was erected there to St. Stephen, and a report was spread that one of his elbows was there. It was afterwards understood that the sailor had been inspired to leave this stone in that place because Ancona signifies ‘the elbow’ in Greek. But no miracles were wrought there till after the body of Stephen had been discovered.” St. Augustine was going on with his discourse, recounting other miracles from these relics, when a great shout arose, and the congregation interrupted him, and some broughtbefore him Palladia, who had just been suddenly healed in the same way as her brother Paul when she went again to pray before the relics. The people were overjoyed, and continued their shouts till Augustine had to pause; and when they were a little silent, he concluded with a thanksgiving.
THE VISION OF ST. AUGUSTINE.
St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, near Carthage, who died 430, and whose magnificent tomb in the cathedral of Pavia is rich as a work of art, had in the course of his studies, while writing discourses on the Trinity, a dream or vision, which he thus related: “I was wandering along the seashore lost in meditation. Suddenly I beheld a child, who, having dug a hole in the sand, appeared to be bringing water from the sea to fill it. I inquired of the child what was the object of this task, and it replied, ‘I intend to empty into this hole all the waters of the great deep.’ ‘Impossible!’ I exclaimed. ‘Not more impossible,’ replied the child, ‘than for you, O Augustine, to explain the mystery on which you are now meditating.’” This incident is also related of another great preacher (seeante, p. 108). St. Augustine is often in mediæval pictures represented as standing arrayed in his episcopal robes on the seashore, gazing with astonishment on an infant Christ, who holds a bowl, a cup, and a ladle. Murillo has a great picture on this subject. St. Augustine admitted with shame that when a boy he had robbed an orchard, and that the multiplication table was detestable to him.
ST. AUGUSTINE’S FAITH IN DREAMS.
St. Augustine’s faith in dreams was illustrated by him in a letter to a friend, who was speculating about future life. He said there was a beloved physician at Carthage named Gennadius, who, though an earnest benefactor of the poor, had doubts about the future life. One night Gennadius dreamt that a noble-looking youth came to him and said, “Follow me.” He followed, and was led to a city in which he heard delicious music of hymns and psalms, and the youth explained that this was the singing of the blessed and the holy. When he awoke and found it was a dream, he attached no importance to it. But on another night the same youth came again, and asked, “Do you remember me?” “Yes,” said Gennadius, “I saw you in my dream, and you took me to hear the songs of the blessed.” “Are you dreaming now?” “Yes.” “Where is your body at this moment?” “In my bed.”“Your eyes, then, are closed and bound in sleep?” “Yes.” “How is it, then, that you see me?” Gennadius could give no answer, and the angel said, “Just as you see me without the eyes of the flesh, so it will be when all your senses are removed by death. There shall still be life in you and a faculty to perceive. Take care that henceforth you have no doubts about the life to come.” St. Austin adds: “You may say that this was a dream, and any one may think what he likes about it. Nevertheless, there are some dreams which have a Divine significance.”
ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA (A.D.444).
A famous champion of orthodoxy was St. Cyril of Alexandria, who flourished in 444. He spent five years of his youth in the monasteries of Nitria, and became an ardent student of theology, and his uncle, the Archbishop Theophilus, recalled him to take office in the church. He soon became a popular preacher, having a comely person and a sonorous voice, and his friends stationed themselves in convenient places in the church to applaud him and bring out all his merits. He soon succeeded to the patriarchate, which gave him civil as well as ecclesiastical powers. He had no patience with heretics, and not only interdicted the Moravians from performing public worship, but confiscated their holy vessels. His virulent rage against the Jews had no bounds, and without warning or authority he led a fanatic mob early one morning and attacked their synagogues and demolished them, rewarded his followers with the plunder, and expelled the ancient people from the city. He insisted on paying the highest honours to a monk who, like an assassin, had wounded the prefect. He also took umbrage at Hypatia, a young and beautiful woman, who taught philosophy, and who was said to take the part of the prefect against Cyril. One day it was said Cyril’s fanatical followers seized this lady, stripped and butchered her, and burnt her body in the church, thereby leaving an indelible stain on his character. He also was indefatigable in persecuting Nestorius, an alleged heretic.
SOME NOTIONS OF THE FATHERS.
Some of the notions to which the Fathers clung were these: That Christ would return and reign with the saints in Jerusalem in the flesh for a thousand years; that the angels had bodies and appetites; that Christ’s body was not sensitive to the stripes and torments inflicted; that after death all should pass a fierytrial before the final judgment day; that God’s Providence was confined only to men as rational creatures, but had nothing to do with the beasts of the field, with bugs and flies and worms; that marriage was in any circumstances a degrading institution, but a second marriage was accursed; that infants which die before baptism cannot be saved; that the baptism of heretics was invalid and null; that an oath was utterly unlawful for Christians to take; that our Saviour lived fifty years, and was not crucified at the age of thirty-three.
THE MONKS AND THEIR WAYS.
ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF MONACHISM.
As early as the second century men and women began to feel the charm of a peaceful, contemplative life, wholly severed from the selfish, sensual, and brutish ways of large communities. Hence they were attracted to deserts and secluded places, and to seek happiness by living entirely alone. It is thought this turn of religious life was first developed in Egypt. About 378 St. Basil, afterwards Bishop of Cæsarea, introduced monachism into Asia Minor, and thence into the East, and he enjoined poverty, obedience, chastity, and self-mortification as the great objects to be kept in view. A peculiar habit was found to answer best to this kind of life. Both monks and nuns chose plain coarse clothes and girdles. The monks went barelegged, and their hair was more or less shaven. In 529 St. Benedict, an Italian of noble birth, instituted a code of conduct for his monastery on Monte Cassino, a hill between Rome and Naples, and added manual labour for seven hours a day. St. Augustine, the apostle to the Anglo-Saxons, about 596, belonged to the Benedictine order, and so did St. Dunstan, about 930. The habit of the Benedictines consisted of a white woollen cassock, and over that an ample black gown and a black hood. The female houses had also a white under-garment, a black gown and black veil, with a white wimple round the face and neck. The monks of Clugny, in Burgundy, founded in 927, abandoned manual labour and devoted themselves more to contemplative studies. The Clugniacs, the Carthusians, the Cistercians, and the orders of Camaldoli and Grandmont, all sprang from the Benedictine order, each having their own variations. St. Bernard joined the Cistercians in 1113. The Augustinians were a milder order than the Benedictines, and were divided into canons secularand canons regular. A branch of the Augustinians were the military orders, or Knights of the Temple, who arose about 1118, after the experience of the Crusaders, and devoted themselves to escorting pilgrims to Jerusalem and the holy places.
THE MIRACLES AND WORSHIP OF THE MONKS.
Gibbon sums up his account of the monks as follows: “The monastic saints, who excite only the contempt and pity of a philosopher, were respected and almost adored by the prince and people. The Christian world fell prostrate before their shrines, and the miracles ascribed to their relics exceeded at least in number and duration the spiritual exploits of their lives. But the golden legend of their lives was greatly embellished by the artful credulity of their interested brethren; and a believing age was easily persuaded that the slightest caprice of an Egyptian or a Syrian monk had been sufficient to interrupt the eternal laws of the universe. The favourites of Heaven were accustomed to cure inveterate diseases with a touch, a word, or a distant message, and to expel the most obstinate demons from the souls or bodies which they possessed. They familiarly or imperiously commanded the lions and serpents of the desert, infused vegetation into a sapless trunk, suspended iron on the surface of the water, passed the Nile on the back of a crocodile, and refreshed themselves in a fiery furnace. These extravagant tales, which display the fiction without the genius of poetry, have seriously affected the reason, the faith, and the morals of the Christians. Their credulity debased and vitiated the faculties of the mind; they corrupted the evidence of history, and superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light of philosophy and science. Every mode of religious worship which had been practised by the saints, every mysterious doctrine which they believed was fortified by the sanction of Divine revelation, and all the manly virtues, were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.”
PHILOSOPHY OF MONKERY.
Dr. Johnson said: “I do not wonder that, where the monastic life is permitted, every order finds votaries and every monastery inhabitants. Men will submit to any rule by which they will be exempted from the tyranny of caprice and of chance. They are glad to supply by external authority their own want of constancy and resolution, and court the government of others,when long experience has convinced them of their own inability to govern themselves.”
MOTIVES FOR BECOMING MONKS.
It would be vain to analyse the many modes by which men were induced to become monks. It has been remarked that young men who became monks out of penitence for their sins were most distinguished for zeal. Men of the first rank, struck by the force of momentary impressions or by sudden reverses of fortune, reminded of the uncertainty of worldly goods, the nearness of death, the vanity of earthly glory, would go into solitude as anchorites or enter a monastery. About 1090 Count Ebrard, of Breteuil, a youth of family and fortune, suddenly forsook all his pleasures, and went about earning his bread as an itinerant charcoal burner, and then for the first time found true peace of mind. Another noble youth, named Simon, about the same time was so struck by the transitoriness of wealth on seeing his father’s dead body, that he also became a monk. Many were driven by sickness, poverty, shame, and remorse to do likewise. Those driven into monasteries by the fear of death were said soon to lose their firmness of purpose. Once St. Bernard, when visiting Count Theobald of Champagne, and seeing a crowd following a robber who was about to be executed, begged of the count to give up to him the criminal to be reformed, and Bernard converted him into an exemplary monk, who lived such for thirty years thereafter. Another monk, Bernard, who lived on a desert island near Jersey, made such an impression on a band of pirates, that when afterwards they were on the point of shipwreck and in fear of sudden death, they remembered the good advice of the hermit, and repented, returned, and joined him in holy exercises for the rest of their days. Anselm of Canterbury, when discoursing on the virtues of monks and the temptations of worldly life, said, “It was true that it was not monks only who are saved. Still, it may be asked, Which of the two attains salvation in the most certain and noble way—he who seeks to love God alone, or he who seeks to love God and the world too at the same time? Was it rational, when danger is on every side, to choose to remain where the danger is greatest?”
THE WEAK SIDE OF MONACHISM.
Though there were many good points in monachism, the Fathers were not slow to point out its defects. Chrysostom lamented that Christian virtue which ought to dwell in cities hadfled into deserts. Vigilantius observed, “If all Christian men shut themselves up in cloisters and withdrew into deserts, who shall preach the Gospel and call sinners to repentance?” There was one Roman monk named Jovinian, sometimes called a prototype of Luther, and obviously before his time, who was uncompromising in his denunciations of the whole system. “There is,” he said, “one and the same Divine life springing from fellowship with the Redeemer, in which all genuine Christians share, and a higher stage cannot exist.” But in spite of all cavils the system held its ground down to the time of Luther. As Neander remarks: “The more the monks occupied themselves with their temptations, instead of looking from themselves to the Lord, so much the more those temptations increased, many of which they could easily have overcome if they had been willing to forget themselves in an activity of a calling that would have laid under requisition all the powers of their nature; on which account they felt the need of occupying by manual labour, such as basket-making and other handicrafts, the senses and lower powers of their nature.”
ST. BENEDICT AT MONTE CASSINO (A.D.528).
St. Benedict was born in 480, and gave a fresh impetus to monkish communities and devised better laws. After some experience in other places, he selected one of the heights of the Apennines for the great capital of the monastery orders—namely, Monte Cassino. He combined agriculture and woodcutting with exercises of piety, and introduced a more severe system of discipline. Many young nobles flocked to take up their abode. They acted as missionaries and almsmen to the poor. After fourteen years’ presiding over the monastery, he had a last interview with his sister Scholastica, whom he survived forty days. A violent fever seized him, and he ordered his sister’s tomb to be opened for him, and himself to be carried to the chapel of John the Baptist. Then, supported by his disciples, he insisted on standing and receiving the holyviaticum, and extending his arms and uttering his prayers, he died standing like a sentinel at his post. His influence lasted a thousand years; his relics were carefully guarded and taken to France. In the eleventh century one of his bones was sent from France to Monte Cassino, and there received with great enthusiasm.
THE REFORMERS OF MONKERY (A.D.528-1226).
Though Benedict was a great reformer of the monks by introducingsystematic labour into the spiritual life, and though his new order of things began with so fair a promise and had done wonders, yet the monks had by degrees yielded to the treacherous influences of fame, ease, and wealth. The Benedictine monasteries were filled with scholars, whose devotion was directed more to the preservation of classic texts than the performance of the Divine office; with luxurious monks, strangers to fasting and unused to vigils, revelling in the good things of life, and in their rich revenues; then abbots were lords and rulers living in princely state, and riding out on richly caparisoned palfreys. The old humility of the monastic life was lost; they took part in state intrigues, dictated laws to kings, shook the thrones of monarchs who had offended them, and began to aspire after worldly power and dominion. At last St. Francis arose in 1180, the founder of the Friars Minors, who discovered that there was nothing in the world really great and thoroughly satisfactory except poverty and self-humiliation, accompanied with efficient street preaching. St. Dominic also about the same time introduced mendicancy, or the absence of wealth, as part of the system of life. Yet in course of time both these last systems broke down, long before the period of the Reformation.
EARLY DIFFICULTIES OF MONASTERIES (A.D.600).
When the Irish abbot Columban (who died 615) left the monastery of Bangor, where he had been reared, he became at the age of thirty consumed with a zeal to found a monastery of his own; and having obtained his abbot’s permission, he went off with twelve youths to France, and they betook themselves to an immense wilderness in Vosges, and chose the ruins of an old castle as a settlement. As the monks were obliged to till the adjoining land, they at first suffered greatly from hunger. At one time the monks had nothing to eat but the bark of trees and wild herbs; and what made matters worse, one of their number was sick, and the others could do nothing to relieve him. Three days they spent in prayer, seeking relief for their sick brother, when suddenly they saw a man standing at the door of the convent, whose horses were laden with sacks of provisions. The man told them that he had felt an indescribable impulse to go and assist with his means those who from love to Christ endured such privations in the wilderness. Another time they had for nine days suffered similar want, when the heart of another abbot moved him to send provisions. When a foreign priest once visited them and expressed surprise at their cheerfulness amidsuch trials, Columban only said, “If people faithfully serve their Creator, they will suffer no want; for in the Psalms it is said, ‘I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.’ He who could satisfy five thousand men with five loaves can easily fill our barns with meal.”
ADVICE TO MONKS SETTLING IN A FOREST (A.D.650).
When the Abbot Ebrolf settled with his monks in the seventh century in a thick forest inhabited by wild beasts and robbers, one of the robbers, struck with awe at the simplicity of the newcomers, said to them, “You have not chosen a suitable place for yourselves. The inhabitants of this forest live by robbery, and can endure nobody near them who seeks to support himself by the labour of his hands. This is no place for you.” The monk answered, “Know, my brother, that the Lord is with us; and since we are under His protection, we fear not the threatenings of men who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Know that He will supply His servants abundantly with food even in a desert. And thou also, my friend, mayst be a partaker of these riches, if thou wilt renounce thy evil vocation and vow to serve the true and living God. Despair not of God’s goodness on account of the greatness of thy sins, but be assured the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry, and the face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.” Upon this the robber departed, meditating upon these words, which to him were so extraordinary. The next morning he hastened back to the monks, carrying to the abbot a present, such as his poverty could furnish, of three coarse loaves and a honeycomb, and professing his willingness to join them and become a monk. After his example other robbers were from time to time persuaded either to become monks or to labour honestly for a livelihood with their own hands.
A MONK DENOUNCES THE FEROCITY OF LOMBARD KINGS (A.D.749).
The monk Paul Diaconus was at Court in the time of King Rutchis (A.D.744-749), and relates having himself seen that king after a banquet show the famous goblet which Albuin had made of the skull of Cummund, King of the Gepidi. As is known, Albuin had killed King Cummund in battle, and afterwards married his daughter Rosamund, and used on solemn occasions to drink out of his skull, which had been made into a cup. One day Albuin commanded that the goblet should be handed to the Queen,calling upon her to drink gaily with her father. This horrible outrage was at a later time cruelly avenged by Rosamund. Paul Diaconus, on seeing the goblet and remembering this brutal act of a former king, made this entry in his memoirs: “Lest this should seem incredible to any, take note that I speak the truth in Christ, for indeed I saw on a certain feast day King Rutchis holding this cup in his hand and showing it to his guests.”
ANOTHER BENEDICT TRIES TO MAKE THE MONKS WORK (A.D.780).
Amid the growing demoralisation of monasteries, Benedict of Aniane, whose original name was Witïza, when a boy, was cup-bearer in the Court of Pepin, and continued with Charlemagne. In returning from Rome in 774, in the retinue of that king, he narrowly escaped drowning in attempting to save his brother. This turned his thoughts towards joining a monastery, which he soon entered, and at once excelled in all the austerities. He macerated his body by excessive fasting, clothed himself with rags, which soon swarmed with vermin, slept little and on the bare ground, never bathed, courted derision and insult like a madman, and expressed his fear of hell in loud outcries. On the death of his abbot Benedict became his successor, and built a little hermitage on the bank of the river Aniane. Some monks tried to live with him, but found the regimen too severe; others succeeded better. He and his monks resolved to build a monastery between them. They had no oxen to drag the materials, and they did the work themselves. The walls were of wood, the roof thatched with straw, the vestments were coarse, the vessels of wood, but all of their own making. They lived chiefly on bread and water, sometimes a little milk, and on Sundays a scanty allowance of wine. Yet it was noticed that they soon tended to greater luxury and splendour, for in 782 the wooden monastery was replaced by one more solid—marble and decorations and costly vessels. Charlemagne himself contributed, and exempted the building from all taxes; and he appointed Benedict and two others to collect and recast the rules of monasteries and nunneries. Benedict to the last helped to plough and dig and reap, and died in 821, aged seventy.
IMPROVEMENTS IN MONASTICISM (A.D.780).
When Benedict, Abbot of Aniane, in Languedoc, born in 750, left the Court in early life, disgusted with its ways and bent on monastic labours, thought of founding a new monastery, he foundthe system then in vogue far too lax. He taught his monks to accustom themselves to earn a living by their own industry, and then do the utmost good with their earnings. When starving crowds came to his new settlement, he taught them to join in storing all the grain that could be spared till next harvest, and each made his portion support himself and supply a surplus, as a boon to the needy ones outside. The monastery was also turned into an industrial centre for library work. Louis the Pious thought so well of these improvements in discipline, that he drew up a code in 817 on the same principles, and circulated it throughout the Frankish Empire. Benedict used to say, “If it seem to you impossible to observe many of the commandments, then try only this one little commandment: ‘Depart from evil and learn to do good.’”
A MONK AT COURT WRITES HOME TO HIS OLD CONVENT (A.D.750).
Paul Diaconus was for some time a monk at Monte Cassino, on the banks of the Moselle, and was sent to the Court of Charlemagne to use influence to obtain a pardon for his brother, then in banishment. The King treated him well, and Paul thus wrote to Theodomar, the abbot: “Although my body is separated by a vast distance, yet my affection for you can never suffer any diminution, nor can I hope to express in a letter, and within the brief limit of these lines, how constantly and profoundly I am moved by the thought of your affection and that of my elders and brethren. For when I consider the leisure, filled with sacred occupations, the delectable refuge of my dwelling, your pious and holy dispositions—when I think of the holy band of so many soldiers of Christ, zealous in all Divine offices, and the shining examples of special excellence in particular brethren, and the sweet converse we had on the perfections of our celestial home—I tremble, I gaze, I languish, I cannot restrain my tears, and my breast is rent with many sighs. I am living amongst Catholics and followers of Christian worship. I am well received. All show me abundant kindness for the love of our Father Benedict and for the sake of your own merits. But compared to your convent, this palace is a prison in contrast to the great serenity of your life; my life here seems only a continual storm. I am only detained in this country by the weakness of my body, but my whole soul goes out to you. Now I seem to be in the midst of your Divine songs, now to be sitting with you in the refectory, where the reading is even more satisfying than the bodily food. Now, methinks, I am watching each at his own special work, nowinquiring into the health of the aged and sick, now wearing with my feet the tombs of the saints, who are dear to me as heaven itself.”
THE MONKS FIRST DRINKING WINE IN ENGLAND (A.D.760).
Fuller, in his “Church History,” says that about 760 the bill of fare of monks was bettered generally in England, and more liberally indulged in their diet. It was first occasioned when Ceolwolphus, formerly King of Northumberland, but then a monk in the convent of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, gave leave to that convent to drink ale and wine, anciently confined by Aidan, their first founder, to milk and water. Let others dispute whether Ceolwolphus thus dispensed with them by his new abbatical or old regal power, which he so resigned that in some cases he might resume it, especially to be king in his own convent. And indeed the cold, raw, and bleak situation of that place, with many bitter blasts from the sea and no shelter on the land, speaks itself to each inhabitant there. This local privilege, first justly indulged to the monks of Lindisfarne, was about this time extended to all the monasteries in England, whose primitive over-austerity in abstinence was turned now into a self-sufficiency that soon improved into plenty, that quickly depraved into riot, and that at last occasioned their ruin.
CHARLEMAGNE HAS HIS DOUBTS ABOUT MONKERY (A.D.800).
The monasteries were growing rich in the time of Charlemagne, and he saw many weak points in the system. He thought many made false professions of withdrawing from the world and entering as monks merely to escape military service. He therefore made an order in 805 that those who forsake the world shall be obliged to live strictly as canons or monks according to rule. In 811 the King censured the abbots as caring only to swell the number of their monks, and to obtain good chanters and readers without caring about their morals. He asked sarcastically how the monks and clergy understood the text against entangling themselves with worldly affairs: whether those could be said to have forsaken the world who were incessantly striving to increase their possessions by all sorts of means—who used the hopes of heaven and the terrors of hell, the names of God and the saints, to extort gifts not only from the rich, but from the poor and ignorant, and by diverting property from the lawful heirs drive these to theft and robbery. “How,” asked the King, “can they be said to have forsaken the world who suborn perjury in order to acquire what theycovet, who keep what secular property they can get and surround themselves with bands of armed men?” In that age abbots as well as bishops were addicted to war, as well as hunting and hawking, to games of chance, and to the society of minstrels and jesters. Gross immorality was winked at among the recluses of both sexes. That state of things led to the appearance of St. Benedict, a renowned reformer of monkish life (ante, p. 212).
LEAVING CHARLEMAGNE’S COURT TO BE MONK (A.D.801).
Duke William had well served Charlemagne and often routed the infidels, but at last in 801 he resolved to retire from the world and be a monk in a desert in the Cevennes. But he must first obtain the consent of his King, and in seeking an interview he began: “My lord, you know how I have loved you more than my life and the light of day. I have followed you in the field and been always ready to lay down my life for you. Now I ask leave to become a soldier of the Eternal King. I have long vowed to retire to a monastery and renounce the world.” At these words Charlemagne’s eyes overflowed with tears, and he said, “My Lord William, these are hard and bitter words, which have wounded my heart; nevertheless, since it is devout and reasonable, I will not oppose. If you had preferred the service of any other mortal king, I might have felt it an injustice; but as you wish to be a soldier of the King of angels, I consent. Only you must take with you some gift as a token and memorial of our friendship.” With these words the King fell on his neck and wept bitter tears. William thereafter returned to Aquitaine; and visiting the monastery of St. Julian, at Brives, he deposited his arms as an offering to God. His buckler was long shown there as a priceless possession, and its gigantic form and strength long attracted all eyes. William then took the humble habit, and entered the monastery of Gelon, comporting himself as the lowliest of the brethren. He might be seen at harvest among the reapers, mounted on an ass, carrying a vessel of wine, from which he refreshed each reaper. Thus he who had so often given battle to the Saracens, and won renown among the warriors of his age, gave himself up entirely to humble occupations and works of charity.
A MONK GOING TO LIVE AT COURT (A.D.801).
When Alcuin, a monk, who died in 804, was called to the Court of Charlemagne, he gave vent to his feelings thus: “O my cell, sweet and well-beloved home, adieu for ever! I shall see no morethe woods that surround thee with their interlacing branches and flowery verdure, nor thy fields full of wholesome and aromatic herbs, nor thy streams of fish, nor thy orchards, nor thy gardens where the lily mingles with the rose. I shall hear no more those birds, who, like ourselves, sing matins and celebrate their Creator in their own fashion; nor those instructions of sweet and holy wisdom, which sound in the same breath as the praises of the Most High, from lips and hearts always serene. Dear cell! I shall weep and mourn for thee always. But thus it is: everything changes and passes away; night succeeds to day, winter to summer, storm to sunshine, weary age to ardent youth. And we—unhappy that we are!—we cling to this fugitive world. It is Thou, O Christ, that puttest all away, that we may love Thee only, and Thou canst satisfy every heart.”
THE REASONS FOR SO MANY MONASTERIES (A.D.1150).
Bishop Otho of Bamberg, the apostle of Pomerania, being asked in 1150 why he founded and built so many monasteries, replied, citing the parable of the Good Samaritan, thus: “The world is only a place of exile, and as long as we live in it we are at a distance from our Lord. Therefore we need inns and stables. Now, monasteries and cells are inns and stables. These are then of great utility to us poor wanderers; and if we fall among robbers and are stripped and wounded and left half dead, certainly we shall find by experience how much better it is to be near an inn than at a distance from one. For when sudden destruction comes upon us, how can we be carried to a stable if it be far off? So it is much better that there should be many such places than few, seeing how great is the danger, and how large is the number of persons exposed to it. And now, especially that men are so multiplied upon earth, it is not absurd that monasteries should be multiplied, since the abundant population admits of numbers embracing a chaste life. Finally, it is well to have these built, that in all things God might be honoured and man assisted; and how great is the honour to God and the utility to man which daily result from monasteries! The spiritual is even greater than the temporal utility; for there the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them.”