CONSTANTINE’S STANDARD OF THE CROSS.
When Constantine, in 324, was invested with the sole dominion of the Roman world, he exhorted, by circular letters, all his subjects to imitate without delay his example and embrace the Divine truths of Christianity. The Christians, knowing that the Emperor’s father, Constantius, was on their side, had looked to the elevation of Constantine as intimately connected with the designs of Providence, and they confidently expected some Divine and miraculous aid to attest the great revolution in the world’s affairs then at hand. History accordingly has preserved full particulars of the standard, the dream, and the celestial sign which sealed their hopes. The Emperor took measures to have the standard of the cross affixed to his own statue, and on the helmets, shields, and banners of his army. The principal standard was styled thelabarum, which was a long pike intersected by a transverse beam, from which hung down a silken veil, which was curiously inwrought with the images of the reigning monarch and his children. The summit of the pike supported a crown of gold, which enclosed the mysterious monogram at once expressive of the figure of the cross and the initial letters of the name of Christ. The safety of thelabarumwas entrusted to fifty guards of approved valour and fidelity. The opinion soon grew that so long as the guards of thelabarumwere in the execution of their office, they were secure and invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy. The sight of the standard gave the troops an invincible enthusiasm, and scattered terror and dismay among the enemies. There is still extant a medal of the Emperor Constantine, where the standard of thelabarumis accompanied with these memorable words, “By this sign thou shalt conquer!”
THE DREAM OF CONSTANTINE.
In the age of Constantine the sign of the cross had come to beused by the primitive Christians in all their ecclesiastical rites, in all the daily occurrences of life, as an infallible preservative against every species of spiritual and temporal evil. A contemporary writer affirms with perfect confidence that in the night which preceded the last battle against Maxentius Constantine was admonished in a dream to inscribe the shields of his soldiers with the celestial sign of God, the sacred monogram of the name of Christ; that he executed the commands of Heaven; and that his valour and obedience were rewarded by the decisive victory of the Milvian Bridge. The senate and people, exulting in the success of Constantine, acknowledged that his victory surpassed the power of man. The triumphal arch which was erected about three years after the event recognised that by an instinct or impulse of the Divinity Constantine had saved and avenged the Roman Republic. Twenty-six years after the event the historian Eusebius narrates that in one of his marches Constantine saw a luminous cross in the sky inscribed with the words, “By this conquer,” and this sign astonished the whole army; and that in a vision of the ensuing night Christ appeared to the Emperor, displaying the same celestial sign of the cross, and directing him to march with an assurance of victory. These incidents were universally adopted, as undoubted truths, by the Catholic Church both of the East and the West; but it is noted by the sceptics that, though the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries often celebrated the triumphs of Constantine, they do not allude to these signs and wonders as accompanying the event.
THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE PREACHING (A.D.314).
The Emperor Constantine revolutionised the Empire by giving a chief place to Christian doctrines and practices. He issued an edict of toleration in 313; decreed the observance of Sunday, the use of prayer in the army; abolished the punishment of crucifixion, gladiatorial games, infanticide, private divinations; and encouraged slave emancipation. He was a great admirer of good preaching. Eusebius says he himself once delivered a sermon in the palace before the marvellous man on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There was a crowded audience. The Emperor stood erect the whole time; would not be induced to sit down on the throne close by; paid the utmost attention; would not hear of the sermon being too long; insisted on its continuance; and on being entreated to sit down, replied, with a frown, that he could not bear to hear the truths of religion in any easier posture. More often he was himself the preacher, and one sermon of his is preservedby Eusebius. These sermons were always in Latin, but they were translated into Greek by interpreters appointed for the purpose. On these occasions a general invitation was issued, and thousands of people flocked to the palace to hear the Emperor do duty as the preacher. He stood erect, and then with a set countenance and grave voice poured forth his address, to which, at the striking passages, the audience responded with loud cheers of approbation. He usually discoursed on the follies of Paganism, the scheme of Providence and redemption, and the avarice and rapacity of courtiers.
THE LAST ILLNESS OF CONSTANTINE (A.D.337).
The Emperor Constantine was anxious to see a reunion of the Arian and Athanasian controversialists; but owing to the sudden death of Arius at a critical moment, and, as was often surmised, by a Divine judgment, the opportunity lapsed. Constantine had been seized with sudden illness while preparing for his Persian expedition, and he tried the mineral waters near Helenopolis in vain. He now bethought himself of the necessity of baptism, which he had omitted, though he had been for twenty-five years convinced of the Christian faith. In the church of Helenopolis he was admitted a catechumen by the imposition of hands. He then cast off his imperial purple robes and assumed those of dazzling whiteness, and was baptised by an Arian bishop, but nevertheless ordered the recall of the orthodox Athanasius. He was greatly comforted at the accomplishment of his baptism, and on his deathbed bade his friends rejoice at his speedy departure. He died at the age of sixty-four. His body was laid out in a coffin of gold, and carried by a procession of the whole army to Constantinople. For three months the body lay in state in the palace, lights burning around and guards watching. The Bishop of Nicomedia, who had been entrusted with the Emperor’s will, alarmed at its contents, placed it for security in the dead man’s hand till his son Constantius arrived. It was believed to express the Emperor’s conviction that he had been poisoned by his brothers and their children, and to call on Constantius to avenge his death. That bequest was obeyed by the massacre of six princes of the imperial family. Prayers were offered up to the dead Emperor, and miracles were believed to be wrought by him.
THE FIRST CHURCH COUNCIL OF NICE (A.D.325).
When the first great Church controversy arose as to the Trinity, the Emperor Constantine summoned the first great Council ofthe Church at Nice in 325 to settle this and other doubtful points. Three hundred bishops attended, with many presbyters and deacons and laity. The assembly sat in solemn silence till the Emperor entered with great state and glittering with jewels. The whole assembly rose to do him honour. He advanced with modest dignity to a low golden seat, and did not take the seat till a sign of permission had been given by the bishops. A leading prelate began with a short address and hymn; then the Emperor delivered an exhortation to unity. The debate next began, and mutual accusations, defences, and recriminations followed, the Emperor occasionally softening asperities and commending pacific views. The council sat two months, and at the end the Emperor invited the bishops to a sumptuous banquet. They all attended, and were delighted at the prosperous turn which affairs had at last taken. The Nicene Creed was the result. Three hundred and eighteen bishops signed it, and five dissented, though ultimately only two of these withstood to the last.
AN EARLY BISHOP SILENCING THE PAGANS.
When Alexander was Bishop of Byzantium, about 314, being then seventy-three years old, he presided at a conference which the Emperor Constantine appointed to be held between the Pagan philosophers and the bishop. The latter was called an apostolic bishop, owing to his reputation for sanctity. And the historians say that on the occasion of the conference he put the spokesman of the Pagans to silence by firmly exclaiming, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command thee to be silent!” On another occasion the same bishop was an ardent opponent of Arius, who then enjoyed the patronage of the Court party. The Emperor Constantine ordered that Arius should be admitted to the Communion. But Alexander was determined not to admit the heretic, and rather than comply with the royal command shut himself up in the church of Irene for purposes of prayer. Strange to say, Arius died suddenly on the following morning, as he was proceeding in triumph to the cathedral, and the people all believed that this was a judgment on the heretic in answer to the good bishop’s prayers.
HOW TO CHALLENGE AND REFUTE A HERETIC.
Gregory of Nyssa relates of Ephraim the Syrian, who died about 373, and who was a most voluminous author, preacher, commentator, and hymn-writer: One Apollinaris had written a treatise in two volumes, containing much that was contrary toScripture. These volumes he had entrusted to a lady at Edessa, from whom Ephraim obtained a loan of them by pretending that he was a disciple of Apollinaris, and was preparing to defend his views. But before returning them he glued the leaves together, and then challenged the heretic to a public disputation. Apollinaris accepted the challenge, but only so far as to consent to read from these books what he had written, and declining to do more on account of his great age. The controversialists met; but when Apollinaris endeavoured to open the books, he found the leaves so firmly fastened together that the attempt was in vain, and he withdrew, mortified almost to death by his opponent’s unworthy triumph.
JULIAN THE APOSTATE.
As there are many examples of kings and emperors converted to the Christian religion, so there is a notable example of one relapsing to the condition of an apostate. Julian the Emperor was brought up as a Christian, and had the repute even of a zealous Christian till he attained the age of twenty, when he took a grudge against the Christians, and resolved to restore, if possible, the worship of the gods as it used to be before the Christian era. He was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, and studied with the Pagan philosophers. He composed an elaborate work against the Christians. To spite the Christians he resolved to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem; but earthquakes, whirlwinds, or fiery eruptions destroyed these attempts. He prohibited the Christians from teaching rhetoric and grammar, and excluded them from offices of trust, ordered the Christian temples to be demolished and the Pagan temples to be rebuilt, and showed an irrepressible dislike to the progress of Christianity. Julian admitted that neither fire nor the sword could change the faith of mankind. He therefore prohibited the putting to death of the Galileans, as he called the Christians. He looked on them as wild, savage, and intractable brutes, or at least poor, blind, misguided creatures, who needed only be left to punish themselves. The Pagans of Antioch received him with rapture; but on entering the temple of Apollo, where he expected to find a magnificent procession, he found only a solitary priest, and a single goose for sacrifice, at the very sight of which parsimonious neglect he was greatly incensed. While he was busy urging on the restoration of Apollo’s temple, it took fire, and this the Christians viewed as a judgment; while Julian, on the other hand, attributed it to their malice. He retaliated on the cathedral at Antioch by despoilingit of the sacred vessels. Julian died in battle after two years’ enjoyment of the throne, and it was said his last words were, “Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!” But the most trustworthy accounts state that he died in 363 without remorse, as he had lived without guilt, and delivered an impressive address to his friends, submitting with dignity to the stroke of fate.
HOW JULIAN THE APOSTATE DIED OF WORMS (A.D.363).
Sozomen relates that Julian, when governor of Egypt, put the presbyter, Theodoret of Antioch, the custodian of the sacred ornaments of the church, to cruel tortures, and then caused him to be slain. Julian then proceeded to the sacrilege of the sacred vases, which he flung upon the ground and sat upon, at the same time uttering incredible blasphemies against Christ; but his impious course was suddenly arrested, for certain parts of his body were turned into corruption, and generated enormous quantities of worms. The physicians confessed that the disease was beyond the reach of their art; but from fear and reverence towards the Emperor, they tried all the resources of medicine. They procured the most costly and the fattest birds, and applied them to the corrupted part, in hope that the worms might be thereby attracted to the surface. But this was of no effect; for, in proportion as some of the worms were thus drawn out, others were generated in the flesh, by which he was ceaselessly devoured, until they put an end to his life. Many believed that this disease was an infliction of Divine wrath visited upon him in consequence of his impiety, and this supposition appears the more probable from the fact that the treasurer of the Emperor, and others of the chief officers of the Court who had persecuted the Church, died in an extraordinary and dreadful manner, as if Divine wrath had been visited upon them.
THEOLOGICAL DISPUTES THE TALK OF THE DAY.
When the Arians and Athanasians, early in the fourth century, were in the height of their controversy about the mysteries of the Trinity, the public also took sides, and things beyond all human comprehension became the fashionable topic of conversation at Court. The dispute spread to the people of high rank, and then pervaded the classes below. Socrates said that a war of dialectics was carried on in every family. Gregory of Nyssa in one of his orations thus graphically described the state of public excitement: “Every corner and nook of the city is full of men who discuss incomprehensible subjects—the streets, themarkets, the people who sell old clothes, those who sit at the tables of the money-changers, those who deal in provisions. Ask a man how many pence it comes to, he gives you a specimen of dogmatising on generated and ungenerated beings. Inquire the price of bread, you are answered, ‘The Father is greater than the Son, and the Son subordinate to the Father.’ Ask if the bath is ready, and you are answered, ‘The Son of God was created from nothing.’”
THE GREAT CONTROVERSY ABOUT THE TRINITY.
The controversy between the Arians and the Athanasians exercised the leaders of the Church from the time of Constantine to the Second Ecumenic Council in 381. All the great and commanding minds of the age were with the Trinitarians, each condemning the Arian heresy in his own peculiar way. One leader was Ephraim, the Syrian monk, who wept night and day for the sins of mankind and for his own, and who poured forth verse and prose in defence of orthodoxy. It was said his very writings wept, even his panegyrics and festival homilies flowed with tears. His psalms and hymns, however, animated his monkish companions, and were the occupation and delight of all the earnest believers, and all his thoughts and emotions were rigidly Trinitarian. St. Basil the monk, whose boast it was to be “without wife, without property, without flesh, almost without blood,” was equally zealous for the Trinity, and as its champion he was made Archbishop of Cæsarea. St. Gregory of Nazianzen was equally zealous and eloquent in the same cause; and even the Arian monks and virgins were excited to tumults and bloodshed by his exasperating popularity. Chrysostom in the same cause offended the Empress, who was inclined to the Arians. He was banished; but the Empress, on seeing the commotion caused by an earthquake, was afraid, and he was recalled amid the enthusiasm of the whole inhabitants, who went forth to welcome his return. His renewed insults led the Emperor to send his military officers to seize Chrysostom at the altar during the celebration of the Sacrament, and he was carried off. The same night the church took fire, for which his followers were blamed, and he never returned from exile. The cause of the Trinitarians triumphed at last and became the settled faith.
ATHANASIUS ATTACKED IN HIS OWN CHURCH.
Athanasius, the great champion of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, who died in 373, escaped many imminent dangers inhis career. When Syrianus, Duke of Egypt, at the head of five thousand soldiers attacked Alexandria in 356, the Archbishop Athanasius was with his clergy and people engaged in their nocturnal devotions. The troops with horrid imprecations battered in the door and interrupted the service; but the archbishop, seated on his throne and expecting the approach of death, merely desired the trembling congregation to chant one of the Psalms of David which celebrates the triumph of the God of Israel over the haughty and impious tyrant of Egypt. When the door was burst in, a cloud of arrows was discharged, and the soldiers with drawn swords rushed forward, their armour gleaming under the lights round the altar. Athanasius refused the importunate prayers of the monks and presbyters who urged him to escape, and insisted on keeping his seat till he had dismissed in safety the last of the congregation. The darkness and tumult of the night favoured his own retreat, though he was thrown down in the crowd and was eagerly searched for by the soldiers, who had been instructed by their Arian guides that the head of Athanasius would be a most acceptable present to the Emperor Constantius, who was zealous for the Arian faction. It was on this occasion that Athanasius was lost sight of for six years, making hairbreadth escapes during all that period.
ATHANASIUS CONCEALED BY A HOLY VIRGIN.
Sozomen says that Athanasius, the champion of orthodoxy, on hearing of the death of Constantius in 362, appeared by night in the church at Alexandria, to the astonishment of his friends. He told them that while his enemies were seeking to arrest him he had concealed himself in the house of a holy virgin in Alexandria. She was only twenty years old, and was of such extraordinary beauty, modesty, and wisdom that the gravest and best men felt indescribable fascination in her presence. It is said that Athanasius was led by the revelation of God to seek refuge in her house, and the result showed that all the events were directed by Providence. The friends and relatives of Athanasius would thus have been preserved from danger had search been made for him amongst them, and had they been compelled to swear that he was not concealed with them. There was nothing to excite suspicion of a bishop being concealed in the house of so lovely a virgin. She had, moreover, the courage to receive him and sufficient prudence to preserve his life. She alone ministered to him and supplied his wants. She washed his feet, brought him food, provided him with the books he wanted, and acted soprudently that during the whole time of his residence with her none of the inhabitants of Alexandria suspected the place of his retreat. The people of Alexandria rejoiced at this unexpected reappearance of Athanasius, and at once restored his churches to him.
AN IMPRESSIVE SERMON ON THE TRINITY.
Alanus de Insulis was a schoolman of immense renown in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. He had appointed a certain day to preach on the Blessed Trinity and to give a perfect explanation of that mystery to his auditors. On the preceding day, as he took a solitary walk on the margin of a river, he saw a little boy scooping out a small trench, and trying to fill it with water from a shell; but the water escaped through the sandy bottom as fast as he filled it. “What are you doing, my pretty child?” asked Alanus. The reply was, “I am going to put all the water of the river into my trench.” “And when do you think, my child, that you will succeed in this great design?” “Oh,” said the child, “I shall succeed before you succeed in yours. For they say you are to explain the Trinity, in your sermon to-morrow, by the rules of science.” Alanus was struck with this reply and seized with compunction. He returned home meditating deeply on the child’s remarks and his own presumption. On the morrow, when the hour of the sermon arrived, a great crowd assembled. Alanus mounted the pulpit and uttered these words, which were his whole discourse, “It is sufficient, my friends, that you have seen Alanus.” He immediately descended and withdrew, leaving the people in astonishment. The same day he left Paris for Burgundy, and repaired to the abbey of Citeaux, where he became a monk, and ended his days in holy offices and far-reaching reflections.
PAGANS PLEADING AGAINST DEMOLISHING TEMPLES.
When the young Emperor Valentinian, who diedA.D.375, was about to carry out the edict of his predecessor and demolish the Pagan temples and remove the statue of Victory, the eloquent prefect of Rome, Symmachus, ventured to remonstrate, and in the Senate he lavished his eloquence in defence of the immortal gods and the religion of his ancestors. He was cautious, dextrous, and conciliatory. He told the Emperor how their old religion had subdued the world to the Roman dominion, that Heaven was above them all, and there were many ways by which we arrive at the great secret. But he presumed not to contend on this occasion; he was a humble suppliant. It would surely be adisgrace to the imperial treasury to be enriched by the paltry saving in the maintenance of the Vestal Virgins and by confiscating legacies bequeathed by the piety of individuals. Yea, the deified father of the Emperor would look down with sorrow from the starry citadel to see the intolerance of that day’s proceedings. Ambrose, the Archbishop of Milan, was, however, at hand to confront and confute this Pagan harangue. He told the Emperor that ancestors were to be treated with reverence, but that the question now was the right way of treating with God alone. No part of the public revenue must be given to maintain idolatry. He who offered to images would have his offerings returned by the Church with disdain. All the gods of Rome had done nothing for her. It was the courage of the legions, and not the influence of all the false idols, that turned in their favour the issue of battles. Valentinian was murdered before the final step was taken, and his successor hesitated. Ambrose had to fly from Milan, for the soldiery boasted that they would stable their horses in the churches and press the clergy as soldiers. Alaric soon arrived on the scene, the Roman aristocracy became absorbed by the Christianising population, and Paganism at last gradually died out in 493, and the new religion took its place in the old temples.
THE DEFENCE OF THE PAGAN IDOLS.
The ruin of Paganism and its idols took place in the age of the Emperor Theodosius (378-395). The Roman priests, with their robes of purple, chariots of state, and sumptuous entertainments, were the admiration of the people; and they found their great champion and advocate in Symmachus, who in turn was baffled by Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, whose influence caused the Pagan orator to be exiled. On a vote of the Senate as to whether the worship of Jupiter or of Christ should be the religion of the Romans, a large majority condemned Jupiter, and this led to a special committee of officers, who were directed to shut up the temples and destroy the instruments of idolatry. The Sophists who stood by the Pagan religion describe the acts of the Christian image-breakers as a dreadful and amazing prodigy which covered the earth with darkness. They pathetically relate how the Pagan temples were converted into sepulchres, and how the filthy monks polluted holy places with relics of martyrs which were nothing better than the heads—salted and pickled—of those infamous malefactors who, for the multitude of their crimes, had suffered an ignominious death. But the monks triumphed, and the bodies of St. Andrew, St. Luke, and St. Timothy were transported fromtheir obscure graves in solemn pomp and deposited in the Church of the Apostles, which the magnificence of Constantine had founded in Constantinople. The example of Rome and Constantinople confirmed the faith and discipline of the Catholic world; and the influence of this part of the worship of the faithful lasted during the twelve hundred years which elapsed between the reign of Constantine and the reformation of Luther.
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN DEMOLITION OF TEMPLES.
When Theodosius, the Christian Emperor, in 379 made an edict ordering the demolition of idolatrous temples, it filled the Pagans with dismay. Theophilus, the Archbishop of Alexandria, hastened to execute the order. Marching at the head of the military, he entered the proud temple of the god Serapis, to which a hundred steps led up, and magnificent portices and pillars surrounded the spot. There stood the celebrated colossal statue of the god, made of gold, silver, and other metals fused together, and inlaid with precious stones. When the Christians entered the vast deserted building, the centre of adoration for centuries, they stood silent and awestruck, and after a pause of wonder a soldier was ordered to strike the statue on the knee. He did so timidly, for the spectators expected some terrific outburst of thunder and lightning to destroy him instantaneously. There was an echo, but no sign came. The man, being emboldened, then climbed up to the head, and with one blow struck it off and made it roll to the ground. Another pause. Still no sign of insulted godhead; but a large colony of rats, disturbed from their peaceful abode, suddenly leapt out and scampered about in all directions. The multitude, with their high-strung nerves, were prepared for some act of personal vengeance, but at once dissolved with mirth; peals of loud laughter and jests and mockery mingled with the rest of the work. The curious crowd were further gratified by discovering some of the machinery by which the tricks were produced which had so long imposed on their simple faith, such as letting the light through an aperture fall suddenly on the lips of the statue at the right moment, also a magnet in the roof, which kept a small statue suspended in the air. The fragments of the statue of Serapis were zealously dragged through the streets, and the foundations of the walls were rooted up. The Pagans waited in vain for some sequel of god-like retribution to come; but the river Nile flowed on unmindful of its god without any unusual outbreak. And like scenes were repeated in other cities with the same impunity. In some of the earlier demolitions, however, in otherparts of the empire the Pagans resisted, and in some cases successfully. The war against the temples began in Syria. One enthusiastic iconoclast, named Marcellus of Apamea, after successfully destroying temples in other neighbouring places, when attacking that in his own district was seized rudely by the inhabitants and burned alive. The synod of Christians, thinking it a glorious death, refused to revenge on the ignorant barbarians their precipitate outrage.
DESTROYING PAGAN TEMPLES TOO ABRUPTLY.
When the Emperor Theodosius in 386 directed the prætorian prefect Cynegius, an ardent supporter of Christianity, to shut up all the Pagan temples, this was not done without great excitement. One Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, a somewhat worldly man, who was rather bent on erecting splendid churches than on carrying out the spirit of Christianity, obtained from the Emperor a gift of a temple of Bacchus, and he proceeded to convert it into a Christian church. He acted most injudiciously, first collecting all the indecent decorations out of that impure place, and ordering these to be carried in a procession through the streets, so as to expose them to the ridicule and contempt of the people. But it had rather a contrary effect, for it roused the fanatical spirit, and caused the mob to create a riot and retaliate on the Christians, driving them off and themselves taking refuge in the magnificent temple of Serapis, the pride of Pagan idolaters. There a fanatical Pagan named Olympius, who was clad in the garb of a philosopher, harangued his followers, and instigated them to fight for the sanctuaries of their fathers. The spirit of the mob rose to fever heat, and the loss of life in these commotions was so great that the Emperor took occasion of it to issue a decree, in which he found it necessary to pardon the ringleaders of the Pagans, but at the same time he directed all the heathen temples at Alexandria to be destroyed, since it was through these that such serious disturbances had been created. And this led, amongst others, to the demolition of the celebrated temple of Serapis, and its conversion into churches and cloisters. After these events it was expected that Paganism would soon die out.
DEMOLISHING AN IMAGE AT THE PALACE.
There was a magnificent image of Christ erected over the bronze portal of the Imperial Palace at Constantinople. The legend was, that Theodore, a wealthy merchant, after losing all his property at sea, went to borrow some capital from a wealthyJew, who demanded good security. Theodore had nothing of value but an image of Christ, and this he boldly offered as his surety. The Jew was so amused and yet overwhelmed at this simplicity that he agreed to accept it. The result was that the merchant won back all his wealth, and repaid the Jew to the uttermost farthing, and the great image called the Surety was set up. When the imperial decree was published against this and other images, a soldier of the Emperor’s guard erected a ladder in order to take it down to be burned. But a crowd of women collected, demanding that the image should be spared; and when they watched the soldier striking his axe at it, they were so maddened with indignation, that they pulled the ladder from under his feet, and caused him to fall, and he was killed. The Emperor sent troops to the spot to drive away the people, and set up a plain cross instead of the image which had so won upon the reverence of the lieges.
ST. MARTIN OF TOURS DEMOLISHING TEMPLES (A.D.380).
St. Martin of Tours (who died 396) distinguished himself by his zeal and efficiency as a destroyer of the Pagan temples when the word was given to destroy them. The Pagans occasionally used to resist. Once, after demolishing a temple, he was also desirous of cutting down a pine that stood near it. But the Pagans opposed this, and after some argument agreed that they themselves would fell it upon condition that he, who boasted so much of his trust in God, would stand under it where they would place him. The saint consented, and suffered himself to be tied to that side of the tree on which it leaned. When it seemed just ready to fall upon him, he made the sign of the cross, and it fell on the contrary side. Whereupon the Pagans were so astonished that they all upon the spot demanded to be enrolled in his list of catechumens. Another time he was pulling down a temple, when a great number of Pagans fell upon him with fury, and one attacked him sword in hand. The saint, however, merely took off his mantle and presented his bare neck to him, whereupon the Pagan was so terrified that he fell backwards, and begged the saint to forgive him.
THE KING OF THE GOTHS RESPECTS THE CHURCHES.
When Alaric, King of the Goths, besieged Rome the third time, in 410, the Salarian Gate was silently opened by his confederates inside at midnight, and the inhabitants were roused by the piercing sound of the Gothic trumpet. The tribes of Germanyand Scythia then rushed in, eager to enrich themselves with the spoils of the great city. Alaric exhorted his troops to respect the churches of the Apostles, St. Peter, and St. Paul. The Goths were impressed, and showed here and there some self-restraint. One barbarian chief burst open the humble dwelling of an aged virgin, demanding all her silver and gold, and was astounded at the readiness with which she conducted him to a splendid hoard of massy plate curiously inwrought, which made the eye of the captor sparkle with delight. But the woman with a confident air said to him, “These are the consecrated vessels belonging to St. Peter; if you presume to touch them, the sacrilegious deed will haunt your conscience. As for me, I dare not keep what I am unable to defend.” The captain was awestruck; and after reporting the circumstance to the king, the latter ordered all the consecrated plate and ornaments to be transported without damage or delay to the Church of the Apostles, and a detachment of Goths thereupon marched in battle-array, bearing aloft these sacred treasures amid barbarian shouts and the psalms of rejoicing Christians who joined in the procession. The Goths, in pillaging the city, spared nothing beyond these select vessels of the Church; and gold, jewels, silks, and works of art were piled in waggons for their own spoil. The victorious Goths evacuated the city on the sixth day and marched south, spreading terror and destruction. On reaching Sicily, Alaric’s life was cut short, and his funeral was celebrated with barbaric pomp. A small river, Busentinus, that washes the walls of Consentia, was diverted from its course, and in its bed the hero’s body with the spoils and trophies of Rome were buried. The prisoners who had been compelled to execute this work were then massacred, and the river was restored to its former channel, so as to conceal for ever the place of burial.
ATTILA, KING OF THE HUNS, IMPRESSED BY THE POPE (A.D.453).
When Attila, the King of the Huns, was supposed to meditate the invasion of Italy, so great was the consternation that the Senate and people thought it prudent to send a solemn embassy to deprecate the wrath of that ferocious monarch. He listened to the appeal, and the deliverance of Italy was purchased by the immense ransom or dowry of the Princess Honoria. When Attila talked of carrying his victorious arms to the gates of Rome, both friends and foes warned him that Alaric did not long survive the conquest of the Eternal City; but in 453 he carried out his resolution. Meanwhile, Leo, the bishop, was induced to venture his life to endeavour to mollify the conqueror. Leo’seloquence and majestic aspect and sacerdotal robes made an immense impression on the superstitious barbarian. It was said by the chroniclers that the two apostles St. Peter and St. Paul appeared in person on the occasion, and threatened Attila with instant death if he rejected the prayer of their successor. He was much embarrassed; but before he evacuated Italy he still threatened to return more dreadful and implacable if the Princess Honoria were not delivered up to him according to the treaty. Fortunately for Italy, Attila was one night seized with sudden illness, during which a blood-vessel burst and suffocated him in his sleep. After solemnly exposing his body under a silken pavilion, squadrons of Huns wheeled round, chanting a funeral song to his memory. They inclosed his remains in three coffins, of gold, of silver, and of iron, and privately buried him in the night, throwing into his grave the spoils of nations and the bodies of captives massacred for the purpose.
THE VANDALS SACKING ROME AND CAPTURING SACRED VESSELS (455).
When Genseric, King of the Vandals, was secretly invited by the Empress Eudoxia to deliver her from the brutal treatment of the Emperor Maximus, the African galleys brought an army to the mouth of the Tiber. Maximus being, meanwhile, slain in a tumult of his subjects, the Vandals advanced at once to the gates of Rome; but instead of meeting an army, saw only a procession of clergy, headed by the bishop, who by his venerable appearance sought to mitigate the ferocity of the conqueror. Some show of mercy was promised; but the conquerors, nevertheless, were allowed to pillage the city, which they did for fourteen days and nights. Vast spoils were collected, including the splendid relics of the temples, both Pagan and Christian. Magnificent furniture, sideboards of massy plate, and jewels stripped from the persons of the Empress and her daughters were collected and stowed in the ships. Amongst others, the holy instruments of the Jewish worship, the gold table and the gold candlestick with seven branches, originally framed by the direction of God Himself, and which were placed in the sanctuary of His Temple, had been displayed to the Roman people by Titus, and afterwards deposited in the Temple of Peace. These spoils of Jerusalem at the end of four hundred years were transferred from Rome to Carthage by the Vandals. It has been related that the vessel which transported the relics of the Capitol was the only one of the fleet which suffered shipwreck. Thousands of Romans of both sexes, and mostly those skilled in the arts, were included among thecaptives; and the Bishop of Carthage generously sold the gold and silver plate of his church to relieve them.
JUSTINIAN DRIVING OUT THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS (526).
Though Julian the Apostate, in his zeal to re-establish Paganism, made no great impression, the schools of the Greek philosophers, with their dreamy morality, were not allowed to expire like a worn-out veteran in peaceful dignity. The impatient zeal of the Emperor Justinian in 526 led him to forcibly expel the remnant of the old philosophers from the ancient groves and porches of Athens. Seven followers of Proclus were obliged to find a retreat in Persia; but the Magi there were still more intolerant than the Christians. Philosophy found no resting-place; it found itself supplanted by a new faith, which now domineered over the human mind. Justinian governed the Roman Empire for thirty-eight years (527-565), and great and curious events occurred in his time. The Empress Theodora was daughter of an official called the Master of the Bears, and took to the stage in her youth. Her forte was not to sing or dance or play on the flute, but to act in pantomime and buffoonery, her eyes being bright, and her agile and elegant form drawing down endless applause. She captivated the nephew of the Emperor Justin, young Justinian, whom she married, and she maintained an ascendency over him to the last. She developed into a rapacious and cruel tyrant, and yet patronised many charitable schemes; and her influence and power with the Emperor were unbounded, and many a courtier fell a victim to her caprice. Her physicians at last warned her that her health required her to use the Pythian warm baths. She went there attended by a splendid train of four thousand officials. Highways and palaces were repaired and made ready during the progress. In passing through Bithynia she distributed liberal alms to the churches, the monasteries, and hospitals that they might implore Heaven for the restoration of her health. At last in 548, the twenty-second year of her reign, she was carried away by a cancer.
MAHOMET’S KNOWLEDGE OF CHRISTIANITY (632).
Mahomet’s knowledge of and connection with Christianity are inferred from the fact that his favourite slave Zeyd leaned to the Christian faith. And the monk Bahari, who conversed with Mahomet on his first journey with the camel-drivers, who professed to foresee and welcome the future greatness of the prophet, may have communicated many of the traditions ofthe faith. Though Mahomet was not well acquainted with the canonical gospels, yet the apocryphal gospels with the current traditions of the time were familiar to him. He adopted the legend of the Seven Sleepers at Ephesus, and of the Wandering Jew. Many incidents of ecclesiastical history have analogies in the Koran. There is a priesthood in the sense of men devoted to the interpretation of the Koran. The saints are also venerated, and pilgrims make annual visitations. The ceremonial rites are even more mechanical than are to be found in any portion of the Christian Church.
THE OAK OF GEISMAR DEMOLISHED (724).
When St. Boniface was sent as a missionary by the Pope in 724 to convert the Germans, they were found grovelling in Pagan superstition, putting their faith in sacred groves and fountains. The missionary, when made a bishop, determined to strike a blow at this creed. There was an old and venerable oak of immense size in the grove of Geismar, in Upper Hesse, hallowed for ages to Thor, the thunder-god. Attended by all the clergy, Boniface, who felt that one visible ark of sacred confidence must be replaced by another, went publicly forth to fell this tree. The Pagans assembled in multitudes to behold a trial of strength between the rival gods. They awaited the issue in profound silence, some expecting that the sacrilegious axe would recoil on the impious Christians. But only a few blows had been struck when a sudden wind was heard in the groaning branches, and down it came toppling, and split into four pieces. The shuddering Pagans at once bowed before the superior might of Christianity. Boniface at once built out of the wood a chapel dedicated to St. Peter. After this churches and monasteries sprang up, and zealous labourers from England flocked to help in civilising the Teutonic race. Eadberga, the abbess of Minster, in the isle of Thanet, sent presents of clothes and books. Boniface was then made a metropolitan, with his throne at Mentz, on the Rhine, and Christianity spread from that time throughout that district, and it was by his hand that Pepin the Little was anointed king. In his old age Boniface descended the Rhine in a boat towards the Zuyder Zee. He took with him a shroud, in which his body might be wrapped and sent back to Fulda in Hesse in case of accident. It proved that the Pagan priests attacked him, and then, laying his head upon a volume of the gospels, he received the fatal blow, being killed in 755, and his seventy-fifth year.
THE POPE DEFENDING ROME AGAINST FOREIGNERS (742).
When Luitprand, the Lombard King, was conquering Italy in 742, and was approaching Rome, Pope Zacharias went and met him at Terni, surrounded with a courtly array of bishops. He chose the church of St. Valentine for the place of meeting; and the Pope, availing himself of the solemnity of the building, and reminding the king of the last account and the damnation that must await him, made such an impression that the king was overawed and agreed to a treaty, making the concessions asked; and the Pope, after a solemn service in church, ended by inviting the king to a banquet. But ten years later another Pope (Stephen) was less successful with the next Lombard king, Astolph. The Pope’s ambassadors were received and listened to, but nothing more. The king did not stay his career, but approached Rome. Not all the Litanies, not all the solemn processions to the most revered altars of the city, in which the Pope himself with naked feet bore the cross and the whole people followed with ashes on their heads, and with a wild howl of agony implored the protection of God against the blaspheming Lombards, arrested for an instant his progress. The Pope appealed to Heaven by tying a copy of the treaty violated by Astolph to the holy cross. Astolph entered notwithstanding; and, strange to say, while he remained he busied himself digging up the bodies of saints, not for insult, but as the most precious trophies, and carried them off as tutelar deities to Lombardy. At the same time the Pope was making a journey to King Pepin of France, and there met with a warm reception, which led to many future favours from that quarter.
THE FORGED DECRETALS ABOUT CONSTANTINE (795).
Pope Adrian I., who died 795, in his troubles with emperors and kings, finding Charlemagne a rising power, wrote a letter to him exhorting him to imitate the liberality and revive the name of the great Constantine. He used for that purpose a legend for which he vouched, and which was to this effect: The first of the Christian emperors was healed of the leprosy, and purified in the waters of baptism by St. Sylvester, the Roman bishop, and the physician was gloriously recompensed, for that emperor withdrew from the seat and patrimony of St. Peter, declared his resolution of founding a new capital in the East, and resigned to the Popes the free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the provinces of the West. By this plausible story it was made to appear that the Popes were made by the best of titles supreme; andsuch were the ignorance and credulity of the times, that this absurd fable was received with equal reverence in Greece and France. It turned out that the story was a forgery concocted near the end of the eighth century by one Isidore, a scribe. It was, nevertheless, accepted and handed down as amagna chartaof papal rights, until some opposition to its authenticity proceeded from a Sabine monastery about 1100. In the revival of letters, an eloquent critic and Roman patriot, named Laurentius Valla, who died 1457, completed the exposure of the forgery, to the amazement of his contemporaries, and before the end of the next age the imposture was rejected with the contempt of all the historians. But it served its purpose. As Gibbon observes, “The Popes themselves have indulged a smile at the credulity of the vulgar, but a false obsolete title still sanctifies their reign; and by the same fortune which has attended these forged decretals, and the Sibylline oracles, the edifice has subsisted after the foundations have been undermined.”
POPE NICOLAS AND THE FALSE DECRETALS (867).
One of the clever stratagems by which Pope Nicolas I., who died in 867, tried to establish his supremacy over the whole world in all things spiritual was the promulgation of the false decretals. This Pope was said to have tamed kings and tyrants, and to have ruled the world like a sovereign. A rebel Transalpine prelate, Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, had disputed the jurisdiction of the Pope, but was compelled to submit. On a sudden, at the nick of time, there was promulgated a new code, including thirty-nine (false) decrees of Popes and councils. These not only asserted the supremacy of the Pope, his dignity and privileges, but included a whole system of Church discipline on Church property, sacraments, festivals, rites, and ceremonies. The whole is composed with an air of profound piety and reverence, and a specious purity of tone. But for the too manifest design, the aggrandisement of the whole clergy in subordination to the See of Rome; but for the monstrous ignorance of history, which betrayed itself in glaring anachronisms, and in the utter confusion of the order of events and the lives of distinguished men—the former awakening keen and jealous suspicion, the latter making the detection of the spuriousness of the whole easy, clear, irrefragable—the false decretals might still have maintained their place in ecclesiastical history. They are now given up by all; not a voice is raised in their favour. The utmost done is to palliate the guilt of the forger, who fortunately is unknown.
SEPARATION OF THE GREEK AND LATIN CHURCHES (1054).
The restoration of the Western Empire by Charlemagne was speedily followed by the permanent separation of the Greek and Latin Churches. About 850 Photius, an ambitious layman and captain of the guards, was promoted to the office of Patriarch of Constantinople, thereby superseding Ignatius, who had a large following. Both appealed to Pope Nicolas I., a proud and aspiring pontiff, who embraced the welcome opportunity of judging and condemning his rival of the East. The patriarch had the aid of his own court, and deposed the Pope; but in turn he and his patrons lost ground, and the original patriarch, Ignatius, was restored. Thereafter the feud continued more or less fiercely, till at last, in 1054, the then patriarch was excommunicated in Constantinople by the Pope’s legates. Shaking the dust from their feet, they deposited on the altar of St. Sophia a direful anathema, which enumerated seven mortal heresies of the Greeks, and consigned the Eastern Church, its teachers and sectaries, to everlasting damnation. Though the forms of civility thereafter were sometimes maintained, the Greeks never recanted the errors and the Popes never repealed their sentence. This aversion of the Greeks and Latins was nourished and manifested in the three first expeditions to the Holy Land. The Eastern Christians never gave a cordial welcome to the Crusaders, and rather treated them as schismatics, and sometimes took part in thwarting them. In 1183 the Greeks carried out a massacre, in which the Latins were slaughtered in houses and streets, their clergy burnt in the churches, and the sick in their hospitals. The Greek monks and priests actually chanted a thanksgiving to the Lord when the head of a Roman cardinal, the Pope’s legate, was severed from his body, fastened to the tail of a dog, and dragged in savage mockery through the city.
EARLY CONTENTIONS OF JEW AND CHRISTIAN.
In the fourth century, after miraculous powers ceased to attend the progress of Christianity, and a system of wonder-working was established, the Jews, who had long watched with jealousy the advance of their rivals, began to think that they could also become adepts in pious frauds. Next one party took to magical arts as weapons of superiority. A conference is said to have taken place in the presence of Constantine and the devout empress-mother Helena between the Jews and the Christians. Pope Sylvester had already triumphed in argument over hisinfatuated opponents, when the Jews had recourse to magic. A noted enchanter commanded an ox to be brought forward; he whispered into the ear of the animal, which instantly fell dead at the feet of Constantine. The Jews shouted in triumph, for it was the wordHam-semphorash, the ineffable name of God, at the sound of which the awestruck beast had expired. Sylvester, with some shrewdness, observed, “As he who whispered the name must be well acquainted with it, why does not he fall dead in like manner?” The Jews answered contemptuously, “Let us have no more verbal disputations; let us come to actions.” “So be it,” said Sylvester; “and if this comes to life again at the name of Christ, will ye believe?” They all assented. Sylvester then raised his eyes to heaven, and said with a loud voice, “IfHebe the true God whom I preach, in the name of Christ arise, you ox, and stand on your feet.” The ox sprang up and began to move and feed. The legend then adds that the whole assembly was baptised.
JULIAN INCITING THE JEWS TO REBUILD THE TEMPLE.
Sozomen says that, though Julian the Apostate hated and oppressed the Christians, he was benevolent to the Jews merely in order to spite the Christians. He commanded the Jews to rebuild their Temple at Jerusalem, and gave them money to do so. They entered on the undertaking without reflecting that according to their holy prophets it could not be accomplished. They sought the most skilful artisans, collected materials, cleared the ground, and entered so earnestly on the task that even the women carried heaps of earth and sold their ornaments towards defraying the expense. Yet when they cleared the ground an earthquake occurred, and stones were thrown up from the earth, wounding those near, and houses were thrown down. After the earthquake the workmen returned to the task; and instead of regarding the unexpected wonder as a manifest indication that God was opposed to the re-creation of the Temple, they were consumed by a fire which burst from the foundations. This fact is related by all the contemporaries, who agree that the fire burst out either from the foundations or from the bowels of the earth. A still more extraordinary prodigy occurred, for the sign of the cross appeared on the garments of the workmen. These crosses were disposed like stars, and appeared the work of art. Many were hence led to confess that Christ was God, and repented and were baptised.
CHRISTIANS HATING THE JEWS.
Southey says, “That the primitive Christians should have regarded the Jews with hostile feelings as their first persecutors was but natural, and that that feeling should have been aggravated by a just and religious horror for the crime which has drawn upon this unhappy nation its abiding punishment. But it is indeed strange that during so many centuries this enmity should have continued to exist, and that no sense of compassion should have mitigated it. For the Jews to have inherited the curse of their fathers was in the apprehension of ordinary minds to inherit their guilt; and the cruelties which man inflicted upon them were interpreted as proofs of the continued wrath of Heaven, so that the very injuries and sufferings which in any other case would have excited commiseration served in this to close the heart against it. Being looked on as God’s outlaws, they were everywhere placed, as it were, under the ban of humanity. And while these heart-hardening prepossessions subsisted against them in full force, the very advantages of which they were in possession rendered them more especial objects of envy, suspicion, and popular hatred.”
THE GOLDEN AGE OF JUDAISM (A.D.800).
The Jews seemed never to be so prosperous as in the age of Pepin and Charlemagne (about 768-800). The laws were not enforced against them, and they were practically free from restrictions, except as to keeping Christian slaves and following the law of dower. Bishops, abbots, and abbesses were only prevented by heavy penalties from pledging or selling to the circumcised the costly vestments, rich furniture, and precious vessels of the churches. Jews became physicians, ministers of finance to nobles and monarchs; and when Charlemagne sent an embassy to Caliph Haroun al Raschid, a Jew was sent with two Christian counts as ambassadors, and as they died on the road he conducted the business and brought back costly presents, including an enormous elephant, which the monks of the period described as a wonder of the world. The monks also described the accomplishments of a Jew physician named Zedekiah, who was a confidential adviser of Louis the Débonnaire or the Pious. They relate that he could swallow a whole cart of hay and fly in the air. The toleration and equal treatment of Jews and Christians greatly shocked Agobard, Bishop of Lyons, who issued edicts to his people prohibiting their intercourse. But on appeal the king ordered aninquiry, and the edicts were withdrawn. About the same time in Spain, from the conquest by the Moors till the end of the tenth century, the Jews enjoyed nearly equal laws; and one Moses, their rabbi, became wealthy and influential; and when his grandson Nathan enjoyed a drive in the groves near Cordova, seven hundred chariots joined in the procession that followed him.
THE POPE AND THE JEWS (1140).
Various Christian countries for centuries maintained laws making it necessary that Jews should wear a particular dress or badge to distinguish them. They were always viewed by Christian communities with suspicion. One of the common accusations against them was that of crucifying children, after scourging them and crowning them with thorns; and this they were suspected of doing annually. This was said to be done out of hatred to the Christian religion, and it was even alleged that the Jews received the heart of the sacrificed child at their own Communion. The Jews were also accused of scourging crucifixes and profaning images and crosses. These and other imputations were adroitly used as pretexts for confiscating the wealth of the Jews. One remarkable badge of subjection and suspicion took its rise in the twelfth century—namely, the conduct of the Jews at the installation of a new Pope. They are obliged to wait for the Pontiff on the road to St. John de Lateran, and there on their knees they present him with a copy of their Law. On receiving this, the Pope thus addresses them: “I revere the law which God gave to Moses, but condemn the false sense you give it by vainly expecting the Messiah who has been long come, and whom the Church believes to be Jesus Christ our Lord.” This custom took its rise when Pope Innocent II., on his retreat to France, made his entry into Paris, on which occasion the Jews went to meet him with great solemnity, and in a very respectful manner presented him with the holy books of their Law.
THE JEWS OF YORK DEFENDING THEMSELVES (1189).
A time of monstrous persecution and cruelty towards the Jews was the coronation of Richard I. in 1189. One Benedict, a York Jew, to save his life had submitted to baptism in London, but died of injuries received during a riot there. The people of York, equally excited, attacked Benedict’s house there, and his wife and children took refuge in the Castle with their valuable effects. Other Jews being with them, all at last suspected that the governor was in treaty with their enemies to surrender them, andwhile the governor was temporarily absent they shut the gates against him. This made the populace frantic, and eager to enter and despatch them. A canon urged the mob on; and at last a rabbi, seeing the hopelessness of their situation, addressed his fellow Jews as follows: “Men of Israel, the God of our fathers calls upon us to die for our Law. Death is inevitable, but we may yet choose whether we will die speedily and nobly, or ignominiously, after horrible torments. My advice is that we shall voluntarily render up our souls to our Creator, and fall by our own hands. The deed is both reasonable and according to the Law, and is sanctioned by the example of our most illustrious ancestors.” The old man sat down in tears. The assembly was divided, but debated; and finally, while a few left the place, the great majority made up their minds to die. They collected their precious effects into a pile and burnt them. They then cut the throats of their wives and children. The rabbi and Joachim were the last to suffer; but one slew the other and then himself. Next morning the mob broke in, only to find the fire burning in all quarters, and they took care to have all the bonds and obligations and money securities of the dead men burned in an enormous bonfire. No proper punishment was ever inflicted on the ringleaders who thus caused the death of seven or eight hundred persons, though some of the ringleaders were arrested.
JEWS ATTEMPTING TO CRUCIFY AN ENGLISH BOY.
Matthew Paris says: “About 1240 the Jews circumcised a Christian boy at Norwich, and after he was circumcised they called him Jurnim; they then kept him to crucify him, in contempt of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The father of the boy, however, from whom the Jews had stolen him, after a diligent search at length discovered him confined in custody of the Jews, and with a loud cry he pointed out his son, whom he believed lost, shut up in a room of one of the Jews’ houses. When this extraordinary crime came to the knowledge of William de Kele, the bishop, a wise and circumspect prelate, and of some other nobles, in order that such an insult to Christ should not be passed over unpunished through the neglect of the Christians, all the Jews of that city were made prisoners; and when they wished to place themselves under the protection of the royal authority, the bishop said, ‘These matters belong to the Church; and when the question raised is concerning circumcision and insult to religion, it is not to be decided by the King’s Court.’ Four of the Jews therefore, having been found guilty ofthe aforesaid crime, were first dragged at the tails of horses, and afterwards hung on a gibbet, where they breathed forth the wretched remains of life.”
JEWS CRUCIFYING AN ENGLISH BOY (1255).
Matthew Paris also says that in 1255 some Jews of Lincoln stole a boy of eight years, shut him up in a room, fed him on milk, and then sent to all the cities in England where Jews lived to come and be present at a sacrifice to take place at Lincoln, when a boy was to be crucified. A great many Jews attended, and one was appointed to take the place of Pilate, who subjected the boy to divers tortures. They beat him till blood flowed and he was quite livid; they crowned him with thorns, derided him, and spat upon him. Then he was pierced by each of them with a wood knife, was made to drink gall, was overwhelmed with reproaches and blasphemies, and was repeatedly called “Jesus, the false prophet,” by his tormentors, who surrounded him, grinding and gnashing their teeth. At last they crucified him, and pierced him to the heart with a lance, took down his body from the cross, disembowelled him, and used his body to practise magical operations, and then threw it into a well. The boy’s mother began tracing the boy to a Jew’s house, and excited the compassion of the citizens by her suspicions. A wise man, John of Lexington, encouraged the hue and cry with his eloquence, and one or two Jews were arrested, and a pardon offered if confession were made. One Jew professed then to confess that the Jews crucified a boy every year as an insult to the name of Jesus. The boy’s body was afterwards found in the well, and exposed to the gaze of the citizens. The canons of the cathedral inquired into it, and the king was informed. The Jew who confessed was tied to a horse’s tail and dragged to the gallows; and at a later day eighteen wealthy Jews were also hanged, and others imprisoned to await a like fate, though it was said that some indiscreet minor brethren interceded for them.
JEWS BLAMED FOR THE BLACK DEATH IN 1347.
The disease known as the Black Death first appeared at Constantinople in 1347, and soon spread along the north of the Black Sea, then to Sicily, Marseilles, France, Italy, and Spain. The black patches on the skin and the pestilential breath of the sick, who spat blood, carried contagion far and near. There were also atmospheric disturbances, deluges of rain, and earthquakes. InEngland in 1349 the Parliament was prorogued on account of this plague. The Princess Joan, daughter of Edward III., then on her way to marry the eldest son of the King of Castile, caught the disease at Bordeaux and died. Wicliff, then a student at Oxford, wrote a book on “The Last Age of the Church,” in which it was predicted that the end of the world would be in 1400 at latest. The effect on people was twofold. Some lived more temperately, while others gave themselves up to revelling and drinking. The Flagellants, as a new religious order, went about scourging and being scourged, as a means of propitiating Heaven, and singing psalms and ringing bells. Some started the theory that the Jews were the cause of this disease, and many were put to death (as was mentionedante, p. 90). Labourers, from the scarcity, demanded higher wages, and under Wat Tyler many joined in a local rebellion.
JEWS STEALING THE HOST TO INSULT IT (1350).
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the German Jews were subject to frequent spoliations and massacres. The sect of Flagellants, who, with mad enthusiasm, passed through the cities of Germany, preceded by a crucifix and scourging their naked and bleeding backs, used, as they said, to atone for their own transgressions by plundering and murdering as many Jews as they could in Frankfort and other places. The Jews were thus hunted through all Germany, Silesia, Brandenburg, Bohemia, Lithuania, and Poland. As a justification for this systematic cruelty, the following legend was circulated and believed in most countries: A certain Jew, named Jonathan of Enghien, desired to possess himself of the consecrated Host in order to treat it with sacrilegious insult. He bribed a desperado, named John of Louvain, to procure the sacred symbol. John mounted by night into the chapel of St. Catherine, stole the pyx, with the sacred contents, and conveyed it to Jonathan. The latter assembled his friends, who most impiously met and blasphemed and pierced it with knives. At that time Jonathan was advised for safety to migrate to Brussels; and there, in the synagogue, the Jews treated the Host with every insult, piercing it with knives, and though blood flowed forth the obdurate unbelievers, unmoved, continued their insults. They next sent the treasure to Cologne for similar treatment; but having entrusted it to a woman whose conscience smote her, she betrayed them to the clergy. The consequence was that the Jews were arrested, put to the torture, convicted, and sentenced to be torn with red-hot pincers and thenburnt alive. This memorable act of vengeance was said to be justified by many miracles that were worked in Brussels, the place of punishment.
BANQUETING WITH THE JEWS (1478).
Though the Jews were often treated with gross cruelty and injustice in the Middle Ages, they sometimes had it in their power to retaliate. The Jews, often acquiring great wealth, defied the clergy and refused to pay tithe. It was often a question whether the clergy should admit servants of the Jews to baptism. Once large numbers of bishops forbade Christians, under pain of excommunication, to frequent the banquets of the Jews. In 1478 one Francis de Pizicardis, a great and cruel usurer, was buried in the Church of St. Francis in Placentia. It happened to rain torrents during many days, till a report spread through the city that it would never cease as long as the said body was in holy ground. The young men of the city in a body, as if convoked by the bishop, went to the church, burst open the gates, dug up the body, and dragged it by a cord through all the streets of the city. And as they passed the house of one old woman, she ran out and insulted it, saying, “Give me back my eggs!” for she had given him two fresh eggs every day as interest for a ducat which she owed him. At length the body was dragged out of the city, suspended from a willow tree, and finally thrown into the Po. And, strange to say, according to the annalist, the rain then ceased. Some Polish rulers were so indebted to the Jews that, in order to keep their creditors quiet, they favoured the Jewish merchants more than the Christian.
TORQUEMADA’S ZEAL AGAINST SPANISH JEWS (1492).
After the Spanish sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella had succeeded in driving the Moors from Spain, and when at last they had agreed to send Columbus on his expedition to the New World, the clergy inflamed the minds of the sovereigns and the Inquisition against the Jews, who obstinately resisted all efforts to convert them. While the Jews were negotiating with the sovereign to avert this odium, Torquemada, the Inquisitor-General, burst into the apartment of the palace, and, drawing a crucifix from under his mantle, held it up, and exclaimed, “Judas Iscariot sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver. Your Highnesses would sell Him anew for thirty thousand. Here He is; take Him and barter Him away.” So saying, this demon priest threw the crucifix on the table, and left the apartment. The royal pair wereoverawed, and their superstitious forebodings were so effectually worked upon that they signed, in 1492, the edict for the expulsion of the Jews which caused so much misery. The Jews, who were then estimated to be about six hundred and fifty thousand, resolved to abandon the country and sacrifice all rather than their religion. They had to sell their property for a trifle, owing to the market being glutted. A house would be sold for an ass and a vineyard for a piece of cloth. Some Jews swallowed their jewels; others tried to conceal them in clothes and saddles. Some ships carrying the fugitives were visited by the plague. Those suffered all the miseries of hunger who travelled by land, and many sold their children for bread. Some were cast naked and desolate on the African coast. Some tried to escape into Portugal; and King Joan II. drove a hard bargain, fixing a high capitation tax, which his tax-gatherers lined the frontiers in order to collect. This was only for permission to pass through the country and embark for Africa. The new king, Emanuel, acted still more brutally, and ordered all Jewish children to be kidnapped and torn from their parents’ arms, in order to be brought up in the Catholic faith. The Dominicans watched, during these years of massacre and pillage, the moment when a Jewish person was visible, rushed forth with crucifix in their hands to hunt and roast the offender, and for this brutal work of merit the reward was said to be that the sufferings in purgatory should be confined to a hundred days. This expulsion of Jews seriously marred the national prosperity.
THE PREJUDICE AGAINST JEWISH PHYSICIANS.
Southey says that nothing exposed the Jews to more odium, in ages when they were held most odious, than the reputation which they possessed as physicians. So late as the middle of the sixteenth century, Francis I., after a long illness, finding no benefit from his own physicians, despatched a courier to Spain, requesting Charles V. to send him the most skilful Jewish practitioner in his dominions. This afforded matter for merriment to the Spaniards. No Jewish physician being heard of, a Christian one was sent, but was dismissed without a trial; and at last a Jew came from Constantinople, who, however, prescribed nothing more for the royal patient than asses’ milk. This reputation of the Jewish physicians was said to be founded on the notion that they had stores of knowledge not accessible to other people, especially as to all the drugs known in the East. Yet at the same time there were tales as to the disreputable knowledge they had, such as killing Christian children to use their fat ascosmetics. The conduct of the Romish Church tended to strengthen this obloquy. Several councils of the Church denounced excommunication against any persons who should place themselves under the care of a Jewish physician; for it was said to be pernicious and scandalous that Christians, who ought to despise and hold in horror the enemies of their holy religion, should have recourse to them for remedies in sickness. The decree of the Lateran Council, by which physicians were enjoined under heavy penalties to require that their patients should confess and communicate before they administered any medicines to them, seems to have been designed as much against Jewish practitioners as heretical patients. The Jews on their part were not more charitable, and used to forbid rabbis to attend upon either a Christian or Gentile unless he dared not refuse, and above all never to attend such patients gratuitously.
A HOLY FATHER CONVERTING A JEW (1600).
In the seventeenth century one Engelberger, a Bohemian Jew, was sentenced to imprisonment for stealing the plate from a synagogue at Prague. In prison he became a great reader; and a holy Father, who visited him and took an interest in him, promised him not only absolution but a considerable reward if he would renounce his faith. He did so, and was received into the Church, thereby drawing on him the contempt and vengeance of the other Jews, and the praise and congratulation of the Christians. He published a book vindicating his conversion, became a favourite of high society, and was invited to Vienna, where he was well received by the Emperor Ferdinand III. But the convert by degrees was suspected of hypocrisy; and on the first opportunity he robbed the royal treasury, and after trial was condemned to death. He again affected sincere piety and contrition, expecting that his sentence would be remitted. But at the last moment, being told the contrary, and while receiving the last Sacrament on the scaffold, he spat the sacred wafer from his mouth; he shouted to the mob that he deserved his fate for abjuring the faith of Moses, and he called on them to bear witness that he died in the faith of the patriarchs. The mob, who had formerly almost deified the renegade, were now enraged at this insult to the Catholic faith, and wanted to tear him to pieces; but he was withdrawn for a few days. He was then again exposed, and drawn on a hurdle through the streets of Vienna. And a more diabolical sentence had meanwhile been passed. His right hand was first cut off; his tongue torn from his mouth; hewas suspended from the gallows with his head downward, and dogs were allowed to tear him to pieces; and then his dead body was thrown into the Danube. An inscription in the Guildhall at Vienna records the date of this appalling example of religious fanaticism.