St. Augustine.

C’est ce fougneux évêque qui osa fermer les portes de l’église a Théodose, et à qui un certain souverain de par le monde [Frederic of Prussia] qui dans la guerre passée avoit une si bonne envie de faire un tour dans la rue des prêtres, et une certaine souveraine [Catherine of Russia] qui vient de débarrasser son clergé de toute cette richesse inutile qui l’empêchoit d’être respectable, auroient fait couper la barbe et les oreilles, en lui disant: ‘Apprenez, monsieur l’abbé, que le temple de votre Dieu est sur mon domain, et que si mon prédécesseur vous a accordé par grâce les trois arpens de terrain qu’il occupe, je puis les reprendre et vous envoyer porter vos autels et votre fanatisme ailleurs. Ce lieu-ci est la maison du Père commundes hommes, bons ou méchans, et je veux entrer quand il me plaira. Je ne m’accuse point à vous; quand je daignerois vous consulter, vous n’en savez pas assez pour me conseiller sur ma conduite, et de quel front vous immiscez-veus d’en juger?’ Mais le plat empereur ne parla pas ainsi, et l’évêque savoit bien à qui il avoit à faire. Le statuaire nous l’a montré dans le moment de son insolent apostrophe.’

In Diderot’s criticisms on Art, which are often quoted even now, there is in general a far better taste than prevailed in his time, and much good sense; but a low tone of sentiment when he had to deal with imaginative or religious Art, and an intolerable coarseness—‘most mischievous foul sin in chiding sin.’

St. Austin.Lat.Sanctus Augustinus.Ital.Sant’ Agostino.Fr.St. Augustin. (Aug. 28,A.D.430.)

St. Augustine, the third of the Doctors of the Church, was born at Tagaste, in Numidia, in 354. His father was a heathen; his mother, Monica, a Christian. Endowed with splendid talents, a vivid imagination, and strong passions, Augustine passed his restless youth in dissipated pleasures, in desultory studies, changing from one faith to another, dissatisfied with himself and unsettled in mind. His mother, Monica, wept and prayed for him, and, in the extremity of her anguish, repaired to the bishop of Carthage. After listening to her sorrows, he dismissed her with these words: ‘Go in peace; the son of so many tears will not perish!’ Augustine soon afterwards went to Rome, where he gained fame and riches by his eloquence at the bar; but he was still unhappy and restless, nowhere finding peace either in labour or in pleasure. From Rome he went to Milan; there, after listening for some time to the preaching of Ambrose, he was, after many struggles, converted to the faith, and was baptized by the bishop of Milan, in presence of his mother, Monica. On this occasion was composed the hymn called the ‘Te Deum,’ still in use in our Church; St. Ambrose and St. Augustine reciting the verses alternately as they advanced to the altar. Augustine, after some time spent in study, was ordainedpriest, and then bishop of Hippo, a small town and territory not far from Carthage. Once installed in his bishopric, he ever afterwards refused to leave the flock intrusted to his care, or to accept of any higher dignity. His life was passed in the practice of every virtue: all that he possessed was spent in hospitality and charity, and his time was devoted to the instruction of his flock, either by preaching or writing. In 430, after he had presided over his diocese for thirty-five years, the city of Hippo was besieged by the Vandals; in the midst of the horrors that ensued, Augustine refused to leave his people, and died during the siege, being then in his seventy-sixth year. It is said that his remains were afterwards removed from Africa to Pavia, by Luitprand, king of the Lombards. His writings in defence of Christianity are numerous and celebrated; and he is regarded as the patron saint of theologians and learned men.

Of his glorious tomb, in the Cathedral of Pavia, I can only say that its beauty as a work of art astonished me. I had not been prepared for anything so rich, so elegant in taste, and so elaborate in invention. It is of the finest florid Gothic, worked in white marble, scarcely discoloured by time. Augustine lies upon a bier, and angels of exquisite grace are folding his shroud around him. The basso-relievos represent the events of his life; the statues of the evangelists, apostles, and other saints connected with the history of the Church, are full of dignity and character. It comprises in all 290 figures. This magnificent shrine is attributed by Cicognara to the Jacobelli of Venice, and by Vasari to the two brothers Agostino and Agnolo of Siena; but he does not speak with certainty, and the date 1362 seems to justify the supposition of Cicognara, the Sienese brothers being then eighty or ninety years old.

Single figures of St. Augustine are not common; and when grouped with others in devotional pictures, it is not easy to distinguish him from other bishops; for his proper attribute, the heart flaming or transpierced, to express the ardour of his piety or the poignancy of his repentance, is very seldom introduced: but when a bishop is standing with a book in his hand, or a pen, accompanied by St. Jerome, and with no particular attribute, we may suppose it to be St. Augustine; and when the title of one of his famous writings is inscribed on the book, it of course fixes the identity beyond a doubt.

1. B. Vivarini. St. Augustine seated on a throne, as patron saint, mitred and robed; alone, stern, and majestic.[272]

2. Dosso Dossi. St. Augustine throned as patron, attended by two angels; he looks like a jovial patriarch.[273]

3. F. Filippo Lippi. St. Augustine writing in his chamber; no emblem, no mitre; yet thepersonalitéso marked, that one could not mistake him either for Ambrose or Jerome.[274]

4. Andrea del Sarto. St. Augustine as doctor; before him stand St. Dominic and St. Peter Martyr; beside him St. Laurence, listening; in front kneel St. Sebastian and Mary Magdalen.[275]

5. V. Carpaccio. St. Augustine standing; a fine, stern, majestic figure; he holds his book and scourge.[276]

6. Paris Bordone. The Virgin and Child enthroned; the Virgin places on the head of St. Augustine, who kneels before her, the jewelled mitre.[277]

7. Florigerio. St. Augustine, as bishop, and St. Monica, veiled, stand on each side of the Madonna.[278]

As aseriesof subjects, the history of St. Augustine is not commonly met with; yet certain events in his life are of very frequent occurrence.

I shall begin with the earliest.

1. Monica brings her son to school; the master receives him; the scholars are sitting in a row conning their hornbooks. The names of Monica and Augustine are inscribed in the glories round their heads. This is a very curious little oval picture of the early part of the fourteenth century.[279]

Benozzo Gozzoli has painted the same subject in a large fresco in the church of San Geminiano at Volterra (A.D.1460). Monica presents her son to the schoolmaster, who caresses him; in the background a little boy is being whipped, precisely in the same attitude in which correction is administered to this day in some of our schools.

2. St. Augustine under the fig-tree meditating, with the inscription,‘Dolores animæ salutem parturientes;’ and the same subject varied, with the inscription,Tolle, lege. He tells us in his Confessions, that while still unconverted and in deep communion with his friend Alypius on the subject of the Scriptures, the contest within his mind was such that he rushed from the presence of his friend and threw himself down beneath a fig-tree, pouring forth torrents of repentant tears; and he heard a voice, as it were the voice of a child, repeating several times, ‘Tolle, lege,’ ‘Take and read;’ and returning to the place where he had left his friend, and taking up the sacred volume, he opened it at the verse of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, ‘Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh.’ Considering that this was the voice of God, he took up the religious profession, to the great joy of his mother and his friend.

3. C. Procaccino. The Baptism of St. Augustine in the presence of St. Monica. This is a common subject in chapels dedicated to St. Augustine or St. Monica.[280]

4. As the supposed founder of one of the four great religious communities, St. Augustine is sometimes represented as giving the rules to his Order: or in the act of writing them, while his monks stand around, as in a picture by Carletto Cagliari:[281]both are common subjects in the houses of the Augustine friars. The habit is black.[282]

5. St. Augustine dispensing alms, generally in a black habit, and with a bishop’s mitre on his head.

6. St. Augustine, washing the feet of the pilgrims, sees Christ descend from above to have his feet washed with the rest; a large picture in the Bologna Academy by Desubleo, a painter whose works, with this one exception, are unknown to me. The saint wears the black habit of an Augustine friar, and is attended by a monk with a napkin in his hand. I found the same subject in the Louvre, in a Spanish picture of the seventeenth century; above is seen a church (like the Pantheon) in a glory, and Christ is supposed to utter the words, ‘Tibi commendo Ecclesiam meam.’[283]

7. St. Augustine, borne aloft by angels in an ecstatic vision, beholds Christ in the opening heavens above, St. Monica kneeling below. This fine picture, by Vandyck, is or was in the gallery of Lord Methuen at Corsham: and at Madrid there is another example, by Murillo: St. Augustine kneeling in an ecstasy sees a celestial vision; on one hand the Saviour crucified, on the other the Virgin and angels.

[89] The Vision of St. Augustine (Murillo)

This, however, is not the famous subject called, in general, 8. ‘The Vision of St. Augustine,’ which represents a dream or vision relatedby himself. He tells us that while busied in writing his Discourse on the Trinity, he wandered along the sea-shore lost in meditation. Suddenly he beheld a child, who, having dug a hole in the sand, appeared to be bringing water from the sea to fill it. Augustine inquired what was the object of his task? He replied, that he intended to empty into this cavity all the waters of the great deep. ‘Impossible!’ exclaimed Augustine. ‘Not more impossible,’ replied the child, ‘than for thee, O Augustine! to explain the mystery on which thou art now meditating.’

No subject from the history of St. Augustine has been so often treated, yet I do not remember any very early example. It was adopted as a favourite theme when Art became rather theological than religious, and more intent on illustrating the dogmas of churchmen than the teaching of Christ. During the 16th and 17th centuries we find it everywhere, and treated in every variety of style; but themotifdoes not vary, and the same fault prevails too generally, of giving us a material fact, rather than a spiritual vision or revelation. Augustine, arrayed in his black habit or his episcopal robes, stands on the sea-shore, gazing with an astonished air on the Infant Christ, who pauses, and looks up from his task, holding a bowl, a cup, a ladle, or a shell in his hand. Thus we have it in Murillo’s picture—the most beautiful example I have seen: the child is heavenly, but not visionary, ‘palpable to feeling as to sense.’

In Garofalo’s picture of this subject, now in our National Gallery, Augustine is seated on a rock by the margin of the sea, habited in his episcopal robes, and with his books and writing implements near him; and while he gazes on the mysterious child, the Virgin appears amid a choir of angels above: behind Augustine stands St. Catherine, the patron saint of theologians and scholars: the little red figure in the background represents St. Stephen, whose life and actions are eloquently set forth in the homilies of St. Augustine: the introduction of St. Catherine, St. Stephen, and the whole court of heaven, gives the picture a visionary character. Rubens has painted this subject with all his powerful reality: here Augustine wears the black habit of his Order. Vandyck in his large grand picture has introduced St. Monica kneeling,thus giving at once the devotional or visionary character.[284]Albert Dürer has designed and engraved the same subject. The most singular treatment is the classical composition of Raphael, in one of the small chiaro-scuro pictures placed significantly under the ‘Dispute of the Sacrament.’ St. Augustine is in a Roman dress, bare-beaded, and on horseback; his horse starts and rears at the sight of the miraculous child.

There is something at once picturesque and mystical in this subject, which has rendered it a favourite with artists and theologians; yet there is always, at least in every instance I can recollect, something prosaic and literal in the treatment which spoils the poetry of the conception.

9. ‘St. Augustine and St. Stephen bury ‘Count Orgaz’—the masterpiece of Domenico el Greco, once in the Cathedral of Toledo, now in the Madrid Gallery. This Conde de Orgaz, as Mr. Ford tells us in his Handbook, lived in 1312, and had repaired a church in his lifetime, andthereforeSt. Stephen and St. Augustine came down from heaven to lay him in his tomb, in presence of Christ, the Virgin, and all the court of heaven. ‘The black and gold armour of the dead Count is equal to Titian; the red brocades and copes of the saints are admirable; less good are the Virgin and celestial groups. I have before mentioned the reason why St. Augustine and St. Stephen are often represented in companionship.

St. Monica is often introduced into pictures of her son, where she has, of course, the secondary place; her dress is usually a black robe, and a veil or coif, white or grey, resembling that of a nun or a widow. I have met with but one picture where she is supreme; it is in the Carmine at Florence. St. Monica is seated on a throne and attended by twelve holy women or female saints, six on each side. The very dark situation of this picture prevented me from distinguishing individually the saints around her, but Monica herself as well as the other figures have thatgrandioseair which belongs to the painter—Filippo Lippi.

I saw in the atelier of the painter Ary Scheffer, in 1845, an admirable picture of St. Augustine and his mother Monica. The two figures, not quite full length, are seated; she holds his hand in both hers, looking up to heaven with an expression of enthusiastic undoubting faith;—‘the son of so many tears cannot be cast away!’ He also is looking up with an ardent, eager, but anxious, doubtful expression, which seems to say, ‘Help thou my unbelief!’ For profound and truthful feeling and significance, I know few things in the compass of modern Art that can be compared to this picture.[285]

Lat.Sanctus Gregorius Magnus.Ital.San Gregorio Magno or Papa.Fr.St. Grégoire.Ger.Der Heilige Gregor. (March 12,A.D.604.)

The fourth Doctor of the Latin Church, St. Gregory, styled, and not without reason, Gregory the Great, was one of those extraordinary men whose influence is not only felt in their own time, but through long succeeding ages. The events of his troubled and splendid pontificate belong to history; and I shall merely throw together here such particulars of his life and character as may serve to render the multiplied representations of him both intelligible and interesting. He was born at Rome in the year 540. His father, Gordian, was of senatorial rank: his mother, Sylvia, who, in the history of St. Gregory, is almost as important as St. Monica in the story of St. Augustine, was a woman of rare endowments, and, during his childish years, the watchful instructress of her son. It is recorded that when he was still an infant she was favoured by a vision of St. Antony, in which he promised to her son the supreme dignity of the tiara. Gregory, however, commenced his career in life as a lawyer, and exercised during twelve years the office of prætor or chief magistrate of his native city; yet, while apparently engrossed by secular affairs, he became deeply imbued with the religious enthusiasm which was characteristic of his time and hereditary in his family. Immediately on the death of his father he devoted all the wealth he had inherited to pious and charitable purposes, converted his paternal home on the Celian Hill into a monastery and hospital for the poor, which he dedicated to St. Andrew: then, retiring to a little cellwithin it, he took the habit of the Benedictine Order, and gave up all his time to study and preparation for the duties to which he had devoted himself. On the occasion of a terrific plague which almost depopulated Rome, he fearlessly undertook the care of the poor and sick. Pope Pelagius having died at this time, the people with one voice called upon Gregory to succeed him: but he shrank from the high office, and wrote to the Emperor Maurice, entreating him not to ratify the choice of the people. The emperor sent an edict confirming his election, and thereupon Gregory fled from Rome, and bid himself in a cave. Those who went in search of him were directed to the place of his concealment by a celestial light, and the fugitive was discovered and brought back to Rome.

No sooner had he assumed the tiara, thus forced upon him against his will, than he showed himself in all respects worthy of his elevation. While he asserted the dignity of his station, he was distinguished by his personal humility: he was the first pope who took the title of ‘Servant of the Servants of God;’ he abolished slavery throughout Christendom on religious grounds; though enthusiastic in making converts, he set himself against persecution; and when the Jews of Sardinia appealed to him, he commanded that the synagogues which had been taken from them, and converted into churches, should be restored. He was the first who sent missionaries to preach the Gospel in England, roused to pity by the sight of some British captives exposed for sale in the market at Rome. Shocked at the idea of an eternity of vengeance and torment, if he did not originate the belief in purgatory, he was at least the first who preached it publicly, and made it an article of faith. In his hatred of war, of persecution, of slavery, he stepped not only in advance of his own time, but of ours. He instituted the celibacy of the clergy, one of the boldest strokes of ecclesiastical power; he reformed the services of the Church; defined the model of the Roman liturgy, such as it has ever since remained—the offices of the priests, the variety and change of the sacerdotal garments; he arranged the music of the chants, and he himself trained the choristers. ‘Experience,’ says Gibbon, ‘had shown him the efficacy of these solemn and pompous rites to soothe the distress, to confirm the faith, to mitigate the fierceness, and to dispel the dark enthusiasm of the vulgar; and he readily forgave their tendency topromote the reign of priesthood and superstition.’ If, at a period when credulity and ignorance were universal, he showed himself in some instances credulous and ignorant, it seems hardly a reproach to one in other respects so good and so great.

His charity was boundless, and his vigilance indefatigable: he considered himself responsible for every sheep of the flock intrusted to him; and when a beggar died of hunger in the streets of Rome, he laid himself under a sentence of penance and excommunication, and interdicted himself for several days from the exercise of his sacerdotal functions.

Such was St. Gregory the Great, the last pope who was canonised: celestial honours and worldly titles have often been worse—seldom so well—bestowed.

During the last two years of his life, his health, early impaired by fasts and vigils, failed entirely, and he was unable to rise from his couch. He died in 604, in the fourteenth year of his pontificate. They still preserve, in the church of the Lateran at Rome, his bed, and the little scourge with which he was wont to keep the choristers in order.

The monastery of St. Andrew, which he founded on the Celian Hill, is now the church of San Gregorio. To stand on the summit of the majestic flight of steps which leads to the portal, and look across to the ruined palace of the Cæsars, makes the mind giddy with the rush of thoughts.There, before us, the Palatine Hill—pagan Rome in dust:here, the little cell, a few feet square, where slept in sackcloth the man who gave the last blow to the power of the Cæsars, and first set his foot as sovereign on the cradle and capital of their greatness.

St. Gregory was in person tall and corpulent, and of a dark complexion, with black hair, and very little beard. He speaks in one of his epistles of his large size, contrasted with his weakness and painful infirmities. He presented to the monastery of St. Andrew his own portrait, and those of his father, and his mother St. Sylvia: they were still in existence 300 years after his death, and the portrait of Gregory probably furnished that particular type of physiognomy which we trace in all the best representations of him, in which he appears of a tall, large, and dignified person, with a broad full face, black hair and eyebrows, and little or no beard.

As he was, next to St. Jerome, the most popular of the Four Doctors, single figures of him abound. They are variously treated: in general, he bears the tiara as pope, and the crosier with the double cross, in common with other papal saints; but his peculiar attribute is the dove, which in the old pictures is always close to his ear. He is often seated on a throne in the pontifical robes, wearing the tiara: one hand raised in benediction; in the other a book, which represents his homilies, and other famous works attributed to him: the dove either rests on his shoulder, or is hovering over his head. He is thus represented in the fine statue, designed, as it is said, by M. Angelo, and executed by Cordieri, in the chapel of St. Barbara, in San Gregorio, Rome; and in the picture over the altar-piece of his chapel, to the right of the high altar. In the Salviati Chapel, on the left, is the ‘St. Gregory in prayer,’ by Annibal Caracci. He is seen in front bareheaded, but arrayed in the pontifical habit, kneeling on a cushion, his hands outspread and uplifted; the dove descends from on high; the tiara is at his feet, and eight angels hover around:—a grand, finely-coloured, but, in sentiment, rather cold and mannered picture.[286]

By Guercino, St. Gregory seated on a throne, looking upwards, his hand on an open book, in act to turn the leaves; the dove hovers at his shoulder: to the left stands St. Francis Xavier; on the right, and more in front, St. Ignatius Loyola. Behind St. Gregory is an angel playing on the viol, in allusion to his love and patronage of sacred music; in front an infant angel holds the tiara. The type usually adopted in figures of St. Gregory is here exaggerated into coarseness, and the picture altogether appears to me more remarkable for Guercino’s faults than for his beauties.[287]

Several of the legends connected with the history of St. Gregory are of singular interest and beauty, and have afforded a number of picturesque themes for Art: they appear to have arisen out of his exceeding popularity. They are all expressive of the veneration in which he was held by the people; of the deep impression left on their minds by his eloquence, his sanctity, his charity; and of the authority imputed to hisnumerous writings, which commonly said to have been dictated by the Holy Spirit.

1. John the deacon, his secretary, who has left a full account of his life, declares that he beheld the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove perched upon his shoulder while he was writing or dictating his famous homilies. This vision, or rather figure of speech, has been interpreted as a fact by the early painters. Thus, in a quaint old picture in the Bologna Gallery, we have St. Gregory seated on a throne writing, the celestial dove at his ear. A little behind is seen John the deacon, drawing aside a curtain, and looking into the room at his patron with an expression of the most naïve astonishment.

2. The Archangel Michael, on the cessation of the pestilence, sheathes his sword on the summit of the Mole of Hadrian. I have never seen even a tolerable picture of this magnificent subject. There is a picture in the Vatican, in which Gregory and a procession of priests are singing litanies, and in the distance a littleMola di Adriano, with a little angel on the summit;—curious, but without merit of any kind.

3. The Supper of St. Gregory. It is related that when Gregory was only a monk, in the Monastery of St. Andrew, a beggar presented himself at the gate, and requested alms: being relieved, he came again and again, and at length nothing was left for the charitable saint to bestow, but the silver porringer in which his mother, Sylvia, had sent him apotage; and he commanded that this should be given to the mendicant. It was his custom, when he became pope, to entertain every evening at his own table twelve poor men, in remembrance of the number of our Lord’s apostles. One night, as he sat at supper with his guests, he saw, to his surprise, not twelve, but thirteen seated at his table. And he called to his steward, and said to him, ‘Did I not command thee to invite twelve? and behold, there are thirteen!’ And the steward told them over, and replied, ‘Holy Father, there are surely twelve only!’ and Gregory held his peace; and after the meal, he called forth the unbidden guest, and asked him, ‘Who art thou?’ And he replied, ‘I am the poor man whom thou didst formerly relieve; but my name is the Wonderful, and through me thou shalt obtain whatever thou shalt ask of God.’ Then Gregory knew that hehad entertained an angel (or, according to another version of the story, our Lord himself). This legend has been a frequent subject in painting, under the title of ‘The Supper of St. Gregory.’ In the fresco in his church at Rome, it is a winged angel who appears at the supper-table. In the fresco of Paul Veronese, one of his famous banquet-scenes, the stranger seated at the table is the Saviour habited as a pilgrim.[288]In the picture painted by Vasari, his masterpiece, now in the Bologna Gallery, he has introduced a great number of figures and portraits of distinguished personages of his own time, St. Gregory being represented under the likeness of Clement VII. The unbidden guest, or angel, bears the features of the Saviour.

This is one of many beautiful mythic legends, founded on the words of St. Paul in which he so strongly recommends hospitality as one of the virtues: ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’ (Heb. xiii. 2.) Or, as Massinger has rendered the apostolic precept,—

Learn all,By this example, to look on the poorWith gentle eyes, for in such habits oftenAngels desire an alms.

Learn all,

By this example, to look on the poor

With gentle eyes, for in such habits often

Angels desire an alms.

4. The Mass of St. Gregory. On a certain occasion, when St. Gregory was officiating at the mass, one who was near him doubted the real presence; thereupon, at the prayer of the saint, a vision is suddenly revealed of the crucified Saviour himself, who descends upon the altar, surrounded by the instruments of his passion. This legend has been a popular subject of painting from the beginning of the fifteenth century, and is called ‘The Mass of St. Gregory.’ I have met with it in every variety of treatment and grouping; but, however treated, it is not a pleasing subject. St. Gregory is seen officiating at the altar, surrounded by his attendant clergy. Sometimes several saints are introduced in a poetical manner, as witnesses of the miracle: as in an old picture I saw in the gallery of Lord Northwick;—the crucified Saviour descends from the cross, and stands on the altar, or is upborne in the air by angels; while all the incidental circumstances and instruments ofthe Passion,—not merely the crown of thorns, the spear, the nails, but the kiss of Judas, the soldiers’ dice, the cock that crew to Peter,—are seen floating in the air. As a specimen of the utmost naïveté in this representation may be mentioned Albert Dürer’s woodcut.

The least offensive and most elegant in treatment is the marble bas-relief in front of the altar in the Chapel of St. Gregory at Rome.

5. The miracle of the Brandeum. The Empress Constantia sent to St. Gregory requesting some of the relics of St. Peter and St. Paul. He excused himself, saying that he dared not disturb their sacred remains for such a purpose, but he sent her part of a consecrated cloth (Brandeum) which had enfolded the body of St. John the Evangelist. The empress rejected this gift with contempt: whereupon Gregory, to show that such things are hallowed not so much in themselves as by the faith of believers, laid the Brandeum on the altar, and after praying he took up a knife and pierced it, and blood flowed as from a living body. This incident, called the ‘miracledei Brandei,’ has also been painted. Andrea Sacchi has represented it in a grand picture now in the Vatican; the mosaic copy is over the altar of St. Gregory in St. Peter’s. Gregory holds up to view the bleeding cloth, and the expression of astonishment and conviction in the countenances of the assistants is very fine.

6. St. Gregory releases the soul of the Emperor Trajan. In a little picture in the Bologna Academy, he is seen praying before a tomb, on which is inscribedTrajano Imperador; beneath are two angels raising the soul of Trajan out of the flames. Such is the usual treatment of this curious and poetical legend, which is thus related in the Legenda Aurea:—‘It happened on a time, as Trajan was hastening to battle at the head of his legions, that a poor widow flung herself in his path, and cried aloud for justice, and the emperor stayed to listen to her; and she demanded vengeance for the innocent blood of her son, killed by the son of the emperor. Trajan promised to do her justice when he returned from his expedition. “But, Sire,” answered the widow, “should you be killed in battle, who then will do me justice?” “My successor,” replied Trajan. And she said, “What will it signify to you, great emperor, that any other than yourself should do me justice? Is it not better that you should do this good action yourself than leaveanother to do it?” And Trajan alighted, and having examined into the affair, he gave up his own son to her in place of him she had lost, and bestowed on her likewise a rich dowry. Now, it came to pass that as Gregory was one day meditating in his daily walk, this action of the Emperor Trajan came into his mind, and he wept bitterly to think that a man so just should be condemned as a heathen to eternal punishment. And entering into a church he prayed most fervently that the soul of the good emperor might be released from torment. And a voice said to him, “I have granted thy prayer, and I have spared the soul of Trajan for thy sake; but because thou hast supplicated for one whom the justice of God had already condemned, thou shalt choose one of two things: either thou shalt endure for two days the fires of purgatory, or thou shalt be sick and infirm for the remainder of thy life.” Gregory chose the latter, which sufficiently accounts for the grievous pains and infirmities to which this great and good man was subjected, even to the day of his death.’

This story of Trajan was extremely popular in the middle ages: it is illustrative of the character of Gregory, and the feeling which gave rise to his doctrine of purgatory. Dante twice alludes to it; he describes it as one of the subjects sculptured on the walls of Purgatory, and takes occasion to relate the whole story:—

... There was storied on the rockTh’ exalted glory of the Roman prince,Whose mighty worth moved Gregory to earnHis mighty conquest—Trajan the Emperor.A widow at his bridle stood attiredIn tears and mourning. Round about them troop’dFull throng of knights: and overhead in goldThe eagles floated, struggling with the wind.The wretch appear’d amid all these to say:‘Grant vengeance, Sire! for, woe beshrew this heart,My son is murder’d!’ He, replying, seem’d:‘Wait now till I return.’ And she, as oneMade hasty by her grief: ‘O Sire, if thouDost not return?’—‘Where I am, who then is,May right thee.’—‘What to thee is others’ good,If thou neglect thy own?’—‘Now comfort thee,’At length he answers. ‘It beseemeth wellMy duty be perform’d, ere I move hence.So justice wills; and pity bids me stay.’Cary’sDante,Purg.x.

... There was storied on the rock

Th’ exalted glory of the Roman prince,

Whose mighty worth moved Gregory to earn

His mighty conquest—Trajan the Emperor.

A widow at his bridle stood attired

In tears and mourning. Round about them troop’d

Full throng of knights: and overhead in gold

The eagles floated, struggling with the wind.

The wretch appear’d amid all these to say:

‘Grant vengeance, Sire! for, woe beshrew this heart,

My son is murder’d!’ He, replying, seem’d:

‘Wait now till I return.’ And she, as one

Made hasty by her grief: ‘O Sire, if thou

Dost not return?’—‘Where I am, who then is,

May right thee.’—‘What to thee is others’ good,

If thou neglect thy own?’—‘Now comfort thee,’

At length he answers. ‘It beseemeth well

My duty be perform’d, ere I move hence.

So justice wills; and pity bids me stay.’

Cary’sDante,Purg.x.

It was through the efficacy of St. Gregory’s intercession that Dante afterwards finds Trajan in Paradise, seated between King David and King Hezekiah. (Par.xx.)

As a subject of painting, the story of Trajan was sometimes selected as an appropriate ornament for a hall of justice. We find it sculptured on one of the capitals of the pillars of the Ducal Palace at Venice: there is the figure of the widow kneeling, somewhat stiff, but very simple and expressive, and over it in rude ancient letters—‘Trajano Imperador, che die justizia a la Vedova.’ In the Town Hall of Ceneda, near Belluna, are the three Judgments (i tre Giudizi), painted by Pompeo Amalteo: the Judgment of Solomon, the Judgment of Daniel, and the Judgment of Trajan. It is painted in the Town Hall of Brescia by Giulio Campi, one of a series of eight righteous judgments.

I found the same subject in the church of St. Thomas of Canterbury at Verona. ‘The son of the Emperor Trajan trampling over the son of the widow’ is a most curious composition by Hans Schaufelein.[289]

7. There was a monk, who, in defiance of his vow of poverty, secreted in his cell three pieces of gold. Gregory, on learning this, excommunicated him, and shortly afterwards the monk died. When Gregory heard that the monk had perished in his sin, without receiving absolution, he was filled with grief and horror; and he wrote upon a parchment a prayer and a form of absolution, and gave it to one of his deacons, desiring him to go to the grave of the deceased and read it there: on the following night the monk appeared in a vision, and revealed to him his release from torment.

This story is represented in the beautiful bas-relief in white marble in front of the altar of his chapel; it is the last compartment on the right. The obvious intention of this wild legend is to give effect to the doctrine of purgatory, and the efficacy of prayers for the dead.

St. Gregory’s merciful doctrine of purgatory also suggested those pictures so often found in chapels dedicated to the service of the dead, in which he is represented in the attitude of supplication, while on one side, or in the background, angels are raising the tormented souls out of the flames.

In ecclesiastical decoration I have seen the two popes, St. Gelasius, who reformed the calendar in 494, and St. Celestinus, who arranged the discipline of the monastic orders, added to the series of beatified Doctors of the Church.

The Four Greek Fathers are St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great, St. Athanasius, and St. Gregory Nazianzen. To these, in Greek pictures, a fifth is generally added, St. Cyril of Alexandria.

From the time of the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches, these venerable personages, who once exercised such an influence over all Christendom, who preceded the Latin Fathers, and were in fact their teachers, have been almost banished from the religious representations of the west of Europe. When they are introduced collectively as a part of the decoration of an ecclesiastical edifice, we may conclude in general, that the work is Byzantine and executed under the influence of Greek artists.

A signal example is the central dome of the baptistery of St. Mark’s at Venice, executed by Greek artists of the 12th and 13th centuries. In the four spandrils of the vault are the Greek Fathers seated, writing (if I well remember), and in the purest Byzantine style of art. They occupy the same places here that we find usually occupied by the Latin Doctors in church decoration: each has his name inscribed in Greek characters. We have exactly the same representation in the Cathedral of Monreale at Palermo. The Greek Fathers have no attributes to distinguish them, and the general custom in Byzantine Art of inscribing the names over each figure renders this unnecessary: in general, each holds a book, or, in some instances, a scroll, which represents his writings; while the right hand is raised in benediction, in the Greek manner, the first and second finger extended, and the thumb and third finger forming a cross. According to the formula published by M. Didron, each of the Greek Fathers bears on a scroll the first words ofsome remarkable passage from his works: thus, St. John Chrysostom has ‘God, our God, who hath given us for food the bread of life,’ &c.: St. Basil, ‘None of those who are in the bondage of fleshly desires are worthy,’ &c.: St. Athanasius, ‘Often, and anew, do we flee to thee, O God,’ &c.: St. Gregory Nazianzen, ‘God, the holy among the holies, the thrice holy,’ &c.: and St. Cyril, ‘Above all, a Virgin without sin or blemish,’ &c.

The five Greek Fathers.

The Greek bishops do not wear mitres; consequently, when in the Italian or German pictures St. Basil or any of his companions wear the mitre, it is a mistake arising from the ignorance of the artist.

The Fathers of the Greek Church have been represented by Domenichino at Grotta Ferrata, placed over the cornice and under the evangelists, their proper place: they are majestic figures, with fine heads, and correctly draped according to the Greek ecclesiastical costume. They are placed here with peculiar propriety, because the convent originally belonged to the Greek order of St. Basil, and the founder, St. Nilus, was a Greek.[290]

The etched outline, from a beautiful ancient Greek miniature, will give an accurate idea of the characteristic figures and habits of the Greek Fathers.

As separate devotional and historical representations of these Fathers do sometimes, though rarely, occur, I shall say a few words of them individually.

Lat.Sanctus Johannes Chrysostom.Ital.San Giovanni Crisostomo, San Giovanni Bocca d’ Oro.Fr.St. Jean Chrysostome. Died Sept. 14,A.D.407. His festival is celebrated by the Greeks on the 13th of November, and by the Latin Church on the 27th of January.

St. John, calledChrysostom, orof the Golden Mouth, because of his extraordinary eloquence, was born at Antioch in 344. His parents were illustrious, and the career opened to him was of arts and arms;but from his infancy the bent of his mind was peculiar. He lost his father when young; his mother Arthusia, still in the prime of her life, remained a widow for his sake, and superintended his education with care and intelligence. The remark of Sir James Mackintosh that ‘all distinguished men have had able mothers,’ appears especially true of the great churchmen and poets. The mother of St. John Chrysostom ranks with the Monicas and Sylvias, already described.

John, at the age of twenty, was already a renowned pleader at the bar. At the age of twenty-six, the disposition to self-abnegation and the passion for solitude, which had distinguished him from boyhood, became so strong, that he wished to retire altogether from the world; his legal studies, his legal honours, had become hateful to him: he would turn hermit. For a time his mother’s tears and prayers restrained him. He has himself recorded the pathetic remonstrance in which she reminded him of all she had done and suffered in her state of widowhood for his sake, and besought him not to leave her. For the present he yielded: but two years later he fled from society, and passed five or six years in the wilderness near Antioch, devoting himself solely to the study of the Scriptures, to penance and prayer; feeding on the wild vegetables, and leading a life of such rigorous abstinence that his health sank under it, and he was obliged to return to Antioch.

All this time he was not even an ordained priest; but shortly after he had emerged from the desert, Flavian, bishop of Antioch, ordained him, and appointed him preacher. At the moment of his consecration, according to the tradition, a white dove descended on his head, which was regarded as the sign of immediate inspiration. He then entered on his true vocation as a Christian orator, the greatest next to Paul. On one occasion, when the people of Antioch had offended the Emperor Theodosius, and were threatened with a punishment like that which had fallen on Thessalonica, the eloquence of St. John Chrysostom saved them: he was so adored by the people, that when he was appointed patriarch of Constantinople, it was necessary to kidnap him, and carry him off from Antioch by a force of armed soldiers, before the citizens had time to interfere.

From the moment he entered on his high office at Constantinople, he became the model of a Christian bishop. Humble, self-denying,sleeping on a bare plank, content with a little bread and pulse, he entertained with hospitality the poor and strangers: indefatigable as a preacher, he used his great gift of eloquence to convert his hearers to what he believed to be the truth: he united the enthusiasm and the imagination of the poet, the elegant taste of the scholar, the logic of the pleader, with the inspired earnestness of one who had authority from above. He was, like St. Jerome, remarkable for his influence over women; and his correspondence with one of his female converts and friends, Olympias, is considered one of the finest of his works remaining to us: but, inexorable in his denunciations of vice, without regard to sex or station, he thundered against the irregularities of the monks, the luxury and profligacy of the Empress Eudosia, and the servility of her flatterers, and brought down upon himself the vengeance of that haughty woman, with whom the rest of his life was one long contest. He was banished: the voice of the people obliged the emperor to recall him. Persisting in the resolute defence of his church privileges, and his animadversions on the court and the clergy, he was again banished; and, on his way to his distant place of exile, sank under fatigue and the cruel treatment of his guards, who exposed him, bareheaded and bare-footed, to the burning sun of noon: and thus he perished, in the tenth year of his bishopric, and the sixty-third of his age. Gibbon adds, that, at the pious solicitation of the clergy and people of Constantinople, his relics, thirty years after his death, were transported from their obscure sepulchre to the royal city. The Emperor Theodosius advanced to receive them as far as Chalcedon, and, falling prostrate on the coffin, implored, in the name of his guilty parents, Arcadius and Eudosia, the forgiveness of the injured saint.‘

It is owing, I suppose, to the intercourse of Venice with the East, that one of her beautiful churches is dedicated to San Gian Grisostomo, as they call him there, in accents as soft and sonorous as his own Greek. Over the high altar is the grandest devotional picture in which I have seen this saint figure as a chief personage. It is the masterpiece of Sebastian del Piombo,[291]and represents St. John Chrysostom thronedand in the act of writing in a great book; behind him, St. Paul. In front, to the right, stands St. John the Baptist, and behind him St. George as patron of Venice; to the left Mary Magdalene, with a beautiful Venetian face; behind her, St. Catherine, patroness of Venice: close to St. J. Chrysostom stands St. Lucia holding her lamp; she is here the type of celestial light or wisdom.[292]This picture was for a long time attributed to Giorgione. There was also a very fine majestic figure of this saint by Rubens, in the collection of M. Schamp: he is in the habit of a Greek bishop; in one hand he holds the sacramental cup, and the left hand rests on the Gospel: the celestial dove hovers near him, and two angels are in attendance.

I cannot quit the history of St. John Chrysostom without alluding to a subject well known to collectors and amateurs, and popularly called ‘La Pénitence de St. Jean Chrysostome.’ It represents a woman undraped, seated in a cave, or wilderness, with an infant in her arms; or lying on the ground with a new-born infant beside her; in the distance is seen a man with a glory round his head, meagre, naked, bearded, crawling on his hands and knees in the most abject attitude; beneath, or at the top, is inscribedS. Johannes Crisostomus.

For a long time this subject perplexed me exceedingly, as I was quite unable to trace it in any of the biographies of Chrysostom, ancient or modern: the kindness of a friend, learned in all thebywaysas well as thehighwaysof Italian literature, at length assisted me to an explanation.

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