__________________________________________________________________ Title: History of the Christian Church, Volume IV: Mediaeval Christianity. A.D. 590-1073 Creator(s): Schaff, Philip (1819-1893) CCEL Subjects: All; History; Proofed; LC Call no: BR145.S3 LC Subjects: Christianity History __________________________________________________________________ HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH [1] by PHILIP SCHAFF Christianus sum. Christiani nihil a me alienum puto VOLUME IV. MEDIAEVAL CHRISTIAINITY From Gregory I to Gregory VII A.D. 590-1073 HISTORY of MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY FROM a. d. 590 TO 1517. __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER I. General Introduction to Mediaeval Church History. __________________________________________________________________ § 1. Sources and Literature. August Potthast: Bibliotheca Historica Medii Aoevi. Wegweiser durch die Geschichtswerke des Europäischen Mittelalters von 375-1500. Berlin, 1862. Supplement, 1868. The mediaeval literature embraces four distinct branches; 1. The Romano-Germanic or Western Christian; 2. The Graeco-Byzantine or Eastern Christian; 3. The Talmudic and Rabbinical; 4. The Arabic and Mohammedan. We notice here only the first and second; the other two will be mentioned in subdivisions as far as they are connected with church history. The Christian literature consists partly of documentary sources, partly of historical works. We confine ourselves here to the most important works of a more general character. Books referring to particular countries and sections of church history will be noticed in the progress of the narrative. I. Documentary Sources. They are mostly in Latin--the official language of the Western Church,--and in Greek,--the official language of the Eastern Church. (1) For the history of missions: the letters and biographies of missionaries. (2) For church polity and government: the official letters of popes, patriarchs, and bishops. The documents of the papal court embrace (a) Regesta (registra), the transactions of the various branches of the papal government from a.d. 1198-1572, deposited in the Vatican library, and difficult of access. (b) Epistolae decretales, which constitute the basis of the Corpus juris canonici, brought to a close in 1313. (c) The bulls (bulla, a seal or stamp of globular form, though some derive it from boulhv, will, decree) and briefs (breve, a short, concise summary), i.e., the official letters since the conclusion of the Canon law. They are of equal authority, but the bulls differ from the briefs by their more solemn form. The bulls are written on parchment, and sealed with a seal of lead or gold, which is stamped on one side with the effigies of Peter and Paul, and on the other with the name of the reigning pope, and attached to the instrument by a string; while the briefs are written on paper, sealed with red wax, and impressed with the seal of the fisherman or Peter in a boat. (3) For the history of Christian life: the biographies of saints, the disciplinary canons of synods, the ascetic literature. (4) For worship and ceremonies: liturgies, hymns, homilies, works of architecture sculpture, painting, poetry, music. The Gothic cathedrals are as striking embodiments of mediaeval Christianity as the Egyptian pyramids are of the civilization of the Pharaohs. (5) For theology and Christian learning: the works of the later fathers (beginning with Gregory I.), schoolmen, mystics, and the forerunners of the Reformation. II. Documentary Collections. Works of Mediaeval Writers. (1) For the Oriental Church. Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, opera Niebuhrii, Bekkeri, et al. Bonnae, 1828-'78, 50 vols. 8vo. Contains a complete history of the East-Roman Empire from the sixth century to its fall. The chief writers are Zonaras, from the Creation to a.d. 1118; Nicetas, from 1118 to 1206; Gregoras, from 1204 to 1359; Laonicus, from 1298 to 1463; Ducas, from 1341 to 1462; Phrantzes, from 1401 to 1477. J. A. Fabricius (d. 1736): Bibliotheca Graeca sive Notitia Scriptorum veterum Graecorum, 4th ed., by G. Chr. Harless, with additions. Hamburg, 1790-1811, 12 vols. A supplement by S. F. W. Hoffmann: Bibliographisches Lexicon der gesammten Literatur der Griechen. Leipzig, 1838-'45, 3 vols. (2) For the Westem Church. Bibliotheca Maxima Patrum. Lugduni, 1677, 27 vols. fol. Martene (d. 1739) and Durand (d. 1773): Thesaurus Anecdotorum Novus, seu Collectio Monumentorum, etc. Paris, 1717, 5 vols. fol. By the same: Veterum Scriptorum et Monumentorum Collectio ampliss. Paris, 1724-'38, 9 vols. fol. J. A. Fabricius: Bibliotheca Latina Mediae et Infimae AEtatis. Hamb. 1734, and with supplem. 1754, 6 vols. 4to. Abbé Migne: Patralogiae Cursus Completus, sive Bibliotheca Universalis ... Patrum, etc. Paris, 1844-'66. The Latin series (1844-'55) has 221 vols. (4 vols. indices); the Greek series (1857-66) has 166 vols. The Latin series, from tom. 80-217, contains the writers from Gregory the Great to Innocent III. Reprints of older editions, and most valuable for completeness and convenience, though lacking in critical accuracy. Abbé Horay: Medii AEvi Bibliotheca Patristica ab anno MCCXVI usque ad Concilii Tridentini Tempora. Paris, 1879 sqq. A continuation of Migne in the same style. The first 4 vols. contain the Opera Honori III. Joan. Domin. Mansi (archbishop of Lucca, d. 1769): Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima Collectio. Florence and Venice 1759-1798, 31 vols. fol. The best collection down to 1509. A new ed. (facsimile) publ. by Victor Palmé, Paris and Berlin 1884 sqq. Earlier collections of Councils by Labbé and Cossart (1671-72, 18 vols), Colet (with the supplements of Mansi, 1728-52, 29 vols. fol.), and Hardouin (1715, 12 vols. fol.). C. Cocquelines: Magnum Bullarium Romanum. Bullarum, Privilegiorum ac Diplomatum Romanorum Pontificum usque ad Clementem XII. amplissima Collectio. Rom. 1738-58. 14 Tom. fol. in 28 Partes; new ed. 1847-72, in 24 vols. A. A. Barberi: Magni Bullarii Rom. Continuatio a Clemente XIII ad Pium VIII. (1758-1830). Rom. 1835-'57, 18 vols. fol. The bulls of Gregory XVI. appeared 1857 in 1 vol. G. H. Pertz (d. 1876): Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Hannov. 1826-1879. 24 vols. fol. Continued by G. Waitz. III. Documentary Histories. Acta Sanctorum Bollandistarum. Antw. Bruxellis et Tongerloae, 1643-1794; Brux. 1845 sqq., new ed. Paris, 1863-75, in 61 vols. fol. (with supplement). See a list of contents in the seventh volume for June or the first volume for October; also in the second part of Potthast, sub "Vita," pp. 575 sqq. This monumental work of John Bolland (a learned Jesuit, 1596-1665), Godefr. Henschen (1681), Dan. Papebroch (1714), and their associates and followers, called Bollandists, contains biographies of all the saints of the Catholic Church in the order of the calendar, and divided into months. They are not critical histories, but compilations of an immense material of facts and fiction, which illustrate the life and manners of the ancient and mediaeval church. Potthast justly calls it a "riesenhaftes Denkmal wissenschaftlichen Strebens." It was carried on with the aid of the Belgic government, which contributed (since 1837) 6,000 francs annually. Caes. Baronius (d. 1607): Annales ecclesiastici a Christo nato ad annum 1198. Rom. 1588-1593, 12 vols. Continued by Raynaldi (from 1198 to 1565), Laderchi (from 1566-1571), and A. Theiner (1572-1584). Best ed. by Mansi, with the continuations of Raynaldi, and the Critica of Pagi, Lucca, 1738-'59, 35 vols. fol. text, and 3 vols. of index universalis. A new ed. by A. Theiner (d. 1874), Bar-le-Duc, 1864 sqq. Likewise a work of herculean industry, but to be used with critical caution, as it contains many spurious documents, legends and fictions, and is written in the interest and defence of the papacy. IV. Modern Histories of the Middle Ages. J. M. F. Frantin: Annales du moyen age. Dijon, 1825, 8 vols. 8vo. F. Rehm: Geschichte des Mittelalters. Marbg, 1821-'38, 4 vols. 8vo. Heinrich Leo: Geschichte des Mittelalters. Halle, 1830, 2 vols. Charpentier: Histoire literaire du moyen age. Par. 1833. R. Hampson: Medii aevi Calendarium, or Dates, Charters, and Customs of the Middle Ages, with Kalenders from the Xth to the XVth century. London, 1841, 2 vols. 8vo. Henry Hallam (d. 1859): View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages. London, 1818, 3d ed. 1848, Boston ed. 1864 in 3 vols. By the same: Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. Several ed., Engl. and Am. Boston ed. 1864 in 4 vols.; N. York, 1880, in 4 vols. Charles Hardwick ( l859): A History of the Christian Church. Middle Age. 3d ed. by Stubbs, London, 1872. Henry Hart Milman ( 1868): History of Latin Christianity; including that of the Popes to the Pontificate of Nicholas V. London and N. York, 1854, 8 vols., new ed., N. York (A. C. Armstrong & Son), 1880. Richard Chenevix Trench (Archbishop of Dublin): Lectures on Mediaeval Church History. London, 1877, republ. N. York, 1878. V. The Mediaeval Sections of the General Church Histories. (a) Roman Catholic: Baronius (see above), Fleury, Möhler, Alzog, Döllinger (before 1870), Hergenröther. (b) Protestant: Mosheim, Schröckh, Gieseler, Neander, Baur, Hagenbach, Robertson. Also Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Rom. Empire (Wm. Smith's ed.), from ch. 45 to the close. VI. Auxiliary. Domin. Du Cange (Charles du Fresne, d. 1688): Glossarium ad Scriptores mediae et infimae Latinitatis, Paris, 1678; new ed. by Henschel, Par. 1840-'50, in 7 vols. 4to; and again by Favre, 1883 sqq.--By the same: Glossarium ad Scriptores medicae et infimae Graecitatis, Par. 1682, and Lugd. Batav. 1688, 2 vols. fol. These two works are the philological keys to the knowledge of mediaeval church history. An English ed. of the Latin glossary has been announced by John Murray, of London: Mediaeval Latin-English Dictionary, based upon the great work of Du Cange. With additions and corrections by E. A. Dayman. __________________________________________________________________ § 2. The Middle Age. Limits and General Character. The Middle Age, as the term implies, is the period which intervenes between ancient and modern times, and connects them, by continuing the one, and preparing for the other. It forms the transition from the Graeco-Roman civilization to the Romano-Germanic, civilization, which gradually arose out of the intervening chaos of barbarism. The connecting link is Christianity, which saved the best elements of the old, and directed and moulded the new order of things. Politically, the middle age dates from the great migration of nations and the downfall of the western Roman Empire in the fifth century; but for ecclesiastical history it begins with Gregory the Great, the last of the fathers and the first of the popes, at the close of the sixth century. Its termination, both for secular and ecclesiastical history, is the Reformation of the sixteenth century (1517), which introduces the modern age of the Christian era. Some date modern history from the invention of the art of printing, or from the discovery of America, which preceded the Reformation; but these events were only preparatory to a great reform movement and extension of the Christian world. The theatre of mediaeval Christianity is mainly Europe. In Western Asia and North Africa, the Cross was supplanted by the Crescent; and America, which opened a new field for the ever-expanding energies of history, was not discovered until the close of the fifteenth century. Europe was peopled by a warlike emigration of heathen barbarians from Asia as America is peopled by a peaceful emigration from civilized and Christian Europe. The great migration of nations marks a turning point in the history of religion and civilization. It was destructive in its first effects, and appeared like the doom of the judgment-day; but it proved the harbinger of a new creation, the chaos preceding the cosmos. The change was brought about gradually. The forces of the old Greek and Roman world continued to work for centuries alongside of the new elements. The barbarian irruption came not like a single torrent which passes by, but as the tide which advances and retires, returns and at last becomes master of the flooded soil. The savages of the north swept down the valley of the Danube to the borders of the Greek Empire, and southward over the Rhine and the Vosges into Gaul, across the Alps into Italy, and across the Pyrenees into Spain. They were not a single people, but many independent tribes; not an organized army of a conqueror, but irregular hordes of wild warriors ruled by intrepid kings; not directed by the ambition of one controlling genius, like Alexander or Caesar, but prompted by the irresistible impulse of an historical instinct, and unconsciously bearing in their rear the future destinies of Europe and America. They brought with them fire and sword, destruction and desolation, but also life and vigor, respect for woman, sense of honor, love of liberty--noble instincts, which, being purified and developed by Christianity, became the governing principles of a higher civilization than that of Greece and Rome. The Christian monk Salvian, who lived in the midst of the barbarian flood, in the middle of the fifth century, draws a most gloomy and appalling picture of the vices of the orthodox Romans of his time, and does not hesitate to give preference to the heretical (Arian) and heathen barbarians, "whose chastity purifies the deep stained with the Roman debauches." St. Augustin (d. 430), who took a more sober and comprehensive view, intimates, in his great work on the City of God, the possibility of the rise of a new and better civilization from the ruins of the old Roman empire; and his pupil, Orosius, clearly expresses this hopeful view. "Men assert," he says, "that the barbarians are enemies of the State. I reply that all the East thought the same of the great Alexander; the Romans also seemed no better than the enemies of all society to the nations afar off, whose repose they troubled. But the Greeks, you say, established empires; the Germans overthrow them. Well, the Macedonians began by subduing the nations which afterwards they civilized. The Germans are now upsetting all this world; but if, which Heaven avert, they, finish by continuing to be its masters, peradventure some day posterity will salute with the title of great princes those in whom we at this day can see nothing but enemies." __________________________________________________________________ § 3. The Nations of Mediaeval Christianity. The Kelt, the Teuton, and the Slav. The new national forces which now enter upon the arena of church-history may be divided into four groups: 1. The Romanic or Latin nations of Southern Europe, including the Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese and French. They are the natural descendants and heirs of the old Roman nationality and Latin Christianity, yet mixed with the new Keltic and Germanic forces. Their languages are all derived from the Latin; they inherited Roman laws and customs, and adhered to the Roman See as the centre of their ecclesiastical organization; they carried Christianity to the advancing barbarians, and by their superior civilization gave laws to the conquerors. They still adhere, with their descendants in Central and South America, to the Roman Catholic Church. 2. The Keltic race, embracing the Gauls, old Britons, the Picts and Scots, the Welsh and Irish with their numerous emigrants in all the large cities of Great Britain and the United States, appear in history several hundred years before Christ, as the first light wave of the vast Aryan migration from the mysterious bowels of Asia, which swept to the borders of the extreme West. [2] The Gauls were conquered by Caesar, but afterwards commingled with the Teutonic Francs, who founded the French monarchy. The Britons were likewise subdued by the Romans, and afterwards driven to Wales and Cornwall by the Anglo-Saxons. The Scotch in the highlands (Gaels) remained Keltic, while in the lowlands they mixed with Saxons and Normans. The mental characteristics of the Kelts remain unchanged for two thousand years: quick wit, fluent speech, vivacity, sprightliness, impressibility, personal bravery and daring, loyalty to the chief or the clan, but also levity, fickleness, quarrelsomeness and incapacity for self-government. "They shook all empires, but founded none." The elder Cato says of them: "To two things are the Kelts most attent: to fighting (ars militaris), and to adroitness of speech (argute loqui)." Caesar censures their love of levity and change. The apostle Paul complains of the same weakness. Thierry, their historian, well describes them thus: "Their prominent attributes are personal valor, in which they excel all nations; a frank, impetuous spirit open to every impression; great intelligence, but joined with extreme mobility, deficient perseverance, restlessness under discipline and order, boastfulness and eternal discord, resulting from boundless vanity." Mommsen quotes this passage, and adds that the Kelts make good soldiers, but bad citizens; that the only order to which they submit is the military, because the severe general discipline relieves them of the heavy burden of individual self-control. [3] Keltic Christianity was at first independent of Rome, and even antagonistic to it in certain subordinate rites; but after the Saxon and Norman conquests, it was brought into conformity, and since the Reformation, the Irish have been more attached to the Roman Church than even the Latin races. The French formerly inclined likewise to a liberal Catholicism (called Gallicanism); but they sacrificed the Gallican liberties to the Ultramontanism of the Vatican Council. The Welsh and Scotch, on the contrary, with the exception of a portion of the Highlanders in the North of Scotland, embraced the Protestant Reformation in its Calvinistic rigor, and are among its sternest and most vigorous advocates. The course of the Keltic nations had been anticipated by the Galatians, who first embraced with great readiness and heartiness the independent gospel of St. Paul, but were soon turned away to a Judaizing legalism by false teachers, and then brought back again by Paul to the right path. 3. The Germanic [4] or Teutonic [5] nations followed the Keltic migration in successive westward and southward waves, before and after Christ, and spread over Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Scandinavia, the Baltic provinces of Russia, and, since the Anglo-Saxon invasion, also over England and Scotland and the northern (non-Keltic) part of Ireland. In modern times their descendants peacefully settled the British Provinces and the greater part of North America. The Germanic nations are the fresh, vigorous, promising and advancing races of the middle age and modern times. Their Christianization began in the fourth century, and went on in wholesale style till it was completed in the tenth. The Germans, under their leader Odoacer in 476, deposed Romulus Augustulus--the shadow of old Romulus and Augustus--and overthrew the West Roman Empire, thus fulfilling the old augury of the twelve birds of fate, that Rome was to grow six centuries and to decline six centuries. Wherever they went, they brought destruction to decaying institutions. But with few exceptions, they readily embraced the religion of the conquered Latin provinces, and with childlike docility submitted to its educational power. They were predestinated for Christianity, and Christianity for them. It curbed their warlike passions, regulated their wild force, and developed their nobler instincts, their devotion and fidelity, their respect for woman, their reverence for all family-relations, their love of personal liberty and independence. The Latin church was to them only a school of discipline to prepare them for an age of Christian manhood and independence, which dawned in the sixteenth century. The Protestant Reformation was the emancipation of the Germanic races from the pupilage of mediaeval and legalistic Catholicism. Tacitus, the great heathen historian, no doubt idealized the barbarous Germans in contrast with the degenerate Romans of his day (as Montaigne and Rousseau painted the savages "in a fit of ill humor against their country"); but he unconsciously prophesied their future greatness, and his prophecy has been more than fulfilled. 4. The Slavonic or Slavic or Slavs [6] in the East and North of Europe, including the Bulgarians, Bohemians (Czechs), Moravians, Slovaks, Servians, Croatians, Wends, Poles, and Russians, were mainly converted through Eastern missionaries since the ninth and tenth century. The Eastern Slavs, who are the vast majority, were incorporated with the Greek Church, which became the national religion of Russia, and through this empire acquired a territory almost equal to that of the Roman Church. The western Slavs, the Bohemians and Poles, became subject to the Papacy. The Slavs, who number in all nearly 80,000,000, occupy a very subordinate position in the history of the middle ages, and are isolated from the main current; but recently, they have begun to develop their resources, and seem to have a great future before them through the commanding political power of Russia in Europe and in Asia. Russia is the bearer of the destinies of Panslavism and of the, Eastern Church. 5. The Greek nationality, which figured so conspicuously in ancient Christianity, maintained its independence down to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453; but it was mixed with Slavonic elements. The Greek Church was much weakened by the inroads of Mohammedanism) and lost the possession of the territories of primitive Christianity, but secured a new and vast missionary field in Russia. __________________________________________________________________ [2] keltoior Keltai, Celtae, Galatai, Galatae or Galati, Galli, Gael. Some derive it from celt, a cover, shelter; others from celu (Lat. celo) to conceal. Herodotus first mentions them, as dwelling in the extreme northwest of Europe. On these terms see Diefenbach, Celtica, Brandes, Kelten und Germanen, Thierry, Histoire des Gaulois, the art. Galli in Pauly's Realencyclopädie, and the introductions to the critical Commentaries on the Galatians by Wieseler and Lightfoot (and Lightfoot's Excursus I). The Galatians in Asia Minor, to whom Paul addressed his epistle, were a branch of the Keltic race, which either separated from the main current of the westward migration, or, being obstructed by the ocean, retraced their steps, and turned eastward. Wieseler (in his Com. and in several articles in the "Studien und Kritiken, " and in the "Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte," 1877 No. 1) tries to make them Germans, a view first hinted at by Luther. But the fickleness of the Galatian Christians is characterristic of the ancient Gauls and modern French. [3] Römische Geschichte, Vol. I., p. 329, 5th ed., Berlin, 1868. [4] The word is of uncertain origin. Some derive it from a Keltic root, garm or gairm, i.e. noise; some from the old German gere(guerre), a pointed weapon, spear or javelin (so that German would mean an armed man, or war-man, Wehrmann); others, from the Persian irman, erman, i.e. guest. [5] From the Gothic thiudisco, gentiles, popularis; hence the Latin teutonicus, and the German deutschor teutsch(which may also be connected with diutan, deutsch deutlich). In the English usage, the term German is confined to the Germans proper, and Dutch to the Hollanders; but Germanic and Teutonic apply to all cognate races. [6] The term Slav or Slavonian is derived by some from slovo, word, by others, from slava, glory. From it are derived the words slave and slavery (Sclave, esclave), because many Slavs were reduced to a state of slavery or serfdom by their German masters. Webster spells slave instead of slav, and Edward A. Freeman, in his Historical Essays (third series, 1879), defends this spelling on three grounds: 1) No English word ends in v. But many Russian words do, as Kiev, Yaroslav, and some Hebrew grammars use Tav and Vav for Tau and Vau. 2) Analogy. We write Dane, Swede, Pole, not Dan, etc. But the a in Slav has the continental sound, and the tendency is to get rid of mute vowels. 3) The form Slave perpetuates the etymology. But the etymology (slave = doulos) is uncertain, and it is well to distinguish the national name from the ordinary slaves, and thus avoid offence. The Germans also distinguish between Slaven, Sclaven. __________________________________________________________________ § 4. Genius of Mediaeval Christianity. Mediaeval Christianity is, on the one hand, a legitimate continuation and further development of ancient Catholicism; on the other hand, a preparation for Protestantism, Its leading form are the papacy, monasticism, and scholasticism, which were developed to their height, and then assailed by growing opposition from within. Christianity, at its first introduction, had to do with highly civilized nations; but now it had to lay the foundation of a new civilization among barbarians. The apostles planted churches in the cities of the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, and the word "pagan" i.e, villager, backwoodsman, gradually came to denote an idolater. They spoke and wrote in a language which had already a large and immortal literature; their progress was paved by the high roads of the Roman legions; they found everywhere an established order of society, and government; and their mission was to infuse into the ancient civilization a new spiritual life and to make it subservient to higher moral ends. But the missionaries of the dark ages had to visit wild woods and untilled fields, to teach rude nations the alphabet, and to lay the foundation for society, literature and art. Hence Christianity assumed the character of a strong disciplinary institution, a training school for nations in their infancy, which had to be treated as children. Hence the legalistic, hierarchical, ritualistic and romantic character of mediaeval Catholicism. Yet in proportion as the nations were trained in the school of the church, they began to assert their independence of the hierarchy and to develop a national literature in their own language. Compared with our times, in which thought and reflection have become the highest arbiter of human life, the middle age was an age of passion. The written law, such as it was developed in Roman society, the barbarian could not understand and would not obey. But he was easily impressed by the spoken law, the living word, and found a kind of charm in bending his will absolutely before another will. Thus the teaching church became the law in the land, and formed the very foundation of all social and political organization. The middle ages are often called "the dark ages:" truly, if we compare them with ancient Christianity, which preceded, and with modern Christianity, which followed; falsely and unjustly, if the church is made responsible for the darkness. Christianity was the light that shone in the darkness of surrounding barbarism and heathenism, and gradually dispelled it. Industrious priests and monks saved from the wreck of the Roman Empire the treasures of classical literature, together with the Holy Scriptures and patristic writings, and transmitted them to better times. The mediaeval light was indeed the borrowed star and moon-light of ecclesiastical tradition, rather than the clear sun-light from the inspired pages of the New Testament; but it was such light as the eyes of nations in their ignorance could bear, and it never ceased to shine till it disappeared in the day-light of the great Reformation. Christ had his witnesses in all ages and countries, and those shine all the brighter who were surrounded by midnight darkness. "Pause where we may upon the desert-road, Some shelter is in sight, some sacred safe abode." On the other hand, the middle ages are often called, especially by Roman Catholic writers, "the ages of faith." They abound in legends of saints, which had the charm of religious novels. All men believed in the supernatural and miraculous as readily as children do now. Heaven and hell were as real to the mind as the kingdom of France and the, republic of Venice. Skepticism and infidelity were almost unknown, or at least suppressed and concealed. But with faith was connected a vast deal of superstition and an entire absence of critical investigation and judgment. Faith was blind and unreasoning, like the faith of children. The most incredible and absurd legends were accepted without a question. And yet the morality was not a whit better, but in many respects ruder, coarser and more passionate, than in modern times. The church as a visible organization never had greater power over the minds of men. She controlled all departments of life from the cradle to the grave. She monopolized all the learning and made sciences and arts tributary to her. She took the lead in every progressive movement. She founded universities, built lofty cathedrals, stirred up the crusades, made and unmade kings, dispensed blessings and curses to whole nations. The mediaeval hierarchy centering in Rome re-enacted the Jewish theocracy on a more comprehensive scale. It was a carnal anticipation of the millennial reign of Christ. It took centuries to rear up this imposing structure, and centuries to take it down again. The opposition came partly from the anti-Catholic sects, which, in spite of cruel persecution, never ceased to protest against the corruptions and tyranny of the papacy; partly from the spirit of nationality which arose in opposition to an all-absorbing hierarchical centralization; partly from the revival of classical and biblical learning, which undermined the reign of superstition and tradition; and partly from the inner and deeper life of the Catholic Church itself, which loudly called for a reformation, and struggled through the severe discipline of the law to the light and freedom of the gospel. The mediaeval Church was a schoolmaster to lead men to Christ. The Reformation was an emancipation of Western Christendom from the bondage of the law, and a re-conquest of that liberty "wherewith Christ hath made us free" (Gal. v. 1). __________________________________________________________________ § 5. Periods of the Middle Age. The Middle Age may be divided into three periods: 1. The missionary period from Gregory I. to Hildebrand or Gregory VII., a.d. 590-1073. The conversion of the northern barbarians. The dawn of a new civilization. The origin and progress of Islam. The separation of the West from the East. Some subdivide this period by Charlemagne (800), the founder of the German-Roman Empire. 2. The palmy period of the papal theocracy from Gregory VII. to Boniface VIII., a.d. 1073-1294. The height of the papacy, monasticism and scholasticism. The Crusades. The conflict between the Pope and the Emperor. If we go back to the rise of Hildebrand, this period begins in 1049. 3. The decline of mediaeval Catholicism and preparation for modern Christianity, from Boniface VIII. to the Reformation, a.d. 1294-1517. The papal exile and schism; the reformatory councils; the decay of scholasticism; the growth of mysticism; the revival of letters, and the art of printing; the discovery of America; forerunners of Protestantism; the dawn of the Reformation. These three periods are related to each other as the wild youth, the ripe manhood, and the declining old age. But the gradual dissolution of mediaevalism was only the preparation for a new life, a destruction looking to a reconstruction. The three periods may be treated separately, or as a continuous whole. Both methods have their advantages: the first for a minute study; the second for a connected survey of the great movements. According to our division laid down in the introduction to the first volume, the three periods of the middle ages are the fourth, fifth and sixth periods of the general history of Christianity. FOURTH PERIOD THE CHURCH AMONG THE BARBARIANS FROM GREGORY I. TO GREGORY VII. a.d. 590 to 1049. ---------- __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER II. CONVERSION OF THE NORTHERN AND WESTERN BARBARIANS __________________________________________________________________ § 6. Character of Mediaeval Missions. The conversion of the new and savage races which enter the theatre of history at the threshold of the middle ages, was the great work of the Christian church from the sixth to the tenth century. Already in the second or third century, Christianity was carried to the Gauls, the Britons and the Germans on the borders of the Rhine. But these were sporadic efforts with transient results. The work did not begin in earnest till the sixth century, and then it went vigorously forward to the tenth and twelfth, though with many checks and temporary relapses caused by civil wars and foreign invasions. The Christianization of the Kelts, Teutons, and Slavonians was at the same time a process of civilization, and differed in this respect entirely from the conversion of the Jews, Greeks, and Romans in the preceding age. Christian missionaries laid the foundation for the alphabet, literature, agriculture, laws, and arts of the nations of Northern and Western Europe, as they now do among the heathen nations in Asia and Africa. "The science of language," says a competent judge, [7] "owes more than its first impulse to Christianity. The pioneers of our science were those very apostles who were commanded to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature; and their true successors, the missionaries of the whole Christian church." The same may be said of every branch of knowledge and art of peace. The missionaries, in aiming at piety and the salvation of souls, incidentally promoted mental culture and temporal prosperity. The feeling of brotherhood inspired by Christianity broke down the partition walls between race and race, and created a brotherhood of nations. The mediaeval Christianization was a wholesale conversion, or a conversion of nations under the command of their leaders. It was carried on not only by missionaries and by spiritual means, but also by political influence, alliances of heathen princes with Christian wives, and in some cases (as the baptism of the Saxons under Charlemagne) by military force. It was a conversion not to the primary Christianity of inspired apostles, as laid down in the New Testament, but to the secondary Christianity of ecclesiastical tradition, as taught by the fathers, monks and popes. It was a baptism by water, rather than by fire and the Holy Spirit. The preceding instruction amounted to little or nothing; even the baptismal formula, mechanically recited in Latin, was scarcely understood. The rude barbarians, owing to the weakness of their heathen religion, readily submitted to the new religion; but some tribes yielded only to the sword of the conqueror. This superficial, wholesale conversion to a nominal Christianity must be regarded in the light of a national infant-baptism. It furnished the basis for a long process of Christian education. The barbarians were children in knowledge, and had to be treated like children. Christianity, assumed the form of a new law leading them, as a schoolmaster, to the manhood of Christ. The missionaries of the middle ages were nearly all monks. They were generally men of limited education and narrow views, but devoted zeal and heroic self-denial. Accustomed to primitive simplicity of life, detached from all earthly ties, trained to all sorts of privations, ready for any amount of labor, and commanding attention and veneration by their unusual habits, their celibacy, fastings and constant devotions, they were upon the whole the best pioneers of Christianity and civilization among the savage races of Northern and Western Europe. The lives of these missionaries are surrounded by their biographers with such a halo of legends and miracles, that it is almost impossible to sift fact from fiction. Many of these miracles no doubt were products of fancy or fraud; but it would be rash to deny them all. The same reason which made miracles necessary in the first introduction of Christianity, may have demanded them among barbarians before they were capable of appreciating the higher moral evidences. I. THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND SCOTLAND. __________________________________________________________________ [7] Max Müller, Science of Language, I. 121. __________________________________________________________________ § 7. Literature. I. Sources. Gildas (Abbot of Bangor in Wales, the oldest British historian, in the sixth cent.): De excidio Britanniae conquestus, etc. A picture of the evils of Britain at the time. Best ed. by Joseph Stevenson, Lond., 1838. (English Historical Society's publications.) Nennius (Abbot of Bangor about 620): Eulogium Britanniae, sive Historia Britonum. Ed. Stevenson, 1838. The Works of Gildas and Nennius transl. from the Latin by J. A. Giles, London, 1841. *Beda Venerabilis (d. 734): Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum; in the sixth vol. of Migne's ed. of Bedae Opera Omnia, also often separately published and translated into English. Best ed. by Stevenson, Lond., 1838; and by Giles, Lond., 1849. It is the only reliable church-history of the Anglo-Saxon period. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, from the time of Caesar to 1154. A work of several successive hands, ed. by Gibson with an Engl. translation, 1823, and by Giles, 1849 (in one vol. with Bede's Eccles. History). See the Six Old English Chronicles, in Bohn's Antiquarian Library (1848); and Church Historians of England trans. by Jos. Stevenson, Lond. 1852-'56, 6 vols. Sir. Henry Spelman (d. 1641): Concilia, decreta, leges, constitutiones in re ecclesiarum orbis Britannici, etc. Lond., 1639-'64, 2 vols. fol. (Vol. I. reaches to the Norman conquest; vol. ii. to Henry VIII). David Wilkins (d. 1745): Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae (from 446 to 1717), Lond., 1737, 4 vols. fol. (Vol. I. from 446 to 1265). *Arthur West Haddan and William Stubbs: Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland: edited after Spelman and Wilkins. Oxford (Clarendon Press), 1869 to '78. So far 3 vols. To be continued down to the Reformation. The Penitentials of the Irish and Anglo-Saxon Churches are collected and edited by F. Kunstmann (Die Lat. Poenitentialbücher der Angelsachsen, 1844); Wasserschleben (Die Bussordnungen der abendländ. Kirche, 1851); Schmitz (Die Bussbücher u. d. Bussdisciplin d. Kirche, 1883). II. Historical Works. (a) The Christianization of England. *J. Ussher. (d. 1655): Britannicarum Eccles. Antiquitates. Dublin, 1639; London, 1687; Works ed. by Elrington, 1847, Vols. V. and VI. E. Stillingfleet (d. 1699): Origenes Britannicae; or, the Antiqu. of the British Churches. London, 1710; Oxford, 1842; 2 vols. J. Lingard (R.C., d. 1851): The History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church. London, 1806, new ed., 1845. Karl Schrödl (R.C.): Das erste Jahrhundert der englischen Kirche. Passau & Wien, 1840. Edward Churton (Rector of Crayke, Durham): The Early English Church. London, 1841 (new ed. unchanged, 1878). James Yeowell: Chronicles of the Ancient British Church anterior to the Saxon era. London, 1846. Francis Thackeray (Episcop.): Researches into the Eccles. and Political State of Ancient Britain under the Roman Emperors. London, 1843, 2 vols. *Count De Montalembert (R.C., d. 1870): The Monks of the West. Edinburgh and London, 1861-'79, 7 vols. (Authorized transl. from the French). The third vol. treats of the British Isles. Reinhold Pauli: Bilder aus Alt-England. Gotha, 1860. W F. Hook: Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury. London, 2nd ed., 1861 sqq. G. F. Maclear. (D. D., Head-master of King's College School): Conversion of the West. The English. London, 1878. By the same: The Kelts, 1878. (Popular.) William Bright (Dr. and Prof, of Eccles. Hist., Oxford): Chapters on Early English Church History Oxford, 1878 (460 pages). John Pryce: History of the Ancient British Church. Oxford, 1878. Edward L. Cutts: Turning Points of English Church-History. London, 1878. Dugald MacColl: Early British Church. The Arthurian Legends. In "The Catholic Presbyterian," London and New York, for 1880, No. 3, pp. 176 sqq. (b) The Christianization of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. Dr. Lanigan (R.C.): Ecclesiastical History of Ireland. Dublin, 1829. William G. Todd (Episc., Trinity Coll., Dublin): The Church of St. Patrick: An Historical Inquiry into the Independence of the Ancient Church of Ireland. London, 1844. By the same: A History of the Ancient Church of Ireland. London, 1845. By the same: Book of Hymns of the Ancient Church of Ireland. Dublin, 1855. Ferdinand Walter: Das alte Wales. Bonn, 1859. John Cunningham (Presbyterian): The Church History of Scotland from the Commencement of the Christian Era to the Present Day. Edinburgh, 1859, 2 vols. (Vol. I., chs. 1-6). C. Innes: Sketches of Early Scotch History, and Social Progress. Edinb., 1861. (Refers to the history of local churches, the university and home-life in the mediaeval period.) Thomas McLauchan (Presbyt.): The Early Scottish Church: the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland from the First to the Twelfth Century. Edinburgh, 1865. *DR. J. H. A. Ebrard: Die iroschottische Missionskirche des 6, 7 und 8 ten Jahrh., und ihre Verbreitung auf dem Festland. Gütersloh, 1873. Comp. Ebrard's articles Die culdeische Kirche des 6, 7 und 8ten Jahrh., in Niedner's "Zeitschrift für Hist. Theologie" for 1862 and 1863. Ebrard and McLauchan are the ablest advocates of the anti-Romish and alleged semi-Protestant character of the old Keltic church of Ireland and Scotland; but they present it in a more favorable light than the facts warrant. *Dr. W. D. Killen (Presbyt.): The Ecclesiastical History of Ireland from the Earliest Period to the Present Times. London, 1875, 2 vols. *Alex. Penrose Forbes (Bishop of Brechin, d. 1875): Kalendars of Scottish Saints. With Personal Notices of those of Alba, Laudonia and Stratchclyde. Edinburgh (Edmonston & Douglas), 1872. By the same: Lives of S. Ninian and S. Kentigern. Compiled in the twelfth century. Ed. from the best MSS. Edinburgh, 1874. *William Reeves (Canon of Armagh): Life of St. Columba, Founder of Hy. Written by Adamnan, ninth Abbot of that monastery. Edinburgh, 1874. *William F. Skene: Keltic Scotland. Edinburgh, 2 vols., 1876, 1877. *F. E. Warren (Fellow of St. John's Coll., Oxford): The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church. Oxford 1881 (291 pp.). F. Loofs: Antiquae Britonum Scotorumque ecclesiae moves, ratio credendi, vivendi, etc. Lips., 1882. Comp. also the relevant sections in the Histories Of England, Scotland, and Ireland, by Hume, (Ch. I-III.), Lingard (Ch. I. VIII.), Lappenberg (Vol. I.), Green (Vol. I.), Hill Burton (Hist. of Scotland, Vol. I.); Milman's Latin Christianity (Book IV., Ch. 3-5); Maclear's Apostles of Mediaeval Europe (Lond. 1869), Thomas Smith's Mediaeval Missions (Edinb. 1880). __________________________________________________________________ § 8. The Britons. Literature: The works of Bede, Gildas, Nennius, Ussher, Bright, Pryce, quoted in § 7. Britain made its first appearance in secular history half a century before the Christian era, when Julius Caesar, the conqueror of Gaul, sailed with a Roman army from Calais across the channel, and added the British island to the dominion of the eternal city, though it was not fully subdued till the reign of Claudius (a.d. 41-54). It figures in ecclesiastical history from the conversion of the Britons in the second century. Its missionary history is divided into two periods, the Keltic and the Anglo-Saxon, both catholic in doctrine, as far as developed at that time, slightly differing in discipline, yet bitterly hostile under the influence of the antagonism of race, which was ultimately overcome in England and Scotland but is still burning in Ireland, the proper home of the Kelts. The Norman conquest made both races better Romanists than they were before. The oldest inhabitants of Britain, like the Irish, the Scots, and the Gauls, were of Keltic origin, half naked and painted barbarians, quarrelsome, rapacious, revengeful, torn by intestine factions, which facilitated their conquest. They had adopted, under different appellations, the gods of the Greeks and Romans, and worshipped a multitude of local deities, the genii of the woods, rivers, and mountains; they paid special homage to the oak, the king of the forest. They offered the fruits of the earth, the spoils of the enemy, and, in the hour of danger, human lives. Their priests, called druids, [8] dwelt in huts or caverns, amid the silence and gloom of the forest, were in possession of all education and spiritual power, professed to know the secrets of nature, medicine and astrology, and practised the arts of divination. They taught, as the three principles of wisdom: "obedience to the laws of God, concern for the good of man, and fortitude under the accidents of life." They also taught the immortality of the soul and the fiction of metempsychosis. One class of the druids, who delivered their instructions in verse, were distinguished by the title of bards, who as poets and musicians accompanied the chieftain to the battle-field, and enlivened the feasts of peace by the sound of the harp. There are still remains of druidical temples--the most remarkable at Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, and at Stennis in the Orkney Islands--that is, circles of huge stones standing in some cases twenty feet above the earth, and near them large mounds supposed to be ancient burial-places; for men desire to be buried near a place of worship. The first introduction of Christianity into Britain is involved in obscurity. The legendary history ascribes it at least to ten different agencies, namely, 1) Bran, a British prince, and his son Caradog, who is said to have become acquainted with St. Paul in Rome, a.d. 51 to 58, and to have introduced the gospel into his native country on his return. 2) St. Paul. 3) St. Peter. 4) St. Simon Zelotes. 5) St. Philip. 6) St. James the Great. 7) St. John. 8) Aristobulus (Rom. xvi. 10). 9) Joseph of Arimathaea, who figures largely in the post-Norman legends of Glastonbury Abbey, and is said to have brought the holy Graal--the vessel or platter of the Lord's Supper--containing the blood of Christ, to England. 10) Missionaries of Pope Eleutherus from Rome to King Lucius of Britain. [9] But these legends cannot be traced beyond the sixth century, and are therefore destitute of all historic value. A visit of St. Paul to Britain between a.d. 63 and 67 is indeed in itself not impossible (on the assumption of a second Roman captivity), and has been advocated even by such scholars as Ussher and Stillingfleet, but is intrinsically improbable, and destitute of all evidence. [10] The conversion of King Lucius in the second century through correspondence with the Roman bishop Eleutherus (176 to 190), is related by Bede, in connection with several errors, and is a legend rather than an established fact. [11] Irenaeus of Lyons, who enumerates all the churches one by one, knows of none in Britain. Yet the connection of Britain with Rome and with Gaul must have brought it early into contact with Christianity. About a.d. 208 Tertullian exultingly declared "that places in Britain not yet visited by Romans were subject to Christ." [12] St. Alban, probably a Roman soldier, died as the British proto-martyr in the Diocletian persecution (303), and left the impress of his name on English history. [13] Constantine, the first Christian emperor, was born in Britain, and his mother, St. Helena, was probably a native of the country. In the Council of Arles, a.d. 314, which condemned the Donatists, we meet with three British bishops, Eborius of York (Eboracum), Restitutus of London (Londinum), and Adelfius of Lincoln (Colonia Londinensium), or Caerleon in Wales, besides a presbyter and deacon. [14] In the Arian controversy the British churches sided with Athanasius and the Nicene Creed, though hesitating about the term homoousios. [15] A notorious heretic, Pelagius (Morgan), was from the same island; his abler, though less influential associate, Celestius, was probably an Irishman; but their doctrines were condemned (429), and the Catholic faith reëstablished with the assistance of two Gallic bishops. [16] Monumental remains of the British church during the Roman period are recorded or still exist at Canterbury (St. Martin's), Caerleon, Bangor, Glastonbury, Dover, Richborough (Kent), Reculver, Lyminge, Brixworth, and other places. [17] The Roman dominion in Britain ceased about a.d. 410; the troops were withdrawn, and the country left to govern itself. The result was a partial relapse into barbarism and a demoralization of the church. The intercourse with the Continent was cut off, and the barbarians of the North pressed heavily upon the Britons. For a century and a half we hear nothing of the British churches till the silence is broken by the querulous voice of Gildas, who informs us of the degeneracy of the clergy, the decay of religion, the introduction and suppression of the Pelagian heresy, and the mission of Palladius to the Scots in Ireland. This long isolation accounts in part for the trifling differences and the bitter antagonism between the remnant of the old British church and the new church imported from Rome among the hated Anglo-Saxons. The difference was not doctrinal, but ritualistic and disciplinary. The British as well as the Irish and Scotch Christians of the sixth and seventh centuries kept Easter on the very day of the full moon in March when it was Sunday, or on the next Sunday following. They adhered to the older cycle of eighty-four years in opposition to the later Dionysian cycle of ninety-five years, which came into use on the Continent since the middle of the sixth century. [18] They shaved the fore-part of their head from ear to ear in the form of a crescent, allowing the hair to grow behind, in imitation of the aureola, instead of shaving, like the Romans, the crown of the head in a circular form, and leaving a circle of hair, which was to represent the Saviour's crown of thorns. They had, moreover--and this was the most important and most irritating difference--become practically independent of Rome, and transacted their business in councils without referring to the pope, who began to be regarded on the Continent as the righteous ruler and judge of all Christendom. From these facts some historians have inferred the Eastern or Greek origin of the old British church. But there is no evidence whatever of any such connection, unless it be perhaps through the medium of the neighboring church of Gaul, which was partly planted or moulded by Irenaeus of Lyons, a pupil of St. Polycarp of Smyrna, and which always maintained a sort of independence of Rome. But in the points of dispute just mentioned, the Gallican church at that time agreed with Rome. Consequently, the peculiarities of the British Christians must be traced to their insular isolation and long separation from Rome. The Western church on the Continent passed through some changes in the development of the authority of the papal see, and in the mode of calculating Easter, until the computation was finally fixed through Dionysius Exiguus in 525. The British, unacquainted with these changes, adhered to the older independence and to the older customs. They continued to keep Easter from the 14th of the moon to the 20th. This difference involved a difference in all the moveable festivals, and created great confusion in England after the conversion of the Saxons to the Roman rite. __________________________________________________________________ [8] The word Druid or Druidh is not from the Greek drus, oak (as the elder Pliny thought), but a Keltic term draiod, meaning sage, priest, and is equivalent to the magi in the ancient East. In the Irish Scriptures draiod is used for magi, Matt. 2:1. [9] See Haddan & Stubbs, Counc. and Eccles. Doc. I. 22-26, and Pryce, 31 sqq. Haddan says, that "statements respecting (a) British Christians at Rome, (b) British Christians in Britain, (c) Apostles or apostolic men preaching in Britain, in the first century--rest upon either guess, mistake or fable;" and that "evidence alleged for the existence of a Christian church in Britain during the second century is simply unhistorical." Pryce calls these early agencies "gratuitons assumptions, plausible guesses, or legendary fables." Eusebius, Dem. Ev. III. 5, speaks as if some of the Twelve or of the Seventy had "crossed the ocean to the isles called British;" but the passage is rhetorical and indefinite. In his Church History he omits Britain from the apostolic mission-field. [10] It is merely an inference from the well-known passage of Clement of Rome, Ep. ad Corinth. c. 5, that Paul carried the gospel "to the end of the West" (epitotermatesduseos). But this is far more naturally understood of a visit to Spain which Paul intended (Rom. xv. 28), and which seems confirmed by a passage in the Muratorian Fragment about 170 ("Profectionem Pauli ab urbe ad Spaniam proficiscentis "); while there is no trace whatever of an intended or actual visit to Britain. Canon Bright calls this merely a "pious fancy" (p. 1), and Bishop Lightfoot remarks: "For the patriotic belief of some English writers, who have included Britain in the Apostle's travels, there is neither evidence nor probability" (St. Clement of Rome p. 50). It is barely possible however, that some Galatian converts of Paul, visiting the far West to barter the hair-cloths of their native land for the useful metal of Britain, may have first made known the gospel to the Britons in their kindred Keltic tongue. See Lightfoot, Com. on Gal., p. 246. [11] Book I., ch. 4: "Lucius, king of the Britons, sent a letter to Eleutherus, entreating that by his command he might be made a Christian. He soon obtained his pious request, and the Britons preserved the faith, which they had received, uncorrupted and entire, in peace and tranquillity, until the time of the Emperor Diocletian." Comp. the footnote of Giles in loc. Haddan says (I. 25): "The story of Lucius rests solely upon the later form of the Catalogus Pontificum Romanorum which was written c. a. d.530, and which adds to the Vita Eleutherus (a. d.171-186) that 'Hic (Eleutherus)accepit epistolam a Lucio Britanniae Rege, ut Chrristianus efficeretur par ejus mandatum.' But these words are not in the original Catalogus, written shortly after a. d.353." Beda copies the Roman account. Gildas knows nothing of Lucius. According to other accounts, Lucius ((Lever Maur, or the Great Light) sent Pagan and Dervan to Rome, who were ordained by Evaristus or Eleutherus, and on their return established the British church. See Lingard, History of England, I. 46. [12] Adv. Judaeos 7: "Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita." Bishop Kaye (Tertull., p. 94) understands this passage as referring to the farthest extremities of Britain. So Burton (II. 207): "Parts of the island which had not been visited by the Romans." See Bright, p. 5. [13] Bede I. 7. The story of St. Alban is first narrated by Gildas in the sixth century. Milman and Bright (p. 6) admit his historic reality. [14] Wiltsch, Handbuch der Kirchl. Geogr. und StatistikI. 42 and 238, Mansi, Conc. II. 467, Haddan and Stubbs, l.c., I. 7. Haddan identifies Colonia Londinensium with Col. Legionensium, i.e. Caerleon-on-Usk. [15] See Haddan and Stubbs, I. 7-10. [16] Bede I. 21 ascribes the triumph of the Catholic faith over the Pelagian heresy to the miraculous healing of a lame youth by Germanus (St. Germain), Bishop of Auxerre. Comp. also Haddan and Stubbs, I. 15-17. [17] See Haddan and Stubbs, I. 36-40. [18] The British and Irish Christians were stigmatized by their Roman opponents as heretical Quartodecimans (Bede III. 4); but the Eastern Quartodecimans invariably celebrated Easter on the fourteenth day of the month (hence their designation), whether it fell on a Sunday or not; while the Britons and Irish celebrated it always on a Sunday between the 14th and the 20th of the month; the Romans between the 15th and 21st. Comp. Skene, l.c. II. 9 sq.; the elaborate discussion of Ebrard, Die, iro-schott. Missionskirche, 19-77, and Killen, Eccles. Hist. of Ireland, I. 57 sqq. __________________________________________________________________ § 9. The Anglo-Saxons. Literature. I. The sources for the planting of Roman Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons are several Letters of Pope Gregory I. (Epp., Lib. VI. 7, 51, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59; IX. 11, 108; XI. 28, 29, 64, 65, 66, 76; in Migne's ed. of Gregory's Opera, Vol. III.; also in Haddan and Stubbs, III. 5 sqq.); the first and second books of Bede's Eccles. Hist.; Goscelin's Life of St. Augustin, written in the 11th century, and contained in the Acta Sanctorum of May 26th; and Thorne's Chronicles of St. Augustine's Abbey. See also Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, etc., the 3d vol., which comes down to a.d. 840. II. Of modern lives of St. Augustin, we mention Montalembert, Monks of the West, Vol. III.; Dean Hook, Archbishops of Canterbury, Vol. I., and Dean Stanley, Memorials of Canterbury, 1st ed., 1855, 9th ed. 1880. Comp. Lit. in Sec. 7. British Christianity was always a feeble plant, and suffered greatly, from the Anglo-Saxon conquest and the devastating wars which followed it. With the decline of the Roman power, the Britons, weakened by the vices of Roman civilization, and unable to resist the aggressions of the wild Picts and Scots from the North, called Hengist and Horsa, two brother-princes and reputed descendants of Wodan, the god of war, from Germany to their aid, a.d. 449. [19] From this time begins the emigration of Saxons, Angles or Anglians, Jutes, and Frisians to Britain. They gave to it a new nationality and a new language, the Anglo-Saxon, which forms the base and trunk of the present people and language of England (Angle-land). They belonged to the great Teutonic race, and came from the Western and Northern parts of Germany, from the districts North of the Elbe, the Weser, and the Eyder, especially from Holstein, Schleswig, and Jutland. They could never be subdued by the Romans, and the emperor Julian pronounced them the most formidable of all the nations that dwelt beyond the Rhine on the shores of the Western ocean. They were tall and handsome, with blue eyes and fair skin, strong and enduring, given to pillage by land, and piracy by sea, leaving the cultivation of the soil, with the care of their flocks, to women and slaves. They were the fiercest among the Germans. They sacrificed a tenth of their chief captives on the altars of their gods. They used the spear, the sword, and the battle-axe with terrible effect. "We have not," says Sidonius, bishop of Clermont, [20] "a more cruel and more dangerous enemy than the Saxons. They overcome all who have the courage to oppose them .... When they pursue, they infallibly overtake; when they are pursued, their escape is certain. They despise danger; they are inured to shipwreck; they are eager to purchase booty with the peril of their lives. Tempests, which to others are so dreadful, to them are subjects of joy. The storm is their protection when they are pressed by the enemy, and a cover for their operations when they meditate an attack." Like the Bedouins in the East, and the Indians of America, they were divided in tribes, each with a chieftain. In times of danger, they selected a supreme commander under the name of Konyng or King, but only for a period. These strangers from the Continent successfully repelled the Northern invaders; but being well pleased with the fertility and climate of the country, and reinforced by frequent accessions from their countrymen, they turned upon the confederate Britons, drove them to the mountains of Wales and the borders of Scotland, or reduced them to slavery, and within a century and a half they made themselves masters of England. From invaders they became settlers, and established an octarchy or eight independent kingdoms, Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, Northumbria, Mercia, Bernicia, and Deira. The last two were often united under the same head; hence we generally speak of but seven kingdoms or the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy. From this period of the conflict between the two races dates the Keltic form of the Arthurian legends, which afterwards underwent a radical telescopic transformation in France. They have no historical value except in connection with the romantic poetry of mediaeval religion. [21] __________________________________________________________________ [19] The chronology, is somewhat uncertain. See Lappenberg's Geschichte von England, Bd. I., p. 73 sqq. [20] Quoted by Lingard, I. 62. The picture here given corresponds closely with that given in Beowulf's Drapa, from the 9th century. [21] King Arthur (or Artus), the hero of Wales, of the Chronicles of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the romances of the Round Table, if not entirely mythical, was one of the last Keltic chiefs, who struggled against the Saxon invaders in the sixth century. He resided in great state at Caerleon in Wales, surrounded by valorous knights, seated with him at a round table, gained twelve victories over the Saxons, and died in the battle of Mount Badon or Badon Hill near Bath (a. d.520). The legend was afterwards Christianized, transferred to French soil, and blended with the Carlovingian Knights of the Round Table, which never existed. Arthur's name was also connected since the Crusades with the quest of the Holy Grail or Graal (Keltic gréal, old French san gréalor greel), i.e. the wonderful bowl-shaped vessel of the Lord's Supper (used for the Paschal Lamb, or, according to another view, for the cup of blessing), in which Joseph of Arimathaea caught the blood of the Saviour at the cross, and which appears in the Arthurian romances as the token of the visible presence of Christ, or the symbolic embodiment of the doctrine of transubstantiation. Hence the derivation of Grail from sanguis realis, real blood, or sang royal, the Lord's blood. Others derive it from the Romanic greal, cup or dish; still others from the Latin graduale. See Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chronicon sive Historia Britonum (1130 and 1147, translated into English by Aaron Thomson, London, 1718); Sir T. Malory, History of Prince Arthur (1480-1485, new ed. by, Southey, 1817); Wolfram von EschenbachParcival and Titurel (about 1205, transl. by K. Simrock, Stuttg., 1842); Lachmann, Wolfram von Eschenbach (Berlin, 1833, 2nd ed, 1854); Göschel Die Sage von Parcival und vom Gral nach Wolfram von Eschenbach(Berlin, 1858); Paulin Paris, Les Romans de la Table Ronde(Paris, 1860); Tennyson, The Idylls, of the King (1859), and The Holy Grail (1869); Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales (1868); Stuart-Glennie, Arthurian Localities (1869); Birch-Herschfeld, Die Sage vom Gral, (Leipz., 1877); and an article of Göschel, Gral in the first ed. of Herzog's Encykl. V. 312 (omitted in the second ed.). __________________________________________________________________ § 10. The Mission of Gregory and Augustin. Conversion of Kent, a.d. 595-604. With the conquest of the Anglo-Saxons, who were heathen barbarians, Christianity was nearly extirpated in Britain. Priests were cruelly massacred, churches and monasteries were destroyed, together with the vestiges of a weak Roman civilization. The hatred and weakness of the Britons prevented them from offering the gospel to the conquerors, who in turn would have rejected it from contempt of the conquered. [22] But fortunately Christianity was re-introduced from a remote country, and by persons who had nothing to do with the quarrels of the two races. To Rome, aided by the influence of France, belongs the credit of reclaiming England to Christianity and civilization. In England the first, and, we may say, the only purely national church in the West was founded, but in close union with the papacy. "The English church," says Freeman, "reverencing Rome, but not slavishly bowing down to her, grew up with a distinctly national character, and gradually infused its influence into all the feelings and habits of the English people. By the end of the seventh century, the independent, insular, Teutonic church had become one of the brightest lights of the Christian firmament. In short, the introduction of Christianity completely changed the position of the English nation, both within its own island and towards the rest of the world." [23] The origin of the Anglo-Saxon mission reads like a beautiful romance. Pope Gregory I., when abbot of a Benedictine convent, saw in the slave-market of Rome three Anglo-Saxon boys offered for sale. He was impressed with their fine appearance, fair complexion, sweet faces and light flaxen hair; and learning, to his grief, that they were idolaters, he asked the name of their nation, their country, and their king. When he heard that they were Angles, he said: "Right, for they have angelic faces, and are worthy to be fellow-heirs with angels in heaven." They were from the province Deira. "Truly," he replied, "are they De-ira-ns, that is, plucked from the ire of God, and called to the mercy of Christ." He asked the name of their king, which was AElla or Ella (who reigned from 559 to 588). "Hallelujah," he exclaimed, "the praise of God the Creator must be sung in those parts." He proceeded at once from the slave market to the pope, and entreated him to send missionaries to England, offering himself for this noble work. He actually started for the spiritual conquest of the distant island. But the Romans would not part with him, called him back, and shortly afterwards elected him pope (590). What he could not do in person, he carried out through others. [24] In the year 596, Gregory, remembering his interview with the sweet-faced and fair-haired Anglo-Saxon slave-boys, and hearing of a favorable opportunity for a mission, sent the Benedictine abbot Augustin (Austin), thirty other monks, and a priest, Laurentius, with instructions, letters of recommendation to the Frank kings and several bishops of Gaul, and a few books, to England. [25] The missionaries, accompanied by some interpreters from France, landed on the isle of Thanet in Kent, near the mouth of the Thames. [26] King Ethelbert, by his marriage to Bertha, a Christian princess from Paris, who had brought a bishop with her, was already prepared for a change of religion. He went to meet the strangers and received them in the open air; being afraid of some magic if he were to see them under roof. They bore a silver cross for their banner, and the image of Christ painted on a board; and after singing the litany and offering prayers for themselves and the people whom they had come to convert, they preached the gospel through their Frank interpreters. The king was pleased with the ritualistic and oratorical display of the new religion from distant, mighty Rome, and said: "Your words and promises are very fair; but as they are new to us and of uncertain import, I cannot forsake the religion I have so long followed with the whole English nation. Yet as you are come from far, and are desirous to benefit us, I will supply you with the necessary sustenance, and not forbid you to preach and to convert as many as you can to your religion." [27] Accordingly, he allowed them to reside in the City of Canterbury (Dorovern, Durovernum), which was the metropolis of his kingdom, and was soon to become the metropolis of the Church of England. They preached and led a severe monastic life. Several believed and were baptized, "admiring," as Bede says, "the simplicity of their innocent life, and the sweetness of their heavenly doctrine." He also mentions miracles. Gregory warned Augustin not to be puffed up by miracles, but to rejoice with fear, and to tremble in rejoicing, remembering what the Lord said to his disciples when they boasted that even the devils were subject to them. For not all the elect work miracles, and yet the names of all are written in heaven. [28] King Ethelbert was converted and baptized (probably June 2, 597), and drew gradually his whole nation after him, though he was taught by the missionaries not to use compulsion, since the service of Christ ought to be voluntary. Augustin, by order of pope Gregory, was ordained archbishop of the English nation by Vergilius, [29] archbishop of Arles, Nov. 16, 597, and became the first primate of England, with a long line of successors even to this day. On his return, at Christmas, he baptized more than ten thousand English. His talents and character did not rise above mediocrity, and he bears no comparison whatever with his great namesake, the theologian and bishop of Hippo; but he was, upon the whole, well fitted for his missionary work, and his permanent success lends to his name the halo of a borrowed greatness. He built a church and monastery at Canterbury, the mother-church of Anglo-Saxon Christendom. He sent the priest Laurentius to Rome to inform the pope of his progress and to ask an answer to a number of questions concerning the conduct of bishops towards their clergy, the ritualistic differences between the Roman and the Gallican churches, the marriage of two brothers to two sisters, the marriage of relations, whether a bishop may be ordained without other bishops being present, whether a woman with child ought to be baptized, how long after the birth of an infant carnal intercourse of married people should be delayed, etc. Gregory answered these questions very fully in the legalistic and ascetic spirit of the age, yet, upon the whole, with much good sense and pastoral wisdom. [30] It is remarkable that this pope, unlike his successors, did not insist on absolute conformity to the Roman church, but advises Augustin, who thought that the different customs of the Gallican church were inconsistent with the unity of faith, "to choose from every church those things that are pious, religious and upright;" for "things are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things." [31] In other respects, the advice falls in with the papal system and practice. He directs the missionaries not to destroy the heathen temples, but to convert them into Christian churches, to substitute the worship of relics for the worship of idols, and to allow the new converts, on the day of dedication and other festivities, to kill cattle according to their ancient custom, yet no more to the devils, but to the praise of God; for it is impossible, he thought, to efface everything at once from their obdurate minds; and he who endeavors to ascend to the highest place, must rise by degrees or steps, and not by leaps. [32] This method was faithfully followed by his missionaries. It no doubt facilitated the nominal conversion of England, but swept a vast amount of heathenism into the Christian church, which it took centuries to eradicate. Gregory sent to Augustin, June 22, 601, the metropolitan pall (pallium), several priests (Mellitus, Justus, Paulinus, and others), many books, sacred vessels and vestments, and relics of apostles and martyrs. He directed him to ordain twelve bishops in the archiepiscopal diocese of Canterbury, and to appoint an archbishop for York, who was also to ordain twelve bishops, if the country adjoining should receive the word of God. Mellitus was consecrated the first bishop of London; Justus, bishop of Rochester, both in 604 by Augustin (without assistants); Paulinus, the first archbishop of York, 625, after the death of Gregory and Augustin. [33] The pope sent also letters and presents to king Ethelbert, "his most excellent son," exhorting him to persevere in the faith, to commend it by good works among his subjects, to suppress the worship of idols, and to follow the instructions of Augustin. __________________________________________________________________ [22] Bede (I. 22) counts it among the most wicked acts or neglects rather, of the Britons mentioned even by their own historian Gildas, that they, never preached the faith to the Saxons who dwelt among them. [23] History of the Norman conquest of England, Vol. I., p. 22 (Oxford ed. of 1873). [24] Beda (B. II., ch.1 at the close) received this account "from the ancients" (ab antiquis, or traditione majorum), but gives it as an episode, not as a part of the English mission (which is related I. 53). The elaborate play on words excites critical suspicion of the truth of the story, which, though well told, is probably invented or embellished, like so many legends about Gregory, ."Se non vero, e ben trovato." [25] Among these books were a Bible in 2 vols., a Psalter, a book of the Gospels, a Martyrology, Apocryphal Lives of the Apostles, and some Commentaries. "These are the foundation or beginning of the library of the whole English church." [26] The first journey of Augustin, in 595, was a failure. He started finally for England July 23d, 596, wintered in Gaul, and landed in England the following year with about forty persons, including Gallic priests and interpreters. Haddan and Stubbs, III. 4. [27] Bede I. 25. [28] "Non enim omnes electi miracula faciunt, sed tamen eorum omnium nomina in caelo sunt ascripta."Greg., Ad Augustinum Anglorum Episcopum, Epp. Lib. XI. 28, and Bede I. 31. [29] Not AEtherius, as Bede has it, I. 27, and in other places. AEtherius was the contemporary archbishop of Lyons. [30] Bede I. 27 sqq. gives extracts from Gregory's answers. It is curious how the pope handles such delicate subjects as the monthly courses and the carnal intercourse between married people. A husband, he says, should not approach his wife after the birth of an infant, till the infant be weaned. Mothers should not give their children to other women to suckle. A man who has approached his wife is not to enter the church unless washed with water and till after sunset. We see here the genius of Romanism which aims to control by its legislation all the ramifications of human life, and to shackle the conscience by a subtle and minute casuistry. Barbarians, however, must be treated like children. [31] "Non enim pro locis res, sed pro bonis rebus loca amanda sunt. Ex singulis ergo quibusdam ecclesiis, quae pia, quae religiosa, quae recta sunt, elige, et haec quasi in fasciculum collecta apud Anglorum mentes in consuetudinem depone." Gr. Respons. ad interrogat. Aug., Ep. XI. 64, and Bede I. 27. [32] "Is qui locum summum ascendere nititur, gradibus wel passibus, saltibus elevatur." Ep. lib. XI. 76 (and Bede I. 30). This epistle of the year 601 is addressed to Mellitus on his way to England, but is intended for Augustin ad faciliorem Anglorum conversionem. In Sardinia, where Christianity already prevailed, Gregory advised Bishop Januarius to suppress the remaining heathenism by imprisonment and corporal punishment. [33] York and London had been the first metropolitan sees among the Britons. London was even then, as Bede (II. 3) remarks, a mart of many nations resorting to it by sea and land. __________________________________________________________________ § 11. Antagonism of the Saxon and British Clergy. Bede, II. 2; Haddan and Stubbs, III. 38-41. Augustin, with the aid of king Ethelbert, arranged (in 602 or 603) a conference with the British bishops, at a place in Sussex near the banks of the Severn under an oak, called "Augustin's Oak." [34] He admonished them to conform to the Roman ceremonial in the observance of Easter Sunday, and the mode of administering baptism, and to unite with their Saxon brethren in converting the Gentiles. Augustin had neither wisdom nor charity enough to sacrifice even the most trifling ceremonies on the altar of peace. He was a pedantic and contracted churchman. He met the Britons, who represented at all events an older and native Christianity, with the haughty spirit of Rome, which is willing to compromise with heathen customs, but demands absolute submission from all other forms of Christianity, and hates independence as the worst of heresies. The Britons preferred their own traditions. After much useless contention, Augustin proposed, and the Britons reluctantly accepted, an appeal to the miraculous interposition of God. A blind man of the Saxon race was brought forward and restored to sight by his prayer. The Britons still refused to give up their ancient customs without the consent of their people, and demanded a second and larger synod. At the second Conference, seven bishops of the Britons, with a number of learned men from the Convent of Bangor, appeared, and were advised by a venerated hermit to submit the Saxon archbishop to the moral test of meekness and humility as required by Christ from his followers. If Augustin, at the meeting, shall rise before them, they should hear him submissively; but if he shall not rise, they should despise him as a proud man. As they drew near, the Roman dignitary remained seated in his chair. He demanded of them three things, viz. compliance with the Roman observance of the time of Easter, the Roman form of baptism, and aid in efforts to convert the English nation; and then he would readily tolerate their other peculiarities. They refused, reasoning among themselves, if he will not rise up before us now, how much more will he despise us when we shall be subject to his authority? Augustin indignantly rebuked them and threatened the divine vengeance by the arms of the Saxons. "All which," adds Bede, "through the dispensation of the divine judgment, fell out exactly as he had predicted." For, a few years afterwards (613), Ethelfrith the Wild, the pagan King of Northumbria, attacked the Britons at Chester, and destroyed not only their army, but slaughtered several hundred [35] priests and monks, who accompanied the soldiers to aid them with their prayers. The massacre was followed by the destruction of the flourishing monastery of Bangor, where more than two thousand monks lived by the labor of their hands. This is a sad picture of the fierce animosity of the two races and rival forms of Christianity. Unhappily, it continues to the present day, but with a remarkable difference: the Keltic Irish who, like the Britons, once represented a more independent type of Catholicism, have, since the Norman conquest, and still more since the Reformation, become intense Romanists; while the English, once the dutiful subjects of Rome, have broken with that foreign power altogether, and have vainly endeavored to force Protestantism upon the conquered race. The Irish problem will not be solved until the double curse of national and religious antagonism is removed. __________________________________________________________________ [34] On the time and place of the two conferences see the notes in Haddan and Stubbs, III. 40 and 41. [35] Bede mentions twelve hundred, but the Saxon chronicle (a. d.607) only two hundred. __________________________________________________________________ § 12. Conversion of the Other Kingdoms of the Heptarchy. Augustin, the apostle of the Anglo-Saxons, died a.d. 604, and lies buried, with many of his successors, in the venerable cathedral of Canterbury. On his tomb was written this epitaph: "Here rests the Lord Augustin, first archbishop of Canterbury, who being formerly sent hither by the blessed Gregory, bishop of the city of Rome, and by God's assistance supported with miracles, reduced king Ethelbert and his nation from the worship of idols to the faith of Christ, and having ended the days of his office in peace, died on the 26th day of May, in the reign of the same king." [36] He was not a great man; but he did a great work in laying the foundations of English Christianity and civilization. Laurentius (604-619), and afterwards Mellitus (619-624) succeeded him in his office. Other priests and monks were sent from Italy, and brought with them books and such culture as remained after the irruption of the barbarians. The first archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the bishops of most of the Southern sees were foreigners, if not consecrated, at least commissioned by the pope, and kept up a constant correspondence with Rome. Gradually a native clergy arose in England. The work of Christianization went on among the other kingdom of the heptarchy, and was aided by the marriage of kings with Christian wives, but was more than once interrupted by relapse into heathenism. Northumbria was converted chiefly through the labors of the sainted Aidan (d. Aug. 31, 651), a monk from the island Iona or Hii, and the first bishop of Lindisfarne, who is even lauded by Bede for his zeal, piety and good works, although he differed from him on the Easter question. [37] Sussex was the last part of the Heptarchy which renounced paganism. It took nearly a hundred years before England was nominally converted to the Christian religion. [38] To this conversion England owes her national unity and the best elements of her civilization. [39] The Anglo-Saxon Christianity was and continued to be till the Reformation, the Christianity of Rome, with its excellences and faults. It included the Latin mass, the worship of saints, images and relics, monastic virtues and vices, pilgrimages to the holy city, and much credulity and superstition. Even kings abdicated their crown to show their profound reverence for the supreme pontiff and to secure from him a passport to heaven. Chapels, churches and cathedrals were erected in the towns; convents founded in the country by the bank of the river or under the shelter of a hill, and became rich by pious donations of land. The lofty cathedrals and ivy-clad ruins of old abbeys and cloisters in England and Scotland still remain to testify in solemn silence to the power of mediaeval Catholicism. __________________________________________________________________ [36] Bede II., c. 3; Haddan and Stubbs, III. 53. [37] Bede III., c. 14-17; V. 24. [38] See the details of the missionary labors in the seven kingdoms in Bede; also in Milman l.c.; and the documents in Haddan and Stubbs, vol. III. [39] "The conversion of the heptarchic kingdom," says Professor Stubbs (Constitutional History of England, Vol. I., p. 217), "during the seventh century not only revealed to Europe and Christendom the existence of a new nation, but may be said to have rendered the new nation conscious of its unity in a way in which, under the influence of heathenism, community of language and custom had failed to do." __________________________________________________________________ § 13. Conformity to Row Established. Wilfrid, Theodore, Bede. The dispute between the Anglo-Saxon or Roman, and the British ritual was renewed in the middle of the seventh century, but ended with the triumph of the former in England proper. The spirit of independence had to take refuge in Ireland and Scotland till the time of the Norman conquest, which crushed it out also in Ireland. Wilfrid, afterwards bishop of York, the first distinguished native prelate who combined clerical habits with haughty magnificence, acquired celebrity by expelling "the quartodeciman heresy and schism," as it was improperly called, from Northumbria, where the Scots had introduced it through St. Aidan. The controversy was decided in a Synod held at Whitby in 664 in the presence of King Oswy or Oswio and his son Alfrid. Colman, the second success or of Aidan, defended the Scottish observance of Easter by the authority of St. Columba and the apostle John. Wilfrid rested the Roman observance on the authority of Peter, who had introduced it in Rome, and on the universal custom of Christendom. When he mentioned, that to Peter were intrusted the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the king said: "I will not contradict the door-keeper, lest when I come to the gates of the kingdom of heaven, there should be none to open them." By this irresistible argument the opposition was broken, and conformity to the Roman observance established. The Scottish semi-circular tonsure also, which was ascribed to Simon Magus, gave way to the circular, which was derived from St. Peter. Colman, being worsted, returned with his sympathizers to Scotland, where he built two monasteries. Tuda was made bishop in his place. [40] Soon afterwards, a dreadful pestilence raged through England and Ireland, while Caledonia was saved, as the pious inhabitants believed, by the intercession of St. Columba. The fusion of English Christians was completed in the age of Theodorus, archbishop of Canterbury (669 to 690), and Beda Venerabilis ( b. 673, d. 735), presbyter and monk of Wearmouth. About the same time Anglo-Saxon literature was born, and laid the foundation for the development of the national genius which ultimately broke loose from Rome. Theodore was a native of Tarsus, where Paul was born, educated in Athens, and, of course, acquainted with Greek and Latin learning. He received his appointment and consecration to the primacy of England from Pope Vitalian. He arrived at Canterbury May 27, 669, visited the whole of England, established the Roman rule of Easter, and settled bishops in all the sees except London. He unjustly deposed bishop Wilfrid of York, who was equally devoted to Rome, but in his later years became involved in sacerdotal jealousies and strifes. He introduced order into the distracted church and some degree of education among the clergy. He was a man of autocratic temper, great executive ability, and, having been directly sent from Rome, he carried with him double authority. "He was the first archbishop," says Bede, "to whom the whole church of England submitted." During his administration the first Anglo-Saxon mission to the mother-country of the Saxons and Friesians was attempted by Egbert, Victberet, and Willibrord (689 to 692). His chief work is a "Penitential" with minute directions for a moral and religious life, and punishments for drunkenness, licentiousness, and other prevalent vices. [41] The Venerable Bede was the first native English scholar, the father of English theology and church history. He spent his humble and peaceful life in the acquisition and cultivation of ecclesiastical and secular learning, wrote Latin in prose and verse, and translated portions of the Bible into Anglo-Saxon. His chief work is his--the only reliable--Church History of old England. He guides us with a gentle hand and in truly Christian spirit, though colored by Roman views, from court to court, from monastery to monastery, and bishopric to bishopric, through the missionary labyrinth of the miniature kingdoms of his native island. He takes the Roman side in the controversies with the British churches. [42] Before Bede cultivated Saxon prose, Caedmon (about 680), first a swine-herd, then a monk at Whitby, sung, as by inspiration, the wonders of creation and redemption, and became the father of Saxon (and Christian German) poetry. His poetry brought the Bible history home to the imagination of the Saxon people, and was a faint prophecy of the "Divina Comedia" and the "Paradise Lost." [43] We have a remarkable parallel to this association of Bede and Caedmon in the association of Wiclif, the first translator of the whole Bible into English (1380), and the contemporary of Chaucer, the father of English poetry, both forerunners of the British Reformation, and sustaining a relation to Protestant England somewhat similar to the relation which Bede and Caedmon sustain to mediaeval Catholic England. The conversion of England was nominal and ritual, rather than intellectual and moral. Education was confined to the clergy and monks, and consisted in the knowledge of the Decalogue, the Creed and the Pater Noster, a little Latin without any Greek or Hebrew. The Anglo-Saxon clergy were only less ignorant than the British. The ultimate triumph of the Roman church was due chiefly to her superior organization, her direct apostolic descent, and the prestige of the Roman empire. It made the Christianity of England independent of politics and court-intrigues, and kept it in close contact with the Christianity of the Continent. The advantages of this connection were greater than the dangers and evils of insular isolation. Among all the subjects of Teutonic tribes, the English became the most devoted to the Pope. They sent more pilgrims to Rome and more money into the papal treasury than any other nation. They invented the Peter's Pence. At least thirty of their kings and queens, and an innumerable army of nobles ended their days in cloistral retreats. Nearly all of the public lands were deeded to churches and monasteries. But the exuberance of monasticism weakened the military and physical forces of the nation Danish and the Norman conquests. The power and riches of the church secularized the clergy, and necessitated in due time a reformation. Wealth always tends to vice, and vice to decay. The Norman conquest did not change the ecclesiastical relations of England, but infused new blood and vigor into the Saxon race, which is all the better for its mixed character. We add a list of the early archbishops and bishops of the four principal English sees, in the order of their foundation: [44] Canterbury London Rochester. York Augustin 597 Mellitus 604 Justus 604 Paulinus 625 Laurentius 604 [Cedd in Essex 654] Romanus 624 Chad 665 Mellitus 619 Wini 666 Paulinus 633 Wilfrid, consecrated 665, in possession 669 Justus 624 Erconwald 675 Ithamar 644 Honorius 627 Waldhere 693 Damian 655 669 Deusdedit 655 Ingwald 704 Putta 669 Bosa 678 Theodore 668 Cwichelm 676 Wilfrid again 686 Brihtwald 693 Gebmund 678 Bosa again 691 Tatwin 731 Tobias 693 John 706 __________________________________________________________________ [40] See a full account of this controversy in Bede, III, c. 25, 26, and in Haddan and Stubbs, III. 100-106. [41] The works of Theodore (Poenitentiale, etc.) in Migne's Patrol., Tom. 99, p. 902. Comp. also Bede, IV. 2, Bright, p. 223, and especially Haddan and Stubbs, III. 114-227, where his Penitential is given in full. It was probably no direct work of Theodore, but drawn up under his eye and published by his authority. It presupposes a very bad state of morals among the clergy of that age. [42] See Karl Werner (R.C.), Beda und seine Zeit, 1875. Bright, l.c., pp. 326 sqq. [43] Beda, Hist. Eccl. Angl., IV. 24. Caedmonis monachi Paraphrasis poetica Genescos ac praecipuarum sacrae paginae Historiarum, ed. F. Junius, Amst., 1655; modern editions by B. Thorpe, Lond., 1832, and C. W. M. Grein, Götting., 1857. Bouterwek, Caedmon's des Angelsachen biblische Dichtungen, Elberfeld, 1849-54, 2 Parts. F. Hammerich, AElteste christliche Epik der Angelsachsen, Deutschen und Nordländer. Transl. from the Danish by Michelsen, 1874. Comp. also the literature on the German Heliand, § 27. [44] From Bright, p. 449, compared with the dates in Haddan and Stubbs vol. III. __________________________________________________________________ § 14. The Conversion of Ireland. St. Patrick and St. Bridget. Literature. I. The writings of St. Patrick are printed in the Vitae Sanctorum of the Bollandists, sub March 17th; in Patricii Opuscula, ed. Warsaeus (Sir James Ware, Lond., 1656); in Migne's Patrolog., Tom. LIII. 790-839, and with critical notes in Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, etc., Vol. II, Part II, (1878), pp. 296-323. II. The Life of St. Patrick in the Acta Sanctorum, Mart., Tom. II. 517 sqq. Tillemont: Mémoires, Tom. XVI. 452, 781. Ussher: Brit. Eccl. Antiqu. J. H. Todd: St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland. Dublin, 1864. C. Joh. Greith (R.C.): Geschichte der altirischen Kirche und ihrer Verbindung mit Rom., Gallien und Alemannien, als Einleitung in die Geschichte des Stifts St. Gallen. Freiburg i. B. 1867. Daniel de Vinné: History Of the Irish Primitive Church, together with the Life of St. Patrick. N. York, 1870 J. Francis Sherman (R.C.): Loca Patriciana: an Identification of Localities, chiefly in Leinster, visited by St. Patrick. Dublin, 1879. F. E. Warren (Episc.): The Manuscript Irish Missal at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. London, 1879. Ritual of the Celtic Church. Oxf. 1881. Comp. also the works of Todd, McLauchan, Ebrard, Killen, and Skene, quoted in § 7, and Forbes, Kalendars of Scottish Saints, p. 431. The church-history of Ireland is peculiar. It began with an independent catholicity (or a sort of semi-Protestantism), and ended with Romanism, while other Western countries passed through the reverse order. Lying outside of the bounds of the Roman empire, and never invaded by Roman legions, [45] that virgin island was Christianized without bloodshed and independently of Rome and of the canons of the oecumenical synods. The early Irish church differed from the Continental churches in minor points of polity and worship, and yet excelled them all during the sixth and seventh centuries in spiritual purity and missionary zeal. After the Norman conquest, it became closely allied to Rome. In the sixteenth century the light of the Reformation did not penetrate into the native population; but Queen Elizabeth and the Stuarts set up by force a Protestant state-religion in antagonism to the prevailing faith of the people. Hence, by the law of re-action, the Keltic portion of Ireland became more intensely Roman Catholic being filled with double hatred of England on the ground of difference of race and religion. This glaring anomaly of a Protestant state church in a Roman Catholic country has been removed at last after three centuries of oppression and misrule, by the Irish Church Disestablishment Act in 1869 under the ministry of Gladstone. The early history of Ireland (Hibernia) is buried in obscurity. The ancient Hibernians were a mixed race, but prevailingly Keltic. They were ruled by petty tyrants, proud, rapacious and warlike, who kept the country in perpetual strife. They were devoted to their religion of Druidism. Their island, even before the introduction of Christianity, was called the Sacred Island. It was also called Scotia or Scotland down to the eleventh century. [46] The Romans made no attempt at subjugation, as they did not succeed in establishing their authority in Caledonia. The first traces of Irish Christianity are found at the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century. As Pelagius, the father of the famous heresy, which bears his name, was a Briton, so Coelestius, his chief ally and champion, was a Hibernian; but we do not know whether he was a Christian before be left Ireland. Mansuetus, first bishop of Toul, was an Irish Scot (a.d. 350). Pope Caelestine, in 431, ordained and sent Palladius, a Roman deacon, and probably a native Briton, "to the Scots believing in Christ," as their first bishop. [47] This notice by Prosper of France implies the previous existence of Christianity in Ireland. But Palladius was so discouraged that he soon abandoned the field, with his assistants for North Britain, where he died among the Picts. [48] For nearly two centuries after this date, we have no authentic record of papal intercourse with Ireland; and yet during that period it took its place among the Christian countries. It was converted by two humble individuals, who probably never saw Rome, St. Patrick, once a slave, and St. Bridget, the daughter of a slave-mother. [49] The Roman tradition that St. Patrick was sent by Pope Caelestine is too late to have any claim upon our acceptance, and is set aside by the entire silence of St. Patrick himself in his genuine works. It arose from confounding Patrick with Palladius. The Roman mission of Palladius failed; the independent mission of Patrick succeeded. He is the true Apostle of Ireland, and has impressed his memory in indelible characters upon the Irish race at home and abroad. St. Patrick or Patricius (died March 17, 465 or 493) was the son of a deacon, and grandson of a priest, as he confesses himself without an intimation of the unlawfulness of clerical marriages. [50] He was in his youth carried captive into Ireland, with many others, and served his master six years as a shepherd. While tending his flock in the lonesome fields, the teachings of his childhood awakened to new life in his heart without any particular external agency. He escaped to France or Britain, was again enslaved for a short period, and had a remarkable dream, which decided his calling. He saw a man, Victoricius, who handed him innumerable letters from Ireland, begging him to come over and help them. He obeyed the divine monition, and devoted the remainder of his life to the conversion of Ireland (from a.d. 440 to 493). [51] "I am," he says, "greatly a debtor to God, who has bestowed his grace so largely upon me, that multitudes were born again to God through me. The Irish, who never had the knowledge of God and worshipped only idols and unclean things, have lately become the people of the Lord, and are called sons of God." He speaks of having baptized many thousands of men. Armagh seems to have been for some time the centre of his missionary operations, and is to this day the seat of the primacy of Ireland, both Roman Catholic and Protestant. He died in peace, and was buried in Downpatrick (or Gabhul), where he began his mission, gained his first converts and spent his declining years. [52] His Roman Catholic biographers have surrounded his life with marvelous achievements, while some modern Protestant hypercritics have questioned even his existence, as there is no certain mention of his name before 634; unless it be "the Hymn of St. Sechnall (Secundinus) in praise of St. Patrick, which is assigned to 448. But if we accept his own writings, "there can be no reasonable doubt" (we say with a Presbyterian historian of Ireland) "that he preached the gospel in Hibernia in the fifth century; that he was a most zealous and efficient evangelist, and that he is eminently entitled to the honorable designation of the Apostle of Ireland." [53] The Christianity of Patrick was substantially that of Gaul and old Britain, i.e. Catholic, orthodox, monastic, ascetic, but independent of the Pope, and differing from Rome in the age of Gregory I. in minor matters of polity and ritual. In his Confession he never mentions Rome or the Pope; he never appeals to tradition, and seems to recognize the Scriptures (including the Apocrypha) as the only authority in matters of faith. He quotes from the canonical Scriptures twenty-five times; three times from the Apocrypha. It has been conjectured that the failure and withdrawal of Palladius was due to Patrick, who had already monopolized this mission-field; but, according to the more probable chronology, the mission of Patrick began about nine years after that of Palladius. From the end of the seventh century, the two persons were confounded, and a part of the history of Palladius, especially his connection with Pope Caelestine, was transferred to Patrick. [54] With St. Patrick there is inseparably connected the most renowned female saint of Ireland, St. Bridget (or Brigid, Brigida, Bride), who prepared his winding sheet and survived him many years. She died Feb. 1, 523 (or 525). She is "the Mary of Ireland," and gave her name to innumerable Irish daughters, churches, and convents. She is not to be confounded with her name-sake, the widow-saint of Sweden. Her life is surrounded even by a still thicker cloud of legendary fiction than that of St. Patrick, so that it is impossible to separate the facts from the accretions of a credulous posterity. She was an illegitimate child of a chieftain or bard, and a slave-mother, received holy orders, became deformed in answer to her own prayer, founded the famous nunnery of Kildare (i.e. the Church of the Oak), [55] foretold the birth of Columba, and performed all sorts of signs and wonders. Upon her tomb in Kildare arose the inextinguishable flame called "the Light of St. Bridget," which her nuns (like the Vestal Virgins of Rome) kept "Through long ages of darkness and storm" (Moore). Six lives of her were published by Colgan in his Trias Thaumaturgus, and five by the Bollandists in the Acta Sanctorum. Critical Note on St. Patrick. We have only one or two genuine documents from Patrick, both written in semi-barbarous (early Irish) Latin, but breathing an humble, devout and fervent missionary spirit without anything specifically Roman, viz. his autobiographical Confession (in 25 chapters), written shortly before his death (493?), and his Letter of remonstrance to Coroticus (or Ceredig), a British chieftain (nominally Christian), probably of Ceredigion or Cardigan, who had made a raid into Ireland, and sold several of Patrick's converts into slavery (10 chapters). The Confession, as contained in the "Book of Armagh," is alleged to have been transcribed before a.d. 807 from Patrick's original autograph, which was then partly illegible. There are four other MSS. of the eleventh century, with sundry additions towards the close, which seem to be independent copies of the same original. See Haddan & Stubbs, note on p. 296. The Epistle to Coroticus is much shorter, and not so generally accepted. Both documents were first printed in 1656, then in 1668 in the Acta Sanctorum, also in Migne's Patrologia (Vol. 53), in Miss Cusack's Life of St. Patrick, in the work of Ebrard (l.c. 482 sqq.), and in Haddan & Stubbs, Councils (Vol. II., P. II., 296 sqq.). There is a difference of opinion about Patrick's nationality, whether he was of Scotch, or British, or French extraction. He begins his Confession: "I, Patrick, a sinner, the rudest and the least of all the faithful, and the most contemptible with the multitude (Ego Patricius, peccator, rusticissimus et minimus omnium fidelium et contemptibilissimus apud plurimos, or, according to another reading, contemptibilis sum apud plurimos), had for my father Calpornus (or Calphurnius), a deacon (diaconum, or diaconem), the son of Potitus (al. Photius), a presbyter (filium quondam Potiti presbyteri), who lived in the village of Bannavem (or Banaven) of Tabernia; for he had a cottage in the neighborhood where I was captured. I was then about sixteen years old; but I was ignorant of the true God, and was led away into captivity to Hibernia." Bannavem of Tabernia is, perhaps Banavie in Lochaber in Scotland (McLauchlan); others fix the place of his birth in Kilpatrick (i.e. the cell or church of Patrick), near Dunbarton on the Clyde (Ussher, Butler, Maclear); others, somewhere in Britain, and thus explain his epithet "Brito" or "Briton" (Joceline and Skene); still others seek it in Armoric Gaul, in Boulogne (from Bononia), and derive Brito from Brittany (Lanigan, Moore, Killen, De Vinné). He does not state the instrumentality of his conversion. Being the son of a clergyman, he must have received some Christian instruction; but he neglected it till he was made to feel the power of religion in communion with God while in slavery. "After I arrived in Ireland," he says (ch. 6), "every day I fed cattle, and frequently during the day I prayed; more and more the love and fear of God burned, and my faith and my spirit were strengthened, so that in one day I said as many as a hundred prayers, and nearly as many in the night." He represents his call and commission as coming directly from God through a vision, and alludes to no intervening ecclesiastical authority or episcopal consecration. In one of the oldest Irish MSS., the Book of Durrow, he is styled a presbyter. In the Epistle to Coroticus, he appears more churchly and invested with episcopal power and jurisdiction. It begins: "Patricius, peccator indoctus, Hiberione (or Hyberione) constitutus episcopus, certissime reor, a Deo accepi id quod sum: inter barbaras utique gentes proselytus et profuga, ob amorem Dei." (So according to the text of Haddan & Stubbs, p. 314; somewhat different in Migne, Patrol. LIII. 814; and in Ebrard, p. 505.) But the letter does not state where or by whom he was consecrated. The "Book of Armagh "contains also an Irish hymn (the oldest monument of the Irish Keltic language), called S. Patricii Canticum Scotticum, which Patrick is said to have written when he was about to convert the chief monarch of the island (Laoghaire or Loegaire). [56] The hymn is a prayer for the special aid of Almighty God for so important a work; it contains the principal doctrines of orthodox Christianity, with a dread of magical influences of aged women and blacksmiths, such as still prevails in some parts of Ireland, but without an invocation of Mary and the saints, such as we might expect from the Patrick of tradition and in a composition intended as a breast-plate or corselet against spiritual foes. The following is the principal portion: "5. I bind to myself to-day,-- The Power of God to guide me, The Might of God to uphold me, The Wisdom of God to teach me, The Eye of God to watch over me, The Ear of God to hear me, The Word of God to give me speech. The Hand of God to protect me, The Way of God to go before me, The Shield of God to shelter me, The Host of God to defend me, Against the snares of demons, Against the temptations of vices, Against the lusts of nature, Against every man who meditates injury to me. Whether far or near, With few or with many. 6. I have set around me all these powers, Against every hostile savage power, Directed against my body and my soul, Against the incantations of false prophets, Against the black laws of heathenism, Against the false laws of heresy, Against the deceits of idolatry, Against the spells of women, and smiths, and druids, Against all knowledge which blinds the soul of man. 7. Christ protect me to-day Against poison, against burning, Against drowning, against wound, That I may receive abundant reward. 8. Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ at my right, Christ at my left, Christ in the fort [i.e. at home], Christ in the chariot-seat [travelling by land], Christ in the poop [travelling by water]. 9. Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks to me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me. 10. I bind to myself to-day The strong power of an invocation of the Trinity, The faith of the Trinity in Unity, The Creator of [the elements]. 11. Salvation is of the Lord, Salvation is of the Lord, Salvation is of Christ; May thy salvation, O Lord, be ever with us." The fourth and last document which has been claimed as authentic and contemporary, is a Latin "Hymn in praise of St. Patrick" (Hymnus Sancti Patricii, Episcopi Scotorum) by St. Sechnall (Secundinus) which begins thus: "Audite, omnes amantes Deum, sancta merita Viri in Christo beati Patrici Episcopi: Quomodo bonum ob actum simulatur angelis, Perfectamque propter uitam aequatur Apostolis." The poem is given in full by Haddan & Stubbs, 324-327, and assigned to "before a.d. 448 (?)," in which year Sechnall died. But how could he anticipate the work of Patrick, when his mission, according to the same writers, began only eight years earlier (440), and lasted till 493? The hymn is first mentioned by Tyrechanus in the "Book of Armagh." The next oldest document is the Irish hymn of St. Fiacc on St. Patrick, which is assigned to the latter part of the sixth century, (l.c. 356-361). The Senchus Mor is attributed to the age of St. Patrick; but it is a code of Irish laws, derived from Pagan times, and gradually modified by Christian ecclesiastics in favor of the church. The Canons attributed to St. Patrick are of later date (Haddan & Stubbs, 328 sqq.). It is strange that St. Patrick is not mentioned by Bede in his Church History, although he often refers to Hibernia and its church, and is barely named as a presbyter in his Martyrology. He is also ignored by Columba and by the Roman Catholic writers, until his mediaeval biographers from the eighth to the twelfth century Romanized him, appealing not to his genuine Confession, but to spurious documents and vague traditions. He is said to have converted all the Irish chieftains and bards, even Ossian, the blind Homer of Scotland, who sang to him his long epic of Keltic heroes and battles. He founded 365 or, according to others, 700 churches, and consecrated as many bishops, and 3,000 priests (when the whole island had probably not more than two or three hundred thousand inhabitants; for even in the reign of Elizabeth it did not exceed 600,000). [57] He changed the laws of the kingdom, healed the blind, raised nine persons from death to life, and expelled all the snakes and frogs from Ireland. [58] His memory is celebrated March 17, and is a day of great public processions with the Irish Catholics in all parts of the world. His death is variously put in the year 455 (Tillemont), 464 or 465 (Butler, Killen), 493 (Ussher, Skene, Forbes, Haddan & Stubbs). Forbes (Kalendars, p. 433) and Skene (Keltic Scotland, II. 427 sqq.) come to the conclusion that the legend of St. Patrick in its present shape is not older than the ninth century, and dissolves into three personages: Sen-Patrick, whose day in the Kalendar is the 24th of August; Palladius, "qui est Patricius," to whom the mission in 431 properly belongs, and Patricius, whose day is the 17th of March, and who died in 493. "From the acts of these three saints, the subsequent legend of the great Apostle of Ireland was compiled, and an arbitrary chronology applied to it." __________________________________________________________________ [45] Agricola thought of invading Ireland, and holding it by a single legion, in order to remove from Britain the dangerous sight of freedom. Tacitus, Agric., c. 24. [46] Isidore of Seville in 580 (Origines XIV. 6) was the first to call Hibernia by the name of Scotia: "Scotia eadem et Ibernia, proxima Britanniae insula." [47] Prosper Aquitan. (a. d.455-463), Chron. ad an. 431: "Ad Scotos in Christum credentes ordinatus a Papa Coelestino Palladius primus Episcopus mittitur." Comp. Vita S. Palladii in the Book of Armagh, and the notes by Haddan and Stubbs, Vol. II., Part II., pp. 290, 291. [48] He is said to have left in Ireland, when he withdrew, some relics of St. Peter and Paul, and a copy of the Old and New Testaments, which the Pope had given him, together with the tablets on which he himself used to write. Haddan & Stubbs, p. 291. [49] Hence Montalembert says (II. 393): "The Christian faith dawned upon Ireland by means of two slaves." The slave-trade between Ireland and England flourished for many centuries. [50] This fact is usually, omitted by Roman Catholic writers. Butler says simply: "His father was of a good family." Even Montalembert conceals it by calling "the Gallo-Roman (?) Patrick, son of a relative of the great St. Martin of Tours" (II. 390). He also repeats, without a shadow of proof, the legend that St. Patrick was consecrated and commissioned by Pope St. Celestine (p. 391), though he admits that "legend and history have vied in taking possession of the life of St. Patrick." [51] The dates are merely conjectural. Haddan & Stubbs (p. 295) select a. d.440 for St. Patrick's mission (as did Tillemont & Todd), and 493 as the year of his death. According to other accounts, his mission began much earlier, and lasted sixty years. The alleged date of the foundation of Armagh is a. d.445. [52] Afterwards Armagh disputed the claims of Downpatrick See Killen I. 71-73. [53] Killen, Vol. I. 12. Patrick describes himself as "Hiberione constitutus episcopus." Afterwards he was called "Episcopus Scotorum," then "Archiapostolus Scotorum," then "Abbat of all Ireland," and "Archbishop, First Primate, and Chief Apostle of Ireland.' See Haddan & Stubbs, p. 295. [54] Haddan & Stubbs, p. 294, note: "The language of the Hymns of S. Sechnall and of S. Fiacc, and of S. Patrick's own Confessio, and the silence of Prosper, besides chronological difficulties, disprove, upon purely historical grounds, the supposed mission from Rome of S. Patrick himself; which first appears in the Scholia on S. Fiacc's Hymn." [55] The probable date of foundation is a. d.480. Haddan & Stubbs, p. 295. [56] The Irish was first published by Dr. Petrie, and translated by Dr. Todd. Haddan & Stubbs (320-323) give the Irish and English in parallel columns. Some parts of this hymn are said to be still remembered by the Irish peasantry, and repeated at bed-time as a protection from evil, or "as a religious armor to protect body and soul against demons and men and vices." [57] See Killen I. 76, note. Montalembert says, III. 118, note: "Irish narratives know scarcely any numerals but those of three hundred and three thousand. [58] A witty Irishman, who rowed me (in 1875) over Lake Killarney, told me that St. Patrick put the last snake into an iron box, and sunk it to the bottom of the lake, although he had solemnly promised to let the creature out. I asked him whether it was not a sin to cheat a snake? "Not at all," was his quick reply, "he only paid him in the same coin; for the first snake cheated the whole world." The same guide told me that Cromwell killed all the good people in Ireland, and let the bad ones live; and when I objected that he must have made an exception with his ancestors, he politely replied: "No, my parents came from America." __________________________________________________________________ § 15. The Irish Church after St. Patrick. The Missionary Period. The labors of St. Patrick were carried on by his pupils and by many British priests and monks who were driven from England by the Anglo-Saxon invasion in the 5th and 6th centuries. [59] There was an intimate intercourse between Ireland and Wales, where British Christianity sought refuge, and between Ireland and Scotland, where the seed of Christianity, had been planted by Ninian and Kentigern. In less than a century, after St. Patrick's death Ireland was covered with churches and convents for men and women. The monastic institutions were training schools of clergymen and missionaries, and workshops for transscribing sacred books. Prominent among these are the monasteries of Armagh, Banchor or Bangor (558), Clonard (500), Clonmacnois (528), Derry (555), Glendolough (618). During the sixth and seventh centuries Ireland excelled all other countries in Christian piety, and acquired the name of "the Island of Saints." We must understand this in a comparative sense, and remember that at that time England was just beginning to emerge from Anglo-Saxon heathenism, Germany was nearly all heathen, and the French kings--the eldest sons of the Church--were "monsters of iniquity." Ireland itself was distracted by civil wars between the petty kings and chieftains; and the monks and clergy, even the women, marched to the conflict. Adamnan with difficulty secured a law exempting women from warfare, and it was not till the ninth century that the clergy in Ireland were exempted from "expeditions and hostings" (battles). The slave-trade was in full vigor between Ireland and England in the tenth century, with the port of Bristol for its centre. The Irish piety was largely based on childish superstition. But the missionary zeal of that country is nevertheless most praiseworthy. Ireland dreamed the dream of converting heathen Europe. Its apostles went forth to Scotland, North Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, and North Italy. "They covered the land and seas of the West. Unwearied navigators, they landed on the most desert islands; they overflowed the Continent with their successive immigrations. They saw in incessant visions a world known and unknown to be conquered for Christ. The poem of the Pilgrimage of St. Brandan, that monkish Odyssey so celebrated in the middle ages, that popular prelude of the Divina Commedia, shows us the Irish monks in close contact with all the dreams and wonders of the Keltic ideal." [60] The missionaries left Ireland usually in companies of twelve, with a thirteenth as their leader. This duodecimal economy was to represent Christ and the twelve apostles. The following are the most prominent of these missionary bands: [61] St. Columba, with twelve brethren, to Hy in Scotland, a.d. 563. St. Mohonna (or Macarius, Mauricius), sent by Columba, with twelve companions, to the Picts. St. Columbanus, with twelve brethren, whose names are on record, to France and Germany, a.d. 612. St. Kilian, with twelve, to Franconia and Würzburg, a.d. 680. St. Eloquius, with twelve, to Belgium, a.d. 680. St. Rudbert or Rupert, with twelve, to Bavaria, a.d. 700. St. Willibrord (who studied twelve years in Ireland), with twelve, to Friesland, a.d. 692. St. Forannan, with twelve, to the Belgian frontier, a.d. 970. It is remarkable that this missionary activity of the Irish Church is confined to the period of her independence of the Church of Rome. We hear no more of it after the Norman conquest. The Irish Church during this missionary period of the sixth and seventh centuries had a peculiar character, which we learn chiefly from two documents of the eighth century, namely, the Catalogue of the Saints of Ireland, [62] and the Litany of Angus the Culdee. [63] The Catalogue distinguishes three periods and three orders of saints: secular, monastic, and eremitical. The saints of the time of St. Patrick were all bishops full of the Holy Ghost, three hundred and fifty in number, founders of churches; they had one head, Christ, and one leader, Patrick, observed one mass and one tonsure from ear to ear, and kept Easter on the fourteenth moon after the vernal equinox; they excluded neither laymen nor women; because, founded on the Rock of Christ, they feared not the blast of temptation. They sprung from the Romans, Franks, Britons and Scots. This order of saints continued for four reigns, from about a.d. 440 till 543. The second order, likewise of four reigns, till a.d. 599, was of Catholic Presbyters, three hundred in number, with few bishops; they had one head, Christ, one Easter, one tonsure, as before; but different and different rules, and they refused the services of women, separating them from the monasteries. The third order of saints consisted of one hundred holy presbyters and a few bishops, living in desert places on herbs and water and the alms of the faithful; they had different tonsures and Easters, some celebrating the resurrection on the 14th, some on the 16th moon; they continued through four reigns till 665. The first period may be called episcopal, though in a rather non-episcopal or undiocesan sense. Angus, in his Litany, invokes "seven times fifty [350] holy cleric bishops," whom "the saint [Patrick] ordained," and "three hundred pure presbyters, upon whom he conferred orders." In Nennius the number of presbyters is increased to three thousand, and in the tripartite Life of Patrick to five thousand. These bishops, even if we greatly reduce the number as we must, had no higher rank than the ancient chorepiscopi or country-bishops in the Eastern Church, of whom there were once in Asia Minor alone upwards of four hundred. Angus the Culdee gives us even one hundred and fifty-three groups of seven bishops, each group serving in the same church. Patrick, regarding himself as the chief bishop of the whole Irish people, planted a church wherever he made a few converts and could obtain a grant from the chief of a clan, and placed a bishop ordained by himself over it. "It was a congregational and tribal episcopacy, united by a federal rather than a territorial tie under regular jurisdiction. During Patrick's life, he no doubt exercised a superintendence over the whole; but we do not see any trace of the metropolitan jurisdiction of the church of Armagh over the rest." [64] The second period was monastic and missionary. All the presbyters and deacons were monks. Monastic life was congenial to the soil, and had its antecedents in the brotherhoods and sisterhoods of the Druids. [65] It was imported into Ireland probably from France, either directly through Patrick, or from the monastery of St. Ninian at Galloway, who himself derives it from St. Martin of Tours. [66] Prominent among these presbyter-monks are the twelve apostles of Ireland headed by St. Columba, who carried Christianity to Scotland in 563, and the twelve companions of Columbanus, who departed from Ireland to the Continent about 612. The most famous monastery was that of Bennchar, or Bangor, founded a.d. 558 by Comgall in the county of Down, on the south side of Belfast Lough. Comgall had four thousand monks under his care. [67] From Bangor proceeded Columbanus and other evangelists. By a primitive Keltic monastery we must not understand an elaborate stone structure, but a rude village of wooden huts or bothies (botha) on a river, with a church (ecclais), a common eating-hall, a mill, a hospice, the whole surrounded by a wall of earth or stone. The senior monks gave themselves entirely to devotion and the transcribing of the Scriptures. The younger were occupied in the field and in mechanical labor, or the training of the rising generation. These monastic communities formed a federal union, with Christ as their invisible head. They were training schools of the clergy. They attracted converts from the surrounding heathen population, and offered them a refuge from danger and violence. They were resorted to by English noblemen, who, according to Bede, were hospitably received, furnished with books, and instructed. Some Irish clergymen could read the Greek Testament at a time when Pope Gregory J. was ignorant of Greek. There are traces of an original Latin version of the Scriptures differing from the Itala and Vulgate, especially in Patrick's writings. [68] But "there is no trace anywhere of any Keltic version of the Bible or any part of it. St. Chrysostom's words have been misunderstood to support such a supposition, but without ground." [69] If there had been such a translation, it would have been of little use, as the people could not read it, and depended for their scanty knowledge of the word of God on the public lessons in the church. The "Book of Armagh," compiled by Ferdomnach, a scribe or learned monk of Armagh, in 807, gives us some idea of the literary state of the Irish Church at that time. [70] It contains the oldest extant memoirs of St. Patrick, the Confession of St. Patrick, the Preface of Jerome to the New Testament, the Gospels, Epistles, Apocalypse and Acts, with some prefaces chiefly taken from the works of Pelagius, and the Life of St. Martin of Tours by Sulpicius Severus, with a short litany on behalf of the writer. In the ninth century John Scotus Erigena, who died in France, 874, startled the Church with his rare, but eccentric, genius and pantheistic speculations. He had that power of quick repartee for which Irishmen are distinguished to this day. When asked by Charles the Bald at the dinner-table, what was the difference between a Scot and a Sot (quid distat inter Scottum et Sottum?), John replied: "Nothing at all but the table, please your Majesty." __________________________________________________________________ [59] Petrie (Round Towers, p. 137, quoted by Killen I. 26) speaks of crowds of foreign ecclesiastics--Roman, Egyptian, French, British, Saxon--who flocked Ireland as a place of refuge in the fifth and sixth centuries. [60] Montalembert, II. 397. [61] See Reeves, S. Columba, Introd, p. lxxi. [62] Catalogus Sanctorum Hiberniae published by Ussher from two MSS, and in Haddan & Stubbs, 292-294. [63] Contained in the Leabhar Breac, and in the Book of Leinster. [64] Skene II. 22 [65] Ammianus Marcellinus (XV. 9) describes the Druids as "bound together in brotherhoods and corporations, according to the precepts of Pythagoras!" See Killen, I. 29. [66] See next section. St. Patrick also is said to have been one of St. Martin's disciples; but St. Martin lived nearly one hundred years earlier. [67] Angus the Culdee, in his Litany, invokes "forty thousand monks, with the blessing of God, under the rule of Comgall of Bangor." But this is no doubt a slip of the pen for "four thousand." Skene II. 56. Bangor on the northeastern coast of Ireland must not be confounded with Bangor on the westem coast of Wales. [68] Haddan & Stubbs, Vol. I., 170-198, give a collection of Latin Scripture quotations of British or Irish writers from the fifth to the ninth century (Fastidius, St. Patrick, Gildas, Columbanus, Adamnanus, Nennius, Asser, etc.), and come to the conclusion that the Vulgate, though known to Fastidius in Britain about a. d.420, was probably unknown to St. Patrick, writing half a century later in Ireland, but that from the seventh century on, the Vulgate gradually superseded the Irish Latin version formerly in use. [69] Haddan & Stubbs, I. 192; Comp. p. 10. Ebrard and other writers state the contrary, but without proof. [70] First published in the Swords Parish Magazine, 1861. __________________________________________________________________ § 16. Subjection of Ireland to English and Roman Rule. The success of the Roman mission of Augustin among the Anglo-Saxons encouraged attempts to bring the Irish Church under the papal jurisdiction and to force upon it the ritual observances of Rome. England owes a good deal of her Christianity to independent Irish and Scotch missionaries from Bangor and Iona; but Ireland (as well as Germany) owes her Romanism, in great measure, to England. Pope Honorius (who was afterwards condemned by the sixth oecumenical council for holding the Monothelite heresy) addressed to the Irish clergy in 629 an exhortation--not, however, in the tone of authoritative dictation, but of superior wisdom and experience--to conform to the Roman mode of keeping Easter. This is the first known papal encyclical addressed to that country. A Synod was held at Magh-Lene, and a deputation sent to the Pope (and the three Eastern patriarchs) to ascertain the foreign usages on Easter. The deputation was treated with distinguished consideration in Rome, and, after three years' absence, reported in favor of the Roman cycle, which indeed rested on a better system of calculation. It was accordingly adopted in the South of Ireland, under the influence of the learned Irish ecclesiastic Cummian, who devoted a whole year to the study of the controversy. A few years afterwards Thomian, archbishop and abbot of Armagh (from 623 to 661), and the best Irish scholar of his age, introduced, after correspondence with the Pope, the Roman custom in the North, and thereby promoted his authority in opposition to the power of the abbot of Iona, which extended over a portion of Ireland, and strongly favored the old custom. But at last Abbot Adamnan likewise yielded to the Roman practice before his death (704). The Norman conquest under William I., with the sanction of the Pope, united the Irish Church still more closely to Rome (1066). Gregory VII., in an encyclical letter to the king, clergy and laity of Ireland (1084)., boldly, challenged their obedience to the Vicar of the blessed Peter, and invited them to appeal to him in all matters requiring arbitration. The archbishops of Canterbury, Lanfranc and Anselm, claimed and exercised a sort of supervision over the three most important sea-ports, Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick, on the ground that the Norman settlers applied to them for bishops and priests. Their influence was exerted in favor of conformity to Rome. Clerical celibacy was more generally introduced, uniformity in ritual established, and the large number of bishoprics reduced to twenty-three under two archbishops, Armagh for the North and Cashel for the South; while the bishop of Dublin was permitted to remain under the care of the archbishop of Canterbury. This reorganization of the polity in the interest of the aggrandizement of the hierarchy was effected about 1112 at the synod of Rathbreasail, which was attended by 58 bishops, 317 priests, a large number of monks, and King Murtogh O'Brien with his nobles. [71] At last Ireland was invaded and conquered by England under Henry II., with the effectual aid of Pope Adrian IV.--the only Englishman that sat on the papal throne. In a curious bull of 1155, he justified and encouraged the intended invasion in the interest of the papacy, and sent the king the ring of investiture as Lord of Ireland calling upon that licentious monarch to "extirpate the nurseries of vice" in Ireland, to "enlarge the borders of the (Roman) Church," and to secure to St. Peter from each house "the annual pension of one penny" (equal in value in the twelfth century to at least two or three shillings of our present currency). [72] Henry carried out his design in 1171, and with a strong military force easily subdued the whole Irish nation, weakened and distracted by civil wars, to British rule, which has been maintained ever since. A Synod at Armagh regarded the subjugation as a righteous judgment for the sins of the people, and especially for the slave trade. The bishops were the first to acknowledge Henry, hoping to derive benefit from a foreign régime, which freed them from petty tyrants at home. A Synod of Cashel in 1172, among other regulations, ordered that all offices of the church should hereafter in all parts of Ireland be conformed to the observances of the Church of England. A papal legate henceforward was constantly residing in Ireland. Pope Alexander III. was extremely gratified with this extension of his dominion, and in September, 1172, in the same tone of sanctimonious arrogance) issued a brief confirming the bull of Adrian, and expressing a hope that "the barbarous nation" would attain under the government of Henry "to some decency of manners;" he also wrote three epistles--one to Henry II., one to the kings and nobles of Ireland, and one to its hierarchy--enjoining obedience of Ireland to England, and of both to the see of St. Peter. [73] __________________________________________________________________ [71] See details in Lanigan and Killen (ch. vii.). [72] This papal-Irish bull is not found in the Bullarium Romanum, the editors of which were ashamed of it, and is denounced by some Irish Romanists as a monstrous and outrageous forgery, but it is given by, Matthew Paris (1155), was confirmed by Pope Alexander III. in a letter to Henry II. (a. d.1172), published in Ireland in 1175, printed in Baronius, Annales, ad a. d.1159, who took his copy from a Codex Vaticanus and is acknowledged as undoubtedly genuine by Dr. Lanigan, the Roman Catholic historian of Ireland (IV. 64), and other authorities; comp. Killen I. 211 sqq. It is as follows: "Adrian, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, to his dearest son in Christ, the illustrious King of England, greeting and apostolic benediction. " Full laudably, and profitably has your magnificence conceived the design of propagating your glorious renown on earth, and of completing your reward of eternal happiness in heaven, whilst as a Catholic prince you are intent on enlarging the borders of the Church, teaching the truth of the Christian faith to the ignorant and rude, extirpating the nurseries of iniquity from the field of the Lord, and for the more convenient execution of this purpose, requiring the counsel and favor of the Apostolic See. In which the maturer your deliberation and the greater the discretion of your procedure, by, so much the happier, we trust, will be your progress, with the assistance of the Lord; because whatever has its origin in ardent faith and in love of religion always has a prosperous end and issue. "There is indeed no doubt but that Ireland and all the islands on which Christ the Sun of Righteousness has shone, and which have received the doctrines of the Christian faith, belong to the jurisdiction of St. Peter and of the holy Roman Church, as your Excellency also acknowledges. And therefore we are the more solicitous to propagate a faithful plantation among them, and a seed pleasing to the Lord, as we have the secret conviction of conscience that a very, rigorous account must be rendered of them. " You then, most dear son in Christ, have signified to us your desire to enter into the island of Ireland that you may reduce the people to obedience to laws, and extirpate the nurseries of vice, and that you are willing to pay from each house a yearly pension of one penny to St. Peter, and that you will preserve the rights of the churches of this land whole and inviolate. We, therefore, with that grace and acceptance suited to your pious and laudable design, and favorably assenting to your petition, hold it good and acceptable that, for extending the borders of the church, restraining the progress of vice, for the correction of manners, the planting of virtue, and the increase of the Christian religion, you enter that island, and execute therein whatever shall pertain to the honor of God and welfare of the land; and that the people of that land receive you honorably, and reverence you as their lord--the rights of their churches still remaining sacred and inviolate, and saving to St. Peter the annual pension of one penny from every house. "If then you are resolved to carry the design you have conceived into effectual execution, study to train that nation to virtuous manners, and labor by yourself and others whom you shall judge meet for this work, in faith, word, and life, that the church may be there adorned; that the religion of the Christian faith may be planted and grow up, and that all things pertaining to the honor of God and the salvation of souls be so ordered that you may be entitled to the fulness of eternal reward in God, and obtain a glorious renown on throughout all ages." [73] Killen, I. 226 sq. __________________________________________________________________ § 17. The Conversion of Scotland. St. Ninian and St. Kentigern. See the works of Skene (the second vol.), Reeves, McLauchan, Ebrard, Cunningham, mentioned in § 7. Also Dr. Reeves: The Culdees of the British Islands as they appear in History, 1864. Dr. Jos. Robertson: Statuta Ecclesiae Scoticanae, 1866, 2 vols. Bishop Forbes: The Kalendars of Scottish Saints, Edinb., 1872; Lives of S. Ninian and S. Kentigern, compiled in the 12th century, Edinb., 1874. Haddan & Stubbs: Councils and Ecclesiast. Docum., Vol. II, Part I. (Oxf., 1873), pp. 103 sqq. Scotland (Scotia) before the tenth century was comprised in the general appellation of Britain (Britannia), as distinct from Ireland (Hibernia). It was known to the Romans as Caledonia, [74] to the Kelts as Alban; but the name of Scotia was exclusively appropriated to Ireland till the tenth century. The independent history of Scotland begins with the establishment of the Scottish monarchy in the ninth century. At first it was a purely Keltic kingdom; but in the course of time the Saxon race and feudal institutions spread over the country, and the Keltic tribes retreated to the mountains and western islands. The names of Scot and Scotch passed over to the English-speaking people and their language; while the Keltic language, formerly known as Scotch, became known as Irish. The Keltic history of Scotland is full of fable, and a battlefield of Romanists and Protestants, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, who have claimed it for their respective systems of doctrine and church-polity. It must be disentangled from the sectarian issues of the Culdean controversy. The historian is neither a polemic nor an apologist, and should aim at nothing but the truth. Tertullian says, that certain places in Britain which the Romans could not conquer were made subject to Christ. It is quite likely that the first knowledge of Christianity reached the Scots and Picts from England; but the constant wars between them and the Britons and the decline of the Roman power were unfavorable to any mission work. The mission of Palladius to Scotland by Pope Caelestius is as vague and uncertain as his mission to Ireland by the same Pope, and is strongly mixed up with the mission of Patrick. An Irish colony from the North-Eastern part of Ulster, which had been Christianized by Patrick, settled in Scotland towards the close of the fifth century, and continued to spread along the coasts of Argyle and as far as the islands of Mull and Iona, until its progress was checked by the Northern Picts. The first distinct fact in the church history of Scotland is the apostolate of St. Ninian at the close of the fourth century, during the reign of Theodosius in the East. We have little reliable information of him. The son of a British king, he devoted himself early to the ministry of Christ. He spent some time in Rome, where the Pope commissioned him to the apostolate among the heathen in Caledonia, and in Gaul with Bishop Martin of Tours, who deserves special praise for his protest against the capital punishment of heretics in the case of the Priscillianists. He began the evangelization of the Southern Picts in the Eastern districts of modern Scotland. He built a white stone church called "Candida Casa," at Whittern (Quhithern, Witerna) in Galloway, on the South-Westem border of Scotland by the sea side, and dedicated it to the memory of St. Martin, who had died in that year (397). [75] This was the beginning of "the Great Monastery" ("Magnum Monasterium") or monastery of Rosnat, which exerted a civilizing and humanizing influence on the surrounding country, and annually attracted pilgrims from England and Scotland to the shrine of St. Ninian. His life has been romanized and embellished with legends. He made a newborn infant indicate its true father, and vindicate the innocence of a presbyter who had been charged by the mother with the crime of violation; he caused leeks and herbs to grow in the garden before their season; he subdued with his staff the winds and the waves of the sea; and even his relics cured the sick, cleansed the lepers, and terrified the wicked, "by all which things," says Ailred, his biographer, "the faith of believers is confirmed to the praise and glory of Christ." St. Kentigern (d. Nov. 13, 603), also called St. Mungo (the gracious one), [76] the first bishop of Glasgow, labored in the sixth century for the conversion of the people in Cumberland, Wales, and on the Clyde, and re-converted the Picts, who had apostatized from the faith. He was the grandson of a heathen king in Cumbria or Strathclyde, the son of a Christian, though unbaptized mother. He founded a college of Culdees or secular monks, and several churches. He wore a hair shirt and garment of goat-skin, lived on bread and vegetables, slept on a rocky couch and a stony pillow, like Jacob, rose in the night to sing psalms, recited in the morning the whole psalter in a cold stream, retired to desert places during Lent, living on roots, was con-crucified with Christ on Good Friday, watched before the tomb, and spent Easter in hilarity and joy. He converted more by his silence than his speech, caused a wolf and a stag to drag the plough, raised grain from a field sown with sand, kept the rain from wetting his garments, and performed other marvels which prove the faith or superstition of his biographers in the twelfth century. Jocelyn relates also, that Kentigern went seven times to Rome, and received sundry privileges and copies of the Bible from the Pope. There is, however, no trace of such visits in the works of Gregory I., who was more interested in the Saxon mission than the Scotch. Kentigern first established his episcopal chair in Holdelm (now Hoddam), afterwards in Glasghu (Glasgow). He met St. Columba, and exchanged with him his pastoral stave. [77] He attained to the age of one hundred and eighty-five years, and died between a.d. 601 and 612 (probably 603). [78] He is buried in the crypt of the cathedral of St. Mungo in Glasgow, the best preserved of mediaeval cathedrals in Scotland. St. Cuthbert (d. March 20, 687), whose life has been written by Bede, prior of the famous monastery of Mailros (Melrose), afterwards bishop of Lindisfarne, and last a hermit, is another legendary saint of Scotland, and a number of churches are traced to him or bear his name. [79] __________________________________________________________________ [74] In Gaelic, Calyddom, land of forests, or, according to others, from Kaled, i.e hard and wild. [75] On Whittern and the Candida Casa, see Nicholson, History of Galloway, I. 115; Forbes, S. Ninian and S. Kentigern, 268, and Skene, II. 46. [76] In Welsh, Cyndeyrn means chief, Munghu dear, amiable. See Skene, II. 183. [77] The meeting of the two saints, as recorded by Jocelyn, reminds one of the meeting of St. Antony with the fabulous Paul of Thebes. [78] See Forbes, Kalendars, p. 372, and Skene, II. 197. [79] Forbes (p. 319) gives a list of 26. __________________________________________________________________ § 18. St. Columba and the Monastery of Iona. John Jamieson (D. D.): An Historical Account of the Ancient Culdees of Iona, and of their Settlements in Scotland, England, and Ireland. Edinb., 1811 (p. 417). Montalembert: La Moines d' Occident, Vol. III., pp. 99-332 (Paris, 1868). The Duke of Argyll: Iona. Second ed., London, 1871 (149 p *Adamnan: Life of St. Columba, Founder of Hy, ed. by William Reeves (Canon of Armagh), Edinburgh, 1874. (Originally printed for the Irish Archaeolog. Society and for the Bannatyne Club, Dublin, 1856). Skene: Celtic Scotland, II. 52 sqq. (Edinb., 1877). Comp. the Lit. in § 7. Saint Columba or Columbcille, (died June 9, 597) is the real apostle of Scotland. He is better known to us than Ninian and Kentigern. The account of Adamnan (624-704), the ninth abbot of Hy, was written a century after Columba's death from authentic records and oral traditions, although it is a panegyric rather than a history. Later biographers have romanized him like St. Patrick. He was descended from one of the reigning families of Ireland and British Dalriada, and was born at, Gartan in the county of Donegal about a.d. 521. He received in baptism the symbolical name Colum, or in Latin Columba (Dove, as the symbol of the Holy Ghost), to which was afterwards added cille (or kill, i.e. "of the church," or "the dove of the cells," on account of his frequent attendance at public worship, or, more probably, for his being the founder of many churches. [80] He entered the monastic seminary of Clonard, founded by St. Finnian, and afterwards another monastery near Dublin, and was ordained a priest. He planted the church at Derry in 545, the monastery of Darrow in 553, and other churches. He seems to have fondly clung all his life to his native Ireland, and to the convent of Derry. In one of his elegies, which were probably retouched by the patriotism of some later Irish bard, he sings: "Were all the tributes of Scotia [i.e. Ireland] mine, From its midland to its borders, I would give all for one little cell In my beautiful Derry. For its peace and for its purity, For the white angels that go In crowds from one end to the other, I love my beautiful Derry. For its quietness and purity, For heaven's angels that come and go Under every leaf of the oaks, I love my beautiful Derry. My Derry, my fair oak grove, My dear little cell and dwelling, O God, in the heavens above I Let him who profanes it be cursed. Beloved are Durrow and Derry, Beloved is Raphoe the pure, Beloved the fertile Drumhome, Beloved are Sords and Kells! But sweeter and fairer to me The salt sea where the sea-gulls cry When I come to Derry from far, It is sweeter and dearer to me -- Sweeter to me." [81] In 563, the forty-second year of his age, Columba prompted by a passion for travelling and a zeal for the spread of Christianity, [82] sailed with twelve fellow-apostles to the West of Scotland, possibly on invitation of the provincial king, to whom he was related by blood. He was presented with the island of Hy, commonly called Iona, [83] near the Western coast of Scotland about fifty miles West from Oban. It is an inhospitable island, three miles and a half long and a mile and a half broad, partly cultivated, partly covered with hill pasture, retired dells, morass and rocks, now in possession of the Duke of Argyll, numbering about three hundred Protestant inhabitants, an Established Presbyterian Church, and a Free Church. The neighboring island of Staffa, though smaller and uninhabited, is more interesting to the ordinary tourist, and its Fingal's Cave is one of the most wonderful specimens of the architectural skill of nature; it looks like a Gothic cathedral, 66 feet high, 42 feet broad, and 227 feet long, consisting of majestic basalt columns, an arched roof, and an open portal towards the ocean, which dashes in and out in a constant succession of waves, sounding solemn anthems in this unique temple of nature. Columba and his fellow-monks must have passed it on their missionary wanderings; but they were too much taken up with heaven to look upon the wonders of the earth, and the cave remained comparatively unknown to the world till 1772. Those islands wore the same aspect in the sixth century as now, with the exception of the woods, which have disappeared. Walter Scott (in the "Lord of the Isles") has thrown the charm of his poetry over the Hebridean archipelago, from which proceeded the Christianization of Scotland. [84] By the labors of Columba and his successors, Iona has become one of the most venerable and interesting spots in the history of Christian missions. It was a light-house in the darkness of heathenism. We can form no adequate conception of the self-denying zeal of those heroic missionaries of the extreme North, who, in a forbidding climate and exposed to robbers and wild beasts, devoted their lives to the conversion of savages. Columba and his friends left no monuments of stone and wood; nothing is shown but the spot on the South of the island where he landed, and the empty stone coffin where his body was laid together with that of his servant; his bones were removed afterwards to Dunkeld. The old convent was destroyed and the monks were killed by the wild Danes and Norsemen in the tenth century. The remaining ruins of Iona--a cathedral, a chapel, a nunnery, a graveyard with the tombstones of a number of Scottish and Norwegian and Irish kings, and three remarkable carved crosses, which were left of three hundred and sixty that (according to a vague tradition) were thrown into the sea by the iconoclastic zeal of the Reformation--are all of the Roman Catholic period which succeeded the original Keltic Christianity, and which lived on its fame. During the middle ages Iona was a sort of Jerusalem of the North, where pilgrims loved to worship, and kings and noblemen desired to be buried. When the celebrated Dr. Johnson, in his Tour to the Hebrides, approached Iona, he felt his piety grow warmer. No friend of missions can visit that lonely spot, shrouded in almost perpetual fog, without catching new inspiration and hope for the ultimate triumph of the gospel over all obstacles. [85] The arrival of Columba at Iona was the beginning of the Keltic church in Scotland. The island was at that time on the confines of the Pictic and Scotic jurisdiction, and formed a convenient base for missionary labors among the Scots, who were already Christian in name, but needed confirmation, and among the Picts, who were still pagan, and had their name from painting their bodies and fighting naked. Columba directed his zeal first to the Picts; he visited King Brude in his fortress, and won his esteem and co-operation in planting Christianity among his people. "He converted them by example as well as by word" (Bede). He founded a large number of churches and monasteries in Ireland and Scotland directly or through his disciples. [86] He was involved in the wars so frequent in those days, when even women were required to aid in battle, and he availed himself of military force for the overthrow of paganism. He used excommunication very freely, and once pursued a plunderer with maledictions into the sea until the water reached to his knees. But these rough usages did not interfere with the veneration for his name. He was only a fair type of his countrymen. "He had," says Montalembert, "the vagabond inclination, the ardent, agitated, even quarrelsome character of the race." He had the "perfervidum ingenium Scotorum." He was manly, tall and handsome, incessantly active, and had a sonorous and far-reaching voice, rolling forth the Psalms of David, every syllable distinctly uttered. He could discern the signs of the weather. Adamnan ascribes to him an angelic countenance, a prophetic fore-knowledge and miracles as great as those performed by Christ, such as changing water into wine for the celebration of the eucharist, when no wine could be obtained, changing bitter fruit into sweet, drawing water from a rock, calming the storm at sea, and curing many diseases. His biography instead of giving solid facts, teems with fabulous legends, which are told with childlike credulity. O'Donnell's biography goes still further. Even the pastoral staff of Columba, left accidentally upon the shore of Iona, was transported across the sea by his prayers to meet its disconsolate owner when he landed somewhere in Ireland. [87] Columba died beside the altar in the church while engaged in his midnight devotions. Several poems are ascribed to him--one in praise of the natural beauties of his chosen island, and a monastic rule similar to that of St. Benedict; but the "regula ac praecepta" of Columba, of which Wilfrid spoke at the synod of Whitby, probably mean discipline or observance rather than a written rule. [88] The church establishment of Columba at Iona belongs to the second or monastic period of the Irish church, of which it formed an integral part. It consisted of one hundred and fifty persons under the monastic rule. At the head of it stood a presbyter-abbot, who ruled over the whole province, and even the bishops, although the episcopal function of ordination was recognized. [89] The monks were a family of brethren living in common. They were divided into three classes: the seniors, who attended to the religious services, instruction, and the transcribing of the Scriptures; the middle-aged, who were the working brethren, devoted to agriculture, the tending of the cattle, and domestic labor; and the youth, who were alumni under instruction. The dress consisted of a white tunica or under garment, and a camilla or outer garment and hood made of wool. Their food was bread, milk, eggs, fish, and on Sundays and festivals mutton or beef. The doctrinal views and ecclesiastical customs as to the observance of Easter and the tonsure were the same as among the Britons and the Irish in distinction from the Roman system introduced by Augustin among the Saxons. [90] The monastery of Iona, says Bede, held for a long time the pre-eminence over the monasteries and churches of the Picts and Northern Scots. Columba's successors, he adds, were distinguished for their continency, their love of God, and strict attention to their rules of discipline, although they followed "uncertain cycles in their computation of the great festival (Easter), because they were so far away from the rest of the world, and had none to supply them with the synodical decrees on the paschal observance; wherefore they only practised such works of piety and chastity as they could learn from the prophetical, evangelical, and apostolical writings. This manner of keeping Easter continued among them for a hundred and fifty years, till the year of our Lord's incarnation 715." [91] Adamnan (d. 704), the ninth successor of Columba, in consequence of a visit to the Saxons, conformed his observance of Easter to the Roman Church; but his brethren refused to follow him in this change. After his death, the community of Iona became divided on the Easter question, until the Columban monks, who adhered to the old custom, were by royal command expelled (715). With this expulsion terminates the primacy of Iona in the kingdom of the Picts. The monastic church was broken up or subordinated to the hierarchy of the secular clergy. __________________________________________________________________ [80] In the Irish calendar there are twenty saints of the name Columba, or Columbanus, Columbus, Columb. The most distinguished next to Columbcille is Columbanus, the Continental missionary, who has often been confounded with Columba. In the Continental hagiology, the name is used for female saints. See Reeves, p. 248. [81] Montalembert, III. 112. This poem strikes the key-note of father Prout's more musical "Bells of Shandon which sound so grand on the river Lee." [82] "Pro Christo peregrinare volens," says Adamnan (p. 108), who knows nothing of his excommunication and exile from Ireland in consequence of a great battle. And yet it is difficult to account for this tradition. In one of the Irish Keltic poems ascribed to Columba, he laments to have been driven from Erin by his own fault and in consequence of the blood shed in his battles. Montalembert, III. 145. [83] This is not an adaptation to Columba's Hebrew name (Neander), but a corruption of Ii-shona, i.e. the Holy Island (from Ii, the Keltic name for island, and hona or shona, sacred). So Dr. Lindsay Alexander and Cunningham. But Reeves (l.c. Introd., p. cxxx.) regards Ioua as the genuine form, which is the feminine adjective of Iou (to be pronounced like the English Yeo). The island has borne no fewer than thirty names. [84] "No two objects of interest," says the Duke of Argyll (Iona, p. 1) "could be more absolutely dissimilar in kind than the two neighboring islands, Staffa and Iona:--Iona dear to Christendom for more than a thousand years;--Staffa known to the scientific and the curious only since the close of the last century. Nothing but an accident of geography could unite their names. The number of those who can thoroughly understand and enjoy them both is probably very small." [85] "Hither came holy men from Erin to take counsel with the Saint on the troubles of clans and monasteries which were still dear to him. Hither came also bad men red-handed from blood and sacrilege to make confession and do penance at Columba's feet. Hither, too, came chieftains to be blessed, and even kings to be ordained--for it is curious that on this lonely spot, so far distant from the ancient centres of Christendom, took place the first recorded case of a temporal sovereign seeking from a minister of the Church what appears to have been very like formal consecration. Adamnan, as usual, connects his narrative of this event, which took place in 547, with miraculous circumstances, and with Divine direction to Columba, in his selection of Aidan, one of the early kings of the Irish Dalriadic colony in Scotland. " The fame of Columba's supernatural powers attracted many and strange visitors to the shores on which we are now looking. Nor can we fail to remember, with the Reilig Odhrain at our feet, how often the beautiful galleys of that olden time came up the sound laden with the dead,--'their dark freight a vanished life.' A grassy mound not far from the present landing place is known as the spot on which bodies were laid when they were first carried to the shore. We know from the account of Columba's own burial that the custom is to wake the body with the singing of psalms during three days and nights before laying it to its final rest. It was then home in solemn procession to the grave. How many of such processions must have wound along the path that leads to the Reilig Odhrain! How many fleets of galley must have ridden at anchor on that bay below us, with all those expressive signs of mourning which belong to ships, when kings and chiefs who had died in distant lands were carried hither to be buried in this holy Isle! From Ireland, from Scotland, and from distant Norway there came, during many centuries, many royal funerals to its shores. And at this day by far the most interesting remains upon the Island are the curious and beautiful tombstones and crosses which lie in the Reilig Odhrain. They belong indeed, even the most ancient of them, to, in age removed by many hundred years from Columba's time. But they represent the lasting reverence which his name has inspired during so many generations and the desire of a long succession of chiefs and warriors through the Middle Ages and down almost to our own time, to be buried in the soil he trod." The Duke of Argyll, l.c., pp. 95-98. [86] See a list of churches in Reeves, p. xlix. lxxi., and Forbes, Kalendar, etc. p. 306, 307; comp. also Skene, II. 127 sqq. [87] Montalembert's delineation of Columba's character assumes, apparently, the truth of these biographies, and is more eloquent than true. See Skene, II. 145. [88] On the regula Columbani, see Ebrard, 147 sqq. [89] Bede, H. E., III. 4; V. 9. [90] For a very full account of the economy and constitution of Iona, see Reeves, Introduction to Life of Saint Columba, pp. c.-cxxxii. [91] H. E. III. 4. __________________________________________________________________ § 19. The Culdees. After the expulsion of the Columban monks from the kingdom of the Picts in the eighth century, the term Culdee or Ceile De, or Kaledei, first appears in history, and has given rise to much controversy and untenable theories. [92] It is of doubtful origin, but probably means servants or worshippers of God. [93] it was applied to anchorites, who, in entire seclusion from society, sought the perfection of sanctity. They succeeded the Columban monks. They afterwards associated themselves into communities of hermits, and were finally brought under canonical rule along with the secular clergy, until at length the name of Culdee became almost synonymous with that of secular canon. The term Culdee has been improperly applied to the whole Keltic church, and a superior purity has been claimed for it. There is no doubt that the Columban or the Keltic church of Scotland, as well as the early Irish and the early British churches, differed in many points from the mediaeval and modern church of Rome, and represent a simpler and yet a very active missionary type of Christianity. The leading peculiarities of the ancient Keltic church, as distinct from the Roman, are: 1. Independence of the Pope. Iona was its Rome, and the Abbot of Iona, and afterwards of Dunkeld, though a mere Presbyter, ruled all Scotland. 2. Monasticism ruling supreme, but mixed with secular life, and not bound by vows of celibacy; while in the Roman church the monastic system was subordinated to the hierarchy of the secular clergy. 3. Bishops without dioceses and jurisdiction and succession. 4. Celebration of the time of Easter. 5. Form of the tonsure. It has also been asserted, that the Kelts or Culdees were opposed to auricular confession, the worship of saints, and images, purgatory, transubstantiation, the seven sacraments, and that for this reason they were the forerunners of Protestantism. But this inference is not warranted. Ignorance is one thing, and rejection of an error from superior knowledge is quite another thing. The difference is one of form rather than of spirit. Owing to its distance and isolation from the Continent, the Keltic church, while superior to the churches in Gaul and Italy--at least during the sixth and seventh centuries--in missionary zeal and success, was left behind them in other things, and adhered to a previous stage of development in truth and error. But the general character and tendency of both during that period were essentially different from the genius of Protestant Christianity. We find among the Kelts the same or even greater love for monasticism and asceticism the same superstitious belief in incredible miracles, the same veneration for relics (as the bones of Columba and Aidan, which for centuries were carried from place to place), the same scrupulous and narrow zeal for outward forms and ceremonies (as the observance of the mere time of Easter, and the mode of monastic tonsure), with the only difference that the Keltic church adhered to an older and more defective calendar, and to the semi-circular instead of the circular tonsure. There is not the least evidence that the Keltic church had a higher conception of Christian freedom, or of any positive distinctive principle of Protestantism, such as the absolute supremacy of the Bible in opposition to tradition, or justification by faith without works, or the universal priesthood of all believers. [94] Considering, then, that the peculiarities of the Keltic church arose simply from its isolation of the main current of Christian history, the ultimate triumph of Rome, with all its incidental evils, was upon the whole a progress in the onward direction. Moreover, the Culdees degenerated into a state of indolence and stagnation during the darkness of the ninth and tenth centuries, and the Danish invasion, with its devastating and disorganizing influences. We still find them in the eleventh century, and frequently at war with the Roman clergy about landed property, tithes and other matters of self-interest, but not on matters of doctrine, or Christian life. The old Culdee convents of St. Andrews Dunkeld, Dunblane and Brechin were turned into the bishop's chapter with the right of electing the bishop. Married Culdees were gradually supplanted by Canons-Regular. They lingered longest in Brechin, but disappeared in the thirteenth century. The decline of the Culdees was the opportunity of Rome. The Saxon priests and monks, connected with the more civilized countries, were very active and aggressive, building cathedrals, monasteries, hospitals, and getting possession of the land. __________________________________________________________________ [92] To Adamnan and to Bede, the name was entirely unknown. Skene (II. 226) says: "In the whole range of ecclesiastical history there is nothing more entirely destitute of authority than the application of this name to the Columban monks of the sixth and seventh centuries, or more utterly baseless than the fabric which has been raised upon that assumption." The most learned and ingenious construction of an imaginary Protestant Culdee Church was furnished by Ebrard and McLauchlan. [93] The word Culdee is variously derived from the Gaelic Gille De, servant of God; from the Keltic Cuil or Ceal, retreat, recess, and Cuildich, men of the recess (Jamieson, McLauchlan, Cunningham); from the Irish Ceile De, the spouse of God (Ebrard), or the servant of God (Reeves); from the Irish Culla, cowl, i.e. the black monk; from the Latin Deicola, cultores Dei (Colidei), worshippers of God the Father, in distinction from Christicolae (Calechrist in Irish), or ordinary Christians (Skene); from the Greek kelleotai, men of the cells (Goodall). The earliest Latin form is Kaledei. in Irish Keile as a substantive means socius maritus, also servus. On the name, see Braun, De Culdeis, Bonn, 1840, McLauchlan pp. 175 sq.; Ebrard pp. 2 sq., and Skene, II. 238. [94] The Duke of Argyll who is a Scotch Presbyterian, remarks (l.c. p. 41): "It is vain to look, in the peculiarities of the Scoto-Irish Church, for the model either of primitive practice, or of any particular system. As regards the theology of Columba's time, although it was not what we now understand as Roman, neither assuredly was it what we understand as Protestant. Montalembert boasts, and I think with truth, that in Columba's life we have proof of the practice of the auricular confession, of the invocation of saints, of confidence in their protection, of belief in transubstantiation [?], of the practices of fasting and of penance, of prayers for the dead, of the sign of the crow in familiar--and it must be added--in most superstitious use. On the other hand there is no symptom of the worship or 'cultus' of the Virgin, and not even an allusion to such an idea as the universal bishopric of Rome, or to any special authority as seated there." __________________________________________________________________ § 20. Extinction of the Keltic Church, and Triumph of Rome under King David I. The turning-point in the history of the Scotch church is the reign of the devout Saxon queen St. Margaret, one of the best queens of Scotland (1070-1093). She exerted unbounded influence over her illiterate husband, Malcolm III., and her sons. She was very benevolent, self-denying, well versed in the Scriptures, zealous in reforming abuses, and given to excessive fasting, which undermined her constitution and hastened her death. "ln St. Margaret we have an embodiment of the spirit of her age. What ostentatious humility, what almsgiving, what prayers! What piety, had it only been freed from the taint of superstition! The Culdees were listless and lazy, while she was unwearied in doing good. The Culdees met her in disputation, but, being ignorant, they were foiled. Death could not contend with life. The Indian disappears before the advance of the white man. The Keltic Culdee disappeared before the footsteps of the Saxon priest." [95] The change was effected by the same policy as that of the Norman kings towards Ireland. The church was placed upon a territorial in the place of a tribal basis, and a parochial system and a diocesan episcopacy was substituted for the old tribal churches with their monastic jurisdiction and functional episcopacy. Moreover the great religious orders of the Roman Church were introduced and founded great monasteries as centres of counter-influence. And lastly, the Culdees were converted from secular into regular Canons and thus absorbed into the Roman system. When Turgot was appointed bishop of St. Andrews, a.d. 1107 "the whole rights of the Keledei over the whole kingdom of Scotland passed to the bishopric of St. Andrews." From the time of Queen Margaret a stream of Saxons and Normans poured into Scotland, not as conquerors but as settlers, and acquired rapidly, sometimes by royal grant, sometimes by marriage, the most fertile districts from the Tweed to the Pentland Firth. From these settlers almost every noble family of Scotland traces its descent. They brought with them English civilization and religion. The sons and successors of Margaret enriched the church by magnificent endowments. Alexander I. founded the bishoprics of Moray and Dunkeld. His younger brother, David I., the sixth son of Malcolm III., who married Maud, a grand-niece of William the Conqueror (1110) and ruled Scotland from 1124 to 1153, founded the bishoprics of Ross, Aberdeen, Caithness, and Brechin, and several monasteries and religious houses. The nobility followed his example of liberality to the church and the hierarchy so that in the course of a few centuries one half of the national wealth passed into the hands of the clergy, who were at the same time in possession of all the learning. In the latter part of David's reign an active crusade commenced against the Culdee establishments from St. Andrews to Iona, until the very name gradually disappeared; the last mention being of the year 1332, when the usual formula of their exclusion in the election of a bishop was repeated. Thus the old Keltic Church came to an end, leaving no vestiges behind it, save here and there the roofless walls of what had been a church, and the numerous old burying-grounds to the use of which the people still cling with tenacity, and where occasionally an ancient Keltic cross tells of its former state. All else has disappeared; and the only records we have of their history are the names of the saints by whom they were founded preserved in old calendars, the fountains near the old churches bearing their name, the village fairs of immemorial antiquity held on their day, and here and there a few lay families holding a small portion of land, as hereditary custodiers of the pastoral staff, or other relic of the reputed founder of the church, with some small remains of its jurisdiction." [96] II. THE CONVERSION OF FRANCE, GERMANY, AND ADJACENT COUNTRIES. General Literature. I. Germany Before Christianity. Tacitus: Germania (cap. 2, 9, 11, 27, 39-45); Annal. (XIII. 57); Hist. IV. 64). Jac. Grimm: Deutsche, Mythologie. Göttingen, 2nd ed. 1854, 2 vols. A. F. Ozanam: Les Germains avant le christianisme. Par. 1847. K. Simrock. Deutsche Mythologie. Bonn, 2nd ed. 1864. A. Planck: Die Götter und der Gottesglaube der Deutschen. In "Jahrb. für Deutsche Theol.," 1866, No. 1. II. The Christianization Of Germany. F. W. Rettberg: Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands. Göttingen, 1846-48. 2 vols. C. J. Hefele (R.C.): Geschichte der Einführung des Christenthums im südwestl. Deutschland. Tübingen 1837. H. Rückert: Culturgeschichte des deutschen Volkes in der Zeit des Uebergangs aus dem Heidenthum. Leipz. 1853, 2 Vols. W. Krafft: Kirchengeschichte der German. Völker. Berlin 1854. (first vol.) Hiemer (R.C.): Einführung des Christenthums in Deutschen Landen. Schaffhausen 1857 sqq. 4 vols. Count de Montalembert (R.C.): The Monks of the West from St. Benedict to St. Bernard. Edinb. and Lond. 1861 sqq. 7 vols. I. Friedrich (R.C., Since 1870 Old Cath.): Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands. Regensb. 1866, 1869, 2 vols. Charles Merivale: Conversion of the West. The Continental Teutons. London 1878. (Popular). G. Körber: Die Ausbreitung des Christenthums im südlichen Baden. Heidelb. 1878. R. Cruel: Geschichte der deutschen Predigt im Mittelalter. Detmold 1879. (Chs. I. and II.) __________________________________________________________________ [95] Cunningham, Church Hist. of Scotland, p. 100. [96] Skene, II. 418. __________________________________________________________________ § 21. Arian Christianity among the Goths and other German Tribes. I. Editions of the remains of the Gothic Bible Version of Wulfila: by H. C. von der Gabelenz and J. Loebe, Leipz. 1836-46; Massmann, 1855-57; E. Bernhardt, 1875 (with the Greek text and notes); and Stamm, 7th ed. 1878, and in fac-simile by Uppström, 1854-1868. See also Ulphilae Opera, and Schaff, Compan. to Gr. Test., p. 150. Ulphilae Opera (Versio Bibliorum Gothica), in Migne's Patrolog., Tom. XVIII. pp. 462-1559 (with a Gothic glossary). II. G. Waitz: Ueber das Leben und die Lehre des Ulfila. Hanover 1840. W. Bessel: Das Leben des Ulfilas und die Bekehrung der Gothen zum Christenthum. Götting. 1860. W. Krafft: l.c. I. 213-326; and De Fontibus Ulfilae Arianismi. 1860. A. Helfferich: Der west-gothische Arianismus und die spanische Ketzergeschichte. Berlin 1860. We now proceed to the conversion of the Continental Teutons, especially those of France and Germany. The first wholesale conversions of the Germanic or Teutonic race to the Christian religion took place among the Goths in the time when Arianism was at the height of power in the East Roman empire. The chief agents were clerical and other captives of war whom the Goths in their raids carried with them from the provinces of the Roman empire and whom they learned to admire and love for their virtue and supposed miraculous power. Constantine the Great entered into friendly relations with them, and is reported by Eusebius and Socrates to have subjected them to the cross of Christ. It is certain that some ecclesiastical organization was effected at that time. Theophilus, a bishop of the Goths, is mentioned among the fathers of the Council of Nicaea, 325. The real apostle of the Goths is Ulifilas, [97] who was consecrated bishop in 348 at Constantinople, and died there in 381, aged seventy years. He invented the Gothic alphabet, and translated the Bible into Gothic, but was an Arian, or rather a semi-Arian, who regarded Christ as a secondary God and the Holy Spirit merely as a sanctifying power. [98] Arianism spread with great rapidity among the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Burgundians, and Vandals. This heretical form of Christianity, however, was more a matter of accident than preference and conviction among the Germans, and soon gave way to orthodoxy when they became acquainted with it. When Alaric, the famous king of the Visigoths, captured Rome (410), he treated the city with marked leniency, which Augustin justly traced to the influence of the Christian faith even in heretical form. The Vandals, the rudest among the Teutonic tribes, made an exception; they fiercely persecuted the orthodox Christians in North Africa (since 430) and desolated this once flourishing field of the Catholic Church, the scene of the immortal labors of St. Augustin. Their kingdom was destroyed under Justinian (534), but the Catholic Church never rose from its ruins, and the weak remnant was conquered by the sword of Islâm (670). Chrysostom made a noble effort to convert the Eastern Goths from Arianism to Catholicity, but his mission ceased after his death (407). The conversion of the Franks to Catholic christianity and various political circumstances led to the abandonment of Arianism among the other Germanic tribes. The Burgundians who spread from the Rhine to the Rhone and Saone, embraced Catholic Christianity in 517, and were incorporated into the French kingdom in 534. The Suevi who spread from Eastern Germany into France and Spain, embraced the Catholic faith in 550. The Visigoths in Spain, through their king, Reccared the Catholic, subscribed an orthodox creed at the third Council of Toledo, a.d. 589, but the last of the Gothic kings, Roderic, was conquered by the Saracens, breaking into Spain from Africa, in the bloody battle of Xeres de la Frontera, a.d. 711. The last stronghold of Arianism were the Longobards or Lombards, who conquered Northern Italy (still called Lombardy) and at first persecuted the Catholics. They were converted to the orthodox faith by the wise influence of Pope Gregory I. (590616), and the Catholic queen Theodelinde (d. 625) whose husband Agilulf (590-616) remained Arian, but allowed his son Adelwald to be baptized and brought up in the Catholic Church. An Arian reaction followed, but Catholicism triumphed under Grimoald (662-671), and Liutprand (773-774). Towards the close of the eighth century, Pepin and Charlemagne, in the interest of France and the papacy, destroyed the independence of the Lombards after a duration of about two hundred years, and transferred the greater part of Italy to the Eastern empire and to the Pope. In these struggles the Popes, being then (as they have been ever since) opposed from hierarchical interest to the political unity of Italy, aided the Franks and reaped the benefit. __________________________________________________________________ [97] The usual spelling. Better: Wulfila, i.e. Wölflein, Little Wolf. [98] In his testamentary creed, which he always held (semper sic credidi), he confesses faith "in God the Father and in his only begotten Son our Lord and God, and in the Holy Spirit as virtutem illuminantem et sanctificantem nec Deum nec Dominum sed ministrum Christi." Comp. Krafft, l.c. 328 sqq. __________________________________________________________________ § 22. Conversion of Clovis and the Franks. Gregorius Turonensis (d. 595): Historia Francorum Eccles. (till A..D. 591). J. W. Löbell: Gregor von Tours und seine Zeit, Leipz. 1839. A. Thierry: Recits des temps Merovingiens. Par. 1842, 2 vols. F. W. Rettberg: Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands. Gött. 1846, I. 258-278. Kornhack: Geschichte der Franken unter den Merovingern. Greifsw. 1863. Montalembert, l.c. II. 219 sqq. Comp. also Henri Martin: Histoire de France; Sir James Stephen: Lectures on the History of France (Lond. 1859); Guizot: Histoire de la civilization en France (1830 sqq.), and his Histoire de France, 1870. The Salian Franks were the first among the Teutonic tribes which were converted to catholic or orthodox Christianity. Hence the sovereign of France is styled by the Popes "the oldest son of the church," and Rheims, where Clovis was baptized, is the holy city where most of the French kings down to Charles X. (1824) were consecrated. [99] The conversion of the Franks prepared the way for the downfall of the Arian heresy among the other Germanic nations, and for the triumph of the papacy in the German empire under Charlemagne. The old Roman civilization of Gaul, though nominally Christian, was in the last stage of consumption when the German barbarians invaded the soil and introduced fresh blood. Several savage tribes, even the Huns, passed through Gaul like a tempest, leaving desolation behind them, but the Franks settled there and changed Gaul into France, as the Anglo-Saxons changed Britain into England. They conquered the Gallo-Romans, cruelly spoiled and almost exterminated them in the North-Eastern districts. Before they accepted the Christianity of the conquered race, they learned their vices. "The greatest evil of barbarian government," says Henri Martin, [100] "was perhaps the influence of the greedy and corrupt Romans who insinuated themselves into the confidence of their new masters." To these degenerate Christians Montalembert traces the arts of oppression and the refinements of debauchery and perfidy which the heathen Germans added to their native brutality. "The barbarians derived no advantage from their contact with the Roman world, depraved as it was under the empire. They brought with them manly virtues of which the conquered race had lost even the recollection; but they borrowed, at the same time, abject and contagious vices, of which the Germanic world had no conception. They found Christianity there; but before they yielded to its beneficent influence, they had time to plunge into all the baseness and debauchery, of a civilization corrupted long before it was vanquished. The patriarchal system of government which characterized the ancient Germans, in their relations with their children and slaves as well as with their chiefs, fell into ruin in contact with that contagious depravity." [101] The conversion of the Salian Franks took place under the lead of their victorious king Chlodwig or Clovis (Ludovicus, Louis), the son of Childeric and grandson of Merovig (hence the name of Merovingians). He ruled from the year 481 to his death in 511. With him begins the history not only of the French empire, its government and laws, but also of the French nation, its religion and moral habits. He married a Christian princess, Chlotilda, a daughter of the king of the Burgundians (493), and allowed his child to be baptized. Before the critical battle at Tolbiac [102] near Cologne against the invasion of the Allemanni, he prayed to Jesus Christ for aid after having first called upon his own gods, and promised, in case of victory, to submit to baptism together with his warriors. After the victory he was instructed by Bishop Remigius of Rheims. When he heard the story of the crucifixion of Christ, he exclaimed: "Would I had been there with my valiant Franks to avenge him!" On Christmas, in the year 496, he descended before the cathedral of Rheims into the baptismal basin, and three thousand of his warriors followed him as into the joys of paradise. "When they arose from the waters, as Christian disciples, one might have seen fourteen centuries of empire rising with them; the whole array of chivalry, the long series of the crusades, the deep philosophy of the schools, in one word all the heroism, all the liberty, all the learning of the later ages. A great nation was commencing its career in the world--that nation was the Franks." [103] But the change of religion had little or no effect on the character of Clovis and his descendants, whose history is tarnished with atrocious crimes. The Merovingians, half tigers, half lambs, passed with astonishing rapidity from horrible massacres to passionate demonstrations of contrition, and from the confessional back again to the excesses of their native cruelty. The crimes of Clovis are honestly told by such saintly biographers as Gregory of Tours and Hincmar, who feel no need of any excuse for him in view of his services to religion. St. Remigius even advised the war of conquest against the Visigoths, because they were Arians. "The Franks," says a distinguished Catholic Frenchman, [104] "were sad Christians. While they respected the freedom of the Catholic faith, and made external profession of it, they violated without scruple all its precepts, and at the same time the simplest laws of humanity. After having prostrated themselves before the tomb of some holy martyr or confessor; after having distinguished themselves by the choice of an irreproachable bishop; after having listened respectfully to the voice of a pontiff or monk, we see them, sometimes in outbreaks of fury, sometimes by cold-blooded cruelties, give full course to the evil instincts of their savage nature. Their incredible perversity was most apparent in the domestic tragedies, the fratricidal executions and assassinations, of which Clovis gave the first example, and which marked the history of his son and grandson with an ineffaceable stain. Polygamy and perjury mingled in their daily life with a semi-pagan superstition, and in reading these bloody biographies, scarcely lightened by some transient gleams of faith or humility, it is difficult to believe that, in embracing Christianity, they gave up a single pagan vice or adopted a single Christian virtue. "It was against this barbarity of the soul, far more alarming than grossness and violence of manners, that the Church triumphantly struggled. From the midst of these frightful disorders, of this double current of corruption and ferocity, the pure and resplendent light of Christian sanctity was about to rise. But the secular clergy, itself tainted by the general demoralization of the two races, was not sufficient for this task. They needed the powerful and soon preponderating assistance of the monastic Army. It did not fail: the church and France owe to it the decisive victory of Christian civilization over a race much more difficult to subdue than the degenerate subjects of Rome or Byzantium. While the Franks, coming from the North, completed the subjugation of Gaul, the Benedictines were about to approach from the South, and super-impose a pacific and beneficent dominion upon the Germanic barbarian conquest. The junction and union of these forces, so unequal in their civilizing power, were destined to exercise a sovereign influence over the future of our country." Among these Benedictine monks, St. Maurus occupies the most prominent place. He left Monte Casino before the death of St. Benedict (about 540), with four companions, crossed the Alps, founded Glanfeuil on the Loire, the first Benedictine monastery in France, and gave his name to that noble band of scholars who, more than a thousand years after, enriched the church with the best editions of the fathers and other works of sacred learning. [105] He had an interview with King Theodebert (the grandson of Clovis), was treated with great reverence and received from him a large donation of crown lands. Monastic establishments soon multiplied and contributed greatly to the civilization of France. [106] __________________________________________________________________ [99] With the oil of the miraculous cruise of oil (Ampulla Remensis) which, according to Hincmar, a dove brought from heaven at the confirmation of Clovis, and which was destroyed in 1794, but recovered in 1824. [100] Vol. I. p. 394, quoted by Montalembert. [101] Montalembert, Vol. II. p. 230. [102] Tolbiacum Zülpich. [103] Ozanam, Etudes Germaniques, II. 54. [104] Montalembert II. 235. Comp. also the graphic description of the Merovingian house in Dean Milman's Lat. Christ., Bk. III, ch.2 (Vol. I., p. 395, Am. ed.). [105] The brotherhood of St. Maur was founded in 1618, and numbered such scholars as Mabillon, Montfaucon, and Ruinart. [106] The legendary history of monasticism under the Merovingians is well told by Montalembert, II. 236-386. __________________________________________________________________ § 23. Columbanus and the Irish Missionaries on the Continent. I. Sources. The works of Columbanus in Patrick Fleming's Collectanea sacra (Lovanii, 1667), and in Migne: Patrolog., Tom. 87, pp. 1013-1055. His life by Jonas in the Acta Sanct. Ord. Bened., Tom. II., Sec. II., 2-26. (Also in Fleming's Coll.) II. Works. Lanigan (R. K.): Eccles. Hist. of Ireland (1829), II. 263 sqq. Montalembert: Monks of the West, II. 397 sqq. Ph. Heber: Die vorkarolingischen Glaubenshelden am Rhein, 1867. Lütolf (R.C.): Die Glaubensboten der Schweiz vor St. Gallus. Luzern, 1871. Ebrard: Die iroschottische Missionskirche (1873), pp. 25-31; 284-340. Killen: Ecclesiast. Hist. of Ireland (1875), I. 41 sqq. W. Smith and H. Wace: Dict. Christ. Biography (1877), I. 605-607. G. Hertel: Ueber des heil. Columba Leben und Wirken, besonders seine Klosterregel. In the "Zeitschrift für Hist. Theol.," 1875, p. 396; and another article in Brieger's "Zeitschrift für Kirchengesch.," 1879, p. 145. While the Latin Benedictine monks worked their way up from the South towards the heart of France, Keltic missionaries carried their independent Christianity from the West to the North of France, the banks of the Rhine, Switzerland and Lombardy; but they were counteracted by Roman missionaries, who at last secured the control over France and Germany as well as over the British Isles. St. Columbanus [107] is the pioneer of the Irish missionaries to the Continent. His life has been written with great minuteness by Jonas, a monk of his monastery at Bobbio. He was born in Leinster, a.d. 543, in which year St. Benedict, his celebrated monastic predecessor, died at Monte Casino, and was trained in the monastery of Bangor, on the coast of Down, under the direction of St. Comgall. Filled with missionary zeal, he left his native land with twelve companions, and crossed over the sea to Gaul in 590, [108] or in 585, [109] several years before Augustin landed in England. He found the country desolated by war; Christian virtue and discipline were almost extinct. He travelled for several years, preaching and giving an example of humility and charity. He lived for whole weeks without other food than herbs and wild berries. He liked best the solitude of the woods and eaves, where even the animals obeyed his voice and received his caresses. In Burgundy he was kindly received by King Gontran, one of the grandsons of Clovis; refused the offer of wealth, and chose a quiet retreat in the Vosges mountains, first in a ruined Roman fort at Annegray, and afterwards at Luxeuil (Luxovium). Here he established a celebrated monastery on the confines of Burgundy and Austrasia. A similar institution he founded at Fontaines. Several hundred disciples gathered around him. Luxeuil became the monastic capital of Gaul, a nursery of bishops and saints, and the mother of similar institutions. Columbanus drew up a monastic rule, which in all essential points resembles the more famous rule of St. Benedict, but is shorter and more severe. It divides the time of the monks between ascetic exercises and useful agricultural labor, and enjoins absolute obedience on severe penalties. It was afterwards superseded by the Benedictine rule, which had the advantage of the papal sanction and patronage. [110] The life of Columbanus in France was embittered and his authority weakened by his controversy with the French clergy and the court of Burgundy. He adhered tenaciously to the Irish usage of computing Easter, the Irish tonsure and costume. Besides, his extreme severity of life was a standing rebuke of the worldly priesthood and dissolute court. He was summoned before a synod in 602 or 603, and defended himself in a letter with great freedom and eloquence, and with a singular mixture of humility and pride. He calls himself (like St. Patrick) "Columbanus, a sinner," but speaks with an air of authority. He pleads that he is not the originator of those ritual differences, that he came to France, a poor stranger, for the cause of Christ, and asks nothing but to be permitted to live in silence in the depth of the forests near the bones of his seventeen brethren, whom he had already seen die. "Ah! let us live with you in this Gaul, where we now are, since we are destined to live with each other in heaven, if we are found worthy to enter there." The letter is mixed with rebukes of the bishops, calculations of Easter and an array of Scripture quotations. At the same time he wrote several letters to Pope Gregory I., one of which only is preserved in the writings of Columbanus. There is no record of the action of the Synod on this controversy, nor of any answer of the Pope. The conflict with the court of Burgundy is highly honorable to Columbanus, and resulted in his banishment. He reproved by word and writing the tyranny of queen Brunehild (or Brunehauld) and the profligacy of her grandson Theodoric (or Thierry II.); he refused to bless his illegitimate children and even threatened to excommunicate the young king. He could not be silenced by flattery and gifts, and was first sent as a prisoner to Besançon, and then expelled from the kingdom in 610. [111] But this persecution extended his usefulness. We find him next, with his Irish friends who accompanied him, on the lake of Zurich, then in Bregenz (Bregentium) on the lake of Constance, planting the seeds of Christianity in those charming regions of German Switzerland. His preaching was accompanied by burning the heathen idols. Leaving his disciple St. Gall at Bregenz, he crossed the Alps to Lombardy, and founded a famous monastery at Bobbio. He manfully fought there the Arian heresy, but in a letter to Boniface IV. he defended the cause of Nestorius, as condemned by the Fifth General Council of 553, and called upon the Pope to vindicate the church of Rome against the charge of heresy. He speaks very boldly to the Pope, but acknowledges Rome to be "the head of the churches of the whole world, excepting only the singular prerogative of the place of the Lord's resurrection" (Jerusalem). [112] He died in Bobbio, Nov. 21, 615. The poetry of grateful love and superstitious faith has adorned his simple life with various miracles. Columbanus was a man of considerable learning for his age. He seems to have had even some knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. His chief works are his Regula Monastica, in ten short chapters; seventeen Discourses; his Epistles to the Gallic Synod on the paschal controversy, to Gregory I., and to Boniface IV.; and a few poems. The following characteristic specimen of his ascetic view of life is from one of the discourses: "O mortal life! how many hast thou deceived, seduced, and blinded! Thou fliest and art nothing; thou appearest and art but a shade; thou risest and art but a vapor; thou fliest every day, and every day thou comest; thou fliest in coming, and comest in flying, the same at the point of departure, different at the end; sweet to the foolish, bitter to the wise. Those who love thee know thee not, and those only know thee who despise thee. What art thou, then, O human life? Thou art the way of mortals, and not their life. Thou beginnest in sin and endest in death. Thou art then the way of life and not life itself. Thou art only a road, and an unequal road, long for some, short for others; wide for these, narrow for those; joyous for some, sad for others, but for all equally rapid and without return. It is necessary, then, O miserable human life! to fathom thee, to question thee, but not to trust in thee. We must traverse thee without dwelling in thee--no one dwells upon a great road; we but march over it, to reach the country beyond." [113] Several of the disciples of Columbanus labored in eastern Helvetia and Rhaetia. Sigisbert separated from him at the foot of the St. Gothard, crossed eastward over the Oberalp to the source of the Rhine, and laid the foundation of the monastery of Dissentis in the Grisons, which lasts to this day. St. Gall (Gallus), the most celebrated of the pupils of Columbanus, remained in Switzerland, and became the father of the monastery and city called after him, on the banks of the river Steinach. He declined the bishopric of Constanz. His double struggle against the forces of nature and the gods of heathenism has been embellished with marvelous traits by the legendary poetry of the middle ages. [114] When he died, ninety-five years old, a.d. 640, the whole surrounding country of the Allemanni was nominally Christianized. The monastery of St. Gall became one of the most celebrated schools of learning in Switzerland and Germany, where Irish and other missionaries learned German and prepared themselves for evangelistic work in Switzerland and Southern Germany. There Notker Balbulus, the abbot (died 912), gave a lasting impulse to sacred poetry and music, as the inventor or chief promoter of the mediaeval Laudes or Prosae, among which the famous "Media vita in morte sumus" still repeats in various tongues its solemn funeral warning throughout Christendom. Fridold or Fridolin, who probably came from Scotland, preached the gospel to the Allemanni in South Germany. But his life is involved in great obscurity, and assigned by some to the time of Clovis I. (481-511), by others more probably to that of Clovis II. (638-656). Kilian or Kyllina, of a noble Irish family, is said to have been the apostle of Franconia and the first bishop of Würzburg in the seventh century. __________________________________________________________________ [107] Also called Columba the younger, to distinguish him from the Scotch Columba. There is a second St. Columbanus, an abbot of St. Trudo (St. Troud) in France, and a poet, who died about the middle of the ninth century. [108] The date assigned by Hertel, l.c., and Meyer von Knonau, in "Allg. Deutsche Biographie," IV. 424 (1876). [109] The date according to the Bollandists and Smith's Dict. of Chr. Biogr. Ebrard puts the emigration of Columbanus to Gaul in the year 594. [110] There is a considerable difference between his Regula Monastica, in ten chapters, and his Regula Coenobialis Fratrum, sive, Liber de quotidianis Poenitentiis Monachorum, in fifteen chapters. The latter is unreasonably rigorous, and imposes corporal punishments for the slightest offences, even speaking at table, or coughing at chanting. Ebrard (l.c., p. 148 sqq.) contends that the Regula Coenobialis, which is found only in two codices, is of later origin. Comp. Hertel, l.c. [111] For a full account of this quarrel see Montalembert, II. 411 sqq. [112] "Roma orbis terrarum caput est ecclesiarum, salva loci Dominicae resurrectiois singulari praerogativa." [113] Montalembert, II. 436. [114] See the anonymous Vita S. Galli in Pertz, Monumenta II. 123, and in the Acta Sanct., Tom. VII. Octobris. Also Greith, Geschichte der altirischen Kirche ... als Einleitung in die, Gesch. des Stifts St. Gallen(1857), the chapter on Gallus, pp. 333 sqq. __________________________________________________________________ § 24. German Missionaries before Boniface. England derived its Anglo-Saxon population from Germany in the fifth century, and in return gave to Germany in the eighth century the Christian religion with a strong infusion of popery. Germany afterwards shook off the yoke of popery, and gave to England the Protestant Reformation. In the seventeenth century, England produced Deism, which was the first act of modern unbelief, and the forerunner of German Rationalism. The revival of evangelical theology and religion which followed in both countries, established new points of contact between these cognate races, which meet again on common ground in the Western hemisphere to commingle in the American nationality. The conversion of Germany to Christianity and to Romanism was, like that of England, the slow work of several centuries. It was accomplished by missionaries of different nationalities, French, Scotch-Irish, English, and Greek. It began at the close of the second century, when Irenaeus spoke of Christian congregations in the two Germanies, [115] i.e. Germania prima and secunda, on the upper and lower Rhine; and it was substantially completed in the age of Charlemagne in the eighth century. But nearly the entire North-Eastern part of Germany, which was inhabited mostly by Slavonic tribes, remained heathen till the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. We must distinguish especially three stages: 1) the preparatory labors of Italian, French, and Scotch-Irish missionaries; 2) the consolidating romanizing work of Boniface of England and his successors; 3) the forcible military conversion of the Saxons under Charlemagne. The fourth and last missionary stage, the conversion of the Prussians and Slavonic races in North-Eastern Germany, belongs to the next period. The light of Christianity came to Germany first from the Roman empire in the Roman colonies on the Rhine. At the council of Arles in 314, there was a bishop Maternus of Cologne with his deacon, Macrinus, and a bishop of Treves by the name of Agröcius. In the fifth century the mysterious Severinus from the East appeared among the savages on the banks of the Danube in Bavaria as an angel of mercy, walking bare-footed in mid-winter, redeeming prisoners of war, bringing food and clothing with the comfort of the Gospel to the poor and unfortunate, and won by his self-denying labors universal esteem. French monks and hermits left traces of their work at St. Goar, St. Elig, Wulfach, and other places on the charming banks of the Rhine. The efficient labors of Columbanus and his Irish companions and pupils extended from the Vosges to South Germany and Eastern Switzerland. Willebrord, an Anglo-Saxon, brought up in an Irish convent, left with twelve brethren for Holland (690) became the Apostle of the Friesians, and was consecrated by the Pope the first bishop of Utrecht (Trajectum), under the name of Clemens. He developed an extensive activity of nearly fifty years till his death (739). When Boniface arrived in Germany he found nearly in all parts which he visited, especially in Bavaria and Thuringia, missionaries and bishops independent of Rome, and his object was fully as much to romanize this earlier Christianity, as to convert the heathen. He transferred the conflict between the Anglo-Saxon mission of Rome and the older Keltic Christianity of Patrick and Columba and their successors from England to German soil, and repeated the role of Augustin of Canterbury. The old Easter controversy disappears after Columbanus, and the chief objects of dispute were freedom from popery and clerical marriage. In both respects, Boniface succeeded, after a hard struggle, in romanizing Germany. The leaders of the opposition to Rome and to Bonifacius among his predecessors and contemporaries were Adelbert and Clemens. We know them only from the letters of Boniface, which represent them in a very, unfavorable light. Adelbert, or Aldebert (Eldebert), was a Gaul by nation, and perhaps bishop of Soissons; at all events he labored on the French side of the Rhine, had received episcopal ordination, and enjoyed great popularity from his preaching, being regarded as an apostle, a patron, and a worker of miracles. According to Boniface, he was a second Simon Magus, or immoral impostor, who deceived the people by false miracles and relics, claimed equal rank with the apostles, set up crosses and oratories in the fields, consecrated buildings in his own name, led women astray, and boasted to have relics better than those of Rome, and brought to him by an angel from the ends of the earth. Clemens was a Scotchman (Irishman), and labored in East Franconia. He opposed ecclesiastical traditions and clerical celibacy, and had two sons. He held marriage with a brother's widow to be valid, and had peculiar views of divine predestination and Christ's descent into Hades. Aldebert and Clemens were condemned without a hearing, and excommunicated as heretics and seducers of the people, by a provincial Synod of Soissons, a.d. 744, and again in a Synod of Rome, 745, by Pope Zacharias, who confirmed the decision of Boniface. Aldebert was at last imprisoned in the monastery of Fulda, and killed by shepherds after escaping from prison. Clemens disappeared. [116] __________________________________________________________________ [115] haientais Germaniaishidrumenaiekklesiai. Adv. haer. I. 10, 2 [116] Comp. besides the Letters of Boniface, the works of Neander, Rettberg, Ebrard, Werner and Fischer, quoted below. __________________________________________________________________ § 25. Boniface, the Apostle of Germany. I. Bonifacius: Epistolae et Sermones, first ed. by Serrarius, Mogunt. 1605, then by Würdtwein, 1790, by Giles, 1842, and in Migne's Patrol. Tom, 89, pp. 593-801 (together with Vitae, etc.). Jaffe: Monumenta Moguntina. Berol. 1866. II. Biographies of Bonifacius. The oldest by Willibald, his pupil and companion (in Pertz, Monum. II. 33, and in Migne, l.c. p. 603); by Othlo, a German Benedictine monk of the eleventh cent. (in Migne, p. 634); Letzner (1602); Löffler (1812); Seiters (1845); Cox (1853); J. P. Müller (1870); Hope (1872); Aug. Werner Bonifacius und die Romanisirung Von Mitteleuropa. Leipz., 1875; Pfahler(Regensb. 1880); Otto Fischer (Leipz. 1881); Ebrard: Bonif. der Zerstörer des columbanischen Kirchenthums auf dem Festlande (Gütersloh, 1882; against Fischer and very unjust to B.; see against it Zöpffel in the "Theol. Lit. Zeitg," 1882, No. 22). Cf. the respective sections in Neander, Gfrörer, Rettberg (II. 307 sqq.) On the Councils of Bonif see Hefele: Conciliengeschichte, III. 458. Boniface or Winfried [117] surpassed all his predecessors on the German mission-field by the extent and result of his labors, and acquired the name of the Apostle of Germany. He was born about 680 from a noble family, at Kirton in Wessex the last stronghold of paganism among the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. He was brought up in the convent of Nutsal near Winchester, and ordained priest at the age of thirty. He felt it his duty, to christianize those countries from which his Anglo-Saxon forefathers had emigrated. It was a formidable task, requiring a heroic courage and indomitable perseverance. He sacrificed his splendid prospects at home, crossed the channel, and began his missionary career with two or three companions among the Friesians in the neighborhood of Utrecht in Holland (715). His first attempt was a failure. Ratbod, the king of Friesland, was at war with Charles Martel, and devastated the churches and monasteries which had been founded by the Franks, and by Willibrord. But far from being discouraged, he was only stimulated to greater exertion. After a brief sojourn in England, where he was offered the dignity of abbot of his convent, he left again his native land, and this time forever. He made a pilgrimage to Rome, was cordially welcomed by Pope Gregory II. and received a general commission to Christianize and romanize central Europe (718). Recrossing the Alps, he visited Bavaria and Thuringia, which had been evangelized in part by the disciples of Columban, but he was coldly received because he represented their Christianity as insufficient, and required submission to Rome. He turned his steps again to Friesland where order had been restored, and assisted Willibrord, archbishop of Utrecht, for three years. In 722 he returned to Thuringia in the wake of Charles Martel's victorious army and preached to the heathen in Hesse who lived between the Franks and the Saxons, between the middle Rhine and the Elbe. He founded a convent at Amanaburg (Amöneburg) on the river Ohm. In 723 he paid, on invitation, a second visit to Rome, and was consecrated by Gregory II. as a missionary bishop without a diocese (episcopus regionarius). He bound himself on the grave of St. Peter with the most stringent oath of fealty to the Pope similar to that which was imposed on the Italian or suburban bishops. [118] From this time his work assumed a more systematic character in the closest contact with Rome as the centre of Christendom. Fortified with letters of commendation, he attached himself for a short time to the court of Charles Martel, who pushed his schemes of conquest towards the Hessians. Aided by this secular help and the Pope's spiritual authority, he made rapid progress. By a master stroke of missionary policy he laid the axe to the root of Teutonic heathenism; with his own hand, in the presence of a vast assembly, he cut down the sacred and inviolable oak of the Thunder-God at Geismar (not far from Fritzlar), and built with the planks an oratory or church of St. Peter. His biographer, Willibald, adds that a sudden storm from heaven came to his aid and split the oak in four pieces of equal length. This practical sermon was the death and burial of German mythology. He received from time to time supplies of books, monks and nuns from England. The whole church of England took a deep interest in his work, as we learn from his correspondence. He founded monastic colonies near Erfurt, Fritzlar, Ohrdruf, Bischofsheim, and Homburg. The victory of Charles Martel over the Saracens at Tours (732) checked the westward progress of Islâm and insured the triumph of Christianity in central Europe. Boniface was raised to the dignity of archbishop (without a see) and papal legate by the new Pope Gregory III. (732), and thus enabled to coerce the refractory bishops. In 738 he made his third and last pilgrimage to Rome with a great retinue of monks and converts, and received authority to call a synod of bishops in Bavaria and Allemannia. On his return he founded, in concert with Duke Odilo, four Bavarian bishoprics at Salzburg, Freising, Passau, and Ratisbon or Regensburg (739). To these he added in central Germany the sees of Würzburg, Buraburg (near Fritzlar), Erfurt, Eichstädt (742). He held several synods in Mainz and elsewhere for the organization of the churches and the exercise of discipline. The number of his baptized converts till 739 is said to have amounted to many thousands. In 743 he was installed Archbishop of Mainz or Mayence (Moguntum) in the place of bishop Gervillius (Gewielieb) who was deposed for indulging in sporting propensities and for homicide in battle. His diocese extended from Cologne to Strasburg and even to Coire. He would have preferred Cologne, but the clergy there feared his disciplinary severity. He aided the sons of Charles Martel in reducing the Gallic clergy to obedience, exterminating the Keltic element, and consolidating the union with Rome. In 744, in a council at Soissons, where twenty-three bishops were present, his most energetic opponents were condemned. In the same year, in the very heart of Germany, he laid the foundation of Fulda, the greatest of his monasteries, which became the Monte Casino of Germany. In 753 he named Lull or Lullus his successor at Mainz. Laying aside his dignities, he became once more an humble missionary, and returned with about fifty devoted followers to the field of the baffled labors of his youth among the Friesians, where a reaction in favor of heathenism had taken place since the death of Willibrord. He planted his tents on the banks of the river Borne near Dockum (between Franecker and Groningen), waiting for a large number of converts to be confirmed. But, instead of that, he was assailed and slain, with his companions, by armed pagans. He met the martyr's death with calmness and resignation, June 5, 754 or 755. His bones were deposited first at Utrecht, then at Mainz, and at last in Fulda. Soon after his death, an English Synod chose him, together with Pope Gregory and Augustin, patron of the English church. In 1875 Pope Pius IX. directed the Catholics of Germany and England to invoke especially the aid of St. Boniface in the distress of modern times. The works of Boniface are epistles and sermons. The former refer to his missionary labors and policy, the latter exhibit his theological views and practical piety. Fifteen short sermons are preserved, addressed not to heathen, but to Christian converts; they reveal therefore not so much his missionary as his edifying activity. They are without Scripture text, and are either festal discourses explaining the history of salvation, especially the fall and redemption of man, or catechetical expositions of Christian doctrine and duty. We give as a characteristic specimen of the latter, the fifteenth sermon, on the renunciation of the devil in baptism: Sermon XV. "I. Listen, my brethren, and consider well what you have solemnly renounced in your baptism. You have renounced the devil and all his works, and all his pomp. But what are the works of the devil? They are pride, idolatry, envy, murder, calumny, lying, perjury, hatred, fornication, adultery, every kind of lewdness, theft, false witness, robbery, gluttony, drunkenness, Slander, fight, malice, philters, incantations, lots, belief in witches and were-wolves, abortion, disobedience to the Master, amulets. These and other such evil things are the works of the devil, all of which you have forsworn by your baptism, as the apostle says: Whosoever doeth such things deserves death, and shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven. But as we believe that, by the mercy of God, you will renounce all these things, with heart and hand, in order to become fit for grace, I admonish you, my dearest brethren, to remember what you have promised Almighty God. II. For, first, you have promised to believe in Almighty God, and in his Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit, one almighty God in perfect trinity. III. And these are the commandments which you shall keep and fulfil: to love God, whom you profess, with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourselves; for on these commandments hang the whole law and the prophets. Be patient, have mercy, be benevolent, chaste, pure. Teach your sons to fear God; teach your whole family to do so. Make peace where you go, and let him who sits in court; give a just verdict and take no presents, for presents make even a wise man blind. IV. Keep the Sabbath and go to church-to pray, but not to prattle. Give alms according to your power, for alms extinguish sins as water does fire. Show hospitality to travelers, visit the sick, take care of widows and orphans, pay your tithes to the church, and do to nobody what you would not have done to yourself. Fear God above all. Let the servants be obedient to their masters, and the masters just to their servants. Cling to the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, and communicate them to your own children and to those whose baptismal sponsors you are. Keep the fast, love what is right, stand up against the devil, and partake from time to time of the Lord's Supper. Such are the works which God commands you to do and fulfil. V. Believe in the advent of Christ, the resurrection of the body, and the judgment of all men. For then the impious shall be separated from the just, the one for the everlasting fire, the others for the eternal life. Then begins a life with God without death, a light without shadows, a health without sickness, a plenty without hunger, a happiness without fear, a joy with no misgivings. Then comes the eternal glory, in which the just shall shine like suns, for no eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard, no heart has ever dreamed, of all that which God has prepared for those whom he loves. VI. I also remind you, my beloved brethren, that the birth-day of our Lord is approaching, in order that you may abstain from all that is worldly or lewd or impure or bad. Spit out all malice and hatred and envy; it is poison to your heart. Keep chaste even with respect to your own wives. Clothe yourselves with good works. Give alms to the poor who belong to Christ; invite them often to your feasts. Keep peace with all, and make peace between those who are at discord. If, with the aid of Christ, you will truly fulfil these commands, then in this life you can with confidence approach the altar of God, and in the next you shall partake of the everlasting bliss." [119] Bonifacius combined the zeal and devotion of a missionary with worldly prudence and a rare genius for organization and administration. He was no profound scholar, but a practical statesman and a strict disciplinarian. He was not a theologian, but an ecclesiastic, and would have made a good Pope. He selected the best situations for his bishoprics and monasteries, and his far-sighted policy has been confirmed by history. He was a man of unblemished character and untiring energy. He was incessantly active, preaching, traveling, presiding over Synods, deciding perplexing questions about heathen customs and trivial ceremonies. He wrought no miracles, such as were usually expected from a missionary in those days. His disciple and biographer apologizes for this defect, and appeals as an offset to the invisible cures of souls which he performed. [120] The weak spot in his character is the bigotry and intolerance which he displayed in his controversy with the independent missionaries of the French and Scotch-Irish schools who had done the pioneer work before him. He reaped the fruits of their labors, and destroyed their further usefulness, which he might have secured by a liberal Christian policy. He hated every feature of individuality and national independence in matters of the church. To him true Christianity was identical with Romanism, and he made Germany as loyal to the Pope as was his native England. He served under four Popes, Gregory II., Gregory III., Zacharias, and Stephen, and they could not have had a more devoted and faithful agent. Those who labored without papal authority were to him dangerous hirelings, thieves and robbers who climbed up some other way. He denounced them as false prophets, seducers of the people, idolaters and adulterers (because they were married and defended clerical marriage). [121] He encountered from them a most determined opposition, especially in Bavaria. In connection with his servile Romanism is his pedantic legalism and ceremonialism. His epistles and sermons show a considerable knowledge of the Bible, but also a contracted legalistic spirit. He has much to say about matters of outward conformity to Roman authority and usages and about small questions of casuistry, such as whether it was right to eat horse flesh, rabbits, storks, meat offered to idols, to marry a widow after standing god-father to her son, how often the sign of the cross should be made in preaching. In his strength and his weakness, his loyalty, to Rome, and in the importance of the work he accomplished, he resembled Augustin, the Roman apostle of his Anglo-Saxon ancestors. Boniface succeeded by indomitable perseverance, and his work survived him. This must be his vindication. In judging of him we should remember that the controversy between him and his French and Scotch-Irish opponents was not a controversy between Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism (which was not yet born), but between organized Catholicism or Romanism and independent Catholicism. Mediaeval Christianity was very weak, and required for its self-preservation a strong central power and legal discipline. It is doubtful whether in the barbarous condition of those times, and amid the commotions of almost constant civil wars, the independent and scattered labors of the anti-Roman missionaries could have survived as well and made as strong an impression upon the German nation as a consolidated Christianity with a common centre of unity, and authority. Roman unity was better than undisciplined independency, but it was itself only a preparatory school for the self-governing freedom of manhood. After Boniface had nearly completed his work, a political revolution took place in France which gave it outward support. Pepin, the major domus of the corrupt Merovingian dynasty, overthrew it with the aid of Pope Zacharias, who for his conquest of the troublesome Lombards rewarded him with the royal crown of France (753). Fifty years afterwards this political alliance of France and Germany with the Italian papacy was completed by Charlemagne and Leo III., and lasted for many centuries. Rome had the enchantment of distance, the prestige of power and culture, and promised to furnish the strongest support to new and weak churches. Rome was also the connecting link between mediaeval and ancient civilization, and transmitted to the barbarian races the treasures of classical literature which in due time led to the revival of letters and to the Protestant Reformation. __________________________________________________________________ [117] One that wins peace. His Latin name Bonifacius, Benefactor, was probably his monastic name, or given to him by the pope on his second visit to Rome. 723. [118] The juramentum of Boniface, which he ever afterwards remembered and observed with painful conscientiousness deserves to be quoted in full, as it contains his whole missionary policy (see Migne, l.c., p. 803): "In nomine Domini Dei Salvatoris nostri Jesus Christi, imperante domino Leone Magno imperatore, anno 7 post consulatum ejus, sed et Constantini Magni imperatoris ejus filii anno 4, indictione 6. Promitto ego Bonifacius, Dei gratia episcopus, tibi, beate Petre, apostolorum princeps vicarioque tuo beato Gregorio papae et successoribus ejus, per Patrem et Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum, Trinitatem inseparabilem, et hoc sacratissimum corpus tuum, me omnem fidem et puritatem sanctae fidei catholicae exhibere, et in unitate ejusdem fidei, Deo operante, persistere in quo omnis Christianorum salus esse sine dubio comprobatur, nullo modo me contra unitatem communis et universalis Ecclesiae, quopiam consentire, sed, ut dixi, fidem et puritatem meam atque concursum, tibi et utilitatibus tiae Ecclesiae, cui a Domino Deo potestasligandi solvendique data est, et praedicto vicario tuo atque successoribus ejus, per omnia exhibere. Sed et si cognovero antistites contra instituta antiqua sanctorum patrum conversari, cum eis nullam habere communionem aut conjunctionem; sed magis, si valuero prohibere, prohibeam; si minus, hoc fideliter statim Domino meo apostolico renuntiabo. Quod si, quod absit, contra hujus professionis meae seriem aliquid facere quolibet modo, seu ingenio, vel occasione, tentavero, reus inveniar in aeterno judicio, ultionem Ananiae et Saphirae incurram, qui vorbis etiam de rebus propriis fraudem facere praesumpsit: hoc autem indiculum sacramenti ego Bonifacius exiguus episcopus manu propria, ita ut praescriptum, Deo teste et judice, feci sacramentum, quod et conservare promitto." With all his devotion to the Roman See, Boniface was manly and independent enough to complain in a letter to Pope Zacharias of the scandalous heathen practices in Rome which were reported by travellers and filled the German Christians with prejudice and disobedience to Rome. See the letter in Migne, l.c. p. 746 sqq. [119] In Migne, l.c., p. 870. A German translation in Cruel, Geschichte der deutschen Predigt im Mittelalter (1879), p. 14. [120] Othlo, Vita Bonif., c. 26 (Migne, l.c. fol. 664). [121] The description he gives of their immorality, must be taken with considerable deduction. In Ep. 49 to Pope Zacharias (a. d.742) in Migne, l.c., p. 745, he speaks of deacons, priests and bishops hostile to Rome, as being guilty of habitual drunkenness, concubinage, and even polygamy. I will only quote what he says of the bishops: "Et inveniuntur quidem inter eos episcopi, qui, licet dicant se fornicarios vel adulteros non esse, sed sunt ebriosi, et injuriosi, vel venatores, et qui pugnant in exercitu armati, et effundunt propria manu sanguinem hominum, sive paganorum, sive Christianorum." __________________________________________________________________ § 26. The Pupils of Boniface. Willibald, Gregory of Utrecht, Sturm of Fulda. Boniface left behind him a number of devoted disciples who carried on his work. Among these we mention St. Willibald, the first bishop of Eichstädt. He was born about a.d. 700 from a noble Anglo-Saxon family and a near relative of Boniface. In his early manhood he made a pilgrimage to Rome and to the Holy Land as far as Damascus, spent several years among the Benedictines in Monte Casino, met Boniface in Rome, joined him in Germany (a.d. 740) and became bishop of Eichstädt in Bavaria in 742. He directed his attention chiefly to the founding of monasteries after the Benedictine rule. He called to his side his brother Wunnebald, his sister Walpurgis, and other helpers from England. He died July 7, 781 or 787. He is considered by some as the author of the biography of Boniface; but it was probably the work of another Willibald, a presbyter of Mainz. Gregory, Abbot of Utrecht, was related to the royal house of the Merovingians, educated at the court, converted in his fifteenth year by a sermon of Boniface, and accompanied him on his journeys. After the death of Boniface he superintended the mission among the Friesians, but declined the episcopal dignity. In his old age he became lame, and was carried by his pupils to wherever his presence was desired. He died in 781, seventy-three years old. Sturm, the first Abbot of Fulda (710 to Dec. 17, 779), was of a noble Bavarian family and educated by Boniface. With his approval he passed with two companions through the dense beech forests of Hesse in pursuit of a proper place for a monastery. Singing psalms, he rode on an ass, cutting a way through the thicket inhabited by wild beasts; at night after saying his prayers and making the sign of the cross he slept on the bare ground under the canopy of heaven till sunrise. He met no human being except a troupe of heathen slaves who bathed in the river Fulda, and afterwards a man with a horse who was well acquainted with the country. He found at last a suitable place, and took solemn possession of it in 744, after it was presented to him for a monastery by Karloman at the request of Boniface, who joined him there with a large number of monks, and often resorted to this his favorite monastery. "In a vast solitude," he wrote to Pope Zacharias in 751, "among the tribes entrusted to my preaching, there is a place where I erected a convent and peopled it with monks who live according to the rule of St. Benedict in strict abstinence, without flesh and wine, without intoxicating drink and slaves, earning their living with their own hands. This spot I have rightfully secured from pious men, especially from Karloman, the late prince of the Franks, and dedicated to the Saviour. There I will occasionally rest my weary limbs, and repose in death, continuing faithful to the Roman Church and to the people to which I was sent?" [122] Fulda received special privileges from Pope Zacharias and his successors, [123] and became a centre of German Christianity and civilization from which proceeded the clearing of the forests, the cultivation of the soil, and the education of youths. The number of Benedictine monks was increased by large re-enforcements from Monte Casino, after an Italian journey of Sturm in 747. The later years of his life were disturbed by a controversy with Lullus of Mainz about the bones of Boniface after his martyrdom (755) and by calumniations of three monks who brought upon him the displeasure of King Pepin. He was, however, reinstated in his dignity and received the remains of his beloved teacher which repose in Fulda. Charlemagne employed him as missionary among the Saxons. His bones were deposited in the convent church. Pope Innocent II. canonized him, A. D, 1139. [124] __________________________________________________________________ [122] Condensed translation from Epist. 75 in Migne, fol. 778. [123] See "Fulda und seine Privilegien" in Jul. Harttung, Diplomatisch-historische Forschungen, Gotha, 1879, pp. 193 sqq. [124] The chief source is the Vita Sturmi by his pupil Eigil abbot of Fulda, 818 to 822, in Mabillon, "Acta Sanct. Ord. Bened." Saec. VIII. Tom. 242-259. __________________________________________________________________ § 27. The Conversion of the Saxons. Charlemagne and Alcuin. The Heliand, and the Gospel-Harmony. Funk: Die Unterwerfung der Sachsen unter Karl dem Gr. 1833. A. Schaumann: Geschichte des niedersächs. Volkes. Götting. 1839. Böttger: Die Einfahrung des Christenthums in Sachsen. Hann. 1859. W. Giesebrecht; Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit, Vol. I. (1863), pp. 110 sqq. Of all the German tribes the fierce and warlike Saxons were the last to accept the Christian religion. They differed in this respect very much from their kinsmen who had invaded and conquered England. But the means employed were also as different: rude force in one case, moral suasion in the other. The Saxons inhabited the districts of modern Hanover, Oldenburg, Brunswick, and Westphalia, which were covered with dense forests. They had driven the Franks beyond the Weser and the Rhine, and they were now driven back in turn by Charles Martel, Pepin, and Charlemagne. They hated the foreign yoke of the Franks, and far-off Rome; they hated the tithe which was imposed upon them for the support of the church. They looked upon Christianity as the enemy of their wild liberty and independence. The first efforts of Ewald, Suidbert, and other missionaries were fruitless. Their conversion was at last brought about by the sword from political as well as religious motives, and was at first merely nominal, but resulted finally in a real change under the silent influence of the moral forces of the Christian religion. Charlemagne, who became master of the French kingdom in 768, had the noble ambition to unite the German tribes in one great empire and one religion in filial communion with Rome, but he mistook the means. He employed material force, believing that people become Christians by water-baptism, though baptized against their will. He thought that the Saxons, who were the most dangerous enemies of his kingdom, must be either subdued and Christianized, or killed. He pursued the same policy towards them as the squatter sovereigns would have the United States government pursue towards the wild Indians in the Western territories. Treaties were broken, and shocking cruelties were committed on both sides, by the Saxons from revenge and for independence, by Christians for punishment in the name of religion and civilization. Prominent among these atrocities is the massacre of four thousand five hundred captives at Verden in one day. As soon as the French army was gone, the Saxons destroyed the churches and murdered the priests, for which they were in turn put to death. Their subjugation was a work of thirty-three years, from 772 to 805. Widukind (Wittekind) and Albio (Abbio), the two most powerful Saxon chiefs, seeing the fruitlessness of the resistance, submitted to baptism in 785, with Charlemagne as sponsor. [125] But the Saxons were not entirely defeated till 804, when 10,000 families were driven from house and home and scattered in other provinces. Bloody laws prohibited the relapse into heathenism. The spirit of national independence was defeated, but not entirely crushed, and broke out seven centuries afterwards in another form against the Babylonian tyranny of Rome under the lead of the Saxon monk, Martin Luther. The war of Charlemagne against the Saxons was the first ominous example of a bloody crusade for the overthrow of heathenism and the extension of the church. It was a radical departure from the apostolic method, and diametrically opposed to the spirit of the gospel. This was felt even in that age by the more enlightened divines. Alcuin, who represents the English school of missionaries, and who expresses in his letters great respect and admiration for Charlemagne, modestly protested, though without effect, against this wholesale conversion by force, and asked him rather to make peace with the "abominable" people of the Saxons. He properly held that the heathen should first be instructed before they are required to be baptized and to pay tithes; that water-baptism without faith was of no use; that baptism implies three visible things, namely, the priest, the body, and the water, and three invisible things, namely, the Spirit, the soul, and faith; that the Holy Spirit regenerates the soul by faith; that faith is a free act which cannot be enforced; that instruction, persuasion, love and self-denial are the only proper means for converting the heathen. [126] Charlemagne relaxed somewhat the severity of his laws or capitularies after the year 797. He founded eight bishoprics among the Saxons: Osnabrück, Münster, Minden, Paderborn, Verden, Bremen, Hildesheim, and Halberstadt. From these bishoprics and the parochial churches grouped around them, and from monasteries such as Fulda, proceeded those higher and nobler influences which acted on the mind and heart. The first monument of real Christianity among the Saxons is the "Heliand" (Heiland, i.e., Healer, Saviour) or a harmony of the Gospels. It is a religious epos strongly resembling the older work of the Anglo-Saxon Caedmon on the Passion and Resurrection. From this it no doubt derived its inspiration. For since Bonifacius there was a lively intercourse between the church of England and the church in Germany, and the language of the two countries was at that time essentially the same. In both works Christ appears as the youthful hero of the human race, the divine conqueror of the world and the devil, and the Christians as his faithful knights and warriors. The Heliand was composed in the ninth century by one or more poets whose language points to Westphalia as their home. The doctrine is free from the worship of saints, the glorification of Peter, and from ascetic excesses, but mixed somewhat with mythological reminiscences. Vilmar calls it the only real Christian epos, and a wonderful creation of the German genius. [127] A little later (about 870) Otfried, a Franconian, educated at Fulda and St. Gall, produced another poetic harmony of the Gospels, which is one of the chief monuments of old high German literature. It is a life of Christ from his birth to the ascension, and ends with a description of the judgment. It consists of fifteen thousand rhymed lines in strophes of four lines. Thus the victory of Christianity in Germany as well as it, England, was the beginning of poetry and literature, and of true civilization, The Christianization of North-Eastern Germany, among the Slavonic races, along the Baltic shores in Prussia, Livonia, and Courland, went on in the next period, chiefly through Bishop Otto of Bamberg, the apostle of Pomerania, and the Knights of the Teutonic order, and was completed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. III. THE CONVERSION 0F SCANDINAVIA. General Literature. I. Scandinavia before Christianity. The Eddas, edit. Rask (Copenhagen, 1818); A. Munch (Christiania, 1847); Möbius (Leipzig, 1860). N. M. Petersen: Danmarks Historie i Hedenold. Copenhagen, 1834-37, 3 vols.; Den Nordiske Mythologie, Copenhagen, 1839. N. F. S. Grundtvig: Nordens Mythologie. Copenhagen, 1839. Thorpe: Northern Mythology. London, 1852, 3 vols. Rasmus B. Anderson: Norse Mythology; Myths of the Eddas systematized and interpreted. Chicago, 1875. II. The Christianization of Scandinavia. Claudius Oernhjalm: Historia Sueonum Gothorumque Ecclesiae. Stockholm, 1689, 4 vols. E. Pontoppidan: Annales Ecclesiae Danicae. Copenhagen, 1741. F. Münter: Kirchengeschichte von Dänmark und Norwegen. Copenhagen and Leipzig, 1823-33, 3 vols. R. Reuterdahl: Svenska kyrkans historia. Lund, 1833, 3 vols., first volume translated into German by E. T. Mayerhof, under the title: Leben Ansgars. Fred Helweg: Den Danske Kirkes Historie. Copenhagen, 1862. A. Jorgensen: Den nordiske Kirkes Grundloeggelse. Copenhagen, 1874. Neander: Geschichte der christlichen Kirche, Vol. IV., pp. 1-150 __________________________________________________________________ [125] "Jetzt war Sachsen besiegt," says Giesebrecht (l.c., p. 117), "und mit Blutgesetzen worden das Christenthum und das Königthum zugliech den Sachsen aufgedrungen. Mit Todesstrafen wurde die Taufe erzwungen, die heidnischen Gebräuche bedroht; jede Verletzung eines chistlichen Priesters wurde, wie der Aufruhr gegen den König und der Ungehorsam gegen seine Befehle, zu einem todeswuerdigen Verbrechen gestempelt." [126] Neander III. 152 sqq. (Germ, ed.; Torrey's trnsl. III. 76). It seems to me, from looking over Alcuin's numerous epistles to the emperor, he might have used his influence much more freely with his pupil. Merivale says (p. 131): "Alcuin of York, exerted his influence upon those Northern missions from the centre of France, in which he had planted himself. The purity and simplicity of the English school of teachers contrasted favoably with the worldly, character of the Frankish priesthood, and Charlemagne himelf was impressed with the importance of intrusting the establishment of the Church throughout his Northern conquests to these foreigners rather than to his own subjects. He appointed the Anglo-Saxon Willibrord to preside over the district of Estphalia, and Liudger, a Friesian by birth, but an Englishman by his training at York, to organize the church in Westphalia; while he left to the earlier foundation of Fulda, which had also received its first Christian traditions from the English Boniface and his pupil Sturm, the charge of Engern or Angaria. From the teaching of these strangers there sprang up a crop of Saxon priests and missionaries; from among the youths of noble family whom the conqueror had carried off from their homes as hostages, many were selected to be trained in the monasteries for the life of monks and preachers. Eventually the Abbey of Corbie, near Amiens, was founded by one of the Saxon converts, and became an important centre of Christian teaching. From hence sprang the daughter-foundation of the New Corbie, or Corby, on the banks of the Weser, in the diocese of Paderborn. This abbey received its charter from Louis le Debonnaire in 823, and became no less important an institution for the propagation of the faith in the north of Germany, than Fulda still continued to be in the centre, and St. Gall in the South." [127] See Ed. Sievers, Heliand, Halle, 1878. __________________________________________________________________ § 28. Scandinavian Heathenism. Wheaton: History of the Northmen. London 1831. Depping: Histoire des expeditions maritimes des Normands. Paris, 1843. 2 vols. F. Worsaae: Account of the Danes in England, Ireland, and Scotland. London, 1852; The Danish Conquest of England and Normandy. London, 1863. These works are translated from the Danish. Scandinavia was inhabited by one of the wildest and fiercest, but also one of the strongest and most valiant branches of the Teutonic race, a people of robbers which grew into a people of conquerors. Speaking the same language--that which is still spoken in Iceland--and worshipping the same gods, they were split into a number of small kingdoms covering the present Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Every spring, when the ice broke in the fjords, they launched their boats or skiffs, and swept, each swarm under the leadership of its own king, down upon the coasts of the neighboring countries. By the rivers they penetrated far into the countries, burning and destroying what they could not carry away with them. When autumn came, they returned home, loaded with spoil, and they spent the winter round the open hearth, devouring their prey. But in course of time, the swarms congregated and formed large armies, and the robber-campaigns became organized expeditions for conquest; kingdoms were founded in Russia, England, France, and Sicily. In their new homes, however, the Northern vikings soon forgot both their native language and their old gods, and became the strong bearers of new departures of civilization and the valiant knights of Christianity. In the Scandinavian mythology, there were not a few ideas which the Christian missionary could use as connecting links. It was not absolutely necessary for him to begin with a mere negation; here, too, there was an "unknown God" and many traits indicate that, during the eighth and ninth centuries, people throughout Scandinavia became more and more anxious to hear something about him. When a man died, he went to Walhall, if he had been brave, and to Niflheim, if he had been a coward. In Walhall he lived together with the gods, in great brightness and joy, fighting all the day, feasting all the night. In Niflheim he sat alone, a shadow, surrounded with everything disgusting and degrading. But Walhall and Niflheim were not to last forever. A deep darkness, Ragnarokr, shall fall over the universe; Walhall and Niflheim shall be destroyed by fire; the gods, the heroes, the shadows, shall perish. Then a new heaven and a new earth shall be created by the All-Father, and he shall judge men not according as they have been brave or cowardly, but according as they have been good or bad. From the Eddas themseIves, it appears that, throughout Scandinavian heathendom, there now and then arose characters who, though they would not cease to be brave, longed to be good. The representative of this goodness, this dim fore-shadowing of the Christian idea of holiness, was Baldur, the young god standing on the rainbow and watching the worlds, and he was also the link which held together the whole chain of the Walhall gods; when he died, Ragnarokr came. A transition from the myth of Baldur to the gospel of Christ cannot have been very difficult to the Scandinavian imagination; and, indeed, it is apparent that the first ideas which the Scandinavian heathens formed of the "White Christ" were influenced by their ideas of Baldur. It is a question, however, not yet settled, whether certain parts of the Scandinavian mythology, as, for instance, the above myths of Ragnarokr and Baldur, are not a reflex of Christian ideas; and it is quite probable that when the Scandinavians in the ninth century began to look at Christ under the image of Baldur, they had long before unconsciously remodeled their idea of Baldur after the image of Christ. Another point, of considerable importance to the Christian missionary, was that, in Scandinavian heathendom, he had no priesthood to encounter. Scandinavian paganism never became an institution. There were temples, or at least altars, at Leire, near Roeskilde, in Denmark; at Sigtuna, near Upsall, in Sweden, and at Moere, near Drontheim, in Norway; and huge sacrifices of ninety-nine horses, ninety-nine cocks, and ninety-nine slaves were offered up there every Juul-time. But every man was his own priest. At the time when Christianity first appeared in Scandinavia, the old religion was evidently losing its hold on the individuals and for the very reason, that it had never succeeded in laying hold on the nation. People continued to swear by the gods, and drink in their honor; but they ceased to pray to them. They continued to sacrifice before taking the field or after the victory, and to make the sign of the cross, meaning Thor's hammer, over a child when it was named; but there was really nothing in their life, national or individual, public or private, which demanded religious consecration. As, on the one side, characters developed which actually went beyond the established religion, longing for something higher and deeper, it was, on the other side, still more frequent to meet with characters which passed by the established religion with utter indifference, believing in nothing but their own strength. The principal obstacle which Christianity had to encounter in Scandinavia was moral rather than religious. In his passions, the old Scandinavian was sometimes worse than a beast. Gluttony and drunkenness he considered as accomplishments. But he was chaste. A dishonored woman was very seldom heard of, adultery never. In his energy, he was sometimes fiercer than a demon. He destroyed for the sake of destruction, and there were no indignities or cruelties which he would not inflict upon a vanquished enemy. But for his friend, his king, his wife, his child, he would sacrifice everything, even life itself; and he would do it without a doubt, without a pang, in pure and noble enthusiasm. Such, however, as his morals were, they, had absolute sway over him. The gods he could forget, but not his duties. The evil one, among gods and men, was he who saw the duty, but stole away from it. The highest spiritual power among the old Scandinavians, their only enthusiasm, was their feeling of duty; but the direction which had been given to this feeling was so absolutely opposed to that pointed out by the Christian morality, that no reconciliation was possible. Revenge was the noblest sentiment and passion of man; forgiveness was a sin. The battle-field reeking with blood and fire was the highest beauty the earth could show; patient and peaceful labor was an abomination. It was quite natural, therefore, that the actual conflict between Christianity and Scandinavian paganism should take place in the field of morals. The pagans slew the missionaries, and burnt their schools and churches, not because they preached new gods, but because they "corrupted the morals of the people" (by averting them from their warlike pursuits), and when, after a contest of more than a century, it became apparent that Christianity would be victorious, the pagan heroes left the country in great swarms, as if they were flying from some awful plague. The first and hardest work which Christianity had to do in Scandinavia was generally humanitarian rather than specifically religious. __________________________________________________________________ § 29. The Christianization of Denmark. St. Ansgar. Ansgarius: Pigmenta, ed. Lappenberg. Hamburg, 1844. Vita Wilehadi, in Pertz: Monumenta II.; and in Migne: Patrol. Tom. 118, pp. 1014-1051. Rimbertus: Vita Ansgarii, in Pertz: Monumenta II., and in Migne, l.c. pp. 961-1011. Adamus Bremensis (d. 1076): Gesta Hamenburgensis Eccl. pontificum (embracing the history of the archbishopric of Hamburg, of Scandinavia, Denmark, and Northwestern Germany, from 788-1072); reprinted in Pertz: Monumenta, VII.; separate edition by Lappenberg. Hanover, 1846. Laurent: Leben der Erzb. Ansgar und Rimbert. 1856. A. Tappehorn: Leben d. h. Ansgar. 1863. G. Dehio: Geschichte d. Erzb. Hamburg-Bremen. 1877. H. N. A. Jensen: Schleswig-Holsteinische Kirchengeschichte, edit. A. L. J. Michelsen (1879). During the sixth and seventh centuries the Danes first came in contact with Christianity, partly through their commercial intercourse with Duerstede in Holland, partly through their perpetual raids on Ireland; and tales of the "White Christ" were frequently told among them, though probably with no other effect than that of wonder. The first Christian missionary who visited them and worked among them was Willebrord. Born in Northumbria and educated within the pale of the Keltic Kirk he went out, in 690, as a missionary to the Frises. Expelled by them he came, about 700, to Denmark, was well received by king Yngrin (Ogendus), formed a congregation and bought thirty Danish boys, whom he educated in the Christian religion, and of whom one, Sigwald, is still remembered as the patron saint of Nuremberg, St. Sebaldus. But his work seems to have been of merely temporary effect. Soon, however, the tremendous activity which Charlemagne developed as a political organizer, was felt even on the Danish frontier. His realm touched the Eyder. Political relations sprang up between the Roman empire and Denmark, and they opened a freer and broader entrance to the Christian missionaries. In Essehoe, in Holstein, Charlemagne built a chapel for the use of the garrison; in Hamburg he settled Heridock as the head of a Christian congregation; and from a passage in one of Alcuin's letters [128] it appears that a conversion of the Danes did not lie altogether outside of his plans. Under his successor, Lewis the Pious, Harald Klak, one of the many petty kings among whom Denmark was then divided, sought the emperor's support and decision in a family feud, and Lewis sent archbishop Ebo of Rheims, celebrated both as a political negotiator and as a zealous missionary, to Denmark. In 822 Ebo crossed the Eyder, accompanied by bishop Halitgar of Cambray. In the following years he made several journeys to Denmark, preached, baptized, and established a station of the Danish mission at Cella Wellana, the present Welnau, near Essehoe. But he was too much occupied with the internal affairs of the empire and the opportunity which now opened for the Danish mission, demanded the whole and undivided energy of a great man. In 826 Harald Klak was expelled and sought refuge with the emperor, Ebo acting as a mediator. At Ingelheim, near Mentz, the king, the queen, their son and their whole retinue, were solemnly baptized, and when Harald shortly after returned to Denmark with support from the emperor, he was accompanied by that man who was destined to become the Apostle of the North, Ansgar. Ansgar was born about 800 (according to general acceptation Sept. 9, 801) in the diocese of Amiens, of Frankish parents, and educated in the abbey of Corbie, under the guidance of Adalhard. Paschasius Radbertus was among his teachers. In 822 a missionary colony was planted by Corbie in Westphalia, and the German monastery of Corwey or New Corwey was founded. Hither Ansgar was removed, as teacher in the new school, and he soon acquired great fame both on account of his powers as a preacher and on account of his ardent piety. When still a boy he had holy visions, and was deeply impressed with the vanity of all earthly greatness. The crown of the martyr seemed to him the highest grace which human life could attain, and he ardently prayed that it might be given to him. The proposition to follow king Harald as a missionary, among the heathen Danes he immediately accepted, in spite of the remonstrances of his friends, and accompanied by Autbert he repaired, in 827, to Denmark, where he immediately established a missionary station at Hedeby, in the province of Schleswig. The task was difficult, but the beginning was not without success. Twelve young boys were bought to be educated as teachers, and not a few people were converted and baptized. His kindness to the poor, the sick, to all who were in distress, attracted attention; his fervor as a preacher and teacher produced sympathy without, as yet, provoking resistance. But in 829 king Harald was again expelled and retired to Riustri, a possession on the mouth of the Weser, which the emperor had given to him as a fief. Ansgar was compelled to follow him and the prospects of the Danish mission became very dark, the more so as Autbert had to give up any further participation in the work on account of ill health, and return to New Corwey. At this time an invitation from the Swedish king, Björn, gave Ansgar an opportunity to visit Sweden, and he stayed there till 831, when the establishment of an episcopal see at Hamburg, determined upon by the diet of Aix-le-chapelle in 831, promised to give the Danish mission a new impulse. All Scandinavia was laid under the new see, and Ansgar was consecrated its first bishop by bishop Drago of Metz, a brother of the emperor, with the solemn assistance of three archbishops, Ebo of Rheims, Hetti of Treves and Obgar of Mentz. A bull of Gregory IV. [129] confirmed the whole arrangement, and Ansgar received personally the pallium from the hands of the Pope. In 834 the emperor endowed the see with the rich monastery of Thorout, in West Flanders, south of Bruges, and the work of the Danish mission could now be pushed with vigor. Enabled to treat with the petty kings of Denmark on terms of equality, and possessed of means to impress them with the importance of the cause, Ansgar made rapid progress, but, as was to be expected, the progress soon awakened opposition. In 834 a swarm of heathen Danes penetrated with a fleet of six hundred small vessels into the Elb under the command of king Horich I., and laid siege to Hamburg. The city was taken, sacked and burnt; the church which Ansgar had built, the monastery in which he lived, his library containing a copy of the Bible which the emperor had presented to him, etc., were destroyed and the Christians were driven away from the place. For many days Ansgar fled from hiding-place to hiding-place in imminent danger of his life. He sought refuge with the bishop of Bremen, but the bishop of Bremen was jealous, because Scandinavia had not been laid under his see, and refused to give any assistance. The revenues of Thorout he lost, as the emperor, Charles the Bald, gave the fief to one of his favorites. Even his own pupils deserted him. In this great emergency his character shone forth in all its strength and splendor; he bore what God laid upon him in silence and made no complaint. Meanwhile Lewis the German came to his support. In 846 the see of Bremen became vacant. The see of Hamburg was then united to that of Bremen, and to this new see, which Ansgar was called to fill, a papal bull of May 31, 864, gave archiepiscopal rank. Installed in Bremen, Ansgar immediately took up again the Danish mission and again with success. He won even king Horich himself for the Christian cause, and obtained permission from him to build a church in Hedeby, the first Christian church in Denmark, dedicated to Our Lady. Under king Horich's son this church was allowed to have bells, a particular horror to the heathens, and a new and larger church was commenced in Ribe. By Ansgar's activity Christianity became an established and acknowledged institution in Denmark, and not only in Denmark but also in Sweden, which he visited once more, 848-850. The principal feature of his spiritual character was ascetic severity; he wore a coarse hair-shirt close to the skin, fasted much and spent most of his time in prayer. But with this asceticism he connected a great deal of practical energy; he rebuked the idleness of the monks, demanded of his pupils that they should have some actual work at hand, and was often occupied in knitting, while praying. His enthusiasm and holy raptures were also singularly well-tempered by good common sense. To those who wished to extol his greatness and goodness by ascribing miracles to him, he said that the greatest miracle in his life would be, if God ever made a thoroughly pious man out of him. [130] Most prominent, however, among the spiritual features of his character shines forth his unwavering faith in the final success of his cause and the never-failing patience with which this faith fortified his soul. In spite of apparent failure he never gave up his work; overwhelmed with disaster, he still continued it. From his death-bed he wrote a letter to king Lewis to recommend to him the Scandinavian mission. Other missionaries may have excelled him in sagacity and organizing talent, but none in heroic patience and humility. He died at Bremen, Feb. 3, 865, and lies buried there in the church dedicated to him. He was canonized by Nicholas I. Ansgar's successor in the archiepiscopal see of Hamburg-Bremen was his friend and biographer, Rimbert, 865-888. In his time all the petty kingdoms into which Denmark was divided, were gathered together under one sceptre by King Gorm the Old; but this event, in one respect very favorable to the rapid spread of Christianity, was in other respects a real obstacle to the Christian cause as it placed Denmark, politically, in opposition to Germany, which was the basis and only support of the Christian mission to Denmark. King Gorm himself was a grim heathen; but his queen, Thyra Danabod, had embraced Christianity, and both under Rimbert and his successor, Adalgar, 888-909, the Christian missionaries were allowed to work undisturbed. A new church, the third in Denmark, was built at Aarhus. But under Adalgar's successor, Unni, 909-936, King Gorm's fury, half political and half religious, suddenly burst forth. The churches were burnt, the missionaries were killed or expelled, and nothing but the decisive victory of Henry the Fowler, king of Germany, over the Danish king saved the Christians in Denmark from complete extermination. By the peace it was agreed that King Gorm should allow the preaching of Christianity in his realm, and Unni took up the cause again with great energy. Between Unni's successor, Adaldag, 936-988, and King Harald Blue Tooth, a son of Gorm the Old, there grew up a relation which almost might be called a co-operation. Around the three churches in Jutland: Schleswig, Ribe and Aarhus, and a fourth in Fünen: Odense, bishoprics were formed, and Adaldag consecrated four native bishops. The church obtained right to accept and hold donations, and instances of very large endowments occurred. The war between King Harald and the German king, Otto II., arose from merely political causes, but led to the baptism of the former, and soon after the royal residence was moved from Leire, one of the chief centres of Scandinavian heathendom, to Roeskilde, where a Christian church was built. Among the Danes, however, there was a large party which was very ill-pleased at this turn of affairs. They were heathens because heathenism was the only religion which suited their passions. They clung to Thor, not from conviction, but from pride. They looked down with indignation and dismay upon the transformation which Christianity everywhere effected both of the character and the life of the people. Finally they left the country and settled under the leadership of Palnatoke, at the mouth of the Oder, where they founded a kind of republic, Jomsborg. From this place they waged a continuous war upon Christianity in Denmark for more than a decade, and with dreadful effect. The names of the martyrs would fill a whole volume, says Adam of Bremen. The church in Roeskilde was burnt. The bishopric of Fünen was abolished. The king's own son, Swen, was one of the leaders, and the king himself was finally shot by Palnatoke, 991. Swen, however, soon fell out with the Joms vikings, and his invasion of England gave the warlike passions of the nation another direction. From the conquest of that country and its union with Denmark, the Danish mission received a vigorous impulse. King Swen himself was converted, and showed great zeal for Christianity. He rebuilt the church in Roeskilde, erected a new church at Lund, in Skaane, placed the sign of the cross on his coins, and exhorted, on his death-bed, his son Canute to work for the Christianization of Denmark. The ardor of the Hamburg-Bremen archbishops for the Danish mission seemed at this time to have cooled, or perhaps the growing difference between the language spoken to the north of the Eyder and that spoken to the south of that river made missionary work in Denmark very difficult for a German preacher. Ansgar had not felt this difference; but two centuries later it had probably become necessary for the German missionary to learn a foreign language before entering on his work in Denmark. Between England and Denmark there existed no such difference of language. King Canute the Great, during whose reign (1019-1035) the conversion of Denmark was completed, could employ English priests and monks in Denmark without the least embarrassment. He re-established the bishopric of Fünen, and founded two new bishoprics in Sealand and Skaane; and these three sees were filled with Englishmen consecrated by the archbishop of Canterbury. He invited a number of English monks to Denmark, and settled them partly as ecclesiastics at the churches, partly in small missionary stations, scattered all around in the country; and everywhere, in the style of the church-building and in the character of the service the English influence was predominating. This circumstance, however, did in no way affect the ecclesiastical relation between Denmark and the archiepiscopal see of Hamburg-Bremen. The authority of the archbishop, though not altogether unassailed, was nevertheless generally submitted to with good grace, and until in the twelfth century an independent Scandinavian archbishopric was established at Lund, with the exception of the above cases, he always appointed and consecrated the Danish bishops. Also the relation to the Pope was very cordial. Canute made a pilgrimage to Rome, and founded several Hospitia Danorum there. He refused, however, to permit the introduction of the Peter's pence in Denmark, and the tribute which, up to the fourteenth century, was annually sent from that country to Rome, was considered a voluntary gift. The last part of Denmark which was converted was the island of Bornholm. It was christianized in 1060 by Bishop Egius of Lund. It is noticeable, however, that in Denmark Christianity was not made a part of the law of the land, such as was the case in England and in Norway. __________________________________________________________________ [128] Epist. 13, in Monumenta Alcuiniana, Ed. Jaffé. [129] Mabillon: Act. Sanct. Bened. Ord. IV. 2, p. 124. [130] Si dignus essem apud Deum meum, rogarem quatenus unum mihi concederet signum, videlicet ut de me sua gratia faceret bonum hominem." Vita by Rimbert, c. 67 (Migne 118, p. 1008). __________________________________________________________________ § 30. The Christianization of Sweden. Rimbertus: Vita Ansgarii, in Pertz: Monumenta II. Adamus Bremensis: Gesta Ham. Eccl. Pont., in Pertz: Monumenta VII; separate edition by Lappenberg. Hanover, 1846. Historia S. Sigfridi, in Scriptt. Rer. Suec. Medii-oevi, T. II. Just when the expulsion of Harald Klak compelled Ansgar to give up the Danish mission, at least for the time being, an embassy was sent by the Swedish king, Björn, to the emperor, Lewis the Pious, asking him to send Christian missionaries to Sweden. Like the Danes, the Swedes had become acquainted with Christianity through their wars and commercial connections with foreign countries, and with many this acquaintance appears to have awakened an actual desire to become Christians. Accordingly Ansgar went to Sweden in 829, accompanied by Witmar. While crossing the Baltic, the vessel was overtaken and plundered by pirates, and he arrived empty handed, not to say destitute, at Björkö or Birka, the residence of King Björn, situated on an island in the Maelarn. Although poverty, and misery were very poor introduction to a heathen king in ancient Scandinavia, he was well received by the king; and in Hergeir, one of the most prominent men at the court of Birka, he found a warm and reliable friend. Hergeir built the first Christian chapel in Sweden, and during his whole life he proved an unfailing and powerful support of the Christian cause. After two years' successful labor, Ansgar returned to Germany; but he did not forget the work begun. As soon as he was well established as bishop in Hamburg, he sent, in 834, Gautbert, a nephew of Ebo, to Sweden, accompanied by Nithard and a number of other Christian priests, and well provided with everything necessary for the work. Gautbert labored with great success. In Birka he built a church, and thus it became possible for the Christians, scattered all over Sweden, to celebrate service and partake of the Lord's Supper in their own country without going to Duerstede or some other foreign place. But here, as in Denmark, the success of the Christian mission aroused the jealousy and hatred of the heathen, and, at last, even Hergeir was not able to keep them within bounds. An infuriated swarm broke into the house of Gautbert. The house was plundered; Nithard was murdered; the church was burnt, and Gautbert himself was sent in chains beyond the frontier. He never returned to Sweden, but died as bishop of Osnabrück, shortly before Ansgar. When Ansgar first heard of the outbreak in Sweden, he was himself flying before the fury of the Danish heathen, and for several years he was unable to do anything for the Swedish mission. Ardgar, a former hermit, now a priest, went to Sweden, and in Birka he found that Hergeir had succeeded in keeping together and defending the Christian congregation; but Hergeir died shortly after, and with him fell the last defence against the attacks of the heathen and barbarians. Meanwhile Ansgar had been established in the archiepiscopal see of Hamburg-Bremen. In 848, he determined to go himself to Sweden. The costly presents he gave to king Olaf, the urgent letters he brought from the emperor, and the king of Denmark, the magnificence and solemnity of the appearance of the mission made a deep impression. The king promised that the question should be laid before the assembled people, whether or not they would allow Christianity to be preached again in the country. In the assembly it was the address of an old Swede, proving that the god of the Christians was stronger even than Thor, and that it was poor policy for a nation not to have the strongest god, which finally turned the scales, and once more the Christian missionaries were allowed to preach undisturbed in the country, . Before Ansgar left, in 850, the church was rebuilt in Birka, and, for a number of years, the missionary labor was continued with great zeal by Erimbert, a nephew of Gautbert, by Ansfrid, born a Dane, and by Rimbert, also a Dane. Nevertheless, although the persecutions ceased, Christianity made little progress, and when, in 935, Archbishop Unni himself visited Birka, his principal labor consisted in bringing back to the Christian fold such members as had strayed away among the heathen, and forgotten their faith. Half a century later, however, during the reign of Olaf Skotkonge, the mission received a vigorous impulse. The king himself and his sons were won for the Christian cause, and from Denmark a number of English missionaries entered the country. The most prominent among these was Sigfrid, who has been mentioned beside Ansgar as the apostle of the North. By his exertions many were converted, and Christianity became a legally recognized religion in the country beside the old heathenism. In the Southern part of Sweden, heathen sacrifices ceased, and heathen altars disappeared. In the Northern part, however, the old faith still continued to live on, partly because it was difficult for the missionaries to penetrate into those wild and forbidding regions, partly because there existed a difference of tribe between the Northern and Southern Swedes, which again gave rise to political differences. The Christianization of Sweden was not completed until the middle of the twelfth century. __________________________________________________________________ § 31. The Christianization of Norway and Iceland. Snorre Sturleson (d. 1241): Heimskringla (i.e. Circle of Home, written first in Icelandic), seu Historia Regum Septentrionalium, etc. Stockholm, 1697, 2 vols. The same in Icelandic, Danish, and Latin. Havn., 1777-1826; in German by Mohnike, 1835; in English, transl. by Sam. Laing. London, 1844, 3 vols. This history of the Norwegian kings reaches from the mythological age to a.d. 1177. N. P. Sibbern: Bibliotheca Historica Dano-Norvegica. Hamburg, 1716. Fornmanna-Sögur seu Scripta Hist. Islandorum. Hafniae, 1828. K. Maurer: Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes zum Christenthum. München, 1855-56, 2 vols. Thomas Carlyle: Early Kings of Norway. London and N. York, 1875. G. F. Maclear: The Conversion of the Northmen. London, 1879. Christianity was introduced in Norway almost exclusively by the exertions of the kings, and the means employed were chiefly violence and tricks. The people accepted Christianity not because they had become acquainted with it and felt a craving for it, but because they were compelled to accept it, and the result was that heathen customs and heathen ideas lived on in Christian Norway for centuries after they had disappeared from the rest of Scandinavia. The first attempt to introduce Christianity in the country was made in the middle of the tenth century by Hakon the Good. Norway was gathered into one state in the latter part of the ninth century by Harald Haarfagr, but internal wars broke out again under Harald's son and successor, Eric. These troubles induced Hakon, an illegitimate son of Harald Haarfagr and educated in England at the court of king Athelstan, to return to Norway and lay claim to the crown. He succeeded in gaining a party in his favor, expelled Eric and conquered all Norway, where he soon became exceedingly popular, partly on account of his valor and military ability, partly also on account of the refinement and suavity of his manners. Hakon was a Christian, and the Christianization of Norway seems to have been his highest goal from the very first days of his reign. But he was prudent. Without attracting any great attention to the matter, he won over to Christianity a number of those who stood nearest to him, called Christian priests from England, and built a church at Drontheim. Meanwhile he began to think that the time had come for a more public and more decisive step, and at the great Frostething, where all the most prominent men of the country were assembled, he addressed the people on the matter and exhorted them to become Christians. The answer he received was very characteristic. They had no objection to Christianity itself, for they did not know what it meant, but they suspected the king's proposition, as if it were a political stratagem by means of which he intended to defraud them of their political rights and liberties. Thus they not only refused to become Christians themselves, but even compelled the king to partake in their heathen festivals and offer sacrifices to their heathen gods. The king was very indignant and determined to take revenge, but just as he had got an army together, the sons of the expelled Eric landed in Norway and in the battle against them, 961, he received a deadly wound. The sons of Eric, who had lived in England during their exile, were likewise Christians, and they took up the cause of Christianity in a very high-handed manner, overthrowing the heathen altars and forbidding sacrifices. But the impression they made was merely odious, and their successor, Hakon Jarl, was a rank heathen. The first time Christianity really gained a footing in Norway, was under Olaf Trygveson. Descended from Harald Haarfagr, but sold, while a child, as a slave in Esthonia, he was ransomed by a relative who incidentally met him and recognized his own kin in the beauty of the boy, and was educated at Moscow. Afterwards he roved about much in Denmark, Wendland, England and Ireland, living as a sea-king. In England he became acquainted with Christianity and immediately embraced it, but he carried his viking-nature almost unchanged over into Christianity, and a fiercer knight of the cross was probably never seen. Invited to Norway by a party which had grown impatient of the tyranny of Hakon Jarl, he easily made himself master of the country, in 995, and immediately set about making Christianity its religion, "punishing severely," as Snorre says, "all who opposed him, killing some, mutilating others, and driving the rest into banishment." In the Southern part there still lingered a remembrance of Christianity from the days of Hakon the Good, and things went on here somewhat more smoothly, though Olaf more than once gave the people assembled in council with him the choice between fighting him or accepting baptism forthwith. But in the Northern part all the craft and all the energy of the king were needed in order to overcome the opposition. Once, at a great heathen festival at Moere, he told the assembled people that, if he should return to the heathen gods it would be necessary for him to make some great and awful sacrifice, and accordingly he seized twelve of the most prominent men present and prepared to sacrifice them to Thor. They were rescued, however, when the whole assembly accepted Christianity and were baptized. In the year 1000, he fell in a battle against the united Danish and Swedish kings, but though he reigned only five years, he nevertheless succeeded in establishing Christianity as the religion of Norway and, what is still more remarkable, no general relapse into heathenism seems to have taken place after his death. During the reign of Olaf the Saint, who ruled from a.d. 1014-'30, the Christianization of the country was completed. His task it was to uproot heathenism wherever it was still found lurking, and to give the Christian religion an ecclesiastical organization. Like his predecessors, he used craft and violence to reach his goal. Heathen idols and altars disappeared, heathen customs and festivals were suppressed, the civil laws were brought into conformity with the rules of Christian morals. The country was divided into dioceses and parishes, churches were built, and regular revenues were raised for the sustenance of the clergy. For the most part he employed English monks and priests, but with the consent of the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, under whose authority he placed the Norwegian church. After his death, in the battle of Stiklestad, July 29, 1030, he was canonized and became the patron saint of Norway. To Norway belonged, at that time, Iceland. From Icelandic tradition as well as from the "De Mensura Orbis" by Dicuilus, an Irish monk in the beginning of the ninth century, it appears that Culdee anchorites used to retire to Iceland as early as the beginning of the eighth century, while the island was still uninhabited. These anchorites, however, seem to have had no influence whatever on the Norwegian settlers who, flying from the tyranny of Harald Haarfagr, came to Iceland in the latter part of the ninth century and began to people the country. The new-comers were heathen, and they looked with amazement at Auda the Rich, the widow of Olaf the White, king of Dublin, who in 892 took up her abode in Iceland and reared a lofty cross in front of her house. But the Icelanders were great travellers, and one of them, Thorvald Kodranson, who in Saxony had embraced Christianity, brought bishop Frederic home to Iceland. Frederic stayed there for four years, and his preaching found easy access among the people. The mission of Thangbrand in the latter part of the tenth century failed, but when Norway, or at least the Norwegian coast, became Christian, the intimate relation between Iceland and Norway soon brought the germs which Frederic had planted, into rapid growth, and in the year 1000 the Icelandic Althing declared Christianity to be the established religion of the country. The first church was built shortly after from timber sent by Olaf the Saint from Norway to the treeless island. IV. THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE SLAVS. __________________________________________________________________ § 32. General Survey. A. Regenvolscius: Systema Hist. chronol. Ecclesiarum Slavonic. Traj. ad Rhen., 1652. A. Wengerscius: Hist. ecclesiast. Ecclesiarum Slavonic. Amst., 1689. Kohlius: Introductio in Hist. Slavorum imprimis sacram. Altona, 1704. J. Ch. Jordan: Origines Slavicae. Vindob., 1745. S. de Bohusz: Recherches hist. sur l'origine des Sarmates, des Esclavons, et des Slaves, et sur les époques de la conversion de ces peuples. St. Petersburg and London, 1812. P. J. Schafarik: Slavische Alterthümer. Leipzig, 1844, 2 vols. Horvat: Urgeschichte der Slaven. Pest, 1844. W. A. Maciejowsky: Essai Hist. sur l'église ehrét. primitive de deux rites chez les Slaves. Translated from Polish into French by L. F. Sauvet, Paris, 1846. At what time the Slavs first made their appearance in Europe is not known. Latin and Greek writers of the second half of the sixth century, such as Procopius, Jornandes, Agathias, the emperor Mauritius and others, knew only those Slavs who lived along the frontiers of the Roman empire. In the era of Charlemagne the Slavs occupied the whole of Eastern Europe from the Baltic to the Balkan; the Obotrites and Wends between the Elbe and the Vistula; the Poles around the Vistula, and behind them the Russians; the Czechs in Bohemia. Further to the South the compact mass of Slavs was split by the invasion of various Finnish or Turanian tribes; the Huns in the fifth century, the Avars in the sixth, the Bulgarians in the seventh, the Magyars in the ninth. The Avars penetrated to the Adriatic, but were thrown back in 640 by the Bulgarians; they then settled in Panonia, were subdued and converted by Charlemagne, 791-796, and disappeared altogether from history in the ninth century. The Bulgarians adopted the Slavic language and became Slavs, not only in language, but also in customs and habits. Only the Magyars, who settled around the Theiss and the Danube, and are the ruling race in Hungary, vindicated themselves as a distinct nationality. The great mass of Slavs had no common political organization, but formed a number of kingdoms, which flourished, some for a shorter, and others for a longer period, such as Moravia, Bulgaria, Bohemia, Poland, and Russia. In a religious respect also great differences existed among them. They were agriculturists, and their gods were representatives of natural forces; but while Radigost and Sviatovit, worshipped by the Obotrites and Wends, were cruel gods, in whose temples, especially at Arcona in the island of Rügen, human beings were sacrificed, Svarog worshipped by the Poles, and Dazhbog, worshipped by the Bohemians, were mild gods, who demanded love and prayer. Common to all Slavs, however, was a very elaborate belief in fairies and trolls; and polygamy, sometimes connected with sutteeism, widely prevailed among them. Their conversion was attempted both by Constantinople and by Rome; but the chaotic and ever-shifting political conditions under which they lived, the rising difference and jealousy between the Eastern and Western churches, and the great difficulty which the missionaries experienced in learning their language, presented formidable obstacles, and at the close of the period the work was not yet completed. __________________________________________________________________ § 33. Christian Missions among the Wends. ADAM Of BRENEN (d. 1067): Gesta Hammenb. (Hamburgensis) Eccl. Pont., in Pertz: Monumenta Germ., VII. Helmoldus (d. 1147) and Arnoldus Lubecensis: Chronicon Slavorum sive Annales Slavorum, from Charlemagne to 1170, ed. H. Bangert. Lubecae, 1659. German translation by Laurent. Berlin, 1852. Spieker: Kirchengeschichte der Mark Brandenburg. Berlin, 1839. Wiggers: Kirchengeschichte Mecklenburgs. Parchim, 1840. Giesebrecht: Wendische Geschichten. Berlin, 1843. Charlemagne was the first who attempted to introduce Christianity among the Slavic tribes which, under the collective name of Wends, occupied the Northern part of Germany, along the coast of the Baltic, from the mouth of the Elbe to the Vistula: Wagrians in Holstein, Obotrites in Mecklenburg, Sorbians on the Saxon boundary, Wilzians in Brandenburg, etc. But in the hands of Charlemagne, the Christian mission was a political weapon; and to the Slavs, acceptation of Christianity became synonymous with political and national subjugation. Hence their fury against Christianity which, time after time, broke forth, volcano-like, and completely destroyed the work of the missionaries. The decisive victories which Otto I. gained over the Wends, gave him an opportunity to attempt, on a large scale, the establishment of the Christian church among them. Episcopal sees were founded at Havelberg in 946, at Altenburg or Oldenburg in 948, at Meissen, Merseburg, and Zeitz in 968, and in the last year an archiepiscopal see was founded at Magdeburg. Boso, a monk from St. Emmeran, at Regensburg, who first had translated the formulas of the liturgy into the language of the natives, became bishop of Merseburg, and Adalbert, who first had preached Christianity in the island of Rügen, became archbishop. But again the Christian church was used as a means for political purposes, and, in the reign of Otto II., a fearful rising took place among the Wends under the leadership of Prince Mistiwoi. He had become a Christian himself; but, indignant at the suppression which was practiced in the name of the Christian religion, he returned to heathenism, assembled the tribes at Rethre, one of the chief centres of Wendish heathendom, and began, in 983, a war which spread devastation all over Northern Germany. The churches and monasteries were burnt, and the Christian priests were expelled. Afterwards Mistiwoi was seized with remorse, and tried to cure the evil he had done in an outburst of passion. But then his subjects abandoned him; he left the country, and spent the last days of his life in a Christian monastery at Bardewick. His grandson, Gottschalk, whose Slavic name is unknown, was educated in the Christian faith in the monastery of St. Michael., near Lüneburg; but when he heard that his father, Uto, had been murdered, 1032, the old heathen instincts of revenge at once awakened within him. He left the monastery, abandoned Christianity, and raised a storm of persecution against the Christians, which swept over all Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, and Holstein. Defeated and taken prisoner by Bernard of Lower Saxony, he returned to Christianity; lived afterwards at the court of Canute the Great in Denmark and England; married a Danish princess, and was made ruler of the Obotrites. A great warrior, he conquered Holstein and Pommerania, and formed a powerful Wendish empire; and on this solid political foundation, he attempted, with considerable success, to build up the Christian church. The old bishoprics were re-established, and new ones were founded at Razzeburg and Mecklenburg; monasteries were built at Leuzen, Oldenburg, Razzeburg, Lübeck, and Mecklenburg; missionaries were provided by Adalbert, archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen; the liturgy was translated into the native tongue, and revenues were raised for the support of the clergy, the churches, and the service. But, as might have been expected, the deeper Christianity penetrated into the mass of the people, the fiercer became the resistance of the heathen. Gottschalk was murdered at Lentz, June 7, 1066, together with his old teacher, Abbot Uppo, and a general rising now took place. The churches and schools were destroyed; the priests and monks were stoned or killed as sacrifices on the heathen altars; and Christianity, was literally swept out of the country. It took several decades before a new beginning could be made, and the final Christianization of the Wends was not achieved until the middle of the twelfth century. __________________________________________________________________ § 34. Cyrillus and Methodius, the Apostles of the Slavs. Christianization of Moravia, Bohemia and Poland. F. M. Pelzel et J. Dobrowsky: Rerrum Bohemic. Scriptores. Prague. Friese: Kirchengeschichte d. Konigreichs Polen. Breslau, 1786. Franz. Palacky: Geschichte von Böhmen. Prague, 3d ed., 1864 sqq., 5 vols. (down to 1520). Wattenbach: Geschichte d. christl. Kirche in Böhmen und Mähren. Wien, 1849. A. Friud: Die Kirchengesch. Böhmens. Prague, 1863 sqq. Biographies of Cyrillus and Methodius, by J. Dobrowsky (Prague, 1823, and 1826); J. A. Ginzel (Geschichte der Slawenapostel und der Slawischen Liturgie. Leitmeritz, 1857); Philaret (in the Russian, German translation, Mitau, 1847); J. E. Biley (Prague, 1863); Dümmler and F. Milkosisch (Wien, 1870). The Moravian Slavs were subjugated by Charlemagne, and the bishop of Passau was charged with the establishment of a Christian mission among them. Moymir, their chief, was converted and bishoprics were founded at Olmütz and Nitra. But Lewis the German suspected Moymir of striving after independence and supplanted him by Rastislaw or Radislaw. Rastislaw, however, accomplished what Moymir had only been suspected of. He formed an independent Moravian kingdom and defeated Lewis the German, and with the political he also broke the ecclesiastical connections with Germany, requesting the Byzantine emperor, Michael III., to send him some Greek missionaries. Cyrillus and Methodius became the apostles of the Slavs. Cyrillus, whose original name was Constantinus, was born at Thessalonica, in the first half of the ninth century, and studied philosophy in Constantinople, whence his by-name: the philosopher. Afterwards he devoted himself to the study of theology, and went to live, together with his brother Methodius, in a monastery. A strong ascetic, he became a zealous missionary. In 860 he visited the Chazares, a Tartar tribe settled on the North-Eastern shore of the Black Sea, and planted a Christian church there. He afterward labored among the Bulgarians and finally went, in company with his brother, to Moravia, on the invitation of Rastislaw, in 863. Cyrillus understood the Slavic language, and succeeded in making it available for literary purposes by inventing a suitable alphabet. He used Greek letters, with some Armenian and Hebrew, and some original letters. His Slavonic alphabet is still used with alterations in Russia, Wallachia, Moldavia, Bulgaria, and Servia. He translated the liturgy and the pericopes into Slavic, and his ability to preach and celebrate service in the native language soon brought hundreds of converts into his fold. A national Slavic church rapidly arose; the German priests with the Latin liturgy left the country. It corresponded well with the political plans of Rastislaw, to have a church establishment entirely independent of the German prelates, but in the difference which now developed between the Eastern and Western churches, it was quite natural for the young Slavic church to connect itself with Rome and not with Constantinople, partly because Cyrillus always had shown a kind of partiality to Rome, partly because the prudence and discrimination with which Pope Nicholas I. recently had interfered in the Bulgarian church, must have made a good impression. In 868 Cyrillus and Methodius went to Rome, and a perfect agreement was arrived at between them and Pope Adrian II., both with respect to the use of the Slavic language in religious service and with respect to the independent position of the Slavic church, subject only to the authority of the Pope. Cyrillus died in Rome, Feb. 14, 869, but Methodius returned to Moravia, having been consecrated archbishop of the Pannonian diocese. The organization of this new diocese of Pannonia was, to some extent, an encroachment on the dioceses of Passau and Salzburg, and such an encroachment must have been so much the more irritating to the German prelates, as they really had been the first to sow the seed of Christianity among the Slavs. The growing difference between the Eastern and Western churches also had its effect. The German clergy considered the use of the Slavic language in the mass an unwarranted innovation, and the Greek doctrine of the single procession of the Holy Spirit, still adhered to by Methodius and the Slavic church, they considered as a heresy. Their attacks, however, had at first no practical consequences, but when Rastislaw was succeeded in 870 by Swatopluk, and Adrian II. in 872 by John VIII., the position of Methodius became difficult. Once more, in 879, he was summoned to Rome, and although, this time too, a perfect agreement was arrived at, by which the independence of the Slavic church was confirmed, and all her natural peculiarities were acknowledged, neither the energy of Methodius, nor the support of the Pope was able to defend her against the attacks which now were made upon her both from without and from within. Swatopluk inclined towards the German-Roman views, and Wichin one of Methodius's bishops, became their powerful champion. After the death of Swatopluk, the Moravian kingdom fell to pieces and was divided between the Germans, the Czechs of Bohemia, and the Magyars of Hungary; and thereby the Slavic church lost, so to speak, its very foundation. Methodius died between 881 and 910. At the opening of the tenth century the Slavic church had entirely lost its national character. The Slavic priests were expelled and the Slavic liturgy abolished, German priests and the Latin liturgy taking their place. The expelled priests fled to Bulgaria, whither they brought the Slavic translations of the Bible and the liturgy. Neither Charlemagne nor Lewis the Pious succeeded in subjugating Bohemia, and although the country was added to the diocese of Regensburg, the inhabitants remained pagans. But when Bohemia became a dependency of the Moravian empire and Swatopluk married a daughter of the Bohemian duke, Borziwai, a door was opened to Christianity. Borziwai and his wife, Ludmilla, were baptized, and their children were educated in the Christian faith. Nevertheless, when Wratislav, Borziwai's son and successor, died in 925, a violent reaction took place. He left two sons, Wenzeslav and Boleslav, who were placed under the tutelage of their grandmother, Ludmilla. But their mother, Drahomira, was an inveterate heathen, and she caused the murder first of Ludmilla, and then of Wenzeslav, 938. Boleslav, surnamed the Cruel, had his mother's nature and also her faith, and he almost succeeded in sweeping Christianity out of Bohemia. But in 950 he was utterly defeated by the emperor, Otto I., and compelled not only to admit the Christian priests into the country, but also to rebuild the churches which had been destroyed, and this misfortune seems actually to have changed his mind. He now became, if not friendly, at least forbearing to his Christian subjects, and, during the reign of his son and successor, Boleslav the Mild, the Christian Church progressed so far in Bohemia that an independent archbishopric was founded in Prague. The mass of the people, however, still remained barbarous, and heathenish customs and ideas lingered among them for more than a century. Adalbert, archbishop of Prague, from 983 to 997, [131] preached against polygamy, the trade in Christian slaves, chiefly carried on by the Jews, but in vain. Twice he left his see, disgusted and discouraged; finally he was martyred by the Prussian Wends. Not until 1038 archbishop Severus succeeded in enforcing laws concerning marriage, the celebration of the Lord's Day, and other points of Christian morals. About the contest between the Romano-Slavic and the Romano-Germanic churches in Bohemia, nothing is known. Legend tells that Methodius himself baptized Borziwai and Ludmilla, and the first missionary, work was, no doubt, done by Slavic priests, but at the time of Adalbert the Germanic tendency was prevailing. Also among the Poles the Gospel was first preached by Slavic missionaries, and Cyrillus and Methodius are celebrated in the Polish liturgy [132] as the apostles of the country. As the Moravian empire under Rastislaw comprised vast regions which afterward belonged to the kingdom of Poland, it is only natural that the movement started by Cyrillus and Methodius should have reached also these regions, and the name of at least one Slavic missionary among the Poles, Wiznach, is known to history. After the breaking up of the Moravian kingdom, Moravian nobles and priests sought refuge in Poland, and during the reign of duke Semovit Christianity had become so powerful among the Poles, that it began to excite the jealousy of the pagans, and a violent contest took place. By the marriage between Duke Mieczyslav and the Bohemian princess Dombrowka, a sister of Boleslav the Mild, the influence of Christianity became still stronger. Dombrowka brought a number of Bohemian priests with her to Poland, 965, and in the following year Mieczyslav himself was converted and baptized. With characteristic arrogance he simply demanded that all his subjects should follow his example, and the pagan idols were now burnt or thrown into the river, pagan sacrifices were forbidden and severely punished, and Christian churches were built. So far the introduction of Christianity among the Poles was entirely due to Slavic influences, but at this time the close political connection between Duke Mieczyslav and Otto I. opened the way for a powerful German influence. Mieczyslav borrowed the whole organization of the Polish church from Germany. It was on the advice of Otto I. that he founded the first Polish bishopric at Posen and placed it under the authority of the archbishop of Magdeburg. German priests, representing Roman doctrines and rites, and using the Latin language, began to work beside the Slavic priests who represented Greek doctrines and rites and used the native language, and when finally the Polish church was placed wholly under the authority of Rome, this was not due to any spontaneous movement within the church itself, such as Polish chroniclers like to represent it, but to the influence of the German emperor and the German church. Under Mieczyslav's son, Boleslav Chrobry, the first king of Poland and one of the most brilliant heroes of Polish history, Poland, although christianized only on the surface, became itself the basis for missionary labor among other Slavic tribes. It was Boleslav who sent Adalbert of Prague among the Wends, and when Adalbert here was pitifully martyred, Boleslav ransomed his remains, had them buried at Gnesen (whence they afterwards were carried to Prague), and founded here an archiepiscopal see, around which the Polish church was finally consolidated. The Christian mission, however, was in the hands of Boleslav, just as it often had been in the hands of the German emperors, and sometimes even in the hands of the Pope himself, nothing but a political weapon. The mass of the population of his own realm was still pagan in their very hearts. Annually the Poles assembled on the day on which their idols had been thrown into the rivers or burnt, and celebrated the memory of their gods by dismal dirges, [133] and the simplest rules of Christian morals could be enforced only by the application of the most barbarous punishments. Yea, under the political disturbances which occurred after the death of Mieczyslav II., 1034, a general outburst of heathenism took place throughout the Polish kingdom, and it took a long time before it was fully put down. __________________________________________________________________ [131] Passio S. Adalberti, in Scriptores Rerum Prussicarum I., and Vita S. Adalberti in Monumenta German. IV. [132] Missale proprium regum Poloniae, Venet. 1629; Officia propria patronorum regni Poloniae, Antwerp, 1627. [133] Grimm: Deutsche Mythologie, II. 733. __________________________________________________________________ § 35. The Conversion of the Bulgarians. Constantinus Porphyrogenitus: Life of Basilius Macedo, in Hist. Byzant. Continuatores post Theophanem. Greek and Latin, Paris, 1685. Photii Epistola, ed. Richard. Montacutius. London, 1647. Nicholas I.: Responsa ad Consulta Bulgarorum, in Mansi: Coll. Concil., Tom. XV., pp. 401-434; and in Harduin: Coll. Concil., V., pp. 353-386. A. Pichler: Geschichte der kirchlichen Trennung zwischen dem Orient und Occident. München, 1864, I., pp. 192 sqq. Comp. the biographies of Cyrillus and Methodius, mentioned in § 34. The Bulgarians were of Turanian descent, but, having lived for centuries among Slavic nations, they had adopted Slavic language, religion, customs and habits. Occupying the plains between the Danube and the Balkan range, they made frequent inroads into the territory of the Byzantine empire. In 813 they conquered Adrianople and carried a number of Christians, among whom was the bishop himself, as prisoners to Bulgaria. Here these Christian prisoners formed a congregation and began to labor for the conversion of their captors, though not with any great success, as it would seem, since the bishop was martyred. But in 861 a sister of the Bulgarian prince, Bogoris, who had been carried as a prisoner to Constantinople, and educated there in the Christian faith, returned to her native country, and her exertions for the conversion of her brother at last succeeded. Methodius was sent to her aid, and a picture he painted of the last judgment is said to have made an overwhelming impression on Bogoris, and determined him to embrace Christianity. He was baptized in 863, and entered immediately in correspondence with Photius, the patriarch of Constantinople. His baptism, however, occasioned a revolt among his subjects, and the horrible punishment, which he inflicted upon the rebels, shows how little as yet he had understood the teachings of Christianity. Meanwhile Greek missionaries, mostly monks, had entered the country, but they were intriguing, arrogant, and produced nothing but confusion among the people. In 865 Bogoris addressed himself to Pope Nicolas I., asking for Roman missionaries, and laying before the Pope one hundred and six questions concerning Christian doctrines, morals and ritual, which he wished to have answered. The Pope sent two bishops to Bulgaria, and gave Bogoris very elaborate and sensible answers to his questions. Nevertheless, the Roman mission did not succeed either. The Bulgarians disliked to submit to any foreign authority. They desired the establishment of an independent national church, but this was not to be gained either from Rome or from Constantinople. Finally the Byzantine emperor, Basilius Macedo, succeeded in establishing Greek bishops and a Greek archbishop in the country, and thus the Bulgarian church came under the authority of the patriarch of Constantinople, but its history up to this very day has been a continuous struggle against this authority. The church is now ruled by a Holy Synod, with an independent exarch. Fearful atrocities of the Turks against the Christians gave rise to the Russo-Turkish war in 1877, and resulted in the independence of Bulgaria, which by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 was constituted into "an autonomous and tributary principality, under the suzerainty of the Sultan," but with a Christian government and a national militia. Religious proselytism is prohibited, and religious school-books must be previously examined by the Holy Synod. But Protestant missionaries are at work among the people, and practically enjoy full liberty. __________________________________________________________________ § 36. The Conversion of the Magyars. Joh. de Thwrocz: Chronica Hungarorum, in Schwandtner: Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum, I. Vienna, 1746-8. Vita S. Stephani, in Act. Sanctor. September. Vita S. Adalberti, in Monument. German. IV. Horvath: History of Hungary. Pest, 1842-46. Aug. Theiner: Monumenta vetera historica Hungariam sacram illustrantia. Rom., 1859, 1860, 2 Tom. fol. The Magyars, belonging to the Turanian family of nations, and allied to the Finns and the Turks, penetrated into Europe in the ninth century, and settled, in 884, in the plains between the Bug and the Sereth, near the mouth of the Danube. On the instigation of the Byzantine emperor, Leo the Wise, they attacked the Bulgarians, and completely defeated them. The military renown they thus acquired gave them a new opportunity. The Frankish king Arnulf invoked their aid against Swatopluk, the ruler of the Moravian empire. Swatopluk, too, was defeated, and his realm was divided between the victors. The Magyars, retracing their steps across the Carpathian range, settled in the plains around the Theiss and the Danube, the country which their forefathers, the Huns, once had ruled over, the, present Hungary. They were a wild and fierce race, worshipping one supreme god under the guise of various natural phenomena: the sky, the river, etc. They had no temples and no priesthood, and their sacrifices consisted of animals only, mostly horses. But the oath was kept sacred among them, and their marriages were monogamous, and inaugurated with religious rites. The first acquaintance with Christianity the Magyars made through their connections with the Byzantine court, without any further consequences. But after settling in Hungary, where they were surrounded on all sides by Christian nations, they were compelled, in 950, by the emperor, Otto I., to allow the bishop of Passau to send missionaries into their country; and various circumstances contributed to make this mission a rapid and complete success. Their prince, Geyza, had married a daughter of the Transylvanian prince, Gyula, and this princess, Savolta, had been educated in the Christian faith. Thus Geyza felt friendly towards the Christians; and as soon as this became known, Christianity broke forth from the mass of the population like flowers from the earth when spring has come. The people which the Magyars had subdued when settling in Hungary, and the captives whom they had carried along with them from Bulgaria and Moravia, were Christians. Hitherto these Christians had concealed their religion from fear of their rulers, and their children had been baptized clandestinely; but now they assembled in great multitudes around the missionaries, and the entrance of Christianity into Hungary looked like a triumphal march. [134] Political disturbances afterwards interrupted this progress, but only for a short time. Adalbert of Prague visited the country, and made a great impression. He baptized Geyza's son, Voik, born in 961, and gave him the name of Stephanus, 994. Adalbert's pupil, Rodla, remained for a longer period in the country, and was held in so high esteem by the people, that they afterwards would not let him go. When Stephanus ascended the throne in 997, he determined at once to establish Christianity as the sole religion of his realm, and ordered that all Magyars should be baptized, and that all Christian slaves should be set free. This, however, caused a rising of the pagan party under the head of Kuppa, a relative of Stephanus; but Kuppa was defeated at Veszprim, and the order had to be obeyed. Stephanus' marriage with Gisela, a relative of the emperor, Otto III., brought him in still closer contact with the German empire, and he, like Mieczyslav of Poland, borrowed the whole ecclesiastical organization from the German church. Ten bishoprics were formed, and placed under the authority of the archbishop of Gran on the Danube (which is still the seat of the primate of Hungary); churches were built, schools and monasteries were founded, and rich revenues were procured for their support; the clergy was declared the first order in rank, and the Latin language was made the official language not only in ecclesiastical, but also in secular matters. As a reward for his zeal, Stephanus was presented by Pope Silvester II. with a golden crown, and, in the year 1000, he was solemnly crowned king by the archbishop of Gran, while a papal bull conferred on him the title of "His Apostolic Majesty." And, indeed, Stephanus was the apostle of the Magyars. As most of the priests and monks, called from Germany, did not understand the language of the people, the king himself travelled about from town to town, preached, prayed, and exhorted all to keep the Lord's Day, the fast, and other Christian duties. Nevertheless, it took a long time before Christianity really took hold of the Magyars, chiefly on account of the deep gulf created between the priests and their flocks, partly by the difference of language, partly by the exceptional position which Stephanus had given the clergy in the community, and which the clergy soon learned to utilize for selfish purposes. Twice during the eleventh century there occurred heavy relapses into paganism; in 1045, under King Andreas, and in 1060, under King Bela. __________________________________________________________________ [134] See the letter from Bishop Pilgrin of Passau to Pope Benedict VI. in Mansi, Concil. I. __________________________________________________________________ § 37. The Christianization of Russia. Nestor (monk of Kieff, the oldest Russian annalist, d. 1116): Annales, or Chronicon (from the building of the Babylonian tower to 1093). Continued by Niphontes (Nifon) from 1116-1157, and by others to 1676. Complete ed. in Russ by Pogodin, 1841, and with a Latin version and glossary by Fr. Miklosisch, Vindobon, 1860. German translation by Schlözer, Göttingen, 1802-'9, 5 vols. (incomplete). J. G. Stritter: Memoriae Populorum olim ad Danubium, etc., incolentium ex Byzant. Script. Petropoli, 1771. 4 vols. A collection of the Byzantine sources. N. M. Karamsin: History of Russia, 12 vols. St. Petersburg, 1816-29, translated into German and French. Ph. Strahl: Beiträge zur russ. Kirchen-Geschichte (vol. I.). Halle, 1827; and Geschichte d. russ Kirche (vol. I.). Halle, 1830 (incomplete). A. N. Mouravieff (late chamberlain to the Czar and Under-Procurator of the Most Holy Synod): A History of the Church of Russia (to the founding of the Holy Synod in 1721). St. Petersburg, 1840, translated into English by Rev. R. W. Blackmore. Oxford, 1862. A. P. Stanley: Lectures on the Eastern Church. Lec. IX.-XII. London, 1862. L. Boissard: L'église de Bussie. Paris, 1867, 2 vols. The legend traces Christianity in Russia back to the Apostle St. Andrew, who is especially revered by the Russians. Mouravieff commences his history of the Russian church with these words: "The Russian church, like the other Orthodox churches of the East, had an apostle for its founder. St. Andrew, the first called of the Twelve, hailed with his blessing long beforehand the destined introduction of Christianity into our country. Ascending up and penetrating by the Dniepr into the deserts of Scythia, he planted the first cross on the hills of Kieff, and 'See you,' said he to his disciples, 'those hills? On those hills shall shine the light of divine grace. There shall be here a great city, and God shall have in it many churches to His name.' Such are the words of the holy Nestor that point from whence Christian Russia has sprung." This tradition is an expansion of the report that Andrew labored and died a martyr in Scythia, [135] and nothing more. In the ninth century the Russian tribes, inhabiting the Eastern part of Europe, were gathered together under the rule of Ruric, a Varangian prince, [136] who from the coasts of the Baltic penetrated into the centre of the present Russia, and was voluntarily accepted, if not actually chosen by the tribes as their chief. He is regarded as the founder of the Russian empire, a.d. 862, which in 1862 celebrated its millennial anniversary. About the same time or a little later the Russians became somewhat acquainted with Christianity through their connections with the Byzantine empire. The Eastern church, however, never developed any great missionary activity, and when Photius, the patriarch of Constantinople, in his circular letter against the Roman see, speaks of the Russians as already converted at his time (867), a few years after the founding of the empire, he certainly exaggerates. When, in 945, peace was concluded between the Russian grand-duke, Igor, and the Byzantine emperor, some of the Russian soldiers took the oath in the name of Christ, but by far the greatest number swore by Perun, the old Russian god. In Kieff, on the Dniepr, the capital of the Russian realm, there was at that time a Christian church, dedicated to Elijah, and in 955 the grand-duchess, Olga, went to Constantinople and was baptized. She did not succeed, however, in persuading her son, Svatoslav, to embrace the Christian faith. The progress of Christianity among the Russians was slow until the grand-duke Vladimir (980-1015), a grandson of Olga, and revered as Isapostolos ("Equal to an Apostle") with one sweep established it as the religion of the country. The narrative of this event by Nestor is very dramatic. Envoys from the Greek and the Roman churches, from the Mohammedans and the Jews (settled among the Chazares) came to Vladimir to persuade him to leave his old gods. He hesitated and did not know which of the new religions he should choose. Finally he determined to send wise men from among his own people to the various places to investigate the matter. The envoys were so powerfully impressed by a picture of the last judgment and by the service in the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople, that the question at once was settled in favor of the religion of the Byzantine court. Vladimir, however, would not introduce it without compensation. He was staying at Cherson in the Crimea, which he had just taken and sacked, and thence he sent word to the emperor Basil, that he had determined either to adopt Christianity and receive the emperor's sister, Anne, in marriage, or to go to Constantinople and do to that city as he had done to Cherson. He married Anne, and was baptized on the day of his wedding, a.d. 988. As soon as he was baptized preparations were made for the baptism of his people. The wooden image of Perun was dragged at a horse's tail through the country, soundly flogged by all passers-by, and finally thrown into the Dniepr. Next, at a given hour, all the people of Kieff, men, women and children, descended into the river, while the grand Duke kneeled, and the Christian priests read the prayers from the top of the cliffs on the shore. Nestor, the Russian monk and annalist, thus describes the scene: "Some stood in the water up to their necks, others up to their breasts, holding their young children in their arms; the priests read the prayers from the shore, naming at once whole companies by the same name. It was a sight wonderfully curious and beautiful to behold; and when the people were baptized each returned to his own home." Thus the Russian nation was converted in wholesale style to Christianity by despotic power. It is characteristic of the supreme influence of the ruler and the slavish submission of the subjects in that country. Nevertheless, at its first entrance in Russia, Christianity penetrated deeper into the life of the people than it did in any other country, without, however, bringing about a corresponding thorough moral transformation. Only a comparatively short period elapsed, before a complete union of the forms of religion and the nationality took place. Every event in the history of the nation, yea, every event in the life of the individual was looked upon from a religious point of view, and referred to some distinctly religious idea. The explanation of this striking phenomenon is due in part to Cyrill's translation of the Bible into the Slavic language, which had been driven out from Moravia and Bohemia by the Roman priests, and was now brought from Bulgaria into Russia, where it took root. While the Roman church always insisted upon the exclusive use of the Latin translation of the Bible and the Latin language in divine service, the Greek church always allowed the use of the vernacular. Under its auspices there were produced translations into the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, and Slavic languages, and the effects of this principle were, at least in Russia, most beneficial. During the reign of Vladimir's successor, Jaroslaff, 1019-1054, not only were churches and monasteries and schools built all over the country, but Greek theological books were translated, and the Russian church had, at an early date, a religious literature in the native tongue of the people. Jaroslaff, by his celebrated code of laws, became the Justinian of Russia. The Czars and people of Russia have ever since faithfully adhered to the Oriental church which grew with the growth of the empire all along the Northern line of two Continents. As in the West, so in Russia, monasticism was the chief institution for the spread of Christianity among heathen savages. Hilarion (afterwards Metropolitan), Anthony, Theodosius, Sergius, Lazarus, are prominent names in the early history of Russian monasticism. The subsequent history of the Russian church is isolated from the main current of histoy, and almost barren of events till the age of Nikon and Peter the Great. At first she was dependent on the patriarch of Constantinople. In 1325 Moscow was founded, and became, in the place of Kieff, the Russian Rome, with a metropolitan, who after the fall of Constantinople became independent (1461), and a century later was raised to the dignity of one of the five patriarchs of the Eastern Church (1587). But Peter the Great made the Northern city of his own founding the ecclesiastical as well as the political metropolis, and transferred the authority of the patriarchate of Moscow to the "Holy Synod" (1721), which permanently resides in St. Petersburg and constitutes the highest ecclesiastical judicatory of Russia under the caesaropapal rule of the Czar, the most powerful rival of the Roman Pope. __________________________________________________________________ [135] Euseb. III. 1. [136] The Varangians were a tribe of piratical Northmen who made the Slavs and Finns tributary. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER III. MOHAMMEDANISM IN ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY.136 "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his apostle."--The Koran. "There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all."--1 Tim. ii. 5, 6. __________________________________________________________________ § 38. Literature. See A. Sprenger's Bibliotheca Orientalis Sprengeriana. Giessen, 1857. W. Muir.: Life of Mahomet, Vol. I., ch. 1. Muir discusses especially the value of Mohammedan traditions. Ch. Friedrici: Bibliotheca Orientalis. London (Trübner & Co.) 1875 sqq. I. Sources. 1. The Koran or AL-Koran. The chief source. The Mohammedan Bible, claiming to be given by inspiration to Mohammed during the course of twenty years. About twice as large as the New Testament. The best Arabic MSS., often most beautifully written, are in the Mosques of Cairo, Damascus, Constantinople, and Paris; the largest, collection in the library of the Khedive in Cairo. Printed editions in Arabic by Hinkelmann (Hamburg, 1694); Molla Osman Ismael (St. Petersburg, 1787 and 1803); G. Flügel (Leipz., 1834); revised by Redslob (1837, 1842, 1858). Arabice et Latine, ed. L. Maraccius, Patav., 1698, 2 vols., fol. (Alcorani textus universus, with notes and refutation). A lithographed edition of the Arabic text appeared at Lucknow in India, 1878 (A. H. 1296). The standard English translations: in prose by Geo. Sale (first publ., Lond., 1734, also 1801, 1825, Philad., 1833, etc.), with a learned and valuable preliminary discourse and notes; in the metre, but without the rhyme, of the original by J. M. Rodwell (Lond., 1861, 2d ed. 1876, the Suras arranged in chronological order). A new transl. in prose by E. H. Palmer. (Oxford, 1880, 2 vols.) in M. Müller's "Sacred Books of the East." Parts are admirably translated by Edward W. Lane. French translation by Savary, Paris, 1783, 2 vols.; enlarged edition by Garcin de Tassy, 1829, in 3 vols.; another by M. Kasimirski, Paris, 1847, and 1873. German translations by Wahl (Halle, 1828), L. Ullmann (Bielefeld, 1840, 4th ed. 1857), and parts by Hammer von Purgstall (in the Fundgruben des Orients), and Sprenger (in Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammad). 2. Secondary sources on the Life of Moh. and the origin of Islâm are the numerous poems of contemporaries, especially in Ibn Ishâc, and the collections of the sayings of Moh., especially the Sahih (i.e. The True, the Genuine) of Albuchârî (d. 871). Also the early Commentaries on the Koran, which explain difficult passages, reconcile the contradictions, and insert traditional sayings and legends. See Sprenger, III. CIV. sqq. II. Works On The Koran. Th. Nöldeke: Geschichte des Quorâns, (History of the Koran), Göttingen, 1860; and his art. in the "Encycl. Brit., 9th ed. XVI. 597-606. Garcin de Tassy: L'Islamisme d'après le Coran l'enseignement doctrinal et la pratique, 3d ed. Paris, 1874. Gustav Weil: Hist. kritische Einleitung in den Koran. Bielefeld und Leipz., 1844, 2d ed., 1878. Sir William Muir: The Corân. Its Composition and Teaching; and the Testimony it bears to the Holy Scriptures. (Allahabad, 1860), 3d ed., Lond., 1878. Sprenger, l.c., III., pp. xviii.-cxx. III. Biographies of Mohammed. 1. Mohammedan biographers. Zohri (the oldest, died after the Hegira 124). Ibn Ishâc (or Ibni Ishak, d. A. H. 151, or a.d. 773), ed. in Arabic from MSS. by Wüstenfeld, Gött., 1858-60, translated by Weil, Stuttg., 1864. Ibn (Ibni) Hishâm (d. A. H. 213, a.d. 835), also ed. by Wüstenfeld, and translated by Weil, 1864. Katib Al Waquidi (or Wackedee, Wackidi, d. at Bagdad A. H. 207, a.d. 829), a man of prodigious learning, who collected the traditions, and left six hundred chests of books (Sprenger, III., LXXI.), and his secretary, Muhammad Ibn Sâad (d. A. H. 230, a.d. 852), who arranged, abridged, and completed the biographical works of his master in twelve or fifteen for. vols.; the first vol. contains the biography of Moh., and is preferred by Muir and Sprenger to all others. German transl. by Wellhausen: Muhammed in Medina. From the Arabic of Vakidi. Berlin, 1882. Tabari (or Tibree, d. A. H. 310, a.d. 932), called by Gibbon "the Livy of the Arabians." Muir says (I., CIII.): "To the three biographies by Ibn Hishâm, by Wackidi, and his secretary, and by Tabari, the judicious historian of Mahomet will, as his original authorities, confine himself. He will also receive, with a similar respect, such traditions in the general collections of the earliest traditionists--Bokhâri, Muslim, Tirmidzi, etc.,--as may bear upon his subject. But he will reject as evidence all later authors." Abulfeda (or Abulfida, d. 1331), once considered the chief authority, now set aside by much older sources. *Syed Ahmed Khan Bahador (member of the Royal Asiatic Society): A Series of Essays on the Life of Mohammed. London (Trübner & Co.), 1870. He wrote also a "Mohammedan Commentary on the Holy Bible." He begins with the sentence: "In nomine Dei Misericordis Miseratoris. Of all the innumerable wonders of the universe, the most marvellous is religion." Syed Ameer Ali, Moulvé (a Mohammedan lawyer, and brother of the former): A Critical Examination of the Life and Teachings of Mohammed. London 1873. A defense of Moh. chiefly drawn from Ibn-Hishâm (and Ibn-al Athîr (1160-1223). 2. Christian Biographies. Dean Prideaux (d. 1724): Life of Mahomet, 1697, 7th ed. Lond., 1718. Very unfavorable. Count Boulinvilliers: The Life of Mahomet. Transl. from the French. Lond., 1731. Jean Gagnier (d. 1740): La vie de Mahomet, 1732, 2 vols., etc. Amsterd. 1748, 3 vols. Chiefly from Abulfeda and the Sonna. He also translated Abulfeda. *Gibbon: Decline and Fall, etc. (1788), chs. 50-52. Although not an Arabic scholar, Gibbon made the best use of the sources then accessible in Latin, French, and English, and gives a brilliant and, upon the whole, impartial picture. *Gustav Weil: Mohammed der Prophet, sein Leben und seine Lehre. Stuttgart, 1843. Comp. also his translation of Ibn Ishâc, and Ibn Hishâm, Stuttgart, 1864, 2 vols.; and his Biblische Legenden der Muselmänner aus arabischen Quellen und mit jüd. Sagen verglichen. Frcf., 1845. The last is also transl. into English. Th. Carlyle: The Hero as Prophet, in his Heroes Hero- Worship and the Heroic in History. London, 1840. A mere sketch, but full of genius and stimulating hints. He says: "We have chosen Mahomet not as the most eminent prophet, but as the one we are freest to speak of. He is by no means the truest of prophets, but I esteem him a true one. Farther, as there is no danger of our becoming, any of us, Mahometans, I mean to say all the good of him I justly can. It is the way to get at his secret." Washington Irving: Mahomet and His Followers. N. Y., 1850. 2 vols. George Bush: The Life of Mohammed. New York (Harpers). *SIR William MUIR (of the Bengal Civil Service): The Life of Mahomet. With introductory chapters on the original sources for the biography of Mahomet, and on the pre-Islamite history of Arabia. Lond., 1858-1861, 4 vols. Learned, able, and fair. Abridgement in 1 vol. Lond., 1877. *A. Sprenger: First an English biography printed at Allahabad, 1851, and then a more complete one in German, Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammad. Nach bisher grösstentheils unbenutzten Quellen. Berlin, 1861-'65, 2d ed. 1869, 3 vols. This work is based on original and Arabic sources, and long personal intercourse with Mohammedans in India, but is not a well digested philosophical biography. *Theod. Nöldeke: Das Leben Muhammeds. Hanover, 1863. Comp. his elaborate art. in Vol. XVIII. of Herzog's Real-Encycl., first ed. E. Renan: Mahomet, et les origines de l'islamisme, in his "Etudes de l'histoire relig.," 7th ed. Par., 1864. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire: Mahomet et le Oran. Paris, 1865. Based on Sprenger and Muir. Ch. Scholl: L'Islam et son Fondateur. Paris, 1874. R. Bosworth Smith (Assistant Master in Harrow School): Mohammed and Mohammedanism. Lond. 1874, reprinted New York, 1875. J. W. H. Stobart: Islam and its Founder. London, 1876. J. Wellhausen: Art. Moh. in the "Encycl. Brit." 9th ed. vol. XVI. 545-565. IV. History Of The Arabs And Turks. Jos. von Hammer-Purgstall: Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches. Pesth, 1827-34, 10 vols. A smaller ed. in 4 vols. This standard work is the result of thirty years' labor, and brings the history down to 1774. By the same: Literaturgeschichte der Araber. Wien, 1850-'57, 7 vols. *G. Weil: Gesch. der Chalifen. Mannheim, 1846-5l, 3 vols. *Caussin de Perceval: Essai sur l'histoire des Arabes. Paris, 1848, 3 vols. *Edward A. Freeman (D. C. L., LL. D.): History and Conquests of the Saracens. Lond., 1856, 3d ed. 1876. Robert Durie Osborn (Major of the Bengal Staff Corps): Islam under the Arabs. London., 1876; Islam under the Khalifs of Baghdad. London, 1877. Sir Edward S. Creasy: History of the Ottoman Turks from the Beginning of their Empire to the present Time. Lond., 2d ed. 1877. Chiefly founded on von Hammer' Th. Nöldeke: Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden. Aus der arabischen Chronik des Tabari übersetzt. Leyden, 1879. Sir Wm. Muir: Annals of the Early Caliphate. London 1883. V. Manners And Customs Of The Mohammedans. Joh. Ludwig Burckhardt: Travels in Nubia, 1819; Travels in Syria and Palestine, 1823; Notes on the Bedouins, 1830. *Edw. W. Lane: Modern Egyptians. Lond., 1836, 5th ed. 1871, in 2 vols. *Rich. F. Burton: Personal narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah, Lond. 1856, 3 vols. C. B. Klunzinger: Upper Egypt: its People and its Products. A descriptive Account of the Manners, Customs, Superstitions, and Occupations of the People of the Nile Valley, the Desert, and the Red Sea Coast. New York, 1878. A valuable supplement to Lane. Books of Eastern Travel, especially on Egypt and Turkey. Bahrdt's Travels in Central Africa (1857), Palgrave's Arabia (1867), etc. VI. Relation Of Mohammedanism To Judaism. *Abraham Geiger: Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthum aufgenommen? Bonn, 1833. Hartwig Hirschfeld: Jüdische Elemente im Koran. Berlin, 1878. VII. Mohammedanism as a Religion, and its Relation to Christianity. L. Maracci: Prodromus ad refutationem Alcorani. Rom., 1691, 4 vols. S. Lee: Controversial Tracts on Christianity and Mahometanism. 1824. J. Döllingber (R.C.): Muhammed's Religion nach ihrer innern Entwicklung u. ihrem Einfluss auf das Leben der Völker. Regensb. 1838. A. Möhler (R.C.): Das Verhältniss des Islam zum Christenthum (in his "Gesammelte Schriften"). Regensb., 1839. C. F. Gerock: Versuch einer Darstellung der Christologie des Koran. Hamburg and Gotha, 1839. J. H. Newman (R.C.): The Turks in their relation to Europe (written in 1853), in his "Historical Sketches." London, 1872, pp. 1-237. Dean Arthur P. Stanley: Mahometanism and its relations to the Eastern Church (in Lectures on the "History of the Eastern Church." London and New York, 1862, pp. 360-387). A picturesque sketch. Dean Milman: History of Latin Christianity. Book IV., chs.1 and 2. (Vol. II. p. 109). Theod. Nöldeke: Art. Muhammed und der Islam, in Herzog's "Real-Encyclop." Vol. XVIII. (1864), pp. 767-820.' *Eman. Deutsch: Islam, in his "Liter. Remains." Lond. and N. York, 1874, pp. 50-134. The article originally appeared in the London "Quarterly Review" for Oct. 1869, and is also printed at the end of the New York (Harper) ed. of R. Bosworth Smith's Mohammed. Reports of the General Missionary Conference at Allahabad, 1873. J. Mühleisen Arnold (formerly chaplain at Batavia): Islam: its History, Character, and Relation to Christianity. Lond., 1874, 3d ed. Gustav. Rösch: Die Jesusmythen des Islam, in the "Studien und Kritiken." Gotha, 1876. (No. III. pp. 409-454). Marcus Dods: Mohammed, Buddha, and Christ. Lond. 2d ed. 1878. Ch. A. Aiken: Mohammedanism as a Missionary Religion. In the "Bibliotheca Sacra," of Andover for 1879, p. 157. Archbishop Trench: Lectures on Mediaeval Church History (Lect. IV. 45-58). London, 1877. Henry H. Jessup (Amer. Presbyt. missionary at Beirut): The Mohammedan Missionary Problem. Philadelphia, 1879. Edouard Sayous: Jésus Christ d'après Mahomet. Paris 1880. G. P. Badger: Muhámmed in Smith and Wace, III. 951-998. __________________________________________________________________ § 39. Statistics and Chronological Table. Estimate of the Mohammedan Population (According to Keith Johnston). In Asia, 112,739,000 In Africa, 50,416,000 In Europe, 5,974,000 Total, 169,129,000 Mohammedans Under Christian Governments. England in India rules over 41,000,000 Russia in Central Asia rules over 6,000,000 France in Africa rules over 2,000,000 Holland in Java and Celebes rules over 1,000,000 Total, 50,000,000 a.d. Chronological Survey. 570. Birth of Mohammed, at Mecca. 610. Mohammed received the visions of Gabriel and began his career as a prophet. (Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons). 622. The Hegira, or the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina. Beginning of the Mohammedan era. 632. (June 8) Death of Mohammed at Medina. 632. Abû Bekr, first Caliph or successor of Mohammed 636. Capture of Jerusalem by the Caliph Omar. 640. Capture of Alexandria by Omar. 711. Tharyk crosses the Straits from Africa to Europe, and calls the mountain Jebel Tharyk (Gibraltar). 732. Battle of Poitiers and Tours; Abd-er-Rahman defeated by Charles Martel; Western Europe saved from Moslem conquest. 786-809. Haroun al Rashîd, Caliph of Bagdad. Golden era of Mohammedanism. Correspondence with Charlemagne). 1063. Allp Arslan, Seljukian Turkish prince. 1096. The First Crusade. Capture of Jerusalem by Godfrey of Bouillon. 1187. Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt and scourge of the Crusaders, conquers at Tiberias and takes Jerusalem, (1187); is defeated by Richard Coeur de Lion at Askelon, and dies 1193. Decline of the Crusades. 1288-1326. Reign of Othman, founder of the Ottoman (Turkish) dynasty. 1453. Capture of Constantinople by Mohammed II., "the Conqueror," and founder of the greatness of Turkey. (Exodus of Greek scholars to Southern Europe; the Greek Testament brought to the West; the revival of letters.) 1492. July 2. Boabdil (or Alien Abdallah) defeated by Ferdinand at Granada; end of Moslem rule in Spain. (Discovery of' America by Columbus). 1517. Ottoman Sultan Selim I. conquers Egypt, wrests the caliphate from the Arab line of the Koreish through Motawekkel Billah, and transfers it to the Ottoman Sultans; Ottoman caliphate never acknowledged by Persian or Moorish Moslems. (The Reformation.) 1521-1566. Solyman II., "the Magnificent," marks the zenith of the military power of the Turks; takes Belgrade (1521), defeats the Hungarians (1526), but is repulsed from Vienna (1529 and 1532). 1571. Defeat of Selim II. at the naval battle of Lepanto by the Christian powers under Don John of Austria. Beginning of the decline of the Turkish power. 1683. Final repulse of the Turks at the gates of Vienna by John Sobieski, king of Poland, 2Sept. 12; Eastern Europe saved from Moslem rule. 1792. Peace at Jassy in Moldavia, which made the Dniester the frontier between Russia and Turkey. 1827. Annihilation of the Turko-Egyptian fleet by, the combined squadrons of England, France, and Russia, in the battle of Navarino, October 20. Treaty of Adrianople, 1829. Independence of the kingdom of Greece, 1832. 1856. End of Crimean War; Turkey saved by England and France aiding the Sultan against the aggression of Russia; Treaty of Paris; European agreement not to interfere in the domestic affairs of Turkey. 1878. Defeat of the Turks by Russia; but checked by the interference of England under the lead of Lord Beaconsfield. Congress of the European powers, and Treaty of Berlin; independence of Bulgaria secured; Anglo-Turkish Treaty; England occupies Cyprus--agrees to defend the frontier of Asiatic Turkey against Russia, on condition that the Sultan execute fundamental reforms in Asiatic Turkey. 1880. Supplementary Conference at Berlin. Rectification and enlargement of the boundary of Montenegro and Greece. __________________________________________________________________ § 40. Position of Mohammedanism in Church History. While new races and countries in Northern and Western Europe, unknown to the apostles, were added to the Christian Church, we behold in Asia and Africa the opposite spectacle of the rise and progress of a rival religion which is now acknowledged by more than one-tenth of the inhabitants of the globe. It is called "Mohammedanism" from its founder, or "Islâm," from its chief virtue, which is absolute surrender to the one true God. Like Christianity, it had its birth in the Shemitic race, the parent of the three monotheistic religions, but in an obscure and even desert district, and had a more rapid, though less enduring success. But what a difference in the means employed and the results reached! Christianity made its conquest by peaceful missionaries and the power of persuasion, and carried with it the blessings of home, freedom and civilization. Mohammedanism conquered the fairest portions of the earth by the sword and cursed them by polygamy, slavery, despotism and desolation. The moving power of Christian missions was love to God and man; the moving power of Islâm was fanaticism and brute force. Christianity has found a home among all nations and climes; Mohammedanism, although it made a most vigorous effort to conquer the world, is after all a religion of the desert, of the tent and the caravan, and confined to nomad and savage or half-civilized nations, chiefly Arabs, Persians, and Turks. It never made an impression on Europe except by brute force; it is only encamped, not really domesticated, in Constantinople, and when it must withdraw from Europe it will leave no trace behind. Islâm in its conquering march took forcible possession of the lands of the Bible, and the Greek church, seized the throne of Constantine, overran Spain, crossed the Pyrenees, and for a long time threatened even the church of Rome and the German empire, until it was finally repulsed beneath the walls of Vienna. The Crusades which figure so prominently in the history of mediaeval Christianity, originated in the desire to wrest the holy land from the followers of "the false prophet," and brought the East in contact with the West. The monarchy and the church of Spain, with their architecture, chivalry, bigotry, and inquisition, emerged from a fierce conflict with the Moors. Even the Reformation in the sixteenth century was complicated with the Turkish question, which occupied the attention of the diet of Augsburg as much as the Confession of the Evangelical princes and divines. Luther, in one of his most popular hymns, prays for deliverance from "the murdering Pope and Turk," as the two chief enemies of the gospel [137] ; and the Anglican Prayer Book, in the collect for Good Friday, invokes God "to have mercy upon all Turks," as well as upon "Jews, Infidels, and Heretics." [138] The danger for Western Christendom from that quarter has long since passed away; the "unspeakable" Turk has ceased to be unconquerable, but the Asiatic and a part of the East European portion of the Greek church are still subject to the despotic rule of the Sultan, whose throne in Constantinople has been for more than four hundred years a standing insult to Christendom. Mohammedanism then figures as a hostile force, as a real Ishmaelite in church history; it is the only formidable rival which Christianity ever had, the only religion which for a while at least aspired to universal empire. And yet it is not hostile only. It has not been without beneficial effect upon Western civilization. It aided in the development of chivalry; it influenced Christian architecture; it stimulated the study of mathematics, chemistry, medicine (as is indicated by the technical terms: algebra, chemistry, alchemy); and the Arabic translations and commentaries on Aristotle by the Spanish Moors laid the philosophical foundation of scholasticism. Even the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks brought an inestimable blessing to the West by driving Greek scholars with the Greek Testament to Italy to inaugurate there the revival of letters which prepared the way for the Protestant Reformation. Viewed in its relation to the Eastern Church which it robbed of the fairest dominions, Mohammedanism was a well-deserved divine punishment for the unfruitful speculations, bitter contentions, empty ceremonialism and virtual idolatry which degraded and disgraced the Christianity of the East after the fifth century. The essence of true religion, love to God and to man, was eaten out by rancor and strife, and there was left no power of ultimate resistance to the foreign conqueror. The hatred between the orthodox Eastern church and the Eastern schismatics driven from her communion, and the jealousy between the Greek and Latin churches prevented them from aiding each other in efforts to arrest the progress of the common foe. The Greeks detested the Latin Filioque as a heresy more deadly than Islâm; while the Latins cared more for the supremacy of the Pope than the triumph of Christianity, and set up during the Crusades a rival hierarchy in the East. Even now Greek and Latin monks in Bethlehem and Jerusalem are apt to fight at Christmas and Easter over the cradle and the grave of their common Lord and Redeemer, unless Turkish soldiers keep them in order! [139] But viewed in relation to the heathenism from which it arose or which it converted, Mahommedanism is a vast progress, and may ultimately be a stepping-stone to Christianity, like the law of Moses which served as a schoolmaster to lead men to the gospel. It has destroyed the power of idolatry in Arabia and a large part of Asia and Africa, and raised Tartars and Negroes from the rudest forms of superstition to the belief and worship of the one true God, and to a certain degree of civilization. It should be mentioned, however, that, according to the testimony of missionaries and African travelers, Mohammedanism has inflamed the simple minded African tribes with the impure fire of fanaticism and given them greater power of resistance to Christianity. Sir William Muir, a very competent judge, thinks that Mohammedanism by the poisoning influence of polygamy and slavery, and by crushing all freedom of judgment in religion has interposed the most effectual barrier against the reception of Christianity. "No system," he says, "could have been devised with more consummate skill for shutting out the nations over which it has sway, from the light of truth. Idolatrous Arabs might have been aroused to spiritual life and to the adoption of the faith of Jesus; Mahometan Arabia is, to the human eye, sealed against the benign influences of the gospel .... The sword of Mahomet and the Coran are the most fatal enemies of civilization, liberty, and truth." [140] This is no doubt true of the past. But we have not yet seen the end of this historical problem. It is not impossible that Islâm may yet prove to be a necessary condition for the revival of a pure Scriptural religion in the East. Protestant missionaries from England and America enjoy greater liberty under the Mohammedan rule than they would under a Greek or Russian government. The Mohammedan abhorrence of idolatry and image worship, Mohammedan simplicity and temperance are points of contact with the evangelical type of Christianity, which from the extreme West has established flourishing missions in the most important parts of Turkey. The Greek Church can do little or nothing with the Mohammedans; if they are to be converted it must be done by a Christianity which is free from all appearance of idolatry, more simple in worship, and more vigorous in life than that which they have so easily conquered and learned to despise. It is an encouraging fact that Mohammedans have, great respect for the Anglo-Saxon race. They now swear by the word of an Englishman as much as by the beard of Mohammed. Islâm is still a great religious power in the East. It rules supreme in Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor, Egypt, North Africa, and makes progress among the savage tribes in the interior of the Dark Continent. It is by no means simply, as Schlegel characterized the system, "a prophet without miracles, a faith without mysteries, and a morality without love." It has tenacity, aggressive vitality and intense enthusiasm. Every traveller in the Orient must be struck with the power of its simple monotheism upon its followers. A visit to the Moslem University in the Mosque El Azhar at Cairo is very instructive. It dates from the tenth century (975), and numbers (or numbered in 1877, when I visited it) no less than ten thousand students who come from all parts of the Mohammedan world and present the appearance of a huge Sunday School, seated in small groups on the floor, studying the Koran as the beginning and end of all wisdom, and then at the stated hours for prayer rising to perform their devotions under the lead of their teachers. They live in primitive simplicity, studying, eating and sleeping on a blanket or straw mat in the same mosque, but the expression of their faces betrays the fanatical devotion to their creed. They support themselves, or are aided by the alms of the faithful. The teachers (over three hundred) receive no salary and live by private instruction or presents from rich scholars. Nevertheless the power of Islâm, like its symbol, the moon, is disappearing before the sun of Christianity which is rising once more over the Eastern horizon. Nearly one-third of its followers are under Christian (mostly English) rule. It is essentially a politico-religious system, and Turkey is its stronghold. The Sultan has long been a "sick man," and owes his life to the forbearance and jealousy of the Christian powers. Sooner or later he will be driven out of Europe, to Brusa or Mecca. The colossal empire of Russia is the hereditary enemy of Turkey, and would have destroyed her in the wars of 1854 and 1877, if Catholic France and Protestant England had not come to her aid. In the meantime the silent influences of European civilization and Christian missions are undermining the foundations of Turkey, and preparing the way for a religious, moral and social regeneration and transformation of the East. "God's mills grind slowly, but surely and wonderfully fine." A thousand years before Him are as one day, and one day may do the work of a thousand years. __________________________________________________________________ [137] "Erhalt uns,Herr, bei deinem Wort, Und steur' des Papst's und Türken Mord." [138] The words "all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics," were inserted by the framers of the Prayer Book in the first edition (1547); the rest of the collect is translated from the old Latin service. In the middle ages the word "infidel" denoted a Mohammedan. The Mohammedans in turn call Christians, Jews, and all other religionists, "infidels" and "dogs." [139] Archbishop Trench, l.c. p. 54: "We can regard Mohammedanism in no other light than as a scourge of God upon a guilty church. He will not give his glory to another. He will not suffer the Creator and the creature to be confounded; and if those who should have been witnesses for the truth, who had been appointed thereunto, forsake, forget, or deny it, He will raise up witnesses from quarters the most unlooked for, and will strengthen their hands and give victory to their arms even against those who bear his name, but have forgotten his truth." Similarly Dr. Jessup, l.c. p. 14: "The Mohammedan religion arose, in the providence of God, as a scourge to the idolatrous Christianity, and the pagan systems of Asia and Africa--a protest against polytheism, and a preparation for the future conversion to a pure Christianity of the multitude who have fallen under its extraordinary power." Carlyle calls the creed of Mohammed "a kind of Christianity better than that of those miserable Syrian Sects with the head full of worthless noise, the heart empty and dead. The truth of it is imbedded in portentous error and falsehood; but the truth makes it to be believed, not the falsehood: it succeeded by its truth. A bastard kind of Christianity, but a living kind; with a heart-life in it; not dead, chopping, barren logic merely." [140] Life of Mahomet, IV. 321, 322. __________________________________________________________________ § 41. The Home, and the Antecedents of Islâm. On the Aborigines of Arabia and its religious condition before Islam, compare the preliminary discourse of Sale, Sect.1 and 2; Muir, Vol. I. ch. 2d; Sprenger, I. 13-92, and Stobart, ch. 1. The fatherland of Islâm is Arabia, a peninsula between the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. It is covered with sandy deserts, barren hills, rock-bound coasts, fertile wadies, and rich pastures. It is inhabited by nomadic tribes and traders who claim descent from five patriarchal stocks, Cush, Shem, Ishmael, Keturah, and Esau. It was divided by the ancients into Arabia Deserta, Arabia Petraea (the Sinai district with Petra as the capital), and Arabia Felix (El-Yemen, i.e. the land on the right hand, or of the South). Most of its rivers are swelled by periodical rains and then lose themselves in the sandy plains; few reach the ocean; none of them is navigable. It is a land of grim deserts and strips of green verdure, of drought and barrenness, violent rains, clear skies, tropical heat, date palms, aromatic herbs, coffee, balsam, myrrh, frankincense, and dhurra (which takes the place of grain). Its chief animals are the camel, "the ship of the desert," an excellent breed of horses, sheep, and goats. The desert, like the ocean, is not without its grandeur. It creates the impression of infinitude, it fosters silence and meditation on God and eternity. Man is there alone with God. The Arabian desert gave birth to some of the sublimest compositions, the ode of liberty by Miriam, the ninetieth Psalm by Moses, the book of Job, which Carlyle calls "the grandest poem written by the pen of man." The Arabs love a roaming life, are simple and temperate, courteous, respectful, hospitable, imaginative, fond of poetry and eloquence, careless of human life, revengeful, sensual, and fanatical. Arabia, protected by its deserts, was never properly conquered by a foreign nation. The religious capital of Islâm, and the birthplace of its founder--its Jerusalem and Rome--is Mecca (or Mekka), one of the oldest cities of Arabia. It is situated sixty-five miles East of Jiddah on the Red Sea, two hundred and forty-five miles South of Medina, in a narrow and sterile valley and shut in by bare hills. It numbered in its days of prosperity over one hundred thousand inhabitants, now only about forty-five thousand. It stands under the immediate control of the Sultan. The streets are broad, but unpaved, dusty in summer, muddy in winter. The houses are built of brick or stone, three or four stories high; the rooms better furnished than is usual in the East. They are a chief source of revenue by being let to the pilgrims. There is scarcely a garden or cultivated field in and around Mecca, and only here and there a thorny acacia and stunted brushwood relieves the eye. The city derives all its fruit--watermelons, dates, cucumbers, limes, grapes, apricots, figs, almonds--from Tâif and Wady Fatima, which during the pilgrimage season send more than one hundred camels daily to the capital. The inhabitants are indolent, though avaricious, and make their living chiefly of the pilgrims who annually flock thither by thousands and tens of thousands from all parts of the Mohammedan world. None but Moslems are allowed to enter Mecca, but a few Christian travellers--Ali Bey (the assumed name of the Spaniard, Domingo Badia y Leblich, d. 1818), Burckhardt in 1814, Burton in 1852, Maltzan in 1862, Keane in 1880--have visited it in Mussulman disguise, and at the risk of their lives. To them we owe our knowledge of the place. [141] The most holy place in Mecca is Al-Kaaba, a small oblong temple, so called from its cubic form. [142] To it the faces of millions of Moslems are devoutly turned in prayer five times a day. It is inclosed by the great mosque, which corresponds in importance to the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem and St. Peter's cathedral in Rome, and can hold about thirty-five thousand persons. It is surrounded by colonnades, chambers, domes and minarets. Near it is the bubbling well Zemzem, from which Hagar and Ishmael are said to have quenched their burning thirst. The Kaaba is much older than Mecca. Diodorus Siculus mentions it as the oldest and most honored temple in his time. It is supposed to have been first built by angels in the shape of a tent and to have been let down from heaven; there Adam worshipped after his expulsion from Paradise; Seth substituted a structure of clay and stone for a tent; after the destruction by the deluge Abraham and Ishmael reconstructed it, and their footsteps are shown. [143] It was entirely rebuilt in 1627. It contains the famous Black Stone, [144] in the North-Eastern corner near the door. This is probably a meteoric stone, or of volcanic origin, and served originally as an altar. The Arabs believe that it fell from Paradise with Adam, and was as white as milk, but turned black on account of man's sins. [145] It is semi-circular in shape, measures about six inches in height, and eight inches in breadth, is four or five feet from the ground, of reddish black color, polished by innumerable kisses (like the foot of the Peter-statue in St. Peter's at Rome), encased in silver, and covered with black silk and inscriptions from the Koran. It was an object of veneration from time immemorial, and is still devoutly kissed or touched by the Moslem pilgrims on each of their seven circuits around the temple. [146] Mohammed subsequently cleared the Kaaba of all relics of idolatry, and made it the place of pilgrimage for his followers. He invented or revived the legend that Abraham by divine command sent his son Ishmael with Hagar to Mecca to establish there the true worship and the pilgrim festival. He says in the Koran: "God hath appointed the Kaaba, the sacred house, to be a station for mankind," and, "Remember when we appointed the sanctuary as man's resort and safe retreat, and said, 'Take ye the station of Abraham for a place of prayer.' And we commanded Abraham and Ishmael, 'Purify my house for those who shall go in procession round it, and those who shall bow down and prostrate themselves.' " [147] Arabia had at the time when Mohammed appeared, all the elements for a wild, warlike, eclectic religion like the one which he established. It was inhabited by heathen star-worshippers, Jews, and Christians. The heathen were the ruling race, descended from Ishmael, the bastard son of Abraham (Ibrahim), the real sons of the desert, full of animal life and energy. They had their sanctuary in the Kaaba at Mecca, which attracted annually large numbers of pilgrims long before Mohammed. The Jews, after the destruction of Jerusalem, were scattered in Arabia, especially in the district of Medina, and exerted considerable influence by their higher culture and rabbinical traditions. The Christians belonged mostly to the various heretical sects which were expelled from the Roman empire during the violent doctrinal controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries. We find there traces of Arians, Sabellians, Ebionites, Nestorians, Eutychians, Monophysites, Marianites, and Collyridians or worshippers of Mary. Anchorets and monks settled in large numbers in Wady Feiran around Mount Serbal, and Justinian laid the foundation of the Convent of St. Catharine at the foot of Mount Sinai, which till the year 1859 harbored the oldest and most complete uncial manuscript of the Greek Scriptures of both Testaments from the age of Constantine. But it was a very superficial and corrupt Christianity which had found a home in those desert regions, where even the apostle Paul spent three years after his conversion in silent preparation for his great mission. These three races and religions, though deadly hostile to each other, alike revered Abraham, the father of the faithful, as their common ancestor. This fact might suggest to a great mind the idea to unite them by a national religion monotheistic in principle and eclectic in its character. This seems to have been the original project of the founder of Islâm. It is made certain by recent research that there were at the time and before the call of Mohammed a considerable number of inquirers at Mecca and Medina, who had intercourse with Eastern Christians in Syria and Abyssinia, were dissatisfied with the idolatry around them, and inclined to monotheism, which they traced to Abraham. They called themselves Hanyfs, i.e. Converts, Puritans. One of them, Omayah of Tâif, we know to have been under Christian influence; others seem to have derived their monotheistic ideas from Judaism. Some of the early converts of Mohammed as, Zayd (his favorite slave), Omayab, or Umaijah (a popular poet), and Waraka (a cousin of Chadijah and a student of the Holy Scriptures of the Jews and Christians) belonged to this sect, and even Mohammed acknowledged himself at first a Hanyf. [148] Waraka, it is said, believed in him, as long as he was a Hanyf, but then forsook him, and died a Christian or a Jew. [149] Mohammed consolidated and energized this reform-movement, and gave it a world-wide significance, under the new name of Islâm, i.e. resignation to God; whence Moslem (or Muslim), one who resigns himself to God. __________________________________________________________________ [141] See Ali Bey's Travels in Asia and Africa, 1803-1807 (1814, 3 vols.); the works of Burckhardt, and Burton mentioned before; and Muir, I. 1-9. [142] The Cube-house or Square house, Maison carrée. It is also called Beit Ullah, (Beth-el), i.e. House of God. It is covered with cloth. See a description in Burckhaxdt, Travels, Lond., 1829, p. 136, Burton II. 154, Sprenger II. 340, and Khan Ballador's Essay on the History of the Holy Mecca (a part of the work above quoted). Burckhardt gives the size: 18 paces long, 14 broad, 35 to 40 feet high. Burton: 22 paces (= 55 English feet) long, 18 paces (45 feet) broad. [143] Baliador says, l.c.: "The most ancient and authentic of all the local traditions of Arabia ... represent the temple of the Kaaba as having been constructed in the 42d century a. m., or 19th century b.c., by Abraham, who was assisted in his work by his son Ishmael." He quotes Gen. xii. 7; xiii. 18 in proof that Abraham raised "altars for God's worship on every spot where he had adored Him." But the Bible nowhere says that he ever was in Mecca. [144] It is called in Arabic Hhajera el-Assouád, the Heavenly Stone. Muir II. 35. [145] Bahador discredits this and other foolish traditions, and thinks that the Black Stone was a Piece of rock from the neighboring Abba Kobais mountain, and put in its present place by Ishmael at the desire of Abraham. [146] See pictures of the Kaaba and the Black Stone, in Bahador, and also in Muir, II. 18, and description, II. 34 sqq. [147] Rodwell's translation, pp. 446 and 648. Sprenger, II. 279, regards the Moslem legend of the Abrahamic origin of the Kaaba worship as a pure invention of Mohammed, of which there is no previous trace. [148] Sprenger I. 45: "Die bisher unbekannt gebliebenen Hanyfen waren die Vorläufer des Mohammad. Er nennt sich selbst einen Hanyf, und während der ersten Periode seines Lehramtes hat er wenig anderes gethan, als ihre Lehre bestätigt." [149] According to Sprenger, I. 91 sqq., he died a Christian; but Deutsch, l.c., p. 77, says: "Whatever Waraka was originally, he certainly lived and died a Jew." He infers this from the fact that when asked by Chadijah for his opinion concerning Mohammed's revelations, he cried out: "Koddus! Koddus! (i.e., Kadosh, Holy). Verily this is the Namus (i.e., nomos, Law) which came to Moses. He will be the prophet of his people." __________________________________________________________________ § 42. Life and Character of Mohammed. Mohammed, an unschooled, self-taught, semi-barbarous son of nature, of noble birth, handsome person, imaginative, energetic, brave, the ideal of a Bedouin chief, was destined to become the political and religious reformer, the poet, prophet, priest, and king of Arabia. He was born about a.d. 570 at Mecca, the only child of a young widow named Amina. [150] His father Abdallah had died a few months before in his twenty-fifth year on a mercantile journey in Medina, and left to his orphan five camels, some sheep and a slave girl. [151] He belonged to the heathen family of the Hàshim, which was not wealthy, but claimed lineal descent from Ishmael, and was connected with the Koreish or Korashites, the leading tribe of the Arabs and the hereditary guardians of the sacred Kaaba. [152] Tradition surrounds his advent in the world with a halo of marvellous legends: he was born circumcised and with his navel cut, with the seal of prophecy written on his back in letters of light; he prostrated himself at once on the ground, and, raising his hands, prayed for the pardon of his people; three persons, brilliant as the sun, one holding a silver goblet, the second an emerald tray, the third a silken towel, appeared from heaven, washed him seven times, then blessed and saluted him as the "Prince of Mankind." He was nursed by a healthy Bedouin woman of the desert. When a boy of four years he was seized with something like a fit of epilepsy, which Wâckidi and other historians transformed into a miraculous occurrence. He was often subject to severe headaches and feverish convulsions, in which he fell on the ground like a drunken man, and snored like a camel. [153] In his sixth year he lost his mother on the return from Medina, whither she had taken him on camel's back to 'visit the maternal relations of his father, and was carried back to Mecca by his nurse, a faithful slave girl. He was taken care of by his aged grandfather, Abd al Motkalib, and after his death in 578 by his uncle Abu Tâlib, who had two wives and ten children, and, though poor and no believer in his nephew's mission, generously protected him to the end. He accompanied his uncle on a commercial journey to Syria, passing through the desert, ruined cities of old, and Jewish and Christian settlements, which must have made a deep impression on his youthful imagination. Mohammed made a scanty living as an attendant on caravans and by watching sheep and goats. The latter is rather a disreputable occupation among the Arabs, and left to unmarried women and slaves; but he afterwards gloried in it by appealing to the example of Moses and David, and said that God never calls a prophet who has not been a shepherd before. According to tradition--for, owing to the strict prohibition of images, we have no likeness of the prophet--he was of medium size, rather slender, but broad-shouldered and of strong muscles, had black eyes and hair, an oval-shaped face, white teeth, a long nose, a patriarchal beard, and a commanding look. His step was quick and firm. He wore white cotton stuff, but on festive occasions fine linen striped or dyed in red. He did everything for himself; to the last he mended his own clothes, and cobbled his sandals, and aided his wives in sewing and cooking. He laughed and smiled often. He had a most fertile imagination and a genius for poetry and religion, but no learning. He was an "illiterate prophet," in this respect resembling some of the prophets of Israel and the fishermen of Galilee. It is a disputed question among Moslem and Christian scholars whether he could even read and write. [154] Probably he could not. He dictated the Koran from inspiration to his disciples and clerks. What knowledge he possessed, he picked up on the way from intercourse with men, from hearing books read, and especially from his travels. In his twenty-fifth year he married a rich widow, Chadijah (or Chadîdsha), who was fifteen years older than himself, and who had previously hired him to carry on the mercantile business of her former husband. Her father was opposed to the match; but she made and kept him drunk until the ceremony was completed. He took charge of her caravans with great success, and made several journeys. The marriage was happy and fruitful of six children, two sons and four daughters; but all died except little Fâtima, who became the mother of innumerable legitimate and illegitimate descendants of the prophet. He also adopted Alî, whose close connection with him became so important in the history of Islâm. He was faithful to Chadijah, and held her in grateful remembrance after her death. [155] He used to say, "Chadijah believed in me when nobody else did." He married afterwards a number of wives, who caused him much trouble and scandal. His favorite wife, Ayesha, was more jealous of the dead Chadijah than any of her twelve or more living rivals, for he constantly held up the toothless old woman as the model of a wife. On his commercial journeys to Syria, he became acquainted with Jews and Christians, and acquired an imperfect knowledge of their traditions. He spent much of his time in retirement, prayer, fasting, and meditation. He had violent convulsions and epileptic fits, which his enemies, and at first he himself, traced to demoniacal possessions, but afterwards to the overpowering presence of God. His soul was fired with the idea of the divine unity, which became his ruling passion; and then he awoke to the bold thought that he was a messenger of God, called to warn his countrymen to escape the judgment and the damnation of hell by forsaking idolatry and worshipping the only true God. His monotheistic enthusiasm was disturbed, though not weakened, by his ignorance and his imperfect sense of the difference between right and wrong. In his fortieth year (a.d. 610), he received the call of Gabriel, the archangel at the right hand of God, who announced the birth of the Saviour to the Virgin Mary. The first revelation was made to him in a trance in the wild solitude of Mount Hirâ, an hour's walk from Mecca. He was directed "to cry in the name of the Lord." He trembled, as if something dreadful had happened to him, and hastened home to his wife, who told him to rejoice, for he would be the prophet of his people. He waited for other visions; but none came. He went up to Mount Hirâ again--this time to commit suicide. But as often as he approached the precipice, he beheld Gabriel at the end of the horizon saying to him: "I am Gabriel, and thou art Mohammed, the prophet of God. Fear not!" He then commenced his career of a prophet and founder of a new religion, which combined various elements of the three religious represented in Arabia, but was animated and controlled by the faith in Allah, as an almighty, ever-present and working will. From this time on, his life was enacted before the eyes of the world, and is embodied in his deeds and in the Koran. The revelations continued from time to time for more than twenty years. When asked how they were delivered to him, he replied (as reported by Ayesha): "Sometimes like the sound of a bell--a kind of communication which was very severe for me; and when the sounds ceased, I found myself aware of the instructions. And sometimes the angel would come in the form of a man, and converse with me, and all his words I remembered." After his call, Mohammed labored first for three years among his family and friends, under great discouragements, making about forty converts, of whom his wife Chadijah was the first, his father-in-law, Abu Bakr, and the young, energetic Omar the most important. His daughter Fatima, his adopted son Alî, and his slave Zayd likewise believed in his divine mission. Then he publicly announced his determination to assume by command of God the office of prophet and lawgiver, preached to the pilgrims flocking to Mecca, attacked Meccan idolatry, reasoned with his opponents, answered their demand for miracles by producing the Koran "leaf by leaf," as occasion demanded, and provoked persecution and civil commotion. He was forced in the year 622 to flee for his life with his followers from Mecca to Medina (El-Medina an-Nabî, the City of the Prophet), a distance of two hundred and fifty miles North, or ten days' journey over the sands and rocks of the desert. This flight or emigration, called Hégira or Hidshra, marks the beginning of his wonderful success, and of the Mohammedan era (July 15, 622). He was recognized in Medina as prophet and lawgiver. At first he proclaimed toleration: "Let there be no compulsion in religion;" but afterwards he revealed the opposite principle that all unbelievers must be summoned to Islâm, tribute, or the sword. With an increasing army of his enthusiastic followers, he took the field against his enemies, gained in 624 his first victory over the Koreish with an army of 305 (mostly citizens of Medina) against a force twice as large, conquered several Jewish and Christian tribes, ordered and watched in person the massacre of six hundred Jews in one day, [156] while their wives and children were sold into slavery (627), triumphantly entered Mecca (630), demolished the three hundred and sixty idols of the Kaaba, and became master of Arabia. The Koreish were overawed by his success, and now shouted: "There is but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet." The various tribes were melted into a nation, and their old hereditary feuds changed into a common fanatical hatred of the infidels, as the followers of all other religions were called. The last chapter of the Koran commands the remorseless extermination of all idolaters in Arabia, unless they submit within four months. In the tenth year of the Hegira, the prophet made his last pilgrimage to Mecca at the head of forty thousand Moslems, instructed them in all important ordinances, and exhorted them to protect the weak, the poor, and the women, and to abstain from usury. He planned a large campaign against the Greeks. But soon after his return to Medina, he died of a violent fever in the house and the arms of Ayesha, June 8, 632, in the sixty-third year of his age, and was buried on the spot where he died, which is now enclosed by a mosque. He suffered great pain, cried and wailed, turned on his couch in despair, and said to his wives when they expressed their surprise at his conduct: "Do ye not know that prophets have to suffer more than all others? One was eaten up by vermin; another died so poor that he had nothing but rags to cover his shame; but their reward will be all the greater in the life beyond." Among his last utterances were: "The Lord destroy the Jews and Christians! Let his anger be kindled against those that turn the tombs of their prophets into places of worship! O Lord, let not my tomb be an object of worship! Let there not remain any faith but that of Islâm throughout the whole of Arabia .... Gabriel, come close to me! Lord, grant me pardon and join me to thy companionship on high! Eternity in paradise! Pardon! Yes, the blessed companionship on high!" [157] Omar would not believe that Mohammed was dead, and proclaimed in the mosque of Medina: "The prophet has only swooned away; he shall not die until he have rooted out every hypocrite and unbeliever." But Abu Bakr silenced him and said: "Whosoever worships Mohammed, let him know that Mohammed is dead; but whosoever worships God, let him know that the Lord liveth, and will never die." Abu Bakr, whom he had loved most, was chosen Calif, or Successor of Mohammed. Later tradition, and even the earliest biography, ascribe to the prophet of Mecca strange miracles, and surround his name with a mythical halo of glory. He was saluted by walking trees and stones; he often made by a simple touch the udders of dry goats distend with milk; be caused floods of water to well up from the parched ground, or gush forth from empty vessels, or issue from betwixt the fingers; he raised the dead; he made a night journey on his steed Borak through the air from Mecca to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to paradise and the mansions of the prophets and angels, and back again to Mecca. [158] But he himself, in several passages of the Koran, expressly disclaims the power of miracles; he appeals to the internal proofs of his doctrine, and shields himself behind the providence of God, who refuses those signs which might diminish the merit of faith and aggravate the guilt of unbelief. [159] Character of Mohammed. The Koran, if chronologically arranged, must be regarded as the best commentary on his character. While his followers regard him to this day as the greatest prophet of God, he was long abhorred in Christendom as a wicked impostor, as the antichrist, or the false prophet, predicted in the Bible, and inspired by the father of lies. The calmer judgment of recent historians inclines to the belief that he combined the good and bad qualities of an Oriental chief, and that in the earlier part of his life he was a sincere reformer and enthusiast, but after the establishment of his kingdom a slave of ambition for conquest. He was a better man in the period of his adversity and persecution at Mecca, than during his prosperity and triumph at Medina. History records many examples of characters rising from poverty and obscurity to greatness, and then decaying under the sunshine of wealth and power. He degenerated, like Solomon, but did not repent, like the preacher of "vanity of vanities." He had a melancholic and nervous temperament, liable to fantastic hallucinations and alternations of high excitement and deep depression, bordering at times on despair and suicide. The story of his early and frequent epileptic fits throws some light on his revelations, during which he sometimes growled like a camel, foamed at his mouth, and streamed with perspiration. He believed in evil spirits, omens, charms, and dreams. His mind was neither clear nor sharp, but strong and fervent, and under the influence of an exuberant imagination. He was a poet of high order, and the Koran is the first classic in Arabic literature. He believed himself to be a prophet, irresistibly impelled by supernatural influence to teach and warn his fellow-men. He started with the over-powering conviction of the unity of God and a horror of idolatry, and wished to rescue his countrymen from this sin of sins and from the terrors of the judgment to come; but gradually he rose above the office of a national reformer to that of the founder of a universal religion, which was to absorb the other religions, and to be propagated by violence. It is difficult to draw the line in such a character between honest zeal and selfish ambition, the fear of God and the love of power and glory. He despised a throne and a diadem, lived with his wives in a row of low and homely cottages of unbaked bricks, and aided them in their household duties; he was strictly temperate in eating and drinking, his chief diet being dates and water; he was not ashamed to milk his goats, to mend his clothes and to cobble his shoes; his personal property at his death amounted to some confiscated lands, fourteen or fifteen slaves, a few camels and mules, a hundred sheep, and a rooster. This simplicity of a Bedouin Sheikh of the desert contrasts most favorably with the luxurious style and gorgeous display of Mohammed's successors, the Califs and Sultans, who have dozens of palaces and harems filled with eunuchs and women that know nothing beyond the vanities of dress and etiquette and a little music. He was easy of access to visitors who approached him with faith and reverence; patient, generous, and (according to Ayesha) as modest and bashful "as a veiled virgin." But towards his enemies he was cruel and revengeful. He did not shrink from perfidy. He believed in the use of the sword as the best missionary, and was utterly unscrupulous as to the means of success. He had great moral, but little physical courage; he braved for thirteen years the taunts and threats of the people, but never exposed himself to danger in battle, although he always accompanied his forces. Mohammed was a slave of sensual passion. Ayesha, who knew him best in his private character and habits, used to say: "The prophet loved three things, women, perfumes and food; he had his heart's desire of the two first, but not of the last." The motives of his excess in polygamy were his sensuality which grew with his years, and his desire for male offspring. His followers excused or justified him by the examples of Abraham, David and Solomon, and by the difficulties of his prophetic office, which were so great that God gave him a compensation in sexual enjoyment, and endowed him with greater capacity than thirty ordinary men. For twenty-four years he had but one wife, his beloved Chadijah, who died in 619, aged sixty-five, but only two months after her death he married a widow named Sawda (April 619), and gradually increased his harem, especially during the last two years of his life. When he heard of a pretty woman, says Sprenger, he asked her hand, but was occasionally refused. He had at least fourteen legal wives, and a number of slave concubines besides. At his death he left nine widows. He claimed special revelations which gave him greater liberty of sexual indulgence than ordinary Moslems (who are restricted to four wives), and exempted him from the prohibition of marrying near relatives. [160] He married by divine command, as he alleged, Zeynab, the wife of Zayd, his adopted son and bosom-friend. His wives were all widows except Ayesha. One of them was a beautiful and rich Jewess; she was despised by her sisters, who sneeringly said: "Pshaw, a Jewess!" He told her to reply: "Aaron is my father and Moses my uncle!" Ayesha, the daughter of Abû Bakr, was his especial favorite. He married her when she was a girl of nine years, and he fifty-three years old. She brought her doll-babies with her, and amused and charmed the prophet by her playfulness, vivacity and wit. She could read, had a copy of the Koran, and knew more about theology, genealogy and poetry than all the other widows of Mohammed. He announced that she would be his wife also in Paradise. Yet she was not free from suspicion of unfaithfulness until he received a revelation of her innocence. After his death she was the most sacred person among the Moslems and the highest authority on religious and legal questions. She survived her husband forty-seven years and died at Medina, July 13, 678, aged sixty-seven years. [161] In his ambition for a hereditary dynasty, Mohammed was sadly disappointed: he lost his two sons by Chadijah, and a third one by Mary the Egyptian, his favorite concubine. To compare such a man with Jesus, is preposterous and even blasphemous. Jesus was the sinless Saviour of sinners; Mohammed was a sinner, and he knew and confessed it. He falls far below Moses, or Elijah, or any of the prophets and apostles in moral purity. But outside of the sphere of revelation, he ranks with Confucius, and Cakya Muni the Buddha, among the greatest founders of religions and lawgivers of nations. __________________________________________________________________ [150] We know accurately the date of Mohammed's death (June 8, 632), but the year of his birth only by reckoning backwards; and as his age is variously stated from sixty-one to sixty-five, there is a corresponding difference in the statements of the year of his birth. De Sacy fixes it April 20, 571, von Hammer 569, Muir Aug. 20, 570, Sprenger between May 13, 567, and April 13, 571, but afterwards (I. 138), April 20, 571, as most in accordance with early tradition. [151] According to Ihn Ishâk and Wâckidi. Bahador adopts this tradition, in the last of his essays which treats of "the Birth and Childhood of Mohammed." But according to other accounts, Abdallah died several months (seven or eighteen) after Mohammed's birth. Muir. I. 11; Sprenger, I. 138. [152] On the pedigree of Mohammed, see an essay in the work of Syed Ahmed Khan Bahador, and MuirI1. 242-271. The Koreish were not exactly priests, but watched the temple, kept the keys, led the processions, and provided for the pilgrims. Hâshim, Mohammed's great-grandfather (b. a. d.442), thus addressed the Koreish: "Ye are the neighbors of God and the keepers of his house. The pilgrims who come honoring the sanctity of his temple, are his guests; and it is meet that ye should entertain them above all other guests. Ye are especially chosen of God and exalted unto this high dignity; wherefore honor big guests and refresh them." He himself set an example of munificent hospitality, and each of the Koreish contributed according to his ability. Muir I. CCXLVII. [153] Sprenger has a long chapter on this disease of Mohammed, which he calls with Schönlein, hysteria muscularis I. 207-268. [154] Sprenger discusses the question, and answers it in the affirmative, Vol. II. 398 sqq. The Koran (29) says: "Formerly [before I sent down the book, i.e. the Koran] thou didst not read any book nor write one with thy right hand!" From this, some Moslems infer that after the reception of the Koran, he was supernaturally taught to read and write; but others hold that he was ignorant of both. Syed Ahmed Khan Bahador says: "Not the least doubt now exists that the Prophet was wholly unacquainted with the art of writing, being also, as a matter of course (?), unable to read the hand-writing of others; for which reason, and for this only, be was called Ummee" (illiterate). [155] Sprenger attributes his faithfulness to Chadyga (as he spells the name) not to his merit, but to his dependence. She kept her fortune under her own control, and gave him only as much as he needed. [156] So Sprenger,III. 221. Others give seven hundred and ninety as the number of Jews who were beheaded in a ditch. [157] See Sprenger, III. 552 sqq., Muir, IV. 270 sqq. [158] This absurd story, circumstantially described by Abulfeda, is probably based on a dream which Mohammed himself relates in the Koran, Sura 17, entitled The Night Journey: "Glory be to Him who carried his servant by night from the sacred temple of Mecca to the temple that is remote" [i.e. in Jerusalem]. In the Dome of the Rock on Mount Moriah, the hand-prints of the angel Gabriel are shown in the mysterious rock which attempted to follow Mohammed to its native quarry in Paradise, but was kept back by the angel! [159] See an interesting essay on the "Miracles of Mohammed" in Tholuck's Miscellaneous Essays (1839), Vol. I., pp. 1-27. Also Muir, I., pp. 65 sqq.; Sprenger, II. 413 sqq. [160] He speaks freely of this subject in the Koran, Sur. 4, and 33. In the latter (Rodman's transl., p. 508) this scandalous passage occurs: "O Prophet! we allow thee thy wives whom thou hast dowered, and the slaves whom thy right hand possesseth out of the booty which God hath granted thee, and the daughters of thy uncle, and of thy paternal and maternal aunts who fled with thee to Medina, and any believing woman who hath given herself up to the Prophet, if the Prophet desired to wed her, a privilege for thee above the rest of the faithful." Afterwards in the same Sura (p. 569) he says: "Ye must not trouble the Apostle of God, nor marry his wives after him forever. This would be a grave offence with God." [161] Sprenger, III. 61-87, gives a full account of fourteen wives of Mohammed, and especially of Ayesha, according to the list of Zohry and Ibn Saad. Sprenger says, p. 37: "Der Prophet hatte keine Wohnung für sich selbst. Sein Hauptquartier war in der Hütte der Ayischa und die öffentlichen Geschäfte verrichtete er in der Moschee, aber er brachte jede Nacht bei einer seiner Frauen zu und war, wie es scheint, auch ihr Gast beim Essen. Er ging aber täglich, wenn er bei guter Laune war, bei allen seinen Frauen umher, gab jeder einen Kuss, sprach einige Worte und spielte mit ihr. Wir haben gesehen, dass seine Familie neun Hütten besass, dies war auch die, Anzahl der Frauen, welche er bei seinem Tode hinterliess. Doch gab es Zeiten, zu denen sein Harem stärker war. Er brachte dann einige seiner Schönen in den Häusern von Nachbarn unter. Es kam auch vor, dass zwei Frauen eine Hütte bewohnten. Stiefkinderwohnten, so lange sie jung waren, bei ihren Müttern." __________________________________________________________________ § 43. The Conquests of Islâm. "The sword," says Mohammed, "is the key of heaven and hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of Allah, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer: whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven, and at the day of judgment his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim." This is the secret of his success. Idolaters had to choose between Islâm, slavery, and death; Jews and Christians were allowed to purchase a limited toleration by the payment of tribute, but were otherwise kept in degrading bondage. History records no soldiers of greater bravery inspired by religion than the Moslem conquerors, except Cromwell's Ironsides, and the Scotch Covenanters, who fought with purer motives for a nobler cause. The Califs, Mohammed's successors, who like him united the priestly and kingly dignity, carried on his conquests with the battle-cry: "Before you is paradise, behind you are death and hell." Inspired by an intense fanaticism, and aided by the weakness of the Byzantine empire and the internal distractions of the Greek Church, the wild sons of the desert, who were content with the plainest food, and disciplined in the school of war, hardship and recklessness of life, subdued Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, embracing the classical soil of primitive Christianity. Thousands of Christian churches in the patriarchal dioceses of Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria, were ruthlessly destroyed, or converted into mosques. Twenty-one years after the death of Mohammed the Crescent ruled over a realm as large as the Roman Empire. Even Constantinople was besieged twice (668 and 717), although in vain. The terrible efficacy of the newly invented "Greek fire," and the unusual severity of a long winter defeated the enemy, and saved Eastern and Northern Europe from the blight of the Koran. A large number of nominal Christians who had so fiercely quarreled with each other about unfruitful subtleties of their creeds, surrendered their faith to the conqueror. In 707 the North African provinces, where once St. Augustin had directed the attention of the church to the highest problems of theology and religion, fell into the hands of the Arabs. In 711 they crossed from Africa to Spain and established an independent Califate at Cordova. The moral degeneracy and dissensions of the Western Goths facilitated their subjugation. Encouraged by such success, the Arabs crossed the Pyrenees and boasted that they would soon stable their horses in St. Peter's cathedral in Rome, but the defeat of Abd-er Rahman by Charles Martel between Poitiers and Tours in 732--one hundred and ten years after the Hegira--checked their progress in the West, and in 1492--the same year in which Columbus discovered a new Continent--Ferdinand defeated the last Moslem army in Spain at the gates of Granada and drove them back to Africa. The palace and citadel of the Alhambra, with its court of lions, its delicate arabesques and fretwork, and its aromatic gardens and groves, still remains, a gorgeous ruin of the power of the Moorish kings. In the East the Moslems made new conquests. In the ninth century they subdued Persia, Afghanistan, and a large part of India. They reduced the followers of Zoroaster to a few scattered communities, and conquered a vast territory of Brahminism and Buddhism even beyond the Ganges. The Seliuk Turks in the eleventh century, and the Mongols in the thirteenth, adopted the religion of the Califs whom they conquered. Constantinople fell at last into the hands of the Turks in 1453, and the magnificent church of St. Sophia, the glory of Justinian's reign, was turned into a mosque where the Koran is read instead of the Gospel, the reader holding the drawn scimetar in his hand. From Constantinople the Turks threatened the German empire, and it was not till 1683 that they were finally defeated by Sobieski at the gates of Vienna and driven back across the Danube. With the senseless fury of fanaticism and pillage the Tartar Turks have reduced the fairest portions of Eastern Europe to desolation and ruin. With sovereign contempt for all other religions, they subjected the Christians to a condition of virtual servitude, treating them like "dogs," as they call them. They did not intermeddle with their internal affairs, but made merchandise of ecclesiastical offices. The death penalty was suspended over every attempt to convert a Mussulman. Apostasy from the faith is also treason to the state, and merits the severest punishment in this world, as well as everlasting damnation in the world to come. After the Crimean war in 1856, the death penalty for apostasy was nominally abolished in the dominions of the Sultan, and in the Berlin Treaty of 1878 liberty of religion (more than mere toleration) was guaranteed to all existing sects in the Turkish empire, but the old fanaticism will yield only to superior force, and the guarantee of liberty is not understood to imply the liberty of propaganda among Moslems. Christian sects have liberty to prey on each other, but woe to them if they invade the sacred province of Islâm. [162] A Mohammedan tradition contains a curious prophecy that Christ, the son of Mary, will return as the last Calif to judge the world. [163] The impression is gaining ground among the Moslems that they will be unable ultimately to withstand the steady progress of Christianity and Western civilization. The Sultan, the successor of the Califs, is a mere shadow on the throne trembling for his life. The dissolution of the Turkish empire, which may be looked for at no distant future, will break the backbone of lslâm, and open the way for the true solution of the Eastern question--the moral regeneration of the Lands of the Bible by the Christianity of the Bible. __________________________________________________________________ [162] If Protestant missionaries enjoy more toleration and liberty in Turkey than in Roman Catholic Austria and in Greek Catholic Russia, it must be understood with the above limitation. Turkish toleration springs from proud contempt of Christianity in all its forms; Russian and Austrian intolerance, from despotism and bigoted devotion to a particular form of Christianity. [163] Among the traditional sayings of Mohammed is this (Gerock, l.c., p. 132): "I am nearest to Jesus, both as to the beginning and the end; for there is no prophet between me and Jesus; and at the end of time he will be my representative and my successor. The prophets are all brethren, as they have one father, though their mothers are different. The origin of all their religions is the same, and between me and Jesus there is no other prophet!' __________________________________________________________________ § 44. The Koran, and the Bible. "Mohammed's truth lay in a sacred Book, Christ's in a holy Life."--Milnes (Palm-Leaves). The Koran [164] is the sacred book, the Bible of the Mohammedans. It is their creed, their code of laws, their liturgy. It claims to be the product of divine inspiration by the arch-angel Gabriel, who performed the function assigned to the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures. [165] The Mohammedans distinguish two kinds of revelations: those which were literally delivered as spoken by the angel (called Wahee Matloo, or the word of God), and those which give the sense of the inspired instruction in the prophet's own words (called Wahee Ghair Matloo, or Hadees). The prophet is named only five times, but is addressed by Gabriel all through the book with the word Say, as the recipient and sacred penman of the revelations. It consists of 114 Suras [166] and 6,225 verses. Each Sura (except the ninth) begins with the formula (of Jewish origin): "In the name of Allah, the God of Mercy, the Merciful." [167] The Koran is composed in imperfect metre and rhyme (which is as natural and easy in the Arabic as in the Italian language). Its language is considered the purest Arabic. Its poetry somewhat resembles Hebrew poetry in Oriental imagery and a sort of parallelism or correspondence of clauses, but it loses its charm in a translation; while the Psalms and Prophets can be reproduced in any language without losing their original force and beauty. The Koran is held in superstitious veneration, and was regarded till recently as too sacred to be translated and to be sold like a common book. [168] Mohammed prepared and dictated the Koran from time to time as he received the revelations and progressed in his career, not for readers, but for hearers, leaving much to the suggestive action of the public recital, either from memory or from copies taken down by his friends. Hence its occasional, fragmentary character. About a year after his death, at the direction of Abu-Bakr, his father-in-law and immediate successor, Zayd, the chief ansar or amanuensis of the Prophet, collected the scattered fragments of the Koran "from palm-leaves, and tablets of white stone, and from the breasts of men," but without any regard to chronological order or continuity of subjects. Abu-Bakr committed this copy to the custody of Haphsa, one of Mohammed's widows. It remained the standard during the ten years of Omar's califate. As the different readings of copies occasioned serious disputes, Zayd, with several Koreish, was commissioned to secure the purity of the text in the Meccan dialect, and all previous copies were called in and burned. The recension of Zayd has been handed down with scrupulous care unaltered to this day, and various readings are almost unknown; the differences being confined to the vowel-points, which were invented at a later period. The Koran contains many inconsistencies and contradictions; but the expositors hold that the later command supersedes the earlier. The restoration of the chronological order of the Suras is necessary for a proper understanding of the gradual development of Islâm in the mind and character of its author. [169] There is a considerable difference between the Suras of the earlier, middle, and later periods. In the earlier, the poetic, wild, and rhapsodical element predominates; in the middle, the prosaic, narrative, and missionary; in the later, the official and legislative. Mohammed began with descriptions of natural objects, of judgment, of heaven and hell, impassioned, fragmentary utterances, mostly in brief sentences; he went on to dogmatic assertions, historical statements from Jewish and Christian sources, missionary appeals and persuasions; and he ended with the dictatorial commands of a legislator and warrior. "He who at Mecca is the admonisher and persuader, at Medina is the legislator and the warrior, who dictates obedience and uses other weapons than the pen of the poet and the scribe. When business pressed, as at Medina, poetry makes way for prose, [170] and although touches of the poetical element occasionally break forth, and he has to defend himself up to a very late period against the charge of being merely a poet, yet this is rarely the case in the Medina Suras; and we are startled by finding obedience to God and the Apostle, God's gifts and the Apostle's, God's pleasure and the Apostle's, spoken of in the same breath, and epithets, and attributes, applied to Allah, openly applied to Mohammed, as in Sura IX." [171] The materials of the Koran, as far as they are not productions of the author's own imagination, were derived from the floating traditions of Arabia and Syria, from rabbinical Judaism, and a corrupt Christianity, and adjusted to his purposes. Mohammed had, in his travels, come in contact with professors of different religions, and on his first journey with camel-drivers he fell in with a Nestorian monk of Bostra, who goes by different names (Bohari, Bahyra, Sergius, George), and welcomed the youthful prophet with a presage of his future greatness. [172] His wife Chadijah and her cousin Waraka (a reputed convert to Christianity, or more probably a Jew) are said to have been well acquainted with the sacred books of the Jews and the Christians. The Koran, especially in the earlier Suras, speaks often and highly of the Scriptures; calls them "the Book of God," "the Word of God," "the Tourât" (Thora, the Pentateuch), "the Gospel" (Ynyil), and describes the Jews and Christians as "the people of the Book," or "of the Scripture," or "of the Gospel." It finds in the Scriptures prophecies of Mohammed and his success, and contains narratives of the fall of Adam and Eve, Noah and the Deluge, Abraham and Lot, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Moses and Joseph, John the Baptist, the Virgin Mary and Jesus, sometimes in the words of the Bible, but mostly distorted and interspersed with rabbinical and apocryphal fables. [173] It is quite probable that portions of the Bible were read to Mohammed; but it is very improbable that he read it himself; for according to the prevailing Moslem tradition he could not read at all, and there were no Arabic translations before the Mohammedan conquests, which spread the Arabic language in the conquered countries. Besides, if he had read the Bible with any degree of care, he could not have made such egregious blunders. The few allusions to Scripture phraseology--as "giving alms to be seen of men," "none forgiveth sins but God only"--may be derived from personal intercourse and popular traditions. Jesus (Isa) is spoken of as "the Son of Mary, strengthened by the Holy Spirit." Noah (Nûh), Abraham (Ibrahym), Moses (Mûsa), Aaron (Harun), are often honorably mentioned, but apparently always from imperfect traditional or apocryphal sources of information. [174] The Koran is unquestionably one of the great books of the world. It is not only a book, but an institution, a code of civil and religious laws, claiming divine origin and authority. It has left its impress upon ages. It feeds to this day the devotions, and regulates the private and public life, of more than a hundred millions of human beings. It has many passages of poetic beauty, religious fervor, and wise counsel, but mixed with absurdities, bombast, unmeaning images, low sensuality. It abounds in repetitions and contradictions, which are not removed by the convenient theory of abrogation. It alternately attracts and repels, and is a most wearisome book to read. Gibbon calls the Koran "a glorious testimony to the unity of God," but also, very properly, an "endless, incoherent rhapsody of fable and precept and declamation, which seldom excites a sentiment or idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in the clouds." [175] Reiske [176] denounces it as the most absurd book and a scourge to a reader of sound common sense. Goethe, one of the best judges of literary and poetic merit, characterizes the style as severe, great, terrible, and at times truly sublime. "Detailed injunctions," he says, "of things allowed and forbidden, legendary stories of Jewish and Christian religion, amplifications of all kinds, boundless tautologies and repetitions, form the body of this sacred volume, which to us, as often as we approach it, is repellent anew, next attracts us ever anew, and fills us with admiration, and finally forces us into veneration." He finds the kernel of Islâm in the second Sura, where belief and unbelief with heaven and hell, as their sure reward, are contrasted. Carlyle calls the Koran "the confused ferment of a great rude human soul; rude, untutored, that cannot even read, but fervent, earnest, struggling vehemently to utter itself In words;" and says of Mohammedanism: "Call it not false, look not at the falsehood of it; look at the truth of it. For these twelve centuries it has been the religion and life-guidance of the fifth part of the whole kindred of mankind. Above all, it has been a religion heartily believed." But with all his admiration, Carlyle confesses that the reading of the Koran in English is "as toilsome a task" as he ever undertook. "A wearisome, confused jumble, crude, incondite; endless iterations, long-windedness, entanglement; insupportable stupidity, in short, nothing but a sense of duty could carry any European through the Koran. We read it, as we might in the State-Paper Office, unreadable masses of lumber, that we may get some glimpses of a remarkable man." And yet there are Mohammedan doctors who are reported to have read the Koran seventy thousand times! What a difference of national and religious taste! Emanuel Deutsch finds the grandeur of the Koran chiefly in its Arabic diction, "the peculiarly dignified, impressive, sonorous nature of Semitic sound and parlance; its sesquipedalia verba, with their crowd of prefixes and affixes, each of them affirming its own position, while consciously bearing upon and influencing the central root, which they envelop like a garment of many folds, or as chosen courtiers move round the anointed person of the king." E. H. Palmer says that the claim of the Koran to miraculous eloquence, however absurd it may sound to Western ears, was and is to the Arab incontrovertible, and he accounts for the immense influence which it has always exercised upon the Arab mind, by the fact, "that it consists not merely of the enthusiastic utterances of an individual, but of the popular sayings, choice pieces of eloquence, and favorite legends current among the desert tribes for ages before this time. Arabic authors speak frequently of the celebrity attained by the ancient Arabic orators, such as Shâibân Wâil; but unfortunately no specimens of their works have come down to us. The Qur'ân, however, enables us to judge of the speeches which took so strong a hold upon their countrymen." [177] Of all books, not excluding the Vedas, the Koran is the most powerful rival of the Bible, but falls infinitely below it in contents and form. Both contain the moral and religious code of the nations which own it; the Koran, like the Old Testament, is also a civil and political code. Both are oriental in style and imagery. Both have the fresh character of occasional composition growing out of a definite historical situation and specific wants. But the Bible is the genuine revelation of the only true God in Christ, reconciling the world to himself; the Koran is a mock-revelation without Christ and without atonement. Whatever is true in the Koran is borrowed from the Bible; what is original, is false or frivolous. The Bible is historical and embodies the noblest aspirations of the human race in all ages to the final consummation; the Koran begins and stops with Mohammed. The Bible combines endless variety with unity, universal applicability with local adaptation; the Koran is uniform and monotonous, confined to one country, one state of society, and one class of minds. The Bible is the book of the world, and is constantly travelling to the ends of the earth, carrying spiritual food to all races and to all classes of society; the Koran stays in the Orient, and is insipid to all who have once tasted the true word of the living God. [178] Even the poetry of the Koran never rises to the grandeur and sublimity of Job or Isaiah, the lyric beauty of the Psalms, the sweetness and loveliness of the Song of Solomon, the sententious wisdom of the Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. A few instances must suffice for illustration. The first Sura, called "the Sura of Praise and Prayer," which is recited by the Mussulmans several times in each of the five daily devotions, fills for them the place of the Lord's Prayer, and contains the same number of petitions. We give it in a rhymed, and in a more literal translation: "In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate! Praise be to Allah, who the three worlds made, The Merciful, the Compassionate, The King of the day of Fate, Thee alone do we worship, and of Thee alone do we ask aid. Guide us to the path that is straight -- The path of those to whom Thy love is great, Not those on whom is hate, Nor they that deviate! Amen. [179] "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds! The Compassionate, the Merciful! King on the day of judgment! Thee only do we worship, and to Thee do we cry for help. Guide Thou us on the right path, The path of those to whom Thou art gracious; Not of those with whom Thou art angered, Nor of those who go astray." [180] We add the most recent version in prose: "In the name of the merciful and compassionate God. Praise belongs to God, the Lord of the worlds, the merciful, the compassionate, the ruler of the day of judgment! Thee we serve and Thee we ask for aid. Guide us in the right path, the path of those Thou art gracious to; not of those Thou art wroth with; nor of those who err." [181] As this Sura invites a comparison with the Lord's Prayer infinitely to the advantage of the latter, so do the Koran's descriptions of Paradise when contrasted with St. John's vision of the heavenly Jerusalem: "Joyous on that day shall be the inmates of Paradise in their employ; In shades, on bridal couches reclining, they and their spouses: Therein shall they have fruits, and whatever they require -- 'Peace!' shall be the word on the part of a merciful Lord. But be ye separated this day, O ye sinners!" [182] "The sincere servants of God A stated banquet shall they have Of fruits; and honored shall they be In the gardens of delight, Upon couches face to face. A cup shall be borne round among them from a fountain, Limpid, delicious to those who drink; It shall not oppress the sense, nor shall they therewith be drunken, And with them are the large-eyed ones with modest refraining glances, fair like the sheltered egg." [183] __________________________________________________________________ [164] Arabic qurân, i.e. the reading or that which should be read, the book. It is read over and over again in all the mosques and schools. [165] Sura 53 (Rodwell, p. 64): "The Koran is no other than a revelation revealed to him: One terrible in power [Gabriel, i.e. the Strong one of God] taught it him. Endued with wisdom, with even balance stood he In the highest part of the horizon. He came nearer and approached, And was at the distance of two bows, or even closer,-- And he revealed to his servant what he revealed." I add the view of a learned modern Mohammedan, Syed Ahmed Khan Babador, who says (l.c., Essay on the Holy Koran): "The Holy Koran was delivered to Mohammed neither in the form of graven tablets of stone, nor in that of cloven tongues of fire; nor was it necessary that the followers of Mohammed, like those of Moses, should be furnished with a copy or counterpart, in case the original should be lost. No mystery attended the delivery of it, for it was on Mohammed's heart that it was engraven, and it was with his tongue that it was communicated to all Arabia. The heart of Mohammed was the Sinai where he received the revelation, and his tablets of stone were the hearts of true believers." [166] Sura means either revelation, or chapter, or part of a chapter. The Mohammedan commentators refer it primarily to the succession of subjects or parts, like the rows of bricks in a wall. The titles of the Suras are generally taken from some leading topic or word in each, as "The Sun," "The Star," "The Charges," "The Scattering," "The Adoration," "The Spider," "Women," "Hypocrites," "Light," "Jonas," "The Cave," "The Night Journey," "The Cow," "The Battle," "The Victory." [167] 7 "Bismillahi 'rrahonani 'rrahim." According to the Ulama (the professors of religion and law), "God of mercy" means merciful in great things; "the Merciful" means merciful in small things. But, according to E. W. Lane, "the first expresses an occasional sensation, the second a constant quality!" In other words, the one refers to acts, the other to a permanent attribute. [168] These scruples are gradually giving way, at least in India, where "printed copies, with inter-lineal versions in Persian and Urdoo--too literal to be intelligible--are commonly used." Muir, The Corân, p. 48. The manuscript copies in the mosques, in the library of the Khedive in Cairo, and in many European libraries, are equal in caligraphic beauty to the finest mediaeval manuscripts of the Bible. [169] The present order, Says Muir (Corân, p. 41), is almost a direct inversion of the natural chronological order; the longest which mostly belong to the later period of Mohammed, being placed first and the shortest last. Weil, Sprenger, and Muir have paid much attention to the chronological arrangement. Nöldeke also, in his Geschichte des Qôrans, has fixed the order of the Suras, with a reasonable degree of certainty on the basis of Mohammedan traditions and a searching analysis of the text; and he has been mainly followed by Rodwell in his English version. [170] The ornament of metre and rhyme, however, is preserved throughout. [171] Rodwell, p. X. Comp. Deutsch, l.c., p. 121. [172] Muir, Life of Moh., I. 35; Stanley, p. 366. [173] See a collection of these correspondences in the original Arabic and in English in Sir William Muir's Coran, pp. 66 sqq. Muir concludes that Mohammed knew the Bible, and believed in its divine origin and authority. [174] Muir (Life, II. 313, 278) and Stanley (p. 366) adduce, as traces of a faint knowledge of the Canonical Gospels, the account of the birth of John the Baptist in the Koran, and the assumption by Mohammed of the name of Paracletus under the distorted form of Periclytus, the Illustrious. But the former does not strike me as being taken from St. Luke, else he could not have made such a glaring chronological mistake as to identify Mary with Miriam, the sister of Moses. And as to the promise of the Paraclete, which only occurs in St. John, it certainly must have passed into popular tradition, for the word occurs also in the Talmud. If Mohammed had read St. John, he must have seen that the Paraclete is the Holy Spirit, and would have identified him with Gabriel, rather than with himself. Palmer's opinion is that Mohammed could neither read nor write, but acquired his knowledge from the traditions which were then current in Arabia among Jewish and Christian tribes. The Qur'ân, I., p. xlvii. [175] Decline and Fall of the R. E., Ch. 50. [176] As quoted in Tholuck. [177] The Qur'ân, Introd. I., p. 1. [178] On this difference Ewald makes some good remarks in the first volume of his Biblical Theology (1871), p. 418. [179] Translated by Lieut. Burton. [180] Rodwell, The Korân (2nd ed., 1876), p. 10. [181] E. H. Palmer, The Qur'ân, Oxford, 1880, Part I., p. 1. [182] · Sura 36 (in Rodwell, p. 128). [183] · The ostrich egg carefully protected from dust. Sura 37 (in Rodwell, p 69). Brides and wives always figure in the Mohammedan Paradise. __________________________________________________________________ § 45. The Mohammedan Religion. lslâm is not a new religion, nor can we expect a new one after the appearance of that religion which is perfect and intended for all nations and ages. It is a compound or mosaic of preëxisting elements, a rude attempt to combine heathenism, Judaism and Christianity, which Mohammed found in Arabia, but in a very imperfect form. [184] It is professedly, a restoration of the faith of Abraham, the common father of Isaac and of Ishmael. But it is not the genuine faith of Abraham with its Messianic hopes and aspirations looking directly to the gospel dispensation as its goal and fulfilment, but a bastard Judaism of Ishmael, and the post-Christian and anti-Christian Judaism of the Talmud. Still less did Mohammed know the pure religion of Jesus as laid down in the New Testament, but only a perversion and caricature of it such as we find in the wretched apocryphal and heretical Gospels. This ignorance of the Bible and the corruptions of Eastern Christianity with which the Mohammedans came in contact, furnish some excuse for their misbelief and stubborn prejudices. And yet even the poor pseudo-Jewish and pseudo-Christian elements of the Koran were strong enough to reform the old heathenism of Arabia and Africa and to lift it to a much higher level. The great and unquestionable merit of Islâm is the breaking up of idolatry and the diffusion of monotheism. The creed of Islâm is simple, and consists of six articles: God, predestination, the angels (good and bad), the books, the prophets, the resurrection and judgment with eternal reward and eternal punishment. God. Monotheism is the comer-stone of the system. It is expressed in the ever-repeated sentence: "There is no god but God (Allâh, i.e., the true, the only God), and Mohammed is his prophet (or apostle)." [185] Gibbon calls this a "compound of an eternal truth and a necessary fiction." The first clause certainly is a great and mighty truth borrowed from the Old Testament (Deut. 6:4); and is the religious strength of the system. But the Mohammedan (like the later Jewish, the Socinian, and the Unitarian) monotheism is abstract, monotonous, divested of inner life and fulness, anti-trinitarian, and so far anti-Christian. One of the last things which a Mohammedan will admit, is the divinity of Christ. Many of the divine attributes are vividly apprehended, emphasized and repeated in prayer. But Allah is a God of infinite power and wisdom, not a God of redeeming love to all mankind; a despotic sovereign of trembling subjects and slaves, not a loving Father of trustful children. He is an object of reverence and fear rather than of love and gratitude. He is the God of fate who has unalterably foreordained all things evil as well as good; hence unconditional resignation to him (this is the meaning of Islâm) is true wisdom and piety. He is not a hidden, unknowable being, but a God who has revealed himself through chosen messengers, angelic and human. Adam, Noah, Abraham Moses, and Jesus are his chief prophets. [186] But Mohammed is the last and the greatest. Christ. The Christology of the Koran is a curious mixture of facts and apocryphal fictions, of reverence for the man Jesus and denial of his divine character. He is called "the Messiah Jesus Son of Mary," or "the blessed Son of Mary." [187] He was a servant and apostle of the one true God, and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, i.e., the angel Gabriel (Dshebril), who afterwards conveyed the divine revelations to Mohammed. But he is not the Son of God; for as God has no wife, he can have no son. [188] He is ever alone, and it is monstrous and blasphemous to associate another being with Allah. Some of the Mohammedan divines exempt Jesus and even his mother from sin, and first proclaimed the dogma of the immaculate conception of Mary, for which the apocryphal Gospels prepared the way. [189] By a singular anachronism, the Koran confounds the Virgin Mary with Miriam," the sister of Aaron" (Harun), and Moses (Ex. xv. 20; Num. xxi. 1). Possibly Mohammed may have meant another Aaron (since he calls Mary, "the sister of Aaron but not "of Moses"); some of his commentators, however, assume that the sister of Moses was miraculously preserved to give birth to Jesus. [190] According to the Koran Jesus was conceived by the Virgin Mary at the appearance of Gabriel and born under a palm tree beneath which a fountain opened. This story is of Ebionite origin. [191] Jesus preached in the cradle and performed miracles in His infancy (as in the apocryphal Gospels), and during His public ministry, or rather Allah wrought miracles through Him. Mohammed disclaims the miraculous power, and relied upon the stronger testimony of the truth of his doctrine. Jesus proclaimed the pure doctrine of the unity of God and disclaimed divine honors. The crucifixion of Jesus is denied. He was delivered by a miracle from the death intended for Him, and taken up by God into Paradise with His mother. The Jews slew one like Him, by mistake. This absurd docetic idea is supposed to be the common belief of Christians. [192] Jesus predicted the coming of Mohammed, when he said: "O children of Israel! of a truth I am God's apostle to you to confirm the law which was given before me, and to announce an apostle that shall come after me whose name shall be Ahmed!" [193] Thus the promise of the Holy Ghost, "the other Paraclete," (John xiv. 16) was applied by Mohammed to himself by a singular confusion of Paracletos (paravklhto") with Periclytos (perivkluto", heard all round, famous) or Ahmed (the glorified, the illustrious), one of the prophet's names. [194] Owing to this partial recognition of Christianity Mohammed was originally regarded not as the founder of a new religion, but as one of the chief heretics. [195] The same opinion is expressed by several modern writers, Catholic and Protestant. Döllinger says: "Islâm must be considered at bottom a Christian heresy, the bastard offspring of a Christian father and a Jewish mother, and is indeed more closely allied to Christianity than Manichaeism, which is reckoned a Christian sect." [196] Stanley calls Islâm an "eccentric heretical form of Eastern Christianity," and Ewald more correctly, "the last and most powerful offshoot of Gnosticism." [197] The Ethics of IslÂm. Resignation (Islâm) to the omnipotent will of Allah is the chief virtue. It is the most powerful motive both in action and suffering, and is carried to the excess of fatalism and apathy. The use of pork and wine is strictly forbidden; prayer, fasting (especially during the whole month of Ramadhân), and almsgiving are enjoined. Prayer carries man half-way to God, fasting brings him to the door of God's palace, alms secure admittance. The total abstinence from strong drink by the whole people, even in countries where the vine grows in abundance, reveals a remarkable power of self-control, which puts many Christian nations to shame. Mohammedanism is a great temperance society. Herein lies its greatest moral force. Polygamy. But on the other hand the heathen vice of polygamy and concubinage is perpetuated and encouraged by the example of the prophet. He restrained and regulated an existing practice, and gave it the sanction of religion. Ordinary believers are restricted to four wives (exclusive of slaves), and generally have only one or two. But Califs may fill their harems to the extent of their wealth and lust. Concubinage with female slaves is allowed to all without limitation. The violation of captive women of the enemy is the legitimate reward of the conqueror. The laws of divorce and prohibited degrees are mostly borrowed from the Jews, but divorce is facilitated and practiced to an extent that utterly demoralizes married life. Polygamy and servile concubinage destroy the dignity of woman, and the beauty and peace of home. In all Mohammedan countries woman is ignorant and degraded; she is concealed from public sight by a veil (a sign of degradation as well as protection); she is not commanded to pray, and is rarely seen in the mosques; it is even an open question whether she has a soul, but she is necessary even in paradise for the gratification of man's passion. A Moslem would feel insulted by an inquiry after the health of his wife or wives. Polygamy affords no protection against unnatural vices, which are said to prevail to a fearful extent among Mohammedans, as they did among the ancient heathen. [198] In nothing is the infinite superiority of Christianity over Islâm so manifest as in the condition of woman and family life. Woman owes everything to the religion of the gospel. The sensual element pollutes even the Mohammedan picture of heaven from which chastity is excluded. The believers are promised the joys of a luxuriant paradise amid blooming gardens, fresh fountains, and beautiful virgins. Seventy-two Houris, or black-eyed girls of blooming youth will be created for the enjoyment of the meanest believer; a moment of pleasure will be prolonged to a thousand years; and his faculties will be increased a hundred fold. Saints and martyrs will be admitted to the spiritual joys of the divine vision. But infidels and those who refuse to fight for their faith will be cast into hell. The Koran distinguishes seven heavens, and seven hells (for wicked or apostate Mohammedans, Christians, Jews, Sabians, Magians, idolaters, hypocrites). Hell (Jahennem=Gehenna) is beneath the lowest earth and seas of darkness; the bridge over it is finer than a hair and sharper than the edge of a sword; the pious pass over it in a moment, the wicked fall from it into the abyss. Slavery. Slavery is recognized and sanctioned as a normal condition of society, and no hint is given in the Koran, nor any effort made by Mohammedan rulers for its final extinction. It is the twin-sister of polygamy; every harem is a slave-pen or a slave-palace. "The Koran, as a universal revelation, would have been a perpetual edict of servitude." Mohammed, by ameliorating the condition of slaves, and enjoining kind treatment upon the masters, did not pave the way for its abolition, but rather riveted its fetters. The barbarous slave-trade is still carried on in all its horrors by Moslems among the negroes in Central Africa. War. War against unbelievers is legalized by the Koran. The fighting men are to be slain, the women and children reduced to slavery. Jews and Christians are dealt with more leniently than idolaters; but they too must be thoroughly humbled and forced to pay tribute. __________________________________________________________________ [184] Luther said of the religion of the Turks: "Also ist's ein Glaub zusammengeflickt aus der Jüden, Christen und Heiden Glaube." Milman (II. 139) calls Mohammedanism "the republication of a more comprehensive Judaism with some depraved forms of Christianity." Renan describes it as "the least original" of the religious creations of humanity. Geiger and Deutsch (both Hebrews) give prominence to the Jewish element. "It is not merely parallelisms," says Deutsch, "reminiscences, allusions, technical terms, and the like, of Judaism, its lore and dogma and ceremony, its Halacha and Haggadah (which may most briefly be rendered by 'Law' and 'Legend'), which we find in the Koran; but we think Islâm neither more nor less than Judaism as adapted to Arabia--plus the apostleship of Jesus and Mohammed. Nay, we verily believe that a great deal of such Christianity as has found its way into the Koran, has found it through Jewish channels" (l.c. p. 64). [185] Lâ ilâha ill' Allâh, wa Muhammeda rrasúlà 'llâh. Allâh is composed of the article al, "the," and ilâh, "a god," and is equivalent to the Hebrew Eli and Elohim. He was known to the Arabs before Mohammed, and regarded as the chief god in their pantheon. [186] A similar idea is presented in the pseudo-Clementine Homilies. [187] Mesich Isa ben Mariam. [188] In rude misconception or wilful perversion, Mohammed seems to have understood the Christian doctrine of the trinity to be a trinity of Father, Mary, and Jesus. The Holy Spirit is identified with Gabriel. "God is only one God! Far be it from his glory that he should have a son!" Sura 4, ver. 169; comp. 5, ver. 77. The designation and worship of Mary as "the mother of God" may have occasioned this strange mistake. There was in Arabia in the fourth century a sect of fanatical women called Collyridians (Kollurides), who rendered divine worship to Mary. Epiphanius, Haer. 79.· [189] As the Protevangelium Jacobi, the Evang. de Nativitate Mariae, the Evang. Infantis Servatoris, etc. Gibbon (ch. 50) and Stanley (p. 367) trace the doctrine of the immaculate conception directly to the Koran. It is said of Mary: "Remember when the angel said: 'O Mary! verily hath God chosen thee, and purified thee, and chosen thee above the women of the worlds.' " But this does not necessarily mean more than Luke i. 28. The Koran knows nothing of original sin in the Christian sense. [190] Gerok, l.c. pp. 22-28. This would be a modification of the rabbinical fable that ordinary death and corruption had as little power over Miriam as over Moses, and that both died by the breath of Jehovah. [191] Rösch (l.c., p. 439) Die Geburtsgeschichte Jesu im Koran ist nichts anderes als ein mythologischer Mythus aus Ezech. 47 mit eingewobenen jüdischen Zügen, der seine Heimath im Ebionismus hat." [192] Sura 4. This view of the crucifixion is no doubt derived from apocryphal sources. The Gnostic sect of Basilides supposed Simon of Cyrene, the Evangel. Barrabae, Judas, to have been that other person who was crucified instead of Jesus. Mani (Epist. Fund.) says that the prince of darkness was nailed to the cross, and wore the crown of thorns. [193] Sura 61. [194] The Moslems refer also some other passages of Scripture to Mohammed and his religion, e.g. Gen. xvi. 10; xvii. 20; xxi. 12, 13; xxvii. 20 (the promise of God to bless Hagar and Ishmael); Deut. xviii. 15, 18 (the promise to raise up a prophet like Moses); Isa. xxi. 67 (where Mohammed is supposed to be meant by the "rider on the camel," as distinct from Jesus, "the rider on the ass"); John iv. 21; 1 John iv. 23 (where he is the spirit that is of God, because he proclaimed that Jesus was a true man, not God); Deut. xxxii.2 (where Sinai is said to mean the Jewish, Seir the Christian, and Paran the Mohammedan revelation). [195] So by John of Damascus and the mediaeval writers against Islâm. Peter of Clugny speaks of "haereses Saracenorum sive Ismaelitarum."Comp. Gass, Gennadius und Pletho, p. 109. [196] Lectures on the Reunion of Churches, p. 7 (transl. by Oxenham, 1872). [197] Die Lehre der Bibel von Gott, Vol. I. (1871), p. 418. [198] Rom. i. 24sqq. See the statements of Dr. Jessup of Beirût, l.c., p. 47. __________________________________________________________________ § 46. Mohammedan Worship. "A simple, unpartitioned room, Surmounted by an ample dome, Or, in some Iands that favored he, With centre open to the sky, But roofed with arched cloisters round, That mark the consecrated bound, And shade the niche to Mecca turned, By which two massive lights are burned; With pulpit whence the sacred word Expounded on great days is heard; With fountains fresh, where, ere they pray, Men wash the soil of earth away; With shining minaret, thin and high, From whose fine trellised balcony, Announcement of the hour of prayer Is uttered to the silent air: Such is the Mosque--the holy place, Where faithful men of every race Meet at their ease and face to face." (From Milnes, "Palm Leaves.") In worship the prominent feature of Islâm is its extreme iconoclasm and puritanism. In this respect, it resembles the service of the synagogue. The second commandment is literally understood as a prohibition of all representations of living creatures, whether in churches or elsewhere. The only ornament allowed is the "Arabesque," which is always taken from inanimate nature. [199] The ceremonial is very simple. The mosques, like Catholic churches, are always open and frequented by worshippers, who perform their devotions either alone or in groups with covered head and bare feet. In entering, one must take off the shoes according to the command: "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." Slippers or sandals of straw are usually provided for strangers, and must be paid for. There are always half a dozen claimants for "backsheesh"--the first and the last word which greets the traveller in Egypt and Syria. Much importance is attached to preaching. [200] Circumcision is retained from the Jews, although it is not mentioned in the Koran. Friday is substituted for the Jewish Sabbath as the sacred day (perhaps because it was previously a day for religious assemblage). It is called the prince of days, the most excellent day on which man was created, and on which the last judgment will take place; but the observance is less strict than that of the Jewish Sabbath. On solemn occasions sacrifice, mostly in the nature of a thank-offering, is offered and combined with an act of benevolence to the poor. But there is no room in Islâm for the idea of atonement; God forgives sins directly and arbitrarily, without a satisfaction of justice. Hence there is no priesthood in the sense of a hereditary or perpetual caste, offering sacrifices and mediating between God and the people. [201] Yet there are Mufties and Dervishes, who are as powerful as any class of priests and monks. The Mussulmans have their saints, and pray at their white tombs. In this respect, they approach the Greeks and Roman Catholics; yet they abhor the worship of saints as idolatry. They also make much account of religious processions and pilgrimages. Their chief place of pilgrimage is Mecca. Many thousands of Moslems from Egypt and all parts of Turkey pass annually through the Arabian desert to worship at the holy Kaaba, and are received in triumph on their return. The supposed tomb of Moses, also, which is transferred to the Western shore of the Dead Sea, is visited by the Moslems of Jerusalem and the neighboring country in the month of April. Prayer with prostrations is reduced to a mechanical act which is performed with the regularity of clock work. Washing of hands is enjoined before prayer, but in the desert, sand is permitted as a substitute for water. There are five stated seasons for prayer: at day-break, near noon, in the afternoon, a little after sunset (to avoid the appearance of sun-worship), and at night-fall, besides two night prayers for extra devotion. The muëddin or muëzzin (crier) announces the time of devotion from the minaret of the mosque by chanting the "Adan" or call to prayer, in these words: God is great!" (four times). "I bear witness that there is no god but God" (twice). "I bear witness that Mohammed is the Apostle of God" (twice). "Come hither to prayers!" (twice). "Come hither to salvation!" (twice). "God is great! There is no other God!" And in the early morning the crier adds: "Prayer is better than sleep!" A devout Mussulman is never ashamed to perform his devotion in public, whether in the mosque, or in the street, or on board the ship. Regardless of the surroundings, feeling alone with God in the midst of the crowd, his face turned to Mecca, his hands now raised to heaven, then laid on the lap, his forehead touching the ground, he goes through his genuflexions and prostrations, and repeats the first Sura of the Koran and the ninety-nine beautiful names of Allah, which form his rosary. [202] The mosques are as well filled with men, as many Christian churches are with women. Islâm is a religion for men; women are of no account; the education and elevation of the female sex would destroy the system. With all its simplicity and gravity, the Mohammedan worship has also its frantic excitement of the Dervishes. On the celebration of the birthday of their prophet and other festivals, they work themselves, by the constant repetition of "Allah, Allah," into a state of unconscious ecstacy, "in which they plant swords in their breasts, tear live serpents with their teeth, eat bottles of glass, and finally lie prostrate on the ground for the chief of their order to ride on horseback over their bodies." [203] I will add a brief description of the ascetic exercises of the "Dancing" and "Howling" Dervishes which I witnessed in their convents at Constantinople and Cairo in 1877. The Dancing or Turning Dervishes in Pera, thirteen in number, some looking ignorant and stupid, others devout and intensely fanatical, went first through prayers and prostrations, then threw off their outer garments, and in white flowing gowns, with high hats of stiff woolen stuff, they began to dance to the sound of strange music, whirling gracefully and skilfully on their toes, ring within ring, without touching each other or moving out of their circle, performing, in four different acts, from forty to fifty turnings in one minute, their arms stretched out or raised to heaven their eyes half shut, their mind apparently lost in a sort of Nirwana or pantheistic absorption in Allah. A few hours afterward I witnessed the rare spectacle of one of these very Dervishes reeling to and fro in a state of intoxication on the street and the lower bridge of the Golden Horn. The Howling Dervishes in Scutari present a still more extraordinary sight, and a higher degree of ascetic exertion, but destitute of all grace and beauty. The performance took place in a small, plain, square room, and lasted nearly two hours. As the monks came in, they kissed the hand of their leader and repeated with him long prayers from the Koran. One recited with melodious voice an Arabic song in praise of Mohammed. Then, standing in a row, bowing, and raising their heads, they continued to howl the fundamental dogma of Mohammedanism, Lâ ilâha ill' Allâh for nearly an hour. Some were utterly exhausted and wet with perspiration. The exercises I saw in Cairo were less protracted, but more dramatic, as the Dervishes had long hair and stood in a circle, swinging their bodies backward and forward in constant succession, and nearly touching the ground with their flowing hair. In astounding feats of asceticism the Moslems are fully equal to the ancient Christian anchorites and the fakirs of India. __________________________________________________________________ [199] The lions in the court of the Alhambra farm an exception. [200] For an interesting description of a sermon from the pulpit of Mecca, see Burton's Pilgrimage, II. 314; III. 117, quoted by Stanley, p. 379. Burton says, he had never and nowhere seen so solemn, so impressive a religious spectacle. Perhaps he has not heard many Christian sermons. [201] Gibbon's statement that "the Mohammedan religion has no priest and no sacrifice;" is substantially correct. [202] They are given in Arabic and English by Palmer, l.c. I., Intr, p. lxvii. sq. The following are the first ten: 1. ar-Ra'hmân, the Merciful. 2. ar-Ra'hîm, the Compassionate. 3. al-Mâlik, the Ruler. 4 . al-Quaddûs, the Holy. 5. as-Salâm, Peace. 6. al-Mû'min, the Faithful. 7. al-Muhâimun, the Protector. 8. al-Haziz the Mighty. 9. al-Gabbâr, the Repairer. 10. al-Mutakabbir, the Great. [203] Description of Dean Stanley from his own observation in Cairo, l.c., p. 385. __________________________________________________________________ § 47. Christian Polemics against Mohammedanism. Note on Mormonism. See the modern Lit. in § 38. For a list of earlier works against Mohammedanism, see J. Alb. Fabricius: Delectus argumentorum et syllabus scriptorum, qui veritatem Christ. Adv. Atheos, ... Judaeos et Muhammedanos ... asseruerunt. Hamb., 1725, pp. 119 sqq., 735 sqq. J. G. Walch: Bibliotheca Theolog. Selecta (Jenae, 1757), Tom. I. 611 sqq. Appendix to Prideaux's Life of Mahomet. Theod. Bibliander, edited at Basle, in 1543, and again in 1550, with the Latin version of the Koran, a collection of the more important works against Mohammed under the title: Machumetis Saracenorum principis ejusque successorum vitae, doctrinae, ac ipse Alcoran., I vol. fol. Richardus (about 1300): Confutatio Alcorani, first publ. in Paris, 1511. Joh. de Turrecremata: Tractatus contra principales errores perfidi Mahometis et Turcorum. Rom., 1606. Lud. Maraccius (Maracci): Prodromus ad refutationem Alcorani; in quo, per IV. praecipuas verae religionis notas, mahumetanae sectae falsitas ostenditur, christianae religionis veritas comprobatur. Rom. (typis Congreg. de Propaganda Fide), 1691. 4 vols., small oct.; also Pref. to his Alcorani textus universus, Petav., 1698, 2 vols. fol. Hadr. Reland: De Religione Mohammedica. Utrecht, 1705; 2nd ed. 1717; French transl., Hague, 1721. W. Gass: Gennadius und Pletho. Breslau, 1844, Part I., pp. 106-181. (Die Bestreitung des Islâm im Mittelalter.) The argument of Mohammedanism against other religions was the sword. Christian Europe replied with the sword in the crusades, but failed. Greek and Latin divines refuted the false prophet with superior learning, but without rising to a higher providential view, and without any perceptible effect. Christian polemics against Mohammed and the Koran began in the eighth century, and continued with interruptions to the sixteenth and seventeenth. John of Damascus, who lived among the Saracens (about a.d. 750), headed the line of champions of the cross against the crescent. He was followed, in the Greek Church, by Theodor of Abukara, who debated a good deal with Mohammedans in Mesopotamia, by Samonas, bishop of Gaza, Bartholomew of Edessa, John Kantakuzenus (or rather a monk Meletius, formerly a Mohammedan, who justified his conversion, with the aid of the emperor, in four apologies and four orations), Euthymius Zigabenus, Gennadius, patriarch of Constantinople. Prominent in the Latin church were Peter, Abbot of Clugny (twelfth century), Thomas Aquinas, Alanus ab Insulis, Raimundus LulIus, Nicolaus of Cusa, Ricold or Richard (a Dominican monk who lived long in the East), Savonarola, Joh. de Turrecremata. The mediaeval writers, both Greek and Latin, represent Mohammed as an impostor and arch-heretic, who wove his false religion chiefly from Jewish (Talmudic) fables and Christian heresies. They find him foretold in the Little Horn of Daniel, and the False Prophet of the Apocalypse. They bring him in connection with a Nestorian monk, Sergius, or according to others, with the Jacobite Bahira, who instructed Mohammed, and might have converted him to the Christian religion, if malignant Jews had not interposed with their slanders. Thus he became the shrewd and selfish prophet of a pseudo-gospel, which is a mixture of apostate Judaism and apostate Christianity with a considerable remnant of his native Arabian heathenism. Dante places him, disgustingly torn and mutilated, among the chief heretics and schismatics in the ninth gulf of Hell, "Where is paid the fee By those who sowing discord win their burden." [204] This mediaeval view was based in part upon an entire ignorance or perversion of facts. It was then believed that Mohammedans were pagans and idolaters, and cursed the name of Christ, while it is now known, that they abhor idolatry, and esteem Christ as the highest prophet next to Mohammed. The Reformers and older Protestant divines took substantially the same view, and condemn the Koran and its author without qualification. We must remember that down to the latter part of the seventeenth century the Turks were the most dangerous enemies of the peace of Europe. Luther published, at Wittenberg, 1540, a German translation of Richard's Confutatio Alcorani, with racy notes, to show "what a shameful, lying, abominable book the Alcoran is." He calls Mohammed "a devil and the first-born child of Satan." He goes into the question, whether the Pope or Mohammed be worse, and comes to the conclusion, that after all the pope is worse, and the real Anti-Christ (Endechrist). "Wohlan," he winds up his epilogue, "God grant us his grace and punish both the Pope and Mohammed, together with their devils. I have done my part as a true prophet and teacher. Those who won't listen may leave it alone." Even the mild and scholarly Melanchthon identifies Mohammed with the Little Horn of Daniel, or rather with the Gog and Magog of the Apocalypse, and charges his sect with being a compound of "blasphemy, robbery, and sensuality." It is not very strange. that in the heat of that polemical age the Romanists charged the Lutherans, and the Lutherans the Calvinists, and both in turn the Romanists, with holding Mohammedan heresies. [205] In the eighteenth century this view was gradually corrected. The learned Dean Prideaux still represented Mohammed as a vulgar impostor, but at the same time as a scourge of God in just punishment of the sins of the Oriental churches who turned our holy religion "into a firebrand of hell for contention, strife and violence." He undertook his "Life of Mahomet" as a part of a "History of the Eastern Church," though he did not carry out his design. Voltaire and other Deists likewise still viewed Mohammed as an impostor, but from a disposition to trace all religion to priestcraft and deception. Spanheim, Sale, and Gagnier began to take a broader and more favorable view. Gibbon gives a calm historical narrative; and in summing up his judgment, he hesitates whether "the title of enthusiast or impostor more properly belongs to that extraordinary man .... From enthusiasm to imposture the step is perilous and slippery; the daemon of Socrates affords a memorable instance how a wise man may deceive himself, how a good man may deceive others, how the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud." Dean Milman suspends his judgment, saying: "To the question whether Mohammed was hero, sage, impostor, or fanatic, or blended, and blended in what proportions, these conflicting elements in his character? the best reply is the reverential phrase of Islâm: God knows.' " [206] Goethe and Carlyle swung from the orthodox abuse to the opposite extreme of a pantheistic hero-worshiping over-estimate of Mohammed and the Koran by extending the sphere of revelation and inspiration, and obliterating the line which separates Christianity from all other religions. Stanley, R. Bosworth Smith, Emanuel Deutsch, and others follow more or less in the track of this broad and charitable liberalism. Many errors and prejudices have been dispelled, and the favorable traits of Islâm and its followers, their habits of devotion, temperance, and resignation, were held up to the shame and admiration of the Christian world. Mohammed himself, it is now generally conceded, began as an honest reformer, suffered much persecution for his faith, effectually destroyed idolatry, was free from sordid motives, lived in strict monogamy during twenty-four years of his youth and manhood, and in great simplicity to his death. The polygamy which disfigured the last twelve years of his life was more moderate than that of many other Oriental despots, Califs and Sultans, and prompted in part by motives of benevolence towards the widows of his followers, who had suffered in the service of his religion. [207] But the enthusiasm kindled by Carlyle for the prophet of Mecca has been considerably checked by fuller information from the original sources as brought out in the learned biographies of Weil, Nöldeke, Sprenger and Muir. They furnish the authentic material for a calm, discriminating and impartial judgment, which, however, is modified more or less by the religious standpoint and sympathies of the historian. Sprenger represents Mohammed as the child of his age, and mixes praise and censure, without aiming at a psychological analysis or philosophical view. Sir William Muir concedes his original honesty and zeal as a reformer and warner, but assumes a gradual deterioration to the judicial blindness of a self-deceived heart, and even a kind of Satanic inspiration in his later revelations. "We may readily admit," he says, "that at the first Mahomet did believe, or persuaded himself to believe, that his revelations were dictated by a divine agency. In the Meccan period of his life, there certainly can be traced no personal ends or unworthy motives to belie this conclusion. The Prophet was there, what he professed to be, 'a simple Preacher and a Warner;' he was the despised and rejected teacher of a gainsaying people; and he had apparently no ulterior object but their reformation .... But the scene altogether changes at Medina. There the acquisition of temporal power, aggrandizement, and self-glorification mingled with the grand object of the Prophet's previous life; and they were sought after and attained by precisely the same instrumentality. Messages from heaven were freely brought forward to justify his political conduct, equally with his religious precepts. Battles were fought, wholesale executions inflicted, and territories annexed, under pretext of the Almighty's sanction. Nay, even baser actions were not only excused but encouraged, by the pretended divine approval or command .... The student of history will trace for himself how the pure and lofty aspirations of Mahomet were first tinged, and then gradually debased by a half unconscious self-deception, and how in this process truth merged into falsehood, sincerity into guile,--these opposite principles often co-existing even as active agencies in his conduct. The reader will observe that simultaneously with the anxious desire to extinguish idolatry and to promote religion and virtue in the world, there was nurtured by the Prophet in his own heart a licentious self-indulgence; till in the end, assuming to be the favorite of Heaven, he justified himself by 'revelations' from God in the most flagrant breaches of morality. He will remark that while Mahomet cherished a kind and tender disposition, 'Weeping with them that wept,' and binding to his person the hearts of his followers by the ready and self-denying offices of love and friendship, he could yet take pleasure in cruel and perfidious assassination, could gloat over the massacre of entire tribes, and savagely consign the innocent babe to the fires of hell. Inconsistencies such as these continually present themselves from the period of Mahomet's arrival at Medina; and it is by, the study of these inconsistencies that his character must be rightly comprehended. The key, to many difficulties of this description may be found, I believe, in the chapter 'on the belief of Mahomet in his own inspiration.' When once he had dared to forge the name of the Most High God as the seal and authority of his own words and actions, the germ was laid from which the errors of his after life freely and fatally developed themselves." [208] Note on Mormonism. Sources. The Book of Mormon. First printed at Palmyra, N. Y., 1830. Written by the Prophet Mormon, three hundred years after Christ, upon plates of gold in the "Reformed Egyptian" (?) language, and translated by the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jun., with the aid of Urim and Thummim, into English. As large as the Old Testament. A tedious historical romance on the ancient inhabitants of the American Continent, whose ancestors emigrated from Jerusalem b.c. 600, and whose degenerate descendants are the red Indians. Said to have been written as a book of fiction by a Presbyterian minister, Samuel Spalding. The Doctrines and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah Territory. Contains the special revelations given to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young at different times. Written in similar style and equally insipid as the Book of Mormon. A Catechism for Children by Elder John Jaques. Salt Lake City. 25th thousand, 1877. We cannot close this chapter on Oriental Mohammedanism without some remarks on the abnormal American phenomenon of Mormonism, which arose in the nineteenth century, and presents an instructive analogy to the former. Joseph Smith (born at Sharon, Vt., 1805; shot dead at Nauvoo, in Illinois, 1844), the first founder, or rather Brigham Young (d. 1877), the organizer of the sect, may be called the American Mohammed, although far beneath the prophet of Arabia in genius and power. The points of resemblance are numerous and striking: the claim to a supernatural revelation mediated by an angel; the abrogation of previous revelations by later and more convenient ones; the embodiment of the revelations in an inspired book; the eclectic character of the system, which is compounded of Jewish, heathenish, and all sorts of sectarian Christian elements; the intense fanaticism and heroic endurance of the early Mormons amidst violent abuse and persecution from state to state, till they found a refuge in the desert of Utah Territory, which they turned into a garden; the missionary zeal in sending apostles to distant lands and importing proselytes to their Eldorado of saints from the ignorant population of England, Wales, Norway, Germany, and Switzerland; the union of religion with civil government, in direct opposition to the American separation of church and state; the institution of polygamy in defiance of the social order of Christian civilization. In sensuality and avarice Brigham Young surpassed Mohammed; for he left at his death in Salt Lake City seventeen wives, sixteen sons, and twenty-eight daughters (having had in all fifty-six or more children), and property estimated at two millions of dollars. [209] The government of the United States cannot touch the Mormon religion; but it can regulate the social institutions connected therewith, as long as Utah is a Territory under the immediate jurisdiction of Congress. Polygamy has been prohibited by law in the Territories under its control, and President Hayes has given warning to foreign governments (in 1879) that Mormon converts emigrating to the United States run the risk of punishment for violating the laws of the land. President Garfield (in his inaugural address, March 4, 1881) took the same decided ground on the Mormon question, saying: "The Mormon church not only offends the moral sense of mankind by sanctioning polygamy, but prevents the administration of justice through the ordinary instrumentalities of law. In my judgment it is the duty of Congress, while respecting to the uttermost the conscientious convictions and religious scruples of every citizen, to prohibit within its jurisdiction all criminal practices, especially of that class which destroy the family relations and endanger social order. Nor can any ecclesiastical organization be safely permitted to usurp in the smallest degree the functions and powers of the National Government." His successor, President Arthur, in his last message to Congress, Dec. 1884, again recommends that Congress "assume absolute political control of the Territory of Utah," and says: "I still believe that if that abominable practice [polygamy] can be suppressed by law it can only be by the most radical legislation consistent with the restraints of the Constitution." The secular and religious press of America, with few exceptions, supports these sentiments of the chief magistrate. Since the annexation of Utah to the United States, after the Mexican war, "Gentiles" as the Christians are called, have entered the Mormon settlement, and half a dozen churches of different denominations have been organized in Salt Lake City. But the "Latter Day Saints" are vastly in the majority, and are spreading in the adjoining Territories. Time will show whether the Mormon problem can be solved without resort to arms, or a new emigration of the Mormons. __________________________________________________________________ [204] Inferno, Canto XXVIII. 22 sqq. (Longfellow's translation): "A cask by losing centre-piece or cant Was never shattered so, as I saw one Rent from the chin to where one breaketh wind. Between his legs were hanging down his entrails; His heart was visible, and the dismal sack That maketh excrement of what is eaten. While I was all absorbed in seeing him, He looked at me, and opened with his hands His bosom, saying: 'See now how I rend me; How mutilated, am, is Mahomet; In front of me doth Ali weeping go, Cleft in the face from forelock unto chin; And all the others whom thou here beholdest Sowers of scandal and of schism have been While living, and therefore are thus cleft asunder.' " [205] Maracci, Vivaldus, and other Roman writers point out thirteen or more heresies in which Mohammedanism and Lutheranism agree, such as iconoclasm, the rejection of the worship of saints, polygamy (in the case of Philip of Hesse), etc. A fanatical Lutheran wrote a book to prove that "the damned Calvinists hold six hundred and sixty-six theses (the apocalyptic number) in common with the Turks!" The Calvinist Reland, on the other hand, finds analogies to Romish errors in the Mohammedan prayers for the dead, visiting the graves of prophets, pilgrimages to Mecca, intercession of angels, fixed fasts, meritorious almsgiving, etc. [206] Lat. Christianity, II. 120. [207] The Mohammedan apologist, Syed Ameer Ali (The Life and Teachings of Mohammed, London, 1873, pp. 228 sqq.), makes much account of this fact, and entirely justifies Mohammed's polygamy. But the motive of benevolence and generosity can certainly not be shown in the marriage of Ayesha (the virgin-daughter of Abu-Bakr), nor of Zeynab (the lawful wife of his freedman Zeyd), nor of Safiya (the Jewess). Ali himself must admit that "some of Mohammed's marriages may possibly have arisen from a desire for male offspring." The motive of sensuality he entirely ignores. [208] Life of Mah., IV. 317, 322. [209] As stated in the New York Tribune for Sept. 3, 1877. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER IV. THE PAPAL HIERARCHY AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. __________________________________________________________________ § 48. General Literature on the Papacy. *Bullarium Magnum Romanum a Leone M. usque ad Benedictum XIV. Luxemb., 1727-1758. 19 vols., fol. Another ed., of superior typography, under the title: Bullarum ... Romanorum Pontificum amplissima Collectio, opera et studio C. Cocquelines, Rom., 1738-1758, 14 Tomi in 28 Partes fol.; new ed., 1847-'72, 24 vols. Bullarii Romani continuatio, ed. A. A. Barberi, from Clement XIII. to Gregory XVI., Rom., 1835-1857, 18 vols. *Monumenta Germaniae Historica inde ab anno Christi quingentesimo usque ad annum millesimum et quingentesimum; ed. by G. H. Pertz (royal librarian at Berlin, d. 1876), continued by G. Waitz. Hannoverae, 1826-1879, 24 vols. fol. A storehouse for the authentic history of the German empire. *Anastasius (librarian and abbot in Rome about 870): Liber Pontificalis (or, De Vitis Roman. Pontificum). The oldest collection of biographies of popes down to Stephen VI., a.d. 885, but not all by Anastasius. This book, together with later collections, is inserted in the third volume of Muratori, Rerum Ital. Scriptores (Mediol., 1723-'51, in 25 vols. fol.); also in Migne, Patrol. L. Tom. cxxvii. (1853). Archibald Bower (b. 1686 at Dundee, Scotland, d. 1766): The History of the Popes, from the foundation of the See of Rome to the present time. 3rd ed. Lond., 1750-'66. 7 vols., 4to. German transl. by Rambach, 1770. Bower changed twice from Protestantism to Romanism, and back again, and wrote in bitter hostility, to the papacy, but gives very ample material. Bp. Douglas of Salesbury wrote against him. Chr. F. Walch: Entwurf einer vollständigen Historie der römischen Päpste. Göttingen, 2d ed., 1758. G. J. Planck: Geschichte des Papstthums. Hanover, 1805. 3 vols. L. T. Spittler: Geschichte des Papstthums; with Notes by J. Gurlitt, Hamb., 1802, new ed. by H. E. G. Paulus. Heidelberg, 1826. J. E. Riddle: The History of the Papacy to the Period of the Reformation. London, 1856. 2 vols. F. A. Gfrörer: Geschichte der Karolinger. (Freiburg, 1848. 2 vols.); Allgemeine Kirchengeschichte (Stuttgart, 1841-'46, 4 vols.); Gregor VII. und sein Zeitalter (Schaffhausen, 1859-64, 8 vols.). Gfrörer began as a rationalist, but joined the Roman church, 1853, and died in 1861. *Phil. Jaffé: Regesta Pontificum Roman. ad annum 1198. Berol., 1851; revised ed. by Wattenbach, etc. Lips. 1881 sqq. Continued by Potthast from 1198-1304, and supplemented by Harttung (see below). Important for the chronology and acts of the popes. J. A. Wylie: The Papacy. Lond., 1852. *Leopold Ranke: Die römischen Päpste, ihre Kirche und ihr Staat im 16 und 17ten Jahrhundert. 4 ed., Berlin, 1857. 3 vols. Two English translations, one by Sarah Austin (Lond., 1840), one by E. Foster (Lond., 1847). Comp. the famous review of Macaulay in the Edinb. Review. Döllinger. (R.C.): Die Papstfabeln des Mittelalters. Munchen, 1863. English translation by A. Plummer, and ed. with notes by H. B. Smith. New York, 1872. *W. Giesebrecht: Geschichte der Deutschen Kaiserzeit. Braunschweig, 1855. 3rd ed., 1863 sqq., 5 vols. A political history of the German empire, but with constant reference to the papacy in its close contact with it. *Thomas Greenwood: Cathedra Petri. A Political History of the great Latin Patriarchate. London, 1856-'72, 6 vols. C. de Cherrier: Histoire de la lutte des papes el des empereurs de la maison de swabe, de ces causes et des ses effets. Paris, 1858. 3 vols. *Rud. Baxmann: Die Politik der Päpste von Gregor I. bis Gregor VII. Elberfeld, 1868, '69. 2 vols. *F. Gregorovius: Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, vom 5. bis zum 16. Jahrh. 8 vols. Stuttgart, 1859-1873 .2 ed., 1869 ff. A. v. Reumont: Geschichte der Stadt Rom. Berlin, 1867-'70, 3 vols. C. Höfler (R.C.): Die Avignonischen Päpste, ihre Machtfulle und ihr Untergang. Wien, 1871. R. Zöpffel: Die Papstwahlen und die mit ihnen im nächsten Zusammenhange stehenden Ceremonien in ihrer Entwicklung vom 11 bis 14. Jahrhundert. Göttingen, 1872. *James Bryce (Prof. of Civil Law in Oxford): The Holy Roman Empire, London, 3rd ed., 1871, 8th ed. enlarged, 1880. W. Wattenbach: Geschicte des römischen Papstthums. Berlin, 1876. *Jul. von Pflugk-Harttung: Acta Pontificum Romanorum inedita. Bd. I. Urkunden der Päpste a.d. 748-1198. Gotha, 1880. O. J. Reichel: The See of Rome in the Middle Ages. Lond. 1870. Mandell Creighton: History of the Papacy during the Reformation. London 1882. 2 vols. J. N. Murphy (R.C.): The Chair of Peter, or the Papacy and its Benefits. London 1883. __________________________________________________________________ § 49. Chronological Table of the Popes, Anti-Popes, and Roman Emperors from Gregory I. to Leo XIII. We present here, for convenient reference, a complete list of the Popes, Anti-Popes, and Roman Emperors, from Pope Gregory I. to Leo XIII., and from Charlemagne to Francis II., the last of the German-Roman emperors: [210] ---------- a.d. POPES. ANTI-POPES. EMPERORS. a.d. (Greek Emperors) 590-604 St. Gregory I Maurice 582 (the Great) Phocas 602 604-606 Sabinianus 607 Boniface III 608-615 Boniface IV Heraclius 610 615-618 Deusdedit 619-625 Boniface V 625-638 Honorius I 638(?)-640 Severinus 640-642 John IV Constantine III Constans II 641 642-649 Theodorus I 649-653 [655] St. Martin I Constantine IV 654-657 Eugenius I (Pogonatus) 668 657-672 Vitalianus 672-676 Adeodatus 676-678 Donus or Domnus I 678-681 Agatho 682-683 Leo II 683-685 Benedict II 685-686 John V Justinian II 685 686-687 Conon 687-692 Paschal Leontius 694 687 Theodorus. Tiberius III 697 687-701 Sergius I Justinus II restored 705 701-705 John VI Philippicus Bardanes 711 705-707 John VII Anastasius II 713 708 Sisinnius Theodosius III 716 708-715 Constantine I Leo III. (the Isaurian) 718 715-731 Gregory II 731-741 Gregory III (Charles Martel, d. 741, defeated the Saracens at Tours 732.) 741-752 Zacharias (Pepin the Short, 752 Stephen II Roman(Patricius). 741 752-757 Stephen III (II) 757-767 Paul I 767-768 Constantine II Roman Emperors. 768 Philippus 768-772 Stephen IV 772-795 Adrian I * Charlemagne 768-814 795-816 Leo III Crowned emperor at Rome 800 816-817 Stephen V 817-824 Paschal I * Louis the Pious (le Débonnaire) 814-840 824-827 Eugenius II Crowned em. at Rheims 816 827 Valentinus 827-844 Gregory IV * Lothaire I (crowned 823) 840-855 844 John (diaconus) 844-847 Sergius II (Louis the German, King of Germany, 840-876) 847-855 Leo IV The mythical papess Joan or John VIII 855-858 Benedict III 855 Anastasius. * Louis II (in Italy) 855-875 858-867 Nicolas I 867-872 Adrian II 872-882 John VIII * Charles the Bald 875-881 882-884 Marinus I * Charles the Fat 881-887 884-885 Adrian III 885-891 Stephen VI * Arnulf 887-899 891-896 Formosus Crowned emperor 896 896 Boniface VI 896-897 Ste 897 Romanus 897 Theodorus II 898-900 John IX (Louis the Child) 899 900-903 Benedict IV 903 Leo V Louis III of Provence (in Italy) 901 903-904 Christophorus (deposed) 904-911 Sergius III 911-913 Anstasius III Conrad I (of Franconia) King of Germany. 911-918 913-914 Lando 914-928 John X Berengar (in Italy). 915 928-929 Leo VI Henry I. (the Fowler) King of Germany. The House of Saxony. 918-926 929-931 Stephen VIII 931-936 John XI 936-939 Leo VII 939-942 Stephen IX * Otto I (the Great) 936-973 942-946 Marinus II Crowned emperor 962 946-955 Agapetus II 955-963 John XII (deposed) 963-965 Leo VIII 964 Benedict V (deposed) 965-972 John XIII 972-974 Benedict VI * Otto II 973-983 974-983 Benedict VII (Boniface VII?) 983-984 John XIV (murdered) * Otto III 983-1002 984-985 Boniface VII Crowned emperor 996 985-996 John XV 996-999 Gregory V 997-998 Calabritanus John XVI *Henry II (the Saint, the last of the Saxon emperors). 1002-1024 998-1003 Silvester II Crowned emperor 1014 1003 John XVII 1003-1009 John XVIII 1009-1012 Sergius IV 1012-1024 Benedict VIII 1024-1039 1012 Gregory * Conrad II, The House of Franconia. 1024-1033 John XIX Crowned emperor 1027 1033-1046 Benedict IX (deposed) 1044-1046 Silvester III * Henry III 1039-1056 1045-1046 Gregory VI Crowned emperor 1046 1046-1047 Clement II 1047-1048 Damasus II 1048-1054 Leo IX 1054-1057 Victor II * Henry IV 1056-1106 1057-1058 Stephen X Crowned by the Antipope Clement 1084 1058-1059 Benedict X (deposed) 1058-1061 Nicolas II 1061-1073 Alexander II 1061 Cadalous (Honorius II) (Rudolf of Swabia rival) 1077 1073-1085 Gregory VII (Hildebrand) 1080-1100 Wibertus (Clement III) (Hermann of Luxemburg rival) 1081 1086-1087 Victor III 1088-1099 Urban II 1099-1118 Paschal II 1100 Theodoricus 1102 Albertus * Henry V 1106-1125 1105-1111 Maginulfus (Silvester IV) 1118-1119 Gelasius II 1118-1121 Burdinus (Gregory VIII) * Lothaire II (the Saxon 1125-1137 1119-1124 Calixtus II 1124 Theobaldus Buccapecus (Celestine) * Conrad III, The House of Hohenstaufen. (The Swabian emperors.) 1138-1152 1124-1130 Honorius II. Crowned Em. at Aix 1130-1143 Innocent II 1130-1138 Anacletus II 1138 Gregory (Victor IV) 1143-1144 Celestine II 1144-1145 Lucius II 1145-1153 Eugenius III *Frederick I (Barbarossa) 1152-1190 1153-1154 Anastasius IV Crowned emperor 1155 1154-1159 Adrian IV 1159-1181 Alexander III 1159-1164 Octavianus (Victor IV) Guido Cremensis (Paschal III) 1164-1168 Johannes de Struma (Calixtus III) 1168-1178 1178-1180 Landus Titinus (Innocent III) 1181-1185 Lucius III 1185-1187 Urban III 1187 Gregory VIII 1187-1191 Clement III *Henry VI 1190-1197 1191-1198 Celestine III 1198-1216 Innocent III Philip of Swabia and Otto IV (rivals) 1198 *Otto IV 1209-1215 1216-1227 Honorius III *Frederick II. 1215-1250. 1227-1241 Gregory IX Crowned emperor 1220 1241 Celestine IV (Henry Raspe rival) 1241-1254 Innocent IV (William of Holland rival) Conrad IV 1250-1254 1254-1261 Alexander IV Interregnum 1254-1273 Richard (Earl of Cornwall) 1261-1264 Urban IV Alfonso (King of Castile) (rivals) 1257 1265-1268 Clement IV 1271-1276 Gregory X 1276 Innocent V Rudolf I (of Hapsburg) 1276 Adrian V House of Austria 1272-1291 1276-1277 John XXI 1277-1280 Nicolas III 1281-1285 Martin IV 1285-1287 Honorius IV 1288-1292 Nicolas IV Adolf (of Nassau) 1292-1298 1294 St. Celestine V (abdicated) 1294-1303 Boniface VIII Albert I (of Hapsburg) 1298-1308 1303-1304 Benedict XI 1305-1314 Clement V [211] *Henry VII (of Luxemburg) 1308-1313 1316-1334 John XXII *Lewis IV (of Bavaria) 1314-1347 1334-1342 Benedict XII (Frederick the Fair of Austria, rival 1314-1330) 1342-1352 Clement VI 1352-1362 Innocent VI 1362-1370 Urban V *Charles IV (of Luxemburg) 1347-1437 1370-1378 Gregory XI (Gunther of Schwarzburg, rival) 1378-1389 Urban VI 1378-1394 Clement VII 1389-1404 Boniface IX Wenzel (of Luxemburg) 1378-1400 1394-1423 Benedict XIII (deposed 1409) 1404-1406 Innocent VII Rupert (of the Palatinate) 1400-1410 1406-1409 Gregory XII (deposed) 1410-1415 Alexander V 1410-1415 John XXIII (deposed) Sigismund (of Luxemburg) 1410-1437 (Jobst of Moravia rival) 1417-1431 Martin V Clement VIII 1431-1447 Eugene IV 1439-1449 Felix V Albert II (of Hapsburg) 1438-1439 1447-1455 Nicolas *Frederick III. [212] 1440-1493 1455-1458 Calixtus IV Crowned emperor 1452 1458-1464 Pius II 1464-1471 Paul II 1471-1484 Sixtus IV 1484-1492 Innocent VIII Maximilian I 1493-1519 1492-1503 Alexander VI. 1503 Pius III. 1503-1513 Julius II. * Charles V 1519-1558 1513-1521 Leo X. Crowned emperor at Bologna not in Rome 1530 1522-1523 Hadrian VI 1523-1534 Clement VII 1534-1549 Paul III 1550-1555 Julius III 1555 Marcellus II Ferdinand I 1558-1564 1555-1559 Paul IV 1559-1565 Pius IV 1566-1572 Pius V 1572-1585 Gregory XIII Maximilian II 1564-1576 1585-1590 Sixtus V 1590 Urban VII 1590-1591 Gregory XIV 1591 Innocent IX 1592-1605 Clement VIII Rudolf II 1576-1612 1605 Leo XI 1605-1621 Paul V Matthias 1612-1619 1621-1623 Gregory XV Ferdinand II 1619-1637 1623-1644 Urban VIII 1644-1655 Innocent X Ferdinand III 1637-1657 1655-1667 Alexander VIII 1667-1669 Clement IX Leopold I 1657-1705 1669-1676 Clement X 1676-1689 Innocent XI 1689-1691 Alex'der VIII 1691-1700 Innocent XII 1700-1721 Clement XI Joseph I 1705-1711 1721-1724 Innocent XIII Charles VI. 1711-1740 1724-1730 Benedict XIII Charles VII (of Ba 1730-1740 Clement XII varia) 1742-1745 1740-1758 Benedict XIV Francis I (of Lorraine) 1745-1765 1758-1769 Clement XIII Joseph II 1765-1790 1769-1774 Clement XIV 1775-1799 Pius VI Leopold II 1790-1792 Francis II 1792-1806 1800-1823 Pius VII Abdication of Francis II 1806 1823-1829 Leo XII 1829-1830 Pius VIII (Francis I, E ---------- __________________________________________________________________ [210] This list is compiled from Jaffé (Regesta), Potthast (Bibl. Hist. Medii AEvi, Supplement, 259-267), and other sources. The whole number of popes from the Apostle Peter to Leo XIII. is 263. The emperors marked with an asterisk were crowned by the pope, the others were simply kings and emperors of Germany. [211] Clement V. moved the papal see to Avignon in 1309, and his successors continued to reside there for seventy years, till Gregory XI. After that date arose a forty years' schism between the Roman popes and the Avignon popes. [212] Frederick III. was the last emperor crowned in Rome. All his successors, except Charles VII. and Francis I. were of the House of Hapsburg. __________________________________________________________________ § 50. Gregory the Great. a.d. 590-604. Literature. I. Gregorii M. Opera.: The best is the Benedictine ed. of Dom de Ste Marthe (Dionysius Samarthanus e congregatione St, Mauri), Par., 1705, 4 vols. fol. Reprinted in Venice, 1768-76, in 17 vols. 4to.; and, with additions, in Migne's Patrologia, 1849, in 5 vols. (Tom. 75-79). Especially valuable are Gregory's Epistles, nearly 850 (in third vol. of Migne's ed.). A new ed. is being prepared by Paul Ewald. II. Biographies of Gregory I (1) Older biographies: in the "Liber Pontificalis;" by Paulus Diaconus ( 797), in Opera I. 42 (ed. Migne); by Johannes Diaconus (9th cent.), ibid., p. 59, and one selected from his writings, ibid., p. 242. Detailed notices of Gregory in the writings of Gregory of Tours, Bede, Isidorus Hispal., Paul Warnefried (730). (2) Modern biographies: G. Lau: Gregor I. nach seinem Leben und nach seiner Lehre. Leipz., 1845. Böhringer: Die Kirche Christi und ihre Zeugen. Bd. I., Abth. IV. Zurich, 1846. G. Pfahler: Gregor der Gr. und seine Zeit. Frkf a. M., 1852. James Barmby: Gregory the Great. London, 1879. Also his art. "Gregorius I." in Smith & Wace, "Dict. of Christ. Biogr.," II. 779 (1880). Comp. Jaffé, Neander, Milman (Book III., ch. 7, vol. II., 39 sqq.); Greenwood (Book III., chs. 6 and 7); Montalembert (Les moines d'Occident, bk. V., Engl. transl., vol. II., 69 sqq.); Baxmann (Politik der Päpste, I. 44 sqq.); Zöpffel (art. Gregor I. in the, new ed. of Herzog). Whatever may be thought of the popes of earlier times," says Ranke, [213] "they always had great interests in view: the care of oppressed religion, the conflict with heathenism, the spread of Christianity among the northern nations, the founding of an independent hierarchy. It belongs to the dignity of human existence to aim at and to execute something great; this tendency the popes kept in upward motion." This commendation of the earlier popes, though by no means applicable to all, is eminently true of the one who stands at the beginning of our period. Gregory the First, or the Great, the last of the Latin fathers and the first of the popes, connects the ancient with the mediaeval church, the Graeco-Roman with the Romano-Germanic type of Christianity. He is one of the best representatives of mediaeval Catholicism: monastic, ascetic, devout and superstitious; hierarchical, haughty, and ambitious, yet humble before God; indifferent, if not hostile, to classical and secular culture, but friendly to sacred and ecclesiastical learning; just, humane, and liberal to ostentation; full of missionary zeal in the interest of Christianity, and the Roman see, which to his mind were inseparably connected. He combined great executive ability with untiring industry, and amid all his official cares he never forgot the claims of personal piety. In genius he was surpassed by Leo I., Gregory VII., Innocent III.; but as a man and as a Christian, he ranks with the purest and most useful of the popes. Goodness is the highest kind of greatness, and the church has done right in according the title of the Great to him rather than to other popes of superior intellectual power. The times of his pontificate (a.d. Sept. 3, 590 to March 12, 604) were full of trouble, and required just a man of his training and character. Italy, from a Gothic kingdom, had become a province of the Byzantine empire, but was exhausted by war and overrun by the savage Lombards, who were still heathen or Arian heretics, and burned churches, slew ecclesiastics, robbed monasteries, violated nuns, reduced cultivated fields into a wilderness. Rome was constantly exposed to plunder, and wasted by pestilence and famine. All Europe was in a chaotic state, and bordering on anarchy. Serious men, and Gregory himself, thought that the end of the world was near at hand. "What is it," says he in one of his sermons, "that can at this time delight us in this world? Everywhere we see tribulation, everywhere we hear lamentation. The cities are destroyed, the castles torn down, the fields laid waste the land made desolate. Villages are empty, few inhabitants remain in the cities, and even these poor remnants of humanity are daily cut down. The scourge of celestial justice does not cease, because no repentance takes place under the scourge. We see how some are carried into captivity, others mutilated, others slain. What is it, brethren, that can make us contented with this life? If we love such a world, we love not our joys, but our wounds. We see what has become of her who was once the mistress of the world .... Let us then heartily despise the present world and imitate the works of the pious as well as we can." Gregory was born about a.d. 540, from an old and wealthy senatorial (the Anician) family of Rome, and educated for the service of the government. He became acquainted with Latin literature, and studied Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustin, but was ignorant of Greek. His mother Sylvia, after the death of Gordianus her husband, entered a convent and so excelled in sanctity that she was canonized. The Greek emperor Justin appointed him to the highest civil office in Rome, that of imperial prefect (574). But soon afterwards he broke with the world, changed the palace of his father near Rome into a convent in honor of St. Andrew, and became himself a monk in it, afterwards abbot. He founded besides six convents in Sicily, and bestowed his remaining wealth on the poor. He lived in the strictest abstinence, and undermined his health by ascetic excesses. Nevertheless he looked back upon this time as the happiest of his life. Pope Pelagius II. made him one of the seven deacons of the Roman Church, and sent him as ambassador or nuntius to the court of Constantinople (579). [214] His political training and executive ability fitted him eminently for this post. He returned in 585, and was appointed abbot of his convent, but employed also for important public business. It was during his monastic period (either before or, more probably, after his return from Constantinople) that his missionary zeal was kindled, by an incident on the slave market, in behalf of the Anglo-Saxons. The result (as recorded in a previous chapter) was the conversion of England and the extension of the jurisdiction of the Roman see, during his pontificate. This is the greatest event of that age, and the brightest jewel in his crown. Like a Christian Caesar, he re-conquered that fair island by an army of thirty monks, marching under the sign of the cross. [215] In 590 Gregory was elected pope by the unanimous voice of the clergy, the senate, and the people, notwithstanding his strong remonstrance, and confirmed by his temporal sovereign, the Byzantine emperor Mauricius. Monasticism, for the first time, ascended the papal throne. Hereafter till his death he devoted all his energies to the interests of the holy see and the eternal city, in the firm consciousness of being the successor of St. Peter and the vicar of Christ. He continued the austere simplicity of monastic life, surrounded himself with monks, made them bishops and legates, confirmed the rule of St. Benedict at a council of Rome, guaranteed the liberty and property of convents, and by his example and influence rendered signal services to the monastic order. He was unbounded in his charities to the poor. Three thousand virgins, impoverished nobles and matrons received without a blush alms from his hands. He sent food from his table to the hungry before he sat down for his frugal meal. He interposed continually in favor of injured widows and orphans. He redeemed slaves and captives, and sanctioned the sale of consecrated vessels for objects of charity. Gregory began his administration with a public act of humiliation on account of the plague which had cost the life of his predecessor. Seven processions traversed the streets for three days with prayers and hymns; but the plague continued to ravage, and demanded eighty victims during the procession. The later legend made it the means of staying the calamity, in consequence of the appearance of the archangel Michael putting back the drawn sword into its sheath over the Mausoleum of Hadrian, since called the Castle of St. Angelo, and adorned by the statue of an angel. His activity as pontiff was incessant, and is the more astonishing as he was in delicate health and often confined to bed. "For a long time," he wrote to a friend in 601, "I have been unable to rise from my bed. I am tormented by the pains of gout; a kind of fire seems to pervade my whole body: to live is pain; and I look forward to death as the only remedy." In another letter he says: "I am daily dying, but never die." Nothing seemed too great, nothing too little for his personal care. He organized and completed the ritual of the church, gave it greater magnificence, improved the canon of the mass and the music by a new mode of chanting called after him. He preached often and effectively, deriving lessons of humility and piety, from the calamities of the times, which appeared to him harbingers of the judgment-day. He protected the city of Rome against the savage and heretical Lombards. He administered the papal patrimony, which embraced large estates in the neighborhood of Rome, in Calabria, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, Dalmatia, and even in Gaul and Africa. He encouraged and advised missionaries. As patriarch of the West, he extended his paternal care over the churches in Italy, Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and sent the pallium to some metropolitans, yet without claiming any legal jurisdiction. He appointed, he also reproved and deposed bishops for neglect of duty, or crime. He resolutely opposed the prevalent practice of simony, and forbade the clergy to exact or accept fees for their services. He corresponded, in the interest of the church, with nobles, kings and queens in the West, with emperors and patriarchs in the East. He hailed the return of the Gothic kingdom of Spain under Reccared from the Arian heresy to the Catholic faith, which was publicly proclaimed by the Council of Toledo, May 8, 589. He wrote to the king a letter of congratulation, and exhorted him to humility, chastity, and mercy. The detested Lombards likewise cast off Arianism towards the close of his life, in consequence partly of his influence over Queen Theodelinda, a Bavarian princess, who had been reared in the trinitarian faith. He endeavored to suppress the remnants of the Donatist schism in Africa. Uncompromising against Christian heretics and schismatics be was a step in advance of his age in liberality towards the Jews. He censured the bishop of Terracina and the bishop of Cagliari for unjustly depriving them of their synagogues; he condemned the forcible baptism of Jews in Gaul, and declared conviction by preaching the only legitimate means of conversion; he did not scruple, however, to try the dishonest method of bribery, and he inconsistently denied the Jews the right of building new synagogues and possessing Christian slaves. He made efforts, though in vain, to check the slave-trade, which was chiefly in the hands of Jews. After his death, the public distress, which he had labored to alleviate, culminated in a general famine, and the ungrateful populace of Rome was on the point of destroying his library, when the archdeacon Peter stayed their fury by asserting that he had seen the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove hovering above Gregory's head as he wrote his books. Hence he is represented with a dove. He was buried in St. Peter's under the altar of St. Andrew. Note. Estimates of Gregory I. Bishop Bossuet (as quoted by Montalembert, II. 173) thus tersely sums up the public life of Gregory: "This great pope ... subdued the Lombards; saved Rome and Italy, though the emperors could give him no assistance; repressed the new-born pride of the patriarchs of Constantinople; enlightened the whole church by his doctrine; governed the East and the West with as much vigor as humility; and gave to the world a perfect model of ecclesiastical government." To this Count Montalembert (likewise a Roman Catholic) adds: "It was the Benedictine order which gave to the church him whom no one would have hesitated to call the greatest of the popes, had not the same order, five centuries later, produced St. Gregory VII .... He is truly Gregory the Great, because he issued irreproachable from numberless and boundless difficulties; because he gave as a foundation to the increasing grandeur of the Holy See, the renown of his virtue, the candor of his innocence, the humble and inexhaustible tenderness of his heart." "The pontificate of Gregory the Great," says Gibbon (ch. 45), "which lasted thirteen years, six months, and ten days, is one of the most edifying periods of the history of the church. His virtues, and even his faults, a singular mixture of simplicity and cunning, of pride and humility, of sense and superstition, were happily suited to his station and to the temper of the times." Lau says (in his excellent monograph, pp. 302, 306): "The spiritual qualities of Gregory's character are strikingly apparent in his actions. With a clear, practical understanding, he combined a kind and mild heart; but he was never weak. Fearful to the obstinate transgressor of the laws, on account of his inflexible justice, he was lenient to the repentant and a warm friend to his friends, though, holding, as he did, righteousness and the weal of the church higher than friendship, he was severe upon any neglect of theirs. With a great prudence in managing the most different circumstances, and a great sagacity in treating the most different characters, he combined a moral firmness which never yielded an inch of what he had recognized as right; but he never became stubborn. The rights of the church and the privileges of the apostolical see he fought for with the greatest pertinacity; but for himself personally, he wanted no honors. As much as he thought of the church and the Roman chair, so modestly he esteemed himself. More than once his acts gave witness to the humility of his heart: humility was, indeed, to him the most important and the most sublime virtue. His activity was prodigious, encompassing great objects and small ones with equal zeal. Nothing ever became too great for his energy or too small for his attention. He was a warm patriot, and cared incessantly for the material as well as for the spiritual welfare of his countrymen. More than once he saved Rome from the Lombards, and relieved her from famine .... He was a great character with grand plans, in the realization of which he showed as much insight as firmness, as much prudent calculation of circumstances as sagacious judgment of men. The influence he has exercised is immense, and when this influence is not in every respect for the good, his time is to blame, not he. His goal was always that which he acknowledged as the best. Among all the popes of the sixth and following centuries, he shines as a star of the very first magnitude." Rud. Baxmann (l.c., I. 45 sq.): "Amidst the general commotion which the invasion of the Lombards caused in Italy, one man stood fast on his post in the eternal city, no matter how high the surges swept over it. As Luther, in his last will, calls himself an advocate of God, whose name was well known in heaven and on earth and in hell, the epitaph says of Gregory I. that he ruled as the consul Dei. He was the chief bishop of the republic of the church, the fourth doctor ecclesiae, beside the three other powerful theologians and columns of the Latin church: Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome. He is justly called the pater ceremoniarum, the pater monachorum, and the Great. What the preceding centuries had produced in the Latin church for church government and dogmatics, for pastoral care and liturgy, he gathered together, and for the coming centuries he laid down the norms which were seldom deviated from." To this we add the judgment of James Barmby, the latest biographer of Gregory (Greg., p. 191): "Of the loftiness of his aims, the earnestness of his purpose, the fervor of his devotion, his unwearied activity, and his personal purity, there can be no doubt. These qualities are conspicuous through his whole career. If his religion was of the strongly ascetic type, and disfigured by superstitious credulity, it bore in these respects the complexion of his age, inseparable then from aspiration after the highest holiness. Nor did either superstition or asceticism supersede in him the principles of a true inward religion-justice, mercy, and truth. We find him, when occasion required, exalting mercy above sacrifice; he was singularly kindly and benevolent, as well as just, and even his zeal for the full rigor of monastic discipline was tempered with much gentleness and allowance for infirmity. If, again, with singleness of main purpose was combined at times the astuteness of the diplomatist, and a certain degree of politic insincerity in addressing potentates, his aims were never personal or selfish. And if he could stoop, for the attainment of his ends, to the then prevalent adulation of the great, he could also speak his mind fearlessly to the greatest, when he felt great principles to be at stake." __________________________________________________________________ [213] Die Römischen Paepste des 16und 17ten Jahrhunderts, Th. I., p. 44 (2nd ed.). [214] Apocrisiarius (apokrisiarios, or angelos), responsalis. Du Cange defines it: "Nuntius, Legatus ... praesertim qui a pontifice Romano, vel etiam ab archiepiscopis ad comitatum mittebantur, quo res ecclesiarum suarum peragerent, et de iis ad principem referrent." The Roman delegates to Constantinople were usually taken from the deacons. Gregory is the fifth Roman deacon who served in this capacity at Constantinople, according to Du Cange s. v. Apocrisiarius. [215] See above § 10. __________________________________________________________________ § 51. Gregory and the Universal Episcopate. The activity, of Gregory tended powerfully to establish the authority of the papal chair. He combined a triple dignity, episcopal, metropolitan, and patriarchal. He was bishop of the city of Rome, metropolitan over the seven suffragan (afterwards called cardinal) bishops of the Roman territory, and patriarch of Italy, in fact of the whole West, or of all the Latin churches. This claim was scarcely disputed except as to the degree of his power in particular cases. A certain primacy of honor among all the patriarchs was also conceded, even by the East. But a universal episcopate, including an authority of jurisdiction over the Eastern or Greek church, was not acknowledged, and, what is more remarkable, was not even claimed by him, but emphatically declined and denounced. He stood between the patriarchal and the strictly papal system. He regarded the four patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, to whom he announced his election with a customary confession of his faith, as co-ordinate leaders of the church under Christ, the supreme head, corresponding as it were to the four oecumenical councils and the four gospels, as their common foundation, yet after all with a firm belief in a papal primacy. His correspondence with the East on this subject is exceedingly important. The controversy began in 595, and lasted several years, but was not settled. John IV., the Faster, patriarch of Constantinople, repeatedly used in his letters the title "oecumenical" or "universal bishop." This was an honorary, title, which had been given to patriarchs by the emperors Leo and Justinian, and confirmed to John and his successors by a Constantinopolitan synod in 588. It had also been used in the Council of Chalcedon of pope Leo I. [216] But Gregory I. was provoked and irritated beyond measure by the assumption of his Eastern rival, and strained every nerve to procure a revocation of that title. He characterized it as a foolish, proud, profane, wicked, pestiferous, blasphemous, and diabolical usurpation, and compared him who used it to Lucifer. He wrote first to Sabinianus, his apocrisiarius or ambassador in Constantinople, then repeatedly to the patriarch, to the emperor Mauricius, and even to the empress; for with all his monkish contempt for woman, he availed himself on every occasion of the female influence in high quarters. He threatened to break off communion with the patriarch. He called upon the emperor to punish such presumption, and reminded him of the contamination of the see of Constantinople by such arch-heretics as Nestorius. [217] Failing in his efforts to change the mind of his rival in New Rome, he addressed himself to the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, and played upon their jealousy; but they regarded the title simply as a form of honor, and one of them addressed him as oecumenical pope, a compliment which Gregory could not consistently accept. [218] After the death of John the Faster in 596 Gregory instructed his ambassador at Constantinople to demand from the new patriarch, Cyriacus, as a condition of intercommunion, the renunciation of the wicked title, and in a letter to Maurice he went so far as to declare, that "whosoever calls himself universal priest, or desires to be called so, was the forerunner of Antichrist." [219] In opposition to these high-sounding epithets, Gregory called himself, in proud humility, "the servant of the servants of God." [220] This became one of the standing titles of the popes, although it sounds like irony in conjunction with their astounding claims. But his remonstrance was of no avail. Neither the patriarch nor the emperor obeyed his wishes. Hence he hailed a change of government which occurred in 602 by a violent revolution. When Phocas, an ignorant, red-haired, beardless, vulgar, cruel and deformed upstart, after the most atrocious murder of Maurice and his whole family (a wife, six sons and three daughters), ascended the throne, Gregory hastened to congratulate him and his wife Leontia (who was not much better) in most enthusiastic terms, calling on heaven and earth to rejoice at their accession, and vilifying the memory of the dead emperor as a tyrant, from whose yoke the church was now fortunately freed. [221] This is a dark spot, but the only really dark and inexcusable spot in the life of this pontiff. He seemed to have acted in this case on the infamous maxim that the end justifies the means. [222] His motive was no doubt to secure the protection and aggrandizement of the Roman see. He did not forget to remind the empress of the papal proof-text: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church," and to add: "I do not doubt that you will take care to oblige and bind him to you, by whom you desire to be loosed from your sins." The murderer and usurper repaid the favor by taking side with the pope against his patriarch (Cyriacus), who had shown sympathy with the unfortunate emperor. He acknowledged the Roman church to be "the head of all churches." [223] But if he ever made such a decree at the instance of Boniface III., who at that time was papal nuntius at Constantinople, he must have meant merely such a primacy of honor as had been before conceded to Rome by the Council of Chalcedon and the emperor Justinian. At all events the disputed title continued to be used by the patriarchs and emperors of Constantinople. Phocas, after a disgraceful reign (602-610), was stripped of the diadem and purple, loaded with chains, insulted, tortured, beheaded and cast into the flames. He was succeeded by Heraclius. In this whole controversy the pope's jealousy of the patriarch is very manifest, and suggests the suspicion that it inspired the protest. Gregory displays in his correspondence with his rival a singular combination of pride and humility. He was too proud to concede to him the title of a universal bishop, and yet too humble or too inconsistent to claim it for himself. His arguments imply that he would have the best right to the title, if it were not wrong in itself. His real opinion is perhaps best expressed in a letter to Eulogius of Alexandria. He accepts all the compliments which Eulogius paid to him as the successor of Peter, whose very name signifies firmness and solidity; but he ranks Antioch and Alexandria likewise as sees of Peter, which are nearly, if not quite, on a par with that of Rome, so that the three, as it were, constitute but one see. He ignores Jerusalem. "The see of the Prince of the Apostles alone," he says, "has acquired a principality of authority, which is the see of one only, though in three places (quae in tribus locis unius est). For he himself has exalted the see in which he deigned to rest and to end his present life [Rome]. He himself adorned the see [Alexandria] to which he sent his disciple [Mark] as evangelist. He himself established the see in which he sat for seven years [Antioch]. Since, then, the see is one, and of one, over which by divine authority three bishops now preside, whatever good I hear of you I impute to myself. If you believe anything good of me, impute this to your own merits; because we are one in Him who said: 'That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that all may be one in us' (John xvii. 21)." [224] When Eulogius, in return for this exaltation of his own see, afterwards addressed Gregory as "universal pope," he strongly repudiated the title, saying: "I have said that neither to me nor to any one else (nec mihi, nec cuiquam alteri) ought you to write anything of the kind. And lo! in the preface of your letter you apply to me, who prohibited it, the proud title of universal pope; which thing I beg your most sweet Holiness to do no more, because what is given to others beyond what reason requires is subtracted from you. I do not esteem that an honor by which I know my brethren lose their honor. My honor is that of the universal Church. My honor is the solid strength of my brethren. I am then truly honored when all and each are allowed the honor that is due to them. For, if your Holiness calls me universal pope, you deny yourself to be that which you call me universally [that is, you own yourself to be no pope]. But no more of this: away with words which inflate pride and wound charity!" He even objects to the expression, "as thou hast commanded," which had occurred in hid correspondent's letter. "Which word, 'commanded,' I pray you let me hear no more; for I know what I am, and what you are: in position you are my brethren, in manners you are my, fathers. I did not, therefore, command, but desired only to indicate what seemed to me expedient." [225] On the other hand, it cannot be denied that Gregory, while he protested in the strongest terms against the assumption by the Eastern patriarchs of the antichristian and blasphemous title of universal bishop, claimed and exercised, as far as he had the opportunity and power, the authority and oversight over the whole church of Christ, even in the East. "With respect to the church of Constantinople," he asks in one of his letters, "who doubts that it is subject to the apostolic see?" And in another letter: "I know not what bishop is not subject to it, if fault is found in him." "To all who know the Gospels," he writes to emperor Maurice, "it is plain that to Peter, as the prince of all the apostles, was committed by our Lord the care of the whole church (totius ecclesiae cura) .... But although the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the power to bind and to loose, were intrusted to him, and the care and principality of the whole church (totius ecclesiae cura et principatus), he is not called universal bishop; while my most holy fellow-priest (vir sanctissimus consacerdos meus) John dares to call himself universal bishop. I am compelled to exclaim: O tempora, O mores!" [226] We have no right to impeach Gregory's sincerity. But he was clearly inconsistent in disclaiming the name, and yet claiming the thing itself. The real objection is to the pretension of a universal episcopate, not to the title. If we concede the former, the latter is perfectly legitimate. And such universal power had already been claimed by Roman pontiffs before Gregory, such as Leo I., Felix, Gelasius, Hormisdas, in language and acts more haughty and self-sufficient than his. No wonder, therefore that the successors of Gregory, less humble and more consistent than he, had no scruple to use equivalent and even more arrogant titles than the one against which he so solemnly protested with the warning: "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble." [227] But it is a very remarkable fact, that at the beginning of the unfolding of the greatest power of the papacy one of the best of popes should have protested against the antichristian pride and usurpation of the system. __________________________________________________________________ [216] Gregory alludes to this fact in a letter to John (Lib. V. 18, in Migne's ed. of Greg. Opera, vol. III. 740) and to the emperor Mauricius (Lib. V. 20, in Migne III. 747), but says in both that the popes never claimed nor used "hoc temerarium nomen." ... "Certe pro beati Petri apostolorum principis honore, per venerandam Chalcedonensem synodum Romano pontifici oblatum est [nomen istud blasphemiae]. Sed nullus eorum unquam hoc singularitatis nomine uti consensit, dum privatum aliquid daretur uni, honore debito sacerdotes privarentur universi. Quid est ergo quod nos huius vocabuli gloriam et oblatam non quaerimus, et alter sibi hanc arripere at non oblatam praesumit?" Strictly speaking, however, the fact assumed by Gregory is not quite correct. Leo was styled oikoumenikosarchiepiskoposonly in an accusation against Dioscurus, in the third session of Chalcedon. The papal delegates subscribed: Vicarii apostolici universalis ecclesiae Papae, which was translated by the Greeks: tesoikoumenikesekklesiasepiskopou. The popes claimed to be popes (but not bishops) of the universal church. See Hefele, Conciliengesch. II. 526. Boniface III is said to have openly assumed the title universalis episcopis in 606, when he obtained from the emperor Phocas a decree styling the see of Peter "caput omnium ecclesiarum." It appears as self-assumed in the Liber Diurnus, a.d.682-'5, and is frequent after the seventh century. The canonists, however, make a distinction between "universalis ecclesiae episcopus." and "episcopus universalis" or "oecumenicus," meaning by the latter an immediate jurisdiction in the diocese of other bishops, which was formerly denied to the pope. But according to the Vatican system of 1870, he is the bishop of bishops, over every single bishop, and over all bishops put together, and all bishops are simply his vicars, as he himself is the vicar of Christ. See my Creeds of Christendom, I. 151. [217] See the letters in Lib. V. 18-21 (Migne III. 738-751). His predecessor, Pelagius II. (578-590), had already strongly denounced the assumption of the title by John, and at the same time disclaimed it for himself, while yet clearly asserting the universal primacy of the see of Peter. See Migne, Tom. LXXII. 739, and Baronius, ad ann. 587. [218] Ep. V. 43: ad Eulogium et Anastasium episcopos; VI. 60; VII. 34, 40. [219] Ep. VII. 13: "Ego autem confidenter dico quia quisquis se universalem sacerdotem vocat, vel vocari desiderat, in elatione sua Antichristum praecurrit, quia superbiendo se caeteris praeponit." [220] "Servus servorum Dei." See Joa. Diaconus, Vit. Greg. II. 1, and Lib. Diurnus, in Migne, Tom. CV. 23. Augustin (Epist. 217, ad Vitalem) had before subscribed himself: "Servus Christi, et per ipsum servus servorum ejus." Comp. Matt. xx. 26; xxiii. II. Fulgentius styled himself "Servorum Christi famulus." The popes ostentatiously wash the beggars' feet at St. Peter's in holy week, in imitation of Christ's example, but expect kings and queens to kiss their toe. [221] His letter "ad Phocam imperatorem," Ep. XIII. 31 (III. 1281 in Migne) begins with "Gloria in excelsis Deo, qui juxta quod scriptum est, immutat tempora et transfert regna." Comp. his letter "ad Leontiam imperatricen" (Ep. XIII. 39). [222] Gibbon (ch. 46): "As a subject and a Christian, it was the duty of Gregory to acquiesce in the established government; but the joyful applause with which he salutes the fortune of the assassin, has sullied, with indelible disgrace, the character of the saint." Milman (II. 83): "The darkest stain on the name of Gregory is his cruel and unchristian triumph in the fall of the Emperor Maurice-his base and adulatory praise of Phocas, the most odious and Sanguinary tyrant who had ever seized the throne of Constantinople." Montalembert says (II. 116): "This is the only stain in the life of Gregory. We do not attempt either to conceal or excuse it .... Among the greatest and holiest of mortals, virtue, like wisdom, always falls short in some respect." It is charitable to assume, with Baronius and other Roman Catholic historians, that Gregory, although usually very well informed, at the time he expressed his extravagant joy at the elevation of Phocas, knew only the fact, and not the bloody means of the elevation. The same ignorance must be assumed in the case of his flattering letters to Brunhilde, the profligate and vicious fury of France. Otherwise we would have here on a small scale an anticipation of the malignant joy with which Gregory XIII. hailed the fearful slaughter of the Huguenots. [223] The words run thus: "Hic [Phocas] rogante papa Bonifacio statuit Romanae et apostolicae ecclesia caput esse omniuim ecclesiarum,quia ecclesia Constantinopolitana primam se omnium rum scribebat." Paulus Diaconus, De Gest. Lomb. IV., cap. 7, in Muratori, Rer. Ital., I. 465. But the authenticity of this report which was afterwards frequently copied, is doubtful. It has been abused by controversialists on both sides. It is not the first declaration of the Roman primacy, nor is it a declaration of an exclusive primacy, nor an abrogation of the title of "oecumenical patriarch" on the part of the bishop of Constantinople. Comp. Greenwood, vol. II. 239 sqq. [224] Ep. VII. 40 (Migne III. 899). This parallel between the three great sees of Peter--a hierarchical tri-personality in unity of essence--seems to be entirely original with Gregory, and was never used afterwards by a Roman pontiff. It is fatal to the sole primacy of the Roman chair of Peter, and this is the very essence of popery. [225] Ep. VIII. 30 (III. 933). [226] Epist. V. 20 (III. 745). He quotes in proof the pet-texts of popery, John xxi. 17; Luke xxii. 31; Matt. xvi. 18. [227] Such titles as Universalis Episcopus (used by Boniface III., a year after Gregory's death), Pontifex Maximus, Summus Pontifex, Virarius Christi, and even "ipsius Dei in terris Virarius" (Conc. Trid. VI. De reform., c. 1). First Vicar of Peter, then Vicar of Christ, at last Vicar of God Almighty! __________________________________________________________________ § 52. The Writings of Gregory. Comp. the second part of Lau's biography, pp. 311 sqq., and Adolf Ebert: Geschichte der Christlich-Lateinischen Literatur, bis zum Zeitalter Karls der Grossen. Leipzig, 1874 sqq., vol. I. 516 sqq. With all the multiplicity of his cares, Gregory found time for literary labor. His books are not of great literary merit, but were eminently popular and useful for the clergy of the middle ages. His theology was based upon the four oecumenical councils and the four Gospels, which he regarded as the immovable pillars of orthodoxy; he also accepted the condemnation of the three chapters by the fifth oecumenical council. He was a moderate Augustinian, but with an entirely practical, unspeculative, uncritical, traditional and superstitious bent of mind. His destruction of the Palatine Library, if it ever existed, is now rejected as a fable; but it reflects his contempt for secular and classical studies as beneath the dignity of a Christian bishop. Yet in ecclesiastical learning and pulpit eloquence he had no superior in his age. Gregory is one of the great doctors or authoritative fathers of the church. His views on sin and grace are almost semi-Pelagian. He makes predestination depend on fore-knowledge; represents the fallen nature as sick only, not as dead; lays great stress on the meritoriousness of good works, and is chiefly responsible for the doctrine of a purgatorial fire, and masses for the benefit of the souls in purgatory. His Latin style is not classical, but ecclesiastical and monkish; it abounds in barbarisms; it is prolix and chatty, but occasionally sententious and rising to a rhetorical pathos, which he borrowed from the prophets of the Old Testament. The following are his works: 1. Magna Moralia, in thirty-five books. This large work was begun in Constantinople at the instigation of Leander, bishop of Seville, and finished in Rome. It is a three-fold exposition of the book of Job according to its historic or literal, its allegorical, and its moral meaning. [228] Being ignorant of the Hebrew and Greek languages, and of Oriental history and customs (although for some time a resident of Constantinople), Gregory lacked the first qualifications for a grammatical and historical interpretation. The allegorical part is an exegetical curiosity he reads between or beneath the lines of that wonderful poem the history of Christ and a whole system of theology natural and revealed. The names of persons and things, the numbers, and even the syllables, are filled with mystic meaning. Job represents Christ; his wife the carnal nature; his seven sons (seven being the number of perfection) represent the apostles, and hence the clergy; his three daughters the three classes of the faithful laity who are to worship the Trinity; his friends the heretics; the seven thousand sheep the perfect Christians; the three thousand camels the heathen and Samaritans; the five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred she-asses again the heathen, because the prophet Isaiah says: "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." The moral sense, which Gregory explains last, is an edifying homiletical expansion and application, and a sort of compend of Christian ethics. 2. Twenty-two Homilies on Ezekiel, delivered in Rome during the siege by Agilulph, and afterwards revised. 3. Forty Homilies on the Gospels for the day, preached by Gregory at various times, and afterwards edited. 4. Liber Regulae Pastoralis, in four parts. It is a pastoral theology, treating of the duties and responsibilities of the ministerial office, in justification of his reluctance to undertake the burden of the papal dignity. It is more practical than Chrysostom's "Priesthood." It was held in the highest esteem in the Middle Ages, translated into Greek by order of the emperor Maurice, and into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred, and given to the bishops in France at their ordination, together with the book of canons, as a guide in the discharge of their duties. Gregory, according to the spirit of his age, enjoins strict celibacy even upon sub-deacons. But otherwise he gives most excellent advice suitable to all times. He makes preaching one of the chief duties of pastors, in the discharge of which he himself set a good example. He warns them to guard against the besetting sin of pride at the very outset; for they will not easily learn humility in a high position. They should preach by their lives as well as their words. "He who, by the necessity of his position, is required to speak the highest things, is compelled by the same necessity to exemplify the highest. For that voice best penetrates the hearts of hearers which the life of the speaker commends, because what he commends in his speech he helps to practice by his example." He advises to combine meditation and action. "Our Lord," he says, "continued in prayer on the mountain, but wrought miracles in the cities; showing to pastors that while aspiring to the highest, they should mingle in sympathy with the necessities of the infirm. The more kindly charity descends to the lowest, the more vigorously it recurs to the highest." The spiritual ruler should never be so absorbed in external cares as to forget the inner life of the soul, nor neglect external things in the care for his inner life. "The word of doctrine fails to penetrate the mind of the needy, unless commended by the hand of compassion." 5. Four books of Dialogues on the lives and miracles of St. Benedict of Nursia and other Italian saints, and on the immortality of the soul (593). These dialogues between Gregory and the Roman archdeacon Peter abound in incredible marvels and visions of the state of departed souls. He acknowledges, however, that he knew these stories only from hearsay, and defends his recording them by the example of Mark and Luke, who reported the gospel from what they heard of the eye-witnesses. His veracity, therefore, is not at stake; but it is strange that a man of his intelligence and good sense should believe such grotesque and childish marvels. The Dialogues are the chief source of the mediaeval superstitions about purgatory. King Alfred ordered them to be translated into the Anglo-Saxon. 6. His Epistles (838 in all) to bishops, princes, missionaries, and other persons in all parts of Christendom, give us the best idea of his character and administration, and of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. They treat of topics of theology, morals, politics, diplomacy, monasticism, episcopal and papal administration, and give us the best insight into his manifold duties, cares, and sentiments. 7. The Gregorian Sacramentary is based upon the older Sacramentaries of Gelasius and Leo I., with some changes in the Canon of the Mass. His assertion that in the celebration of the eucharist, the apostles used the Lord's Prayer only (solummodo), has caused considerable discussion. Probably he meant no other prayer, in addition to the words of institution, which he took for granted. 8. A collection of antiphons for mass (Liber Antiphonarius). It contains probably later additions. Several other works of doubtful authenticity, and nine Latin hymns are also attributed to Gregory. They are in the metre of St. Ambrose, without the rhyme, except the "Rex Christe, factor omnium" (which is very highly spoken of by Luther). They are simple, devout, churchly, elevated in thought and sentiment, yet without poetic fire and vigor. Some of them as "Blest Creator of the Light" (Lucis Creator optime), "O merciful Creator, hear" (Audi, beate Conditor), "Good it is to keep the fast" (Clarum decus jejunii), have recently been made familiar to English readers in free translations from the Anglo-Catholic school. [229] He was a great ritualist (hence called "Master of Ceremonies"), but with considerable talent for sacred poetry and music. The "Cantus Gregorianus" so called was probably a return from the artistic and melodious antiphonal "Cantus Ambrosianus" to the more ancient and simple mode of chanting. He founded a school of singers, which became a nursery of similar schools in other churches. [230] Some other writings attributed to him, as an Exposition of the First Book of Kings, and an allegorical Exposition of the Canticles, are of doubtful genuineness. __________________________________________________________________ [228] Ep. missoria, cap. 3 (ed. Migne I. 513): "Primum quidem fundamenta historice ponimus; deinde per significatinem typicam in artem fidei fabricam mentis erigimus; ad extremum per moralitatus gratiam, quasi superducto aedificium colore vestimus." [229] See "Hymns Ancient and Modem." [230] · Comp. Barmby, Greg. the Gr., pp. 188-190; Lau, p. 262; Ebert I. 519. __________________________________________________________________ § 53. The Papacy from Gregory I to Gregory II a.d. 604-715. The successors of Gregory I. to Gregory II. were, with few exceptions, obscure men, and ruled but a short time. They were mostly Italians, many of them Romans; a few were Syrians, chosen by the Eastern emperors in the interest of their policy and theology. Sabinianus (604) was as hard and avaricious as Gregory was benevolent and liberal, and charged the famine of his reign upon the prodigality of his sainted predecessor. Boniface III. (606607) did not scruple to assume the title of It universal bishop, "against which Gregory, in proud humility, had so indignantly protested as a blasphemous antichristian assumption. Boniface IV. converted the Roman Pantheon into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and all the Martyrs (608). Honorius l. (625-638) was condemned by an oecumenical council and by his own successors as a Monothelite heretic; while Martin I. (649-655) is honored for the persecution he endured in behalf of the orthodox doctrine of two wills in Christ. Under Gregory II. and III., Germany was converted to Roman Christianity. The popes followed the missionary policy of Gregory and the instinct of Roman ambition and power. Every progress of Christianity in the West and the North was a progress of the Roman Church. Augustin, Boniface, Ansgar were Roman missionaries and pioneers of the papacy. As England had been annexed to the triple crown under Gregory I., so France, the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia were annexed under his successors. The British and Scotch-Irish independence gave way gradually to the irresistible progress of Roman authority and uniformity. Priests, noblemen and kings from all parts of the West were visiting Rome as the capital of Christendom, and paid homage to the shrine of the apostles and to the living successor of the Galilaean fisherman. But while the popes thus extended their spiritual dominion over the new barbarous races, they were the political subjects of the Eastern emperor as the master of Italy, and could not be consecrated without his consent. They were expected to obey the imperial edicts even in spiritual matters, and were subject to arrest and exile. To rid themselves of this inconvenient dependence was a necessary step in the development of the absolute papacy. It was effected in the eighth century by the aid of a rising Western power. The progress of Mohammedanism and its encroachment on the Greek empire likewise contributed to their independence. __________________________________________________________________ § 54. From Gregory II to Zacharias. a.d. 715-741. Gregory II. (715-731) marks the transition to this new state of things. He quarreled with the iconoclastic emperor, Leo the Isaurian, about the worship of images. Under his pontificate, Liutprand, [231] the ablest and mightiest king of the Lombards, conquered the Exarchate of Ravenna, and became master of Italy. But the sovereignty of a barbarian and once Arian power was more odious and dangerous to the popes than that of distant Constantinople. Placed between the heretical emperor and the barbarian robber, they looked henceforth to a young and rising power beyond the Alps for deliverance and protection. The Franks were Catholics from the time of their conversion under Clovis, and achieved under Charles Martel (the Hammer) a mighty victory over the Saracens (732), which saved Christian Europe against the invasion and tyranny of Islâm. They had thus become the protectors of Latin Christianity. They also lent their aid to Boniface in the conversion of Germany. Gregory, III. (731-741) renewed the negotiations with the Franks, begun by his predecessor. When the Lombards again invaded the territory, of Rome, and were ravaging by fire and sword the last remains of the property of the church, he appealed in piteous and threatening tone to Charles Martel, who had inherited from his father, Pepin of Herstal, the mayoralty of France, and was the virtual ruler of the realm. "Close not your ears," he says, "against our supplications, lest St. Peter close against you the gates of heaven." He sent him the keys of the tomb of St. Peter as a symbol of allegiance, and offered him the titles of Patrician and Consul of Rome. [232] This was virtually a declaration of independence from Constantinople. Charles Martel returned a courteous answer, and sent presents to Rome, but did not cross the Alps. He was abhorred by the clergy of his own country as a sacrilegious spoiler of the property of the church and disposer of bishoprics to his counts and dukes in the place of rightful incumbents. [233] The negotiations were interrupted by the death of Charles Martel Oct. 21, 741, followed by that of Gregory III., Nov. 27 of the same year. __________________________________________________________________ [231] Or Luitprand, born about 690, died 744. There is also a Lombard historian of that name, a deacon of the cathedral of Pavia, afterwards bishop of Cremona, died 972. [232] Gibbon actually attributes these titles to Charles Martel; while Bryce (p. 40) thinks that they were first given to Pepin. Gregory II. had already (724) addressed Charles Martel as "Patricius" (see Migne, Opera Caroli M. II. 69). Gregory III. sent him in 739 ipsas sacratissimas claves confessionis beati Petri quas vobus ad regnum dimisimus (ib. p. 66), which implies the transfer of civil authority over Rome. [233] Milman (Book IV., ch. 9) says that Dante, the faithful recorder of popular Catholic tradition, adopts the condemnatory legend which puts Charles "in the lowest pit of hell." But I can find no mention of him in Dante. The Charles Martel of Parad. VIII. and IX. is a very, different person, a king of Hungary, who died 1301. See Witte's Dante, p. 667, and Carey's note on Par. VIII. 53. On the relations of Charles Martel to Boniface see Rettberg, Kirchengesch. Deutschlands, I. 306 sqq. __________________________________________________________________ § 55. Alliance of the Papacy with the New Monarchy of the Franks. Pepin and the Patrimony of St. Peter. a.d. 741-755. Pope Zacharias (741-752), a Greek, by the weight of his priestly authority, brought Liutprand to terms of temporary submission. The Lombard king suddenly paused in the career of conquest, and died after a reign of thirty years (743). But his successor, Astolph, again threatened to incorporate Rome with his kingdom. Zacharias sought the protection of Pepin the Short, [234] the Mayor of the Palace, son of Charles Martel, and father of Charlemagne, and in return for this aid helped him to the crown of France. This was the first step towards the creation of a Western empire and a new political system of Europe with the pope and the German emperor at the head. Hereditary succession was not yet invested with that religious sanctity among the Teutonic races as in later ages. In the Jewish theocracy unworthy kings were deposed, and new dynasties elevated by the interposition of God's messengers. The pope claimed and exercised now for the first time the same power. The Mayor, or high steward, of the royal household in France was the prime minister of the sovereign and the chief of the official and territorial nobility. This dignity became hereditary in the family of Pepin of Laudon, who died in 639, and was transmitted from him through six descents to Pepin the Short, a gallant warrior and an experienced statesman. He was on good terms with Boniface, the apostle of Germany and archbishop of Mayence, who, according to the traditional view, acted as negotiator between him and the pope in this political coup d'etat. [235] Childeric III., the last of the hopelessly degenerate Merovingian line, was the mere shadow of a monarch, and forced to retire into a monastery. Pepin, the ruler in fact now assumed the name, was elected at Soissons (March, 752) by the acclamation and clash of arms of the people, and anointed, like the kings of Israel, with holy oil, by Boniface or some other bishop, and two years after by the pope himself, who had decided that the lawful possessor of the royal power may also lawfully assume the royal title. Since that time he called himself "by the grace of God king of the Franks." The pope conferred on him the title of "Patrician of the Romans" (Patricius Romanorum), which implies a sort of protectorate over the Roman church, and civil sovereignty, over her territory. For the title "Patrician," which was introduced by Constantine the Great signified the highest rank next to that of the emperor, and since the sixth century was attached to the Byzantine Viceroy, of Italy. On the other hand, this elevation and coronation was made the basis of papal superiority over the crowns of France and Germany. The pope soon reaped the benefit of his favor. When hard pressed again by the Lombards, he called the new king to his aid. Stephen III., who succeeded Zacharias in March, 752, and ruled till 757, visited Pepin in person, and implored him to enforce the restoration of the domain of St. Peter. He anointed him again at St. Denys, together with his two sons, and promised to secure the perpetuity of his dynasty by the fearful power of the interdict and excommunication. Pepin accompanied him back to Italy and defeated the Lombards (754). When the Lombards renewed the war, the pope wrote letter upon letter to Pepin, admonishing and commanding him in the name of Peter and the holy Mother of God to save the city of Rome from the detested enemies, and promising him long life and the most glorious mansions in heaven, if he speedily obeyed. To such a height of blasphemous assumption had the papacy risen already as to identify itself with the kingdom of Christ and to claim to be the dispenser of temporal prosperity and eternal salvation. Pepin crossed the Alps again with his army, defeated the Lombards, and bestowed the conquered territory upon the pope (755). He declared to the ambassadors of the East who demanded the restitution of Ravenna and its territory to the Byzantine empire, that his sole object in the war was to show his veneration for St. Peter. The new papal district embraced the Exarchate and the Pentapolis, East of the Apennines, with the cities of Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Cesena, Sinigaglia, lesi, Forlimpopoli, Forli, Montefeltro, Acerra, Monte di Lucano, Serra, San Marino, Bobbio, Urbino, Cagli, Luciolo, Gubbio, Comachio, and Narni. [236] This donation of Pepin is the foundation of "the Patrimony of St. Peter." The pope was already in possession of tracts of land in Italy and elsewhere granted to the church. But by this gift of a foreign conqueror he became a temporal sovereign over a large part of Italy, while claiming to be the successor of Peter who had neither silver nor gold, and the vicar of Christ who said: "My kingdom is not of this world." The temporal power made the papacy independent in the exercise of its jurisdiction, but at the expense of its spiritual character. It provoked a long conflict with the secular power; it involved it in the political interests, intrigues and wars of Europe, and secularized the church and the hierarchy. Dante, who shared the mediaeval error of dating the donation of Pepin back to Constantine the Great, [237] gave expression to this view in the famous lines: "Ah, Constantine! of how much ill was mother, Not thy conversion, but that marriage-dower Which the first wealthy Father took from thee." [238] Yet Dante places Constantine, who "from good intent produced evil fruit," in heaven; where "Now he knows how all the ill deduced From his good action is not harmful to him, Although the world thereby may be destroyed." And he speaks favorably of Charlemagne's intervention in behalf of the pope: "And when the tooth of Lombardy had bitten The Holy Church, then underneath its wings Did Charlemagne victorious succor her." [239] The policy of Pepin was followed by Charlemagne, the German, and Austrian emperors, and modern French rulers who interfered in Italian affairs, now as allies, now as enemies, until the temporal power of the papacy was lost under its last protector, Napoleon III., who withdrew his troops from Rome to fight against Germany, and by his defeat prepared the way for Victor Emanuel to take possession of Rome, as the capital of free and united Italy (1870). Since that time the pope who a few weeks before had proclaimed to the world his own infallibility in all matters of faith and morals, is confined to the Vatican, but with no diminution of his spiritual power as the bishop of bishops over two hundred millions of souls. __________________________________________________________________ [234] Or Pipin, Pippin, Pippinus. The last is the spelling in his documents. [235] Rettberg, however (I. 385 sqq.), disconnects Boniface from all participation in the elevation and coronation of Pepin, and represents him as being rather opposed to it. He argues from the silence of some annalists, and from the improbability that the pope should have repeated the consecration if it had been previously performed by his legate. [236] This is the enumeration of Baronius ad ann. 755. Others define the extent differently. Comp. Wiltsch, Kirchl. Geographie und Statistik, I. pp. 246 sqq. [237] Constantine bestowed upon the pope a portion of the Lateran palace for his residence, and upon the church the right to hold real estate and to receive bequests of landed property from individuals. This is the slender foundation for the fable of the Donatio Constantini. [238] Inferno xix. 115-118: "Ahi Costantin, di quanto mal fu matre, Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote, Che da te presse il primo ricco patre!" [239] Paradiso XX. 57-60; VI. 94-97. Longfellow's translation. __________________________________________________________________ § 56. Charles the Great. a.d. 768-814. Sources. Beati Caroli Magni Opera omnia. 2 vols. In Migne's Patrol. Lat. Tom. 97 and 98. The first vol. contains the Codex Diplomaticus, Capitularia, and Privilegia; the second vol., the Codex Carolinus, the Libri Carolini (on the image controversy), the Epistolae, Carminâ, etc. 1. The Letters of Charles, of Einhard, and of Alcuin. Also the letters of the Popes to Charles and his two predecessors, which he had collected, and which are called the Codex Carolinus, ed. by Muratori, Cenni, ad Migne (Tom. 98, pp. 10 sqq.). 2. The Capitularies and Laws of Charlemagne, contained in the first vol. of the Leges in the Mon. Germ., ed. by Pertz, and in the Collections of Baluzius and Migne. 3. Annals. The Annales Laurissenses Majores (probably the official chronicle of the court) from 788 to 813; the Annales Einhardi, written after 829; the Annales Petaviani, Laureshamenses, Mosellani, and others, more of local than general value. All in the first and second vol. of Pertz, Monumenta Germanica Hist. Script. 4. Biographies: Einhard or Eginhard (b. 770, educated at Fulda, private secretary of Charlemagne, afterwards Benedictine monk): Vita Caroli Imperatoris (English translation by S. S. Turner, New York, 1880). A true sketch of what Charles was by an admiring and loving hand in almost classical Latin, and after the manner of Sueton's Lives of the Roman emperors. It marks, as Ad. Ebert says (II. 95), the height of the classical studies of the age of Charlemagne. Milman (II. 508) calls it "the best historic work which had appeared in the Latin language for centuries."--Poeta Saxo: Annales de Gestis Caroli, from the end of the ninth century. An anonymous monk of St. Gall: De Gestis Caroli, about the same time. In Pertz, l.c., and Jaffe's Monumenta Carolina (Bibl. Rer. Germ., T. IV.), also in Migne, Tom. I., Op. Caroli. Comp. on the sources Abel's Jahrbucher des Fränk. Reichs (Berlin, 1866) and Wattenbach's Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter (Berlin, 1858; 4th ed. 1877-78, 2 vols.) Literature. J. G. Walch: Historia Canonisationis Caroli M. Jen., 1750. Putter: De Instauratione Imp. Rom. Gött., 1766. Gaillard: Histoire de Charlemagne. Paris, 1784, 4 vols. secd ed. 1819. Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Ch. 49. J. Ellendorf: Die Karolinger und die Hierarchie ihrer Zeit. Essen., 1838, 2 vols. Hegewisch: Geschichte der Regierung Kaiser Karls des Gr. Hamb., 1791. Dippolt: Leben K. Karls des Gr. Tub., 1810. G. P. R. James: The History of Charlemagne. London, 2nd ed. 1847. Bähr: Gesch. der röm. Lit. im Karoling. Zeitalter. Carlsruhe, 1840. Gfrörer: Geschichte der Karolinger. Freiburg i. B., 1848, 2 vols. Capefigue: Charlemagne. Paris, 1842, 2 vols. Warnkönig et Gerard: Hist. des Carolingians. Brux. and Paris, 1862, 2 vols. Waitz: Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, vols. III. and IV. W. Giesebrecht: Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit. Braunschweig, 1863 sqq. (3rd ed.). Bd. I., pp. 106 sqq. Döllinger: Kaiserthum Karls des Grossen, in the Munchener Hist. Jahrbuch for 1865. Gaston: Histoire poetique de Charlemagne. Paris, 1865. P. Alberdinck Thijm: Karl der Gr. und seine Zeit. Munster, 1868. Abel: Jahrbucher des Fränkischen Reichs unter Karl d. Grossen. Berlin, 1866. Wyss: Karl der Grosse als Gesetzgeber. Zurich, 1869. Rettberg: Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, I. 419 sqq., II. 382 sqq. Alphonse Vétault: Charlemagne. Tours, 1877 (556 pp.). With fine illustrations. L. Stacke: Deutsche Geschichte. Leipzig, 1880. Bd. I. 169 sqq. With illustrations and maps. Comp. also Milman: Latin Christianity, Book IV., ch. 12, and Book V., ch. 1; Ad. Ebert: Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande (1880), vol. II. 3-108. Of French writers, Guizot, and Martin, in their Histories of France; also Parke Godwin, History of France, chs. xvi. and xvii. (vol. I. 410 sqq.). With the death of Pepin the Short (Sept. 24, 768), the kingdom of France was divided between his two sons, Charles and Carloman, the former to rule in the Northern, the latter in the Southern provinces. After the death of his weaker brother (771) Charles, ignoring the claims of his infant nephews, seized the sole reign and more than doubled its extent by his conquests. Character and Aim of Charlemagne. This extraordinary man represents the early history of both France and Germany which afterwards divided into separate streams, and commands the admiration of both countries and nations. His grand ambition was to unite all the Teutonic and Latin races on the Continent under his temporal sceptre in close union with the spiritual dominion of the pope; in other words, to establish a Christian theocracy, coëxtensive with the Latin church (exclusive of the British Isles and Scandinavia). He has been called the "Moses of the middle age," who conducted the Germanic race through the desert of barbarism and gave it a now code of political, civil and ecclesiastical laws. He stands at the head of the new Western empire, as Constantine the Great had introduced the Eastern empire, and he is often called the new Constantine, but is as far superior to him as the Latin empire was to the Greek. He was emphatically a man of Providence. Charlemagne, or Karl der Grosse, towers high above the crowned princes of his age, and is the greatest as well as the first of the long line of German emperors from the eighth to the nineteenth century. He is the only prince whose greatness has been inseparably blended with his French name. [240] Since Julius Caesar history had seen no conqueror and statesman of such commanding genius and success; history after him produced only two military heroes that may be compared with him) Frederick II. of Prussia, and Napoleon Bonaparte (who took him and Caesar for his models), but they were far beneath him in religious character, and as hostile to the church as he was friendly to it. His lofty intellect shines all the more brightly from the general ignorance and barbarism of his age. He rose suddenly like a meteor in dark midnight. We do not know even the place and date of his birth, nor the history of his youth and education. [241] His Reign. His life is filled with no less than fifty-three military campaigns conducted by himself or his lieutenants, against the Saxons (18 campaigns), Lombards (5), Aquitanians, Thuringians, Bavarians) Avars or Huns, Danes, Slaves, Saracens, and Greeks. His incessant activity astonished his subjects and enemies. He seemed to be omnipresent in his dominions, which extended from the Baltic and the Elbe in the North to the Ebro in the South, from the British Channel to Rome and even to the Straits of Messina, embracing France, Germany, Hungary, the greater part of Italy and Spain. His ecclesiastical domain extended over twenty-two archbishoprics or metropolitan sees, Rome, Ravenna, Milan, Friuli (Aquileia), Grado, Cologne, Mayence, Salzburg, Treves, Sens, Besançon, Lyons, Rouen, Rheims, Arles, Vienna, Moutiers-en-Tarantaise, Ivredun, Bordeaux, Tours, Bourges, Narbonne. [242] He had no settled residence, but spent much time on the Rhine, at Ingelheim, Mayence, Nymwegen, and especially at Aix-la-Chapelle on account of its baths. He encouraged trade, opened roads, and undertook to connect the Main and the Danube by canal. He gave his personal attention to things great and small. He introduced a settled order and unity of organization in his empire, at the expense of the ancient freedom and wild independence of the German tribes, although he continued to hold every year, in May, the general assembly of the freemen (Maifeld). He secured Europe against future heathen and Mohammedan invasion and devastation. He was universally admired or feared in his age. The Greek emperors sought his alliance; hence the Greek proverb, "Have the Franks for your friends, but not for your neighbors." The Caliph Harounal-Raschid, the mightiest ruler in the East, sent from Bagdad an embassy to him with precious gifts. But he esteemed a good sword more than gold. He impressed the stamp of his genius and achievements upon the subsequent history of Germany and France. Appearance and Habits of Charlemagne. Charles had a commanding, and yet winning presence. His physique betrayed the greatness of his mind. He was tall, strongly built and well proportioned. His height was seven times the length of his foot. He had large and animated eyes, a long nose, a cheerful countenance and an abundance of fine hair. "His appearance," says Eginhard, "was always stately and dignified, whether he was standing or sitting; although his neck was thick and somewhat short, and his belly rather prominent; but the symmetry of the rest of his body concealed these defects. His gait was firm, his whole carriage manly, and his voice clear, but not so strong as his size led one to expect." [243] He was naturally eloquent, and spoke with great clearness and force. He was simple in his attire, and temperate in eating and drinking; for, says Eginhard, "he abominated drunkenness in anybody, much more in himself and those of his household. He rarely gave entertainments, only on great feast days, and these to large numbers of people." He was fond of muscular exercise, especially of hunting and swimming, and enjoyed robust health till the last four years of his life, when he was subject to frequent fevers. During his meals he had extracts from Augustine's "City of God" (his favorite book), and stories of olden times, read to him. He frequently gave audience while dressing, without sacrifice of royal dignity. He was kind to the poor, and a liberal almsgiver. His Zeal for Education. His greatest merit is his zeal for education and religion. He was familiar with Latin from conversation rather than books, be understood a little Greek, and in his old age he began to learn the art of writing which his hand accustomed to the sword had neglected. He highly esteemed his native language, caused a German grammar to be compiled, and gave German names to the winds and to the months. [244] He collected the ancient heroic songs of the German minstrels. He took measures to correct the Latin Version of the Scriptures, and was interested in theological questions. He delighted in cultivated society. He gathered around him divines, scholars, poets, historians, mostly Anglo-Saxons, among whom Alcuin was the chief. He founded the palace school and other schools in the convents, and visited them in person. The legend makes him the founder of the University of Paris, which is of a much later date. One of his laws enjoins general education upon all male children. His Piety. Charles was a firm believer in Christianity and a devout and regular worshipper in the church, "going morning and evening, even after nightfall, besides attending mass." He was very liberal to the clergy. He gave them tithes throughout the empire appointed worthy bishops and abbots, endowed churches and built a splendid cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle, in which he was buried. His respect for the clergy culminated in his veneration for the bishop of Rome as the successor of St. Peter. "He cherished the church of St. Peter the apostle at Rome above all other holy and sacred places, and filled its treasury with a vast wealth of gold, silver, and precious stones. He sent great and countless gifts to the popes; and throughout his whole reign the wish he had nearest at heart was to re-establish the ancient authority of the city of Rome under his care and by his influence, and to defend and protect the church of St. Peter, and to beautify and enrich it out of his own store above all other churches." [245] His Vices. Notwithstanding his many and great virtues, Charles was by, no means so pure as the poetry and piety of the church represented him, and far from deserving canonization. He sacrificed thousands of human beings to his towering ambition and passion for conquest. He converted the Saxons by force of arms; he waged for thirty years a war of extermination against them; he wasted their territory with fire and sword; he crushed out their independence; he beheaded in cold blood four thousand five hundred prisoners in one day at Verden on the Aller (782), and when these proud and faithless savages finally surrendered, he removed 10000 of their families from their homes on the banks of the Elbe to different parts of Germany and Gaul to prevent a future revolt. It was indeed a war of religion for the annihilation of heathenism, but conducted on the Mohammedan principle: submission to the faith, or death. This is contrary to the spirit of Christianity which recognizes only the moral means of persuasion and conviction. [246] The most serious defect in his private character was his incontinence and disregard of the sanctity of the marriage tie. In this respect he was little better than an Oriental despot or a Mohammedan Caliph. He married several wives and divorced them at his pleasure. He dismissed his first wife (unknown by name) to marry a Lombard princess, and he repudiated her within a year. After the death of his fifth wife he contented himself with three or four concubines. He is said even to have encouraged his own daughters in dissolute habits rather than give them in marriage to princes who might become competitors for a share in the kingdom, but he had them carefully educated. It is not to the credit of the popes that they never rebuked him for this vice, while with weaker and less devoted monarchs they displayed such uncompromising zeal for the sanctity of marriage. [247] His Death and Burial. The emperor died after a short illness, and after receiving the holy communion, Jan. 28, 814, in the 71st year of his age, and the 47th of his reign, and was buried on the same day in the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle "amid the greatest lamentations of the people." [248] Very many omens, adds Eginhard (ch. 32), had portended his approaching end, as he had recognized himself. Eclipses both of the sun and the moon were very frequent during the last three years of his life, and a black spot was visible on the sun for seven days. The bridge over the Rhine at Mayence, which he had constructed in ten years, was consumed by fire; the palace at Aix-la-Chapelle frequently trembled; the basilica was struck by lightning, the gilded ball on the roof shattered by a thunderbolt and hurled upon the bishop's house adjoining; and the word Princeps after Karolus inscribed on an arch was effaced a few months before his decease. "But Charles despised, or affected to despise, all these things as having no reference whatever to him." The Charlemagne of Poetry. The heroic and legendary poetry of the middle ages represents Charles as a giant of superhuman strength and beauty, of enormous appetite, with eyes shining like the morning star, terrible in war, merciful in peace, as a victorious hero, a wise lawgiver, an unerring judge, and a Christian saint. He suffered only one defeat, at Roncesvalles in the narrow passes of the Pyrenees, when, on his return from a successful invasion of Spain, his rearguard with the flower of the French chivalry, under the command of Roland, one of his paladins and nephews, was surprised and routed by the Basque Mountaineers (778). [249] The name of "the Blessed Charles" is enrolled in the Roman Calendar for his services to the church and gifts to the pope. Heathen Rome deified Julius Caesar, Christian Rome canonized, or at least beatified Charlemagne. Suffrages for the repose of his soul were continued in the church of Aix-la-Chapelle until Paschal, a schismatical pope, at the desire of Frederic Barbarossa, enshrined his remains in that city and published a decree for his canonization (1166). The act was neither approved nor revoked by a regular pope, but acquiesced in, and such tacit canonization is considered equivalent to beatification. Notes. I. Judgments on the Personal Character of Charlemagne. Eginhard (whose wife Emma figures in the legend as a daughter of Charlemagne) gives the following frank account of the private and domestic relations of his master and friend (chs. 18 and 19, in Migne, Tom. XCVII. 42 sqq.): "Thus did Charles defend and increase as well as beautify his kingdom; and here let me express my admiration of his great qualities and his extraordinary constancy alike in good and evil fortune. I will now proceed to give the details of his private life. After his father's death, while sharing the kingdom with his brother, he bore his unfriendliness and jealousy most patiently, and, to the wonder of all, could not be provoked to be angry with him. Later" [after repudiating his first wife, an obscure person] "he married a daughter of Desiderius, King of the Lombards, at the instance of his mother" [notwithstanding the protest of the pope]; "but he repudiated her at the end of a year for some reason unknown, and married Hildegard, a woman of high birth, of Swabian origin [d. 783]. He had three sons by her,--Charles, Pepin, and Lewis--and as many daughters,--Hruodrud, Bertha, and Gisela." [Eginhard omits Adelaide and Hildegard.] "He had three other daughters besides these--Theoderada, Hiltrud, and Ruodhaid--two by his third wife, Fastrada, a woman of East Frankish (that is to say of German) origin, and the third by a concubine, whose name for the moment escapes me. At the death of Fastrada, he married Liutgard, an Alemannic woman, who bore him no children. After her death he had three [according to another reading four] concubines--Gerswinda, a Saxon, by whom he had Adaltrud; Regina, who was the mother of Drogo and Hugh; and Ethelind, by whom he had Theodoric. Charles's mother, Berthrada, passed her old age with him in great honor; he entertained the greatest veneration for her; and there was never any disagreement between them except when he divorced the daughter of King Desiderius, whom he had married to please her. She died soon after Hildegard, after living to see three grandsons and as many grand-daughters in her son's house, and he buried her with great pomp in the Basilica of St. Denis, where his father lay. He had an only [surviving] sister, Gisela, who had consecrated herself to a religious life from girlhood, and he cherished as much affection for her as for his mother. She also died a few years before him in the nunnery where she had passed her life. The plan which he adopted for his children's education was, first of all, to have both boys and girls instructed in the liberal arts, to which he also turned his own attention. As soon as their years admitted, in accordance with the custom of the Franks, the boys had to learn horsemanship, and to practise war and the chase, and the girls to familiarize themselves with cloth-making, and to handle distaff and spindle, that they might not grow indolent through idleness, and he fostered in them every virtuous sentiment. He only lost three of all his children before his death, two sons and one daughter .... When his sons and his daughters died, he was not so calm as might have been expected from his remarkably strong mind, for his affections were no less strong, and moved him to tears. Again when he was told of the death of Hadrian, the Roman Pontiff, whom he had loved most of all his friends, he wept as much as if he had lost a brother, or a very dear son. He was by nature most ready to contract friendships, and not only made friends easily, but clung to them persistently, and cherished most fondly those with whom he had formed such ties. He was so careful of the training of his sons and daughters that he never took his meals without them when he was at home, and never made a journey without them; his sons would ride at his side, and his daughters follow him, while a number of his body-guard, detailed for their protection, brought up the rear. Strange to say, although they were very handsome women, and he loved them very dearly, he was never willing to marry either of them to a man, of their own nation or to a foreigner, but kept them all at home until his, death, saying that he could not dispense with their society. Hence though otherwise happy, he experienced the malignity of fortune as far as they were concerned; yet he concealed his knowledge of the rumors current in regard to them, and of the suspicions entertained of their honor." Gibbon is no admirer of Charlemagne, and gives an exaggerated view of his worst vice: "Of his moral virtues chastity is not the most conspicuous; but the public happiness could not be materially injured by his nine wives or concubines, the various indulgence of meaner or more transient amours, the multitude of his bastards whom he bestowed on the church, and the long celibacy and licentious manners of his daughters, whom the father was suspected of loving with too fond a passion." But this charge of incest, as Hallam and Milman observe, seems to have originated in a misinterpreted passage of Eginhard quoted above, and is utterly unfounded. Henry Hallam (Middle Ages I. 26) judges a little more favorably: The great qualities of Charlemagne were, indeed, alloyed by the vices of a barbarian and a conqueror. Nine wives, whom he divorced with very little ceremony, attest the license of his private life, which his temperance and frugality can hardly be said to redeem. Unsparing of blood, though not constitutionally cruel, and wholly indifferent to the means which his ambition prescribed, he beheaded in one day four thousand Saxons--an act of atrocious butchery, after which his persecuting edicts, pronouncing the pain of death against those who refused baptism, or even who ate flesh during Lent, seem scarcely worthy of notice. This union of barbarous ferocity with elevated views of national improvement might suggest the parallel of Peter the Great. But the degrading habits and brute violence of the Muscovite place him at an immense distance from the restorer of the empire. "A strong sympathy for intellectual excellence was the leading characteristic of Charlemagne, and this undoubtedly biassed him in the chief political error of his conduct--that of encouraging the power and pretensions of the hierarchy. But, perhaps, his greatest eulogy is written in the disgraces of succeeding times and the miseries of Europe. He stands alone, like a beacon upon a waste, or a rock in the broad ocean. His sceptre was the bow of Ulysses, which could not be drawn by any weaker hand. In the dark ages of European history the reign of Charlemagne affords a solitary resting-place between two long periods of turbulence and ignominy, deriving the advantages of contrast both from that of the preceding dynasty and of a posterity for whom he had formed an empire which they were unworthy and unequal to maintain." G. P. R. James (History of Charlemagne, Lond., 1847, p. 499): "No man, perhaps, that ever lived, combined in so high a degree those qualities which rule men and direct events, with those which endear the possessor and attach his contemporaries. No man was ever more trusted and loved by his people, more respected and feared by other kings, more esteemed in his lifetime, or more regretted at his death. Milman (Book V. ch. 1): "Karl, according to his German appellation, was the model of a Teutonic chieftain, in his gigantic stature, enormous strength, and indefatigable activity; temperate in diet, and superior to the barbarous vice of drunkenness. Hunting and war were his chief occupations; and his wars were carried on with all the ferocity of encountering savage tribes. But he was likewise a Roman Emperor, not only in his vast and organizing policy, he had that one vice of the old Roman civilization which the Merovingian kings had indulged, though not perhaps with more unbounded lawlessness. The religious emperor, in one respect, troubled not himself with the restraints of religion. The humble or grateful church beheld meekly, and almost without remonstrance, the irregularity of domestic life, which not merely indulged in free license, but treated the sacred rite of marriage as a covenant dissoluble at his pleasure. Once we have heard, and but once, the church raise its authoritative, its comminatory voice, and that not to forbid the King of the Franks from wedding a second wife while his first was alive, but from marrying a Lombard princess. One pious ecclesiastic alone in his dominion, he a relative, ventured to protest aloud.') Guizot (Histoire de la civilisation en France, leçon XX.): "Charlemagne marque la limite à laquelle est enfin consommée la dissolution de l'ancien monde romain et barbare, et où commence la formation du monde nouveau." Vétault (Charlemagne, 455, 458): "Charlemagne fut, en effet, le père du monde moderne et de la societé européenne .... Si Ch. ne peut être légitemement honoré comme un saint, il a droit du moins à la première place, parmis tous les héros, dans l'admiration des hommes; car on ne trouverait pas un autre souverain qui ait autant aimé l'humanité et lui ait fait plus de bien. Il est le plus glorieux, parce que ... il a mérite d' être proclamé le plus honnête des grands hommes." Giesebrecht, the historian of the German emperors, gives a glowing description of Charlemagne (I. 140): "Many high-minded rulers arose in the ten centuries after Charles, but none had a higher aim. To be ranked with him, satisfied the boldest conquerors, the wisest princes of peace. French chivalry of later times glorified Charlemagne as the first cavalier; the German burgeoisie as the fatherly friend of the people and the most righteous judge; the Catholic Church raised him to the number of her saints; the poetry of all nations derived ever new inspiration and strength from his mighty person. Never perhaps has richer life proceeded from the activity of a mortal man (Nie vielleicht ist reicheres Leben von der Wirksamkeit eines sterblichen Menschen ausgegangen)." We add the eloquent testimony of an American author, Parke Godwin (History of France, N. Y., 1860, vol. i. p. 410): "There is to me something indescribably grand in the figure of many of the barbaric chiefs--Alariks, Ataulfs, Theodoriks, and Euriks--who succeeded to the power of the Romans, and in their wild, heroic way, endeavored to raise a fabric of state on the ruins of the ancient empire. But none of those figures is so imposing and majestic as that of Karl, the son of Pippin, whose name, for the first and only time in history, the admiration of mankind has indissolubly blended with the title the Great. By the peculiarity of his position in respect to ancient and modern times--by the extraordinary length of his reign, by the number and importance of the transactions in which he was engaged, by the extent and splendor of his conquests, by his signal services to the Church, and by the grandeur of his personal qualities--he impressed himself so profoundly upon the character of his times, that he stands almost alone and apart in the annals of Europe. For nearly a thousand years before him, or since the days of Julius Caesar, no monarch had won so universal and brilliant a renown; and for nearly a thousand years after him, or until the days of Charles V. of Germany, no monarch attained any thing like an equal dominion. A link between the old and new, he revived the Empire of the West, with a degree of glory that it had only enjoyed in its prime; while, at the same time, the modern history of every Continental nation was made to begin with him. Germany claims him as one of her most illustrious sons; France, as her noblest king; Italy, as her chosen emperor; and the Church as her most prodigal benefactor and worthy saint. All the institutions of the Middle Ages--political, literary, scientific, and ecclesiastical--delighted to trace their traditionary origins to his hand: he was considered the source of the peerage, the inspirer of chivalry, the founder of universities, and the endower of the churches; and the genius of romance, kindling its fantastic torches at the flame of his deeds, lighted up a new and marvellous world about him, filled with wonderful adventures and heroic forms. Thus by a double immortality, the one the deliberate award of history, and the other the prodigal gift of fiction, he claims the study of mankind." II. The Canonization of Charlemagne is perpetuated in the Officium in festo Sancti Caroli Magni imperatoris et confessoris, as celebrated in churches of Germany, France, and Spain. Baronius (Annal. ad ann. 814) says that the canonization was, not accepted by the Roman church, because Paschalis was no legitimate pope, but neither was it forbidden. Alban Butler, in his Lives of Saints, gives a eulogistic biography of the "Blessed Charlemagne," and covers his besetting sin with the following unhistorical assertion: "The incontinence, into which he fell in his youth, he expiated by sincere repentance, so that several churches in Germany and France honor him among the saints." R SIGNUM K + S CAROLI GLORIOSISSIMI REGIS. L The monogram of Charles with the additions of a scribe in a document signed by Charles at Kufstein, Aug. 31, 790. Copied from Stacke, l.c. __________________________________________________________________ [240] Joseph de Maistre: "Cet homme est si grand que, la grandeur a pénétré son nom." (ch. 4), [241] "It would be folly," says Eginhard "to write a word about the birth and infancy or even the boyhood of Charles, for nothing has ever been written on the subject, and there is no one alive who can give information about it." His birth is usually assigned to April 2, 742, at Aix-la-Chapelle; but the legend makes him the child of illegitimate love, who grew up wild as a miller's son in Bavaria. His name is mentioned only twice before be assumed the reins of government, once at a court reception given by his father to pope Stephen II., and once as a witness in the Aquitanian campaigns. [242] According to the enumeration of Eginhard (ch. 33), who, however, gives only 21, omitting Narbonne. Charles bequeathed one-third of his treasure and moveable goods to the metropolitan sees. [243] The magnificent portrait of Charles by Albrecht Dürer is a fancy picture, and not sustained by the oldest representations. Vétault gives several portraits, and discusses them, p. 540. [244] Wintermonat for January, Hornung for February, Lenz for March, Ostermonat for April, etc. See Eginhard, ch. 29. [245] Eginhard, ch. 27. [246] Bossuet justified all his conquests because they were an extension of Christianity."Les conquêtes prodigieuses," he says, "furent la dilatation du règne de Dieu, et il se moutra très chrétien dans toutes ses aeuvres." [247] Pope Stephen III. protested, indeed, in the most violent language against the second marriage of Charles with Desiderata, a daughter of the king of Lombardy, but not on the ground of divorce from his first wife, which would have furnished a very good reason, but from opposition to a union with the "perfidious, leprous, and fetid brood of the Lombards, a brood hardly reckoned human." Charles married the princess, to the delight of his mother, but repudiated her the next year and sent her back to her father. See Milman, Bk. IV., ch. 12 (II. 439). [248] 48 "Maximo totius populi luctu, " says Eginhard. [249] The historic foundation of this defeat is given by Eginhard, ch. 9. It was then marvellously embellished, and Roland became the favorite theme of minstrels and poets, as Théroulde's Chanson de Roland, Turpin's Chroniqué, Bojardo's Orlando Innamorato, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, etc. His enchanted Horn sounded so loud that the birds fell dead at its blast, and the whole Saracen army drew back terror-struck. When he was attacked in the Pyrenees, he blew the horn for the last time so hard that the veins of his neck started, and Charlemagne heard it several miles off at St. Jean Pied de Port, but too late to save "The dead who, deathless all, Were slain at famous Roncevall." __________________________________________________________________ § 57. Founding of the Holy Roman Empire, a.d. 800. Charlemagne and Leo III G. Sugenheim: Geschichte der Entstehung und Ausbildung des Kirchenstaates. Leipz. 1854. F. Scharpff: Die Entstehung des kirchenstaats. Freib. i. B. 1860. TH. D. Mock: De Donatione a Carolo Mag. sedi apostolicae anno 774 oblata. Munich 1861. James Bryce: The Holy Roman Empire. Lond. & N. York (Macmillan & Co.) 6th ed. 1876, 8th ed. 1880. German translation by Arthur Winckler. Heinrich von Sybel: Die Schenkungen der Karolinger an die Päpste. In Sybel's "Hist. Zeitschrift," Munchen & Leipz. 1880, pp. 46-85. Comp. Baxmann: I. 307 sqq.; Vétault: Ch. III. pp. 113 sqq. (Charlemagne, patrice des Romains-Formation des états de l'église). Charlemagne inherited the protectorate of the temporal dominions of the pope which had been wrested from the Lombards by Pepin, as the Lombards had wrested them from the Eastern emperor. When the Lombards again rebelled and the pope (Hadrian) again appealed to the transalpine monarch for help, Charles in the third year of his sole reign (774) came to the rescue, crossed the Alps with an army--a formidable undertaking in those days--subdued Italy with the exception of a small part of the South still belonging to the Greek empire, held a triumphal entry in Rome, and renewed and probably enlarged his father's gift to the pope. The original documents have perished, and no contemporary authority vouches for the details; but the fact is undoubted. The gift rested only on the right of conquest. Henceforward he always styled himself "Rex Francorum et Longobardorum, et Patricius Romanorum." His authority over the immediate territory of the Lombards in Northern Italy was as complete as that in France, but the precise nature of his authority over the pope's dominion as Patrician of the Romans became after his death an apple of discord for centuries. Hadrian, to judge from his letters, considered himself as much an absolute sovereign in his dominion as Charles in his. In 781 at Easter Charles revisited Rome with his son Pepin, who on that occasion was anointed by the pope "King for Italy" ("Rex in Italiam"). On a third visit., in 787, he spent a few days with his friend, Hadrian, in the interest of the patrimony of St. Peter. When Leo III. followed Hadrian (796) he immediately dispatched to Charles, as tokens of submission the keys and standards of the city, and the keys of the sepulchre of Peter. A few years afterwards a terrible riot broke out in Rome in which the pope was assaulted and almost killed (799). He fled for help to Charles, then at Paderborn in Westphalia, and was promised assistance. The next year Charles again crossed the Alps and declared his intention to investigate the charges of certain unknown crimes against Leo, but no witness appeared to prove them. Leo publicly read a declaration of his own innocence, probably at the request of Charles, but with a protest that this declaration should not be taken for a precedent. Soon afterwards occurred the great event which marks an era in the ecclesiastical and political history of Europe. The Coronation of Charles as Emperor. While Charles was celebrating Christmas in St. Peter's, in the year of our Lord 800, and kneeling in prayer before the altar, the pope, as under a sudden inspiration (but no doubt in consequence of a premeditated scheme), placed a golden crown upon his head, and the Roman people shouted three times: "To Charles Augustus, crowned by God, the great and pacific emperor of the Romans, life and victory!" Forthwith, after ancient custom, he was adored by the pope, and was styled henceforth (instead of Patrician) Emperor and Augustus. [250] The new emperor presented to the pope a round table of silver with the picture of Constantinople, and many gifts of gold, and remained in Rome till Easter. The moment or manner of the coronation may have been unexpected by Charles (if we are to believe his word), but it is hardly conceivable that it was not the result of a previous arrangement between him and Leo. Alcuin seems to have aided the scheme. In his view the pope occupied the first, the emperor the second, the king the third degree in the scale of earthly dignities. He sent to Charles from Tours before his coronation a splendid Bible with the inscription: Ad splendorem imperialis potentiae. [251] On his return to France Charles compelled all his subjects to take a new oath to him as "Caesar." He assumed the full title "Serenssimus Augustus a Deo coronatus, magnus et pacificus imperator, Romanum gubernans imperium, qui et per misericordiam Dei rex Francorum et Longobardorum." Significance of the Act. The act of coronation was on the part of the pope a final declaration of independence and self-emancipation against the Greek emperor, as the legal ruler of Rome. Charles seems to have felt this, and hence he proposed to unite the two empires by marrying Irene, who had put her son to death and usurped the Greek crown (797). But the same rebellion had been virtually committed before by the pope in sending the keys of the city to Pepin, and by the French king in accepting this token of temporal sovereignty. Public opinion justified the act on the principle that might makes right. The Greek emperor, being unable to maintain his power in Italy and to defend his own subjects, first against the Lombards and then against the Franks, had virtually forfeited his claim. For the West the event was the re-establishment, on a Teutonic basis, of the old Roman empire, which henceforth, together with the papacy, controlled the history of the middle ages. The pope and the emperor represented the highest dignity and power in church and state. But the pope was the greater and more enduring power of the two. He continued, down to the Reformation, the spiritual ruler of all Europe, and is to this day the ruler of an empire much vaster than that of ancient Rome. He is, in the striking language of Hobbes, "the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof." The Relation of the Pope and the Emperor. What was the legal and actual relation between these two sovereignties, and the limits of jurisdiction of each? This was the struggle of centuries. It involved many problems which could only be settled in the course of events. It was easy enough to distinguish the two in theory by, confining the pope to spiritual, and the emperor to temporal affairs. But on the theocratic theory of the union of church and state the two will and must come into frequent conflict. The pope, by voluntarily conferring the imperial crown upon Charles, might claim that the empire was his gift, and that the right of crowning implied the right of discrowning. And this right was exercised by popes at a later period, who wielded the secular as well as the spiritual sword and absolved nations of their oath of allegiance. A mosaic picture in the triclinium of Leo III. in the Lateran (from the ninth century) represents St. Peter in glory, bestowing upon Leo kneeling at his right hand the priestly stole, and upon Charles kneeling at his left, the standard of Rome. [252] This is the mediaeval hierarchical theory, which derives all power from God through Peter as the head of the church. Gregory VII. compared the church to the sun, the state to the moon who derives her light from the sun. The popes will always maintain the principle of the absolute supremacy of the church over the state, and support or oppose a government--whether it be an empire or a kingdom or a republic--according to the degree of its subserviency to the interests of the hierarchy. The papal Syllabus of 1864 expresses the genuine spirit of the system in irreconcilable conflict with the spirit of modern history and civilization. The Vatican Palace is the richest museum of classical and mediaeval curiosities, and the pope himself, the infallible oracle of two hundred millions of souls, is by far the greatest curiosity in it. On the other hand Charles, although devotedly attached to the church and the pope, was too absolute a monarch to recognize a sovereignty within his sovereignty. He derived his idea of the theocracy from the Old Testament, and the relation between Moses and Aaron. He understood and exercised his imperial dignity pretty much in the same way as Constantine the Great and Theodosius the Great had done in the Byzantine empire, which was caesaro-papal in principle and practice, and so is its successor, the Russian empire. Charles believed that he was the divinely appointed protector of the church and the regulator of all her external and to some extent also the internal affairs. He called the synods of his empire without asking the pope. He presided at the Council of Frankfort (794), which legislated on matters of doctrine and discipline, condemned the Adoption heresy, agreeably to the pope, and rejected the image worship against the decision of the second oecumenical Council of Nicaea (787) and the declared views of several popes. [253] He appointed bishops and abbots as well as counts, and if a vacancy in the papacy, had occurred during the remainder of his life, he would probably have filled it as well as the ordinary bishoprics. The first act after his coronation was to summon and condemn to death for treason those who had attempted to depose the pope. He thus acted as judge in the case. A Council at Mayence in 813 called him in an official document "the pious ruler of the holy church." [254] Charles regarded the royal and imperial dignity as the hereditary possession of his house and people, and crowned his son, Louis the Pious, at Aix-la-Chapelle in 813, without consulting the pope or the Romans. [255] He himself as a Teuton represented both France and Germany. But with the political separation of the two countries under his successors, the imperial dignity was attached to the German crown. Hence also the designation: the holy German Roman empire. __________________________________________________________________ [250] Annales Laurissenses ad ann. 801: "Ipsa die sacratissima natalis Domini cum Rex ad Missam ante confessionem b. Petri Apostoli ab oratione surgeret, Leo P. coronam capriti ejus imposuit, et a cuncto Romanorum populo acclamatum est:, Karolo Augusto, a Deo coronato, magno et pacifico Imperatori Romanorum, vita et victoria!' Et post Laudes ab Apostolico more antiquorum principum adoratus est, atque, ablato Patricii nomine, Imperator et Augustus est appellatus." Comp. Eginhard, Annal. ad ann. 800, and Vita Car., c. 28. [251] But the date of the letter and the meaning of imperialis are not quite certain. See Rettberg, Kirchengesch. Deutschlands, I. 430, and Baxmann, Politik der Päpste, I. 313 sqq. [252] The picture is reproduced in the works of Vétault and Stacke above quoted. [253] Milman (II. 497): "The Council of Frankfort displays most fully the power assumed by Charlemagne over the hierarchy as well as the nobility of the realm, the mingled character, the all-embracing comprehensiveness of his legislation. The assembly at Frankfort was at once a Diet or Parliament of the realm and an ecclesiastical Council. It took cognizance alternately of matters purely ecclesiastical and of matters as clearly, secular. Charlemagne was present and presided in the Council of Frankfort. The canons as well as the other statutes were issued chiefly in his name." [254] Sanctae Ecclesiae tam pium ac devotum in servitio Dei rectorem. Also, in his own language, Devotus Ecclesiae defensor atque adjutor in omnibus apostolicae sedis. Rettberg I. 425, 439 sqq. [255] 55 Ann. Einhardi, ad. ann. 813 (in Migne's Patrol. Tom. 104, p. 478): Evocatum ad se apud Aquasgrani filium suum Illudovicum Aquitaniae regem, coronam illi imposuit et imperialis nominis sibi consortem fecit.' When Stephen IV. visited Louis in 816, he bestowed on him simply spiritual consecration. In the same manner Louis appointed his son Lothair emperor who was afterwards crowned by the pope in Rome (823). __________________________________________________________________ § 58. Survey of the History of the Holy Roman Empire. The readiness with which the Romans responded to the crowning act of Leo proves that the re-establishment of the Western empire was timely. The Holy Roman Empire seemed to be the necessary counterpart of the Holy Roman Church. For many, centuries the nations of Europe had been used to the concentration of all secular power in one head. It is true, several Roman emperors from Nero to Diocletian had persecuted Christianity by fire and sword, but Constantine and his successors had raised the church to dignity and power, and bestowed upon it all the privileges of a state religion. The transfer of the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople withdrew from the Western church the protection of the secular arm, and exposed Europe to the horrors of barbarian invasion and the chaos of civil wars. The popes were among the chief sufferers, their territory, being again and again overrun and laid waste by the savage Lombards. Hence the instinctive desire for the protecting arm of a new empire, and this could only be expected from the fresh and vigorous Teutonic power which had risen beyond the Alps and Christianized by Roman missionaries. Into this empire "all the life of the ancient world was gathered; out of it all the life of the modern world arose." [256] The Empire and the Papacy, The Two Ruling Powers of the Middle Ages. Henceforward the mediaeval history of Europe is chiefly a history of the papacy and the empire. They were regarded as the two arms of God in governing the church and the world. This twofold government was upon the whole the best training-school of the barbarian for Christian civilization and freedom. The papacy acted as a wholesome check upon military despotism, the empire as a check upon the abuses of priestcraft. Both secured order and unity against the disintegrating tendencies of society; both nourished the great idea of a commonwealth of nations, of a brotherhood of mankind, of a communion of saints. By its connection with Rome, the empire infused new blood into the old nationalities of the South, and transferred the remaining treasures of classical culture and the Roman law to the new nations of the North. The tendency of both was ultimately self-destructive; they fostered, while seeming to oppose, the spirit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The discipline of authority always produces freedom as its legitimate result. The law is a schoolmaster to lead men to the gospel. Otho the Great. In the opening chapter of the history of the empire we find it under the control of a master-mind and in friendly alliance with the papacy. Under the weak successors of Charlemagne it dwindled down to a merely nominal existence. But it revived again in Otho I. or the Great (936-973), of the Saxon dynasty. He was master of the pope and defender of the Roman church, and left everywhere the impress of an heroic character, inferior only to that of Charles. Under Henry III. (1039-1056), when the papacy sank lowest, the empire again proved a reforming power. He deposed three rival popes, and elected a worthy, successor. But as the papacy rose from its degradation, it overawed the empire. Henry IV. and Gregory VII. Under Henry IV. (1056-1106) and Gregory VII. (1073-1085) the two power; came into the sharpest conflict concerning the right of investiture, or the supreme control in the election of bishops and abbots. The papacy achieved a moral triumph over the empire at Canossa, when the mightiest prince kneeled as a penitent at the feet of the proud successor of Peter (1077); but Henry recovered his manhood and his power, set up an antipope, and Gregory died in exile at Salerno, yet without yielding an inch of his principles and pretensions. The conflict lasted fifty years, and ended with the Concordat of Worms (Sept. 23, 1122), which was a compromise, but with a limitation of the imperial prerogative: the pope secured the right to invest the bishops with the ring and crozier, but the new bishop before his consecration was to receive his temporal estates as a fief of the crown by the touch of the emperor's sceptre. The House of Hohenstaufen. Under the Swabian emperors of the house of Hohenstaufen (1138-1254) the Roman empire reached its highest power in connection with the Crusades, in the palmy days of mediaeval chivalry, poetry and song. They excelled in personal greatness and renown the Saxon and the Salic emperors, but were too much concerned with Italian affairs for the good of Germany. Frederick Barbarossa (Redbeard), during his long reign (1152-1190), was a worthy successor of Charlemagne and Otho the Great. He subdued Northern Italy, quarrelled with pope Alexander III., enthroned two rival popes (Paschal III., and after his death Calixtus III.), but ultimately submitted to Alexander, fell at his feet at Venice, and was embraced by the pope with tears of joy and the kiss of peace (1177). He died at the head of an army of crusaders, while attempting to cross the Cydnus in Cilicia (June 10, 1190), and entered upon his long enchanted sleep in Kyffhäuser till his spirit reappeared to establish a new German empire in 1871. [257] Under Innocent III. (1198-1216) the papacy reached the acme of its power, and maintained it till the time of Boniface VIII. (1294-1303). Emperor Frederick II. (1215-1250), Barbarossa's grandson, was equal to the best of his predecessors in genius and energy, superior to them in culture, but more an Italian than a German, and a skeptic on the subject of religion. He reconquered Jerusalem in the fifth crusade, but cared little for the church, and was put under the ban by pope Gregory IX., who denounced him as a heretic and blasphemer, and compared him to the Apocalyptic beast from the abyss. [258] The news of his sudden death was hailed by pope Innocent IV. with the exclamation: "Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad." His death was the collapse of the house of Hohenstaufen, and for a time also of the Roman empire. His son and successor Conrad IV. ruled but a few years, and his grandson Conradin, a bright and innocent youth of sixteen, was opposed by the pope, and beheaded at Naples in sight of his hereditary kingdom (October 29, 1268). Italy was at once the paradise and the grave of German ambition. The German Empire. After "the great interregnum" when might was right, [259] the Swiss count Rudolf of Hapsburg (a castle in the Swiss canton of Aargau) was elected emperor by the seven electors, and crowned at Aachen (1273-1291). He restored peace and order, never visited Italy, escaped the ruinous quarrels with the pope, built up a German kingdom, and laid the foundation of the conservative, orthodox, tenacious, and selfish house of Austria. The empire continued to live for more than five centuries with varying fortunes, in nominal connection with Rome and at the head of the secular powers in Christendom, but without controlling influence over the fortunes of the papacy and the course of Europe. Occasionally it sent forth a gleam of its universal aim, as under Henry VII., who was crowned in Rome and hailed by Dante as the saviour of Italy, but died of fever (if not of poison administered by a Dominican monk in the sacramental cup) in Tuscany (1313); under Sigismund, the convener and protector of the oecumenical Council at Constance which deposed popes and burned Hus (1414), a much better man than either the emperor or the contemporary popes; under Charles V. (1519-1558), who wore the crown of Spain and Austria as well as of Germany, and on whose dominions the sun never set; and under Joseph II. (1765-1790), who renounced the intolerant policy of his ancestors, unmindful of the pope's protest, and narrowly escaped greatness. [260] But the emperors after Rudolf, with a few exceptions, were no more crowned in Rome, and withdrew from Italy. [261] They were chosen at Frankfort by the Seven Electors, three spiritual, and four temporal: the archbishops of Mentz, Treves, and Cologne, the king of Bohemia, and the Electors of the Palatinate, Saxony, and Brandenburg (afterwards enlarged to nine). The competition, however, was confined to a few powerful houses, until in the 15th century the Hapsburgs grasped the crown and held it tenaciously, with one exception, till the dissolution. The Hapsburg emperors always cared more for their hereditary dominions, which they steadily increased by fortunate marriages, than for Germany and the papacy. The Decline and Fall of the Empire. Many causes contributed to the gradual downfall of the German empire: the successful revolt of the Swiss mountaineers, the growth of the independent kingdoms of Spain, France, and England, the jealousies of the electors and the minor German princes, the discovery of a new Continent in the West, the invasion of the Turks from the East, the Reformation which divided the German people into two hostile religions, the fearful devastations of the thirty years' war, the rise of the house of Hohenzollern and the kingdom of Prussia on German soil with the brilliant genius of Frederick II., and the wars growing out of the French Revolution. In its last stages it became a mere shadow, and justified the satirical description (traced to Voltaire), that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. The last of the emperors, Francis II., in August 6th, 1806, abdicated the elective crown of Germany and substituted for it the hereditary crown of Austria as Francis I. (d. 1835). Thus the holy Roman empire died in peace at the venerable age of one thousand and six years. The Empire of Napoleon. Napoleon, hurled into sudden power by the whirlwind of revolution on the wings of his military genius, aimed at the double glory of a second Caesar and a second Charlemagne, and constructed, by arbitrary force, a huge military empire on the basis of France, with the pope as an obedient paid servant at Paris, but it collapsed on the battle fields of Leipzig and Waterloo, without the hope of a resurrection. "I have not succeeded Louis Quatorze," he said, "but Charlemagne." He dismissed his wife and married a daughter of the last German and first Austrian emperor; he assumed the Lombard crown at Milan; he made his ill-fated son "King of Rome" in imitation of the German "King of the Romans." He revoked "the donations which my predecessors, the French emperors have made," and appropriated them to France. "Your holiness," he wrote to Pius VII., who had once addressed him as his "very dear Son in Christ," "is sovereign of Rome, but I am the emperor thereof." "You are right," he wrote to Cardinal Fesch, his uncle, "that I am Charlemagne, and I ought to be treated as the emperor of the papal court. I shall inform the pope of my intentions in a few words, and if he declines to acquiesce, I shall reduce him to the same condition in which he was before Charlemagne." [262] It is reported that he proposed to the pope to reside in Paris with a large salary, and rule the conscience of Europe under the military, supremacy of the emperor, that the pope listened first to his persuasion with the single remark: "Comedian," and then to his threats with the reply: "Tragedian," and turned him his back. The papacy utilized the empire of the uncle and the nephew, as well as it could, and survived them. But the first Napoleon swept away the effete institutions of feudalism, and by his ruthless and scornful treatment of conquered nationalities provoked a powerful revival of these very nationalities which overthrew and buried his own artificial empire. The deepest humiliation of the German nation, and especially of Prussia, was the beginning of its uprising in the war of liberation. The German Confederation. The Congress of Vienna erected a temporary substitute for the old empire in the German "Bund" at Frankfort. It was no federal state, but a loose confederacy of 38 sovereign states, or princes rather, without any popular representation; it was a rope of sand, a sham unity, under the leadership of Austria; and Austria shrewdly and selfishly used the petty rivalries and jealousies of the smaller principalities as a means to check the progress of Prussia and to suppress all liberal movements. The New German Empire. In the meantime the popular desire for national union, awakened by the war of liberation and a great national literature, made steady progress, and found at last its embodiment in a new German empire with a liberal constitution and a national parliament. But this great result was brought about by great events and achievements under the leadership of Prussia against foreign aggression. The first step was the brilliant victory of Prussia over Austria at Königgrätz, which resulted in the formation of the North German Confederation (1866). The second step was the still more remarkable triumph of united Germany in a war of self-defence against the empire of Napoleon III., which ended in the proclamation of William I. as German emperor by the united wishes of the German princes and peoples in the palace of Louis XIV. at Versailles (1870). Thus the long dream of the German nation was fulfilled through a series of the most brilliant military and diplomatic victories recorded in modern history, by the combined genius of Bismarck, Moltke, and William, and the valor, discipline, and intelligence of the German army. Simultaneously with this German movement, Italy under the lead of Cavour and Victor Emmanuel, achieved her national unity, with Rome as the political capital. But the new German empire is not a continuation or revival of the old. It differs from it in several essential particulars. It is the result of popular national aspiration and of a war of self-defence, not of conquest; it is based on the predominance of Prussia and North Germany, not of Austria and South Germany; it is hereditary, not elective; it is controlled by modern ideas of liberty and progress, not by mediaeval notions and institutions; it is essentially Protestant, and not Roman Catholic; it is a German, not a Roman empire. Its rise is indirectly connected with the simultaneous downfall of the temporal power of the pope, who is the hereditary and unchangeable enemy both of German and Italian unity and freedom. The new empire is independent of the church, and has officially no connection with religion, resembling in this respect the government of the United States; but its Protestant animus appears not only in the hereditary religion of the first emperor, but also in the expulsion of the Jesuits (1872), and the "Culturkampf" against the politico-hierarchical aspirations of the ultramontane papacy. When Pius IX., in a letter to William I. (1873), claimed a sort of jurisdiction over all baptized Christians, the emperor courteously informed the infallible pope that he, with all Protestants, recognized no other mediator between God and man but our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The new German empire will and ought to do full justice to the Catholic church, but "will never go to Canossa." We pause at the close of a long and weighty chapter in history; we wonder what the next chapter will be. __________________________________________________________________ [256] Bryce, p. 396 (8th ed.) [257] Friedrich Rückert has reproduced this significant German legend in a poem beginning: Der alte Barbarossa, Der Kaiser Friederich, Im unterird'schen Schlosse Hält er verzaubert sich. Er ist niemals gestorben, Er lebt darin noch jetzt; Er hat im Schloss verborgen Zum Schlaf sich hingesetzt. Er hat hinabgenommen Des Reiches Herrlichkeit, Und wird einst wiederkommen Mit ihr zu seiner Zeit,"etc. [258] He alone, of all the emperors, is consigned to hell by Dante (Inferno, x. 119): "Within here is the second Frederick." [259] Schiller calls it "die kaiserlose, die schreckliche Zeit." [260] The pope Pius VI. even made a journey to Vienna, but when he extended his hand to the minister Kaunitz to kiss, the minister took it and shook it. Joseph in turn visited Rome, and was received by the people with the shout: "Evviva il nostro imperatore!" [261] Dante (Purgat. VII. 94) represents Rudolf of Hapsburg as seated gloomily apart in purgatory, and mourning his sin of neglecting "To heal the wounds that Italy have slain." Weary of the endless strife of domestic tyrants and factions in every city, Dante longed for some controlling power that should restore unity and peace to his beloved but unfortunate Italy. He expounded his political ideas in his work De Monarchia. [262] 2 In another letter to Fesch (Correspond. de l' empereur Napol. Ier, Tom. xi. 528), he writes, "Pour le pape je suis Charemagne. parce que comme Charlemagne je réunis la couronne de Prance à celle du Lombards et que mon empire confine avec l' Orient." Quoted by Bryce. __________________________________________________________________ § 59. The Papacy and the Empire from the Death of Charlemagne to Nicolas I a.d. 814-858). Note on the Myth of the Papess Joan. The power of Charlemagne was personal. Under his weak successors the empire fell to pieces, and the creation of his genius was buried in chaotic confusion; but the idea survived. His son and successor, Louis the Pious, as the Germans and Italians called him, or Louis the Gentle (le débonnaire) in French history (814-840), inherited the piety, and some of the valor and legislative wisdom, but not the genius and energy, of his father. He was a devoted and superstitious servant of the clergy. He began with reforms, he dismissed his father's concubines and daughters with their paramours from the court, turned the palace into a monastery, and promoted the Scandinavian mission of St. Ansgar. In the progress of his reign, especially after his second marriage to the ambitious Judith, he showed deplorable weakness and allowed his empire to decay, while he wasted his time between monkish exercises and field-sports in the forest of the Ardennes. He unwisely shared his rule with his three sons who soon rebelled against their father and engaged in fraternal wars. After his death the treaty of Verdun was concluded in 843. By this treaty the empire was divided; Lothair received Italy with the title of emperor, France fell to Charles the Bald, Germany to Louis the German. Thus Charlemagne's conception of a Western empire that should be commensurate with the Latin church was destroyed, or at least greatly contracted, and the three countries have henceforth a separate history. This was better for the development of nationality. The imperial dignity was afterwards united with the German crown, and continued under this modified form till 1806. During this civil commotion the papacy had no distinguished representative, but upon the whole profited by it. Some of the popes evaded the imperial sanction of their election. The French clergy forced the gentle Louis to make at Soissons a most humiliating confession of guilt for all the slaughter, pillage, and sacrilege committed during the civil wars, and for bringing the empire to the brink of ruin. Thus the hierarchy assumed control even over the civil misconduct of the sovereign and imposed ecclesiastical penance for ft. Note. The Myth of Johanna Papissa. We must make a passing mention of the curious and mysterious myth of papess Johanna, who is said during this period between Leo IV. (847) and Benedict III. (855) to have worn the triple crown for two years and a half. She was a lady of Mayence (her name is variously called Agnes, Gilberta, Johanna, Jutta), studied in disguise philosophy in Athens (where philosophy had long before died out), taught theology in Rome, under the name of Johannes Anglicus, and was elevated to the papal dignity as John VIII., but died in consequence of the discovery of her sex by a sudden confinement in the open street during a solemn procession from the Vatican to the Lateran. According to another tradition she was tied to the hoof of a horse, dragged outside of the city and stoned to death by the people, and the inscription was put on her grave: "Parce pater patrum papissae edere partum." The strange story originated in Rome, and was first circulated by the Dominicans and Minorites, and acquired general credit in the 13th and 14th centuries. Pope John XX. (1276) called himself John XXI. In the beginning of the 15th century the bust of this woman-pope was placed alongside with the busts of the other popes at Sienna, and nobody took offence at it. Even Chancellor Gerson used the story as an argument that the church could err in matters of fact. At the Council in Constance it was used against the popes. Torrecremata, the upholder of papal despotism, draws from it the lesson that if the church can stand a woman-pope, she might stand the still greater evil of a heretical pope. Nevertheless the story is undoubtedly a mere fiction, and is so regarded by nearly all modern historians, Protestant as well as Roman Catholic. It is not mentioned till four hundred years later by Stephen, a French Dominican (who died 1261). [263] It was unknown to Photius and the bitter Greek polemics during the ninth and tenth centuries, who would not have missed the opportunity to make use of it as an argument against the papacy. There is no gap in the election of the popes between Leo and Benedict, who, according to contemporary historians, was canonically elected three days after the death of Leo IV. (which occurred July 17th, 855), or at all events in the same month, and consecrated two months after (Sept. 29th). See Jaffé, Regesta, p. 235. The myth was probably an allegory or satire on the monstrous government of women (Theodora and Marozia) over several licentious popes--Sergius III., John X., XI., and XII.--in the tenth century. So Heumann, Schröckh, Gibbon, Neander. The only serious objection to this solution is that the myth would be displaced from the ninth to the tenth century. Other conjectures are these: The myth of the female pope was a satire on John VIII. for his softness in dealing with Photius (Baronius); the misunderstanding of a fact that some foreign bishop (pontifex) in Rome was really a woman in disguise (Leibnitz); the papess was a widow of Leo IV. (Kist); a misinterpretation of the stella stercoraria (Schmidt); a satirical allegory on the origin and circulation of the false decretals of Isidor (Henke and Gfrörer); an impersonation of the great whore of the Apocalypse, and the popular expression of the belief that the mystery of iniquity was working in the papal court (Baring-Gould). David Blondel, first destroyed the credit of this mediaeval fiction, in his learned French dissertation on the subject (Amsterdam, 1649). spanheim defended it, and Mosheim credited it much to his discredit as an historian. See the elaborate discussion of Döllinger, Papst-Fabeln des Mittelalters, 2d ed. Munchen, 1863 (Engl. transl. N. Y., 1872, pp. 4-58 and pp. 430-437). Comp. also Bianchi-Giovini, Esame critico degli atti e documenti della papessa Giovanna, Mil. 1845, and the long note of Gieseler, II. 30-32 (N. Y. ed.), which sums up the chief data in the case. __________________________________________________________________ [263] The oldest testimony in the almost contemporary "Liber Pontificalis" of Anastasius is wanting in the best manuscripts, and must be a later interpolation. Döllinger shows that the myth, although it may have circulated earlier in the mouth of the people, was not definitely put into writing before the middle of the thirteenth century. __________________________________________________________________ § 60. The Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. I. Sources. The only older ed. of Pseudo-Isidor is that of Jacob Merlin in the first part of his Collection of General Councils, Paris, 1523, Col., 1530, etc., reprinted in Migne's Patrol. Tom. CXXX., Paris, 1853. Far superior is the modem ed. of P. Hinschius: Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae et Capitula Angilramni. Lips. 1863. The only critical ed, taken from the oldest and best MSS. Comp. his Commentatio de, Collectione Isidori Mercatoris in this ed. pp. xi-ccxxxviii. II. Literature. Dav. Blondel: Pseudo-Isidorus et Turrianus vapulantes. Genev. 1628. F. Knust: De Fontibus et Consilio Pseudo-Isidorianae collectionis. Gött. 1832. A. Möhler (R.C.): Fragmente aus und uber Isidor, in his "Vermischte Schriften" (ed. by Döllinger, Regensb. 1839), I. 285 sqq. H. Wasserschleben: Beiträge zur Gesch. der falschen Decret. Breslau, 1844. Comp. also his art. in Herzog. C. Jos. Hefele (R.C.): Die pseudo-Isidor. Frage, in the "Tubinger Quartalschrift, "1847. Gfrörer: Alter, Ursprung, Zweck der Decretalen des falschen Isodorus. Freib. 1848. Jul. Weizsäcker: Hinkmar und Pseudo-Isidor, in Niedner's "Zeitschrift fur histor. Theol.," for 1858, and Die pseudo-isid. Frage, in Sybel's "Hist. Zeitschrift, "1860. C. von Noorden: Ebo, Hinkmar und Pseudo-Isidor, in Sybel's "Hist. Zeitschrift," 1862. Döllinger in Janus, 1869. It appeared in several editions and languages. Ferd. Walter (R.C.): Lehrbuch des Kirchenrechts aller christl. Confessionen. Bonn (1822), 13th ed. 1861. The same transl. into French, Italian, and Spanish. J. W. Bickell: Geschichte des Kirchenrechts. Giessen, 1843, 1849. G. Phillips (R.C.): Kirchenrecht. Regensburg (1845), 3rd ed. 1857 sqq. 6 vols. (till 1864). His Lehrbuch, 1859, P. II. 1862. Jo. Fr. von Schulte (R.C., since 1870 Old Cath.): Das Katholische Kirchenrecht. Giessen, P. I. 1860. Lehrbuch, 1873. Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des Canonischen Rechts von Gratian bis auf die Gegenwart. Stuttgart, 1875 sqq.3 vols. Aem. L. Richter: Lehrbuch des kath. und evang. Kirchenrechts. Leipz., sixth ed. by Dove, 1867 (on Pseudo-Isidor, pp. 102-133). Henry C. Lea: Studies in Church History. Philad. 1869 (p. 43-102 on the False Decretals). Friedr. Maassen (R.C.): Geschichte der Quellen und d. Literatur des canonischen Rechts im Abendlande. 1st vol., Gratz, 1870. Comp. also for the whole history the great work of F. C. von Savigny: Geschichte des Röm. Rechts im Mittelalter. Heidelb. 2nd ed. 1834-'51, 7 vols. See also the Lit. in vol. II. § 67. During the chaotic confusion under the Carolingians, in the middle of the ninth century, a mysterious book made its appearance, which gave legal expression to the popular opinion of the papacy, raised and strengthened its power more than any other agency, and forms to a large extent the basis of the canon law of the church of Rome. This is a collection of ecclesiastical laws under the false name of bishop Isidor of Seville (died 636), hence called the "Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals." [264] He was the reputed (though not the real) author of an earlier collection, based upon that of the Roman abbot, Dionysius Exiguus, in the sixth century, and used as the law-book of the church in Spain, hence called the "Hispana." In these earlier collections the letters and decrees (Epistolae Decretales) of the popes from the time of Siricius (384) occupy a prominent place. [265] A decretal in the canonical sense is an authoritative rescript of a pope in reply to some question, while a decree is a papal ordinance enacted with the advice of the Cardinals, without a previous inquiry. A canon is a law ordained by a general or provincial synod. A dogma is an ecclesiastical law relating to doctrine. The earliest decretals had moral rather than legislative force. But as the questions and appeals to the pope multiplied, the papal answers grew in authority. Fictitious documents, canons, and decretals were nothing new; but the Pseudo-Isidorian collection is the most colossal and effective fraud known in the history of ecclesiastical literature. 1. The contents of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. The book is divided into three parts. The first part contains fifty Apostolical Canons from the collection of Dionysius, sixty spurious decretals of the Roman bishops from Clement (d. 101) to Melchiades (d. 314). The second part comprehends the forged document of the donation of Constantine, some tracts concerning the Council of Nicaea, and the canons of the Greek, African, Gallic, and Spanish Councils down to 683, from the Spanish collection. The third part, after a preface copied from the Hispana, gives in chronological order the decretals of the popes from Sylvester (d. 335) to Gregory II. (d. 731), among which thirty-five are forged, including all before Damasus; but the genuine letters also, which are taken from the Isidorian collection, contain interpolations. In many editions the Capitula Angilramni are appended. All these documents make up a manual of orthodox doctrine and clerical discipline. They give dogmatic decisions against heresies, especially Arianism (which lingered long in Spain), and directions on worship, the sacraments, feasts and fasts, sacred rites and costumes, the consecration of churches, church property, and especially on church polity. The work breathes throughout the spirit of churchly and priestly piety and reverence. 2. The sacerdotal system. Pseudo-Isidor advocates the papal theocracy. The clergy is a divinely instituted, consecrated, and inviolable caste, mediating between God and the people, as in the Jewish dispensation. The priests are the "familiares Dei," the "spirituales," the laity the "carnales." He who sins against them sins against God. They are subject to no earthly tribunal, and responsible to God alone, who appointed them judges of men. The privileges of the priesthood culminate in the episcopal dignity, and the episcopal dignity culminates in the papacy. The cathedra Petri is the fountain of all power. Without the consent of the pope no bishop can be deposed, no council be convened. He is the ultimate umpire of all controversy, and from him there is no appeal. He is often called "episcopus universalis" notwithstanding the protest of Gregory I. 3. The aim of Pseudo-Isidor is, by such a collection of authoritative decisions to protect the clergy against the secular power and against moral degeneracy. The power of the metropolitans is rather lowered in order to secure to the pope the definitive sentence in the trials of bishops. But it is manifestly wrong if older writers have put the chief aim of the work in the elevation of the papacy. The papacy appears rather as a means for the protection of episcopacy in its conflict with the civil government. It is the supreme guarantee of the rights of the bishops. 4. The genuineness of Pseudo-Isidor was not doubted during the middle ages (Hincmar only denied the legal application to the French church), but is now universally given up by Roman Catholic as well as Protestant historians. The forgery is apparent. It is inconceivable that Dionysius Exiguus, who lived in Rome, should have been ignorant of such a large number of papal letters. The collection moreover is full of anachronisms: Roman bishops of the second and third centuries write in the Frankish Latin of the ninth century on doctrinal topics in the spirit of the post-Nicene orthodoxy and on mediaeval relations in church and state; they quote the Bible after the; version of Jerome as amended under Charlemagne; Victor addresses Theophilus of Alexandria, who lived two hundred years later, on the paschal controversies of the second century. [266] The Donation of Constantine which is incorporated in this collection, is an older forgery, and exists also in several Greek texts. It affirms that Constantine, when he was baptized by pope Sylvester, a.d. 324 (he was not baptized till 337, by the Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia), presented him with the Lateran palace and all imperial insignia, together with the Roman and Italian territory. [267] The object of this forgery was to antedate by five centuries the temporal power of the papacy, which rests on the donations of Pepin and Charlemagne. [268] The only foundation in fact is the donation of the Lateran palace, which was originally the palace of the Lateran family, then of the emperors, and last of the popes. The wife of Constantine, Fausta, resided in it, and on the transfer of the seat of empire to Constantinople, he left it to Sylvester, as the chief of the Roman clergy and nobility. Hence it contains to this day the pontifical throne with the inscription: "Haec est papalis sedes et pontificalis." There the pope takes possession of the see of Rome. But the whole history of Constantine and his successors shows conclusively that they had no idea of transferring any part of their temporal sovereignty to the Roman pontiff. 5. The authorship must be assigned to some ecclesiastic of the Frankish church, probably of the diocese of Rheims, between 847 and 865 (or 857), but scholars differ as to the writer. [269] Pseudo-Isidor literally quotes passages from a Paris Council of 829, and agrees in part with the collection of Benedictus Levita, completed in 847; on the other hand he is first quoted by a French Synod at Chiersy in 857, and then by Hincmar of Rheims repeatedly since 859. All the manuscripts are of French origin. The complaints of ecclesiastical disorders, depositions of bishops without trial, frivolous divorces, frequent sacrilege, suit best the period of the civil wars among the grandsons of Charlemagne. In Rome the Decretals were first known and quoted in 865 by pope Nicolaus I. [270] From the same period and of the same spirit are several collections of Capitula or Capitularia, i.e., of royal ecclesiastical ordinances which under the Carolingians took the place of synodical decisions. Among these we mention the collection of Ansegis, abbot of Fontenelles (827), of Benedictus Levita of Mayence (847), and the Capitula Angilramni, falsely ascribed to bishop Angilramnus of Metz (d. 701). 6. Significance of Pseudo-Isidor. It consists not so much in the novelty of the views and claims of the mediaeval priesthood, but in tracing them back from the ninth to the third and second centuries and stamping them with the authority of antiquity. Some of the leading principles had indeed been already asserted in the letters of Leo I. and other documents of the fifth century, yea the papal animus may be traced to Victor in the second century and to the Judaizing opponents of St. Paul. But in this collection the entire hierarchical and sacerdotal system, which was the growth of several centuries, appears as something complete and unchangeable from the very beginning. We have a parallel phenomenon in the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons which gather into one whole the ecclesiastical decisions of the first three centuries, and trace them directly to the apostles or their disciple, Clement of Rome. Pseudo-Isidorus was no doubt a sincere believer in the hierarchical system; nevertheless his Collection is to a large extent a conscious high church fraud, and must as such be traced to the father of lies. It belongs to the Satanic element in the history of the Christian hierarchy, which has as little escaped temptation and contamination as the Jewish hierarchy. __________________________________________________________________ [264] The preface begins: "Isidorus Mercator servus Christi lectori conservo suo et parenti suo in Domino fideli (al. fidei) salutem.' The byname "Mercator," which is found in 30 of the oldest codices, is so far unexplained. Some refer it to Marius Mercator, a learned Occidental layman residing in Constantinople, who wrote against Pelagius and translated ecclesiastical records which pseudo-Isidorus made use of. Others regard it as a mistake for " Peccator" (a title of humility frequently used by priests and bishops, e.g. by St. Patrick in his " Confession"), which is found in 3 copies. " Mercatus" also occurs it, several copies, and this would be equivalent to redemptus, " Isidorus, the redeemed servant of Christ." See Hinschius and Richter, l.c. [265] The original name was decretale constitutum or decretalis epistola, afterwards decretalis. See Richter, l.c. p. 80. [266] The forgery was first suggested by Nicolaus de Cusa, in the fifteenth century, and Calvin (Inst. IV. 7, 11, 20), and then proved by the Magdeburg Centuries, and more conclusively by the Calvinistic divine David Blondel (1628) against the attempted vindication of the Jesuit Torres (Turrianus, 1572). The brothers Ballerini, Baronius, Bellarmin, Theiner, Walter, Möhler, Hefele, and other Roman Catholic scholars admit the forgery, but usually try to mitigate it and to underrate the originality and influence of Pseudo-Isidor. Some Protestant divines have erred in the opposite direction (as Richter justly observes, l.c. p. 117). [267] "Dominis meis beatissimis Petro et Paulo, et per eos etiam beato Sylvestro Patri nostro summo pontifici, et universalis urbis Romae papae, et omnibus ejus successoribus pontificibus . . concedimus palatium imperii nostri Lateranense ... deinde diadema, videlicet coronam capitis nostri simulque pallium, vel mitram .... . et omnia imperialia indumenta ... et imperialia sceptra . . et omnem possessionem imperialis culminis et gloriam potestatis nostrae ... Unde ut pontificalis apex non vilescat, sed magis amplius quam terreni imperii dignitas et gloriae potentia decoretur, ecce tam palatium nostrum, ut praedictum est, quamque Pomanae vobis et omnes Italiae seu occidentalium regionum provincias, loca et civitates beatissimo pontifici nostro, Sylvestro universali papae, concedimus atque relinquimus." In Migne, Tom. 130, p. 249 sq. [268] That Constantine made donations to Sylvester on occasion of his pretended baptism is related first in the Acta Sylvestri, then by Hadrian I. in a letter to Charlemagne (780). In the ninth century the spurious document appeared. The spuriousness was perceived as early as 999 by the emperor Otho III. and proven by Laurentius Valla about 1440 in De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione. The document is universally given up as a fiction, though Baronius defended the donation itself. [269] The following persons have been suggested as authors: Benedictus Levita (Deacon) of Mayence, whose Capitularium of about 847 agrees in several passages literally with the Decretals (Blondel, Knust, Walter); Rothad of Soissons (Phillips, Gfrörer); Otgar, archbishop of Mayence, who took a prominent part in the clerical rebellion against Louis the Pious (Ballerinii, Wasserschleben); Ebo, archbishop of Rheims, the predecessor of Hincmar and leader in that rebellion, or some unknown ecclesiastic in that diocese (Weizsäcker, von Noorden, Hinschius, Richter, Baxmann). The repetitions suggest a number of authors and a gradual growth. [270] Nicolai I. Epist. ad universos episcopos Galliae ann. 865 (Mansi xv. p. 694 sq.): "Decretales epistolae Rom. Pontificum sunt recipiendae, etiamsi non sunt canonum codici compaginatae: quoniam inter ipsos canones unum b. Leonis capitulum constat esse permixtum, quo omnia decretalia constituta sedes apostolicae custodiri mandantur.--Itaque nihil interest, utrum sint omnia decretalia sedis Apost. constituta inter canones conciliorum immixta, cum omnia in uno copore compaginare non possint et illa eis intersint, quae firmitatem his quae desunt et vigorem suum assignet.--Sanctus Gelasius (quoque) non dixit suscipiendas decretales epistolas quae inter canones habentur, nec tantum quas moderni pontifices ediderunt, sed quas beatissimi Papae diversis temporibus ab urbe Roma dederunt." __________________________________________________________________ § 61. Nicolas I., April, 858-Nov. 13, 867. I. The Epistles of Nicolas I. in Mansi's Conc. XV., and in Migne's Patrol. Tom. CXIX. Comp. also Jaffé, Regesta, pp. 237-254. Hincmari (Rhemensis Archiepiscopi) Oper. Omnia. In Migne's Patrol. Tom. 125 and 126. An older ed. by J. Sirmond, Par. 1645, 2 vols. fol. Hugo Laemmer: Nikolaus I. und die Byzantinische Staatskirche seiner Zeit. Berlin, 1857. A. Thiel: De Nicolao Papa. Comment. duae Hist. canonicae. Brunzberg, 1859. Van Noorden: Hincmar, Erzbischof von Rheims. Bonn, 1863. Hergenröther (R.C. Prof at Wurzburg, now Cardinal): Photius. Regensburg, 1867-1869, 3 vols. Comp. Baxmann II. 1-29; Milman, Book V. ch.4 (vol. III. 24-46); Hefele, Conciliengesch. vol. IV., (2nd ed.), 228 sqq; and other works quoted § 48. By a remarkable coincidence the publication of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals synchronized with the appearance of a pope who had the ability and opportunity to carry the principles of the Decretals into practical effect, and the good fortune to do it in the service of justice and virtue. So long as the usurpation of divine power was used against oppression and vice, it commanded veneration and obedience, and did more good than harm. It was only the pope who in those days could claim a superior authority in dealing with haughty and oppressive metropolitans, synods, kings and emperors. Nicolas I. is the greatest pope, we may say the only great pope between Gregory I. and Gregory VII. He stands between them as one of three peaks of a lofty mountain, separated from the lower peak by a plane, and from the higher peak by a deep valley. He appeared to his younger contemporaries as a "new Elijah," who ruled the world like a sovereign of divine appointment, terrible to the evil-doer whether prince or priest, yet mild to the good and obedient. He was elected less by the influence of the clergy than of the emperor Louis II., and consecrated in his presence; he lived with him on terms of friendship, and was treated in turn with great deference to his papal dignity. He anticipated Hildebrand in the lofty conception of his office; and his energy and boldness of character corresponded with it. The pope was in his view the divinely appointed superintendent of the whole church for the maintenance of order, discipline and righteousness, and the punishment of wrong and vice, with the aid of the bishops as his executive organs. He assumed an imperious tone towards the Carolingians. He regarded the imperial crown a grant of the vicar of St. Peter for the protection of Christians against infidels. The empire descended to Louis by hereditary right, but was confirmed by the authority of the apostolic see. The pontificate of Nicolas was marked by three important events: the controversy with Photius, the prohibition of the divorce of King Lothair, and the humiliation of archbishop Hincmar. In the first he failed, in the second and third he achieved a moral triumph. Nicolas and Photius. Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople, of imperial descent and of austere ascetic virtue, was unjustly deposed and banished by the emperor Michael III. for rebuking the immorality of Caesar Bardas, but he refused to resign. Photius, the greatest scholar of his age, at home in almost every branch of knowledge and letters, was elected his successor, though merely a layman, and in six days passed through the inferior orders to the patriarchal dignity (858). The two parties engaged in an unrelenting warfare, and excommunicated each other. Photius was the first to appeal to the Roman pontiff. Nicolas, instead of acting as mediator, assumed the air of judge, and sent delegates to Constantinople to investigate the case on the spot. They were imprisoned and bribed to declare for Photius; but the pope annulled their action at a synod in Rome, and decided in favor of Ignatius (863). Photius in turn pronounced sentence of condemnation on the pope and, in his Encyclical Letter, gave classical expression to the objections of the Greek church against the Latin (867). The controversy resulted in the permanent alienation of the two churches. It was the last instance of an official interference of a pope in the affairs of the Eastern church. Nicolas and Lothair. Lothair II., king of Lorraine and the second son of the emperor Lothair, maltreated and at last divorced his wife, Teutberga of Burgundy, and married his mistress, Walrada, who appeared publicly in all the array and splendor of a queen. Nicolas, being appealed to by the injured lady, defended fearlessly the sacredness of matrimony; he annulled the decisions of synods, and deposed the archbishops of Cologne and Treves for conniving at the immorality of their sovereign. He threatened the king with immediate excommunication if he did not dismiss the concubine and receive the lawful wife. He even refused to yield when Teutberga, probably under compulsion, asked him to grant a divorce. Lothair, after many equivocations, yielded at last (865). It is unnecessary to enter into the complications and disgusting details of this controversy. Nicolas and Hincmar. In his controversy with Hincmar, Nicolas was a protector of the bishops and lower clergy against the tyranny of metropolitans. Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, was the most powerful prelate of France, and a representative of the principle of Gallican independence. He was energetic, but ambitious and overbearing. He came three times in conflict with the pope on the question of jurisdiction. The principal case is that of Rothad, bishop of Soissons, one of his oldest suffragans, whom he deposed without sufficient reason and put into prison, with the aid of Charles the Bald (862). The pope sent his legate "from the side," Arsenius, to Charles, and demanded the restoration of the bishop. He argued from the canons of the Council of Sardica that the case must be decided by Rome even if Rothad had not appealed to him. He enlisted the sympathies of the bishops by reminding them that they might suffer similar injustice from their metropolitan, and that their only refuge was in the common protection of the Roman see. Charles desired to cancel the process, but Nicolas would not listen to it. He called Rothad to Rome, reinstated him solemnly in the church of St. Maria Maggiore, and sent him back in triumph to France (864) [271] Hincmar murmured, but yielded to superior power. [272] In this controversy Nicolas made use of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, a copy of which came into his hands probably through Rotbad. He thus gave them the papal sanction; yet he must have known that a large portion of this forged collection, though claiming to proceed from early popes, did not exist in the papal archives. Hincmar protested against the validity of the new decretals and their application to France, and the protest lingered for centuries in the Gallican liberties till they were finally buried in the papal absolutism of the Vatican Council of 1870. __________________________________________________________________ [271] Jaffé, 246 and 247, and Mansi, XV. 687 sqq. [272] Rotha dum canonice ... dejectum et a Nicolao papa non regulariter, sed potentialiter restitutum." See Baxmann, II. 26. __________________________________________________________________ § 62. Hadrian II. and John VIII a.d. 867 to 882. Mansi: Conc. Tom. XV.-XVII. Migne: Patrol. Lat. Tom. CXXII. 1245 sqq. (Hadrian II.); Tom. CXXVI. 647 sqq. (John VIII.); also Tom. CXXIX., pp. 823 sqq., and 1054 sqq., which contain the writings of Auxilius and Vulgarius, concerning pope Formosus. Baronius: Annal. ad ann. 867-882. Jaffé: Regesta, pp. 254-292. Milman: Lat. Christianity, Book V., chs.5 and 6. Gfrörer: Allg. Kirchengesch., Bd. III. Abth. 2, pp. 962 sqq. Baxmann: Politik der Päpste, II. 29-57. For nearly two hundred years, from Nicolas to Hildebrand (867-1049), the papal chair was filled, with very few exceptions, by ordinary and even unworthy occupants. Hadrian II. (867-872) and John VIII. (872-882) defended the papal power with the same zeal as Nicolas, but with less ability, dignity, and success, and not so much in the interests of morality as for self-aggrandizement. They interfered with the political quarrels of the Carolingians, and claimed the right of disposing royal and imperial crowns. Hadrian was already seventy-five years of age, and well known for great benevolence, when he ascended the throne (he was born in 792). He inherited from Nicolas the controversies with Photius, Lothair, and Hincmar of Rheims, but was repeatedly rebuffed. He suffered also a personal humiliation on account of a curious domestic tragedy. He had been previously married, and his wife (Stephania) was still living at the time of his elevation. Eleutherius, a son of bishop Arsenius (the legate of Nicolas), carried away the pope's daughter (an old maid of forty years, who was engaged to another man), fled to the emperor Louis, and, when threatened with punishment, murdered both the pope's wife and daughter. He was condemned to death. This affair might have warned the popes to have nothing to do with women; but it was succeeded by worse scenes. John VIII. was an energetic, shrewd, passionate, and intriguing prelate, meddled with all the affairs of Christendom from Bulgaria to France and Spain, crowned two insignificant Carolingian emperors (Charles the Bald, 875, and Charles the Fat, 881), dealt very freely in anathemas, was much disturbed by the invasion of the Saracens, and is said to have been killed by a relative who coveted the papal crown and treasure. The best thing he did was the declaration, in the Bulgarian quarrel with the patriarch of Constantinople, that the Holy Spirit had created other languages for worship besides Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, although he qualified it afterwards by saying that Greek and Latin were the only proper organs for the celebration of the mass, while barbarian tongues such as the Slavonic, may be good enough for preaching. His violent end was the beginning of a long interregnum of violence. The close of the ninth century gave a foretaste of the greater troubles of the tenth. After the downfall of the Carolingian dynasty the popes were more and more involved in the political quarrels and distractions of the Italian princes. The dukes Berengar of Friuli (888-924), and Guido of Spoleto (889-894), two remote descendants of Charlemagne through a female branch, contended for the kingdom of Italy and the imperial crown, and filled alternately the papal chair according to their success in the conflict. The Italians liked to have two masters, that they might play off one against the other. Guido was crowned emperor by Stephen VI. (V.) in February, 891, and was followed by his son, Lambert, in 894, who was also crowned. Formosus, bishop of Portus, whom John VIII. had pursued with bitter animosity, was after varying fortunes raised to the papal chair, and gave the imperial crown first to Lambert, but afterwards to the victorious Arnulf of Carinthia, in 896. He roused the revenge of Lambert, and died of violence. His second successor and bitter enemy, Stephen VII. (VI.), a creature of the party of Lambert, caused his corpse to be exhumed, clad in pontifical robes, arraigned in a mock trial, condemned and deposed, stripped of the ornaments, fearfully mutilated, decapitated, and thrown into the Tiber. But the party of Berengar again obtained the ascendency; Stephen VII. was thrown into prison and strangled (897). This was regarded as a just punishment for his conduct towards Formosus. John IX. restored the character of Formosus. He died in 900, and was followed by Benedict IV., of the Lambertine or Spoletan party, and reigned for the now unusual term of three years and a half. [273] __________________________________________________________________ [273] According to Auxentius and Vulgarius, pope Stephen VII. was the author of the outrage on the corpse of Formosus; Liutprand traces it to Sergius III. in 898, when he was anti-pope of John IX. Baronius conjectures that Liutprand wrote Sergius for Stephanus. Hefele assents, Conciliengesch. IV. 561 sqq. __________________________________________________________________ § 63. The Degradation of the Papacy in the Tenth Century. Sources. Migne's Patrol. Lat. Tom. 131-142. These vols. contain the documents and works from Pope John IX.-Gregory VI. Liudprandus (Episcopus Cremonensis, d. 972): Antapodoseos, seu Rerum per Europam gestarum libri VI. From a.d. 887-950. Reprinted in Pertz: Monum. Germ. III. 269-272; and in Migne: Patrol. Tom. CXXXVI. 769 sqq. By the same: Historia Ottonis, sive de rebus gestis Ottonis Magni. From a.d. 960-964. In Pertz: Monum. III. 340-346; in Migne CXXXVI. 897 sqq. Comp. Koepke: De Liudprandi vita et scriptis, Berol., 1842; Wattenbach: Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, and Giesebrecht, l.c. I. p. 779. Liudprand or Liutprand (Liuzo or Liuso), one of the chief authorities on the history of the 10th century, was a Lombard by birth, well educated, travelled in the East and in Germany, accompanied Otho I. to Rome, 962, was appointed by him bishop of Cremona, served as his interpreter at the Roman Council of 964, and was again in Rome 965. He was also sent on an embassy to Constantinople. He describes the wretched condition of the papacy as an eye-witness. His Antapodosis or Retribution (written between 958 and 962) is specially directed against king Berengar and queen Willa, whom he hated. His work on Otho treats of the contemporary events in which he was one of the actors. He was fond of scandal, but is considered reliable in most of his facts. Flodoardus (Canonicus Remensis, d. 966): Historia Remensis; Annales; Opuscula metrica, in Migne, Tom. CXXXV. Atto (Episcopus Vercellensis, d. 960): De presauris ecclesiasticis; Epistolae, and other books, in Migne, Tom. CXXXV. Jaffé: Regesta, pp. 307-325. Other sources relating more to the political history of the tenth century are indicated by Giesebrecht, I. 817, 820, 836. Literature. Baronius: Annales ad ann. 900-963. V. E. Löscher.: Historie des röm. Hurenregiments. Leipzig, 1707. (2nd ed. with another title, 1725.) Constantin Höfler (R.C.): Die deutschen Päpste. Regensburg, 1839, 2 vols. E. Dummler: Auxilius und Vulgarius. Quellen und Forschungenzur Geschichte des Papstthums im Anfang des zehnten Jahrhunderts. Leipz. 1866. The writings of Auxilius and Vulgarius are in Migne's Patrol., Tom. CXXIX. C. Jos. Von Hefele (Bishop of Rottenburg): Die Päpste und Kaiser in den trubsten Zeiten der Kirche, in his "Beiträge zur Kirchengesch," etc., vol. I. 27-278. Also his Conciliengeschichte, IV. 571-660 (2d ed.). Milman: Lat. Chr. bk. 5, chs. 11-14. Giesebrecht: Gesch. der deutschen Kaiserzeit., I. 343 sqq. Gfrörer: III. 3, 1133-1275. Baxmann: II. 58-125. Gregorovius, Vol. III. Von Reumont, Vol. II. The tenth century is the darkest of the dark ages, a century of ignorance and superstition, anarchy and crime in church and state. The first half of the eleventh century was little better. The dissolution of the world seemed to be nigh at hand. Serious men looked forward to the terrible day of judgment at the close of the first millennium of the Christian era, neglected their secular business, and inscribed donations of estates and other gifts to the church with the significant phrase "appropinquante mundi termino." The demoralization began in the state, reached the church, and culminated in the papacy. The reorganization of society took the same course. No church or sect in Christendom ever sank so low as the Latin church in the tenth century. The papacy, like the old Roman god Janus, has two faces, one Christian, one antichristian, one friendly and benevolent, one fiendish and malignant. In this period, it shows almost exclusively the antichristian face. It is an unpleasant task for the historian to expose these shocking corruptions; but it is necessary for the understanding of the reformation that followed. The truth must be told, with its wholesome lessons of humiliation and encouragement. No system of doctrine or government can save the church from decline and decay. Human nature is capable of satanic wickedness. Antichrist steals into the very temple of God, and often wears the priestly robes. But God is never absent from history, and His overruling wisdom always at last brings good out of evil. Even in this midnight darkness the stars were shining in the firmament; and even then, as in the days of Elijah the prophet, there were thousands who had not bowed their knees to Baal. Some convents resisted the tide of corruption, and were quiet retreats for nobles and kings disgusted with the vanities of the world, and anxious to prepare themselves for the day of account. Nilus, Romuald, and the monks of Cluny raised their mighty voice against wickedness in high places. Synods likewise deplored the immorality of the clergy and laity, and made efforts to restore discipline. The chaotic confusion of the tenth century, like the migration of nations in the fifth, proved to be only the throe and anguish of a new birth. It was followed first by the restoration of the empire under Otho the Great, and then by the reform of the papacy under Hildebrand. The Political Disorder. In the semi-barbarous state of society during the middle ages, a strong central power was needed in church and state to keep order. Charlemagne was in advance of his times, and his structure rested on no solid foundation. His successors had neither his talents nor his energy, and sank almost as low as the Merovingians in incapacity and debauchery. The popular contempt in which they were held was expressed in such epithets as "the Bald," "the Fat," "the Stammerer," "the Simple," "the Lazy," "the Child." Under their misrule the foundations of law and discipline gave way. Europe was threatened with a new flood of heathen barbarism. The Norman pirates from Denmark and Norway infested the coasts of Germany and France, burned cities and villages, carried off captives, followed in their light boats which they could carry on their shoulders, the course of the great rivers into the interior; they sacked Hamburg, Cologne, Treves, Rouen, and stabled their horses in Charlemagne's cathedral at Aix; they invaded England, and were the terror of all Europe until they accepted Christianity, settled down in Normandy, and infused fresh blood into the French and English people. In the South, the Saracens, crossing from Africa, took possession of Sicily and Southern Italy; they are described by pope John VIII. as Hagarenes, as children of fornication and wrath, as an army of locusts, turning the land into a wilderness. From the East, the pagan Hungarians or Magyars invaded Germany and Italy like hordes of wild beasts, but they were defeated at last by Henry the Fowler and Otho the Great, and after their conversion to Christianity under their saintly monarch Stephen (997-1068), they became a wall of defence against the progress of the Turks. Within the limits of nominal Christendom, the kings and nobles quarreled among themselves, oppressed the people, and distributed bishoprics and abbeys among their favorites, or pocketed the income. The metropolitans oppressed the bishops, the bishops the priests, and the priests the laity. Bands of robbers roamed over the country and defied punishment. Might was right. Charles the Fat was deposed by his vassals, and died in misery, begging his bread (888). His successor, Arnulf of Carinthia, the last of the Carolingian line of emperors (though of illegitimate birth), wielded a victorious sword over the Normans (891) and the new kingdom of Moravia (894), but fell into trouble, died of Italian poison, and left the crown of Germany to his only legitimate son, Louis the Child (899-911), who was ruled by Hatto, archbishop of Mayence. This prelate figures in the popular legend of the "Mouse-Tower" (on an island in the Rhine, opposite Bingen), where a swarm of mice picked his bones and "gnawed the flesh from every limb," because he had shut up and starved to death a number of hungry beggars. But documentary history shows him in a more favorable light. Louis died before attaining to manhood, and with him the German line of the Carolingians (911). The last shadow of an emperor in Italy, Berengar, who had been crowned in St. Peter's, died by the dagger of an assassin (924). The empire remained vacant for nearly forty years, until Otho, a descendant of the Saxon duke Widukind, whom Charlemagne had conquered, raised it to a new life. In France, the Carolingian dynasty lingered nearly a century longer, till it found an inglorious end in a fifth Louis called the Lazy ("le Fainéant"), and Count Hugh Capet became the founder of the Capetian dynasty, based on the principle of hereditary succession (987). He and his son Robert received the crown of France not from the pope, but from the archbishop of Rheims. Italy was invaded by Hungarians and Saracens, and distracted by war between rival kings and petty princes struggling for aggrandizement. The bishops and nobles were alike corrupt, and the whole country was a moral wilderness. [274] The Demoralization of the Papacy. The political disorder of Europe affected the church and paralyzed its efforts for good. The papacy itself lost all independence and dignity, and became the prey of avarice, violence, and intrigue, a veritable synagogue of Satan. It was dragged through the quagmire of the darkest crimes, and would have perished in utter disgrace had not Providence saved it for better times. Pope followed pope in rapid succession, and most of them ended their career in deposition, prison, and murder. The rich and powerful marquises of Tuscany and the Counts of Tusculum acquired control over the city of Rome and the papacy for more than half a century. And what is worse (incredibile, attamen verum), three bold and energetic women of the highest rank and lowest character, Theodora the elder (the wife or widow of a Roman senator), and her two daughters, Marozia and Theodora, filled the chair of St. Peter with their paramours and bastards. These Roman Amazons combined with the fatal charms of personal beauty and wealth, a rare capacity for intrigue, and a burning lust for power and pleasure. They had the diabolical ambition to surpass their sex as much in boldness and badness as St. Paula and St. Eustachium in the days of Jerome had excelled in virtue and saintliness. They turned the church of St. Peter into a den of robbers, and the residence of his successors into a harem. And they gloried in their shame. Hence this infamous period is called the papal Pornocracy or Hetaerocracy. [275] Some popes of this period were almost as bad as the worst emperors of heathen Rome, and far less excusable. Sergius III., the lover of Marozia (904-911), opened the shameful succession. Under the protection of a force of Tuscan soldiers he appeared in Rome, deposed Christopher who had just deposed Leo V., took possession of the papal throne, and soiled it with every vice; but he deserves credit for restoring the venerable church of the Lateran, which had been destroyed by an earthquake in 896 and robbed of invaluable treasures. [276] After the short reign of two other popes, John X., archbishop of Ravenna, was elected, contrary to all canons, in obedience to the will of Theodora, for the more convenient gratification of her passion (914-928). [277] He was a man of military ability and daring, placed himself at the head of an army--the first warrior among the popes--and defeated the Saracens. He then announced the victory in the tone of a general. He then engaged in a fierce contest for power with Marozia and her lover or husband, the Marquis Alberic I. Unwilling to yield any of her secular power over Rome, Marozia seized the Castle of St. Angelo, had John cast into prison and smothered to death, and raised three of her creatures, Leo VI., Stephen VII. (VIII.), and at last John XI, her own (bastard) son of only twenty-one years, successively to the papal chair (928-936). [278] After the murder of Alberic I. (about 926), Marozia, who called herself Senatrix and Patricia, offered her hand and as much of her love as she could spare from her numerous paramours, to Guido, Markgrave of Tuscany, who eagerly accepted the prize; and after his death she married king Hugo of Italy, the step-brother of her late husband (932); he hoped to gain the imperial crown, but he was soon expelled from Rome by a rebellion excited by her own son Alberic II., who took offence at his overbearing conduct for slapping him in the face. [279] She now disappears from the stage, and probably died in a convent. Her son, the second Alberic, was raised by the Romans to the dignity of Consul, and ruled Rome and the papacy from the Castle of St. Angelo for twenty-two years with great ability as a despot under the forms of a republic (932-954). After the death of his brother, John XI. (936), he appointed four insignificant pontiffs, and restricted them to the performance of their religious duties. John XII. On the death of Alberic in 954, his son Octavian, the grandson of Marozia, inherited the secular government of Rome, and was elected pope when only eighteen years of age. He thus united a double supremacy. He retained his name Octavian as civil ruler, but assumed, as pope, the name John XII., either by compulsion of the clergy and people, or because he wished to secure more license by keeping the two dignities distinct. This is the first example of such a change of name, and it was followed by his successors. He completely sunk his spiritual in his secular character, appeared in military dress, and neglected the duties of the papal office, though he surrendered none of its claims. John XII. disgraced the tiara for eight years (955-963). He was one of the most immoral and wicked popes, ranking with Benedict IX., John XXIII., and Alexander VI. He was charged by a Roman Synod, no one contradicting, with almost every crime of which depraved human nature is capable, and deposed as a monster of iniquity. [280] __________________________________________________________________ [274] Höfler (I. 16) asserts that every princely family of Italy in the tenth century was tainted with incestuous blood, and that it was difficult to distinguish wives and sisters mothers and daughters. See his genealogical tables appended to the first volume. [275] Liutprandi Antapodosis, II. 48 (Pertz, V. 297; Migne, CXXXVI. 827): Theodora, scortum impudens ... (quod dictu etiam foedissimum est), Romanae civitatis non inviriliter monarchiam obtinebat. Quae duas habuit natas, Marotiam atque Theodoram, sibi non solum coaequales, verum etiam Veneris exercitio promptiores. Harum Marotia ex Papa Sergio-Joannem, qui post Joannis Ravennatis obitum Romanae Ecclesiae obtinuit dignitatem, nefario genuit adulterio, "etc. In the same ch. he calls the elder Theodora "meretrix satis impudentissima, Veneris calore succensa." This Theodora was the wife of Theophylactus, Roman Consul and Senator, probably of Byzantine origin, who appears in 901 among the Roman judges of Louis III. She called herself " Senatrix." She was the mistress of Adalbert of Tuscany, called the Rich (d. 926), and of pope John X. (d. 928). And yet she is addressed by Eugenius Vulgarius as "sanctissima et venerabilis matrona!" (See Dümmler, l.c. p. 146, and Hefele, IV. 575.) Her daughter Marozia (or Maruccia, the diminutive of Maria, Mariechen) was the boldest and most successful of the three. She was the mistress of pope Sergius III. and of Alberic I., Count of Tusculum (d. 926), and married several times. Comp. Liutprand, III. 43 and 44. She perpetuated her rule through her son, Alberic II., and her grandson, pope John XII. With all their talents and influence, these strong-minded women were very, ignorant; the daughters of the younger Theodora could neither read nor write, and signed their name in 945 with a +. (Gregorovius, III. 282 sq.) The Tusculan popes and the Crescentii, who controlled and disgraced the papacy in the eleventh century, were descendants of the same stock. The main facts of this shameful reign rest on good contemporary Catholic authorities (as Liutprand, Flodoard, Ratherius of Verona, Benedict of Soracte, Gerbert, the transactions of the Councils in Rome, Rheims, etc.), and are frankly admitted with devout indignation by Baronius and other Roman Catholic historians, but turned by them into an argument for the divine origin of the papacy, whose restoration to power appears all the more wonderful from the depth of its degradation. Möhler (Kirchgesch. ed. by Gama, II. 183) calls Sergius III., John X., John XI., and John XII." horrible popes," and says that " crimes alone secured the papal dignity!" Others acquit the papacy of guilt, since it was not independent. The best lesson which Romanists might derive from this period of prostitution is humility and charity. It is a terrible rebuke to pretensions of superior sanctity. [276] Baronius, following Liutprand, calls Sergius "homo vitiorum omnium servus." But Flodoard and the inscriptions give him a somewhat better character. See Hefele IV. 576, Gregorovius III. 269, and von Reumont II. 273. [277] Gfrörer makes him the paramour of the younger Theodora, which on chronological grounds is more probable; but Hefele, Gregorovius, von Peumont, and Greenwood link him with the elder Theodora. This seems to be the meaning of Liutprand (II. 47 and 48), who says that she fell in love with John for his great beauty, and actually forced him to sin (secumque hunc scortari non solum voluit, verum etiam atque etiam compulit). She could not stand the separation from her lover, and called him to Rome. Baronius treats John X. as a pseudopapa. Muratori, Duret, and Hefele dissent from Liutprand and give John a somewhat better character, without, however, denying his relation to Theodora. See Hefele, IV. 579 sq. [278] Liutprand, Antapodosis, III. 43 (Migne, l.c., 852): "Papam [John X.]custodia maniciparunt, in qua non multo post ea defunctus; aiunt enim quod cervical super os eius imponerent, sicque cum pessime su ffocarent. Quo mortuo ipsius Marotiae filium Johannem nomine [John XI.] quem ex Sergio papa meretrix genuerat, papam constituunt." The parentage of John XI. from pope Sergius is adopted by Gregorovius, Dümmler, Greenwood, and Baxmann, but disputed by Muratori, Hefele, and Gfrörer, who maintain that John XI. was the son of Marozia's husband, Alberic I., if they ever were married. For, according to Benedict of Soracte, Marozia accepted him "non quasi uxor, sed in consuetudinem malignam." Albericus Marchio was an adventurer before he became Markgrave, about 897, and must not be confounded with Albertus Marchio or Adalbert the Rich of Tuscany. See Gregorovius, III. 275; von Reumont, II. 228, 231, and the genealogical tables in Höfler, Vol. I., Append. V. and VI. [279] See the account in Liutprand III. 44. [280] Among the charges of the Synod against him were that he appeared constantly armed with sword, lance, helmet, and breastplate, that he neglected matins and vespers, that he never signed himself with the sign of the cross, that he was fond of hunting, that he had made a boy of ten years a bishop, and ordained a bishop or deacon in a stable, that he had mutilated a priest, that he had set houses on fire, like Nero, that he had committed homicide and adultery, had violated virgins and widows high and low, lived with his father's mistress, converted the pontifical palace into a brothel, drank to the health of the devil, and invoked at the gambling-table the help of Jupiter and Venus and other heathen demons! The emperor Otho would not believe these enormities until they, were proven, but the bishops replied, that they were matters of public notoriety requiring no proof. Before the Synod convened John XII. had made his escape from Rome, carrying with him the portable part of the treasury of St. Peter. But after the departure of the emperor he was readmitted to the city, restored for a short time, and killed in an act of adultery ("dum se cum viri cujusdam uxore oblectaret") by the enraged husband of his paramour. or by, the devil ("a diabolo est percussus"). Liutprand, De rebus gestis Ottonis (in Migne, Tom. XXXVI. 898-910). Hefele (IV. 619) thinks that he died of apoplexy. __________________________________________________________________ § 64. The Interference of Otho the Great. Comp., besides the works quoted in § 63, Floss: Die Papstwahl unter den Ottonen. Freiburg, 1858, and Köpke and Dummler: Otto der Grosse. Leipzig, 1876. From this state of infamy the papacy was rescued for a brief time by the interference of Otho I., justly called the Great (936973). He had subdued the Danes, the Slavonians, and the Hungarians, converted the barbarians on the frontier, established order and restored the Carolingian empire. He was called by the pope himself and several Italian princes for protection against the oppression of king Berengar II. (or the Younger, who was crowned in 950, and died in exile, 966). He crossed the Alps, and was anointed Roman emperor by John XII. in 962. He promised to return to the holy see all the lost territories granted by Pepin and Charlemagne, and received in turn from the pope and the Romans the oath of allegiance on the sepulchre of St. Peter. Hereafter the imperial crown of Rome was always held by the German nation, but the legal assumption of the titles of Emperor and Augustus depended on the act of coronation by the pope. After the departure of Otho the perfidious pope, unwilling to obey a superior master, rebelled and entered into conspiracy with his enemies. The emperor returned to Rome, convened a Synod of Italian and German bishops, which indignantly deposed John XII. in his absence, on the ground of most notorious crimes, yet without a regular trial (963). [281] The emperor and the Synod elected a respectable layman, the chief secretary of the Roman see, in his place. He was hurriedly promoted through the orders of reader, subdeacon, deacon, priest and bishop, and consecrated as Leo VIII., but not recognized by the strictly hierarchical party, because he surrendered the freedom of the papacy to the empire. The Romans swore that they would never elect a pope again without the emperor's consent. Leo confirmed this in a formal document. [282] The anti-imperial party readmitted John XII., who took cruel revenge of his enemies, but was suddenly struck down in his sins by a violent death. Then they elected an anti-pope, Benedict V., but he himself begged pardon for his usurpation when the emperor reappeared, was divested of the papal robes, degraded to the order of deacon, and banished to Germany. Leo VIII. died in April, 965, after a short pontificate of sixteen months. The bishop of Narni was unanimously elected his successor as John XIII. (965-972) by the Roman clergy and people, after first consulting the will of the emperor. He crowned Otho II. emperor of the Romans (973-983). He was expelled by the Romans, but reinstated by Otho, who punished the rebellious city with terrible severity. Thus the papacy was morally saved, but at the expense of its independence or rather it had exchanged its domestic bondage for a foreign bondage. Otho restored to it its former dominions which it had lost during the Italian disturbances, but he regarded the pope and the Romans as his subjects, who owed him the same temporal allegiance as the Germans and Lombards. It would have been far better for Germany and Italy if they had never meddled with each other. The Italians, especially the Romans, feared the German army, but hated the Germans as Northern semi-barbarians, and shook off their yoke as soon as they had a chance. [283] The Germans suspected the Italians for dishonesty and trickery, were always in danger of fever and poison, and lost armies and millions of treasure without any return of profit or even military glory. [284] The two nations were always jealous of each other, and have only recently become friends, on the basis of mutual independence and non-interference. Protest Against Papal Corruption. The shocking immoralities of the popes called forth strong protests, though they did not shake the faith in the institution itself. A Gallican Synod deposed archbishop Arnulf of Rheims as a traitor to king Hugo Capet, without waiting for an answer from the pope, and without caring for the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals (991). The leading spirit of the Synod, Arnulf, bishop of Orleans, made the following bold declaration against the prostitution of the papal office: "Looking at the actual state of the papacy, what do we behold? John [XII.] called Octavian, wallowing in the sty of filthy concupiscence, conspiring against the sovereign whom he had himself recently crowned; then Leo [VIII.] the neophyte, chased from the city by this Octavian; and that monster himself, after the commission of many murders and cruelties, dying by the hand of an assassin. Next we see the deacon Benedict, though freely elected by the Romans, carried away captive into the wilds of Germany by the new Caesar [Otho I.] and his pope Leo. Then a second Caesar [Otho II.], greater in arts and arms than the first [?], succeeds; and in his absence Boniface, a very monster of iniquity, reeking with the blood of his predecessor, mounts the throne of Peter. True, he is expelled and condemned; but only to return again, and redden his hands with the blood of the holy bishop John [XIV.]. Are there, indeed, any bold enough to maintain that the priests of the Lord over all the world are to take their law from monsters of guilt like these-men branded with ignominy, illiterate men, and ignorant alike of things human and divine? If, holy fathers, we be bound to weigh in the balance the lives, the morals, and the attainments of the meanest candidate for the sacerdotal office, how much more ought we to look to the fitness of him who aspires to be the lord and master of all priests! Yet how would it fare with us, if it should happen that the man the most deficient in all these virtues, one so abject as not to be worthy of the lowest place among the priesthood, should be chosen to fill the highest place of all? What would you say of such a one, when you behold him sitting upon the throne glittering in purple and gold? Must he not be the 'Antichrist, sitting in the temple of God, and showing himself as God?' Verily such a one lacketh both wisdom and charity; he standeth in the temple as an image, as an idol, from which as from dead marble you would seek counsel. [285] "But the Church of God is not subject to a wicked pope; nor even absolutely, and on all occasions, to a good one. Let us rather in our difficulties resort to our brethren of Belgium and Germany than to that city, where all things are venal, where judgment and justice are bartered for gold. Let us imitate the great church of Africa, which, in reply to the pretensions of the Roman pontiff, deemed it inconceivable that the Lord should have invested any one person with his own plenary prerogative of judicature, and yet have denied it to the great congregations of his priests assembled in council in different parts of the world. If it be true, as we are informed by, common report, that there is in Rome scarcely a man acquainted with letters,--without which, as it is written, one may scarcely be a doorkeeper in the house of God,--with what face may he who hath himself learnt nothing set himself up for a teacher of others? In the simple priest ignorance is bad enough; but in the high priest of Rome,--in him to whom it is given to pass in review the faith, the lives, the morals, the discipline, of the whole body of the priesthood, yea, of the universal church, ignorance is in nowise to be tolerated .... Why should he not be subject in judgment to those who, though lowest in place, are his superiors in virtue and in wisdom? Yea, not even he, the prince of the apostles, declined the rebuke of Paul, though his inferior in place, and, saith the great pope Gregory [I.], 'if a bishop be in fault, I know not any one such who is not subject to the holy see; but if faultless, let every one understand that he is the equal of the Roman pontiff himself, and as well qualified as he to give judgment in any matter.' " [286] The secretary of this council and the probable framer of this remarkable speech was Gerbert, who became archbishop of Rheims, afterwards of Ravenna, and at last pope under the name of Sylvester II. But pope John XV. (or his master Crescentius) declared the proceedings of this council null and void, and interdicted Gerbert. His successor, Gregory V., threatened the kingdom of France with a general interdict unless Arnulf was restored. Gerbert, forsaken by king Robert I., who needed the favor of the pope, was glad to escape from his uncomfortable seat and to accept an invitation of Otho III. to become his teacher (995). Arnulf was reinstated in Rheims. __________________________________________________________________ [281] A full account of this Synod see in Liutprand, De rebus gestis Ottonis, and in Baronius, Annal. ad ann 963. Comp. also Greenwood, Bk VIII. ch. 12, Gfrörer, vol. III., p. iii., 1249 sqq., Giesebrecht, I. 465 and 828, and Hefele, IV. 612 sqq. Gfrörer, without defending John XII., charges Otho with having first violated the engagement (p. 1253). The pope was three times summoned before the Synod, but the answer came from Tivoli that he had gone hunting. Baronius, Floss, and Hefele regard this synod as uncanonical. [282] Baronius, ad ann. 964, pronounced the document spurious, chiefly because it is very inconvenient to his ultramontane doctrine. It is printed in Mon. Germ. iv.2 (Leges, II. 167), and in a more extensive form from a MS. at Treves in Leonis VIII. privilegium de investituris, by H. J. Floss, Freib., 1858. This publication has changed the state of the controversy in favor of a genuine element in the document. See the discussion in Hefele, IV. 622 sqq. [283] This antipathy found its last expression and termination in the expulsion of the Austrians from Lombardy and Venice, and the formation of a united kingdom of Italy. [284] Ditmar of Merseburg, the historian of Henry II., expresses the sentiment of that time when he says (Chron. IV. 22): "Neither the climate nor the people suit our countrymen. Both in Rome and Lombardy treason is always at work. Strangers who visit Italy expect no hospitality: everything they require must be instantly paid for; and even then they must submit to be over-reached and cheated, and not unfrequently to be poisoned after all." [285] "Quid hunc, rev. Patres, in sublimi solio residentem veste purpurea et aurea radiantem, quid hunc, inqam, esse censetis? Nimirum si caritate destituitur, solaque inflatur et extollitur, Antichristus est, in templo Dei sedens, et se ostendens tamquam sit D Eus. Si autem nec caritate fundatur, nec scientia erigitur, in templo Dei tamquam statua, tanquam idolum est, a quo responsa petere, marmora consulere est." [286] The acts of this Synod were first published in the Magdeburg Centuries, then by Mansi, Conc. XIX. 107, and Pertz, Mon. V. 658. Baronius pronounced them spurious, and interspersed them with indignant notes; but Mansi (p. 107) says: "Censent vulgo omnes, Gerbertum reipsa et sincere recitasse acta concilii vere habiti." See Gieseler, Greenwood (Book VIII. ch. 6), and Hefele (IV. 637 sqq.). Hefele pronounces the speech schismatical. __________________________________________________________________ § 65. The Second Degradation of the Papacy from Otho I to Henry III. a.d. 973-1046. I. The sources for the papacy in the second half of the tenth and in the eleventh century are collected in Muratori's Annali d' Italia (Milano 1744-49); in Migne's Patrol., Tom. CXXXVII.-CL.; Leibnitz, Annales Imp. Occid. (down to a.d. 1005; Han., 1843, 3 vols.); Pertz, . Mon. Germ. (Auctores), Tom. V. (Leges), Tom. II.; Ranke, Jahrbucher des deutschen Reiches unter dem Sächs. Hause (Berlin 1837-40, 3 vols.; the second vol. by Giesebrecht and Wilmans contains the reigns of Otho II. and Otho III.). On the sources see Giesebrecht, Gesch. der deutschen Kaiserzeit, II. 568 sqq. II. Stenzel: Geschichte Deutschlands unter den Fränkischen Kaisern. Leipz., 1827, 1828, 2 vols. C. F. Hock (R.C.): Gerbert oder Papst Sylvester und sein Jahrhundert. Wien, 1837. C. Höfler (R.C.): Die deutschen Päpste. Regensb., 1839, 2 vols. H. J. Floss (R.C.): Die Papstwahl unter den Ottonen. Freib., 1858. C. Will: Die Anfänge der Restauration der Kirche im elften Jahrh. Marburg, 1859-'62, 2 vols. R. Köpke und E. Dümmler: Otto der Grosse. Leipz. 1876. Comp. Baronius (Annal.); Jaffe (Reg. 325-364); Hefele (Conciliengeschichte IV. 632 sqq., 2d ed.); Gfrörer (vol. III., P. III., 1358-1590, and vol. IV., 1846); Gregorovius (vols. III. and IV.); v. Reumont (II. 292 sqq.); Baxmann (II. 125-180); and Giesebrecht (I. 569-762, and II. 1-431). The reform of the papacy was merely temporary. It was followed by a second period of disgrace, which lasted till the middle of the eleventh century, but was interrupted by a few respectable popes and signs of a coming reformation. After the death of Otho, during the short and unfortunate reign of his son, Otho II. (973-983), a faction of the Roman nobility under the lead of Crescentius or Cencius (probably a son of pope John X. and Theodora) gained the upper hand. [287] He rebelled against the imperial pope, Benedict VI., who was murdered (974), and elected an Italian anti-pope, Boniface VII., who had soon to flee to Constantinople, but returned after some years, murdered another imperial pope, John XIV. (983), and maintained himself on the blood-stained throne by a lavish distribution of stolen money till he died, probably by violence (985). [288] During the minority of Otho III., the imperialists, headed by Alberic, Count of Tusculum, and the popular Roman party under the lead of the younger Crescentius (perhaps a grandson of the infamous Theodora), contended from their fortified places for the mastery of Rome and the papacy. Bloodshed was a daily amusement. Issuing from their forts, the two parties gave battle to each other whenever they met on the street. They set up rival popes, and mutilated their corpses with insane fury. The contending parties were related. Marozia's son, Alberic, had probably inherited Tusculum (which is about fifteen miles from Rome). [289] After the death of Alberic of Tusculum, Crescentius acquired the government under the title of Consul, and indulged the Romans with a short dream of republican freedom in opposition to the hated rule of the foreign barbarians. He controlled pope John XV. Gregory V. Otho III., on his way to Rome, elected his worthy chaplain and cousin Bruno, who was consecrated as Gregory V. (996) and then anointed Otho III. emperor. He is the first pope of German blood. [290] Crescentius was treated with great leniency, but after the departure of the German army he stirred up a rebellion, expelled the German pope and elevated Philagathus, a Calabrian Greek, under the name of John XVI. to the chair of St. Peter. Gregory V. convened a large synod at Pavia, which unanimously pronounced the anathema against Crescentius and his pope. The emperor hastened to Rome with an army, stormed the castle of St. Angelo (the mole of Hadrian), and beheaded Crescentius as a traitor, while John XVI. by order of Gregory V. was, according to the savage practice of that age, fearfully mutilated, and paraded through the streets on an ass, with his face turned to the tail and with a wine-bladder on his head. Sylvester II. After the sudden and probably violent death of Gregory V. (999), the emperor elected, with the assent of the clergy and the people, his friend and preceptor, Gerbert, archbishop of Rheims, and then of Ravenna, to the papal throne. Gerbert was the first French pope, a man of rare learning and ability, and moral integrity. He abandoned the liberal views he had expressed at the Council at Rheims, [291] and the legend says that he sold his soul to the devil for the papal tiara. He assumed the significant name of Sylvester II., intending to aid the youthful emperor (whose mother was a Greek princess) in the realization of his utopian dream to establish a Graeco-Latin empire with old Rome for its capital, and to rule from it the Christian world, as Constantine the Great had done during the pontificate of Sylvester I. But Otho died in his twenty-second year, of Italian fever or of poison (1002). [292] Sylvester II. followed his imperial pupil a year after (1003). His learning, acquired in part from the Arabs in Spain, appeared a marvel to his ignorant age, and suggested a connection with magic. He sent to St. Stephen of Hungary the royal crown, and, in a pastoral letter to Europe where Jerusalem is represented as crying for help, he gave the first impulse to the crusades (1000), ninety years before they actually began. [293] In the expectation of the approaching judgment, crowds of pilgrims flocked to Palestine to greet the advent of the Saviour. But the first millennium passed, and Christendom awoke with a sigh of relief on the first day of the year 1001. Benedict VIII., and Emperor Henry II. Upon the whole the Saxon emperors were of great service to the papacy: they emancipated it from the tyranny of domestic political factions, they restored it to wealth, and substituted worthy occupants for monstrous criminals. During the next reign the confusion broke out once more. The anti-imperial party regained the ascendency, and John Crescentius, the son of the beheaded consul, ruled under the title of Senator and Patricius. But the Counts of Tusculum held the balance of power pretty evenly, and gradually superseded the house of Crescentius. They elected Benedict VIII. (1012-1024), a member of their family; while Crescentius and his friends appointed an anti-pope (Gregory). Benedict proved a very energetic pope in the defence of Italy against the Saracens. He forms the connecting link between the Ottonian and the Hildebrandian popes. He crowned Henry II, (1014), as the faithful patron and protector simply, not as the liege-lord, of the pope. This last emperor of the Saxon house was very devout, ascetic, and liberal in endowing bishoprics. He favored clerical celibacy. He aimed earnestly at a moral reformation of the church. He declared at a diet, that he had made Christ his heir, and would devote all he possessed to God and his church. He filled the vacant bishoprics and abbeys with learned and worthy men; and hence his right of appointment was not resisted. He died after a reign of twenty-two years, and was buried at his favorite place, Bamberg in Bavaria, where he had founded a bishopric (1007). He and his chaste wife, Kunigunde, were canonized by the grateful church (1146). [294] The Tusculan Popes. Benedict IX. With Benedict VIII. the papal dignity became hereditary in the Tusculan family. He had bought it by open bribery. He was followed by his brother John XIX., a layman, who bought it likewise, and passed in one day through all the clerical degrees. After his death in 1033, his nephew Theophylact, a boy of only ten or twelve years of age, [295] ascended the papal throne under the name of Benedict IX. (1033-1045). His election was a mere money bargain between the Tusculan family and the venal clergy and populace of Rome. Once more the Lord took from Jerusalem and Judah the stay and the staff, and gave children to be their princes, and babes to rule over them. [296] This boy-pope fully equaled and even surpassed John XII. in precocious wickedness. He combined the childishness of Caligala and the viciousness of Heliogabalus. [297] He grew worse as he advanced in years. He ruled like a captain of banditti, committed murders and adulteries in open day-light, robbed pilgrims on the graves of martyrs, and turned Rome into a den of thieves. These crimes went unpunished; for who could judge a pope? And his brother, Gregory, was Patrician of the city. At one time, it is reported, he had the crazy notion of marrying his cousin and enthroning a woman in the chair of St. Peter; but the father of the intended bride refused unless he abdicated the papacy. [298] Desiderius, who himself afterwards became pope (Victor III.), shrinks from describing the detestable life of this Benedict, who, he says, followed in the footsteps of Simon Magus rather than of Simon Peter, and proceeded in a career of rapine, murder, and every species of felony, until even the people of Rome became weary of his iniquities, and expelled him from the city. Sylvester III. was elected antipope (Jan., 1044), but Benedict soon resumed the papacy with all his vices (April 10, 1044), then sold it for one or two thousand pounds silver [299] to an archpresbyter John Gratian of the same house (May, 1045), after he had emptied the treasury of every article of value, and, rueing the bargain, he claimed the dignity again (Nov., 1047), till he was finally expelled from Rome (July, 1048). Gregory VI. John Gratian assumed the name Gregory, VI. He was revered as a saint for his chastity which, on account of its extreme rarity in Rome, was called an angelic virtue. He bought the papacy with the sincere desire to reform it, and made the monk Hildebrand, the future reformer, his chaplain. He acted on the principle that the end sanctifies the means. Thus there were for a while three rival popes. Benedict IX. (before his final expulsion) held the Lateran, Gregory VI. Maria Maggiore, Sylvester III. St. Peter's and the Vatican. [300] Their feuds reflected the general condition of Italy. The streets of Rome swarmed with hired assassins, the whole country with robbers, the virtue of pilgrims was openly assailed, even churches and the tombs of the apostles were desecrated by bloodshed. Again the German emperor had to interfere for the restoration of order. __________________________________________________________________ [287] He is called Crescentius de Theodora, and seems to have died in a convent about 984. Some make him the son of Pope John X. and the elder Theodora, others, of the younger Theodora. See Gregorovius, III. 407 sqq; von Reumont, II. 292 sqq.; and the genealogy of the Crescentii in Höfler, I. 300. [288] Gerbert (afterwards pope Sylvester II.) called this Bonifacius a "Malefactor," (Malifacius) and "horrendum monstrum, cunctos mortales nequitia superans, etiam prioris pontificis sanguine cruentus."Gregorovius, III. 410. [289] The Tusculan family claimed descent from Julius Caesar and Octavian. See Gregorovius, IV. 10, and Giesebrecht II. 174; also the genealogical table of Höfler at the close of Vol. I. [290] Baronius, however, says that Stephen VIII. (939-942) was a German, and for this reason opposed by the Romans. Bruno was only twenty-four years old when elected. Höfler (I. 94 sqq.) gives him a very high character. [291] See preceding section, p. 290. [292] According to several Italian writers he was poisoned by Stephania, under the disguise of a loving mistress, in revenge of the murder of Crescentius, her husband. Muratori and Milman accept the story, but it is not mentioned by Ditmar (Chron. IV. 30), and discredited by Leo, Gfrörer, and Greenwood. Otho had restored to the son of Stephania all his father's property, and made him prefect of Rome. The same remorseless Stephania is said to have admininistered subtle poison to pope Sylvester II. [293] See Gfrörer, III. P. III. 1550 sq. He regards Sylvester II. one of the greatest of popes and statesmen who developed all the germs of the system, and showed the way to his successors. Comp. on him Milman, Bk. V. ch. 13; Giesebrecht, I. 613 sqq. and 690 sqq. [294] His historian, bishop Thitmar or Ditmar of Merseburg, relates that Henry never held carnal intercourse with his wife, and submitted to rigid penances and frequent flagellations for the subjugation of animal passions. But Hase (§ 160, tenth ed.) remarks: "Die Mönche, die er zu Gunsten der Bisthümer beraubt hat, dachten ihn nur eben von der Hölle gerettet; auch den Heiligenschein der jungfraeulichen Kaiserinhat der Teufel zu verdunkeln gewusst." Comp. C. Schurzfleisch, De innocentia Cunig., Wit., 1700. A. Noel, Leben der heil. Kunigunde, Luxemb. 1856. For a high and just estimate of Henry's character see Giesebrecht II. 94-96. "The legend," he says, "describes Henry as a monk in purple, as a penitent with a crown, who can scarcely drag along his lame body; it places Kunigunde at his side not as wife but as a nun, who in prayer and mortification of the flesh seeks with him the path to heaven. History gives a very different picture of king Henry and his wife. It bears witness that he was one of the most active and energetic rulers that ever sat on the German throne, and possessed a sharp understanding and a power of organization very rare in those times. It was a misfortune for Germany that such a statesman had to spend most of his life in internal and external wars. Honorable as he was in arms, he would have acquired a higher fame in times of peace." [295] Rodulfus Glaber, Histor. sui temporis, IV. 5 (in Migne, Tom. 142, p. 979): "puer ferme (fere) decennis;" but in V. 5: "fuerat sedi ordinatus quidam puer circiter annorum duodecim, contra jus nefasque." Hefele stated, in the first ed. (IV. 673), that Benedict was eighteen when elected. In the second ed. (p. 706) he corrects himself and makes him twelve years at his election. [296] Isa. 3:1-4. [297] Gregorovius, IV. 42, says: "Mit Benedict IX. erreichte das Papstthum aussersten Grad des sittlichen Verfalls, welcher nach den Gesetzen der menschlichen Natur den Umschlag zum Bessern erzeugt." [298] Bonitho, ed. Jaffé p. 50: "Post multa turpia adulteria et homicidia manibus Buis perpetrata, postremo cum vellet consobrinam accipere coniugem, filiam scilicet Girardi de Saxo, et ille diceret: nullo modo se daturum nisi renunciaret pontificatui ad quendam sacerdotem Johannem se contulit." A similar report is found in the Annales Altahenses. But Steindorff and Hefele ([V. 707) discredit the marriage project as a malignant invention or fable. [299] An old catalogue of popes (in Muratori, Script. III. 2, p. 345) states the sum as mille librae denariorum Papensium, but Benno as librae mille quingentae. Others give two thousand pounds as the sum. Otto of Freising adds that Benedict reserved besides the Peter's pence from England. See Giesebrecht, II. 643, and Hefele IV. 707. [300] Migne, Tom. 141, p. 1343. Steindorff and Hefele (IV. 708) dissent from this usual view of a three-fold schism, and consider Gregory, as the only pope. But all three were summoned to the Synod of Sutri and deposed; consequently they must all have claimed possession. __________________________________________________________________ § 66. Henry III and the Synod of Sutri. Deposition of three rival Popes. a.d. 1046. Bonizo (or Bonitho, bishop of Sutri, afterwards of Piacenza, and friend of Gregory VII., d. 1089): Liber ad amicum, s. de persecutione Ecclesiae (in Oefelii Scriptores rerum Boicarum II., 794, and better in Jaffe's Monumenta Gregoriana, 1865). Contains in lib. V. a history, of the popes from Benedict IX. to Gregory VII., with many errors. Rodulfus Glaber (or Glaber Radulfus, monk of Cluny, about 1046): Historia sui temporis (in Migne, Tom. 142). Desiderius (Abbot of M. Cassino, afterwards pope Victor III., d. 1080): De Miraculis a S. Benedicto aliisque monachis Cassiniensibus gestis Dialog., in "Bibl. Patr." Lugd. XVIII. 853. Annales Romani in Pertz, Mon. Germ. VII. Annales Corbeienses, in Pertz, Mon. Germ. V.; and in Jaffé, Monumenta Corbeiensia, Berlin, 1864. Ernst Steindorff: Jahrbucher des deutschen Reichs unter Heinrich III. Leipzig, 1874. Hefele: Conciliengesch. IV. 706 sqq. (2d ed.). See Lit. in § 64, especially Höfler and Will. Emperor Henry III., of the house of Franconia, was appealed to by the advocates of reform, and felt deeply the sad state of the church. He was only twenty-two years old, but ripe in intellect, full of energy and zeal, and aimed at a reformation of the church under the control of the empire, as Hildebrand afterwards labored for a reformation of the church under the control of the papacy. On his way to Rome for the coronation he held (Dec. 20, 1046) a synod at Sutri, a small town about twenty-five miles north of Rome, and a few days afterwards another synod at Rome which completed the work. [301] Gregory VI. presided at first. The claims of the three rival pontiffs were considered. Benedict IX. and Sylvester III. were soon disposed of, the first having twice resigned, the second being a mere intruder. Gregory VI. deserved likewise deposition for the sin of simony in buying the papacy; but as he had convoked the synod by order of the emperor and was otherwise a worthy person, he was allowed to depose himself or to abdicate. He did it in these words: "I, Gregory, bishop, servant of the servants of God, do hereby adjudge myself to be removed from the pontificate of the Holy Roman Church, because of the enormous error which by simoniacal impurity has crept into and vitiated my election." Then he asked the assembled fathers: "Is it your pleasure that so it shall be?" to which they unanimously replied: "Your pleasure is our pleasure; therefore so let it be." As soon as the humble pope had pronounced his own sentence, he descended from the throne, divested himself of his pontifical robes, and implored pardon on his knees for the usurpation of the highest dignity in Christendom. He acted as pope de facto, and pronounced himself no pope de jure. He was used by the synod for deposing his two rivals, and then for deposing himself. In that way the synod saved the principle that the pope was above every human tribunal, and responsible to God alone. This view of the case of Gregory, rests on the reports of Bonitho and Desiderius. According to other reports in the Annales Corbeienses and Peter Damiani, who was present at Sutri, Gregory was deposed directly by the Synod. [302] At all events, the deposition was real and final, and the cause was the sin of simony. But if simony vitiated an election, there were probably few legitimate popes in the tenth century when everything was venal and corrupt in Rome. Moreover bribery seems a small sin compared with the enormous crimes of several of these Judases. Hildebrand recognized Gregory VI. by adopting his pontifical name in honor of his memory, and yet he made relentless war the sin of simony. He followed the self-deposed pope as upon chaplain across the Alps into exile, and buried him in peace on the banks of the Rhine. Henry III. adjourned the Synod of Sutri to St. Peter's in Rome for the election of a new pope (Dec. 23 and 24, 1046). The synod was to elect, but no Roman clergyman could be found free of the pollution of "simony and fornication." Then the king, vested by the synod with the green mantle of the patriciate and the plenary authority of the electors, descended from his throne, and seated Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, a man of spotless character, on the vacant chair of St. Peter amid the loud hosannas of the assembly. [303] The new pope assumed the name of Clement II., and crowned Henry emperor on the festival of Christmas, on which Charlemagne had been crowned. The name was a reminder of the conflict of the first Clement of Rome with Simon Magus. But he outlived his election only nine months, and his body was transferred to his beloved Bamberg. The wretched Benedict IX. again took possession of the Lateran (till July 16, 1048). He died afterwards in Grotto Ferrata, according to one report as a penitent saint, according to another as a hardened sinner whose ghost frightened the living. A third German pontiff, Poppo, bishop of Brixen, called Damasus II., was elected, but died twenty-three days after his consecration (Aug. 10, 1048), of the Roman fever, if not of poison. The emperor, at the request of the Romans, appointed at Worms in December, 1048, Bruno, bishop of Toul, to the papal chair. He was a man of noble birth, fine appearance, considerable learning, unblemished character, and sincere piety, in full sympathy with the spirit of reform which emanated from Cluny. He accepted the appointment in presence of the Roman deputies, subject to the consent of the clergy and people of Rome. [304] He invited the monk Hildebrand to accompany him in his pilgrimage to Rome. Hildebrand refused at first, because Bruno had not been canonically elected, but by the secular and royal power; but he was persuaded to follow him. Bruno reached Rome in the month of February, 1049, in the dress of a pilgrim, barefoot, weeping, regardless of the hymns of welcome. His election was unanimously confirmed by the Roman clergy and people, and he was solemnly consecrated Feb. 12, as Leo IX. He found the papal treasury empty, and his own means were soon exhausted. He chose Hildebrand as his subdeacon, financier, and confidential adviser, who hereafter was the soul of the papal reform, till he himself ascended the papal throne in 1073. We stand here at the close of the deepest degradation and on the threshold of the highest elevation of the papacy. The synod of Sutri and the reign of Leo IX. mark the beginning of a disciplinary reform. Simony or the sale and purchase of ecclesiastical dignities, and Nicolaitism or the carnal sins of the clergy, including marriage, concubinage and unnatural vices, were the crying evils of the church in the eyes of the most serious men, especially the disciples of Cluny and of St. Romuald. A reformation therefore from the hierarchical standpoint of the middle ages was essentially a suppression of these two abuses. And as the corruption had reached its climax in the papal chair, the reformation had to begin at the head before it could reach the members. It was the work chiefly of Hildebrand or Gregory VII., with whom the next period opens. __________________________________________________________________ [301] The sources differ in the distribution of the work between the two synods: some assign it to Sutri, others to Rome, others divide it. Steindorff and Hefele (IV. 710) assume that Gregory and Sylvester were deposed at Sutri; Benedict (who did not appear at Sutri) was deposed in Rome. All agree that the new pope was elected in Rome. [302] See Jaffé, Steindorff, and Hefele (IV. 711 sq.). [303] According to the Annal. Corb., Suidger was elected "canonice as synodice ... unanimi cleri et populi electione." [304] So says Wibert, his friend and biographer, but Bonitho reports that Hildebrand induced him to submit first to a Roman election, since a pope elected by the emperor was not an apostolicus, but an apostaticus. See Baxmann, II. 215-217. Comp. also Hunkler: Leo IX. und seine Zeit. Mainz, 1851 __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER V. THE CONFLICT OF THE EASTERN AND WESTERN CHURCHES AND THEIR SEPARATION. __________________________________________________________________ § 67. Sources and Literature. The chief sources on the beginning of the controversy between Photius and Nicolas are in Mansi: Conc. Tom. XV. and XVI.; in Harduin: Conc. Tom. V. Hergenröther: Monumenta Graeca ad Photium ejusque historiam pertinentia. Regensb. 1869. I. On the Greek Side: Photius: jEgkuvklio" ejpistolhv etc . and especially his Lovgo" peri; th'" tou' aJgivou Pneuvmato" mustagwgiva", etc. See Photii Opera omnia, ed. Migne. Paris, 1860-'61, 4 vols. (Patr. Gr. Tom. CI.-CIV.) The Encycl. Letter is in Tom. II. 722-742; and his treatise on the mustagwgiva tou' aJgivou Pneuvmato" in Tom. II. 279-391. Later champions: Caerularius, Nicetas Pectoratus, Theophylact (12th century). Euthymius Zigabenus, Phurnus, Eustratius, and many others. In recent times Prokopovitch (1772), Zoernicav (1774, 2 vols.). J. G. Pitzipios: L'Egl. orientale, sa séparation et sa réunion avec celle de Rome. Rome, 1855. L'Orient. Les réformes de lempire byzantin. Paris, 1858. A. N. Mouravieff (Russ.): Question religieuse d'Orient et d'Occident. Moscow, 1856. Guettère: La papauté schismatique. Par. 1863. A. Picheler: Gesch. d. kirchlichen Trennung zwischen dem Orient und Occident von den ersten Anfängen his zur jüngsten Gegenwart. München, 1865, 2 Bde. The author was a Roman Catholic (Privatdocent der Theol. in München) when he wrote this work, but blamed the West fully as much as the East for the schism, and afterwards joined the Greek church in Russia. Andronicos Dimitracopulos: Istori'a tou sci'matos. Lips. 1867. Also his Bi'blioqh'kh ekklhs. Lips. 1866. Theodorus Lascaris Junior: De Processione Spiritus S. Oratio Apologetica. London and Jena, 1875. II. On the Latin (Roman Catholic) Side: Ratramnus (Contra Graecorum Opposita); Anselm of Canterbury (De Processione Spiritus S. 1098); Petrus Chrysolanus (1112); Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), etc. Leo Allatius (Allacci, a Greek of Chios, but converted to the Roman Church and guardian of the Vatican library, d. 1669): De ecclesiae occident. atque orient. perpetua consensione. Cologne, 1648, 4to.; new ed. 1665 and 1694. Also his Graecia orthodoxa, 1659, 2 vols., new ed. by Lämmer, Freib. i. B. 1864 sq.; and his special tracts on Purgatory (Rom. 1655), and on the Procession of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 1658). Maimburg: Hist. du schisme des Grecs. Paris, 1677, 4to. Steph. de Altimura (Mich. le Quien): Panoplia contra schisma Graecorum. Par. 1718, 4to. Michael le Quien (d. 1733): Oriens Christianus. Par. 1740, 3 vols. fol. Abbé Jager: Histoire de Photius d'après les monuments originaux. 2nd ed. Par. 1845. Luigi Tosti: Storia dell' origine dello scisma greco. Firenze 1856. 2 vols. H. Lämmer: Papst. Nikolaus I. und die byzantinische Staatskirche seiner Zeit. Berlin, 1857. Ad. d'Avril: Documents relatifs aux églises de l'Orient, considerée dans leur rapports avec le saint-siége de Rome. Paris, 1862. Karl Werner: Geschichte der Apol. und polemischen Literatur. Schaffhausen, 1864, vol. III. 3 ff. J. Hergenröther: (Prof. of Church History in Würzburg, now Cardinal in Rome): Photius, Patriarch von Constantinopel. Sein Leben, seine Schriften und das griechische Schisma. Regensburg, 1867-1869, 3 vols. C. Jos. von Hefele (Bishop of Rottenburg): Conciliengeschichte. Freiburg i. B., vols. IV., V., VI., VII. (revised ed. 1879 sqq.) III. Protestant writers: J. G. Walch (Luth.): Historia controversiae Graecorum Latinorumque de Processione Sp. S. Jena, 1751. Gibbon: Decline and Fall, etc., Ch. LX. He views the schism as one of the causes which precipitated the decline and fall of the Roman empire in the East by alienating its most useful allies and strengthening its most dangerous enemies. John Mason Neale (Anglican): A History of the Holy Eastern Church. Lond. 1850. Introd. vol. II. 1093-1169. Edmund S. Foulkes (Anglic.): An Historical Account of the Addition of the word Filioque to the Creed of the West. Lond. 1867. W. Gass: Symbolik der griechischen Kirche. Berlin, 1872. H. B. Swete (Anglic.): Early History of the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, Cambr. 1873; and History of the Doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Apost. Age to the Death of Charlemagne. Cambr. 1876. IV. Old Catholic Writers (irenical): Joseph Langen: Die Trinitarische Lehrdifferenz zwischen der abendländischen und der morgenländischen Kirche. Bonn, 1876. The Proceedings of the second Old Catholic Union-Conference in Bonn, 1875, ed. in German by Heinrich Reusch; English ed. with introduction by Canon Liddon (Lond. 1876); Amer. ed. transl. by Dr. Samuel Buel, with introduction by Dr. R. Nevin (N. Y. 1876). The union-theses of Bonn are given in Schaff: Creeds of Christendom, vol. II., 545-550. __________________________________________________________________ § 68. The Consensus and Dissensus between the Greek and Latin Churches. No two churches in the world are at this day so much alike, and yet so averse to each other as the Oriental or Greek, and the Occidental or Roman. They hold, as an inheritance from the patristic age, essentially the same body of doctrine, the same canons of discipline, the same form of worship; and yet their antagonism seems irreconcilable. The very affinity breeds jealousy and friction. They are equally exclusive: the Oriental Church claims exclusive orthodoxy, and looks upon Western Christendom as heretical; the Roman Church claims exclusive catholicity, and considers all other churches as heretical or schismatical sects. The one is proud of her creed, the other of her dominion. In all the points of controversy between Romanism and Protestantism the Greek Church is much nearer the Roman, and yet there is no more prospect of a union between them than of a union between Rome and Geneva, or Moscow and Oxford. The Pope and the Czar are the two most powerful rival-despots in Christendom. Where the two churches meet in closest proximity, over the traditional spots of the birth and tomb of our Saviour, at Bethlehem and Jerusalem, they hate each other most bitterly, and their ignorant and bigoted monks have to be kept from violent collision by Mohammedan soldiers. I. Let us first briefly glance at the consensus. Both churches own the Nicene creed (with the exception of the Filioque), and all the doctrinal decrees of the seven oecumenical Synods from a.d. 325 to 787, including the worship of images. They agree moreover in most of the post-oecumenical or mediaeval doctrines against which the evangelical Reformation protested, namely: the authority of ecclesiastical tradition as a joint rule of faith with the holy Scriptures; the worship of the Virgin Mary, of the saints, their pictures (not statues), and relics; justification by faith and good works, as joint conditions; the merit of good works, especially voluntary celibacy and poverty; the seven sacraments or mysteries (with minor differences as to confirmation, and extreme unction or chrisma); baptismal regeneration and the necessity of water-baptism for salvation; transubstantiation and the consequent adoration of the sacramental elements; the sacrifice of the mass for the living and the dead, with prayers for the dead; priestly absolution by divine authority; three orders of the ministry, and the necessity of an episcopal hierarchy up to the patriarchal dignity; and a vast number of religious rites and ceremonies. In the doctrine of purgatory, the Greek Church is less explicit, yet agrees with the Roman in assuming a middle state of purification, and the efficacy of prayers and masses for the departed. The dogma of transubstantiation, too, is not so clearly formulated in the Greek creed as in the Roman, but the difference is very small. As to the Holy Scriptures, the Greek Church has never prohibited the popular use, and the Russian Church even favors the free circulation of her authorized vernacular version. But the traditions of the Greek Church are as strong a barrier against the exercise of private judgment and exegetical progress as those of Rome. II. The dissensus of the two churches covers the following points: 1. The procession of the Holy Spirit: the East teaching the single procession from the Father only, the West (since Augustin), the double procession from the Father and the Son (Filioque). 2. The universal authority and infallibility of the pope, which is asserted by the Roman, denied by the Greek Church. The former is a papal monarchy, the latter a patriarchal oligarchy. There are, according to the Greek theory, five patriarchs of equal rights, the pope of Rome, the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. They were sometimes compared to the five senses in the body. To them was afterwards added the patriarch of Moscow for the Russian church (which is now governed by the "Holy Synod"). To the bishop of Rome was formerly conceded a primacy of honor, but this primacy passed with the seat of empire to the patriarch of Constantinople, who therefore signed himself "Archbishop of New Rome and Oecumenical Patriarch. [305] 3. The immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, proclaimed as a dogma by the pope in 1854, disowned by the East, which, however, in the practice of Mariolatry fully equals the West. 4. The marriage of the lower clergy, allowed by the Eastern, forbidden by the Roman Church (yet conceded by the pope to the United Greeks). 5. The withdrawal of the cup from the laity. In the Greek Church the laymen receive the consecrated bread dipped in the wine and administered with a golden spoon. 6. A number of minor ceremonies peculiar to the Eastern Church, such as trine immersion in baptism, the use of leavened bread in the eucharist, infant-communion, the repetition of the holy unction (to; eujcevlion) in sickness. Notwithstanding these differences the Roman Church has always been obliged to recognize the Greek Church as essentially orthodox, though schismatic. And, certainly, the differences are insignificant as compared with the agreement. The separation and antagonism must therefore be explained fully as much and more from an alienation of spirit and change of condition. Note on the Eastern Orthodox Church. For the sake of brevity the usual terminology is employed in this chapter, but the proper name of the Greek Church is the Holy Oriental Orthodox Apostolic Church. The terms mostly in use in that church are Orthodox and Oriental (Eastern). The term Greek is used in Turkey only of the Greeks proper (the Hellens); but the great majority of Oriental Christians in Turkey and Russia belong to the Slavonic race. The Greek is the original and classical language of the Oriental Church, in which the most important works are written; but it has been practically superseded in Asiatic Turkey by the Arabic, in Russia and European Turkey by the Slavonic. The Oriental or Orthodox Church now embraces three distinct divisions: 1. The Orthodox Church in Turkey (European Turkey and the Greek islands, Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine) under the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. 2. The state church of Russia, formerly under the patriarch of Constantinople, then under the patriarch of Moscow, since 1725 under the Holy Synod of St. Petersburg and the headship of the Czar. This is by far the largest and most important branch. 3. The church of the kingdom of Greece under the Holy Synod of Greece (since 1833). There are also Greek Christians in Egypt, the Sinaitic Peninsula (the monks of the Convent of St. Catharine), the islands of the AEgean Sea, in Malta, Servia, Austria, etc. Distinct from the Orthodox Church are the Oriental Schismatics, the Nestorians, Armenians, Jacobites, Copts, and Abyssinians, who separated from the former on the ground of the christological controversies. The Maronites of Mount Lebanon were originally also schismatics, but submitted to the pope during the Crusades. The United Greeks acknowledge the supremacy of the pope, but retain certain peculiarities of the Oriental Church, as the marriage of the lower clergy, the native language in worship. They are found in lower Italy, Austria, Russia, and Poland. The Bulgarians, who likewise call themselves orthodox, and who by the treaty of Berlin in 1878 have been formed into a distinct principality, occupy an independent position between the Greek and the Roman Churches. __________________________________________________________________ [305] See the passages in Gieseler II. 227 sq. __________________________________________________________________ § 69. The Causes of Separation. Church history, like the world's history, moves with the sun from East to West. In the first six centuries the Eastern or Greek church represented the main current of life and progress. In the middle ages the Latin church chiefly assumed the task of christianizing and civilizing the new races which came upon the stage. The Greek church has had no Middle Ages in the usual sense, and therefore no Reformation. She planted Christianity among the Slavonic races, but they were isolated from the progress of European history, and have not materially affected either the doctrine or polity or cultus of the church. Their conversion was an external expansion, not an internal development. The Greek and Latin churches were never organically united under one government, but differed considerably from the beginning in nationality, language, and various ceremonies. These differences, however, did not interfere with the general harmony of faith and Christian life, nor prevent cooperation against common foes. As long and as far as the genuine spirit of Christianity directed them, the diversity was an element of strength to the common cause. The principal sees of the East were directly founded by the apostles--with the exception of Constantinople--and had even a clearer title to apostolic succession and inheritance than Rome. The Greek church took the lead in theology down to the sixth or seventh century, and the Latin gratefully learned from her. All the oecumenical Councils were held on the soil of the Byzantine empire in or near Constantinople, and carried on in the Greek language. The great doctrinal controversies on the holy Trinity and Christology were fought out in the East, yet not without the powerful aid of the more steady and practical West. Athanasius, when an exile from Alexandria, found refuge and support in the bishop of Rome. Jerome, the most learned of the Latin fathers and a friend of Pope Damasus, was a connecting link between the East and the West, and concluded his labors in Bethlehem. Pope Leo I. was the theological master-spirit who controlled the council of Chalcedon, and shaped the Orthodox formula concerning the two natures in the one person of Christ. Yet this very pope strongly protested against the action of the Council which, in conformity with a canon of the second oecumenical Council, put him on a par with the new bishop of Constantinople. And here we approach the secret of the ultimate separation and incurable antagonism of the churches. It is due chiefly to three causes. The first cause is the politico- ecclesiastical rivalry of the patriarch of Constantinople backed by the Byzantine empire, and the bishop of Rome in connection with the new German empire. The second cause is the growing centralization and overbearing conduct of the Latin church in and through the papacy. The third cause is the stationary character of the Greek and the progressive character of the Latin church during the middle ages. The Greek church boasts of the imaginary perfection of her creed. She still produced considerable scholars and divines, as Maximus, John of Damascus, Photius, Oecumenius, and Theophylact, but they mostly confined themselves to the work of epitomizing and systematizing the traditional theology of the Greek fathers, and produced no new ideas, as if all wisdom began and ended with the old oecumenical Councils. She took no interest in the important anthropological and soteriological controversies which agitated the Latin church in the age of St. Augustin, and she continued to occupy the indefinite position of the first centuries on the doctrines of sin and grace. On the other hand she was much distracted and weakened by barren metaphysical controversies on the abstrusest questions of theology and christology; and these quarrels facilitated the rapid progress of Islâm, which conquered the lands of the Bible and pressed hard on Constantinople. When the Greek church became stationary, the Latin church began to develop her greatest energy; she became the fruitful mother of new and vigorous nations of the North and West of Europe, produced scholastic and mystic theology and a new order of civilization, built magnificent cathedrals, discovered a new Continent, invented the art of printing, and with the revival of learning prepared the way for a new era in the history of the world. Thus the Latin daughter outgrew the Greek mother, and is numerically twice as strong, without counting the Protestant secession. At the same time the Eastern church still may look forward to a new future among the Slavonic races which she has christianized. What she needs is a revival of the spirit and power of primitive Christianity. When once the two churches were alienated in spirit and engaged in an unchristian race for supremacy, all the little doctrinal and ritualistic differences which had existed long before, assumed an undue weight, and were branded as heresies and crimes. The bishop of Rome sees in the Patriarch of Constantinople an ecclesiastical upstart who owed his power to political influence, not to apostolic origin. The Eastern patriarchs look upon the Pope as an anti-christian usurper and as the first Protestant. They stigmatize the papal supremacy as "the chief heresy of the latter days, which flourishes now as its predecessor, Arianism, flourished in former days, and which like it, will in like manner be cast down and vanish away." [306] __________________________________________________________________ [306] Encycl. Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, 1844, § 5. __________________________________________________________________ § 70. The Patriarch and the Pope. Photius and Nicolas. Comp. § 61, the Lit. in § 67, especially the letters of Photius and Nicolas. Hergenröther: Photius (Regensb. 1867-69, vol. I. 373 sqq.; 505 sqq.; and the second vol.), and his Monumenta Graeca ad Photium ejusque historiam pertinentia (Ratisb. 1869, 181 pages). Milman: Hist. of Latin Christianity, bk. V. Ch. IV. Hefele IV. 224 sqq.; 384 sqq.; 436sqq. The chief documents are also given by Gieseler II. 213 sqq. (Am. ed.) The doctrinal difference on the procession of the Holy Spirit will be considered in the chapter on the Theological Controversies. Although it existed before the schism, it assumed a practical importance only in connection with the broader ecclesiastical and political conflict between the patriarch and the pope, between Constantinople and Rome. The first serious outbreak of this conflict took place after the middle of the ninth century, when Photius and Nicolas, two of the ablest representatives of the rival churches, came into collision. Photius is one of the greatest of patriarchs, as Nicolas is one of the greatest of popes. The former was superior in learning, the latter in statesmanship; while in moral integrity, official pride and obstinacy both were fairly matched, except that the papal ambition towered above the patriarchal dignity. Photius would tolerate no superior, Nicolas no equal; the one stood on the Council of Chalcedon, the other on Pseudo-Isidor. The contest between them was at first personal. The deposition of Ignatius as patriarch of Constantinople, for rebuking the immorality of Caesar Bardas, and the election of Photius, then a mere layman, in his place (858), were arbitrary and uncanonical acts which created a temporary schism in the East, and prepared the way for a permanent schism between the East and the West. Nicolas, being appealed to as mediator by both parties (first by Photius), assumed the haughty air of supreme judge on the basis of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, but was at first deceived by his own legates. The controversy was complicated by the Bulgarian quarrel. King Bogoris had been converted to Christianity by missionaries from Constantinople (861), but soon after applied to Rome for teachers, and the pope eagerly seized this opportunity to extend his jurisdiction (866). Nicolas, in a Roman Synod (863), decided in favor of the innocent Ignatius, and pronounced sentence of deposition against Photius with a threat of excommunication in case of disobedience. [307] Photius, enraged by this conduct and the Bulgarian interference, held a counter-synod, and deposed in turn the successor of St. Peter (867). In his famous Encyclical Letter of invitation to the Eastern patriarchs, he charged the whole Western church with heresy and schism for interfering with the jurisdiction over the Bulgarians, for fasting on Saturday, for abridging the time of Lent by a week, for taking milk-food (milk, cheese, and butter) during the quadragesimal fast, for enforcing clerical celibacy, and despising priests who lived in virtuous matrimony, and, most of all, for corrupting the Nicene Creed by the insertion of the Filioque, and thereby introducing two principles into the Holy Trinity. [308] This letter clearly indicates all the doctrinal and ritual differences which caused and perpetuated the schism to this day. The subsequent history is only a renewal of the same charges aggravated by the misfortunes of the Greek church, and the arrogance and intolerance of old Rome. Photius fell with the murder of his imperial patron, Michael III. (Sept. 23, 867). He was imprisoned in a convent, and deprived of society, even of books. He bore his misfortune with great dignity, and nearly all the Greek bishops remained faithful to him. Ignatius was restored after ten years of exile by the emperor Basil, the Macedonian (867-886), and entered into communication with Pope Hadrian II. (Dec. 867). He convened a general council in the church of St. Sophia (October, 869), which is numbered by the Latins as the Eighth Oecumenical Council. The pontifical legates presided and presented a formula of union which every bishop was required to sign before taking part in the proceedings, and which contained an anathema against all heresies, and against Photius and his adherents. But the council was poorly attended (the number of bishops being at first only eighteen). Photius was forced to appear in the fifth session (Oct. 20), but on being questioned he either kept silence, or answered in the words of Christ before Caiaphas and Pilate. In the tenth and last session, attended by the emperor and his sons, and one hundred and two bishops, the decrees of the pope against Photius and in favor of Ignatius were confirmed, and the anathemas against the Monothelites and Iconoclasts renewed. The papal delegates signed "with reservation of the revision of the pope." But the peace was artificial, and broken up again immediately, after the Synod by the Bulgarian question, which involved the political as well as the ecclesiastical power of Constantinople. Ignatius himself was unwilling to surrender that point, and refused to obey when the imperious Pope John VIII. commanded, on pain of suspension and excommunication, that he should recall all the Greek bishops and priests from Bulgaria. But death freed him from further controversy (Oct. 23, 877). Photius was restored to the patriarchal see three days after the death of Ignatius, with whom he had been reconciled. He convened a council in November, 879, which lasted till March, 880, and is acknowledged by the Orientals as the Eighth Oecumenical Council, [309] but denounced by the Latins as the Pseudo-Synodus Photiana. It was three times as large as the Council of Ignatius, and held with great pomp in St. Sophia under the presidency of Photius. It annulled the Council of 869 as a fraud; it readopted the Nicene Creed with an anathema against the Filioque, and all other changes by addition or omission, and it closed with a eulogy on the unrivalled virtues and learning of Photius. To the Greek acts was afterwards added a (pretended) letter of Pope John VIII. to Photius, declaring the Filioque to be an addition which is rejected by the church of Rome, and a blasphemy which must be abolished calmly and by, degrees. [310] The papal legates assented to all, and so deceived their master by false accounts of the surrender of Bulgaria that he thanked the emperor for the service he had done to the Church by this synod. But when the pope's eyes were opened, he sent the bishop Marinus to Constantinople to declare invalid what the legates had done contrary to his instructions. For this Marinus was shut up in prison for thirty days. After his return Pope John VIII. solemnly pronounced the anathema on Photius, who had dared to deceive and degrade the holy see, and had added new frauds to the old. Marinus renewed the anathema after he was elected pope (882). Photius denied the validity of his election, and developed an extraordinary, literary activity. But after the death of the Emperor Basilius (886), he was again deposed by Leo VI., miscalled the Wise or the Philosopher, to make room for his youngest brother Stephen, at that time only sixteen years of age. Photius spent the last five years of his life in a cloister, and died 891. For learning, energy, position, and influence, he is one of the most remarkable men in the history of Eastern Christianity. He formulated the doctrinal basis of the schism, checked the papal despotism, and secured the independence of the Greek church. He announced in an Encyclical of 866: "God be praised for all time to come! The Russians have received a bishop, and show a lively zeal for Christian worship." Roman writers have declared this to be a lie, but history has proved it to be an anticipation of an important fact, the conversion of a new nation which was to become the chief support of the Eastern church, and the most formidable rival of the papacy. Greek and Roman historians are apt to trace the guilt of the schism exclusively to one party, and to charge the other with unholy ambition and intrigue; but we must acknowledge on the one hand the righteous zeal of Nicolas for the cause of the injured Ignatius, and on the other the many virtues of Photius tried in misfortune, as well as his brilliant learning in theology, philology, philosophy, and history; while we deplore and denounce the schism as a sin and disgrace of both churches. Notes. The accounts of the Roman Catholic historians, even the best, are colored by sectarianism, and must be accepted with caution. Cardinal Hergenröther (Kirchengesch. I. 684) calls the Council of 879 a "Photianische Pseudo-Synode," and its acts "ein aecht byzantinisches Machwerk ganz vom Geiste des verschmitzten Photius durchdrungen." Bishop Hefele, in the revised edition of his Conciliengesch. (IV. 464 sqq.), treats this Aftersynode, as he calls it, no better. Both follow in the track of their old teacher, Dr. Döllinger who, in his History of the Church (translated by Dr. Edward Cox, London 1841, vol. III. p. 100), more than forty years ago, described this Synod "in all its parts as a worthy sister of the Council of Robbers of the year 449; with this difference, that in the earlier Synod violence and tyranny, in the later artifice, fraud, and falsehood were employed by wicked men to work out their wicked designs." But when in 1870 the Vatican Council sanctioned the historical falsehood of papal infallibility, Döllinger, once the ablest advocate of Romanism in Germany, protested against Rome and was excommunicated. Whatever the Latins may say against the Synod of Photius, the Latin Synod of 869 was not a whit better, and Rome understood the arts of intrigue fully as well as Constantinople. The whole controversy between the Greek and the Roman churches is one of the most humiliating chapters in the history of Christianity, and both must humbly confess their share of sin and guilt before a reconciliation can take place. __________________________________________________________________ [307] The Synod, claiming to be the infallible organ of the Holy Spirit, compared Photius with a robber and adulterer for obtruding himself into the see of Constantinople during the lifetime of Ignatius, deprived him of all priestly honors and functions "by authority of Almighty God, St. Peter and St. Paul, the princes of the apostles, of all saints, of the six [why not seven?] ecumenical councils, as also by the judgment of the Holy Ghost," and threatened him and all his adherents with the anathema and excommunication from the eucharist till the moment of death, "that no one may dare hereafter from the state of the laity to break into the camp of the Lord, as has often been the case in the church of Constantinople." See on this Synod Hergenröther, Phot. I. 519 sqq., and Hefele IV. 269 sqq. [308] See the Encyclica ad Patriarchas Orientales in the original Greek in Photius, Opera II. 722-742 (ed. Migne), also in Gieseler II. 216 sq. Baronius (ad ann. 863 no. 34 sq.) gives it in Latin. [309] Strictly speaking, however, the Orthodox Eastern Church counts only seven OEcumenical Councils. [310] The Roman Catholic historians regard this letter as a Greek fraud. "Ich kann nicht glauben," says Hefele (IV. 482), "dass je ein Papst seine Stellung so sehr vergessen habe, wie es Johann VIII. gethan haben müsste, wenn dieser Brief ächt wäre. Es ist in demselben auch keine Spur des Papalbewusstseins, vielmehr ist die Superiorität des Photius fast ausdrücklich anerkannt." __________________________________________________________________ § 71. Progress and Completion of the Schism. Cerularius. Hergenröther: Photius, Vol. III. 653-887; Comp. his Kirchengesch. vol. I. 688 sq.; 690-694. Hefele: Conciliengesch. IV. 587; 765 sqq.; 771, 775 sqq. Gieseler: II. 221 sqq. We shall briefly sketch the progress and consolidation of the schism. The Difference About Tetragamy. The fourth marriage of the emperor Leo the Philosopher (886-912), which was forbidden by the laws of the Greek church, caused a great schism in the East (905). [311] The Patriarch Nicolas Mysticus solemnly protested and was deposed (906), but Pope Sergius III. (904-911), instead of siding with suffering virtue as Pope Nicolas had done, sanctioned the fourth marriage (which was not forbidden in the West) and the deposition of the conscientious patriarch. Leo on his death-bed restored the deposed patriarch (912). A Synod of Constantinople in 920, at which Pope John X. was represented, declared a fourth marriage illegal, and made no concessions to Rome. The Emperor Constantine, Leo's son, prohibited a fourth marriage by an edict; thereby casting a tacit imputation on his own birth. The Greek church regards marriage as a sacrament, and a necessary means for the propagation of the race, but a second marriage is prohibited to the clergy, a third marriage is tolerated in laymen as a sort of legal concubinage, and a fourth is condemned as a sin and a scandal. The pope acquiesced, and the schism slumbered during the dark tenth century. The venal Pope John XIX. (1024) was ready for an enormous sum to renounce all the claim of superiority over the Eastern patriarchs, but was forced to break off the negotiations when his treasonable plan was discovered. Cerularius and Leo IX. Michael Cerularius (or Caerularius), [312] who was patriarch from 1043 to 1059, renewed and completed the schism. Heretofore the mutual anathemas were hurled only against the contending heads and their party; now the churches excommunicated each other. The Emperor Constantinus Monachus courted the friendship of the pope for political reasons, but his patriarch checkmated him. Cerularius, in connection with the learned Bulgarian metropolitan Leo of Achrida, addressed in 1053 a letter to John, bishop of Trani, in Apulia (then subject to the Eastern rule), and through him to all the bishops of France and to the pope himself, charging the churches of the West that, following the practice of the Jews, and contrary to the usage of Christ, they employ in the eucharist unleavened bread; that they fast on Saturday in Lent; that they eat blood and things strangled in violation of the decree of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts, ch. 15); and that during the fast they do not sing the hallelujah. He invented the new name Azymites for the heresy of using unleavened bread (azyma) instead of common bread. [313] Nothing was said about the procession of the Spirit. This letter is only extant in the Latin translation of Cardinal Humbert. [314] Pope Leo IX. sent three legates under the lead of the imperious Humbert to Constantinople, with counter-charges to the effect that Cerularius arrogated to himself the title of "oecumenical" patriarch; that he wished to subject the patriarchs of Alexandria and of Antioch; that the Greeks rebaptized the Latins; that, like the Nicolaitans, they permitted their priests to live in wedlock; [315] that they neglected to baptize their children before the eighth day after birth; that, like the Pneumatomachi or Theomachi, they cut out of the symbol the Procession of the Spirit from the Son. [316] The legates were lodged in the imperial palace, but Cerularius avoided all intercourse with them. Finally, on the 16th of July, 1054, they excommunicated the patriarch and all those who should persistently censure the faith of the church of Rome or its mode of offering the holy sacrifice. They placed the writ on the altar of the church of Hagia Sophia with the words: "Videat Deus et judicet." Cerularius, supported by his clergy and the people, immediately answered by a synodical counter-anathema on the papal legates, and accused them of fraud. In a letter to Peter, the patriarch of Antioch (who at first acted the part of a mediator), he charged Rome with other scandals, namely, that two brothers were allowed to espouse two sisters; that bishops wore rings and engaged in warfare; that baptism was administered by a single immersion; that salt was put in the mouth of the baptized; that the images and relics of saints were not honored; and that Gregory the Theologian, Basil, and Chrysostom were not numbered among the saints. The Filioque was also mentioned. [317] The charge of the martial spirit of the bishops was well founded in that semi-barbarous age. Cerularius was all-powerful for several years; he dethroned one emperor and crowned another, but died in exile (1059). The patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem adhered to the see of Constantinople. Thus the schism between the Christian East and West was completed. The number of episcopal sees at that time was nearly equal on both sides, but in the course of years the Latin church far outgrew the East. The Latin Empire in the East. 1204-1261. During the Crusades the schism was deepened by the brutal atrocities of the French and Venetian soldiers in the pillage of Constantinople (1204), the establishment of a Latin empire, and the appointment by the pope of Latin bishops in Greek sees. [318] Although this artificial empire lasted only half a century (1204-1261), it left a legacy of burning hatred in the memories of horrible desecrations and innumerable insults and outrages, which the East had to endure from the Western barbarians. Churches and monasteries were robbed and desecrated, the Greek service mocked, the clergy persecuted, and every law of decency set at defiance. In Constantinople "a prostitute was seated on the throne of the patriarch; and that daughter of Belial, as she is styled, sung and danced in the church to ridicule the hymns and processions of the Orientals." Even Pope Innocent III. accuses the pilgrims that they spared in their lust neither age nor sex, nor religious profession, and that they committed fornication, adultery, and incest in open day (in oculis omnium), "abandoning matrons and virgins dedicated to God to the lewdness of grooms." And yet this great pope insulted the Eastern church by the establishment of a Latin hierarchy on the ruins of the Byzantine empire. [319] __________________________________________________________________ [311] Leo himself had forbidden not only tetragamy, but even trigamy. His four wives were Theophano, Zoë (his former mistress), Eudokia, and Zoë Karbonopsyne, who in 905 bore him a son, Constantine Porphyrogenitus (or Porphyrogennetos, d. 959). See Hergenröther, Phot. III. 656 sq. [312] Keroularios, probably from the Latin cerula (keriolos), ceriolarium, a candelabrum for wax-tapers. [313] Azyma is from azumos, unleavened (zume, leaven); hence he heorte ton azumon(arton), the feast of unleavened bread (the passover), during which the Jews were to eat unleavened bread. The Greeks insist that our Lord in instituting the eucharist after the passover-meal used true, nourishing bread (artosfromairo), as the sign of the new dispensation of joy and gladness; while the lifeless, unleavened bread (azumon) belongs to the Jewish dispensation. The Latins argued that artosmeans unleavened as well as leavened bread, and that Christ during the feast of the passover could not get any other but unleavened bread. They called the Greeks in turn Fermentarei in opposition to Azmitae. See Nicetas Stethatus (a cotemporary of Cerularius): De Fermentato et Azymis, publ. in Greek by Dimitracopulos, Lips. 1866 (Biblioth. ekkl.I. 18-36), and in Greek and Latin by Hergenröther, in Monumenta Graeca, etc., p. 139-154. Comp. also the Dissertation concerning Azymes in Neale's Eastern Church, Introd. II. 1051 sqq.; J. G. Hermann, Hist. concertationis de pane azymo et fermentato in caena Domini, Lips. 1737; and Hergenröther, Photius III. 739 sqq. [314] Baronius Annal. ad ann. 1053 no. 22; and Gieseler II. 222 sq. [315] "Sicut Nicolaitae carnales nuptias concedunt et defendunt sacri altaris ministris." On the other hand, Photius and the Greeks traced to the clerical celibacy the fact that the West had "so many children who knew not their fathers." [316] See a full résumé of Humbert's arguments in Hergenröther, III. 741-756. [317] See the documents in Gieseler II. 225 sqq. [318] Cardinal Hergenröther (Kirchengesch. I. 903) admits that it was largely (he ought to say, chiefly) through the guilt of the Latin conquerors ("grossentheils durch Schuld der lateinischen Eroberer") that "the hatred of the Greeks at the conquest of Constantinople, 1204, assumed gigantic dimensions." [319] See Gibbon's graphic description (in ch. LX.) of the horrors of the sack of Constantinople, gathered from the concurrent accounts of the French marshall Villehardouin (who does not betray a symptom of pity or remorse) and the Byzantine senator Nicetas (one of the sufferers). On the barbarities previously committed at Thessalonica by the Normans in 1186, see Eustathius De capta Thessalonica (ed. Bonnae 1842, quoted by Gieseler II. 609); on the barbarities in the island of Cyprus after its delivery by Richard to Guy, king of Jerusalem, in 1192, see the anonymous account in Allatius, De eccles. occident. et orient. perpet. consens. 1. II. c. XIII. 693 sq. Leo Allatius was a Greek convert to the Roman church, and found no fault with these cruelties against the church of his fathers; on the contrary he says: "Opus erat, effraenes propriaeque fidei rebelles et veritatis oppugnatores non exilio, sed ferro et igne in saniorem mentem reducere. Haeretici proscribendi sunt, exterminandi sunt, puniendi sunt et pertinaces occidendi, cremandi. Ita leges sanciunt, ita observavit antiquitas, nec alius mos est recentioris ecclesiae tum Graecae tum Latinae." __________________________________________________________________ § 72. Fruitless Attempts at Reunion. The Greek emperors, hard pressed by the terrible Turks, who threatened to overthrow their throne, sought from time to time by negotiations with the pope to secure the powerful aid of the West. But all the projects of reunion split on the rock of papal absolutism and Greek obstinacy. The Council of Lyons. a.d. 1274. [320] Michael Palaeologus (1260-1282), who expelled the Latins from Constantinople (July 25, 1261), restored the Greek patriarchate, but entered into negotiations with Pope Urban IV. to avert the danger of a new crusade for the reconquest of Constantinople. A general council (the 14th of the Latins) was held at Lyons in 1273 and 1274 with great solemnity and splendor for the purpose of effecting a reunion. Five hundred Latin bishops, seventy abbots, and about a thousand other ecclesiastics were present, together with ambassadors from England, France, Germany, and other countries. Palaeologus sent a large embassy, but only three were saved from shipwreck, Germanus, ex-patriarch of Constantinople, Theophanes, metropolitan of Nicaea, and the chancellor of the empire. The pope opened the Synod (May 7, 1274) by the celebration of high mass, and declared the threefold object of the Synod to be: help for Jerusalem, union with the Greeks, and reform of the church. Bonaventura preached the sermon. Thomas Aquinas, the prince of schoolmen, who had defended the Latin doctrine of the double procession [321] was to attend, but had died on the journey to Lyons (March 7, 1274), in his 49th year. The imperial delegates were treated with marked courtesy abjured the schism, submitted to the pope and accepted the distinctive tenets of the Roman church. But the Eastern patriarchs were not represented, the people of Constantinople abhorred the union with Rome, and the death of the despotic Michael Palaeologus (1282) was also the death of the Latin party, and the formal revocation of the act of submission to the pope. The Council at Ferrara--Florence. a.d. 1438-1439. [322] Another attempt at reunion was made by John VII. Palaeologus in the Council of Ferrara, which was convened by Pope Eugenius IV. in opposition to the reformatory Council of Basle. It was afterwards transferred to Florence on account of the plague. It was attended by the emperor, the patriarch of Constantinople, and twenty-one Eastern prelates, among them the learned Bessarion of Nicaea, Mark of Ephesus, Dionysius of Sardis, Isidor of Kieff. The chief points of controversy were discussed: the procession of the Spirit, purgatory, the use of unleavened bread, and the supremacy of the pope. [323] Bessarion became a convert to the Western doctrine, and was rewarded by a cardinal's hat. He was twice near being elected pope (d. 1472). The decree of the council, published July 6, 1439, embodies his views, and was a complete surrender to the pope with scarcely a saving clause for the canonical rights and privileges of the Eastern patriarchs. The Greek formula on the procession, ex Patre per Filium, was declared to be identical with the Latin Filioque; the pope was acknowledged not only as the successor of Peter and Vicar of Christ, but also as "the head of the whole church and father and teacher of all Christians," but with variations in the Greek texts. [324] The document of reunion was signed by the pope, the emperor, many archbishops and bishops, the representatives of all the Eastern patriarchs except that of Constantinople, who had previously died at Florence, but had left as his last sentence a disputed submission to the catholic and apostolic church of old Rome. For the triumph of his cause the pope could easily promise material aid to his Eastern ally, to pay the expenses of the deputation, to support three hundred soldiers for the protection of Constantinople, and to send, if necessary, an army and navy for the defense of the emperor against his enemies. But when the humiliating terms of the reunion were divulged, the East and Russia rose in rebellion against the Latinizers as traitors to the orthodox faith; the compliant patriarchs openly recanted, and the new patriarch of Constantinople, Metrophanes, now called in derision Metrophonus or Matricide, was forced to resign. After the Fall of Constantinople. The capture of Constantinople by the Mohammedan Turks (1453) and the overthrow of the Byzantine empire put an end to all political schemes of reunion, but opened the way for papal propagandism in the East. The division of the church facilitated that catastrophe which delivered the fairest lands to the blasting influence of Islâm, and keeps it in power to this day, although it is slowly waning. The Turk has no objection to fights among the despised Christians, provided they only injure themselves and do not touch the Koran. He is tolerant from intolerance. The Greeks hate the pope and the Filioque as much as they hate the false prophet of Mecca; while the pope loves his own power more than the common cause of Christianity, and would rather see the Sultan rule in the city of Constantine than a rival patriarch or the Czar of schismatic Russia. During the nineteenth century the schism has been intensified by the creation of two new dogmas,--the immaculate conception of Mary (1854) and the infallibility of the pope (1870). When Pius IX. invited the Eastern patriarchs to attend the Vatican Council, they indignantly refused, and renewed their old protest against the antichristian usurpation of the papacy and the heretical Filioque. They could not submit to the Vatican decrees without stultifying their whole history and committing moral suicide. Papal absolutism [325] and Eastern stagnation are insuperable barriers to the reunion of the divided churches, which can only be brought about by great events and by the wonder-working power of the Spirit of God. __________________________________________________________________ [320] See a full account of it in the sixth volume of Hefele's Conciliengeschichte, p. 103-147. [321] In his book Contra errores Graecorum. [322] See Cecconi (R.C.), Studi storici sul Concilio di Firenze (Florence 1869); Hefele (R.C.), Conciliengesch. vol. VII. Pt. II. (1874), p. 659-761; B. Popoff (Gr.), History of the Council of Florence, translated from the Russian, ed. by J. M. Neale (Lond. 1861); Frommann (Prot.), Krit. Beiträge zur Gesch. florentin. Kirchenvereinigung(Halle, 1872). [323] On the subject of purgatory the Greeks disagreed among themselves. The doctrine of transubstantiation was conceded, and therefore not brought under discussion. [324] Hefele (l.c. p. 741-761) gives the Latin and Greek texts with a critical discussion. Frommann and Döllinger charge the decree with falsification. [325] Or, as the modern Greeks call it, the papolatria of the Latins. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER VI. MORALS AND RELIGION. __________________________________________________________________ § 73. Literature. I. The chief and almost only sources for this chapter are the acts of Synods, the lives of saints and missionaries, and the chronicles of monasteries. The Acta Sanctorum mix facts and legends in inextricable confusion. The most important are the biographies of the Irish, Scotch, and Anglo-Saxon missionaries, and the letters of Boniface. For the history, of France during the sixth and seventh centuries we have the Historia Francorum by Gregory of Tours, the Herodotus of France (d. 594), first printed in Paris, 1511, better by Ruinart, 1699; best by Giesebrecht (in German), Berlin 1851, 9th ed. 1873, 2 vols.; and Gregorii Historiae Epitomata by his continuator, Fredegar, a clergyman of Burgundy (d. about 660), ed. by Ruinart, Paris 1699, and by Abel (in German), Berlin 1849. For the age of Charlemagne we have the Capitularies of the emperor, and the historical works of Einhard or Eginard (d. 840). See Ouvres complètes d' Eginard, réunies pour la première fois et traduites en français, par A. Teulet, Paris 1840-'43, 2 vols. For an estimate of these and other writers of our period comp. part of the first, and the second vol. of Ad. Ebert's Allgem. Gesch. der Lit. des Mittelalters im Abendlande, Leipz. 1874 and 1880. II. Hefele: Conciliengesch. vols. III. and IV. (from a.d. 560-1073), revised ed. 1877 and 1879. Neander: Denkwördigkeiten aus der Geschichte des christl. Lebens. 3d ed. Hamburg, 1845, '46, 2 vols. Aug. Thierry: Recits des temps merovingiens. Paris 1855 (based on Gregory of Tours). Loebell: Gregor von Tours und seine Zeit. Leipz. 1839, second ed. 1868. Monod: Études critiques sur les sources de l'histoire mérovingienne. Paris 1872. Lecky: History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne, fifth ed. Lond. 1882, 2 vols. (part of the second vol.). Brace: Gesta Christi, N. York, third ed. 1883, p. 107 sqq. Comp. Guizot (Protest., d. 1874): Histoire générale de la civilisation en Europe et en Prance depuis la chute de l'empire romain jusqu à la révolution française, Paris 1830; seventh ed. 1860, 5 vols. (one vol. on Europe in general). Balmez, (a Spanish philosopher and apologist of the Roman church, d. 1848): El Protatantismo comparado con el Catolicismo en sus relaciones con la civilisacion europea. Barcelona, 1842-44, 4 vols. The same in French, German, and English translations. A Roman Catholic counterpart to Guizot. __________________________________________________________________ § 74. General Character of Mediaeval Morals. The middle age of Western Christendom resembles the period of the Judges in the history of Israel when "the highways were unoccupied, and the travelers walked through by-ways," and when "every man did that which was right in his own eyes." [326] It was a time of civil and political commotions and upheavings, of domestic wars and foreign invasions. Society was in a chaotic state and bordering on the brink of anarchy. Might was right. It was the golden age of border-ruffians, filibusters, pirates and bold adventurers, but also of gallant knights, genuine heroes and judges, like Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, and Samuel of old. It presents, in striking contrasts, Christian virtues and heathen vices, ascetic self-denial and gross sensuality. Nor were there wanting idyllic episodes of domestic virtue and happiness which call to mind the charming story of Ruth from the period of the Judges. Upon the whole the people were more religious than moral. Piety was often made a substitute or atonement for virtue. Belief in the supernatural and miraculous was universal; scepticism and unbelief were almost unknown. Men feared purgatory and hell, and made great sacrifices to gain heaven by founding churches, convents, and charitable institutions. And yet there was a frightful amount of immorality among the rulers and the people. In the East the church had to contend with the vices of an effete civilization and a corrupt court. In Italy, France and Spain the old Roman vices continued and were even invigorated by the infusion of fresh and barbaric blood. The history of the Merovingian rulers, as we learn from Bishop Gregory of Tours, is a tragedy of murder, adultery, and incest, and ends in destruction. [327] The church was unfavorably affected by the state of surrounding society, and often drawn into the current of prevailing immorality. Yet, upon the whole, she was a powerful barrier against vice, and the chief, if not the only promoter of education, virtue and piety in the dark ages. From barbaric and semi-barbaric material she had to build up the temple of a Christian civilization. She taught the new converts the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments the best popular summaries of faith, piety, and duty. She taught them also the occupations of peaceful life. She restrained vice and encouraged virtue. The synodical legislation was nearly always in the right direction. Great stress was laid on prayer and fasting, on acts of hospitality, charity, and benevolence, and on pilgrimages to sacred places. The rewards of heaven entered largely as an inducement for leading a virtuous and holy life; but it is far better that people should be good from fear of hell and love of heaven than ruin themselves by immorality and vice. A vast amount of private virtue and piety is never recorded on the pages of histor y, and is spent in modest retirement. So the wild flowers in the woods and on the mountains bloom and fade away unseen by human eyes. Every now and then incidental allusion is made to unknown saints. Pope Gregory mentions a certain Servulus in Rome who was a poor cripple from childhood, but found rich comfort and peace in the Bible, although he could not read himself, and had to ask pious friends to read it to him while he was lying on his couch; he never complained, but was full of gratitude and praise; when death drew near he requested his friends to sing psalms with him; then stopped suddenly and expired with the words: "Peace, hear ye not the praises of God sounding from heaven?" This man's life of patient suffering was not in vain, but a benediction to many who came in contact with it. "Those also serve who only stand and wait." The moral condition of the middle age varied considerably. The migration of nations was most unfavorable to the peaceful work of the church. Then came the bright reign of Charlemagne with his noble efforts for education and religion, but it was soon followed, under his weak successors, by another period of darkness which grew worse and worse till a moral reformation began in the convent of Cluny, and reached the papal chair under the lead of Hildebrand. Yet if we judge by the number of saints in the Roman Calendar, the seventh century, which is among the, darkest, was more pious than any of the preceding and succeeding centuries, except the third and fourth (which are enriched by the martyrs). Notes. The following is the table of saints in the Roman Calendar (according to Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints): Saints. First Century 53 Second Century 43 Third Century 139 Fourth Century 213 Fifth Century 130 Sixth Century 123 Seventh Century 174 Eighth Century 78 Ninth Century 49 Tenth Century 28 Eleventh Century 45 Twelfth Century 54 Thirteenth Century 49 Fourteenth Century 27 Fifteenth Century 17 Sixteenth Century 24 Seventeenth Century 15 Eighteenth Century 20 In the first centuries the numerous but nameless martyrs of the Neronian and other persecutions are not separately counted. The Holy Innocents, the Seven Sleepers (in the third century), the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (fourth century,) and other groups of martyrs are counted only one each. Lecky asserts too confidently that the seventh century was the most prolific in saints, and yet the most immoral. It is strange that the number of saints should have declined from the seventh century, while the church increased, and that the eighteenth century of infidelity should have produced five more saints than the seventeenth century. It would therefore be very unsafe to make this table the basis for __________________________________________________________________ [326] Comp, Judges 5:6; 17:6. [327] "It would be difficult," says Gibbon of this period, "to find anywhere more vice or less virtue." The judgments of Hallam, Milman, and Lecky are to the same effect. Compare also the description of Montalembert, quoted above, p. 82 sq. __________________________________________________________________ § 75. Clerical Morals. 1. Social Position. The clergy stood, during the middle ages, at the head of society, and shared with kings and nobles the rule of the people. They had the guardianship of the souls and consciences of men, and handled the keys of the kingdom of heaven. They possessed nearly all the learning, but it was generally very limited, and confined to a little Latin without any Greek. Some priests descended from noble and even royal blood, others from slaves who belonged to monasteries. They enjoyed many immunities from public burdens, as military duty and taxation. Charlemagne and his successors granted to them all the privileges which the Eastern emperors from the time of Constantine had bestowed upon them. They could not be sued before a civil court, and had their own episcopal tribunals. No lay judge could apprehend or punish an ecclesiastic without the permission of his bishop. They were supported by the income from landed estates, cathedral funds, and the annual tithes which were enacted after the precedent of the Mosaic law. Pepin, by a decree of 764, imposed the payment of tithes upon all the royal possessions. Charlemagne extended it to all lands, and made the obligation general by a capitulary in 779. The tithes were regarded as the minimum contribution for the maintenance of religion and the support of the poor. They were generally paid to the bishop, as the administrator of all ecclesiastical goods. Many nobles had their own domestic chaplains who depended on their lords, and were often employed in degrading offices, as waiting at table and attending to horses and hounds. 2. Morals. The priests were expected to excel in virtue as well as in education, and to commend their profession by an exemplary life. Upon the whole they were superior to their flock, but not unfrequently they disgraced their profession by scandalous immorality. According to ancient discipline every priest at his ordination was connected with a particular church except missionaries to heathen lands. But many priests defied the laws, and led an irregular wandering life as clerical tramps. They were forbidden to wear the sword, but many a bishop lost his life on the battle field and even some popes engaged in warfare. Drunkenness and licentiousness were common vices. Gregory of Tours mentions a bishop named Cautinus who, when intoxicated, had to be carried by four men from the table. Boniface gives a very unfavorable but partizan account of the French and German clergymen who acted independently of Rome. The acts of Synods are full of censures and punishments of clerical sins and vices. They legislated against fornication, intemperance, avarice, the habits of hunting, of visiting horse-races and theatres, and enjoined even corporal punishments. [328] Clerical immorality reached the lowest depth in the tenth and eleventh centuries, when Rome was a sink of iniquity, and the popes themselves set the worst example. But a new reform began with the Hildebrandian popes. 3. Canonical Life. Chrodegang, bishop of Metz (a.d. 760), reformed the clergy by introducing, or reviving, after the example of St. Augustin, the "canonical" or semi-monastic life. The bishop and lower clergymen lived in the same house, near the cathedral, ate at the same table, prayed and studied together, like a family of monks, only differing from them in dress and the right of holding property or receiving fees for official services. Such an establishment was called Chapter, [329] and the members of it were called Canons. [330] The example was imitated in other places. Charlemagne made the canonical life obligatory on all bishops as far as possible. Many chapters were liberally endowed. But during the civil commotions of the Carolingians the canonical life degenerated or was broken up. 4. Celibacy. In the East the lower clergy were always allowed to marry, and only a second marriage is forbidden. In the West celibacy was the prescribed rule, but most clergymen lived either with lawful wives or with concubines. In Milan all the priests and deacons were married in the middle of the eleventh century, but to the disgust of the severe moralists of the time. [331] Hadrian II. was married before he became pope, and had a daughter, who was murdered by her husband, together with the pope's wife, Stephania (868). [332] The wicked pope Benedict IX. sued for the daughter of his cousin, who consented on condition that he resign the papacy (1033). [333] The Hildebrandian popes, Leo IX. and Nicolas II., made attempts to enforce clerical celibacy all over the West. They identified the interests of clerical morality and influence with clerical celibacy, and endeavored to destroy natural immorality by enforcing unnatural morality. How far Gregory VII. succeeded in this part of his reform, will be seen in the next period. __________________________________________________________________ [328] It seems incredible that there should have been an occasion for legislation against clergymen keeping houses of prostitution; and yet the Quinisexta or Trullan Synod of 692 enacted the canon: "He who keeps a brothel, if a clergyman, shall be deposed and excommunicated; if a layman, excommunicated." Hefele III. 341. [329] Capitulum, from the chapter of the Bible or of the monastic rules which were read in common every day. The name was applied both to the clerical brotherhood and to their habitation (chapter-house). The plural, Capitula or Capitularia designates codes of law ecclesiastical or civil, digested under chapters. See Martene, De Antiqu. Eccl. Ritibus, 1, IV. c. VI. § 4, and Haddan In Smith and Cheetham, I. 347. [330] Canonici, either because they were bound by canons, or enrolled on the lists of ecclesiastical officers. They occupied an intermediate position between the secular clergy and the monks. See Du Cange, and Smith and Cheetham, sub Canonici. [331] Hefele IV. 794. [332] Ibid. p. 373. [333] Ibid. p. 707. __________________________________________________________________ § 76. Domestic Life. The purity and happiness of home-life depend on the position of woman, who is the beating heart of the household. Female degradation was one of the weakest spots in the old Greek and Roman civilization. The church, in counteracting the prevailing evil, ran into the opposite extreme of ascetic excess as a radical cure. Instead of concentrating her strength on the purification and elevation of the family, she recommended lonely celibacy as a higher degree of holiness and a safer way to heaven. Among the Western and Northern barbarians she found a more favorable soil for the cultivation of Christian family life. The contrast which the heathen historian Tacitus and the Christian monk Salvian draw between the chastity of the Teutonic barbarians and the licentiousness of the Latin races is overdrawn for effect, but not without foundation. The German and Scandinavian tribes had an instinctive reverence for the female sex, as being inspired by a divinity, possessed of the prophetic gift, and endowed with secret charms. Their women shared the labors and dangers of men, emboldened them in their fierce battles, and would rather commit suicide than submit to dishonor. Yet the wife was entirely in the power of her husband, and could be bought, sold, beaten, and killed. The Christian religion preserved and strengthened the noble traits, and developed them into the virtues of chivalry; while it diminished or abolished evil customs and practices. The Synods often deal with marriage and divorce. Polygamy, concubinage, secret marriages, marriages with near relatives, mixed marriages with heathens or Jews or heretics were forbidden; the marriage tie was declared sacred and indissoluble (except by adultery); sexual intemperance restrained and forbidden on Sundays and during Lent; the personal independence of woman and her rights of property were advanced. The Virgin Mary was constantly held up to the imagination as the incarnation of female parity and devotion. Not unfrequently, however, marriages were dissolved by mutual consent from mistaken ascetic piety. When a married layman entered the priesthood or a convent, he usually forsook his wife. In a Roman Synod of 827 such separation was made subject to the approval of the bishop. A Synod of Rouen, 1072, forbade husbands whose wives had taken the veil, to marry another. Wives whose husbands had disappeared were forbidden by the same Synod to marry until the fact of death was made certain. [334] Upon the whole, the synodical legislation on the subject of marriage was wise, timely, restraining, purifying, and ennobling in its effect. The purest and brightest chapter in the history of Pope Nicolas I. is his protection of injured innocence in the person of the divorced wife of King Lothair of Lorraine. [335] __________________________________________________________________ [334] For all these details see the scattered notices in vols, III. and IV. of Hefele. [335] See § 61, p. 275 sq. __________________________________________________________________ § 77. Slavery. See the Lit. in vol. I. § 48 (p. 444), and in vol. II. § 97 (p. 347). Comp. also Balmes (R.C.): Protestantism and Catholicism compared in their effects on the Civilization of Europe. Transl. from the spanish. Baltimore 1851, Chs. xv.-xix. Brace: Gesta Christi, Ch. xxi. History is a slow but steady progress of emancipation from the chains which sin has forged. The institution of slavery was universal in Europe during the middle ages among barbarians as well as among civilized nations. It was kept up by natural increase, by war, and by the slave-trade which was carried on in Europe more or less till the fifteenth century, and in America till the eighteenth. Not a few freemen sold themselves into slavery for debt, or from poverty. The slaves were completely under the power of their masters, and had no claim beyond the satisfaction of their physical wants. They could not bear witness in courts of justice. They could be bought and sold with their children like other property. The marriage tie was disregarded, and marriages between freemen and slaves were null and void. In the course of time slavery was moderated into serfdom, which was attached to the soil. Small farmers often preferred that condition to freedom, as it secured them the protection of a powerful nobleman against robbers and invaders. The condition of the serfs, however, during the middle ages was little better than that of slaves, and gave rise to occasional outbursts in the Peasant Wars, which occurred mostly in connection with the free preaching of the Gospel (as by Wiclif and the Lollards in England, and by Luther in Germany), but which were suppressed by force, and in their immediate effects increased the burdens of the dependent classes. The same struggle between capital and labor is still going on in different forms. The mediaeval church inherited the patristic views of slavery. She regarded it as a necessary evil, as a legal right based on moral wrong, as a consequence of sin and a just punishment for it. She put it in the same category with war, violence, pestilence, famine, and other evils. St. Augustin, the greatest theological authority of the Latin church, treats slavery as disturbance of the normal condition and relation. God did not, he says, establish the dominion of man over man, but only over the brute. He derives the word servus, as usual, from servare (to save the life of captives of war doomed to death), but cannot find it in the Bible till the time of the righteous Noah, who gave it as a punishment to his guilty son Ham; whence it follows that the word came "from sin, not from nature." He also holds that the institution will finally be abolished when all iniquity shall disappear, and God shall be all in all. [336] The church exerted her great moral power not so much towards the abolition of slavery as the amelioration and removal of the evils connected with it. Many provincial Synods dealt with the subject, at least incidentally. The legal right of holding slaves was never called in question, and slaveholders were in good and regular standing. Even convents held slaves, though in glaring inconsistency with their professed principle of equality and brotherhood. Pope Gregory the Great, one of the most humane of the popes, presented bondservants from his own estates to convents, and exerted all his influence to recover a fugitive slave of his brother. [337] A reform Synod of Pavia, over which Pope Benedict VIII., one of the forerunners of Hildebrand, presided (a.d. 1018), enacted that sons and daughters of clergymen, whether from free-women or slaves, whether from legal wives or concubines, are the property of the church, and should never be emancipated. [338] No pope has ever declared slavery incompatible with Christianity. The church was strongly conservative, and never encouraged a revolutionary or radical movement looking towards universal emancipation. But, on the other hand, the Christian spirit worked silently, steadily and irresistibly in the direction of emancipation. The church, as the organ of that spirit, proclaimed ideas and principles which, in their legitimate working, must root out ultimately both slavery and tyranny, and bring in a reign of freedom, love, and peace. She humbled the master and elevated the slave, and reminded both of their common origin and destiny. She enjoined in all her teaching the gentle and humane treatment of slaves, and enforced it by the all-powerful motives derived from the love of Christ, the common redemption and moral brotherhood of men. She opened her houses of worship as asylums to fugitive slaves, and surrendered them to their masters only on promise of pardon. [339] She protected the freedmen in the enjoyment of their liberty. She educated sons of slaves for the priesthood, with the permission of their masters, but required emancipation before ordination. [340] Marriages of freemen with slaves were declared valid if concluded with the knowledge of the condition of the latter. [341] Slaves could not be forced to labor on Sundays. This was a most important and humane protection of the right to rest and worship. [342] No Christian was permitted by the laws of the church to sell a slave to foreign lands, or to a Jew or heathen. Gregory I. prohibited the Jews within the papal jurisdiction to keep Christian slaves, which he considered an outrage upon the Christian name. Nevertheless even clergymen sometimes sold Christian slaves to Jews. The tenth Council of Toledo (656 or 657) complains of this practice, protests against it with Bible passages, and reminds the Christians that "the slaves were redeemed by the blood of Christ, and that Christians should rather buy than sell them." [343] Individual emancipation was constantly encouraged as a meritorious work of charity well pleasing to God, and was made a solemn act. The master led the slave with a torch around the altar, and with his hands on the altar pronounced the act of liberation in such words as these: "For fear of Almighty God, and for the care of my soul I liberate thee;" or: "In the name and for the love of God I do free this slave from the bonds of slavery." Occasionally a feeble voice was raised against the institution itself, especially from monks who were opposed to all worldly possession, and felt the great inconsistency of convents holding slave-property. Theodore of the Studium forbade his convent to do this, but on the ground that secular possessions and marriage were proper only for laymen. [344] A Synod of Chalons, held between 644 and 650, at which thirty-eight bishops and six episcopal representatives were present, prohibited the selling of Christian slaves outside of the kingdom of Clovis, from fear that they might fall into the power of pagans or Jews, and he introduces this decree with the significant words: "The highest piety and religion demand that Christians should be redeemed entirely from the bond of servitude." [345] By limiting the power of sale, slave-property was raised above ordinary property, and this was a step towards abolishing this property itself by legitimate means. Under the combined influences of Christianity, civilization, and oeconomic and political considerations, the slave trade was forbidden, and slavery gradually changed into serfdom, and finally abolished all over Europe and North America. Where the spirit of Christ is there is liberty. Notes. In Europe serfdom continued till the eighteenth century, in Russia even till 1861, when it was abolished by the Czar Alexander II. In the United States, the freest country in the world, strange to say, negro slavery flourished and waxed fat under the powerful protection of the federal constitution, the fugitive slave-law, the Southern state-laws, and "King Cotton," until it went out in blood (1861-65) at a cost far exceeding the most liberal compensation which Congress might and ought to have made for a peaceful emancipation. But passion ruled over reason, self-interest over justice, and politics over morals and religion. Slavery still lingers in nominally Christian countries of South America, and is kept up with the accursed slave-trade under Mohammedan rule in Africa, but is doomed to disappear from the bounds of civilization. __________________________________________________________________ [336] De Civit. Dei, 1. XIX. c. 15. "Nomen [servus] culpa meruit, non natura ... Prima servitutis causa peccatum est, ut homo homini conditionis vinculo subderetur quod non fuit nisi Deo judicante, apud quem non est iniquitas." He thinks it will continue with the duties prescribed by the apostles, donec transeat iniquitas, et evacuetur omnis principatus, et potestas humana, et sit Deus omnia in omnibus.." Chrysostom taught substantially the same views, and derived from the sin of Adam a threefold servitude and a threefold tyranny, that of the husband over the wife, the master over the slave, and the state over the subjects. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the schoolmen, " did not see in slavery either difference of race or imaginary inferiority or means of government, but only a scourge inflicted on humanity by the sins of the first man" (Balmes, p. 112). But none of these great men seems to have had an idea that slavery would ever disappear from the earth except with sin itself. Cessante causa, cessat effectus. See vol. III. 115-121. [337] Epist. X. 66; IX. 102. See these and other passages in Overbeck, Verhältniss der alten Kirche zur Sklaverei, in his "Studien zur Gesch. der alten Kirche" (1875) p. 211 sq. Overbeck, however, dwells too much on the proslavery sentiments of the fathers, and underrates the merits of the church for the final abolition of slavery. [338] Hefele IV. 670. [339] Synod of Clermont, a.d.549. Hefele III. 5; comp. II. 662. [340] Fifth Synod of Orleans, 549; Synod of Aachen, 789; Synod of Francfurt, 794. See Hefele III. 3, 666, 691. If ordination took place without the master's consent, he could reclaim the slave from the ranks of the clergy. Hefele IV. 26. [341] Hefele III. 574, 575, 611. The first example was set by Pope Callistus (218-223), who was himself formerly a slave, and gave the sanction of the Roman church to marriages between free Christian ladies and slaves or lowborn men. Hippolytus, Philosoph. IX. 12 (p. 460 ed. Duncker and Schneidewin). This was contrary to Roman law, and disapproved even by Hippolytus. [342] The 16th Synod of Toledo, 693, passed the following canon: "If a slave works on Sunday by command of his master, the slave becomes free, and the master is punished to pay 30 solidi. If the slave works on Sunday without command of his master, he is whipped or must pay fine for his skin. If a freeman works on Sunday, he loses his liberty or must pay 60 solidi; a priest has to pay double the amount." Hefele II. 349; comp. p. 355. [343] Hefele III. 103; comp. IV. 70. Balmes, p. 108. [344] Overbeck, l.c., p. 219. [345] Conc. Cabilonense, can. 9: "Pietatis est maximae et religionis intuitus, ut captivitatis vinculum omnino a Christianis redimatur." The date of the Council is uncertain, see Mansi, Conc. X. 1198; Hefele, III. 92. __________________________________________________________________ § 78. Feuds and Private Wars. The Truce of God. A. Kluckhohn: Geschichte des Gottesfriedens. Leipzig 1857. Henry C. Lea: Superstition and Force. Essays on the Wager of Law--the Wager of Battle--the Ordeal--Torture. Phila. 1866 (407 pages). Among all barbarians, individual injury is at once revenged on the person of the enemy; and the family or tribe to which the parties belong identify themselves with the quarrel till the thirst for blood is satiated. Hence the feuds [346] and private wars, or deadly quarrels between families and clans. The same custom of self-help and unbridled passion prevails among the Mohammedan Arabs to this day. The influence of Christianity was to confine the responsibility for a crime to its author, and to substitute orderly legal process for summary private vengeance. The sixteenth Synod of Toledo (693) forbade duels and private feuds. [347] The Synod of Poitiers, a.d. 1000, resolved that all controversies should hereafter be adjusted by law and not by force. [348] The belligerent individuals or tribes were exhorted to reconciliation by a sealed agreement, and the party which broke the peace was excommunicated. A Synod of Limoges in 1031 used even the more terrible punishment of the interdict against the bloody feuds. These sporadic efforts prepared the way for one of the most benevolent institutions of the middle ages, the so-called "Peace" or "Truce of God." [349] It arose in Aquitania in France during or soon after a terrible famine in 1033, which increased the number of murders (even for the satisfaction of hunger) and inflicted untold misery upon the people. Then the bishops and abbots, as if moved by divine inspiration (hence "the Peace of God"), united in the resolution that all feuds should cease from Wednesday evening till Monday morning (a feriae quartae vespera usque ad secundam feriam, incipiente luce) on pain of excommunication. [350] In 1041 the archbishop Raimbald of Arles, the bishops Benedict of Avignon and Nitard of Nice, and the abbot Odilo of Clugny issued in their name and in the name of the French episcopate an encyclical letter to the Italian bishops and clergy, in which they solemnly implore them to keep the heaven-sent Treuga Dei, already introduced in Gaul, namely, to observe peace between neighbors, friends or foes on four days of the week, namely, on Thursday, on account of Christ's ascension, on Friday on account of his crucifixion, on Saturday in memory of his burial, on Sunday in memory of his resurrection. They add: "All who love this Treuga Dei we bless and absolve; but those who oppose it we anathematize and exclude from the church. He who punishes a disturber of the Peace of God shall be acquitted of guilt and blessed by all Christians as a champion of the cause of God." The peace-movement spread through all Burgundy and France, and was sanctioned by the Synods of Narbonne (1054), Gerundum in Spain (1068), Toulouse (1068), Troyes (1093), Rouen (1096), Rheims (1136), the Lateran (1139 and 1179), etc. The Synod of Clermont (1095), under the lead of Pope Urban II., made the Truce of God the general law of the church. The time of the Truce was extended to the whole period from the first of Advent to Epiphany, from Ashwednesday to the close of the Easter week, and from Ascension to the close of the week of Pentecost; also to the various festivals and their vigils. The Truce was announced by the ringing of bells. [351] __________________________________________________________________ [346] Saxon Faehth, or Faeght, Danish feide, Dutch veede, German Fehde, low Latin faida or faidia. Compare the German Feind, the English fiend. Du Cange defines faida: "Gravis et aperta inimicitia ob caedem aliquam suscepta, and refers to his dissertation De Privatis Bellis. [347] Hefele III. 349. [348] IV. 655, 689. [349] Treuga Dei, Gottesfriede. See Du Cange sub. "Treva, Treuga, seu Trevia Dei." The word occurs in several languages (treuga, tregoa, trauva, treva, trêve). It comes from the same root as the German treu, Treue, and the English true troth, truce, and signifies a pledge of faith, given for a time to an enemy for keeping peace. [350] Rodull Glaber, a monk of Cluny, gives a graphic account of this famine and the origin of the Peace movement, in his Historia sui Temporis, lib. IV. c.4 and 5 (in Migne's Patrol. Tom. 142, fol. 675-679). Hefele, IV. 698, traces the movement to Provence and to the year 1040 with a "perhaps," but Rodulf Glaber makes it begin "in Aquitaniae partibus anno incarnati Christi millesimo tricesimo tertio," from whence it spread rapidly "per Arelatensem provinciam, atque Lugdunensem, sicque per universam Burgundiam, atque in ultimas Franciae partes " (Migne, l. c. fol. 678). Comp. lib. V. 1 (fol. 693): "primitus inpartibus Aquitanicis, deinde paulatim per universum Galliarum territorium," etc. He also reports that the introduction of the Peace was blessed by innumerable cures and a bountiful harvest. "Erat instar illius antiqui Mosaici magni Jubilaei." Balderich, in his Chronicle of the Bishops of Cambray, reports that in one of the French synods a bishop showed a letter which fell from heaven and exhorted to peace. The bishop of Cambray, however, dissented because he thought the resolution could not be carried out. [351] See further details in Mansi XIX. 549 sq.; Kluckhohn; Hefele (IV. 696-702, 780); and Mejer in Herzog2V. 319 sqq. __________________________________________________________________ § 79. The Ordeal. Grimm: Deutsche Rechtsalterthömer, Göttingen 1828, p. 908 sqq. Hildenbrand: Die Purgatio canonica et vulgaris, Mönchen 1841. Unger: Der gerichtliche Zweikampf, Göttingen 1847. Philipps: Ueber die Ordalien, Mönchen 1847. Dahn: Studien zur Gesch. der Germ. Gottesurtheile, Mönchen 1867. Pfalz: Die german. Ordalien, Leipz. 1865. Henry C. Lea: Superstition and Force, Philad. 1866, p. 175-280. (I have especially used Lea, who gives ample authorities for his statements.) For synodical legislation on ordeals see Hefele, Vols. III. and IV. Another heathen custom with which the church had to deal, is the so-called Judgment of God or Ordeal, that is, a trial of guilt or innocence by a direct appeal to God through nature. [352] It prevailed in China, Japan, India, Egypt (to a less extent in Greece and Rome), and among the barbaric races throughout Europe. [353] The ordeal reverses the correct principle that a man must be held to be innocent until he is proved to be guilty, and throws the burden of proof upon the accused instead of the accuser. It is based on the superstitious and presumptuous belief that the divine Ruler of the universe will at any time work a miracle for the vindication of justice when man in his weakness cannot decide, and chooses to relieve himself of responsibility by calling heaven to his aid. In the Carlovingian Capitularies the following passage occurs: "Let doubtful cases be determined by the judgment of God. The judges may decide that which they clearly know, but that which they cannot know shall be reserved for the divine judgment. He whom God has reserved for his own judgment may not be condemned by human means." The customary ordeals in the middle ages were water-ordeals and fire-ordeals; the former were deemed plebeian, the latter (as well as the duel), patrician. The one called to mind the punishment of the deluge and of Pharaoh in the Red Sea; the other, the future punishment of hell. The water-ordeals were either by hot water, [354] or by cold water; [355] the fire-ordeals were either by hot iron, [356] or by pure fire. [357] The person accused or suspected of a crime was exposed to the danger of death or serious injury by one of these elements: if he escaped unhurt--if he plunged his arm to the elbow into boiling water, or walked barefoot upon heated plough-shares, or held a burning ball of iron in his hand, without injury, he was supposed to be declared innocent by a miraculous interposition of God, and discharged; otherwise he was punished. To the ordeals belongs also the judicial duel or battle ordeal. It was based on the old superstition that God always gives victory to the innocent. [358] It was usually allowed only to freemen. Aged and sick persons, women, children, and ecclesiastics could furnish substitutes, but not always. Mediaeval panegyrists trace the judicial duel back to Cain and Abel. It prevailed among the ancient Danes, Irish, Burgundians, Franks, and Lombards, but was unknown among the Anglo-Saxons before William the Conqueror, who introduced it into England. It was used also in international litigation. The custom died out in the sixteenth century. [359] The mediaeval church, with her strong belief in the miraculous, could not and did not generally oppose the ordeal, but she baptized it and made it a powerful means to enforce her authority over the ignorant and superstitious people she had to deal with. Several councils at Mainz in 880, at Tribur on the Rhine in 895, at Tours in 925, at Mainz in 1065, at Auch in 1068, at Grau in 1099, recognized and recommended it; the clergy, bishops, and archbishops, as Hincmar of Rheims, and Burckhardt of Worms, and even popes like Gregory VII. and Calixtus II. lent it their influence. St. Bernard approved of the cold-water process for the conviction of heretics, and St. Ivo of Chartres admitted that the incredulity of mankind sometimes required an appeal to the verdict of Heaven, though such appeals were not commanded by, the law of God. As late as 1215 the ferocious inquisitor Conrad of Marburg freely used the hot iron against eighty persons in Strassburg alone who were suspected of the Albigensian heresy. The clergy prepared the combatants by fasting and prayer, and special liturgical formula; they presided over the trial and pronounced the sentence. Sometimes fraud was practiced, and bribes offered and taken to divert the course of justice. Gregory of Tours mentions the case of a deacon who, in a conflict with an Arian priest, anointed his arm before he stretched it into the boiling caldron; the Arian discovered the trick, charged him with using magic arts, and declared the trial null and void; but a Catholic priest, Jacintus from Ravenna, stepped forward, and by catching the ring from the bubbling caldron, triumphantly vindicated the orthodox faith to the admiring multitude, declaring that the water felt cold at the bottom and agreeably warm at the top. When the Arian boldly repeated the experiment, his flesh was boiled off the bones up to the elbow. [360] The Church even invented and substituted new ordeals, which were less painful and cruel than the old heathen forms, but shockingly profane according to our notions. Profanity and superstition are closely allied. These new methods are the ordeal of the cross, and the ordeal of the eucharist. They were especially used by ecclesiastics. The ordeal of the cross [361] is simply a trial of physical strength. The plaintiff and the defendant, after appropriate religious ceremonies, stood with uplifted arm before a cross while divine service was performed, and victory depended on the length of endurance. Pepin first prescribed this trial, by a Capitulary of 752, in cases of application by a wife for divorce. Charlemagne prescribed it in cases of territorial disputes which might arise between his sons (806). But Louis-le-Débonnaire, soon after the death of Charlemagne, forbade its continuance at a Council of Aix-la-Chapelle in 816, because this abuse of the cross tended to bring the Christian symbol into contempt. His son, the Emperor Lothair, renewed the prohibition. A trace of this ordeal is left in the proverbial allusion to an experimentum crucis. A still worse profanation was the ordeal of consecrated bread in the eucharist with the awful adjuration: "May this body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ be a judgment to thee this day." [362] It was enjoined by a Synod of Worms, in 868, upon bishops and priests who were accused of a capital crime, such as murder, adultery, theft, sorcery. It was employed by Cautinus, bishop of Auvergne, at the close of the sixth century, who administered the sacrament to a Count Eulalius, accused of patricide, and acquitted him after he had partaken of it without harm. King Lothair and his nobles took the sacrament in proof of his separation from Walrada, his mistress, but died soon afterwards at Piacenza of a sudden epidemic, and this was regarded by Pope Hadrian II. as a divine punishment. Rudolfus Glaber records the case of a monk who boldly received the consecrated host, but forthwith confessed his crime when the host slipped out of his navel, white and pure as before. Sibicho, bishop of Speier, underwent the trial to clear himself of the charge of adultery (1049). Even Pope Hildebrand made use of it in self-defense against Emperor Henry IV. at Canossa, in 1077. "Lest I should seem," he said "to rely rather on human than divine testimony, and that I may remove from the minds of all, by immediate satisfaction, every scruple, behold this body of our Lord which I am about to take. Let it be to me this day a test of my innocence, and may the Omnipotent God this day by his judgment absolve me of the accusations if I am innocent, or let me perish by sudden death, if guilty." Then the pope calmly took the wafer, and called upon the trembling emperor to do the same, but Henry evaded it on the ground of the absence of both his friends and his enemies, and promised instead to submit to a trial by the imperial diet. The purgatorial oath, when administered by wonder-working relics, was also a kind of ordeal of ecclesiastical origin. A false oath on the black cross in the convent of Abington, made from the nails of the crucifixion, and derived from the Emperor Constantine, was fatal to the malefactor. In many cases these relics were the means of eliciting confessions which could not have been obtained by legal devices. The genuine spirit of Christianity, however, urged towards an abolition rather than improvement of all these ordeals. Occasionally such voices of protest were raised, though for a long time without effect. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, in the beginning of the sixth century, remonstrated with Gundobald for giving prominence to the battle-ordeal in the Burgundian code. St. Agobard, archbishop of Lyons, before the middle of the ninth century (he died about 840) attacked the duel and the ordeal in two special treatises, which breathe the gospel spirit of humanity, fraternity and peace in advance of his age. [363] He says that the ordeals are falsely called judgments of God; for God never prescribed them, never approved them, never willed them; but on the contrary, he commands us, in the law and the gospel, to love our neighbor as ourselves, and has appointed judges for the settlement of controversies among men. He warns against a presumptuous interpretation of providence whose counsels are secret and not to be revealed by water and fire. Several popes, Leo IV. (847-855), Nicolas I. (858-867), Stephen VI. (885-891), Sylvester II. (999-1003), Alexander II. (1061-1073), Alexander III. (1159-1181), Coelestin III. (1191-1198), Honorius III. (1222), and the fourth Lateran Council (1215), condemned more or less clearly the superstitious and frivolous provocation of miracles. [364] It was by their influence, aided by secular legislation, that these God-tempting ordeals gradually disappeared during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but the underlying idea survived in the torture which for a long time took the place of the ordeal. __________________________________________________________________ [352] From the Anglo-Saxon ordael or ordela (from or=ur, and dael=theil): German: Urtheilor Gottesurtheil; Dutch: oordeel; French: ordéal; L. Lat.; ordalium, ordale, ordela. See Du Cange sub. ordela, aquae frigidae judicium, Duellum, Ferrum candens; Skeat (Etymol. Dict. of the Engl. Lang.) sub. Deal. [353] See the proof in Lea, who finds in the wide prevalence of this custom a confirmation of the common origin of the Aryan or Indo-germanic races. [354] Judicium aquae ferventis, aeneum, cacabus, caldaria. This is probably the oldest form in Europe. See Lea, p. 196. It is usually referred to in the most ancient texts of law, and especially recommended by Hincmar of Rheims, as combining the elements of water--the judgment of the deluge--and of fire--the judgment of the last day. The accused was obliged, with his naked arm, to find a small stone or ring in a boiling caldron of water (this was called in German the Kesselfang), or simply to throw the hand to the wrist or to the elbow into boiling water. See Lea, p. 196 sqq. [355] Judicium aquae frigidae. It was not known in Europe before Pope Eugenius II. (824-827), who seems to have introduced it. The accused was bound with cords, and lowered with a rope into a reservoir or pond, with the prayer (St., Dunstan's formula): "Let not the water receive the body of him who, released from the weight of goodness, is upborne by the wind of iniquity." It was supposed that the pure element would not receive a criminal into its bosom. It required therefore in this case a miracle to convict the accused, as in the natural order of things he would escape. Lea (p. 221) relates this instance from a MS. in the British Museum In 1083, during the deadly struggle between the Empire and the Papacy, as personified in Henry IV. and Hildebrand, the imperialists related with great delight that some of the leading prelates of the papal court submitted the cause of their chief to this ordeal. After a three days' fast, and proper benediction of the water, they placed in it a boy to represent the Emperor, when to their horror he sank like a stone. On referring the result to Hildebrand, he ordered a repetition of the experiment, which was attended with the same result. Then, throwing him in, as a representative of the Pope, he obstinately floated during two trials, in spite of all efforts to force him under the surface, and an oath was exacted from them to maintain inviolable secrecy as to the unexpected result." James I. of England was a strict believer in this ordeal, and thought that the pure element would never receive those who had desecrated the privileges of holy baptism. Even as late as 1836, an old woman, reputed to be a witch, was twice plunged into the sea at Hela, near Danzig, and as she persisted in rising to the surface, she was pronounced guilty and beaten to death. See Lea, p. 228 and 229. [356] Judicium ferri or ferri candentis. A favorite mode, administered in two different forms, the one by six or twelve red-hot plough-shares (vomeres igniti), over which the person had to walk bare-footed; the other by a piece of red-hot iron, which he had to carry for a distance of nine feet or more. See Lea, p. 201 sq. [357] The accused had to stretch his hand into a fire; hence the French proverbial expression: "J'en mettrais la main au feu," as an affirmation of positive belief. Sometimes he had to walk bare-legged and bare-footed through the flames of huge pyres. Petrus Igneus gained his reputation and surname by an exploit of this kind. See examples in Lea, p. 209 sqq. Savonarola proposed this ordeal in 1498 to his enemies in proof of his assertion that the church needed a thorough reformation, and that his excommunication by Pope Alexander VI. was null and void, but he shrunk from the trial, lost his cause, and was hanged and burned after undergoing frightful tortures. He had not the courage of Hus at Constance, or Luther at Worms, and his attempted reformation left nothing but a tragic memory. [358] Tacitus (German, cap. 7) reports of the heathen Germans: "[Deum] adesse, bellantibus credunt." [359] See Lea, p. 75-174. The wager of battle, as a judicial institution, must not be confounded with the private duel which has been more or less customary among all races and in all ages, and still survives as a relic of barbarism, though misnamed "the satisfaction of a gentleman." The judicial duel aims at the discovery of truth and the impartial administration of justice, while the object of the private duel is personal vengeance and reparation of honor. [360] De Gloria Martyrum I. 81. Lea, p. 198. [361] Judicium crucis, orstare ad crucem, Kreuzesprobe. A modification of it was the trial of standing with the arms extended in the form of a cross. In this way St. Lioba, abbess of Bischoffsheim, vindicated the honor of her convent against the charge of impurity when a new-born child was drowned in the neighborhood. Lea, p. 231. [362] Judicium offae, panis conjuratio, corsnaed, Abendmahlsprobe. Comp. Hefele IV. 370, 552, 735. [363] Liber adversus Legem Gundobadi (i.e. Leg. Burgundionum) et impia certarmina quae per eam geruntur; and Liber Contra Judicium Dei. See his Opera ed. Baluzius, Paris 1666, T. I. 107 sqq., 300 sqq., and in Migne's Patrologia, Tom. CIV. f 113-126, and f. 250-258 (with the notes of Baluzius). [364] "At length, when the Papal authority reached its culminating point, a vigorous and sustained effort to abolish the whole system was made by the Popes who occupied the pontifical throne from 1159-1227. Nothing can be more peremptory than the prohibition uttered by Alexander III. In 1181, Lucius III. pronounced null and void the acquittal of a priest charged with homicide, who had undergone the water-ordeal, and ordered him to prove his innocence with compurgators, and the blow was followed up by his successors. Under Innocent III., the Fourth Council of Lateran, in 1215, formally forbade the employment of any ecclesiastical ceremonies in such trials; and as the moral influence of the ordeal depended entirely upon its religious associations, a strict observance of this canon must speedily have swept the whole system into oblivion. Yet at this very time the inquisitor Conrad of Marburg was employing in Germany the red-hot iron as a means of condemning his unfortunate victims by wholesale, and the chronicler relates that, whether innocent or guilty, few escaped the test. The canon of Lateran, however, was actively followed up by the Papal legates, and the effect was soon discernible." Lea, p. 272. __________________________________________________________________ § 80. The Torture. Henry C. Lea: Superstition and Force (Philad. 1866), p. 281-391. Paul Lacroix: Manners, Customs, and Dress of the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance Period (transl. from the French, N. York 1874), p. 407-434. Brace. Gesta Christi, ch. XV. The torture rests on the same idea as the ordeal. [365] It is an attempt to prove innocence or guilt by imposing a physical pain which no man can bear without special aid from God. When the ordeal had fulfilled its mission, the torture was substituted as a more convenient mode and better fitted for an age less superstitious and more sceptical, but quite as despotic and intolerant. It forms one of the darkest chapters in history. For centuries this atrocious system, opposed to the Mosaic legislation and utterly revolting to every Christian and humane feeling, was employed in civilized Christian countries, and sacrificed thousands of human beings, innocent as well as guilty, to torments worse than death. The torture was unknown among the Hindoos and the Semitic nations, but recognized by the ancient Greeks and Romans, as a regular legal proceeding. It was originally confined to slaves who were deemed unfit to bear voluntary testimony, and to require force to tell the truth. [366] Despotic emperors extended it to freemen, first in cases of crimen laesae majestatis. Pontius Pilate employed the scourge and the crown of thorns in the trial of our Saviour. Tiberius exhausted his ingenuity in inventing tortures for persons suspected of conspiracy, and took delight in their agony. The half-insane Caligula enjoyed the cruel spectacle at his dinner-table. Nero resorted to this cruelty to extort from the Christians the confession of the crime of incendiarism, as a pretext of his persecution, which he intensified by the diabolical invention of covering the innocent victims with pitch and burning them as torches in his gardens. The younger Pliny employed the torture against the Christians in Bithynia as imperial governor. Diocletian, in a formal edict, submitted all professors of the hated religion to this degrading test. The torture was gradually developed into a regular system and embodied in the Justinian Code. Certain rules were prescribed, and exemptions made in favor of the learned professions, especially the clergy, nobles, children below fourteen, women during pregnancy, etc. The system was thus sanctioned by the highest legal authorities. But opinions as to its efficiency differed. Augustus pronounced the torture the best form of proof. Cicero alternately praises and discredits it. Ulpian, with more wisdom, thought it unsafe, dangerous, and deceitful. Among the Northern barbarians the torture was at first unknown except for slaves. The common law of England does not recognize it. Crimes were regarded only as injuries to individuals, not to society, and the chief resource for punishment was the private vengeance of the injured party. But if a slave, who was a mere piece of property, was suspected of a theft, his master would flog him till he confessed. All doubtful questions among freemen were decided by sacramental purgation and the various forms of ordeal. But in Southern Europe, where the Roman population gave laws to the conquering barbarians, the old practice continued, or revived with the study of the Roman law. In Southern France and in Spain the torture was an unbroken ancestral custom. Alfonso the Wise, in the thirteenth century, in his revision of Spanish jurisprudence, known as Las Siete Partidas, retained the torture, but declared the person of man to be the noblest thing on earth, [367] and required a voluntary confession to make the forced confession valid. Consequently the prisoner after torture was brought before the judge and again interrogated; if be recanted, he was tortured a second, in grave cases, a third time; if he persisted in his confession, he was condemned. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the system of torture, was generally introduced in Europe, and took the place of the ordeal. The church, true to her humanizing instincts, was at first hostile to the whole system of forcing evidence. A Synod of Auxerre (585 or 578) prohibited the clergy to witness a torture. [368] Pope Gregory I. denounced as worthless a confession extorted by incarceration and hunger. [369] Nicolas I. forbade the new converts in Bulgaria to extort confession by stripes and by pricking with a pointed iron, as contrary to all law, human and divine (866) [370] Gratian lays down the general rule that "confessio cruciatibus extorquenda non est." But at a later period, in dealing with heretics, the Roman church unfortunately gave the sanction of her highest authority to the use of the torture, and thus betrayed her noblest instincts and holiest mission. The fourth Lateran Council (1215) inspired the horrible crusades against the Albigenses and Waldenses, and the establishment of the infamous ecclesiastico-political courts of Inquisition. These courts found the torture the most effective means of punishing and exterminating heresy, and invented new forms of refined cruelty worse than those of the persecutors of heathen Rome. Pope Innocent IV., in his instruction for the guidance of the Inquisition in Tuscany and Lombardy, ordered the civil magistrates to extort from all heretics by torture a confession of their own guilt and a betrayal of all their accomplices (1252). [371] This was an ominous precedent, which did more harm to the reputation of the papacy than the extermination of any number of heretics could possibly do it good. In Italy, owing to the restriction of the ecclesiastical power by the emperor, the inquisition could not fully display its murderous character. In Germany its introduction was resisted by the people and the bishops, and Conrad of Marburg, the appointed Inquisitor, was murdered (1233). But in Spain it had every assistance from the crown and the people, which to this day take delight in the bloody spectacles of bullfights. The Spanish Inquisition was established in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella by papal sanction (1478), reached its fearful height under the terrible General Inquisitor Torquemada (since 1483), and in its zeal to exterminate Moors, Jews, and heretics, committed such fearful excesses that even popes protested against the abuse of power, although with little effect. The Inquisition carried the system of torture to its utmost limits. After the Reformation it was still employed in trials of sorcery and witchcraft until the revolution of opinion in the eighteenth century swept it out of existence, together with cruel forms of punishment. This victory is due to the combined influence of justice, humanity, and tolerance. Notes. I. "The whole system of the Inquisition," says Lea (p. 331), "was such as to render the resort to torture inevitable. Its proceedings were secret; the prisoner was carefully kept in ignorance of the exact charges against him, and of the evidence upon which they were based. He was presumed to be guilty, and his judges bent all their energies to force him to confess. To accomplish this, no means were too base or too cruel. Pretended sympathizers were to be let into his dungeon, whose affected friendship might entrap him into an unwary admission; officials armed with fictitious evidence were directed to frighten him with assertions of the testimony obtained against him from supposititious witnesses; and no resources of fraud or guile were to be spared in overcoming the caution and resolution of the poor wretch whose mind had been carefully weakened by solitude, suffering, hunger, and terror. From this to the rack and estrapade the step was easily taken, and was not long delayed." For details see the works on the Inquisition. Llorente (Hist. crit. de l'Inquisition d'Espagne IV. 252, quoted by Gieseler III. 409 note 11) states that from 1478 to the end of the administration of Torquemada in 1498, when he resigned, "8800 persons were burned alive, 6500 in effigy, and 90,004 punished with different kinds of penance. Under the second general-inquisitor, the Dominican, Diego Deza, from 1499 to 1506, 1664 persons were burned alive, 832 in effigy, 32,456 punished. Under the third general-inquisitor, the Cardinal and Archbishop of Toledo, Francis Ximenes de Cisneros, from 1507 to 1517, 2536 were burned alive, 1368 in effigy, 47,263 reconciled." Llorente was a Spanish priest and general secretary of the Inquisition at Madrid (from 1789-1791), and had access to all the archives, but his figures, as he himself admits, are based upon probable calculations, and have in some instances been disproved. He states, e.g. that in the first year of Torquemada's administration 2000 persons were burned, and refers to the Jesuit Mariana (History of Spain), but Mariana means that during the whole administration of Torquemada "duo millia crematos igne." See Hefele, Cardinal Ximenes, p. 346. The sum total of persons condemned to death by the Spanish Inquisition during the 330 years of its existence, is stated to be 30,000. Hefele (Kirchenlexikon, v. 656) thinks this sum exaggerated, yet not surprising when compared with the number of witches that were burnt in Germany alone. The Spanish Inquisition pronounced its last sentence of death in the year 1781, was abolished under the French rule of Joseph Napoleon, Dec. 4, 1808, restored by Ferdinand VII. 1814, again abolished 1820, and (after another attempt to restore it) in 1834. Catholic writers, like Balmez (I.c. chs. xxxvi. and xxxvii.) and Hefele (Cardinal Ximenes, p. 257-389, and in Wetzer and Welte's Kirchen-Lexicon, vol. V. 648-659), charge Llorente with inaccuracy in his figures, and defend the Catholic church against the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition, as this was a political rather than ecclesiastical institution, and had at least the good effect of preventing religious wars. But the Inquisition was instituted with the express sanction of Pope Sixtus IV. (Nov. 1, 1478), was controlled by the Dominican order and by Cardinals, and as to the benefit, the peace of the grave-yard is worse than war. Hefele adds, however (V. 657): "Nach all' diesen Bemerkungen sind wir öbrigens weit entfernt, der Spanichen Inquisition an sich das Wort reden zu wollen, vielmehr bestreiten wir der weltlichen Gewalt durchaus die Befugniss, das Gewissen zu knebeln, und sind von Herzensgrund aus jedem staatlichen Religionszwang abhold, mag er von einem Torquemada in der Dominikanerkutte, oder von einem Bureaucraten in der Staatsuniform ansgehen. Aber das wollten wir zeigen, dass die Inquisition das schaendliche Ungeheuer nicht war, wozu es Parteileidenschaft und Unwissenheit häufig stempeln wollten." II. The torture was abolished in England after 1640, in Prussia 1740, in Tuscany 1786, in France 1789, in Russia 1801, in various German states partly earlier, partly later (between 1740 and 1831), in Japan 1873. Thomasius, Hommel, Voltaire, Howard, used their influence against it. Exceptional cases of judicial torture occurred in the nineteenth century in Naples, Palermo, Roumania (1868), and Zug (1869). See Lea, p. 389 sqq., and the chapter on Witchcraft in Lecky's History of Rationalism (vol. I. 27-154). The extreme difficulty of proof in trials of witchcraft seemed to make a resort to the torture inevitable. English witchcraft reached its climax during the seventeenth century, and was defended by King James I., and even such wise men as Sir Matthew Hale, Sir Thomas Browne, and Richard Baxter. When it was on the decline in England it broke out afresh in Puritan New England, created a perfect panic, and led to the execution of twenty-seven persons. In Scotland it lingered still longer, and as late as 1727 a woman was burnt there for witchcraft. In the Canton Glarus a witch was executed in 1782, and another near Danzig in Prussia in 1836. Lecky concludes his chapter with an eloquent tribute to those poor women, who died alone, hated, and unpitied, with the prospect of exchanging their torments on earth with eternal torments in hell. I add a noble passage on torture from Brace's Gesta Christi, p. 274 sq. "Had the 'Son of Man' been in body upon the earth during the Middle Ages, hardly one wrong and injustice would have wounded his pure soul like the system of torture. To see human beings, with the consciousness of innocence, or professing and believing the purest truths, condemned without proof to the most harrowing agonies, every groan or admission under pain used against them, their confessions distorted, their nerves so racked that they pleaded their guilt in order to end their tortures, their last hours tormented by false ministers of justice or religion, who threaten eternal as well as temporal damnation, and all this going on for ages, until scarce any innocent felt themselves safe under this mockery of justice and religion--all this would have seemed to the Founder of Christianity as the worst travesty of his faith and the most cruel wound to humanity. It need not be repeated that his spirit in each century struggled with this tremendous evil, and inspired the great friends of humanity who labored against it. The main forces in mediaeval society, even those which tended towards its improvement, did not touch this abuse. Roman law supported it. Stoicism was indifferent to it; Greek literature did not affect it; feudalism and arbitrary power encouraged a practice which they could use for their own ends; and even the hierarchy and a State Church so far forgot the truths they professed as to employ torture to support the 'Religion of Love.' But against all these powers were the words of Jesus, bidding men 'Love your enemies' 'Do good to them that despitefully use you!' and the like commands. working everywhere on individual souls, heard from pulpits and in monasteries, read over by humble believers, and slowly making their way against barbaric passion and hierarchic cruelty. Gradually, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the books containing the message of Jesus circulated among all classes, and produced that state of mind and heart in which torture could not be used on a fellow-being, and in which such an abuse and enormity as the Inquisition was hurled to the earth." __________________________________________________________________ [365] Tortura from torqueo, to twist, to torment. Ital. and Spanish: tortura; French: torture; Germ.: Folter. [366] "Their evidence was inadmissible, except when given under torture, and then by a singular confusion of logic, it was estimated as the most convincing kind of testimony." Lea, 283. "The modes of torture sanctioned by the Greeks were the wheel (trochos), the ladder or rack (klimax), the comb with sharp teeth (kuaphos), the low vault (kuphon) in which the unfortunate witness was thrust and bent double, the burning tiles (plinthoi) the heavy hog-skin whip (hustrichis), and the injection of vinegar into the nostrils." Lea, p. 284. The Romans used chiefly the scourge. The instruments of torture employed during the middle ages were the rack, the thumbscrew, the Spanish boot, iron gauntlets, heated iron stools, fire, the wheel, the strappado, enforced sleeplessness, and various mutilations. Brace says (p. 182) that " nine hundred(?) different instruments for inflicting pain were invented and used." One tenth of the number would be bad enough. Collections of these devilish instruments may be seen in the London Tower, and in antiquarian museums on the Continent. [367] "La persona del home es la mas noble cosa del mundo." [368] Can. 33: "Non licet presbytero nec diacono ad trepalium ubi rei torquentur, stare." See Hefele III. 46. [369] Epist. VIII. 30. [370] Responsa ad Consulta Bulgarorum, c. 86. Hefele IV. 350. Lea, p. 305. [371] In the bull Ad extirpanda: "Teneatur potestas seu rector, omnes haereticos ... cogere citra membri diminutionem et mortis periculum, tamquam vere latrones et homicidas animarum ... errores suos expresse fateri et accusare alios haereticos quos sciunt, et bona eorum." ... Innoc. IV. Leg. et Const. contra Haeret. § 26. (Bullar. Magn. in Innoc. IV. No. 9). Comp. Gieseler II. 564-569. __________________________________________________________________ § 81. Christian Charity. See the Lit. in vol. II. § 88, p. 311 sq. Chastel: Études historiques sur l'influence de la charité (Paris 1853, English transl., Philad. 1857--for the first three centuries). Häser: Geschichte der christl. Krankenpflege und Pflegerschaften (Berlin 1857). Ratzinger: Gesch. der christl. Armenpflege (Freib. 1869, a new ed. announced 1884). Morin: Histoire critique de la pauvreté (in the "Mémoirs de l' Académie des inscript." IV). Lecky: Hist. of Europ. Morals, ch. 4th (II. 62 sqq.). Uhlhorn: Christian Charity in the Ancient Church (Stuttgart, 1881; Engl. transl. Lond. and N. York 1883), Book III., and his Die Christliche Liebesthätigkeit im Mittelalter. Stuttgart, 1884. (See also his art. in Brieger's "Zeitschrift för K. G." IV. 1). B. Riggenbach: Das Armenwesen der Reformation (Basel 1883). Also the articles Armenpflege in Herzog's "Encycl."2 vol. I. 648-663; in Wetzer and Welte's "Kirchenlex."2 vol. I. 1354-1375; Paupérisme in Lichtenberger X. 305-312; and Hospitals in Smith and Cheetham I. 785-789. From the cruelties of superstition and bigotry we gladly turn to the queen of Christian graces, that "most excellent gift of charity," which never ceased to be exercised wherever the story of Christ's love for sinners was told and his golden rule repeated. It is a "bond of' perfectness" that binds together all ages and sections of Christendom. It comforted the Roman empire in its hoary age and agonies of death; and it tamed the ferocity of the barbarian invaders. It is impossible to overestimate the moral effect of the teaching and example of Christ, and of St. Paul's seraphic praise of charity upon the development of this cardinal virtue in all ages and countries. We bow with reverence before the truly apostolic succession of those missionaries, bishops, monks, nuns, kings, nobles, and plain men and women, rich or poor, known and unknown, who, from gratitude to Christ and pure love to their fellow-men, sacrificed home, health, wealth, life itself, to humanize and Christianize savages, to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to entertain the stranger, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick, to call on the prisoner, to comfort the dying. We admire and honor also those exceptional saints who, in literal fulfillment or misunderstanding of the Saviour's advice to the rich youth, and in imitation of the first disciples at Jerusalem, sold all their possessions and gave them to the poor that they might become perfect. The admiration is indeed diminished, but not destroyed, if in many cases a large measure of refined selfishness was mixed with self-denial, and when the riches of heaven were the sole or chief inducement for choosing voluntary poverty on earth. The supreme duty of Christian charity was inculcated by all faithful pastors and teachers of the gospel from the beginning. In the apostolic and ante-Nicene ages it was exercised by regular contributions on the Lord's day, and especially at the communion and the agape connected with it. Every congregation was a charitable society, and took care of its widows and orphans, of strangers and prisoners, and sent help to distant congregations in need. [372] After Constantine, when the masses of the people flocked into the church, charity assumed an institutional form, and built hospitals and houses of refuge for the strangers, the poor, the sick, the aged, the orphans. [373] They appear first in the East, but soon afterwards also in the West. Fabiola founded a hospital in Rome, Pammachius one in the Portus Romanus, Paulinus one in Nola. At the time of Gregory I. there were several hospitals in Rome; he mentions also hospitals in Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. These institutions were necessary in the greatly enlarged sphere of the church, and the increase of poverty, distress, and disaster which at last overwhelmed the Roman empire. They may in many cases have served purposes of ostentation, superseded or excused private charity, encouraged idleness, and thus increased rather than diminished pauperism. But these were abuses to which the best human institutions are subject. Private charity continued to be exercised in proportion to the degree of vitality in the church. The great fathers and bishops of the fourth and fifth centuries set an illustrious example of plain living and high thinking, of self-denial and liberality, and were never weary in their sermons and writings in enjoining the duty of charity. St. Basil himself superintended his extensive hospital at Caesarea, and did not shrink from contact with lepers; St. Gregory Nazianzen exhorted the brethren to be "a god to the unfortunate by imitating the mercy of God," for there is "nothing so divine as beneficence;" St. Chrysostom founded several hospitals in Constantinople, incessantly appealed to the rich in behalf of the poor, and directed the boundless charities of the noble widow Olympias. St. Ambrose, at once a proud Roman and an humble Christian, comforted the paupers in Milan, while he rebuked an emperor for his cruelty; Paulinus of Nola lived in a small house with his wife, Theresiâ and used his princely wealth for the building of a monastery, the relief of the needy, the ransoming of prisoners, and when his means were exhausted, he exchanged himself with the son of a widow to be carried away into Africa; the great Augustin declined to accept as a present a better coat than he might give in turn to a brother in need; St. Jerome founded a hospice in Bethlehem from the proceeds of his property, and induced Roman ladies of proud ancestry to sell their jewels, silk dresses, and palaces, for the poor, and to exchange a life of luxurious ease for a life of ascetic self-denial. Those examples shone like brilliant stars through the darkness of the middle ages. But the same fathers, it must be added, handed to the middle ages also the disturbing doctrine of the meritorious nature and atoning efficacy of charity, as "covering a multitude of sins," and its influence even upon the dead in purgatory. These errors greatly stimulated and largely vitiated that virtue, and do it to this day. [374] The Latin word caritas, which originally denotes dearness or costliness (from carus, dear), then esteem, affection, assumed in the church the more significant meaning of benevolence and beneficence, or love in active exercise, especially to the poor and suffering among our fellow-men. The sentiment and the deed must not be separated, and the gift of the hand derives its value from the love of the heart. Though the gifts are unequal, the benevolent love should be the same, and the widow's mite is as much blessed by God as the princely donation of the rich. Ambrose compares benevolence in the intercourse of men with men to the sun in its relation to the earth. "Let the gifts of the wealthy," says another father, "be more abundant, but let not the poor be behind him in love." Very often, however, charity was contracted into mere almsgiving. Praying, fasting, and almsgiving were regarded (as also among the Jews and Mohammedans) as the chief works of piety; the last was put highest. For the sake of charity it is right to break the fast or to interrupt devotion. Pope Gregory the Great best represents the mediaeval charity with its ascetic self-denial, its pious superstitions and utilitarian ingredients. He lived in that miserable transition period when the old Roman civilization was crumbling to pieces and the new civilization was not yet built up on its ruins. "We see nothing but sorrow," he says, "we hear nothing but complaints. Ah, Rome! once the mistress of the world, where is the senate? where the people? The buildings are in ruins, the walls are falling. Everywhere the sword! Everywhere death! I am weary of life! "But charity remained as an angel of comfort. It could not prevent the general collapse, but it dried the tears and soothed the sorrows of individuals. Gregory was a father to the poor. He distributed every month cart-loads of corn, oil, wine, and meat among them. What the Roman emperors did from policy to keep down insurrection, this pope did from love to Christ and the poor. He felt personally guilty when a man died of starvation in Rome. He set careful and conscientious men over the Roman hospitals, and required them to submit regular accounts of the management of funds. He furnished the means for the founding of a Xenodochium in Jerusalem. He was the chief promoter of the custom of dividing the income of the church into four equal parts, one for the bishop, one for the rest of the clergy, one for the church buildings, one for the poor. At the same time he was a strong believer in the meritorious efficacy of almsgiving for the living and the dead. He popularized Augustin's notion of purgatory, supported it by monkish fables, and introduced masses for the departed (without the so-called thirties, i.e. thirty days after death). He held that God remits the guilt and eternal punishment, but not the temporal punishment of sin, which must be atoned for in this life, or in purgatory. Thus be explained the passage about the fire (1 Cor. 3:11) which consumes wood, hay, and stubble, i.e. light and trifling sins such as useless talk, immoderate laughter, mismanagement of property. Hence, the more alms the better, both for our own salvation and for the relief of our departed relatives and friends. Almsgiving is the wing of repentance, and paves the way to heaven. This idea ruled supreme during the middle ages. Among the barbarians in the West charitable institutions were introduced by missionaries in connection with convents, which were expected to exercise hospitality to strangers and give help to the poor. The Irish missionaries cared for the bodies as well as for the souls of the heathen to whom they preached the gospel, and founded "Hospitalia Scotorum." The Council of Orleans, 549, shows acquaintance with Xenodochia in the towns. There was a large one at Lyons. Chrodegang of Metz and Alcuin exhort the bishops to found institutions of charity, or at least to keep a guest-room for the care of the sick and the stranger. A Synod at Aix in 815 ordered that an infirmary should be built near the church and in every convent. The Capitularies of Charlemagne extend to charitable institutions the same privileges as to churches and monasteries, and order that "strangers, pilgrims, and paupers" be duly entertained according to the canons. The hospitals were under the immediate supervision of the bishop or a superintendent appointed by him. They were usually dedicated to the Holy Spirit, who was represented in the form of a dove in some conspicuous place of the building. They received donations and legacies, and were made the trustees of landed estates. The church of the middle ages was the largest property-holder, but her very wealth and prosperity became a source of temptation and corruption, which in the course of time loudly called for a reformation. After we have made all reasonable deduction for a large amount of selfish charity which looked to the donor rather than the recipient, and for an injudicious profusion of alms which encouraged pauperism instead of enabling the poor to help themselves by honest work, we still have left one of the noblest chapters in the history of morals to which no other religion can furnish a parallel. For the regular gratuitous distribution of grain to the poor heathen of Rome, who under Augustus rose to 200,000, and under the Antonines to 500,000, was made from the public treasury and dictated by selfish motives of state policy; it called forth no gratitude; it failed of its object, and proved, together with slavery and the gladiatorial shows for the amusement of the people, one of the chief demoralizing influences of the empire. [375] Finally, we must not forget that the history of true Christian charity remains to a large part unwritten. Its power is indeed felt everywhere and every day; but it loves to do its work silently without a thought of the merit of reward. It follows human misery into all its lonely griefs with personal sympathy as well as material aid, and finds its own happiness in promoting the happiness of others. There is luxury in doing good for its own sake. "When thou doest alms," says the Lord, "let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee." [376] Notes. Uhlhorn closes his first work with this judgment of mediaeval charity (p. 396 sq. of the English translation): "No period has done so much for the poor as the middle ages. What wholesale distribution of alms, what an abundance of institutions of the most various kinds, what numbers of hospitals for all manner of sufferers, what a series of ministrant orders, male and female, knightly and civil, what self-sacrifice and devotedness! In the mediaeval period all that we have observed germinating in the ancient Church, first attains its maturity. The middle ages, however, also appropriated whatever tendencies existed toward a one-sided and unsound development. Church care of the poor entirely perished, and all charity became institutional; monks and nuns, or members of the ministrant orders, took the place of the deacons--the diaconate died out. Charity became one-sidedly institutional and one-sidedly ecclesiastical. The church was the mediatrix of every exercise of charity, she became in fact the sole recipient, the sole bestower; for the main object of every work of mercy, of every distribution of alms, of every endowment, of all self-sacrifice in the service of the needy, was the giver's own salvation. The transformation was complete. Men gave and ministered no longer for the sake of helping and serving the poor in Christ, but to obtain for themselves and theirs, merit, release from purgatory, a high degree of eternal happiness. The consequence was, that poverty was not contended with, but fostered, and beggary brought to maturity; so that notwithstanding the abundant donations, the various foundations, the well-endowed institutions, distress was after all not mastered. Nor is it mastered yet. "The poor ye have always with you" (John 12:8). Riggenbach (l.c.) maintains that in the middle ages hospitals were mere provision-houses (Versorgungshäuser), and that the Reformation first asserted the principle that they should be also houses of moral reform (Rettungshäuser and Heilanstalten). Lecky, who devotes a part of the fourth chapter of his impartial humanitarian History of European Morals to this subject, comes to the following conclusion (II. 79, 85): "Christianity for the first time made charity a rudimentary virtue, giving it a leading place in the moral type, and in the exhortations of its teachers. Besides its general influence in stimulating the affections, it effected a complete revolution in this sphere, by regarding the poor as the special representatives of the Christian Founder, and thus making the love of Christ, rather than the love of man, the principle of charity .... The greatest things are often those which are most imperfectly realized; and surely no achievements of the Christian Church are more truly great than those which it has effected in the sphere of charity. For the first time in the history of mankind, it has inspired many thousands of men and women, at the sacrifice of all worldly interests, and often under circumstances of extreme discomfort or danger, to devote their entire lives to the single object of assuaging the sufferings of humanity. It has covered the globe with countless institutions of mercy, absolutely unknown to the whole Pagan world. It has indissolubly united, in the minds of men, the idea of supreme goodness with that of active and constant benevolence. It has placed in every parish a religious minister who, whatever may be his other functions, has at least been officially charged with the superintendence of an organization of charity, and who finds in this office one of the most important as well as one of the most legitimate sources of his power." __________________________________________________________________ [372] See vol. II. § 100. [373] They are called Xenodochium and Xenodochia (xenodocheion) for strangers; ptochium or ptochotrophium (ptocheion, ptochotropheion) for the poor; orphanotrophium (orphanothropheion) for orphans; brephotrophium (brephotropheion) for foundlings house for the sick (nosokomeia, valetudinaria); for the aged (gerontokomeia); and for widows (cherotropheia); in Latin hospitium, hospitals, hospitalium (corresponding to the Greek xenodocheion). See Du Cange. Such institutions were unknown among the heathen; for the houses near the temples of Aeculapius were only intended for temporary shelter, not for care and attendance. The Emperor Julian's involuntary eulogy of the charity of the "Galilaeans " as he contemptuously called the Christians, and his abortive attempt to force the heathen to imitate it, are well known. See vol. III. 50. [374] See the numerous quotations from the fathers in Uhlhorn, p. 278 sqq. "Countless times is the thought expressed that almsgiving is a safe investment of money at good interest with God in heaven." He thinks that "the doctrine of purgatory, and of the influence which almsgiving exercises even upon souls in purgatory, determined more than anything else the charity of the entire mediaeval period" (p. 287). The notion that alms have an atoning efficacy is expressed again and again in every variety of form as the motive of almsgiving which is predominant above all others. Even Augustin, the most evangelical among the fathers, teaches "that alms have power to extinguish and expiate sin," although he qualifies the maxim and confines the benefit to those who amend their lives. No one had greater influence upon the Latin church than the author of the City of God, in which, as Uhlhorn says, "he unconsciously wrote the programme of the middle ages." [375] "There can be," says Lecky, (II. 78), "no question that either in practice nor in theory, neither in the institution, that were founded nor in the place that was assigned to it in the scale of duties, did charity in antiquity occupy a position at all comparable to that which it has obtained by Christianity. Nearly all the relief was a State measure, dictated much more by policy than by benevolence; and the habit of selling young children, the innumerable expositions, the readiness of the poor to enroll themselves as gladiators, and the frequent famines, show how large was the measure of unrelieved distress. A very few pagan examples of charity have, indeed, descended to us." [376] Matt. 6:3, 4. The word "openly" (en to phanero) is omitted in the best MSS. and critical editions, and in the E. Revision. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER VII. MONASTICISM. See the Lit. on Monasticism in vol. II. 387, and III. 147 sq. __________________________________________________________________ § 82. Use of Convents in the Middle Ages. The monks were the spiritual nobility of the church, and represented a higher type of virtue in entire separation from the world and consecration to the kingdom of God. The patristic, ideal of piety passed over into the middle ages; it is not the scriptural nor the modern ideal, but one formed in striking contrast with preceding and surrounding heathen corruption. The monkish sanctity is a flight from the world rather than a victory over the world, an abstinence from marriage instead of a sanctification of marriage, chastity, outside rather than inside the order of nature, a complete suppression of the sensual passion in the place of its purification and control. But it had a powerful influence over the barbaric races, and was one of the chief converting and civilizing agencies. The Eastern monks lost themselves in idle contemplation and ascetic extravagances, which the Western climate made impossible; the Western monks were, upon the whole, more sober, practical, and useful. The Irish and Scotch convents became famous for their missionary zeal, and furnished founders of churches and patron saints of the people. Convents were planted by the missionaries among all the barbarous nations of Europe, as fast as Christianity progressed. They received special privileges and endowments from princes, nobles, popes, and bishops. They offered a quiet retreat to men and women who were weary of the turmoil of life, or had suffered shipwreck of fortune or character, and cared for nothing but to save their souls. They exercised hospitality to strangers and travelers, and were a great blessing in times when traveling was difficult and dangerous. [377] They were training schools of ascetic virtue, and the nurseries of saints. They saved the remnants of ancient civilization for future use. Every large convent had a library and a school. Scribes were employed in copying manuscripts of the ancient classics, of the Bible, and the writings of the fathers. To these quiet literary monks we are indebted for the preservation and transmission of nearly all the learning, sacred and secular, of ancient times. If they had done nothing else, they would be entitled to the lasting gratitude of the church and the world. During the wild commotion and confusion of the ninth and tenth centuries, monastic discipline went into decay. Often the very richs of convents, which were the reward of industry and virtue, became a snare and a root of evil. Avaricious laymen (Abba-comites) seized the control and perpetuated it in their families. Even princesses received the titles and emoluments of abbesses. __________________________________________________________________ [377] As they are still in the East and on the Alps. Travelers will not easily forget the convents of Mt. Sinai in the Desert, Mar Saba near the Dead Sea, and the hospices on the Alpine passes of St. Bernard, St. Gotthard, and the Simplon. Lecky (II. 84) says: "By the monks the nobles were overawed, the poor protected, the sick tended, travelers sheltered, prisoners ransomed, the remotest spheres of suffering explored. During the darkest period of the middle ages, monks founded a refuge for pilgrims amid the horrors of the Alpine snows. A solitary hermit often planted himself, with his little boat, by a bridgeless stream, and the charity of his life was to ferry over the traveler." __________________________________________________________________ § 83. St. Benedict. St. Nilus. St. Romuald. Yet even in this dark period there were a few shining lights. St. Benedict of Aniane (750-821), of a distinguished family in the south of France, after serving at the court of Charlemagne, became disgusted with the world, entered a convent, founded a new one at Aniane after the strict rule of St. Benedict of Nursia, collected a library, exercised charity, especially during a famine, labored for the reform of monasticism, was entrusted by Louis the Pious with the superintendence of all the convents in Western France, and formed them into a "congregation," by bringing them under one rule. He attended the Synod of Aix-la-Chapelle in 817. Soon after his death (Feb. 12, 821) the fruits of his labors were destroyed, and the disorder became worse than before. [378] St. Nilus the younger, [379] of Greek descent, born at Rossano in Calabria [380] (hence Nilus Rossanensis), enlightened the darkness of the tenth century. He devoted himself, after the death of his wife, about 940, to a solitary life, following the model of St. Anthony and St. Hilarion, and founded several convents in Southern Italy. He was often consulted by dignitaries, and answered, like St. Anthony, without respect of person. He boldly rebuked Pope Gregory V. and Emperor Otho III. for bad treatment of an archbishop. When the emperor afterwards offered him any favor he might ask, Nilus replied: "I ask nothing from you but that you would save your soul; for you must die like every other man, and render an account to God for all your good and evil deeds." The emperor took the crown from his head, and begged the blessing of the aged monk. When a dissolute nobleman, who comforted himself with the example of Solomon, asked Nilus, whether that wise king was not saved, the monk replied: "We have nothing to do with Solomon's fate; but to us it is said, 'Every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.' We do not read of Solomon that he ever repented like Manasseh." To questions of idle curiosity he returned no answer, or he answered the fool according to his folly. So when one wished to know what kind of an apple Adam and Eve ate, to their ruin, he said that it was a crab-apple. In his old age he was driven from Calabria by invaders, and founded a little convent, Crypta Ferrata, near the famous Tusculum of Cicero. There he died peacefully when about ninety-six years old, in 1005. [381] St. Romuald, the founder of the order of Camaldoli, was born early in the tenth century at Ravenna, of a rich and noble family, and entered the neighboring Benedictine convent of Classis, in his twentieth year, in order to atone, by a severe penance of forty days, for a murder which his father had committed against a relative in a dispute about property. He prayed and wept almost without ceasing. He spent three years in this convent, and afterwards led the life of a roaming hermit. He imposed upon himself all manner of self-mortification, to defeat the temptations of the devil. Among his devotions was the daily repetition of the Psalter from memory; a plain hermit, Marinus, near Venice, had taught him this mechanical performance and other ascetic exercises with the aid of blows. Wherever he went, he was followed by admiring disciples. He was believed to be endowed with the gift of prophecy and miracles, yet did not escape calumny. Emperor Otho III. paid him a visit in the year 1000 on an island near Ravenna. Romuald sent missionaries to heathen lands, and went himself to the border of Hungary with a number of pupils, but returned when he was admonished by a severe sickness that he was not destined for missionary life. He died in the convent Valle de Castro in 1027. [382] According to Damiani, who wrote his life fifteen years after his death, Romuald lived one hundred and twenty years, twenty in the world, three in a convent, ninety-seven as a hermit. [383] The most famous of Romuald's monastic retreats is Campo Maldoli, or Camaldoli in the Appennines, near Arezzo in Tuscany, which he founded about 1009. It became, through the influence of Damiani, his eulogist and Hildebrand's friend, the nucleus of a monastic order, which combined the cenobitic and eremitic life, and was distinguished by great severity. Pope Gregory XVI. belonged to this order. __________________________________________________________________ [378] The life of B. was written by Ardo. See theActa Sanct. mens. Februar. sub Feb. 12; Mabillon,Acta Sanct. ord. S. Bened.; Nicolai, Der heil. Benedict Gründer von Aniane und Cornelimünster(Köln, 1865); Gfrörer, Kirchengesch. III. 704 sqq. [379] To distinguish him from the older Nilus, who was a pupil and friend of Chrysostom, a fertile ascetic writer and monk on Mt. Sinai (d. about 440). There were more than twenty distinguished persons of that name in the Greek church. See Allatius, Diatriba de Nilis et Psellis; Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. X. 3. [380] The place where two German scholars, O. von Gebhardt and Harnack, discovered the Codex Rossanensis of the Greek Matthew and Mark in the library of the archbishop (March, 1879). It dates from the sixth or seventh century, is beautifully written in silver letters on very fine purple-colored vellum, and was published by O. von Gebhardt in 1883. See Schaff's Companion to the Gr. T., p. 131, and Gregory's Prolegomena, I. 408. [381] Acta Sanctorum vol. XXVI. Sept 26 (with the Greek text of a biography of the saint by a disciple). Alban Butler,Lives of the Saints, Sept. 26. Neander, III. 420 sqq. (Germ. ed. IV. 307-315). The convent of Crypts Ferrata possesses a valuable library, which was used by distinguished antiquarians as Mabillon, Montfaucon, Angelo Mai, and Dom Pitra. Among its treasures are several MSS. of parts of the Greek Testament, to which Dean Burgon calls attention in The Revision Revised (Lond. 1883), p. 447. [382] His death occurred June 19, but his principal feast was appointed by Clement VIII. on the seventh of February. "His body," says Alban Butler, "was found entire and uncorrupt five years after his death, and again in 1466. But his tomb being sacrilegiously opened and his body stolen in 1480, it fell to dust, in which state it was translated to Fabriano, and there deposited in the great church, all but the remains of one arm, sent to Camaldoli. God has honored his relics with many miracles." [383] Vita & Romualdi, c. 69, in Damiani's Opera II. f. 1006, in Migne's edition (Patrol. Tom. 145, f. 953-1008). He adds; "Nunc inter vivos coelestis Hierusalem lapides ineffabiliter rutilat, cum ignitis beatorum spirituum turmis exultat, candidissimi stola immortalitatis induitur, et ab ipso rege regum vibrante in perpetuum diademate coronatur." __________________________________________________________________ § 84. The Convent of Cluny. Marrier and Duchesne: Bibliotheca Cluniacensis. Paris 1614 fol. Holsten.: Cod. Regul. Mon. II. 176. Lorain: Essay historique sur l' abbaye de Cluny. Dijon 1839. Neander III. 417 sqq. 444 sq. Friedr. Hurter (Prot, minister in Schaffhausen, afterwards R. Cath.): Gesch. Papst Innocenz des Dritten (second ed. Hamb. 1844), vol. IV. pp. 22-55. After the decay of monastic discipline during the ninth and tenth centuries, a reformation proceeded from the convent of Cluny in Burgundy, and affected the whole church. [384] It was founded by the pious Duke William of Aquitania in 910, to the honor of St. Peter and St. Paul, on the basis of the rule of St. Benedict. Count Bruno (d. 927) was the first abbot, and introduced severe discipline. His successor Odo (927-941), first a soldier, then a clergyman of learning, wisdom, and saintly character, became a reformer of several Benedictine convents. Neander praises his enlightened views on Christian life, and his superior estimate of the moral, as compared with the miraculous, power of Christianity. Aymardus (Aymard, 941-948), who resigned when he became blind, Majolus (Maieul to 994), who declined the papal crown, Odilo, surnamed "the Good" (to 1048), and Hugo (to 1109), continued in the same spirit. The last two exerted great influence upon emperors and popes, and inspired the reformation of the papacy and the church. It was at Cluny that Hildebrand advised Bishop Bruno of Toul (Leo IX.), who had been elected pope by Henry III., to seek first a regular election by the clergy in Rome; and thus foreshadowed his own future conflict with the imperial power. Odilo introduced the Treuga Dei and the festival of All Souls. Hugo, Hildebrand's friend, ruled sixty years, and raised the convent to the summit of its fame. Cluny was the centre (archimonasterium) of the reformed Benedictine convents, and its head was the chief abbot (archiabbas). It gave to the church many eminent bishops and three popes (Gregory VII., Urban II., and Pascal II.). In the time of its highest prosperity it ruled over two thousand monastic establishments. The daily life was regulated in all its details; silence was imposed for the greater part of the day, during which the monks communicated only by signs; strict obedience ruled within; hospitality and benevolence were freely exercised to the poor and to strangers, who usually exceeded the number of the monks. During a severe famine Odilo exhausted the magazines of the convent, and even melted the sacred vessels, and sold the ornaments of the church and a crown which Henry II. had sent him from Germany. The convent stood directly under the pope's jurisdiction, and was highly favored with donations and privileges. [385] The church connected with it was the largest and richest in France (perhaps in all Europe), and admired for its twenty-five altars, its bells, and its costly works of art. It was founded by Hugo, and consecrated seventy years afterwards by Pope Innocent II. under the administration of Peter the Venerable (1131). The example of Cluny gave rise to other monastic orders, as the Congregation of the Vallombrosa (Vallis umbrosa), eighteen miles from Florence, founded by St. John Gualbert in 1038, and the Congregation of Hirsau in Württemberg, in 1069. But the very fame and prosperity of Cluny proved a temptation and cause of decline. An unworthy abbot, Pontius, wasted the funds, and was at last deposed and excommunicated by the pope as a robber of the church. Peter the Venerable, the friend of St. Bernard and kind patron of the unfortunate Abelard, raised Cluny by his wise and long administration (1122-1156) to new life and the height of prosperity. He increased the number of monks from 200 to 460, and connected 314 convents with the parent institution. In 1245 Pope Innocent IV., with twelve cardinals and all their clergy, two patriarchs, three archbishops, eleven bishops, the king of France, the emperor of Constantinople, and many dukes, counts and knights with their dependents were entertained in the buildings of Cluny. [386] This was the end of its prosperity. Another decline followed, from which Cluny never entirely recovered. The last abbots were merely ornamental, and wasted two-thirds of the income at the court of France. The French Revolution of 1789 swept the institution out of existence, and reduced the once famous buildings to ruins; but restorations have since been made. [387] A similar reformation of monasticism and of the clergy was attempted and partially carried out in England by St. Dunstan (925-May 19, 988), first as abbot of Glastonbury, then as bishop of Winchester and London, and last as archbishop of Canterbury (961) and virtual ruler of the kingdom. A monk of the severest type and a churchman of iron will, he enforced the Benedictine rule, filled the leading sees and richer livings with Benedictines, made a crusade against clerical marriage (then the rule rather than the exception), hoping to correct the immorality of the priests by abstracting them from the world, and asserted the theocratic rule of the church over the civil power under Kings Edwy and Edgar; but his excesses called forth violent contentions between the monks and the seculars in England. He was a forerunner of Hildebrand and Thomas à Becket. [388] __________________________________________________________________ [384] Cluny or Clugny (Cluniacum) is twelve miles northwest of Macon. The present town has about four thousand inhabitants. Its chief interest consists in the remains of mediaeeval architecture. [385] The wealth of the abbey was proverbial. Hurter quotes from Lorain the saying in Burgundy: "En tout pays ou le, rent vente, L' Abbaye de Cluny a rente." [386] Hurter, l.c. p. 45. [387] The material of the church was sold during the Revolution for not much more than 100,000 francs. When Napoleon Bonaparte passed through Macon, be was invited to visit Cluny, but declined with the answer: "You have allowed your great and beautiful church to be sold and ruined, you are a set of Vandals; I shall not visit Cluny." Lorain, as quoted by Hurter, p. 47. The last abbot of Cluny was Cardinal Dominicus de la Rochefaucauld, who died in exile a.d.1800. [388] See Dunstan's life in the Acta Sanct. for May 19; and in Butler's Lives of the Saints, under the same date. Comp. Wharton, Anglia Sacra, II.; Lingard Hist. of the Anglo-Saxon Church; Soames,Anglo-Saxon Church; Lappenberg, Gesch. von England; Hook, Archbishops of Canterbury; Milman, Latin Christianity, Bk. VII., ch. 1; Hardwick; Robertson; also Lea, History of Sacerdotal Celibacy. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER VIII. CHURCH DISCIPLINE. Comp. vol. II. § 57, and vol. III. § 68. __________________________________________________________________ § 85. The Penitential Books. I. The Acts of Councils, the Capitularies of Charlemagne and his successors, and the Penitential Books, especially that of Theodore of Canterbury, and that of Rome. See Migne's Patrol. Tom. 99, fol. 901-983. II. Friedr. Kunstmann (R.C.): Die latein. Pönitentialbücher der Angelsachsen. Mainz 1844. F. W. H. Wasserschleben: Bussordnungen der abendländ. Kirche. Halle 1851. Steitz: Das röm. Buss-Sacrament. Frankf. 1854. Frank (R.C.): Die Bussdisciplin der Kirche. Mainz 1867. Probst (R.C.): Sacramente und Sacramentalien. Tübingen 1872. Haddan and Stubbs: Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, vol. III. Oxf. 1871. H. Jos. Schmitz (R.C.): Die Bussbücher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche. Nach handschriftl. Quellen. Mainz 1883 (XVI. and 864 p.). Comp. the review of this book by Wasserschleben in the "Theol. Literaturzeitung," 1883, fol. 614 sqq. Bingham, Bk XIV. Smith and Cheetham, II. 608 sqq. (Penitential Books). Herzog,2 III. 20 sqq. (Bussbücher). Wetzer and Welte2 II. 209-222 (Beichtbücher); II. 1561-1590 (Bussdisciplin). Comp. Lit. in § 87. The discipline of the Catholic church is based on the power of the keys intrusted to the apostles and their successors, and includes the excommunication and restoration of delinquent members. It was originally a purely spiritual jurisdiction, but after the establishment of Christianity as the national religion, it began to affect also the civil and temporal condition of the subjects of punishment. It obtained a powerful hold upon the public mind from the universal belief of the middle ages that the visible church, centering in the Roman papacy, was by divine appointment the dispenser of eternal salvation, and that expulsion from her communion, unless followed by repentance and restoration, meant eternal damnation. No heresy or sect ever claimed this power. Discipline was very obnoxious to the wild and independent spirit of the barbaric races. It was exercised by the bishop through synodical courts, which were held annually in the dominions of Charlemagne for the promotion of good morals. Charlemagne ordered the bishops to visit their parishes once a year, and to inquire into cases of incest, patricide, fratricide, adultery, and other vices contrary to the laws of God. [389] Similar directions were given by Synods in Spain and England. The more extensive dioceses were divided into several archdeaconries. The archdeacons represented the bishops, and, owing to this close connection, they possessed a power and jurisdiction superior to that of the priests. Seven members of the congregation were entrusted with a supervision, and had to report to the inquisitorial court on the state of religion and morals. Offences both ecclesiastical and civil were punished at once with fines, fasting, pilgrimages, scourging, imprisonment. The civil authorities aided the bishops in the exercise of discipline. Public offences were visited with public penance; private offences were confessed to the priest, who immediately granted absolution on certain conditions. The discipline of the Latin church in the middle ages is laid down in the so-called "Penitential Books." [390] They regulate the order of penitence, and prescribe specific punishments for certain sins, as drunkenness, fornication, avarice, perjury, homicide, heresy, idolatry. The material is mostly derived from the writings of the fathers, and from the synodical canons of Ancyra (314), Neocaesarea (314), Nicaea (325), Gangra (362), and of the North African, Frankish, and Spanish councils down to the seventh century. The common object of these Penitentials is to enforce practical duties and to extirpate the ferocious and licentious passions of heathenism. They present a very dark picture of the sins of the flesh. They kept alive the sense of a moral government of God, who punishes every violation of his law, but they lowered the sense of guilt by fostering the pernicious notion that sin may be expiated by mechanical exercises and by the payment of a sum of money. There were many such books, British, Irish, Frankish, Spanish, and Roman. The best known are the Anglo-Saxon penitentials of the seventh and eighth centuries, especially that of Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury (669-690). He was a Greek by birth, of Tarsus in Cilicia, and reduced the disciplinary rules of the East and West to a system. He was not the direct author of the book which bears his name, but it was drawn up under his direction, published during his life-time and by his authority, and contains his decisions in answer to various questions of a priest named Eoda and other persons on the subject of penance and the whole range of ecclesiastical discipline. The genuine text has recently been brought to light from early MSS. by the combined labors of German and English scholarship. [391] The introduction and the book itself are written in barbarous Latin. Traces of the Greek training of Theodore may be seen in the references to St. Basil and to Greek practices. Next to Theodore's collection there are Penitentials under the name of the venerable Bede (d. 735), and of Egbert, archbishop of York (d. 767). [392] The earliest Frankish penitential is the work of Columban, the Irish missionary (d. 615). He was a severe monastic disciplinarian and gave prominence to corporal punishment among the penalties for offences. The Cummean Penitential (Poenit. Cummeani) is of Scotch-Irish origin, and variously assigned to Columba of Iona (about 597), to Cumin, one of his disciples, or to Cummean, who died in Columban's monastery at Bobbio (after 711). Haltigar, bishop of Cambray, in the ninth century (about 829) published a "Roman Penitential," professedly derived from Roman archives, but in great part from Columban, and Frankish sources. An earlier work which bears the name "Poenitentiale Romanum," from the first part of the eighth century, has a more general character, but its precise origin is uncertain. The term "Roman" was used to designate the quality of a class of Penitentials which enjoyed a more than local authority. [393] Rabanus Maurus (d. 855) prepared a "Liber Poenitentitae" at the request of the archbishop Otgar of Mayence (841). Almost every diocese had its own book of the kind, but the spirit and the material were substantially the same. Notes. As specimens of these Penitential Books, we give the first two chapters from the first book of the Poenitentiale Theodori (Archbishop of Canterbury), as printed in Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Eccles. Doc. relating to Great Britain and Ireland, vol. IIIrd. p. 177 sqq. We insert a few better readings from other MSS. used by Wasserschleben. I. De Crapula et Ebrietate. 1. Si quis Episco pus aut aliquis ordinatus in consuetudine vitium habuerit ebrietatis, aut desinat aut deponatur. 2. Si monachus pro ebrietate vomitum facit, XXX. dies peniteat. 3. Si presbiter aut diaconus pro ebrietate, XL. dies peniteat. 4. Si vero pro infirmitate aut quia longo tempore se abstinuerit, et in consuetudine non erit ei multum bibere vel manducare, aut pro gaudio in Natale Domini aut in Pascha aut pro alicujus Sanctorum commemoratione faciebat, et tunc plus non accipit quam decretum est a senioribus, nihil nocet. Si Episcopus juberit, non nocet illi, nisi ipse similiterfaciat. 5. Si laicus fidelis pro ebrietate vomitum facit, XV. dies peniteat. 6. Qui vero inebriatur contra Domini interdictum, si votum sanctitatis habuerit VII. dies in pane et aqua, LXX. sine pinguedine peniteat; laici sine cervisa [cervisia]. 7. Qui per nequitiam inebriat alium, XL. dies peniteat. 8. Qui pro satietate vomitum facit, III. diebus [dies] peniteat. 9. Si cum sacrificio communionis, VII. dies peniteat; si infirmitatis causa, sine culpa. II. De Fornicatione. 1. Si quis fornicaverit cum virgine, I. anno peniteat. Si cum marita, IIII. annos, II. integros, II alios in XL. mis. III. bus., et III dies in ebdomada peniteat. 2. Qui sepe cum masculo aut cum pecude fornicat, X. annos ut peniteret judicavit. 3. Rem aliud. Qui cum pecoribus coierit, XV. annos peniteat. 4. Qui coierit cum masculo post XX. annum, XV. annos peniteat. 5. Si masculus cum masculo fornicaverit, X. annos peniteat. 6. Sodomitae VII. annos peniteat [peniteant]; molles [et mollis] sicut adultera. 7. Item hoc; virile scelus semel faciens IIII annos peniteat; si in consuetudine fuerit, ut Basilius dicit, XV. Si sine, sustinens unum annum ut mulier. Si puer sit, primo II. bus annis; si iterat IIII. 8. Si in femoribus, annum I. vel. III. XL. mas. 9. Si se ipsum coinguinat, XL. dies [peniteat.] 10. Qui concupiscit fornicari [fornicare] sed non potest, XL. dies vel XX. peniteat. Si frequentaverit, si puer sit, XX. dies, vel vapuletur. 11. Pueri qui fornicantur inter se ipsos judicavit ut vapulentur. 12. Mulier cum muliere fornicando [si ... fornicaverit], III. annos peniteat. 13. Si sola cum se ipsa coitum habet, sic peniteat. 14. Una penitentia est viduae et puellae. Majorem meruit quae virum habet, si fornicaverit. 15. Qui semen in os miserit, VII annos peniteat: hoc pessimum malum. Alias ab eo judicatum est ut ambo usque in finem vitae peniteant; vel XXII. annos, vel ut superius VII. 16. Si cum matre quis fornicaverit, XV. annos peniteat, et nunquam, mutat [mutet] nisi Dominicis diebus: et hoc tam profanum incertum [incestum] ab eo similiter alio modo dicitur ut cum peregrinatione perenni VII. annos peniteat. 17. Qui cum sorore fornicatur, XV. annos peniteat, eo modo quo superius de matre dicitur, sed et istud XV. alias in canone confirmavit; unde non absorde XV. anni ad matrem transeunt qui scribuntur. 18. Qui sepe fornicaverit, primus canon judicavit X. annos penitere; secundus canon VII.; sed pro infirmitate hominis, per consilium dixerunt III. annos penitere. 19. Si frater cum fratre naturali fornicaverit per commixtionem carnis, XV. annos ab omni carne abstineat. 20. Si mater cum filio suo parvulo fornicationem imitatur, III. annos se abstineat a carne, et diem unum jejunet in ebdomada, id est, usque ad vesperum. 21. Qui inludetur fornicaria cogitatione, peniteat usque dum cogitatio superetur. 22. Qui diligit feminam mente, veniam petat ab eo [a Deo] id est, de amore et amicitia si dixerit si non est susceptus ab ea, VII. dies peniteat." The remaining chapters of the first book treat De Avaritia Furtiva; De Occisione Hominum [De Homicidio]; De his qui per Heresim decipiuntur; De Perjurio; De multis et diversis Malis; De diverso Lapso servorum Dei; De his qui degraduntur vel ordinari non possunt; De Baptizatis his, qualiter peniteant; De his qui damnant Dominicam et indicta jejunia ecclesiae Dei; De communione Eucharistiae, vel Sacrificio; De Reconciliatione; De Penitentia Nubentium specialiter; De Cultura Idolorum. The last chapter shows how many heathen superstitions prevailed in connection with gross immorality, which the church endeavored to counteract by a mechanical legalism. The second book treats De Ecclesiae Ministerio; De tribus gratlibus; De Ordinatione; De Baptismo et Confirmatione; De Missa Defunctorum, etc. __________________________________________________________________ [389] See the passages in Gieseler IL 55 (Harpers' ed.) The Synodical courts were called Sendgerichte(a corruption from Synod). [390] Liber Poenitentialis, Poenitential, Confessionale, Leges Poenitentium, Judicia Peccantium. [391] By Prof. Wasserschleben of Halle, 1851 (from several Continental MSS.), and Canon Haddan and Prof. Stubbs, Oxford, 1871, (III. 173-203) from a Cambridge MS. of the 8th century. The texts of the earlier editions of Theodori Poenitentiale by Spelman (1639), D'Achery (1669), Jaques Petit (1677, reprinted in Migne's Patrol. 1851, Tom. 99), Thorpe (1840), and Kunstmann (1844) are imperfect or spurious. The question of authorship and of the MS. sources is learnedly discussed in a note by Haddan and Stubbs, III. 173 sq. See extracts in the Notes. [392] Both are given in Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, etc. III. 326 sqq. and 413 sqq. [393] This is the view of Wasserschleben, while Schmitz thinks that the Poenitentiale Romanum was originally intended for the Roman church, and that the Westem Penitentials are derived from it. __________________________________________________________________ § 86. Ecclesiastical Punishments. Excommunication, Anathema, Interdict. Friedrich Kober (R.C.): Der Kirchenbann nach den Grundsätzen des canonischen Rechts dargestellt. Tübingen 1857 (560 pages). By the same author: Die Suspension der Kirchendiener. Tüb. 1862. Henry C. Lea: Excommunication, in his Studies in Church History (Philadelphia 1869), p. 223-475. The severest penalties of the church were excommunication, anathema, and interdict. They were fearful weapons in the hands of the hierarchy during the middle ages, when the church was believed to control salvation, and when the civil power enforced her decrees by the strong arm of the law. The punishment ceases with repentance, which is followed by absolution. The sentence of absolution must proceed from the bishop who pronounced the sentence of excommunication; but in articulo mortis every priest can absolve on condition of obedience in case of recovery. 1. Excommunication was the exclusion from the sacraments, especially the communion. In the dominions of Charlemagne it was accompanied with civil disabilities, as exclusion from secular tribunals, and even with imprisonment and seizure of property. A bishop could excommunicate any one who refused canonical obedience. But a bishop could only be excommunicated by the pope, and the pope by no power on earth. [394] The sentence was often accompanied with awful curses upon the bodies and souls of the offender. The popes, as they towered above ordinary bishops, surpassed them also in the art of cursing, and exercised it with shocking profanity. Thus Benedict VIII., who crowned Emperor Henry II. (a.d. 1014), excommunicated some reckless vassals of William II., Count of Provence, who sought to lay unhallowed hands upon the property of the monastery of St. Giles, [395] and consigned them to Satan with terrible imprecations, although be probably thought he was only following St. Peter's example in condemning Ananias and Sapphira, and Simon Magus. [396] "Hardened sinners" (says Lea) "might despise such imprecations, but their effect on believers was necessarily unutterable, when, amid the gorgeous and impressive ceremonial of worship, the bishop, surrounded by twelve priests bearing flaming candles, solemnly recited the awful words which consigned the evil-doer and all his generation to eternal torment with such fearful amplitude and reduplication of malediction, and as the sentence of perdition came to its climax, the attending priests simultaneously cast their candles to the ground and trod them out, as a symbol of the quenching of a human soul in the eternal night of hell. To this was added the expectation, amounting almost to a certainty, that Heaven would not wait for the natural course of events to confirm the judgment thus pronounced, but that the maledictions would be as effective in this world as in the next. Those whom spiritual terrors could not subdue thus were daunted by the fearful stories of the judgment overtaking the hardened sinner who dared to despise the dread anathema." 2. The Anathema is generally used in the same sense as excommunication or separation from church communion and church privileges. But in a narrower sense, it means the "greater" excommunication, [397] which excludes from all Christian intercourse and makes the offender an outlaw; while the "minor" excommunication excludes only from the sacrament. Such a distinction was made by Gratian and Innocent III. The anathema was pronounced with more solemn ceremonies. The Council of Nicaea, 335, anathematized the Arians, and the Council of Trent, 1563, closed with three anathemas on all heretics. 3. The Interdict [398] extended over a whole town or diocese or district or country, and involved the innocent with the guilty. It was a suspension of religion in public exercise, including even the rites of marriage and burial; only baptism and extreme unction could be performed, and they only with closed doors. It cast the gloom of a funeral over a country, and made people tremble in expectation of the last judgment. This exceptional punishment began in a small way in the fifth century. St. Augustin justly reproved Auxilius, a brother bishop, who abused his power by excommunicating a whole family for the offence of the head, and Pope Leo the Great forbade to enforce the penalty on any who was not a partner in the crime. [399] But the bishops and popes of the middle ages, from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, thought otherwise, and resorted repeatedly to this extreme remedy of enforcing obedience. They had some basis for it in the custom of the barbarians to hold the family or tribe responsible for crimes committed by individual members. The first conspicuous examples of inflicting the Interdict occurred in France. Bishop Leudovald of Bayeux, after consulting with his brother bishops, closed in 586 all the churches of Rouen and deprived the people of the consolations of religion until the murderer of Pretextatus, Bishop of Rouen, who was slain at the altar by a hireling of the savage queen Fredegunda, should be discovered. [400] Hincmar of Laon inflicted the interdict on his diocese (869), but Hincmar of Rheims disapproved of it and removed it. The synod of Limoges (Limoisin), in 1031, enforced the Peace of God by the interdict in these words which were read in the church: "We excommunicate all those noblemen (milites) in the bishopric of Limoges who disobey the exhortations of their bishop to hold the Peace. Let them and their helpers be accursed, and let their weapons and horses be accursed! Let their lot be with Cain, Dathan, and Abiram! And as now the lights are extinguished, so their joy in the presence of angels shall be destroyed, unless they repent and make satisfaction before dying." The Synod ordered that public worship be closed, the altars laid bare, crosses and ornaments removed, marriages forbidden; only clergymen, beggars, strangers and children under two years could be buried, and only the dying receive the communion; no clergyman or layman should be shaved till the nobles submit. A signal in the church on the third hour of the day should call all to fall on their knees to pray. All should be dressed in mourning. The whole period of the interdict should be observed as a continued fast and humiliation. [401] The popes employed this fearful weapon against disobedient kings, and sacrificed the spiritual comforts of whole nations to their hierarchical ambition. Gregory VII. laid the province of Gnesen under the interdict, because King Bolislaw II. had murdered bishop Stanislaus of Cracow with his own hand. Alexander II. applied it to Scotland (1180), because the king refused a papal bishop and expelled him from the country. Innocent III. suspended it over France (1200), because king Philip Augustus had cast off his lawful wife and lived with a concubine. [402] The same pope inflicted this punishment upon England (March 23, 1208), hoping to bring King John (Lackland) to terms. The English interdict lasted over six years during which all religious rites were forbidden except baptism, confession, and the viaticum. Interdicts were only possible in the middle ages when the church had unlimited power. Their frequency and the impossibility of full execution diminished their power until they fell into contempt and were swept out of existence as the nations of Europe outgrew the discipline of priestcraft and awoke to a sense of manhood. __________________________________________________________________ [394] But during the papal schism, the rival popes excommunicated each other, and the Council of Constance deposed them. [395] Aegidius (Aigidios); Italian: Sant Egidio; French: S. Gilles. He was an abbot and confessor in France during the reign of Charles Martel or earlier, and much more celebrated than reliably known. He is the special patron of cripples, and his tomb was much visited by pilgrims from all parts of France, England and Scotland. Almost every county in England has churches named in his honor, amounting in all to 146. See Smith and Wace I. 47 sqq. [396] Bened. Papae VIII. Epist. 32 (ad Guillelmum Comitem). In Migne's Patrol. T. 139, fol. 1630-32. Lea translates it in part, l.c. p. 337. "Benedict Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, to Count William and his mother, the Countess Adelaide, perpetual grace and apostolic benediction .... Let them [who a tempted to rob the monastery] be accursed in their bodies, and let their souls be delivered to destruction and perdition and torture. Let them be damned with the damned: let them be scourged with the ungrateful; let them perish with the proud. Let them be accursed with the Jews who, seeing the incarnate Christ, did not believe but sought to crucify Him. Let them be accursed with the heretics who labored to destroy the church. Let them be accursed with those who blaspheme the name of God. Let them be accursed with those who despair of the mercy of God. Let them be accursed with those who he damned in Hell. Let them be accursed with the impious and sinners unless they amend their ways, and confess themselves in fault towards St. Giles. Let them be accursed in the four quarters of the earth. In the East be they accursed, and in the West disinherited; in the North interdicted, and in the South excommunicate. Be they accursed in the day-time and excommunicate in the night-time. Accursed be they at home and excommunicate abroad; accursed in standing and excommunicate in sitting; accursed in eating, accursed in drinking, accursed in sleeping, and excommunicate in waking; accursed when they work and excommunicate when they rest. Let them be accursed in the spring time and excommunicate in the summer; accursed in the autumn and excommunicate in the winter. Let them be accursed in this world and excommunicate in the next. Let their lands pass into the hands of the stranger, their wives be given over to perdition, and their children fall before the edge of the sword. Let what they eat be accursed, and accursed be what they leave, so that he who eats it shall be accursed. Accursed and excommunicate be the priest who shall give them the body and blood of the Lord, or who shall visit them in sickness. Accursed and excommunicate be he who shall carry them to the grave and shall dare to bury them. Let them be excommunicate, and accursed with all curses if they do not make amends and render due satisfaction. And know this for truth, that after our death no bishop nor count, nor any secular power shall usurp the seigniory of the blessed St. Giles. And if any presume to attempt it, borne down by, all the foregoing curses, they never shall enter the kingdom of Heaven, for the blessed St. Giles committed his monastery to the lordship of the blessed Peter." [397] Corresponding to the Cherem, as distinct from Niddui (i.e. separation), in the Jewish Synagogue. See J. Lightfoot, De Anathemate Maranatha, and the commentators on Gal. 1:8, 9 (especially Wieseler). [398] Interdictum orprohibitio officiorum divinorum, prohibition of public worship. A distinction is made between interd. personale for particular persons; locale for place or district; and generale for whole countries and kingdoms. [399] 9 Aug. Ep. 250, § 1; Leo, Ep. X. cap, 8--quoted by Gieseler, and Lea, p. 301. St. Basil of Caesarea is sometimes quoted as the inventor of the interdict, but not justly. See Lea, p. 302 note. [400] Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc. VIII. 31. [401] Conc. Lemovicense II. See Mansi XIX. 541; Harduin VI. p. 1, 885; Hefele IV. 693-695; Gieseler II. 199 note 12. [402] See the graphic description of the effects of this interdict upon the state of society, in Hurter's Innocenz III., vol. I. 372-386. __________________________________________________________________ § 87. Penance and Indulgence. Nath. Marshall (Canon of Windsor and translator of Cyprian, d. 1729): The Penitential Discipline of the Primitive Church for the first 400 years after Christ, together with its declension from the fifth century downward to its present state. London 1714. A new ed. in the "Lib. of Anglo-Cath. Theol." Oxford 1844. Eus. Amort: De Origine, Progressu, Valore ac Fructu Indulgentiarum. Aug. Vindel. 1735 fol. Muratori: De Redemtione Peccatorum et de Indulgentiarum Origine, in Tom. V. of his Antiquitates Italicae Medii Aevi. Mediol. 1741. Joh. B. Hirscher (R.C.): Die Lehre vom Ablass. Tübingen, 5th ed. 1844. G. E. Steitz: Das römische Buss-Sacrament, nach seinem bibl. Grunde und seiner gesch. Entwicklung. Frankf a. M. 1854 (210 pages). Val. Gröne (R.C.): Der Ablass, seine Geschichte und Bedeutung in der Heilsökonomie. Regensb. 1863. Domin. Palmieri (R.C.): Tractat. de Poenit. Romae 1879. George Mead: Art. Penitence, in Smith and Cheetham II. 1586-1608. Wildt, (R.C.): Ablass, in Wetzer and Welte2 I. 94-111; Beichte and Beichtsiegel, II. 221-261. Mejer in Herzog2 I. 90-92. For extracts from sources comp. Gieseler II. 105 sqq.; 193 sqq.; 515 sqq. (Am. ed.) For the authoritative teaching of the Roman church on the Sacramentum Poenitentiae see Conc. Trident. Sess. XIV. held 1551. The word repentance or penitence is an insufficient rendering for the corresponding Greek metanoia, which means a radical change of mind or conversion from a sinful to a godly life, and includes, negatively, a turning away from sin in godly sorrow (repentance in the narrower sense) and, positively, a turning to Christ by faith with a determination to follow him. [403] The call to repent in this sense was the beginning of the preaching both of John the Baptist, and of Jesus Christ. [404] In the Latin church the idea of repentance was externalized and identified with certain outward acts of self-abasement or self-punishment for the expiation of sin. The public penance before the church went out of use during the seventh or eighth century, except for very gross offences, and was replaced by private penance and confession. [405] The Lateran Council of 1215 under Pope Innocent III. made it obligatory upon every Catholic Christian to confess to his parish priest at least once a year. [406] Penance, including auricular confession and priestly absolution, was raised to the dignity of a sacrament for sins committed after baptism. The theory on which it rests was prepared by the fathers (Tertullian and Cyprian), completed by the schoolmen, and sanctioned by the Roman church. It is supposed that baptism secures perfect remission of past sins, but not of subsequent sins, and frees from eternal damnation, but not from temporal punishment, which culminates in death or in purgatory. Penance is described as a "laborious kind of baptism," and is declared by the Council of Trent to be necessary to salvation for those who have fallen after baptism, as baptism is necessary for those who have not yet been regenerated. [407] The sacrament of penance and priestly, absolution includes three elements: contrition of the heart, confession by the mouth, satisfaction by good works. [408] On these conditions the priest grants absolution, not simply by a declaratory but by a judicial act. The good works required are especially fasting and almsgiving. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Rome, Tours, Compostella, and other sacred places were likewise favorite satisfactions. Peter Damiani recommended voluntary self-flagellation as a means to propitiate God. These pious exercises covered in the popular mind the whole idea of penance. Piety was measured by the quantity of good works rather than by quality of character. Another mediaeval institution must here be mentioned which is closely connected with penance. The church in the West, in her zeal to prevent violence and bloodshed, rightly favored the custom of the barbarians to substitute pecuniary compensation for punishment of an offence, but wrongly applied this custom to the sphere of religion. Thus money, might be substituted for fasting and other satisfactions, and was clothed with an atoning efficacy. This custom seems to have proceeded from the church of England, and soon spread over the continent. [409] It degenerated into a regular traffic, and became a rich source for the increase of ecclesiastical and monastic property. Here is the origin of the indulgences so called, that is the remission of venial sins by the payment of money and on condition of contrition and prayer. The practice was justified by the scholastic theory that the works of supererogation of the saints constitute a treasury of extra-merit and extra-reward which is under the control of the pope. Hence indulgence assumed the special meaning of papal dispensation or remission of sin from the treasury of the overflowing merits of saints, and this power was extended even to the benefit of the dead in purgatory. [410] Indulgences may be granted by bishops and archbishops in their dioceses, and by the pope to all Catholics. The former dealt with it in retail, the latter in wholesale. The first instances of papal indulgence occur in the ninth century under Paschalis I. and John VIII. who granted it to those who had fallen in war for the defence of the church. Gregory VI. in 1046 promised it to all who sent contributions for the repair of the churches in Rome. Urban II., at the council of Clermont (1095), offered to the crusaders "by the authority of the princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul," plenary indulgence as a reward for a journey to the Holy Land. The same offer was repeated in every crusade against the Mohammedans and heretics. The popes found it a convenient means for promoting their power and filling their treasury. Thus the granting of indulgences became a periodical institution. Its abuses culminated in the profane and shameful traffic of Tetzel under Leo X. for the benefit of St. Peter's church, but were overruled in the Providence of God for the Reformation and a return to the biblical idea of repentance. Note. The charge is frequently made against the papal court in the middle ages that it had a regulated scale of prices for indulgences, and this is based on the Tax Tables of the Roman Chancery published from time to time. Roman Catholic writers (as Lingard, Wiseman) say that the taxes are merely fees for the expedition of business and the payment of officials, but cannot deny the shameful avarice of some popes. The subject is fully discussed by Dr. T. L. Green (R.C.), Indulgences, Sacramental Absolutions, and the Tax-Tables of the Roman Chancery and Penitentiary, considered, in reply to the Charge of Venality, London (Longmans) 1872, and, on the Protestant side, by Dr. Richard Gibbings (Prof. of Ch. Hist. in the University of Dublin), The Taxes of the Apostolic Penitentiary; or, the Prices of Sins in the Church of Rome, Dublin 1872. Gibbings reprints the Taxae Sacrae Poenitentiariae Romanae from the Roman ed. of 1510 and the Parisian ed. of 1520, which cover 21 pages in Latin, but the greater part of the book (164 pages) is an historical introduction and polemical discussion. __________________________________________________________________ [403] Penitence is from the Latin poenitentia, and this is derived from poena, poine(compensation, satisfaction, punishment). Jerome introduced the word, or rather retained it, in the Latin Bible, for metanoia, and poenitentiam agere for metanoeinHence the Douay version: to do penance. Augustin, Isidor, Rabanus Maurus, Peter Lombard, and the R. Catholic theologians connect the term with the penal idea (poena, punitio) and make it cover the whole penitential discipline. The English repentance, to repent, and the German Busse, Bussethun follow the Vulgate, but have changed the meaning in evangelical theology in conformity to the Greek metanoia. [404] Matt. 3:2; 4:17; Mark 1:15. Luther renewed the call in his 95 Theses which begin with the same idea, in opposition to the traffic in indulgences. [405] Pope Leo the Great (440-461) was the first prelate in the West who sanctioned the substitution of the system of secret humiliation by auricular confession for the public exomologesis. Ep. 136. Opera I. 355. [406] Can. 21: "Omnis utriusque sexus fidelis, postquam ad annos discretionis pervenerit, omnia sua solus peccata confiteatur fideliter, saltem semel in anno, proprio sacerdoti."Violation of this law of auricular confession was threatened with excommunication and refusal of Christian burial. See Hefele V. 793. [407] Conc. Trid. Sess. XIV. cap.2 (Schaff's Creeds I. 143). The Council went so far in Canon VI. (II. 165) as to anathematize any one "who denies that sacramental confession was instituted or is necessary to salvation, of divine right; or who says that the manner of confessing secretly to a priest alone, which the church has ever observed from the beginning (?), and doth observe, is alien from the institution and command of Christ, and is a human invention." [408] Contritio cordis, confessio oris, satisfactio operis. See Conc. Trid. Sess. XIV. cap. 3-6 (Creeds, II. 143-153). The usual Roman Catholic definition of this sacrament is: "Sacramentum poenitentiae est sacramentum a Christo institutum, quo homini contrito, confesso et satisfacturo (satisfacere volenti) per juridicam sacerdotis absolutionem peccata post baptismum commissa remittuntur." Oswald, Die dogmat. Lehre von den heil. Sacramenten der katholischen Kirche,II. 17 (3rd ed. Münster 1870). [409] Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury is the reputed author of this commutation of penance for a money-payment. See his Penitential I. 3 and 4, and the seventh penitential canon ascribed to him, in Haddan and Stubbs III. 179, 180, 211. "Si quis"says Theodore, "pro ultione propinqui hominem occiderit, peniteat sicut homicida, VII. vel X. annos. Si tamen reddere vult propinquis petuniam aestimationis, levior erit penitentia, id est, dimidio spatii."The Synod of Clove-ho (probably Abingdon), held under his successor, Cuthbert, for the reformation of abuses, in September 747, decreed in the 26th canon that alms were no longer to be given for diminishing or commuting the fastings and other works of satisfaction. See Haddan and Stubbs, III. 371 sq. [410] This theory was fully developed by Thomas Aquinas and other schoolmen (see Gieseler II. 521 sq.), and sanctioned by the Council of Trent in the 25th Session, held Dec. 4, 1563 (Creeds II. 205 sq.), although the Council forbids "all evil gains" and other abuses which have caused "the honorable name of indulgences to be blasphemed by heretics." The popes still exercise from time to time the right of granting plenary indulgences, though with greater caution than their mediaeval predecessors. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER IX. CHURCH AND STATE. Comp. vol. III. ch. III. and the Lit. there quoted __________________________________________________________________ § 88. Legislation. Mediaeval Christianity is not a direct continuation of the ante-Nicene Christianity in hostile conflict with the heathen state, but of the post-Nicene Christianity in friendly union with a nominally Christian state. The missionaries aimed first at the conversion of the rulers of the barbarian races of Western and Northern Europe. Augustin, with his thirty monks, was provided by Pope Gregory with letters to princes, and approached first King Ethelbert and Queen Bertha in Kent. Boniface leaned on the pope and Charles Martel. The conversion of Clovis decided the religion of the Franks. The Christian rulers became at once the patrons of the church planted among their subjects, and took Constantine and Theodosius for their models. They submitted to the spiritual authority of the Catholic church, but aspired to its temporal government by the appointment of bishops, abbots, and the control over church-property. Hence the frequent collisions of the two powers, which culminated in the long conflict between the pope and the emperor. The civil and ecclesiastical relations of the middle ages are so closely intertwined that it is impossible to study or understand the one without the other. In Spain, for instance, the synods of Toledo were both ecclesiastical councils and royal parliaments; after the affairs of the church were disposed of, the bishops and nobles met together for the enactment of civil laws, which were sanctioned by the king. The synods and diets held under Charlemagne had likewise a double character. In England the bishops were, and are still, members of the House of Lords, and often occupied seats in the cabinet down to the time of Cardinal Wolsey, who was Archbishop of York and Chancellor of England. The religious persecutions of the middle ages were the joint work of church and state. This union has a bright and a dark side. It was a wholesome training-school for barbarous races, it humanized and ennobled the state; but it secularized the church and the clergy, and hindered the development of freedom by repressing all efforts to emancipate the mind from the yoke of despotic power. The church gained a victory over the world, but the world gained also a victory over the church. St. Jerome, who witnessed the first effects of the marriage of the church with the Roman empire, anticipated the experience of later ages, when he said: "The church by its connection with Christian princes gained in power and riches, but lost in virtues." [411] Dante, who lived in the golden age of the mediaeval hierarchy, and believed the fable of the donation of Constantine to Sylvester, traced the ills of the church to "that marriage-dower" which the first wealthy pope received from the first Christian emperor. The connection of the ecclesiastical and civil powers is embodied in the legislation which regulates the conduct of man in his relations to his fellow-men, and secures social order and national welfare. It is an index of public morals as far as it presupposes and fixes existing customs; and where it is in advance of popular sentiment, it expresses a moral ideal in the mind of the lawgivers to be realized by the educational power of legal enactments. During the middle ages there were three systems of jurisprudence: the Roman law, the Barbaric law, and the Canon law. The first two proceeded from civil, the third from ecclesiastical authority. The civil law embodies the records and edicts of emperors and kings, the enactments of diets and parliaments, the decisions of courts and judges. The ecclesiastical law embodies the canons of councils and decretals of popes. The former is heathen in origin, but improved and modified by Christianity; the latter is the direct production of the church, yet as influenced by the state of mediaeval society. Both rest on the union of church and state, and mutually support each other, but it was difficult to draw the precise line of difference, and to prevent occasional collisions of jurisdiction. __________________________________________________________________ [411] "Ecclesia postquam ad Christianos principes venit, potentia quidem et divitiis, major, sed virtutibus minor facta." __________________________________________________________________ § 89. The Roman Law. See vol. III. §§ 13 and 18, pp. 90 sqq. And 107 sqq. Fr. K. von Savigny (Prof. of jurisprudence in Berlin, d. 1861) Geschichte des römischen Rechts im Mittelalter. Berlin 1815-'31 6 vols. Chapter 44 of Gibbon on Roman law. Ozanam: Hist. of the Civilization in the Fifth Century, ch. V. (vol. I. 136-158 in Glyn's transl. Lond. 1868). Milman: Lat. Christ. Bk III. ch.5 (vol. 1. 479 sqq. N. York ed.) The Justinian code (527-534) transmitted to the middle ages the legislative wisdom and experience of republican and imperial Rome with the humanizing improvements of Stoic philosophy and the Christian religion, but at the same time with penal laws against every departure from the orthodox Catholic creed, which was recognized and protected as the only religion of the state. It maintained its authority in the Eastern empire. It was partly preserved, after the destruction of the Western empire among the Latin inhabitants of Italy, France, and Spain, in a compilation from the older Theodosian code (429438), which contained the post-Constantinian laws, with fragments from earlier collections. In the twelfth century the Roman law (after the discovery of a copy of the Pandects at Amalfi in 1135, which was afterwards transferred to Florence) began to be studied again with great enthusiasm. A famous school of civil law was established at Bologna. Similar schools arose in connection with the Universities at Paris, Naples, Padua, and other cities. The Roman civil law (Corpus juris civilis), in connection with the ecclesiastical or canon law (Corpus juris canonici), was gradually adopted all over the Continent of Europe, and the Universities granted degrees in both laws conjointly. Thus Rome, substituting the law for the sword, ruled the world once more for centuries, and subdued the descendants of the very barbarians who had destroyed her empire. The conquered gave laws to the conquerors, mindful of the prophetic line of Virgil: "Tu, regere imperio populos, Romane, memento." Notes. The anti-heretical part of the Roman law, on which persecution was based, is thus summed up by Dean Milman (Bk III. ch. 5): "A new class of crimes, if not introduced by Christianity, became multiplied, rigorously defined, mercilessly condemned. The ancient Roman theory, that the religion of the State must be the religion of the people, which Christianity had broken to pieces by its inflexible resistance, was restored in more than its former rigor. The code of Justinian confirmed the laws of Theodosius and his successors, which declared certain heresies, Manicheism and Donatism, crimes against the State, as affecting the common welfare. The crime was punishable by confiscation of all property, and incompetency to inherit or to bequeath. Death did not secure the hidden heretic from prosecution; as in high treason, he might be convicted in his grave. Not only was his testament invalid, but inheritance could not descend through him. All who harbored such heretics were liable to punishment; their slaves might desert them, and transfer themselves to an orthodox master. The list of proscribed heretics gradually grew wider. The Manicheans were driven still farther away from the sympathies of mankind; by one Greek constitution they were condemned to capital punishment. Near thirty names of less detested heretics are recited in a law of Theodosius the younger, to which were added, in the time of Justinian, Nestorians, Eutychians, Apollinarians. The books of all these sects were to be burned; yet the formidable number of these heretics made no doubt the general execution of the laws impossible. But the Justinian code, having defined as heretics all who do not believe the Catholic faith, declares such heretics, as well as Pagans, Jews, and Samaritans, incapable of holding civil or military offices, except in the lowest ranks of the latter; they could attain to no civic dignity which was held in honor, as that of the defensors, though such offices as were burdensome might be imposed even on Jews. The assemblies of all heretics were forbidden, their books were to be collected and burned, their rites, baptisms, and ordinations prohibited. Children of heretical parents might embrace orthodoxy; the males the parent could not disinherit, to the females he was bound to give an adequate dowry. The testimony of Manicheans, of Samaritans, and Pagans could not be received; apostates to any of these sects and religions lost all their former privileges, and were liable to all penalties." __________________________________________________________________ § 90. The Capitularies of Charlemagne. Steph. Baluzius (Baluze, Prof. of Canon law in Paris, d. 1718): Regum Francorum Capitularia, 1677; new ed. Paris, 1780, 2 vols. Pertz: Monumenta Germaniae historica, Tom. III (improved ed. of the Capitularia). K. Fr. Eichhorn: Deutsche Staats-und Rechtsgeschichte, Göttingen, 1808, 4 Parts; 5th ed. 1844. J. Grimm: Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, Göttingen 1828. Giesebrecht (I. 800) calls this an "unusually rich collection with profound glances into the legal life of the German people." W. Dönniges: Das deutsche Staatsrecht und die deutsche Reichsverfassung, Berlin 1842. F. Walther: Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, second ed. Bonn 1857. J. Hillebrand: Lehrbuch der deutschen Staats-und Rechtsgeschichte, Leipzig 1856. O. Stobbe: Geschichte der deutschen Rechtsquellen, Braunschweig, 1860 (first Part). W. Giesebrecht: Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit, third ed. Braunschweig 1863 sqq. Bd I. 106-144. The first and greatest legislator of the Germanic nations is Charlemagne, the founder of the Holy Roman Empire (800-814). What Constantine the Great, Theodosius the Great, and Justinian did for the old Roman empire on the basis of heathen Rome and the ancient Graeco-Latin church, Charlemagne did for the new Roman Empire in the West on the basis of Germanic customs and the Latin church centred in the Roman papacy. He was greater, more beneficial and enduring in his influence as a legislator than as a soldier and conqueror. [412] He proposed to himself the herculean task to organize, civilize and Christianize the crude barbarian customs of his vast empire, and he carried it out with astonishing wisdom. His laws are embodied in the Capitularia, i.e. laws divided into chapters. They are the first great law-book of the French and Germans. [413] They contain his edicts and ordinances relating to ecclesiastical, political, and civil legislation, judicial decisions and moral precepts. The influence of the church and the Christian religion is here more direct and extensive than in the Roman Code, and imparts to it a theocratic element which approaches to the Mosaic legislation. The Roman Catholic church with her creed, her moral laws, her polity, was the strongest bond of union which held the Western barbarians together and controlled the views and aims of the emperor. He appears, indeed, as the supreme ruler clothed with sovereign authority. But he was surrounded by the clergy which was the most intelligent and influential factor in legislation both in the synod and in the imperial diet. The emperor and his nobles were under the power of the bishops, and the bishops were secular lords and politicians as well as ecclesiastics. The ecclesiastical affairs were controlled by the Apocrisiarius [414] (a sort of minister of worship); the secular affairs, by the Comes palatii; [415] both were aided in each province by a delegated bishop and count who were to work in harmony. On important questions the pope was consulted. [416] The legislation proceeded from the imperial will, from ecclesiastical councils, and from the diet or imperial assembly. The last consisted of the dignitaries of church and state, the court officials, bishops, abbots, dukes, counts, etc., and convened every spring. The emperor was surrounded at his court by the most eminent statesmen, clergymen and scholars, from whom he was anxious to learn without sacrificing his right to rule. His court was a school of discipline and of that gentlemanly courtesy and refinement which became a distinguishing feature of chivalry, and Charlemagne shone in poetry as the first model cavalier. The legislation of the Carolingian Capitularies is favorable to the clergy, to monasteries, to the cause of good morals and religion. The marriage tie is protected, even among slaves; the license of divorce restrained; divorced persons are forbidden to marry again during the life-time of the other party. The observance of Sunday is enjoined for the special benefit of the laboring classes. Ecclesiastical discipline is enforced by penal laws in cases of gross sins such as incest. Superstitious customs, as consulting soothsayers and the Scriptures for oracles, are discouraged, but the ordeal is enjoined. Wholesome moral lessons are introduced, sometimes in the language of the Scriptures: the people are warned against perjury, against feud, against shedding Christian blood, against the oppression of the poor (whose cause should be heard by the judges before the cause of the rich). They are exhorted to learn the Apostles' Creed and to pray, to love one another and to live in peace, "because they have one Father in heaven." Cupidity is called "a root of all evil." Respect for the dead is encouraged. Hospitality is recommended for the reason that he who receives a little child in the name of Christ, receives him. This legislation was much neglected under the weak successors of Charlemagne, but remains a noble monument of his intentions. __________________________________________________________________ [412] The same may be said of Napoleon I., whose code has outlived his military conquests. [413] Giesebrecht (I. 128): "Ein Riesenschritt in der Entwicklung des deutschen Geistes geschah durch Karls Gesetzgebung ... Mit Ehrfurcht und heiliger Scheu schlägt man die, Capitularien des grossen Kaisers auf, das erste grosse Gesetzbuch der Germanen, ein Werk, dem mehrere Jahrhunderte vorher und nachher kein Volk ein gleiches an die Seite gesetzt hat. Das Bild des Karolingischen Staates tritt uns in voller Gegenwärtigkeit hier vor die Seele; wir sehen, wie Grosses erreicht, wie das Höchste erstrebt wurde." [414] Also called Archicapellnus, Archicancellarius [415] Pfalzgraf. [416] Hence many Capitularies are issued "apostolicae sedis hortatu, monente Pontom, ex praecepto Pontificis." At the Synod of Francfort in 794 two delegates of Pope Hadrian were present, but Charlemagne presided. See Mansi XVIII. 884; Pertz, Monum. I. 181. __________________________________________________________________ § 91. English Legislation. Wilkin: Leges Anglo-Saxonicae (1721). Thorpe: Ancient Laws and Institutes of England (London 1840). Matthew Hale: History of the Common Law (6th ed. by Runnington, 1820). Reeve: History of the English Law (new ed. by Finalson l869, 3 vols.). Blackstone: Commentaries on the Laws of England (London 1765, many ed. Engl. and Amer.). Burn: Ecclesiastical Law (9th ed. by Phillimore, 1842, 4 vols.). Phillimore: Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England (Lond. 1873, 2 vols.). Wm. Strong (Justice of the Supreme Court of the U. S.): Two Lectures upon the Relations of Civil Law to Church Property (N. York 1875). England never accepted the Roman civil law, and the canon law only in part. The island in its isolation was protected by the sea against foreign influence, and jealous of it. It built up its own system of jurisprudence on the basis of Anglo-Saxon habits and customs. The English civil law is divided into Common Law or lex non scripta (i.e. not written at first), and Statute Law or lex scripta. They are related to each other as oral tradition and the Bible are in theology. The Common Law embodies the ancient general and local customs of the English people, handed down by word of mouth from time immemorial, and afterwards recorded in the decisions of judges who are regarded as the living oracles of interpretation and application, and whose decisions must be adhered to in similar cases of litigation. It is Anglo-Saxon in its roots, and moulded by Norman lawyers, under the influence of Christian principles of justice and equity. Blackstone, the standard expounder of English law, says, "Christianity is a part of the Common Law of England." [417] Hence the laws against religious offences, as blasphemy, profane swearing, desecration of the Lord's Day, apostasy from Christianity, and heresy. [418] The Christian character of English legislation is due in large measure to the piety of the Anglo-Saxon kings, especially Alfred the Great (849-901), and Edward III., the Confessor 1004-1066, canonized by Alexander III., 1166), who prepared digests of the laws of the realm. Their piety was, of course, ascetic and monastic, but enlightened for their age and animated by the spirit of justice and charity. The former is styled Legum Anglicanarum Conditor, the latter Legum Anglicanarum Restitutor. Alfred's Dome-Book or Liber justicialis was lost during the irruption of the Danes, but survived in the improved code of Edward the Confessor. Alfred was for England what Charlemagne was for France and Germany, a Christian ruler, legislator, and educator of his people. He is esteemed "the wisest, best, and greatest king that ever reigned in England." Although he was a great sufferer from epilepsy or some similar bodily infirmity which seized him suddenly from time to time and made him despair of life, he performed, like St. Paul in spite of his thorn in the flesh, an incredible amount of work. The grateful memory of his people ascribed to him institutions and laws, rights and privileges which existed before his time, but in many respects he was far ahead of his age. When he ascended the throne, "hardly any one south of the Thames could understand the ritual of the church or translate a Latin letter." He conceived the grand scheme of popular national education. For this end he rebuilt the churches and monasteries which had been ruined by the Danes, built new ones, imported books from Rome, invited scholars from the Continent to his court, translated with their aid Latin works (as Gregory's Pastoral Care, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, and Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy) into the Anglo-Saxon, collected the laws of the country, and remodelled the civil and ecclesiastical organization of his kingdom. His code is introduced with the Ten Commandments and other laws taken from the Bible. It protects the stranger in memory of Israel's sojourn in Egypt; it gives the Christian slave freedom in the seventh year, as the Mosaic law gave to the Jewish bondman; it protects the laboring man in his Sunday rest; it restrains blood thirsty passions of revenge by establishing bots or fines for offences; it enjoins the golden rule (in the negative form), not to do to any man what we would not have done to us. [419] "In all these words of human brotherhood, of piety, and the spirit of justice, of pity and humanity, uttered by the barbaric lawgivers of a wild race, there speaks a great Personality--the embodiment of the highest sympathy and most disinterested virtue of mankind. It cannot be said indeed that these religious influences, so apparently genuine, produced any powerful effect on society in Anglo-Saxon England, though they modified the laws. Still they began the history of the religious forces in England which, though obscured by much formalism and hypocrisy and weakened by selfishness, have yet worked out slowly the great moral and humane reforms in the history of that country, and have tended with other influences to make it one of the great leaders of modern progress." [420] Notes. John Richard Green, in his posthumous work, The Conquest of England (N. York ed. 1884, p. 179 sq.), pays the following eloquent and just tribute to the character of King Aelfred (as he spells the name): "Aelfred stands in the forefront of his race, for he is the noblest as he is the most complete embodiment of all that is great, all that is lovable in the English temper, of its practical energy, its patient and enduring force, of the reserve and self-control that give steadiness and sobriety to a wide outlook and a restless daring, of its temperance and fairness, its frankness and openness, its sensitiveness to affection, its poetic tenderness, its deep and reverent religion. Religion, indeed, was the groundwork of Aelfred's character. His temper was instinct with piety. Everywhere, throughout his writings that remain to us, the name of God, the thought of God, stir him to outbursts of ecstatic adoration. But of the narrowness, the want of proportion, the predominance of one quality over another, which commonly goes with an intensity of religious feeling or of moral purpose, he showed no trace. He felt none of that scorn of the world about him which drove the nobler souls of his day to monastery or hermitage. Vexed as he was by sickness and constant pain, not only did his temper take no touch of asceticism, but a rare geniality, a peculiar elasticity and mobility of nature, gave color and charm to his life .... Little by little men came to recognize in Aelfred a ruler of higher and nobler stamp than the world had seen. Never had it seen a king who lived only for the good of his people .... 'I desire,' said the king, 'to leave to the men that come after me a remembrance of me in good works. His aim has been more than fulfilled .... While every other name of those earlier times has all but faded from the recollection of Englishmen, that of Aelfred remains familiar to every English child.' __________________________________________________________________ [417] Comment. Bk IV. ch. 4. The same may be said of the United States as far as they have adopted the Common Law of the mother country. It is so declared by the highest courts of New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, and by many eminent judges, but with this essential modification that those parts of the Common Law of England which imply the union of church and state are inapplicable to the United States where they are separated. Justice Strong (l.c. p. 32) says: "The laws and institutions of all the States are built on the foundation of reverence for Christianity." The court of Pennsylvania states the law in this manner: "Christianity is and always has been a part of the Common Law of this State. Christianity without the spiritual artillery of European countries--not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets--not Christianity with an established church and titles and spiritual courts, but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men." [418] The statute de haeretico comburendo, passed in 1401 (Henry IV. c. 15), was still in force under Elizabeth when two Anabaptists were burned alive, and under James I. when two Arians were burned. [419] I For further information on Alfred see the biographies of Pauli (1851, Engl. transl. by Thorpe, 1853), Weiss (1852), Hughes (Lond. and Bost. 1869), Freeman's Old English History, and Green's Conquest of England (1884), ch. IV. 124-180. [420] Brace, Gesta Christi, p. 216. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER X. WORSHIP AND CEREMONIES. Comp. vol. III. ch. VII., and Neander III. 123-140; 425-455 (Boston ed.). __________________________________________________________________ § 92. The Mass. Comp. vol. III. § 96-101 and the liturgical Lit. there quoted; also the works on Christian and Ecclesiastical Antiquities, e.g. Siegel III. 361-411. The public worship centered in the celebration of the mass as an actual, though unbloody, repetition of the sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world. In this respect the Eastern and Western churches are fully agreed to this day. They surround this ordinance with all the solemnity of a mysterious symbolism. They differ only in minor details. Pope Gregory I. improved the Latin liturgy, and gave it that shape which it substantially retains in the Roman church. [421] He was filled with the idea that the eucharist embodies the reconciliation of heaven and earth, of eternity and time, and is fraught with spiritual benefit for the living and the pious dead in one unbroken communion. When the priest offers the unbloody sacrifice to God, the heavens are opened, the angel are present, and the visible and invisible worlds united. [422] Gregory introduced masses for the dead, [423] in connection with the doctrine of purgatory which he developed and popularized. They were based upon the older custom of praying for the departed, and were intended to alleviate and abridge the penal sufferings of those who died in the Catholic faith, but in need of purification from remaining infirmities. Very few Catholics are supposed to be prepared for heaven; and hence such masses were often ordered beforehand by the dying, or provided by friends. [424] They furnished a large income to priests. The Oriental church has no clearly defined doctrine of purgatory, but likewise holds that the departed are benefited by prayers of the living, "especially such as are offered in union with the oblation of the bloodless sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ, and by works of mercy done in faith for their memory." [425] The high estimate of the efficacy of the sacrament led also to the abuse of solitary masses, where the priest celebrates without attendants. [426] This destroys the original character of the institution as a feast of communion with the Redeemer and the redeemed. Several synods in the age of Charlemagne protested against the practice. The Synod of Mainz in 813 decreed: "No presbyter, as it seems to us, can sing masses alone rightly, for how will he say sursum corda! or Dominus vobiscum! when there is no one with him?" A reformatory Synod of Paris, 829, prohibits these masses, and calls them a "reprehensible practice," which has crept in "partly through neglect, partly through avarice." [427] The mysterious character of the eucharist was changed into the miraculous and even the magical with the spread of the belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation. But the doctrine was contested in two controversies before it triumphed in the eleventh century. [428] The language of the mass was Greek in the Eastern, Latin in the Western church. The Latin was an unknown tongue to the barbarian races of Europe. It gradually went out of use among the descendants of the Romans, and gave place to the Romanic languages. But the papal church, sacrificing the interests of the people to the priesthood, and rational or spiritual worship [429] to external unity, retained the Latin language in the celebration of the mass to this day, as the sacred language of the church. The Council of Trent went so far as to put even the uninspired Latin Vulgate practically on an equality with the inspired Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. [430] __________________________________________________________________ [421] See the Ordo Missae Romanae Gregorianus, compared with the Ordo Gelasianus, Ambrosianus, Gallicanus, Mozarabicus, etc., in Daniel's Codex Liturg. vol. I. 3-168. [422] Dialog. 1. IV. c. 58 (in Migne's ed. III. 425 sq.): "Quis fidelium habere dubium possit, in ipsa immolationis hora ad sacerdotis vocem coelis aperiri, in illo jesu Christi mysteria angelorum choros adesse, summis ima sociari, terrena coelestibus jungi, unumque ex visibilibus atque invisibilibus fieri?" [423] Misae pro Defunctis, Todtenmessen, Seelenmessen. Different from them are the Missae de Sanctis, celebrated on the anniversaries of the saints, and to their honor, though the sacrifice is always offered to God. [424] Even popes, though addressed by the title "Holiness," while living, have to pass through purgatory, and need the prayers of the faithful. On the marble sarcophagus of Pius IX., who reigned longer than any of his predecessors, and proclaimed his own infallibility in the Vatican Council (1870), are the words: "Orate pro eo." Prayers and masses are said only for the dead in purgatory, not for the saints in heaven who do not need them, nor for the damned in hell who would not profit by them. [425] Quoted from the Longer Catechism of the Eastern Church (Schaff, Creeds II. 504). The Greeks have in their ritual special strophes or antiphones for the departed, called nekrosima. Mone, Lat. Hymnen des Mittel alters, II. 400, gives some specimens from John of Damascus and others. He says, that the Greeks have more hymns for the departed than the Latins, but that the Latins have older hymni pro defunctis, beginning with Prudentius. [426] Missae solitariae or privatae. [427] Can. 48. Mansi XIV. 529 sqq. Hefele IV. 64. [428] See the next chapter, on Theological Controversies. [429] Comp. logike latreia, Rom. 12:1. [430] Sess. IV. (April 8, 1546):"Sacrosancta Synodus ... statuit et declarat, ut haec ipsa vetus et vulgata editio, quiae longo tot saeculorum usu in ipsa ecclesia probata est, in publicis lectionibus, disputationibus, praedicationibus et expositionibus pro authentica habeatur;. et ut nemo illam rejicere quovis praetextu audeat vel praesumat!" The Council made provision for an authoritative revision of the Vulgate (April 8, 1546); but when the edition of Pope Sixtus V. appeared in 1589 and was enjoined upon the church "by the fullness of apostolic power," it was found to be so full of errors and blunders that it had to be cancelled, and a new edition prepared under Clement VIII. in 1592, which remains the Roman standard edition to this day. __________________________________________________________________ § 93. The Sermon. As the chief part of divine service was unintelligible to the people, it was all the more important to supplement it by preaching and catechetical instruction in the vernacular tongues. But this is the weak spot in the church of the middle ages. [431] Pope Gregory I. preached occasionally with great earnestness, but few popes followed his example. It was the duty of bishops to preach, but they often neglected it. The Council of Clovesho, near London, which met in 747 under Cuthbert, archbishop of Canterbury, for the reformation of abuses, decreed that the bishops should annually visit their parishes, instruct and exhort the abbots and monks, and that all presbyters should be able to explain the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the mass, and the office of baptism to the people in the vernacular. [432] A Synod of Tours, held in the year 813, and a Synod of Mainz, held under Rabanus Maurus in 847, decreed that every bishop should have a collection of homilies and translate them clearly "in rusticam Romanam linguam aut Theotiscam, i.e. into French (Romance) or German," "in order that all may understand them." [433] The great majority of priests were too ignorant to prepare a sermon, and barely understood the Latin liturgical forms. A Synod of Aix, 802, prescribed that they should learn the Athanasian and Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer with exposition, the Sacramentarium or canon of the mass, the formula of exorcism, the commendatio animae, the Penitential, the Calendar and the Roman cantus; they should learn to understand the homilies for Sundays and holy days as models of preaching, and read the pastoral theology of Pope Gregory. This was the sum and substance of clerical learning. [434] The study of the Greek Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures was out of the question, and there was hardly a Western bishop or pope in the middle ages who was able to study the divine oracles in the original. The best, therefore, that the priests and deacons, and even most of the bishops could do was to read the sermons of the fathers. Augustin had given this advice to those who were not skilled in composition. It became a recognized practice in France and England. Hence the collection of homilies, called Homiliaria, for the Gospels and Epistles of Sundays and holy days. They are mostly patristic compilations. Bede's collection, called Homilice de Tempore, contains thirty-three homilies for the summer, fifteen for the winter, twenty-two for Lent, besides sermons on saints' days. Charlemagne commissioned Paulus Diaconus or Paul Warnefrid (a monk of Monte Cassino and one of his chaplains, the historian of the Lombards, and writer of poems on saints) to prepare a Homiliarium (or Omiliarius) about a.d. 780, and recommended it for adoption in the churches of France. It follows the order of Sundays and festivals, is based on the text of the Vulgate, and continued in use more or less for several centuries. [435] Other collections were made in later times, and even the Reformed church of England under Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth found it necessary to provide ignorant clergymen with two Books of Homilies adapted to the doctrines of the Reformation. In this connection we must allude again to the poetic reproductions of the Bible history, namely, the divine epos of Caedmon, the Northumbrian monk (680), the Saxon Heliand" (Heiland, i.e. Saviour, about 880), and the "Christ" or Gospel Harmony of Otfrid (a pupil of Rabanus Maurus, about 870). These works were effective popular sermons on the history of redemption, and are at the same time the most valuable remains of the Anglo-Saxon and old high German dialects of the Teutonic language. [436] It was, however, not till the Reformation of the sixteenth century that the sermon and the didactic element were restored and fully recognized in their dignity and importance as regular and essential parts of public worship. I say, worship, for to expound the oracles of God, and devoutly to listen to such exposition is or ought to be worship both on the part of the preacher and on the part of the hearer, as well as praying and singing. __________________________________________________________________ [431] As it is to-day in strictly Roman Catholic countries; with this difference, that what was excusable in a period of heathen and semi-heathen ignorance and superstition, is inexcusable in an age of advanced civilization furnished with all kinds of educational institutions and facilities. [432] See the acts of this council in Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Eccles. Doc. 360-376, and the letter of Boniface to Cuthbert, giving an account of a similar council in Germany, and recommending measures of reform in the English church, p. 376-382. [433] A similar canon was passed by other councils. See Hefele III. 758, 764, and IV. 89, 111, 126, 197, 513, 582; Mansi XIV. 82 sqq. [434] Hefele, III. 745. [435] F. Dahn, Des Paulus Diaconus Leben und Schriften, 1876; and Mon. Germ. Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum saec. VI.-IX. 1878, p. 45-187, ed. by L. Bethmann and G. Waitz; Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, 4th ed. 1877, I. 134-140. [436] See above, p. 41, 105, 106. The paraphrase of Caedmon, the first Christian poet of England, is edited or discussed by Thorpe, Bouterweck, Grein, Wright, Ettmüller, Sandrar, Morley, Ten Brink, etc. (see Lit. in Schaff-Herzog sub Caedmon); the Saxon Heliand and Otfrid's Krist by Sievers, Rettberg, Vilmar, Lechler, Graff, Kelle, Michelsen, etc. (see Herzog2IV. 428-435). __________________________________________________________________ § 94. Church Poetry. Greek Hymns and Hymnists. See the Lit. in vol. III. § 113 (p. 575 sq.) and § 114 (p. 578), and add the following: Cardinal Pitra: Hymnographie de l'église grecque. Rome 1867. By the same: Analecta Sacra Spicilegio Solesmensi parata, T. I. Par. 1876. Wilhelm Christ et M. Paranikas: Anthologia Graeca carminum Christianorum. Lips. 1871. CXLIV and 268 pages. The Greek text with learned Prolegomena in Latin. Christ was aided by Paranikas, a member of the Greek church. Comp. Christ: Beiträge zur kirchlichen Literatur der Byzantiner. München 1870. [?]. L. Jacobi (Prof. of Church Hist. in Halle): Zur Geschichte der griechischen Kirchenliedes (a review of Pitra's Analecta), in Brieger's "Zeitschrift für Kirchengesch., "vol. V. Heft 2, p. 177-250 (Gotha 1881). For a small selection of Greek hymns in the original see the third volume of Daniel's Thesaurus Hymnologicus (1855), and Bässler's Auswahl altchristlicher Lieder (1858), p. 153-166. For English versions see especially J. M. Neale: Hymns of the Eastern Church (Lond. 1862, third ed. 1866, 159 pages; new ed. 1876, in larger print 250 pages); also Schaff: Christ in Song (1869), which gives versions of 14 Greek (and 73 Latin) hymns. German translations in Bässler, l.c. p. 3-25. [Syrian Hymnology. To the lit. mentioned vol. III. 580 add: Gust. Bickell: S. Ephraemi Syri Carmina Nisibena, additis prolegomenis et supplemento lexicorum syriacorum edidit, vertit, explicavit. Lips.] 1866. Carl Macke: Hymnen aus dem Zweiströmeland. Dichtungen des heil. Ephrem des Syrers aus dem syr. Urtext in's Deutsche übertragen, etc. Mainz 1882. 270 pages. Macke is a pupil of Bickell and a successor of Zingerle as translator of Syrian church poetry.] The general church histories mostly neglect or ignore hymnology, which is the best reflection of Christian life and worship. The classical period of Greek church poetry extends from about 650 to 820, and nearly coincides with the iconoclastic controversy. The enthusiasm for the worship of saints and images kindled a poetic inspiration, and the chief advocates of that worship were also the chief hymnists. [437] Their memory is kept sacred in the Eastern church. Their works are incorporated in the ritual books, especially the Menaea, which contain in twelve volumes (one for each month) the daily devotions and correspond to the Latin Breviary. [438] Many are still unpublished and preserved in convent libraries. They celebrate the holy Trinity and the Incarnation, the great festivals, and especially also the Virgin Mary, the saints and martyrs, and sacred icons. The Greek church poetry is not metrical and rhymed, but written in rhythmical prose for chanting, like the Psalms, the hymns of the New Testament, the Gloria in Excelsis and the Te Deum. The older hymnists were also melodists and composed the music. [439] The stanzas are called troparia; [440] the first troparion is named hirmos, because it strikes the tune and draws the others after it. [441] Three or more stanzas form an ode; three little odes are a triodion; nine odes or three triodia form a canon. The odes usually end with a doxology (doxa) and a stanza in praise of Mary the Mother of God (theotokion). [442] A hymn with a tune of its own is called an idiomelon. [443] This poetry fills, according to Neale, more than nine tenths or four fifths of the Greek service books. It has been heretofore very little known and appreciated in the West, but is now made accessible. [444] It contains some precious gems of genuine Christian hymns, buried in a vast mass of monotonous, bombastic and tasteless laudations of unknown confessors and martyrs, and wonder-working images. [445] The Greek church poetry begins properly with the anonymous but universally accepted and truly immortal Gloria in Excelsis of the third century. [446] The poems of Gregory of Nazianzus (d. 390), and Synesius of Cyrene (d. about 414), who used the ordinary classical measures, are not adapted and were not intended for public worship. [447] The first hymnist of the Byzantine period, is Anatolius patriarch of Constantinople (d. about 458). He struck out the new path of harmonious prose, and may be compared to Venantius Fortunatus in the West. [448] We now proceed to the classical period of Greek church poetry. In the front rank of Greek hymnists stands St. John Of Damascus, surnamed Mansur (d. in extreme old age about 780). He is the greatest systematic theologian of the Eastern church and chief champion of image-worship against iconoclasm under the reigns of Leo the Isaurian (717-741), and Constantinus Copronymus (741-775). He spent a part of his life in the convent of Mar Sâba (or St. Sabas) in the desolate valley of the Kedron, between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. [449] He was thought to have been especially inspired by the Virgin Mary, the patron of that Convent, to consecrate his muse to the praise of Christ. He wrote a great part of the Octoechus, which contains the Sunday services of the Eastern church. His canon for Easter Day is called "the golden Canon" or "the queen of Canons," and is sung at midnight before Easter, beginning with the shout of joy, "Christ is risen," and the response, "Christ is risen indeed." His memory is celebrated December 4. [450] Next to him, and as melodist even above him in the estimation of the Byzantine writers, is St. Cosmas Of Jerusalem, called the Melodist. He is, as Neale says, "the most learned of the Greek poets, and the Oriental Adam of St. Victor." Cosmas and John of Damascus were foster-brothers, friends and fellow-monks at Mar Sâba, and corrected each other's compositions. Cosmas was against his will consecrated bishop of Maiuma near Gaza in Southern Palestine, by John, patriarch of Jerusalem. He died about 760 and is commemorated on the 14th of October. The stichos prefixed to his life says: "Where perfect sweetness dwells, is Cosmas gone; But his sweet lays to cheer the church live on." [451] The third rank is occupied by St. Theophanes, surnamed the Branded, [452] one of the most fruitful poets. He attended the second Council of Nicaea (787). During the reign of Leo the Arminian (813) he suffered imprisonment, banishment and mutilation for his devotion to the Icons, and died about 820. His "Chronography" is one of the chief sources for the history of the image-controversy. [453] The following specimen from Adam's lament of his fall is interesting: "Adam sat right against the Eastern gate, By many a storm of sad remembrance tost: O me! so ruined by the serpent's hate! O me! so glorious once, and now so lost! So mad that bitter lot to choose! Beguil'd of all I had to lose! Must I then, gladness of my eyes, -- Must I then leave thee, Paradise, And as an exile go? And must I never cease to grieve How once my God, at cool of eve, Came down to walk below? O Merciful! on Thee I call: O Pitiful! forgive my fall!" The other Byzantine hymnists who preceded or succeeded those three masters, are the following. Their chronology is mostly uncertain or disputed. Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople in the reign of Heracleus (610-641), figures in the beginning of the Monotheletic controversy, and probably suggested the union formula to that emperor. He is supposed by Christ to be the author of a famous and favorite hymn Akathistos, in praise of Mary as the deliverer of Constantinople from the siege of the Persians (630), but it is usually ascribed to Georgius Pisida. [454] Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem (629), celebrated in Anacreontic metres the praises of Christ, the apostles, and martyrs, and wrote idiomela with music for the church service [455] Maximus The Confessor (580-662), the leader and martyr of the orthodox dyotheletic doctrine in the Monotheletic controversy, one of the profoundest divines and mystics of the Eastern Church, wrote a few hymns. [456] Germanus (634-734), bishop of Cyzicus, then patriarch of Constantinople (715), was deposed, 730, for refusing to comply with the iconoclastic edicts of the Emperor Leo the Isaurian (717-741), and died in private life, aged about one hundred years. He is "regarded by the Greeks as one of their most glorious Confessors" (Neale). Among his few poetical compositions are stanzas on Symeon the Stylite, on the prophet Elijah, on the Decollation of John the Baptist, and a canon on the wonder-working Image in Edessa. [457] Andrew Of Crete (660-732) was born at Damascus, became monk at Jerusalem, deacon at Constantinople, archbishop of Crete, took part in the Monotheletic Synod of 712, but afterwards returned to orthodoxy. In view of this change and his advocacy of the images, he was numbered among the saints. He is regarded as the inventor of the Canons. His "Great Canon" is sung right through on the Thursday of Mid-Lent week, which is called from that hymn. It is a confession of sin and an invocation of divine mercy. It contains no less than two hundred and fifty (Neale says, three hundred) stanzas. [458] John of Damascus reduced the unreasonable length of the canons. Another Andrew, called jAndreva" Puro'" or Purrov", is credited with eight idiomela in the Menaea, from which Christ has selected the praise of Peter and Paul as the best. [459] Stephen The Sabaite (725-794) was a nephew of John of Damascus, and spent fifty-nine years in the convent of Mar Sâba, which is pitched, like an eagle's nest, on the wild rocks of the Kedron valley. He is commemorated on the 13th of July. He struck the key-note of Neale's exquisite hymn of comfort, "Art thou weary," which is found in some editions of the Octoechus. He is the inspirer rather than the author of that hymn, which is worthy of a place in every book of devotional poetry. [460] Romanus, deacon in Berytus, afterwards priest in Constantinople, is one of the most original and fruitful among the older poets. Petra ascribes to him twenty-five hymns. He assigned him to the reign of Anastasius I. (491-518), but Christ to the reign of Anastasius II. (713-719), and Jacobi with greater probability to the time of Constantinus Pogonatus (681-685). [461] Theodore Of The Studium (a celebrated convent near Constantinople) is distinguished for his sufferings in the iconoclastic controversy, and died in exile, 826, on the eleventh of November. He wrote canons for Lent and odes for the festivals of saints. The spirited canon on Sunday of Orthodoxy in celebration of the final triumph of image-worship in 842, is ascribed to him, but must be of later date as he died before that victory. [462] Joseph Of The Studium, a brother of Theodore, and monk of that convent, afterwards Archbishop of Thessalonica (hence also called Thessalonicensis), died in prison in consequence of tortures inflicted on him by order of the Emperor Theophilus (829-842). He is sometimes confounded (even by Neale) with Joseph Hymnographus; but they are distinguished by Nicephorus and commemorated on different days. [463] Theoctistus Of The Studium (about 890) is the author of a "Suppliant Canon to Jesus," the only thing known of him, but the sweetest Jesus-hymn of the Greek Church. [464] Joseph, called Hymnographus (880), is the most prolific, most bombastic, and most tedious of Greek hymn-writers. He was a Sicilian by birth, at last superintendent of sacred vessels in a church at Constantinople. He was a friend of Photius, and followed him into exile. He is credited with a very large number of canons in the Mencaea and the Octoechus. [465] Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople (784), was the chief mover in the restoration of Icons and the second Council of Nicaea (787). He died Feb. 25, 806. His hymns are Unimportant. [466] EUTHYMIUS, usually known as Syngelus or Syncellus (died about 910), is the author of a penitential canon to the Virgin Mary, which is much esteemed in the East. [467] Elias, bishop of Jerusalem about 761, and Orestes, bishop of the same city, 996-1012, have been brought to light as poets by the researches of Pitra from the libraries of Grotta Ferrata, and other convents. In addition to these may be mentioned Methodius (846) [468] Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople (d. 891), Metrophanes of Smyrna (900), Leo VI., or the Philosopher, who troubled the Eastern Church by a fourth marriage (886-917), Symeon Metaphrastes (Secretary and Chancellor of the Imperial Court at Constantinople, about 900), Kasias, Nilus Xanthopulus, Joannes Geometra, and Mauropus (1060). With the last the Greek hymnody well nigh ceased. A considerable number of hymns cannot be traced to a known author. [469] We give in conclusion the best specimens of Greek hymnody as reproduced and adapted to modern use by Dr. Neale. 'Tis the Day of Resurrection. (Anagstaseos hemera.) By St. John of Damascus. 'Tis the Day of Resurrection, Earth, tell it out abroad! The Passover of gladness, The Passover of God! From death to life eternal, From earth unto the sky, Our Christ hath brought us over, With hymns of victory. Our hearts be pure from evil, That we may see aright The Lord in rays eternal Of resurrection light: And, listening to His accents, May hear, so calm and plain, His own "All hail!"--and hearing, May raise the victor strain. Now let the heavens be! Let earth her song begin! Let the round world keep triumph, And all that is therein: In grateful exultation Their notes let all things blend, For Christ the Lord hath risen, Our joy that hath no end. Jesu, name all names above. (Ihsou' glukuvtate.) By St. Theoctistus of the Studium. Jesu, name all names above, Jesu, best and dearest, Jesu, Fount of perfect love, Holiest, tenderest, nearest! Jesu, source of grace completest, Jesu truest, Jesu sweetest, Jesu, Well of power divine, Make me, keep me, seal me Thine! Jesu, open me the gate Which the sinner entered, Who in his last dying state Wholly on Thee ventured. Thou whose wounds are ever pleading, And Thy passion interceding, From my misery let me rise To a home in Paradise! Thou didst call the prodigal; Thou didst pardon Mary: Thou whose words can never fall Love can never vary, Lord, amidst my lost condition Give--for Thou canst give--contrition! Thou canst pardon all mine ill If Thou wilt: O say, "I will!" Woe, that I have turned aside After fleshly pleasure! Woe, that I have never tried For the heavenly treasure! Treasure, safe in homes supernal; Incorruptible, eternal! Treasure no less price hath won Than the Passion of the Son! Jesu, crowned with thorns for me, Scourged for my transgression! Witnessing, through agony, That Thy good confession; Jesu, clad in purple raiment, For my evils making payment; Let not all thy woe and pain, Let not Calvary be in vain! When I reach Death's bitter sea, And its waves roll higher, Help the more forsaking me, As the storm draws nigher: Jesu, leave me not to languish, Helpless, hopeless, full of anguish! Tell me,--"Verily, I say, Thou shalt be with me to-day!" Art thou weary? (Kovpon te kai; kavmaton.) By St. Stephen The Sabaite. Art thou weary, art thou languid, Art thou sore distrest? "Come to me"--saith One--"and coming Be at rest!" Hath He marks to lead me to Him, If He be my Guide? "In His feet and hands are wound-prints, And His side." Is there diadem, as Monarch, That His brow adorns? "Yea, a crown in very surety, But of thorns!" If I find Him, if I follow, What His guerdon here? "Many a sorrow, many a labor, Many a tear." If I still hold closely to Him, What hath He at last? Sorrow vanquished, labor ended, Jordan past!" If I ask Him to receive me, Will He say me nay? Not till earth, and not till heaven Pass away!" Finding, following, keeping, struggling Is He sure to bless? Angels, martyrs, prophets, virgins, Answer, Yes!" __________________________________________________________________ [437] Neale and Pitra point out this connection, and Jacobi (l.c. p. 210 sq.) remarks: "Im Kampfe für die Bilder steigerte sich die Glut der sinnlichen Frömmigkeit, und mit dem Siege der Bilderverehrung im neunten Jahrhundert ist eine innerliche und aeusserliche Zunahme des Heiligenkultus und namentlich ein Wachsthum der Marienvehrung unverkennbar." [438] The Menaia(sc. biblia, Monatsbücher) are published at Venice in the Tipografia Greca (he Hellenike tupographia tou phoinikos). Each month has its separate title: Menaion tou Ianouariou or Men Ianouarios ,etc. January begins with the commemoration of the circumcision of our Lord and the commemoration of St. Basil the Great, and December ends with the mneme tes hosias Metros hemon Melanes tes Rhomaias .The copy before me (from the Harvard University Library) is dated 1852, and printed in beautiful Greek type, with the directions in red ink. On older editions see Mone, Lat. Hymnen, II. p. x. sqq. The other books of the Greek Ritual are the Paracletice (Parakletike, sc. biblos) or great Octoechus (Oktoechos, sc. biblos), which contains the Sunday services the Triodion (Triodion, the Lent-volume), and the Pentecostarion (Pentekostarion, the office for Easter-tide). " On a moderate computation," says Neale, " these volumes comprise 5,000 closely printed quarto pages, in double columns, of which at least 4,000 are poetry." See the large works of Leo Allatius, De libris eccles. Graecorum; Goar, Euchologion sive Rituale Graecorum, and especially the Second volume of Neale's History of the Holy Eastern Church (1850), p. 819 sqq. [439] Hence they were called melodoias well as poietaiin distinction from the mere humnographoi. The Greek service books are also music books. Christ discusses Byzantine music, and gives some specimens in Prol. p. CXI-CXLII. [440] Troparion, the diminutive of tropos, as modulus is of modus, was originally a musical term. [441] Eirmos, tractus, a train, series, was likewise originally a musical term like akolouthiaand the Latin jubilatio, sequentia. See § 96. [442] Theotokion, sc. troparion(more rarely, but more correctly, with the accent on the ante-penultima, theotokion), from theotokos, Deipara. The stauro-theotokion celebrates Mary at the cross, and corresponds to the Stabat Mater dolorosa of the Latins. [443] Hidiomelon. There are several other designations of various kinds of poems, as akolouthia(the Latin sequentia), anabathmoi(tria antiphona), antiphonon, apolutikion (breve troparium sub finem officii vespertini), aposticha, automelon, exaposteilarion, eothina, kathisma, katabasia, kontaria, makarismoi, megalunaria, oikoi, prosomoia, stichera, triodia, tetraoda, diodia, psalterion, tropologion. These terms and technical forms are fully discussed by Christ in the Prolegomena. Comp. also the Introduction of Neale [444] By Vormbaum (in the third volume of Daniel's Thesaurus which needs reconstruction), Pitra, and Christ. The Continental writers seem to be ignorant of Dr. Neale, the best English connoisseur of the liturgical and poetic literature of the Greek church. His translations are, indeed, very free reproductions and transfusions, but for this very reason better adapted to Western taste than the originals. The hymn of Clement of Alexandria in praise of the Logos has undergone a similar transformation by Dr. Henry M. Dexter, and has been made useful for public worship. See vol. II. 231. [445] Even Neale, with all his admiration for the Greek Church, admits that the Menaea contain a "deluge of worthless compositions: tautology repeated till it becomes almost sickening; the merest commonplace, again and again decked in the tawdry shreds of tragic language, ind twenty or thirty times presenting the same thought in slightly varying terms." (Hymns E.Ch. p. 88 sq., 3d ed.) [446] See vol. II. 227, and add to the Lit. there quoted: Christ, p. 38-40, who gives from the Codex Alexandrinus and other MSS. the Greek text of the morning hymn (the expanded Angelic anthem Doxa en hupsistois theo) and two evening hymns Aineite, paides . kurion, and Phos hilaron hagias doxes) of the Greek church. [447] See vol. III. 581 and 921. Christ begins his collection with the hymns of Synesius, p. 3-23, and of Gregory Nazianzen, 23-32. [448] See the specimens in vol. III. 583-585. Neale begins his translations with Anatolius. Christ treats of him p. XLI, and gives his stichera anastasimafind three idiomela(hymns with their own melody), 113-117. More than a hundred poems in the Menaea and the Octoechus bear the name of Anatolius, but Christ conjectures that stichera anatolika is a generic name, like katanuktikaand nekrosima. [449] See a description of this most curious structure in all Palestine, in my book Through Bible Lands (N. Y. 1879), p. 278 sqq. [450] The poetry of John of D. in his Opera ed. Le Quien (Par. 1712), Tom. I. 673-693; Poëtae Graeci veteres (Colon. 1614), Tom. II. 737 sqq.; Christ, Anthol. gr. Prol. XLIV. sqq., p. 117-121, and p. 205-236. Vormbaum, in Daniel, III. 80-97, gives six of his odes in Greek; Bässler, 162-164, two (and two in German, 21, 22); Neale nine English versions. The best of his hymns and canons are Eis ten christou gennesin(or eis ten theogonian), Eis ta theophaneia, Eis ten kuriaken tou Pascha, Eis ten pentekosten, Eis ten analepsin tou Christou,Euche, Idiomela en akolouthia tou exodiastikou, Eis ten koimesin tes theotokou.. The last begins with this stanza (Christ, p. 229): Anoixo to stoma mou, kai plerothesetai pneumatos; kai logou epeuxomai te basilidi metri; kai ophthesomai phaidrospanegurizon; kai aso gethomenos tautes ta thaumata. [451] Gallandi, Bibl. Patrum, XIII. 234 sqq.; Christ, XLIX sq., 161-164. Christ calls him "princeps melodorum graecorum," and gives ten of his canons and several triodia; Daniel (III. 55-79) twelve odes. Among the best are Eis ten tou Christou gennesin, Eis ta theophaneia, Eis ten pentekosten, Pros Christon, Eis ten hupsosin tou staurou, Eis to mega sabbaton. Neale has reproduced eight odes of Cosmas and a cento on the Transfiguration. The Nativity hymn begins (Christ p. 165): Christos gennatai; doxasate; Christos ex ouranon; apantesate; Christos epi ges ; hupsothete; asate to kurio pasa he ge, kai en euphrosune anumnesate, laoi, hoti dedoxastai. [452] oGraptos, with reference to his sufferings. [453] According to Christ (Prol. XLIV), he was after the restoration of the images in the churches of Constantinople, 842, elected metropolitan of Nicaea and died in peace. But according to the Bollandists and other authorities, he died much earlier in exile at Samothrace about 818 or 820, in consequence of his sufferings for the Icons. Neale reports that Theophanes was betrothed in childhood to a lady named Megalis, but persuaded her, on their wedding day, to retire to a convent. Christ gives several of his idiomela and stichera necrosima, p. 121-130. See also Daniel, III. 110-112, and Neale's translations of the idiomela on Friday of Cheese-Sunday (i.e. Quinquagesima), and the stichera at the first vespers of Cheese-Sunday (90-95). The last is entitled by Neale: "Adam's Complaint," and he thinks that Milton, "as an universal scholar," must, in Eve's lamentation, have had in his eye the last stanza which we give in the text. But this is very doubtful. The Chronographia of Theophanes is published in the Bonn. ed. of the Byzantine historians, 1839, and in Migne's "Patrol. Graeca," Tom. 108 (1861). His biography see in the Acta Sanct. ed. Bolland. in XII. Martii. [454] Christ (p. LII sq., p. 140-147) reasons chiefly from chronological considerations. The poem is called akathistos(sc. humnos) testheotokou, because it was chanted while priest and people were standing. During the singing of other hymns they were seated; hence the latter are called kathismata, (from kathizesthai). See Christ, Prol. p. LXII and p. 54 sqq. Jacobi says of the Akathistos (l.c. p. 230): " Was Enthusiasmus für die heilige Jungfrau, was Kenntniss biblischer Typen, überhaupt religiöser Gegenstände und Gedanken zu leisten vermochten, was Schmuck der Sprache. Gewandtheit des Ausdrucks, Kunst der Rhythmen und der Reime hinzufügen komnten, das ist hier in unübertroffenem Masse bewirkt." [455] Christ, XXVII, XXXV, LIII, 43-47 (anakreontika), and 96 (idiomelatonTheophaneion). Daniel, III. 20-46, gives thirteen pieces of Sophronius from Pet. Metranga, Spicilegium Romanum, 1840, Tom. IV. [456] Poetae Gr. vet. Tom. II. 192 sqq. Daniel, III. 97-103, gives three hymns, among them a beautiful humnoshiketerioseisChristonChrist omits Maximus. [457] See his Opera in Migne's "Patrol. Graeca" Tom. 98 (1865); and his poems in Christ, XLIII. 98 (idiomelonon the Nativity); Daniel, III. 79, a hymn in praise of Mary, beginning Salpisomen en salpingi asmaton, and ending with ascribing to her almighty power of intercession: Ouden gar adunaton te mesiteia sou. [458] Fr. Combefisius first edited the works of Andreas Cretensis, Par. 1644. Christ, 147-161, gives the first part of "the great canon" (about one-fourth), and a new canon in praise of Peter. The last is not in the Menaea but has been brought to light from Paris and Vatican MSS. by Card. Pitra. Daniel, III. 47-54, has seven hymns of Andreas, of which the first is on the nativity, beginning: Euphrainesthe dikaioi; Ouranoi agalliasthe; Skirtesate ta hore, Tou Christou gennethentos. Neale translated four: Stichera for Great Thursday; Troparia for Palm Sunday; a portion of the Great Canon; Stichera for the Second Week of the Great Fast. His Opera in Migne's " Patrol. Gr." T. 97(1860), p. 1306sqq. [459] Christ, p. xlii. sq. and 83, automeloneistousapost. PetronkaiPaulon.See Men., June 29. [460] Christ and Daniel ignore Stephen. Neale calls the one and only hymn which he translated, "Idiomela in the Week of the First Oblique Tone," and adds: "These stanzas, which strike me as very sweet, are not in all the editions of the Octoechus." He ascribes to him also a poetical composition on the Martyrs of the monastery of Mar Sâba (March 20), and one on the Circumcision. "His style," he says, "seems formed on that of S. Cosmas, rather than on that of his own uncle. He is not deficient in elegance and richness of typology, but exhibits something of sameness, and is occasionally guilty of very hard metaphors." [461] Christ, 131-140, gives his "Psalm of the Holy Apostles," and a Nativity hymn. Comp. p. li. sq. Jacobi (p. 203 sq.) discusses the data and traces in Romanus allusions to the Monotheletic controversy, which began about a.d.630. He gives a German version in part of the beautiful description of the benefits of redemption, p. 221 sq. [462] Christ, p. 101 sq.; Daniel, III. 101-109. Neale has translated four odes of Theodorus Studita, one on the judgment-day (hokurioserchetai). Pitra has brought to light from MSS. eighteen of his poems on saints. See his Opera in Migne " Patr. Gr." 99. [463] Christ, p. xlvii.: "Nicephorus duos Iosephos hymnorum scriptores recenset, quorum alterum Studiorum monasterii socium, alterum peregrinum dicit. Priorem intelligo Iosephum fratrem minorem Theodori, Studiorum antistitis, cuius memoriae dies XIV. mensis Iulii consecratus est. Is ob morum integritatem et doctrina laudem Thessalonicensis ecclesiae archiepiscopus electus a Theophilo rege (829-842), qui in cultores imaginum saeviebat, in vincula coniectus et omni tormentorum genere adeo vexatus est, ut in carcere mortem occumberet. Alterius losephi, qui proprie humnographosaudit, memoriam die III. mensis Aprilis ecclesia graeca concelebrat. Is peregrinus (xenos) ab Nicephoro dictus esse dicitur, quod ex Sicilia insula oriundus erat et patria ab Arabibus capta et vastata cum matre et fratribus primum in Peloponnesum, deinde Thessalonicem confugit, qua in urbe monarchorum disciplnae severissimae sese addixit." [464] English translation by Neale. See below, p. 473. [465] Christ, 242-253; Daniel, III. 112-114; Neale, p. 120-151; Bässler, p. 23, 165; Schaff, p. 240 sq. Joseph is also the author of hymns formerly ascribed to Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, during the Monotheletic controversy, as Paranikas has shown (Christ, Prol., p. liii.). [466] Neale notices him, but thinks it not worth while to translate his poetry. [467] Kanoneistenhuperagiantheotokon. See Daniel, III. 17-20. [468] Not to be confounded with Methodius Eubulius, of Patara, the martyr (d. 311), who is also counted among the poets for his psalm of the Virgins in praise of chastity (parthenion); see vol. II. 811, and Christ, p. 33-37. Bässler (p.4 sq.) gives a German version of it by Fortlage. [469] Pitra concludes his collection with eighty-three anonymous hymns, thirty-two of which he assigns to the poets of the Studium. See also Daniel, III. 110-138, and the last hymns in Neale's translations. __________________________________________________________________ § 95. Latin Hymnody. Literature. See vol. III. 585 sqq. The following list covers the whole mediaeval period of Latin hymnody. I. Latin Collections. The Breviaries and Missals. The hymnological collections of Clichtovaeus (Paris 1515, Bas. 1517 and 1519.), Cassander (Col. 1556), Ellinger (Frankf. a. M. 1578), Georg Fabricius (Poetarum Veterum ecclesiasticorum Opera, Bas. 1564). See the full titles of Breviaries and these older collections in Daniel, vol. I. XIII-XXII. and vol. II. VIII-XIV. Cardinal Jos. Maria Thomasius (Tomasi, 1649-1713, one of the chief expounders of the liturgy and ceremonies of the Roman church): Opera Omnia. Rom. 1741 sqq., 7 vols. The second volume, p. 351-403, contains the Hymnarium de anni circulo, etc., for which he compared the oldest Vatican and other Italian MSS. of hymns down to the eighth century. The same vol. includes the Breviarium Psalterii. The fourth (1749) contains the Responsorialia et antiphonaria Romanae ecclesia, and the sixth vol. (1751) a collection of Missals. Thomasius is still very valuable. Daniel calls his book "fons primarius." Aug. Jak. Rambach (Luth. Pastor in Hamburg, b. 1777, d. 1851): Anthologie christlicher Gesänge aus alien Jahrh. der christl. Kirche. Altona and Leipzig 1817-1833, 6 vols. The first vol. contains Latin hymns with German translations and notes. The other volumes contain only German hymns, especially since the Reformation. Rambach was a pioneer in hymnology. Job. Kehrein (R.C.): Lat. Anthologie aus den christl. Dichtern des Mittelalters. Frankfurt a. m. 1840. See his larger work below. [John Henry Newman, Anglican, joined the Rom. Ch. 1845]: Hymni Ecclesiae. Lond. (Macmillan) 1838; new ed. 1865 (401 pages). Contains only hymns from the Paris, Roman, and Anglican Breviaries. The preface to the first part is signed "J. H. N." and dated Febr. 21, 1838, but no name appears on the title page. About the same time Card. N. made his translations of Breviary hymns, which are noticed below, sub. III. H. A. Daniel (Lutheran, d. 1871): Thesaurus Hymnologicus. Lips. 1841-1856, 5 Tomi. The first, second, fourth and fifth vols. contain Lat. hymns, the fourth Greek and Syrian h. A rich standard collection, but in need of revision P. J. Mone (R. Cath. d. 1871): Lateinische Hymnen des Mittelalters. Freiburg i. B. 1853-'55, 3 vols. From MSS with notes. Contains in all 1215 hymns divided into three divisions of almost equal size; (1) Hymns to God and the angels (461 pages); (2) Hymns to the Virgin Mary, (457 pages); (3) Hymns to saints (579 pages). D. Ozanam: Documents inédits pour servir a l'histoire littéraire de l'Italie. Paris 1850. Contains a collection of old Latin hymns, reprinted in Migne's "Patrol. Lat." vol. 151, fol. 813-824. Joseph Stevenson: Latin Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church; with an Interlinear Anglo-Saxon Gloss, from a MS. of the eleventh century in Durham Library. 1851 (Surtees Soc.). J. M. Neale (Warden of Sackville College, high Anglican, d. 1866): Sequentiae ex Missalibus Germanicis, Anglicis, Gallicis, aliisque medii aevi collectae. Lond. 1852. 284 pages. Contains 125 sequences. Felix Clément: Carmina e Poetis Christianis excerpta. Parisiis (Gaume Fratres) 1854. 564 pages. The Latin texts of hymns from the 4th to the 14th century, with French notes. R. Ch. Trench (Archbishop of Dublin): Sacred Latin Poetry, chiefly Lyrical. Lond. and Cambridge, 1849; 2d ed. 1864; 3rd ed. revised and improved, 1874. (342 pages). With an instructive Introduction and notes. Ans. Schubiger: Die Sängerschule St. Gallens vom 8ten bis 12ten Jahrh. Einsiedeln 1858. Gives sixty texts with the old music and facsimiles. P. Gall Morel (R.C.): Lat. Hymnen des Mittelalters, grösstentheils aus Handschriften schweizerischer Klöster. Einsiedeln (Benziger) 1868 (341 pages). Mostly Marienlieder and Heiligenlieder (p. 30-325). Supplementary to Daniel and Mone. Phil. Wackernagel (Luth., d. 1877): Das deutsche Kirchenlied von der ältesten Zeit bis zum Anfang des XVII. Jahrh. Leipz. 1864-1877, 5 vols. (the last vol. ed. by his two sons). This is the largest monumental collection of older German hymns; but the first vol. contains Latin hymns and sequences from the fourth to the sixteenth century. Karl Bartsch (Prof of Germ. and Romanic philology in Rostock): Die lateinischen Sequenzen des Mittelalters in musikalischer und rhythmischer Beziehung dargestellt. Rostock 1868. Chs. Buchanan Pierson: Sequences from the Sarum Missal. London 1871. Joseph Kehrein (R.C.): Lateinische Sequenzen des Mittelalters aus Handschriften und Drucken. Mainz 1873 (620 pages). The most complete collection of Sequences (over 800). He divides the sequences, like Mone the hymns, according to the subject (Lieder an Gott, Engellieder, Marienlieder, Heiligenlieder). Comp. also his earlier work noticed above. Francis A. March: Latin Hymns, with English Notes. N. York, 1874. W. McIlvaine: Lyra Sacra Hibernica. Belfast, 1879. (Contains hymns of St. Patrick, Columba, and Sedulius). E. Dümmler: Poëtae Latini Aevi Carolini. Berol. 1880-'84, 2 vols. Contains also hymns, II. p. 244-258. Special editions of Adam of St. Victor: L. Gautier: La aeuvres poétiques d' Adam de S. Victor. Par. 1858 and 1859, 2 vols. Digby S. Wrangham (of St. John's College, Oxford): The Liturgical Poetry of Adam of St. Victor. Lond. 1881, 3 vols. (The Latin text of Gautier with E. Version in the original metres and with short notes). On the Dies Irae see the monograph of Lisco (Berlin 1840). It has often been separately published, e.g. by Franklin Johnson, Cambridge, Mass. 1883. So also the Stabat Mater, and the hymn of Bernard of Cluny De Contemptu Mundi (which furnished the thoughts for Neale's New Jerusalem hymns). The hymns of St. Bernard, Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, are in the complete editions of their works. For St. Bernard see Migne's "Patrol. Lat." vol. 184, fol. 1307-1330; for Abelard, vol. 178, fol. 1759-1824. II. Historical and Critical. Polyc. Leyser: Historia Poëtarum et Poëmatum Medii Aevi. Halae 1721. Friedr. Münter: Ueber die älteste christl. Poesie. Kopenhagen 1806. Edélstand Du Méril: Poésies populaires Latines anterieures au douzième siècle. Paris 1843. Poésies populaire's Latines du moyen âge. Paris 1847. Trench: Introd. to his S. Lat. Poetry. See above. Baehr: Die christl. Dichter und Geschichtschreiber Roms. Karlsruhe 1836 , 2nd ed., revised, 1872 (with bibliography). Edward Emil Koch: Geschichte des Kirchenlieds und Kirchengesangs in der christlichen, insbesondere der deutschen evangel. Kirche. Stuttgart, third ed. rev. and enlarged 1866-1876, 7 vols. This very instructive and valuable work treats of Latin hymnology, but rather superficially, in vol. I. 40-153. Ad. Ebert: Allgem. Gesch. der Lit. des Mittelalters im Abendlande, vol. I. (Leipz. 1874), the third book (p. 516 sqq.), and vol. II. (1880) which embraces the age of Charlemagne and his successors. Joh. Kayser (R.C.): Beiträge zur Geschichte und Erklärung der ältesten Kirchenhymnen. Paderborn, 2d ed. 1881. 477 pages, comes down only to the sixth century and closes with Fortunatus. See also his article Der Text des Hymnus Stabat Mater dolorosa, in the Tübingen "Theol. Quartalschrift" for 1884, No. I. p. 85-103. III. English translations. John Chandler (Anglican, d. July 1, 1876): The Hymns of the Primitive Church, now first collected, translated and arranged. London 1837. Contains 108 Latin hymns with Chandler's translations. Richard Mant (Lord Bishop of Down and Connor, d. Nov. 2, 1848): Ancient Hymns from the Roman Breviary. 1837. New ed. Lond. and Oxf. 1871. (272 pages) John Henry Newman:] Verses on Various Occasions. London 1868 (reprinted in Boston, by Patrick Donahue). The Preface is dated Dec. 21, 1867, and signed J. H. N. The book contains the original poems of the Cardinal, and his translations of the Roman Breviary Hymns and two from the Parisian Breviary, which, as stated in a note on p. 186, were all made in 1836-38, i.e. eight years before he left the Church of England. Isaac Williams (formerly of Trinity College, Oxford, d. 1865): Hymns translated from the Parisian Breviary. London 1839. Edward Caswall (Anglican, joined the R.C. Church 1847, d. Jan. 2, 1878): Lyra Catholica. Containing all the Breviary and Missal Hymns together with some other hymns. Lond. 1849. (311 pages). Reprinted N. Y. 1851. Admirable translations. They are also included in his Hymns and Poems, original and translated. London 2d ed. 1873. John David Chambers (Recorder of New Sarum): Lauda Syon. Ancient Latin Hymns in the English and other Churches, translated into corresponding metres. Lond. 1857 (116 pages.) J. M. Neale: Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences. Lond. 1862; 3d ed. 1867. (224 pages). Neale is the greatest master of free reproduction of Latin as well as Greek hymns. He published also separately his translation of the new Jerusalem hymns: The Rhythm of Bernard de Morlaix, Monk of Cluny, on the Celestial Country. Lond. 1858, 7th ed. 1865, with the Latin text as far as translated (48 pages). Also Stabat Mater Speciosa, Full of Beauty stood the Mother (1866). The Seven Great Hymns of the Mediaeval Church. N. York (A. D. F. Randolph & Co.) 1866; seventh ed. enlarged, 1883. 154 pages. This anonymous work (by Judge C. C. Nott, Washington) contains translations by various authors of Bernard's Celestial Country, the Dies Irae, the Mater Dolorosa, the Mater Speciosa, the Veni Sancte Spiritus, the Veni Creator Spiritus, the Vexilla Regis, and the Alleluiatic Sequence of Godescalcus. The originals are also given. Philip Schaff: Christ in Song. N. Y. 1868; Lond. 1869. Contains translations of seventy-three Latin hymns by various authors. W. H. Odenheimer and Frederic M. Bird: Songs of the Spirit. N. York 1871. Contains translations of twenty-three Latin hymns on the Holy Spirit, with a much larger number of English hymns. Erastus C. Benedict (Judge in N. Y., d. 1878): The Hymn of Hildebert and other Mediaeval Hymns, with translations. N. York 1869. Abraham Coles (M. D.): Latin Hymns, with Original Translations. N. York 1868. Contains 13 translations of the Dies Irae, which were also separately published in 1859. Hamilton M. Macgill, D. D. (of the United Presb. Ch. of Scotland): Songs of the Christian Creed and Life selected from Eighteen Centuries. Lond. and Edinb. 1879. Contains translations of a number of Latin and a few Greek hymns with the originals, also translations of English hymns into Latin. The Roman Breviary. Transl. out of Latin into English by John Marquess of Bute, K. T. Edinb. and Lond. 1879, 2 vols. The best translations of the hymns scattered through this book are by the ex-Anglicans Caswall and Cardinal Newman. The Marquess of Bute is himself a convert to Rome from the Church of England. D. F. Morgan: Hymns and other Poetry of the Latin Church. Oxf. 1880. 100 versions arranged according to the Anglican Calendar. Edward A. Washburn (Rector of Calvary Church, N. Y. d. Feb. 2, 1881): Voices from a Busy Life. N. York 1883. Contains, besides original poems, felicitous versions of 32 Latin hymns, several of which had appeared before in Schaff's Christ in Song. Samuel W. Duffield: The Latin Hymn Writers and their Hymns (in course of preparation and to be published, New York 1885. This work will cover the entire range of Latin hymnology, and include translations of the more celebrated hymns). IV. German translations of Latin hymns: (Mostly accompanied by the original text) are very numerous, e.g. by Rambach, 1817 sqq. (see above); C. Fortlage (Gesänge christl. Vorzeit, 1844); Karl Simrock (Lauda Sion, 1850); Ed. Kauffer (Jesus-Hymnen, Sammlung altkirchl. lat. Gesänge, etc. Leipz. 1854, 65 pages); H. Stadelmann (Altchristl. Hymnen und Lieder. Augsb. 1855); Bässler (1858); J. Fr. H. Schlosser (Die Kirche in ihren Liedern, Freiburg i. B. 1863, 2 vols); G. A. Königsfeld (Lat. Hymnen und Gesänge, Bonn 1847, new series, 1865, both with the original and notes). __________________________________________________________________ § 96. Latin Hymns and Hymnists. The Latin church poetry of the middle ages is much better known than the Greek, and remains to this day a rich source of devotion in the Roman church and as far as poetic genius and religious fervor are appreciated. The best Latin hymns have passed into the Breviary and Missal (some with misimprovements), and have been often reproduced in modern languages. The number of truly classical hymns, however, which were inspired by pure love to Christ and can be used with profit by Christians of every name, is comparatively small. The poetry of the Latin church is as full of Mariolatry and hagiolatry as the poetry of the Greek church. It is astonishing what an amount of chivalrous and enthusiastic devotion the blessed Mother of our Lord absorbed in the middle ages. In Mone's collection the hymns to the Virgin fill a whole volume of 457 pages, the hymns to saints another volume of 579 pages, while the first volume of only 461 pages is divided between hymns to God and to the angels. The poets intended to glorify Christ through his mother, but the mother overshadows the child, as in the pictures of the Madonna. She was made the mediatrix of all divine grace, and was almost substituted for Christ, who was thought to occupy a throne of majesty too high for sinful man to reach without the aid of his mother and her tender human sympathies. She is addressed with every epithet of praise, as Mater Dei, Dei Genitrix, Mater summi Domini, Mater misericordiae, Mater bonitatis, Mater dolorosa, Mater jucundosa, Mater speciosa, Maris Stella, Mundi domina, Mundi spes, Porta paradisi, Regina coeli, Radix gratiae, Virgo virginum, Virgo regia Dei. Even the Te Deum was adapted to her by the distinguished St. Bonaventura so as to read "Te Matrem laudamus, Te Virginem confitemur." [470] The Latin, as the Greek, hymnists were nearly all monks; but an emperor (Charlemagne?) and a king (Robert of France) claim a place of honor among them. The sacred poetry of the Latin church may be divided into three periods: 1, The patristic period from Hilary (d. 368) and Ambrose (d. 397) to Venantius Fortunatus (d. about 609) and Gregory I. (d. 604); 2, the early mediaeval period to Peter Damiani (d. 1072); 3, the classical period to the thirteenth century. The first period we have considered in a previous volume. Its most precious legacy to the church universal is the Te Deum laudamus. It is popularly ascribed to Ambrose of Milan (or Ambrose and Augustin jointly), but in its present completed form does not appear before the first half of the sixth century, although portions of it may be traced to earlier Greek origin; it is, like the Apostles' Creed, and the Greek Gloria in Excelsis, a gradual growth of the church rather than the production of any individual. [471] The third period embraces the greatest Latin hymnists, as Bernard of Morlaix (monk of Cluny about 1150), Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153), Adam of St. Victor (d. 1192), Bonaventura (d. 1274), Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), Thomas a Celano (about 1250), Jacopone (d. 1306), and produced the last and the best Catholic hymns which can never die, as Hora Novisasima; Jesu dulcis memoria; Salve caput cruentatum; Stabat Mater; and Dies Irae. In this volume we are concerned with the second period. Venantius Fortunatus, of Poitiers, and his cotemporary, Pope Gregory I., form the transition from the patristic poetry of Sedulius and Prudentius to the classic poetry of the middle ages. Fortunatus (about 600) [472] was the fashionable poet of his day. A native Italian, he emigrated to Gaul, travelled extensively, became intimate with St. Gregory of Tours, and the widowed queen Radegund when she lived in ascetic retirement, and died as bishop of Poitiers. He was the first master of the trochaic tetrameter, and author of three hundred poems, chief among which are the two famous passion hymns: "Vexilla regis prodeunt," "The Royal Banners forward go;" and "Pange, lingua, gloriosi proelium certaminis," "Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle." Both have a place in the Roman Breviary. [473] Gregory I. (d. 604), though far inferior to Fortunatus in poetic genius, occupies a prominent rank both in church poetry and church music. He followed Ambrose in the metrical form, the prayer-like tone, and the churchly spirit, and wrote for practical use. He composed about a dozen hymns, several of which have found a place in the Roman Breviary. [474] The best is his Sunday hymn: "Primo dierum omnium," "On this first day when heaven on earth," or, as it has been changed in the Breviary, "Primo die quo Trinitas," "To-day the Blessed Three in One Began the earth and skies; To-day a Conqueror, God the Son, Did from the grave arise; We too will wake, and, in despite Of sloth and languor, all unite, As Psalmists bid, through the dim night Waiting with wistful eyes." [475] The Venerable Bede (d. 735) wrote a beautiful ascension hymn "Hymnum canamus gloriae," "A hymn of glory let us sing;" and a hymn for the Holy innocents, "Hymnum canentes Martyrum," "The hymn of conquering martyrs raise." [476] Rabanus Maurus, a native of Mainz (Mayence) on the Rhine, a pupil of Alcuin, monk and abbot in the convent of Fulda, archbishop of Mainz from 847 to 856, was the chief Poet of the Carolingian age, and the first German who wrote Latin hymns. Some of them have passed into the Breviary. [477] He is probably the author of the pentecostal Veni, Creator Spiritus. [478] It outweighs all his other poems. It is one of the classical Latin hymns, and still used in the Catholic church on the most solemn occasions, as the opening of Synods, the creating of popes and the crowning of kings. It was invested with a superstitious charm. It is the only Breviary hymn which passed into the Anglican liturgy as part of the office for ordaining priests and consecrating bishops. [479] The authorship has been variously ascribed to Charlemagne, [480] to Gregory the Great, [481] also to Alcuin, and even to Ambrose, without any good reason. It appears first in 898, is found in the MS. containing the Poems of Rabanus Maurus, and in all the old German Breviaries; it was early and repeatedly translated into German [482] and agrees very well in thought and expression with his treatise on the Holy Spirit. [483] We give the original with two translations. [484] Veni, Creator Spiritus, Mentes tuorum visita. Imple superna gratia Quo tu creasti pectora. Creator, Spirit, Lord of Grace, O make our hearts Thy dwelling-place, And with Thy might celestial aid The souls of those whom Thou hast made. Qui Paracletus diceris, Donum Dei altissimi, Fons vivus, ignis, charitas, Et spiritalis unctio. Come from the throne of God above, O Paraclete, O Holy Dove, Come, Oil of gladness, cleansing Fire, And Living Spring of pure desire. Tu septiformis munere, Dextrae Dei tu digitus, Tu rite Promissum Patris, Sermone ditans guttura. O Finger of the Hand Divine, The sevenfold gifts of Grace are Thine, And touched by Thee the lips proclaim All praise to God's most holy Name. Accende lumen sensibus, Infunde amorem cordibus; Infirma nostri corporis, Virtute firmans perpetim. [485] Then to our souls Thy light impart, And give Thy Love to every heart Turn all our weakness into might, O Thou, the Source of Life and Light. Hostem repellas longius, Pacemque dones protinus. Ductore sic te praevio, Vitemus omne noxium. Protect us from the assailing foe, And Peace, the fruit of Love, bestow; Upheld by Thee, our Strength and Guide, No evil can our steps betide. Per te sciamus, da Patrem, Noscamus atque Filium, Te utriusque Spiritum, Credamus omni tempore. Spirit of Faith, on us bestow The Father and the Son to know; And, of the Twain, the Spirit, Thee; Eternal One, Eternal Three. [Sit laus Patri cum Filio, Sancto simul Paracleto, Nobisque mittat Filius Charisma Sancti Spiritus.] [486] To God the Father let us sing; To God the Son, our risen King; And equally with These adore The Spirit, God for evermore. [Praesta hoc Pater piissime, Patrique compar unice, Cum Spiritu Paracleto, Regnans per omne saeculum.] See note above. O Holy Ghost, Creator come! Thy people's minds pervade; And fill, with Thy supernatural grace, The souls which Thou hast made. Kindle our senses to a flame, And fill our hearts with love, And, through our bdies' weakness, still Pour valor from above! Thou who art called the Paraclete, The gift of God most high- Thou living fount, and fire and love, Our spirit's pure ally; Drive further off our enemy, And straightway give us peace; That with Thyself as such a guide, We may from evil cease. Thou sevenfold giver of all good; Finger of God's right hand; Thou promise of the Father, rich In words for every land; Through Thee may we the Father know, And thus confess the Son; For Thee, from both the Holy Ghost, We praise while time shall run. In this connection we mention the Veni, Sancte Spiritus, the other great pentecostal hymn of the middle ages. It is generally ascribed to King Robert of France (970-1031), the son and success or of Hugh Capet. [487] He was distinguished for piety and charity, like his more famous successor, St. Louis IX., and better fitted for the cloister than the throne. He was disciplined by the pope (998) for marrying a distant cousin, and obeyed by effecting a divorce. He loved music and poetry, founded convents and churches, and supported three hundred paupers. His hymn reveals in terse and musical language an experimental knowledge of the gifts and operations of the Holy Spirit upon the heart. It is superior to the companion hymn, Veni, Creator Spiritus. Trench calls it "the loveliest" of all the Latin hymns, but we would give this praise rather to St. Bernard's Jesu dulcis memoria ("Jesus, the very thought of Thee"). The hymn contains ten half-stanzas of three lines each with a refrain in ium. Each line has seven syllables, and ends with a double or triple rhyme; the third line rhymes with the third line of the following half-stanza. Neale has reproduced the double ending of each third line (as "brilliancy"--"radiancy"). Veni, Sancte Spiritus, Et emittee coelitus Lucis tuae radium. Holy Spirit, God of light! Come, and on our inner sight Pour Thy bright and heavenly ray! Veni, Pater pauperum, Veni, dator munerum, Veni, lumen cordium. Father of the lowly! come; Here, Great Giver! be Thy home, Sunshine of our hearts, for aye! Consolator optime, Dulcis hospes animae, Dulce refrigerium: Inmost Comforter and best! Of our souls the dearest Guest, Sweetly all their thirst allay; In labore requies, In aestu temperies, In fletu solatium. In our toils be our retreat, Be our shadow in the heat, Come and wipe our tears away. O lux beatissima, Reple cordis intima, Tuorum fidelium. O Thou Light, all pure and blest! Fill with joy this weary breast, Turning darkness into day. Sine tuo numine Nihil est in homine Nihil est innoxium, For without Thee nought we find, Pure or strong in human kind, Nought that has not gone astray. Lava quod est sordidum, Riga quod est aridum, Sana quod est saucium. Wash us from the stains of sin, Gently soften all within, Wounded spirits heal and stay. Flecte quod est rigidum, Fove quod est languidum, Rege quod est devium. What is hard and stubborn bend, What is feeble soothe and tend, What is erring gently sway. Da tuis fidelibus, In te confitentibus, Sacrum septenarium; To Thy faithful servants give, Taught by Thee to trust and live, Sevenfold blessing from this day; Da virtutis meritum, Da salutis exitum, Da perenne gaudium. [488] Make our title clear, we pray, When we drop this mortal clay; Then,--O give us joy for aye.489 The following is a felicitous version by an American divine. [489] Come, O Spirit! Fount of grace! From thy heavenly dwelling-place One bright morning beam impart: Come, O Father of the poor; Come, O Source of bounties sure; Come, O Sunshine of the heart! O! thrice blessed light divine! Come, the spirit's inmost shrine With Thy holy presence fill; Of Thy brooding love bereft, Naught to hopeless man is left; Naught is his but evil still. Comforter of man the best! Making the sad soul thy guest; Sweet refreshing in our fears, In our labor a retreat, Cooling shadow in the heat, Solace in our falling tears. Wash away each earthly stain, Flow o'er this parched waste again, Real the wounds of conscience sore, Bind the stubborn will within, Thaw the icy chains of sin, Guide us, that we stray no more. Give to Thy believers, give, In Thy holy hope who live, All Thy sevenfold dower of love; Give the sure reward of faith, Give the love that conquers death, Give unfailing joy above. Notker, surnamed the Older, or Balbulus ("the little Stammerer, "from a slight lisp in his speech), was born about 850 of a noble family in Switzerland, educated in the convent of St. Gall, founded by Irish missionaries, and lived there as an humble monk. He died about 912, and was canonized in 1512. [490] He is famous as the reputed author of the Sequences (Sequentiae), a class of hymns in rythmical prose, hence also called Proses (Prosae). They arose from the custom of prolonging the last syllable in singing the Allelu-ia of the Gradual, between the Epistle and the Gospel, while the deacon was ascending from the altar to the rood-loft (organ-loft), that he might thence sing the Gospel. This prolongation was called jubilatio or jubilus, or laudes, on account of its jubilant tone, and sometimes sequentia (Greek ajkolouqiva), because it followed the reading of the Epistle or the Alleluia. Mystical interpreters made this unmeaning prolongation of a mere sound the echo of the jubilant music of heaven. A further development was to set words to these notes in rythmical prose for chanting. The name sequence was then applied to the text and in a wider sense also to regular metrical and rhymed hymns. The book in which Sequences were collected was called Sequentiale. [491] Notker marks the transition from the unmeaning musical sequence to the literary or poetic sequence. Over thirty poems bear his name. His first, attempt begins with the line "Laudes Deo concinat orbis ubique totus." More widely circulated is his Sequence of the Holy Spirit: "Sancti Spiritus adsit nobis gratia." "The grace of the Holy Spirit be present with us." [492] The best of all his compositions, which is said to have been inspired by the sight of the builders of a bridge over an abyss in the Martinstobe, is a meditation on death (Antiphona de morte): "Media vita in morte sumus: Quem quaerimus adiutorem nisi te, Domine, Qui pro peccatis nostris juste irasceris? Sancte Deus, sancte fortis, Sancte et misericors Salvator: Amarae morti ne tradas nos." [493] This solemn prayer is incorporated in many burial services. In the Book of Common Prayer it is thus enlarged: "In the midst of life we be in death: Of whom may we seek for succour, but of Thee, O Lord, which for our sins justly art moved? Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, Deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death. Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts. Shut not up thy merciful eyes to our prayers: But spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, Thou most worthy Judge eternal, Suffer us not, at our last hour, For any pains of death, To fall from Thee." [494] Peter Damiani (d. 1072), a friend of Hildebrand and promoter of his hierarchical refrms, wrote a solemn hymn on the day of death: "Gravi me terrore pulsas vitae dies ultima"," [495] "With what heavy fear thou smitest." He is perhaps also the author of the better known descriptive poem on the Glory and Delights of Paradise, which is usually assigned to St. Augustin: "Ad perennis vitae fontem mens sitivit arida, Claustra carnis praesto frangi clausa quaerit anima: Gliscit, ambit, eluctatur exsul frui patria." [496] The subordinate hymn-writers of our period are the following: [497] Isidor of Seville (Isidoris Hispalensis, 560-636). A hymn on St. Agatha: "Festum insigne prodiit." Cyxilla of Spain. Hymnus de S. Thurso et sociis: Exulta nimium turba fidelium." Eugenius of Toledo. Oratio S. Eugenii Toletani Episcopi: "Rex Deus." Paulus Diaconus (720-800), of Monte Casino, chaplain of Charlemagne, historian of the Lombards, and author of a famous collection of homilies. On John the Baptist ("Ut queant laxis), [498] and on the Miracles of St. Benedict (Fratres alacri pectore). Odo of Cluny (d. 941). A hymn on St. Mary Magdalene day, "Lauda, Mater Ecclesiae," translated by Neale: "Exalt, O mother Church, to-day, The clemency of Christ, thy Lord." It found its way into the York Breviary. Godescalcus (Gottschalk, d. about 950, not to be confounded with his predestinarian namesake, who lived in the ninth century), is next to Notker, the best writer of sequences or proses, as "Laus Tibi, Christe" ("Praise be to Thee, O Christ"), and Coeli enarrant ("The heavens declare the glory"), both translated by Neale. Fulbert Of Chartres (died about 1029) wrote a paschal hymn adopted in several Breviaries: "Chorus novae Jerusalem" ("Ye choirs of New Jerusalem"), translated by Neale. A few of the choicest hymns of our period, from the sixth to the twelfth century are anonymous. [499] To these belong: "Hymnum dicat turba fratrum." A morning hymn mentioned by Bede as a fine specimen of the trochaic tetrameter. "Sancti venite." A communion hymn. "Urbs beata Jerusalem." [500] It is from the eighth century, and one of those touching New Jerusalem hymns which take their inspiration from the last chapter of St. John's Apocalypse, and express the Christian's home-sickness after heaven. The following is the first stanza (with Neale's translation): "Urbs beata Jerusalem, Dicta pacis visio, Quae construitur in coelo Vivis ex lapidibus, Et angelis coronata Ut sponsata comite." Blessed City, Heavenly Salem, Vision dear of Peace and Love, Who, of living stones upbuilded, Art the joy of Heav'n above, And, with angel cohorts circled, As a bride to earth dost move!" "Apparebit repentina." An alphabetic and acrostic poem on the Day of Judgment, based on Matt. 25:31-36; from the seventh century; first mentioned by Bede, then long lost sight of; the forerunner of the Dies Irae, more narrative than lyrical, less sublime and terrific, but equally solemn. The following are the first lines in Neale's admirable translation: [501] "That great Day of wrath and terror, That last Day of woe and doom, Like a thief that comes at midnight, On the sons of men shall come; When the pride and pomp of ages All shall utterly have passed, And they stand in anguish, owning That the end is here at last; And the trumpet's pealing clangor, Through the earth's four quarters spread, Waxing loud and ever louder, Shall convoke the quick and dead: And the King of heavenly glory Shall assume His throne on high, And the cohorts of His angels Shall be near Him in the sky: And the sun shall turn to sackcloth, And the moon be red as blood, And the stars shall fall from heaven, Whelm'd beneath destruction's flood. Flame and fire, and desolation At the Judge's feet shall go: Earth and sea, and all abysses Shall His mighty sentence know." "Ave, Maris Stella." This is the favorite mediaeval Mary hymn, and perhaps the very best of the large number devoted to the worship of the "Queen of heaven," which entered so deeply into the piety and devotion of the Catholic church both in the East and the West. It is therefore given here in full with the version of Edward Caswall. [502] "Ave, Maris Stella, [503] Dei Mater alma Atque semper Virgo, Felix coeli porta. Hail, thou Star-of-Ocean, Portal of the sky, Ever-Virgin Mother Of the Lord Most High! Sumens illud Ave Gabrielis ore, Funda nos in pace, Mutans nomen Evae. [504] Oh, by Gabriel's Ave Uttered long ago Eva's name reversing, 'Stablish peace below! Solve vincla reis Profer lumen coecis, Mala nostra pelle, Bona cuncta posce. Break the captive's fetters, Light on blindness pour, All our ills expelling, Every bliss implore. Monstra te esse matrem, [505] Sumat per te precem, Qui pro nobis natus Tulit esse tuus. Show thyself a mother, Offer Him our sighs, Who, for us Incarnate, Did not thee despise. Virgo singularis, Inter omnes mitis, Nos culpis solutos Mites facet castos. Virgin of all virgins! To thy shelter take us-- Gentlest of the gentle! Chaste and gentle make us. Vitam praesta puram Iter para tutum, Ut videntes Iesum Semper collaetemur. Still as on we journey, Help our weak endeavor, Till with thee and Jesus, We rejoice for ever. Sit laus Deo Patri, Summo Christo decus, Spiritui Sancto Honor trinus et unus. Through the highest heaven To the Almighty Three, Father, Son, and Spirit, One same glory be. The Latin hymnody was only, for priests and monks, and those few who understood the Latin language. The people listened to it as they do to the mass, and responded with the Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, which passed from the Greek church into the Western litanies. As the modern languages of Europe developed themselves out of the Latin, and out of the Teutonic, a popular poetry arose during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and afterwards received a powerful impulse from the Reformation. Since that time the Protestant churches, especially in Germany and England, have produced the richest hymnody, which speaks to the heart of the people in their own familiar tongue, and is, next to the Psalter, the chief feeder of public and private devotion. In this body of evangelical hymns the choicest Greek and Latin hymns in various translations, reproductions, and transformations occupy an honored place and serve as connecting links between past and modern times in the worship of the same God and Saviour. __________________________________________________________________ [470] See the Marianic Te Deum in Daniel, II. 293; and in Mone, II. 229 sq. [471] A curious mediaeval legend makes the Te Deum the joint product of St. Ambrose and St. Augustin, which was alternately uttered by both, as by inspiration, while Augustin ascended from the baptismal font; Ambrose beginning: Te Deum laudamus, Augustin responding; "Te Dominum confitemur." But neither the writings of one or the other contain the slightest trace of the hymn and its origin. The first historic testimony of its existence and use is the eleventh rule of St. Benedict of Nursia, a.d. 529, which prescribes to the monks of Monte Casino: "Post guartum autem responsorium incipiat Abbas hymnum Te Deum laudamus." But five or eight lines of the hymn are found in Greek as a part of the Gloria in Excelsis (Doxaenhupsistois, etc. ) in the Alexandrian Codex of the Bible which dates from the fifth century. See Daniel, II 289 sqq.;Christ p. 39 (from kathhemeran to eistousaionas), and Kayser, 437 sqq. Daniel traces the whole Te Deum to a lost Greek original (of which the lines in the Cod. Alex. are a fragment), Kayser to an unknown Latin author in the second half of the fifth century, i.e. about one hundred years after the death of St. Ambrose. [472] The dates of his birth and death are quite uncertain, and variously stated from 530 or 550 to 600 or 609. [473] See two Latin texts with critical notes in Daniel, I. 160 sqq., rhymed English Versions by Mant, Caswall, and Neale. The originals are not rhymed, but very melodious. See vol. III. 597. The Opera of Fortunatus were edited by Luchi, Rom. 1786, and Migne in "Patrol. Lat." vol. 88 (Paris 1850). Comp. Ampère, Hist. littér. II. 275 sqq.; Ebert, l.c. I. 494 sqq. Fortunatus is a very interesting character, and deserves a special monograph. Kayser devotes to him three chapters (p. 386-434). [474] Daniel, I. 175-183, gives ten hymns of Gregory, and an additional one (Laudes canamus) in vol. V. 248. Mone adds some more of doubtful authorship, I. 370, 376 sqq.; III. 325 sqq., and includes hymns in praise of Gregory, as "O decus sacerdotum, flosque sanctorum." English translations of his Breviary hymns in Mant, Chambers, Caswall, Newman. On his merits as a poet, see Ebert, I. 827 sqq. Luther, in his Tischreden (which are a strange mixture of truth and fiction), declared the passion hymn Rex Christe, factor omnium, to be the best of all hymns ("der allerbeste Hymnus"), but this extravagant praise is inconsistent with the poetic taste of Luther and the fact that he did not reproduce it in German. [475] From Newman's free reproduction (in Verses on Various Occasions). See the Latin text in both recensions in Daniel, I. 175, [476] Daniel, I. 206 sq.; Mone, I.1 ("Primo Deus coeli globum") and 284 (Ave sacer Christi sanguis). The hymn for the infant martyrs at Bethlehem is far inferior to the Salvete flores martyrum of Prudentius. The first of the hymns quoted in the text is translated by Mrs. Charles and by Neale. German versions by Königsfeld (Ihr Siegeshymnen schallet laut, and Unschuld'ger Kinder Martyrschaar), Knapp, and others. Bede composed also a metrical history, of St. Cuthbert, which Newman has translated in part ("Between two comrades dear"). [477] His carmina were edited from an old MS. found in the convent of Fulda by Christopher Brower, a Jesuit, in 1617 (as an appendix to the poems of Venantius Fortunatus), and reprinted in Migne's Rab. MauriOpera (1852) Vol. VI. f. 1583-1682. Comp. Kunstmann, Hrabamus Magnentius Maurus, Mainz 1841; Koch, I. 90-93; Ebert, II. 120-145; Hauck in Herzog2XII. 459-465. Hauck refers to Dümmler on the MS. tradition of the poem, of R. M. [478] So Brower, and quite recently S. W. Duffield, in an article In Schaff's "Rel. Encycl." III. 2608 sq. Also Clément, Carmina, etc., p. 379. [479] 9 In the abridged and not very happy translation of Bishop Cosin (only four stanzas), beginning: "Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, And lighten with celestial fire. Thou the anointing Spirit art, Who dost thy sevenfold gift, impart." It was introduced into the Prayer Book after the Restoration, 1662. The alternate ordination hymn, "Come, Holy Ghost, eternal God," appeared in 1549, and was altered in 1662. [480] By Tomasi (I. 375) and even Daniel (I. 213, sq.; IV. 125), apparently also by Trench (p. 167). Tomasi based his view on an impossible tradition reported by the Bollandists (Acta SS. Apr. 1, 587), that Notker sent to Charlemagne (who died a hundred years before) his sequence Sancti Spiritus adsit nobis gratia, and received in response the Veni, Creator Spiritus from the emperor (whose Latin scholarship was not sufficient for poetic composition). The author of the article "Hymns" in the 9th ed. of the "Encycl. Brit." revives the legend, but removes the anachronism by substituting for Charlemagne his nephew, Charles the Bald (who was still less competent for the task). [481] By Mone (I. 242, note), Koch, Wackernagel. Mone's reasons are "the classical metre with partial rhymes, and the prayer-like treatment." [482] In the twelfth and thirteenth century (Komm, Schöpfer, heiliger Geist), as also by Luther (Komm, Gott Schöpfer, heiliger Geist), by Königsfeld (Komm, Schöpfer, heil'ger Geist, erfreu), and others. The oldest German translator (as reported by Daniel, I. 214), says that he who recites this hymn by day or by night, is secure against all enemies visible or invisible. [483] As contained in his work De Universo 1. I. c.3 (in Migne's edition of the Opera, V. 23-26). Here he calls the Holy Spirit digitus Dei (as in the hymn), and teaches the double procession which had come to be the prevailing doctrine in the West since the adoption of the Filioque at the Synod of Aix in Creed. The scanning of Paraclêtus with a long penultimate differs from that 809, though under protest of Leo III. against its insertion into the Nicene of other Latin poets (Paraecletos). [484] The Latin text is from Brower, as reprinted in Migne (VI. 1657), with the addition of the first doxology. The first translation is by Robert Campbell, 1850, the second by Rev. S. W. Duffield, made for this work, Feb. 1884. Other English versions by Wither (1623), Drummond (1616), Cosin (1627), Tate (1703), Dryden (1700), Isaac Williams (1839), Bishop Williams (1845), Mant ("Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest"), Benedict ("Spirit, heavenly life bestowing"), MacGill ("Creator Holy Spirit! come"), Morgan ("Creator Spirit, come in love"), in the Marquess of Bute's Breviary ("Come, Holy Ghost, Creator come"). See nine of these translations in Odenheimer and Bird, Songs of the Spirit, N. Y. 1871, p. 167-180. German versions are almost as numerous. Comp. Daniel, I. 213; IV. 124; Mone, I. 242; Koch, 1. 74 sq. [485] Perpetim, adv., perpetually, constantly. Some copies read perpeti (from perpes). [486] The concluding conventional benediction in both forms is a later addition. The first is given by Daniel (I. 214), and Mone (I. 242), the second in the text of Rabanus Maurus. The scanning of Paraecletos differs in both from that in the second stanza. [487] A few writers claim it for Pope Innocent III. [488] See the Latin text in Daniel II. 35; V. 69; Mone, I. 244. In ver. 8 line 2 Daniel reads frigidum for languidum. [489] Dr. E. A. Washburn, late rector of Calvary Church, New York, a highly accomplished scholar (d. 1881). The version was made in 1860 and published in "Voices from a Busy Life," N. Y. 1883, p. 142. [490] Comp. on Notker the biography of Ekkehard; Daniel V. 37 sqq.; Koch I. 94 sqq.; Meyer von Knonau,Lebensbild des heil. Notker von St. Gallen, and his article in Herzog2X. 648 sqq. (abridged in Schaff-Herzog II. 1668); and Ans. Schubiger, Die Sängerschule St. Gallens vom 8ten his 12ten Jahrh. (Einsiedlen, 1858). Daniel II. 3-31 gives thirty-five pieces under the title Notker et Notkeriana. Neale (p. 32) gives a translation of one sequence: Sancti Spiritus adsit nobis gratia. [491] For further information on Sequences see especially Neale's Epistola Critica de Sequentiis at the beginning of the fifth vol. of Daniel's Thes. (p. 3-36), followed by literary notices of Daniel; also the works of Bartsch and Kehrein (who gives the largest collection), and Duffield in Schaff's Rel. Encyl. III. 161. Neale defines a sequentia: "prolongatio syllabae tou Alleluia." [492] Translated by Neale, p. 32. [493] Daniel, II. 329; Mone, I. 397. Several German versions, one by Luther (1524): "Mitten wir im Leben sind mit dem Tod umfangen." This version is considerably enlarged and has been translated into English by Miss Winkworth in "Lyra Germanica" : "In the midst of life behold Death has girt us round. See notes in Schaff's Deutsches Gesangbuch, No. 446. [494] The text is taken from The First Book of Edward VI., 1549 (as republished by Dr. Morgan Dix, N. Y. 1881, p. 268). In the revision of the Prayer Book the third line was thus improved: O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased (irasceris)." [495] Daniel, I. 224. English Versions by Neale, Benedict, and Washburn (l. c. p. 145). German translation by Königsfeld: "Wie du mich mit Schrecken schüttelst." Neale (p. 52) calls this "an awful hymn, the Dies Irae of individual life." His version begins: "O what terror in thy forethought, Ending scene in mortal life!" [496] Daniel, I. 116-118 (Rhythmus de gloria et gaudiis Paradisi), under the name of St. Augustin. So also Clément, Carmina, p. 162-166, who says that it is, attributed to Augustin "per les melleurs critiques," and that it is "un reflet de la Cité de Dieu." But the great African father put his poetry into prose, and only furnished inspiring thoughts to poets. German translation by Königsfeld (who gives it likewise under the name of St. Augustin) "Nach des ew'gen Lebens Quellen." [497] See their hymns in Daniel, I. 183 sqq., and partly in Mone, and Clément. [498] From this poem (see Daniel I. 209 sq.) Guido of Arezzo got names for the six notes Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La: "Ut queant laxis Re-sonare fibris Mi-ra gestorum Fa-muli tuorum, Sol ve polluti La-bii reatum, Sancte Joannes." [499] See Daniel, Hymni adespotoi circa sec. VI-IX. conscripti, I. 191 sqq. Mone gives a larger number. [500] In the Roman Breviary: "Coelestis urbs Jerusalem." Neale thinks that the changes in the revised Breviary of Urban VIII. have deprived "this grand hymn of half of its beauty." [501] See the original in Daniel, I. 194. Other English translations by Mrs. Charles, and E. C. Benedict. In German by Königsfeld: "Plötzlich wird der Tag erscheinen." [502] Daniel (I. 204) says of this hymn: "Hic hymnus Marianus, quem Catholica semper ingenti cum favore prosecuta est, in omnibus breviarriis, quae inspiciendi unquam mihi occasio data est, ad honorem beatissimae virginis cantandus praescribitur, inprimis in Annunciatione; apud permultos tamen aliis quoque diebus Festis Marianis adscriptus est. Quae hymni reverentia ad recentiora usque tempora permansit." It is one of the few hymns which Urban VIII. did not alter in his revision of the Breviary. Mone (II. 216, 218, 220, 228) gives four variations of Ave Maris Stella, which is used as the text. [503] This designation of Mary is supposed to be meant for a translation of the name; maria being taken for the plural of mare: see Gen. I: 10 (Vulgate) "congregationes aquarum appellavit maria. Et vidit Deus, quod esset bonum." (See the note in Daniel, I. 205). Surely a most extraordinary exposition, not to say imposition, yet not too far-fetched for the middle ages, when Greek and Hebrew were unknown, when the Scriptures were supposed to have four senses, and allegorical and mystical fancies took the place of grammatical and historical exegesis. [504] The comparison of Mary with Eve--the mother of obedience contrasted with the mother of disobedience, the first Eve bringing in guilt and ruin, the second, redemption and bliss--is as old as Irenaeus (about 180) and is the fruitful germ of Mariolatry. The mystical change of Eva and Ave is mediaeval--a sort of pious conundrum. [505] The words of our Lord to John: "Behold thy mother" (John 19:27), were supposed to be spoken to all Christians. __________________________________________________________________ § 97. The Seven Sacraments. Mediaeval Christianity was intensely sacramental, sacerdotal and hierarchical. The ideas of priest, sacrifice, and altar are closely connected. The sacraments were regarded as the channels of all grace and the chief food of the soul. They accompanied human life from the cradle to the grave. The child was saluted into this world by the sacrament of baptism; the old man was provided with the viaticum on his journey to the other world. The chief sacraments were baptism and the eucharist. Baptism was regarded as the sacrament of the new birth which opens the door to the kingdom of heaven the eucharist as the sacrament of sanctification which maintains and nourishes the new life. Beyond these two sacraments several other rites were dignified with that name, but there was no agreement as to the number before the scholastic period. The Latin sacramentum, like the Greek mystery (of which it is the translation in the Vulgate), was long used in a loose and indefinite way for sacred and mysterious doctrines and rites. Rabanus Maurus and Paschasius Radbertus count four sacraments, Dionysius Areopagita, six; Damiani, as many as twelve. By the authority chiefly of Peter the Lombard and Thomas Aquinas the sacred number seven was at last determined upon, and justified by various analogies with the number of virtues, and the number of sins, and the necessities of human life. [506] But seven sacraments existed as sacred rites long before the church was agreed on the number. We find them with only slight variations independently among the Greeks under the name of "mysteries" as well as among the Latins. They are, besides baptism and the eucharist (which is a sacrifice as well as a sacrament): confirmation, penance (confession and absolution), marriage, ordination, and extreme unction. Confirmation was closely connected with baptism as a sort of supplement. It assumed a more independent character in the case of baptized infants and took place later. It may be performed in the Greek church by any priest, in the Latin only by the bishop. [507] Penance was deemed necessary for sins after baptism. [508] Ordination is the sacrament of the hierarchy and indispensable for the government of the church. Marriage lies at the basis of the family and society in church and state, and was most closely and jealously guarded by the church against facility of divorce, against mixed marriages, and marriages between near relatives. Extreme unction with prayer (first mentioned among the sacraments by a synod of Pavia in 850, and by Damiani) was the viaticum for the departure into the other world, and based on the direction of St. James 5:14, 15 (Comp. Mark 6:13; 16:18). At first it was applied in every sickness, by layman as well as priest, as a medical cure and as a substitute for amulets and forms of incantation; but the Latin church afterwards confined it to of extreme danger. The efficacy of the sacrament was defined by the scholastic term ex opere operato, that is, the sacrament has its intended effect by virtue of its institution and inherent power, independently of the moral character of the priest and of the recipient, provided only that it be performed in the prescribed manner and with the proper intention and provided that the recipient throw no obstacle in the way. [509] Three of the Sacraments, namely baptism, confirmation, and ordination, have in addition the effect of conferring an indelible character. [510] Once baptized always baptized, though the benefit may be forfeited for ever; once ordained always ordained, though a priest may be deposed and excommunicated. __________________________________________________________________ [506] Otto, bishop of Bamberg (between 1139 and 1189), is usually reported to have introduced the seven sacraments among the Pomeranians whom he had converted to Christianity, but the discourse on which this tradition rests is of doubtful genuineness. The scholastic number seven was confirmed by the Council of Florence (the Greek delegates assenting), and by the Council of Trent which anathematizes all who teach more or less, Sess. VII. can. I. The Protestant churches admit only two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper, because these alone are especially commanded by Christ to be observed. Yet ordination and marriage, and in some churches confirmation also, are retained as solemn religious ceremonies. [507] The Lutheran church retains confirmation by the minister, the Anglican church by the bishop. [508] See above, § 87. [509] Here, too, the Protestant (at least the Reformed) confessions differ from the Roman Catholic by requiring faith in active exercise as a condition of receiving the benefit of the sacrament. In the case of infant baptism the faith of the parents or responsible guardians is taken into account. Without such faith the sacrament would be wasted and profaned. [510] Character indelebilis __________________________________________________________________ § 98. The Organ and the Bell. To the external auxiliaries of worship were added the organ and the bell. The Organ, [511] in the sense of a particular instrument (which dates from the time of St. Augustin), is a development of the Syrinx or Pandean pipe, and in its earliest form consisted of a small box with a row of pipes in the top, which were inflated by the performer with the mouth through means of a tube at one end. It has in the course of time undergone considerable improvements. The use of organs in churches is ascribed to Pope Vitalian (657-672). Constantine Copronymos sent an organ with other presents to King Pepin of France in 767. Charlemagne received one as a present from the Caliph Haroun al Rashid, and had it put up in the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle. The art of organ-building was cultivated chiefly in Germany. Pope John VIII. (872-882) requested Bishop Anno of Freising to send him an organ and an organist. The attitude of the churches towards the organ varies. It shared to some extent the fate of images, except that it never was an object of worship. The poetic legend which Raphael has immortalized by one of his master-pieces, ascribes its invention to St. Cecilia, the patron of sacred music. The Greek church disapproves the use of organs. The Latin church introduced it pretty generally, but not without the protest of eminent men, so that even in the Council of Trent a motion was made, though not carried, to prohibit the organ at least in the mass. The Lutheran church retained, the Calvinistic churches rejected it, especially in Switzerland and Scotland; but in recent times the opposition has largely ceased. [512] The Bell is said to have been invented by Paulinus of Nola (d. 431) in Campania; [513] but he never mentions it in his description of churches. Various sonorous instruments were used since the time of Constantine the Great for announcing the commencement of public worship. Gregory of Tours mentions a "signum" for calling monks to prayer. The Irish used chiefly hand-bells from the time of St. Patrick, who himself distributed them freely. St. Columba is reported to have gone to church when the bell rang (pulsante campana) at midnight. Bede mentions the bell for prayer at funerals. St. Sturm of Fulda ordered in his dying hours all the bells of the convent to be rung (779). In the reign of Charlemagne the use of bells was common in the empire. He encouraged the art of bel-founding, and entertained bell-founders at his court. Tancho, a monk of St. Gall, cast a fine bell, weighing from four hundred to five hundred pounds, for the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle. In the East, church bells are not mentioned before the end of the ninth century. Bells, like other church-furniture, were consecrated for sacred use by liturgical forms of benediction. They were sometimes even baptized; but Charlemagne, in a capitulary of 789, forbids this abuse. [514] The office of bell-ringers [515] was so highly esteemed in that age that even abbots and bishops coveted it. Popular superstition ascribed to bells a magical effect in quieting storms and expelling pestilence. Special towers were built for them. [516] The use of church bells is expressed in the old lines which are inscribed in many of them: "Lauda Deum verum, plebem voco, congrego clerum, Defunctos ploro, pestem fugo, festaque honoro." [517] __________________________________________________________________ [511] Organum from the Greek organon, which is used in the Septuagint for several musical terms in Hebrew, as cheli, chinor (cithara), nephel (nablium), yugab. See the passages in Trommius, Concord. Gr. V. LXX, II. 144. [512] See Hopkins and Rimbault: The Organ, its History and Construction, 1855; E. de Coussemakee: Histoire, des instruments de musique au moyen-age, Paris 1859; Heinrich Otte: Handbuch der Kirchl. Kunstarchäologie, Leipz. 4th ed. 1866, p. 225 sqq. O. Wangermann: Gesch. der Orgel und der Orgelbaukunst, second ed. 1881. Comp. also Bingham, Augusti, Binterim, Siegel, Alt, and the art. Organ in Smith and Cheetham, Wetzer and Welte, and in Herzog. [513] Hence the names campanum, or campana, nola(continued in the Italian language), but it is more probable that the name is derived from Campanian brass (aes campanum), which in early times furnished the material for bells. In later Latin it is called cloqua, cloccum, clocca, cloca, also tintinnabulum, English: clock; German: Glocke; French: cloche; Irish: clog (comp. the Latin clangere and the German klopfen). [514] "Ut cloccae non baptizentur." According to Baronius, Annal. ad a. 968, Pope John XIII. baptized the great bell of the Lateran church, and called it John. The reformers of the. sixteenth century renewed the protest of Charlemagne, and abolished the baptism of bells as a profanation of the sacrament, See Siegel, Handbuch der christl. kirchlichen Alterthümer, II. 243. [515] Campanarii, campanatores. [516] Called Campanile. The one on place of San Marco at Venice is especially celebrated. [517] The literature on bells is given by Siegel, II. 239, and Otte, p.2 and 102. We mention Nic. Eggers: de Origine et Nomine Campanarum, Jen., 1684; by the same: De Campanarum Materia et Forma 1685; Waller: De Campanis et praecipuis earum Usibus, Holm., 1694; Eschenwecker: Circa Campanas, Hal. ) 1708; J. B. Thiers. Traité des Cloches, Par., 1719; Montanus: Hist. Nachricht von den Glocken, etc., Chemnitz, 1726; Chrysander: Hist. Nachricht von Kirchen-Glocken, Rinteln, 1755; Heinrich Otte: Glockenkunde, Leipz., 1858; Comp. also his Handbuch der kirchlichen Kunst-Archäologie des deutschen Mittelalters, Leipz., 1868, 4th ed., p. 245-248 (with illustrations); and the articles Bells, Glocken, in the archaeological works of Smith and Cheetham, Wetzer and Welte, and Herzog. Schiller has made the bell the subject of his greatest lyric poem, which ends with this beautiful description of its symbolic meaning: "Und diess sei fortan ihr Beruf, Wozu der Meister sie erschuf: Hoch über'm niedern Erdenleben Soll sie im blauen Himmelszelt, Die Nachbarin des Donners, schweben Und gränzen an die Sternenwelt; Soll eine Stimme sein von oben, Wie der Gestirne helle Shaar, Die ihren Schöpfer wandelnd loben Und führen das bekränzte Jahr. Nur ewigen und ersten Dingen Sei ihr metall'ner Mund geweiht, Und stündlich mit den schnellen Schwinger Berühr' im Fluge sie die Zeit. Dem Schicksal leihe sie die Zunge; Selbst herzlos, ohne Mitgefühl, Begleite sie mit ihrem Schwunge Des Lebens wechselvolles Spiel. Und wie der Klang im Ohr vergehet, Der mächtig tönend ihr entschallt, So lehre sie, dass nichts bestehet, Dass alles Irdische verhallt." __________________________________________________________________ § 99. The Worship of Saints. Comp. vol. III. §§ 81-87 (p. 409-460). The Worship of Saints, handed down from the Nicene age, was a Christian substitute for heathen idolatry and hero-worship, and well suited to the taste and antecedents of the barbarian races, but was equally popular among the cultivated Greeks. The scholastics made a distinction between three grades of worship: 1) adoration (latreia), which belongs to God alone; 2) veneration (douleia), which is due to the saints as those whom God himself has honored, and who reign with him in heaven; 3) special veneration (huperdouleia), which is due to the Virgin Mary as the mother of the Saviour and the queen of all saints. But the people did not always mind this distinction, and the priests rather encouraged the excesses of saint-worship. Prayers were freely addressed to the saints, though not as the givers of the blessings desired, but as intercessors and advocates. Hence the form "Pray for us" (Ora pro nobis). The number of saints and their festivals multiplied very rapidly. Each nation, country, province or city chose its patron saint, as Peter and Paul in Rome, St. Ambrose in Milan, St. Martin, St. Denys (Dionysius) and St. Germain in France, St. George in England, St. Patrick in Ireland, St. Boniface in Germany, and especially the Virgin Mary, who has innumerable localities and churches under her care and protection. The fact of saintship was at first decided by the voice of the people, which was obeyed as the voice of God. Great and good men and women who lived in the odor of sanctity and did eminent service to the cause of religion as missionaries or martyrs or bishops or monks or nuns, were gratefully remembered after their death; they became patron saints of the country or province of their labors and sufferings, and their worship spread gradually over the entire church. Their relics were held sacred; their tombs were visited by pilgrims. The metropolitans usually decided on the claims of saintship for their province down to a.d. 1153. [518] But to check the increase and to prevent mistakes, the popes, since Alexander III. a.d. 1170, claimed the exclusive right of declaring the fact, and prescribing the worship of a saint throughout the whole (Latin) Catholic church. [519] This was done by a solemn act called canonization. From this was afterwards distinguished the act of beatification, which simply declares that a departed Catholic Christian is blessed (beatus) in heaven, and which within certain limits permits (but does not prescribe) his veneration. [520] The first known example of a papal canonization is the canonization of Ulrich, bishop of Augsburg (d. 973), by John XV. who, at a Lateran synod composed of nineteen dignitaries, in 993, declared him a saint at the request of Luitolph (Leuthold), his successor in the see of Augsburg, after hearing his report in person on the life and miracles of Ulrich. His chief merit was the deliverance of Southern Germany from the invasion of the barbarous Magyars, and his devotion to the interests of his large diocese. He used to make tours of visitation on an ox-cart, surrounded by a crowd of beggars and cripples. He made two pilgrimages to Rome, the second in his eighty-first year, and died as an humble penitent on the bare floor. The bull puts the worship of the saints on the ground that it redounds to the glory of Christ who identifies himself with his saints, but it makes no clear distinction between the different degrees of worship. It threatens all who disregard this decree with the anathema of the apostolic see. [521] A mild interpretation of the papal prerogative of canonization reduces it to a mere declaration of a fact preceded by a careful examination of the merits of a case before the Congregation of Rites. But nothing short of a divine revelation can make such a fact known to mortal man. The examination is conducted by a regular process of law in which one acts as Advocatus Diaboli or accuser of the candidate for canonization, and another as Advocatus Dei. Success depends on the proof that the candidate must have possessed the highest sanctity and the power of working miracles either during his life, or through his dead bones, or through invocation of his aid. A proverb says that it requires a miracle to prove a miracle. Nevertheless it is done by papal decree on such evidence as is satisfactory to Roman Catholic believers. [522] The question, how the saints and the Virgin Mary can hear so many thousands of prayers addressed to them simultaneously in so many different places, without being clothed with the divine attributes of omniscience and omnipresence, did not disturb the faith of the people. The scholastic divines usually tried to solve it by the assumption that the saints read those prayers in the omniscient mind of God. Then why not address God directly? In addition to the commemoration days of particular saints, two festivals were instituted for the commemoration of all the departed. The Festival of All Saints [523] was introduced in the West by Pope Boniface IV. on occasion of the dedication of the Pantheon in Rome, which was originally built by Agrippa in honor of the victory of Augustus at Actium, and dedicated to Jupiter Vindex; it survived the old heathen temples, and was presented to the pope by the Emperor Phocas, a.d. 607; whereupon it was cleansed, restored and dedicated to the service of God in the name of the ever-Virgin Mary and all martyrs. Baronius tells us that at the time of dedication on May 13 the bones of martyrs from the various cemeteries were in solemn procession transferred to the church in twenty-eight carriages. [524] From Rome the festival spread during the ninth century over the West, and Gregory IV. induced Lewis the Pious in 835 to make it general in the Empire. The celebration was fixed on the first of November for the convenience of the people who after harvest had a time of leisure, and were disposed to give thanks to God for all his mercies. The Festival of All Souls [525] is a kind of supplement to that of All Saints, and is celebrated on the day following (Nov. 2). Its introduction is traced to Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, in the tenth century. It spread very soon without a special order, and appealed to the sympathies of that age for the sufferings of the souls in purgatory. The worshippers appear in mourning; the mass for the dead is celebrated with the "Dies irae, Dies illa," and the oft-repeated "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine." In some places (e.g. in Munich) the custom prevails of covering the graves on that day with the last flowers of the season. The festival of Michael the Archangel, [526] the leader of the angelic host, was dedicated to the worship of angels, [527] on the 29th of September. [528] It rests on no doctrine and no fact, but on the sandy foundation of miraculous legends. [529] We find it first in the East. Several churches in and near Constantinople were dedicated to St. Michael, and Justinian rebuilt two which had become dilapidated. In the West it is first mentioned by a Council of Mentz in 813, as the "dedicatio S. Michaelis," among the festivals to be observed; and from that time it spread throughout the Church in spite of the apostolic warning against angelolatry (Col. 2:18; Rev. 19:10; 22:8, 9). [530] __________________________________________________________________ [518] Sometimes also bishops, synods, and, in cases of political importance, kings and emperors. The last case of a metropolitan canonization is ascribed to the archbishop of Rouen, a.d.1153, in favor of St. Gaucher, or Gaultier, abbot of Pontoise (d. April 9, 1130). But Labbe and Alban Butler state that he was canonized by Celestine III. in 1194. It seems that even at a later date some bishops exercised a limited canonization; hence the prohibition of this practice as improper by Urban VIII. in 1625 and 1634. [519] The occasion of the papal decision in 1170 was the fact that the monks of a convent in the diocese of Lisieux worshiped as a saint their prefect, who had been killed in the refectory by two of their number in a state of intoxication. [520] Comp. on this subject Benedict XIV. (Lambertini): De Servorum Dei Beatificatione et Beatorum Canonisatione. Bononisae 1734-'38; ed. II. Venet. et Patav. 1743, 4 vol. fol. Ferraris: Bibliotheca Canonica, a. v. "Veneratio Sanctorum." Canonization includes seven privileges: 1) recognition as saint by the whole (Roman) church; 2) invocation in public and private prayers; 3) erection of churches and altars to the honor of the saints; 4) invocation at the celebration of the mass; 5) appointment of special days of commemoration; 6) exhibition of their images with a crown on their head; 7) exhibition of their bones and relics for veneration. The question whether the papal bulls of canonization are infallible and de fide, or only sententia communis et certa, seems to be still disputed among Roman Catholics. [521] See Mansi, XIX. f. 169-179. The bull is signed by, the pope, five bishops, nine cardinal priests, an archdeacon and four deacons. It decrees that the memory of Saint Udalricus be venerated "affectu piisimo et devotione fidelissima," and be dedicated to divine worship ("divino cultui dicata"). It justifies it by the reason "quoniam sic adoramus (!) et colimus reliquius m et confessorum, ut eum, Cuius martyres et confessores sunt, adoremus Honaramus servos ut honor redundet in Dominum, qui dixit: Qui vos recipit me recipit': ac proinde nos, qui fiduciam nostrae justitiae non habemus, illorum precibus et meritis apud clementissimum Deum jugiter adiuvemur." The bull mentions many miracles of Ulrich, "quae sive in corpore, sive extra corpus gesta sunt, videlicet Caecos illuminasse, daemones ab obsessis effugasse, paralyticos curasse, et quam plurima alia signa gessisse." On the life of St. Ulrich see the biography by his friend and companion Gerhard (between 983 and 993), best edition by Wirtz in the Monum. G. Scriptores, IV. 377 sqq.; Acta Sanct., Bolland. ad 4 Jul.; Mabillon, Ada Ordinis S. B., V. 415-477; Braun, Gesch. der Bischöfe von Augsburg(Augsb. 1813), vol. I.; Schrödl, in Wetzer and Welte, vol. XI. 370-383, and Vogel in Herzog1vol. XVI. 624-628. Ulrich cannot be the author of a tract against celibacy which was first published under his name by Flacius in his Catalogus Testium Veritatis, but dates from the year 1059 when Pope Nicolas II. issued a decree enforcing celibacy. See Vogel, l.c. p. 627. [522] The most recent acts of canonization occurred in our generation. Pope Pius IX. canonized in 1862 with great solemnity twenty-six Japanese missionaries and converts of the Franciscan order, who died in a persecution in 1597. Leo XIII. canonized, December 8, 1881, four comparatively obscure saints of ascetic habits and self-denying charity, namely, Giovanni Battista de Rossi, Lorenzo di Brindisi, Giuseppe Labre, and Clara di Montefalco. A Roman priest describes "the blessed Labre" as a saint who "never washed, never changed his linen, generally slept under the arches of the Colosseum and prayed for hours together in the Church of the Orphanage where there is a tablet to his memory." St. Labre evidently did not believe that "cleanliness is next to godliness" [523] Omnium Sanctorum Natalis, or Festivas, Solemnitas, Allerheiligenfest. The Greek church had long before a similar festival in commemoration of all martyrs on the first Sunday after Pentecost, called KuriaketonHagionpanton. Chrysostom, in a sermon for that day, says that on the Octave of Pentecost the Christians were surrounded by the host of martyrs. In the West the first Sunday after Pentecost was devoted to the Trinity, and closed the festival part of the church year. See vol. III. 408. [524] Martyrologio Romano, May 13 and Nov. 1. The Pantheon or Rotunda, like Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul's Cathedral in London, contains the ashes of other distinguished men besides saints, and is the resting-place of Raphael, and since 1883 even of Victor Emanuel, the founder of the Kingdom of Italy, whom the pope regards as a robber of the patrimony of Peter. [525] Omnium Fidelium defunctorum Memoria orCommemoratio, Allerseelentag. [526] Festum S. Michaelis, or Michaelis Archangeli, Michaelmas. [527] Hence also called Festum omnium Angelorum, St. Michael and all Angels. [528] In the Eastern church on November 8. The origin of the Eastern celebration is obscure. [529] Namely, sundry apparitions of Michael, at Chonae, near Colossae, in Monte Gargano in the diocese of Sipontum in Apulia (variously assigned to a.d.492, 520, and 536), in Monte Tumba in Normandy (about 710), and especially one to Pope Gregory I. in Rome, or his successor, Boniface III. (607-610), after a pestilence over the Moles Hadriani, which ever since has been called the Castello di St. Angelo, and is adorned by the statue of an angel. [530] See vol. III. 444 sq. Acta Sanct., Sept. 29; Siegel, Handbuch der christl. Kirchl. Alterthümer, III. 419-425; Smith & Cheetham, II. 1176-1180; also Augusti, Binterim, and the monographs mentioned by Siegel, p. 419. The angel-worship in Colossae was heretical and probably of Essenic origin. See the commentaries in loc., especially Lightfoot, p. 101 sqq. A council of Laodicea near Colossae, about 363, found it necessary strongly to forbid angelolatry as then still prevailing in Phrygia. St. Augustin repeatedly objects to it, De vera Rel. 110; Conf. X. 42; De Civ. D. X. 19, 25. __________________________________________________________________ § 100. The Worship of Images. Literature. Different Theories. Comp. Vol. II., chs. vi. (p.266 sqq.) and vii. (p. 285); Vol. III. §§109-111 (p. 560 sqq.). (I.) John of Damascus (chief defender of image-worship, about 750): Lovgoi ajpologhtikoi; pro;" tou;" diabavllonta" ta;" aJgiva" eijkovna" (ed. Le Quien I. 305). Nicephorus (Patriarch of Constantinople, d. 828): Breviarium Hist. (to a.d. 769), ed. Petavius, Paris, 1616. Theophanes (Confessor and almost martyr of image-worship, d. c. 820): Chronographia, cum notis Goari et Combefisii, Par., 1655, Ven. 1729, and in the Bonn ed. of the Byzant. historians, 1839, Tom. I. (reprinted in Migne's "Patrol. Graeca," Tom. 108). The later Byzantine historians, who notice the controversy, draw chiefly from Theophanes; so also Anastasius (Historia Eccles.) and Paulus Diaconus (Historia miscella and Hist. Longobardorum). The letters of the popes, and the acts of synods, especially the Acta Concilii Nicaeni II. (a.d. 787) in Mansi, Tom. XIII., and Harduin, Tom. IV. M. H. Goldast: Imperialia Decreta de Cultu Imaginum in utroque imperio promulgata. Frankf., 1608. The sources are nearly all on the orthodox side. The seventh oecumenical council (787) ordered in the fifth session that all the books against images should be destroyed. (II.) J. Dalleus (Calvinist): De Imaginibus. Lugd. Bat., 1642. L. Maimbourg (Jesuit): Histoire de l'hérésie des iconoclastes. Paris, 1679 and 1683, 2 vols. (Hefele, III. 371, calls this work "nicht ganz zuverlässig," not quite reliable). Fr. Spanheim (Calvinist): Historia Imaginum restituta. Lugd. Bat. 1686 (in Opera, II. 707). Chr. W. Fr. Walch (Lutheran): Ketzerhistorie. Leipz., 1762 sqq., vol. X. (1782) p. 65-828, and the whole of vol. XI. (ed. by Spittler, 1785). Very thorough, impartial, and tedious. F. Ch. Schlosser: Geschichte der bilderstürmenden Kaiser des oströmischen Reichs. Frankf. a. M., 1812. J. Marx (R.C.): Der Bilderstreit der Byzant. Kaiser. Trier, 1839. Bishop Hefele: Conciliengesch. vol III. 366-490; 694-716 (revised ed., Freib. i. B. 1877). R. Schenk: Kaiser Leo III. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Bilderstreites. Halle, 1880. General Church Histories: 1) R. Cath.: Baronius, Pagi, Natalis Alexander, Alzog, Hergenröther (I. 121-143; 152-168). 2) Protest.: Basnage, Gibbon (ch. 49), Schröckh (vol. XX.), Neander (III. 197-243; 532-553, Bost. ed.; fall and fair); Gieseler (II. 13-19, too short). The literature on the image-controversy is much colored by the doctrinal stand-point of the writers. Gibbon treats it with cold philosophical indifference, and chiefly in its bearing on the political fortunes of the Byzantine empire. With the worship of saints is closely, connected a subordinate worship of their images and relics. The latter is the legitimate application of the former. But while the mediaeval churches of the East and West--with the exception of a few protesting voices--were agreed on the worship of saints, there was a violent controversy about the images which kept the Eastern church in commotion for more than a century (a.d. 724-842), and hastened the decline of the Byzantine empire. The abstract question of the use of images is connected with the general subject of the relation of art to worship. Christianity claims to be the perfect and universal religion; it pervades with its leavening power all the faculties of man and all departments of life. It is foreign to nothing which God has made. It is in harmony with all that is true, and beautiful, and good. It is friendly to philosophy, science, and art, and takes them into its service. Poetry, music, and architecture achieve their highest mission as handmaids of religion, and have derived the inspiration for their noblest works from the Bible. Why then should painting or sculpture or any other art which comes from God, be excluded from the use of the Church? Why should not Bible history as well as all other history admit of pictorial and sculptured representation for the instruction and enjoyment of children and adults who have a taste for beauty? Whatever proceeds from God must return to God and spread his glory. But from the use of images for ornament, instruction and enjoyment there is a vast step to the worship of images, and experience proves that the former can exist without a trace of the latter. In the middle ages, however, owing to the prevailing saint-worship, the two were inseparable. The pictures were introduced into churches not as works of art, but as aids and objects of devotion. The image-controversy was therefore a, purely practical question of worship, and not a philosophical or artistic question. To a rude imagination an ugly and revolting picture served the devotional purpose even better than one of beauty and grace. It was only towards the close of the middle ages that the art of Christian painting began to produce works of high merit. Moreover the image-controversy was complicated with the second commandment of the decalogue which clearly and wisely forbids, if not all kinds of figurative representations of the Deity, at all events every idolatrous and superstitious use of pictures. It was also beset by the difficulty that we have no authentic pictures of Christ, the Madonna and the Apostles or any other biblical character. We have traced in previous volumes the gradual introduction of sacred images from the Roman Catacombs to the close of the sixth century. The use of symbols and pictures was at first quite innocent and spread imperceptibly with the growth of the worship of saints. The East which inherited a love for art from the old Greeks, was chiefly devoted to images, the Western barbarians who could not appreciate works of art, cared more for relics. We may distinguish three theories, of which two came into open conflict and disputed the ground till the year 842. 1. The theory of Image-Worship. It is the orthodox theory, denounced by the opponents as a species of idolatry, [531] but strongly supported by the people, the monks, the poets, the women, the Empresses Irene and Theodora, sanctioned by the seventh oecumenical Council (787) and by the popes (Gregory II., Gregory III. and Hadrian I). It maintained the right and duty of using and worshipping images of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints, but indignantly rejected the charge of idolatry, and made a distinction (often disregarded in practice) between a limited worship due to pictures, [532] and adoration proper due to God alone. [533] Images are a pictorial Bible, and speak to the eye even more eloquently than the word speaks to the ear. They are of special value to the common people who cannot read the Holy Scriptures. The honors of the living originals in heaven were gradually transferred to their wooden pictures on earth; the pictures were reverently kissed and surrounded by the pagan rites of genuflexion, luminaries, and incense; and prayers were thought to be more effective if said before them. Enthusiasm for pictures went hand in hand with the worship of saints, and was almost inseparable from it. It kindled a poetic inspiration which enriched the service books of the Greek church. The chief hymnists, John of Damascus, Cosmas of Jerusalem, Germanus, Theophanes, Theodore of the Studium, were all patrons of images, and some of them suffered deposition, imprisonment, and mutilation for their zeal; but the Iconoclasts did not furnish a single poet. [534] The chief argument against this theory was the second commandment. It was answered in various ways. The prohibition was understood to be merely temporary till the appearance of Christ, or to apply only to graven images, or to the making of images for idolatrous purposes. On the other hand, the cherubim over the ark, and the brazen serpent in the wilderness were appealed to as examples of visible symbols in the Mosaic worship. The incarnation of the Son of God furnished the divine warrant for pictures of Christ. Since Christ revealed himself in human form it can be no sin to represent him in that form. The significant silence of the Gospels concerning his personal appearance was supplied by fictitious pictures ascribed to St. Luke, and St. Veronica, and that of Edessa. A superstitious fancy even invented stories of wonder-working pictures, and ascribed to them motion, speech, and action. It should be added that the Eastern church confines images to colored representations on a plane surface, and mosaics, but excludes sculptures and statues from objects of worship. The Roman church makes no such restriction. 2. The Iconoclastic theory occupies the opposite extreme. Its advocates were called image-breakers. [535] It was maintained by the energetic Greek emperors, Leo III. and his son Constantine, who saved the tottering empire against the invasion of the Saracens; it was popular in the army, and received the sanction of the Constantinopolitan Synod of 754. It appealed first and last to the second commandment in the decalogue in its strict sense as understood by the Jews and the primitive Christians. It was considerably strengthened by the successes of the Mohammedans who, like the Jews, charged the Christians with the great sin of idolatry, and conquered the cities of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt in spite of the sacred images which were relied on for protection and miraculous interposition. The iconoclastic Synod of 754 denounced image-worship as a relapse into heathen idolatry, which the devil had smuggled int