A

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GENERAL HISTORY
OF TUB

CATHOLIC CHURCH
FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA
UNTIL THE PRESENT TIME.

BY

JI. L’ABBE J. E. DARRAS.

FIRST AMERICAN FROM THE LAST FRENCH EDITION

INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY THE MOST REV. M. J. SPALDING, D. D.,
ARCHBISHOP OF BALTIMORE.

VOL. I.

NEW YORK:

P. O’SHEA, PUBLISHER.
104 BLEECKER A 183 GREENE STS.

1865.

haiered according w Aci of Congre», in the year 1W,
Br P. O'SHEA,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Cour' nf the United States for the Southern
District of New York.

RECOMMENDATIONS
OF
®ljc

(general

Ijistorg

of

the

<£jjurr|).

LETTER FROM

HIS HOLINESS POPE PIUS IX.
TO THE

AUTHOR OF “THE GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.”

Dilecto filio presbytero J. E.
Darras, Lutetiam Parisio­
rum.

To our beloved Son, J. E.
Darras, Priest at Paris.

PIUS P. P. IX.

PIUS P. P. IX.

Dilecte Fili, Salutem et
Apostolicam Benedictionem :

Beloved Son, health and
the Apostolic Benediction :

Litteræ Tuæ XIII. Kalendas
Aprilis proximi ad nos datæ,
quibus exemplar offerre nobis
voluisti operis de-historié. Ecclesiæ generali, fuerunt nobis
ipsis quam gratissimae. Sig­
nificas enim id Tibi fuisse con­
silii, quod virum certe decet

Your letter of the twentieth
of March, accompanied by a
copy of your General History
of the Church, was most grate­
ful to us. The plan of your
work testifies your zeal for
sound doctrine and your sin­
gular and praiseworthy devo-

RECOMMENDATIONS.

germa me doctrinæ studio ac tion towards us and the Apos­
singularis erga Nos ipsos se- tolic See. If, as we trust, the
'demque Apostolicam devo­ work ( which we ourselves have
tionis et. observa nt-iæ lande not as yet been able to read )
praestantem. Si, ut confidi- fulfils the design proposed, ii
•mus, consilio ipsi opus quod will be of the greatest use,
adhuc legere Nos non potui­ and will tend to stimulate a
mus, exacte respondeat, magno more profound study of this

illud usui erit istic futurum

most important branch of Ec­

addetque omnibus stimulos ad
gravissimam eam ecclesiasti­

clesiastical Science. We give
you, therefore, beloved son,

corum studiorum partem prenitius internoscendam. Meri­

ing to us, and we earnestly

merited thanks for your offer­

tas pro oblato ipso operis

pray Almighty God that He

munere cum Tibi, Dilecte Fili,
persolvimus gratias, omnipo­
tentem Dominum suppliciter

His gifts in you. And as a
pledge of this great favor, we

exoramus, ut sua in te mu­
nera multiplicet ac tueatur.

add the Apostolic Benedic­
tion, which, with the sincere

; Et tanti hujus boni auspicem
adjungimus Apostolicam Be­
nedictionem, quam intimo pa­

affection of our paternal heart,
we lovingly impart to you.

will multiply and

preserve

terni cordis affectu, ipsi Tibi,
Dilecte fili, amanter imperti­
mur.
Datum Romæ apud S. Pe­
trum, die 8 augusti, anni
1855, Pontificatus Nostri
anno X.

Pius P. P. IX.

Given at St. Peter’s, Rome,
the 8th of August, in the

year of our Lord 1855, and
the tenth of our Pontificate.
Pius P. P. IX/

RECOMMENDATIONS.

FROM THE

MOST REV. JOHN McCLOSKY, D.D.,
ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK.

Dear Sir :—I am very glad to learn that you are about pnblisliing an English version of the excellent Ecclesiastical History
of the Abbé Darras. The auspices under which the translation
is made, will, I am confident, secure for it both elegance and
fidelity. I trust that your laudable enterprise will meet all due
encouragement from the Catholic public.
Very truly, your friend and servant in Christ.
ψ JOHN. Archbishop of New York.
P. O’Shea, Esq.
New York, Dec.

12, 1864.

FROM THE

MOST REV. M. J. SPALDING, D. D.,
ARCHBISHOP OF BALTIMORE.

Mr. P. O’Shea :
The conviction grows upon me, that the History of Darras,
so warmly commended by many learned men in France, will
meet a want which has been so long felt in this country—that
of a good Church History, neither too lengthy nor too compen­
dious, and at the same time replete with interesting and
edifying details.
The four volumes which you are publishing contain a rich
array of facts, well stated and well put together, which will be

RECOMMENDATIONS.

most agreeable and instructive to our Catholic people, all of
whom will of course seek to obtain the work for family use.
This Church History will also be found very opportune and
useful in our numerous Seminaries, Colleges, and Academies. I
wish you every success in your praiseworthy undertaking, and
hope you will receive sufficient patronage to defray all expenses.
ψ M. J. Spalding, Archbishop of Baltimore.
Baltimorb, Du. 7, 1864.

FROM THE

MOST REV. J. B. PURCELL, D. D.,
ARCHBISHOP OF CINCINNATI.

Cincinnati, Nov. 15, 1864.

Mr. P. O’Shea:
Dear Sir Permit me to take tliis occasion, in answering
your Circular, to signify my concurrence in the judgment pro­
nounced on the Ecclesiastical History of the Abbé Barras
Please send me five copies in volumes, cloth binding.
Respectfully yours,
4· J. B. Purcell, Archbishop of Cincinnati.

INTRODUCTION.

ir History be “ Philosophy teaching by example,” that kind
is certainly the most excellent, whose lessons are the most
elevated in their character and important in their bearing.
According to this principle, Church History is immeasurably
superior to that which is secular or profane ; for while the latter
is a record of human events, together with the motives which
impel the merely human actors, and the influence of their
actions on society and the world, the former treats of the estab­
lishment and varied fortunes of a divine institution, founded in
this world, but not of this world—of a Church which, but a
pilgrim and a stranger upon the earth, is ever looking with
straining eyes towards Heaven. The interests bound up with
secular history are limited to time ; those associated with Church
History extend to and embrace eternity. The teachings of the
former may tend to promote man’s well-being in this world ;
those of the latter enlighten him as to the means necessary for
securing his eternal happiness in the next. As heaven, then, is
lifted above earth, as eternity is elevated above time, as God
is exalted above man, so is the history of God’s Church raised
above that which treats merely of human events.
According to Cicero, all history is, or should be, “ the wit­
ness of ages, the torch of truth, the life of memory, the oracle
of life, the interpreter of the past.” This is a beautiful theory ;

XÜ

INTRODUCTION.

alns ! that it should be so often marred in the practice !
Instead of being “ the torch of truth,” history has but too fre­
quently become the lurid beacon of error; instead of being
“the witness of ages,” and “the interpreter of the past,” it has
too often been but the time-serving witness of men’s present
theories or prejudices, and the interpreter of men’s present
opinions. Passion obscures, and prejudice distorts the facts
of the past, until, instead of standing forth in the stately
dignity of their own native truth, they are made to pass
before us, as phantoms dimly revealed through the hazy

atmosphere of the present.
What is called the Philosophy of History, is not unfrequently but a weaving together of the crude and unsound
theories of the day, more plausibly than solidly confirmed by
the distorted records of ages past. The theory is first adopted,
as a- foregone conclusion ; and then the facts of history are
bent and moulded to the theory. The philosopher of history

plumes himself on his triumphant success, in making out his
thesis by stubborn and incontrovertible facts ; whereas, all
the time, he is but deluding himself and others by a sophistry
as mischievous as it is specious. His method should really be
called the highly-wrought romance, or the fascinating poetry,
rather than the true development or the genuine Philosophy
of History. The historical structure thus reared may please
the eye and flatter the fancy ; it crumbles into dust or vanishes
in thin air before the slightest touch of sound critical inquiry.
If this be true of secular, it is still more strikingly so
of Church History. Here, the interests embraced being of a
much higher order, and the consequent duties involving more
abnegation and self-sacrifice, the temptation to conceal or dis­
tort facts becomes much greater. The way to heaven, pointed
out in the Church of God, is narrow, rugged, and strewn with

PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.

xiii

thorns; human frailty and human wickedness are but too
prone to widen it, to soften its asperities, and to pluck away
its thorns, leaving only the roses to delight the senses with
their brilliancy and fragrance. Whatsoever is hard to flesh
and blood ; whatsoever wars with the passions, or involves the
necessity of self-restraint; whatsoever is opposed to the free
range and unrestricted indulgence of the three great con­
cupiscences, which make up the life of the world, is carefully
concealed or skilfully kept in the background, with an instinc­
tive dread of the practical consequences likely to result from
too candid an admission. On the other hand, those aspects of
the facts, which are of a more genial character, and which
soothe without irritating the sensual man, are as carefully
brought forward, and are made to occupy a prominent place in
the History. Under the hands of this class of writers, Church
History becomes, not a reliable record of facts, as they really
occurred, with their surroundings, in the past, but an elaborate
adaptation of these facts to what they regard as the exigen­
cies of modern progress and civilization. Men write out their
own theories and prejudices, and call the production the Phil­
osophy of History !
Such being the case, can we wonder at the assertion by a
distinguished modern writer,
*
to the effect, that for the last
three centuries, History, and especially Church History, has
been a grand conspiracy against the truth? We firmly believe
that this statement is scarcely an exaggeration. Those who
have taken the trouble to look over the more usually read
text-books of Church History at the present day, written by
men opposed to the Catholic Church, though frequently blessed
with no particular religious convictions themselves, will, we
• The lato Count dû Maistre.

INTRODUCTION.

xir

think, agree with us in this opinion, provided they approach
the subject with calm and unbiassed minds. We may mention,
without intending to slight others of perhaps higher preten­
tions, two of those works, which are of such dimensions as
bring them within the reach of the ordinary reader, and which
now happen to occur to our minds: we refer to Milner’s History

of the Church, and Gieseler’s Text-Book of Ecclesiastical His­
tory; the former English, the latter German, translated into
English.

In both of these, especially in the latter, much

learning is expended to very little purpose that is commendable.
While they may both be cited as pretty fair examples of the
kind of historians we have been describing, they agree in
one remarkable particular—in which most other productions

emanating from men of a kindred spirit fully agree with them—
they both present rather the shadows than the lights of Church
History.

Had their fixed purpose been to blacken the good

and to brighten the bad, they would scarcely have written dif­

ferently.

Almost every vile schismatic and heretic is deified ;

almost every champion of orthodoxy and holiness is crucified,

with his divine Lord and Master !

Every one of those scan­

dals, which our Blessed Master foretold should come, and which

therefore should not surprise His true disciples, is carefully
brought out and greatly magnified ; while most of the counter­
balancing evidences of holiness of life, are either concealed, or

sneered at as superstitious, by these modern Christian philoso­
phers of History ! *
♦ Mosheim is probably more fair and plausible ; but even Mosheim is amenable to much
of the censure conveyed in the text. His learning is undoubted, though he often distorts his
facts and authorities ; while his seeming moderation is not unfrequently a cloak for the most
determined partisanship. His Ecclesiastical History (in 4 vols. 8vo) is much prized by those
outside the Church. It has been translated, and it appears to bo much used as a text-book, or
referred to as an authority. The author was a prejudiced Lutheran, who seems to have occupied
a high position among his co-religionists. His zeal for his sect, however, often gets the bettei
of Lis judgment. Whatever may be his fairness in statements, regarding controversies

CATHOLIC CHURCH HISTORIES.

XV

The Catholic Church is exceedingly rich in works on
Ecclesiastical History. From the great annalist and father of
Church History, Baronins, down to the learned, eloquent, and
voluminious Rohrbacher,
*
we have them of all sizes and in
among tho several discordant secta, whether of ancient or modern timea. his inthority n
more than questionable in matters connected with the distinctive doctrines and practices of
the Catholic Church. In this respect, he is sometimes even less fair than the sworn and
envenomed enemies of all Christian truth, Voltaire and Gibbon. These sometimes catch »
glimpse of the sun through the opening in the clouds of prejudice; a privilege which their
more partisan or less candid Lutheran brother in protesting does not often seem to enjoy
Thus Mosheim, while he surely had learning and penetration enough to know that the
story of the Popess Joan was a clumsy fiction and a stupid imposture, has not the candor
openly so to denounce it, but prudently leaves the matter in doubt; whereas Gibbon not
only declares it to be a groundless fiction in the text; but proves it to be such in a note
remarkable for its condensation and learning.
* The Annals of Baronius embrace thirteen large folio volumes, furnishing the History
of the Church for thirteen centuries, down to 1299, a volume for a century. The work has
had many continuators, abridgers, and commentators. Among the first, we may mention
Raynaldus and Ladorchius, who bring the Annals down to 1565 ; also Bzovins, a learned
Pole, who reaches tho same date in seven folio volumes. The learned oratorian Theiner
has undertaken the further continuation of Raynaldus and Laderchius, and for this purpose
has had full access to even the most secret archives of the Vatican. We have seen but
three volumes folio of his continuation, which bring the Annals down to the year 15S5—
embracing only twenty years I At this rate, the Continuation may make a library in
itself, should the laborious author live long enough to carry out his gigantic plan.
Among the abridgers of Baronius, Spondanus stands pre-eminent for learning and
accuracy. The learned critic Pagi has written a very erudite commentary on the Annale, which
is much esteemed for its great moderation and critical acumen. In fine, the vast work of
Baronius, with those which it has originated, forms a complete repertory of Church
History, and constitutes almost a library in itself.
Among the more celebrated Catholic Historians of the Church, wo may also name
Natalis Alexander, a learned Dominican, whose work fills ten folio volumes, in Latin, but
is more remarkable for its learned essays on difficult points than for its narrative of
events, and is rather Gallican in its spirit ; Graveson, who wrote, in Latin, a condensed
and methodical Church History, in four volumes quarto, which is much esteemed; Fleury’s
extensive History of the Church, in French, with its continuation by a very inferior writer—
the former more remarkable for its beauty of style, and interest of narrative, than for its
Catholic spirit and accuracy of statement, the latter possessing few redeeming traits for its
numerous errors of omission and commission; Cardinal Orsi, who wrote, in Italian, an
extended, learned, and most excellent Ecclesiastical History of the first six centuries, in fortytwo volumes, I2mo, with his continuator Becchutti, who followed out very ably the plan of
hia illustrious predecessor; Palma, lately professor of Church History in th·.· Roman
Seminary and in the Propaganda, who has published, in Latin, several volumes of learned
and able essays on difficult and interesting portions of Ecclesiastical History, finally Berault
Bercastel, whoso voluminous and well-written Church History, io French, was very popular
some years ago, until it was in a measure superseded by the equally extensive and much
more learned and reliable work of Rohrbacher, which now occupies the forw^mund among
hose who prefer to read French.

xvi

INTRODUCTION.

various languages. But hitherto those among us who read only
their native English have deeply felt the want of a comprehen­
sive. reliable, and sufficiently extended history of the Church,
in our own tongue ; those of Gahan, Reeve, and Pise being
either mere abridgments, or in other ways very deficient.
*
This want is now happily supplied by the publication, in an
English translation, of the Church History by the Abbé Darras,
written in French, in four volumes octavo. Though not alto­
gether perfect, we regard it, upon the whole, as the best com­

pendious digest of the facts which has yet appeared.

It may

not, perhaps, be so learned or methodical as Alzog, Palma,
Wouters, Dollinger, or even Alber, but as a book for the people,
it is believed to be preferable to them all.·]' The author narrates
the principal events in a flowing and popular style, devoid of

formal divisions and technicalities; while, by ranging all the
facts under the successive Roman pontificates, he preserves the
This brief reference to some of the principal Catholic works on Ecclesiastical History
shows, that what is stated in the text about the great richness of our literature in this
department is not at all exaggerated. We have not referred to works of the kind written
in Spanish or German, with which we are not so well acquainted. Nor have we alluded
to the partial Church Histories, or cognate works, of Muratori, Tiraboschi, Tillemont,
Mabillon, Hurter, Voigt, and many others of the kind, to say nothing of the truly colossal
Acta Sanctorum, by the Bollandists. Compared with the labors of Catholic publicists in
this field, those of Protestants—including the once popular, but now almost forgotten,
Centuriators of Magdeburg—sink into insignificance.
* Dollinger’s History of the Church appeared in London in a. n. 1840, in an English
translation by the Rev. Edmund Cox, D. D., in four thin volumes octavo. It comes down
only to the Reformation, the author having written a separate and more elaborate work on
this great religious revolution. The translation has not been republished in this country,
and but few copies are to be fouud. While it displays very considerable learning, and is in
the main accurate in its statements, it is perhaps a little too stiff and scientifically methodical
for the ordinary reader. Besides, the learned writer is occasionally too sharp on the Popes,
and he permits his German prejudices to have too much influence on his opinions. He
scarcely does justice to Boniface VIII., nor even to the least defensible of all the Popes—
Alexander VI.
f In Theological. Philosophical, and Scientific works, method is important, if not essential.
It is not so, at least to the same extent, in History, which deals with human act ions. Men do
not usually act scientifically or eveu methodically, and the historian who faithfully records
their acts, may well frame liis narrative accordingly, without being fairly open to the charge
uf not having adapted it to the subject-matter.

DARRA8 AND GIBBON.

XVU

chronological order, and directs attention to the euccefujore of
St. Peter, as the main-springs of all the principal events, anti
the centres around which they revolve or cluster. Thus he
preserves, or rather returns to what is substantially the method
of the great Annalist—without being hampered by his division
of years—combining with his plan of didactic narrative much
of the graceful style and flowing narrative of Fleury and
Berault Bercastel. In the main accurate, the work, without
being critical, is sufficiently learned for the popular reader;
while those acquainted with the languages, and desirous of
fuller historical investigation, may easily turn to works of greater
volume and more varied erudition. According to our humble
judgment, it is the very work which, all things considered,
supplies best our present want, and which will do most good
to our people : we accordingly augur for it a wide circulation in
America, as it has already had in France.
To those who may be inclined to cavil, and to allege that the
Abbé Darras is an Ultra-Montane, who is too favorable to the
Popes, and cannot therefore be regarded as an impartial his­
torian, we would beg to say, that, in this sense, there are few
historians who have not well-defined views of their own, as to
the drift and interpretation of the facts which they relate. For
ourselves, we candidly avow, that we greatly prefer to trust a
writer who has conscientious opinions and lively faith, rather
than one who is either an infidel in religion, or has on the sub­
ject but crude and ill-digested theories of his own—the mere
echo of the passions and prejudices of the hour. One who has
faith is generally impressed with the principle of accountability
to God, who will judge the living and the dead, and who will
certainly punish all falsifiers and prevaricators. We are not of
those who believe that a sneering scepticism, such as one wit­
nesses in Voltaire, Paine, and Gieseler, is indispensable for

xviii

INTRODUCTION.

historical impartiality. On the contrary, we are strongly pre­
disposed to distrust all such writers. They evidently wish to
make out a case, and to bend all the facts to their own cherished
theory, which is, moreover, rather satanical than Christian,
because animated more by hatred than by love. It is sad
enough to reflect, that most of our English historians belong to
this class; those particularly who are most popular and most

generally read.
Take, for example, the history of England, by the sceptical
Hume, and the brilliant History of the Decline and Fall of
the
the
few
cal

Roman Empire, by the infidel Gibbon. Few works in
English language have been so popular as these, and
have done more mischief to the cause of histori­
truth and of true religion. Our incautious youth read

them on account of their faultless style and splendid narra­

tive, heedless of the subtle poison which is instilled with the
well-rounded periods. Gibbon’s work, in particular, is marked
by an amount of erudition, and a general accuracy of facts that
are unconnected or but remotely connected with faith, which
render it all the more seductive to those who look only to the
good which appears on the surface, and are not sufficiently
guarded against the evil which lurks beneath. Originally a

convert to the Catholic faith in his early youth, this brilliant
historian imbibed infidelity in the school of Geneva, to which
his parents had compelled him to go, in order to eradicate Catho­
licity from his mind and heart. They succeeded but too well !
lie ceased to be a Catholic, but he was far too logical to halt
half way by becoming a Protestant. He accordingly plunged into
the gulf of infidelity, and by his seductive writings he has
drawn thousands of others into the same fearful abyss. And
yet take it all in all, and make proper allowance for the coloring
of prejudice, his is, perhaps, the best history of the early

PERPETUITY OP THE CHURCH.

xix

ami mediæval Church, which was ever written by a non-Catho*
lic.
An infidel the best Protestant Church Historian! This
may startle those who do not reflect that the best, if not the
only great Protestant epic poem, is entitled Paradise Lost!
Paradise Regained, by the same author, was an utter and irre­
trievable failure.·}·
But think or say what you will of particular statements
made by Danas, quibble as you may about this or that detail,
there are two great, all-pervading facts of Ecclesiastical History,
which you will not—cannot deny. No sophistry can weaken,
no special pleading can obscure, no scepticism can doubt them.
We refer to the Perpetuity of the Catholic Church, and the Im
mortality of the Papacy. These two facts, as indubitable as they
are significant, unfold the net results of all Church History. They
stand forth amidst the ruins of the past, more solid and immov­
able than do the pyramids from the sands of the desert. They
are as luminous as the sun, which, spite of darkness and storms,
♦ This is, we believe, else the opinion of Dr. Newman, expressed, if we remember aright,
in bis work on Development.
f We have lately seen, in the library of Emmittsburg, what we suppose to be the original
edition of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall· It is in fourteen volumes octavo, and it was published
at Bâle (or, as it is printed in the edition, Basil) in Switzerland, in a. D. 1788, the very date
of the preface written by the author in London. This edition is enriched with learned and
racy notes on the margin by the late learned Bishop Brut^, who often disputes the quotation
*
of the infidel historian, laughs at his reasoning, and exposes bis sneers to just ridicule.
This is perhaps the best way, after all, to answer such philosophic writers. In a. D. 1838,
Chryaty published at Oxford, Ohio, an edition of Gibbon in two volumes octavo, with a
preface and notes by Guizot. In looking over it, we were much disappointed. Guizot’s
notes do not realize the promises of Guizot’s preface, nor are they at all worthy the
reputation of the learned publicist. Turning to the famous chapters xv. and xvi., in
which Gibbon so insidiously assails Christianity, and perusing the notes of Guizot thervon,
we found them exceedingly weak and unsatisfactory. He gives us but few rebutting facte,
and these so diluted as to excite our wonder. Professor Palma of Rome, and Spedalieri of
Naples, could have given the celebrated author of works on M<«lern Civilization many utvful
ideas, and furnished him with many important facts on the subject of the early Martyn
which would have enlightened him, and enabled him effectually to refute the false statement·
of Gibbon. In some of his other notes, we find the Christian Guizot less exact than he
infidel author of the Decline and Fall ; as, for instance, in his statement in regard to the
constitution of the early Church.

XX

INTRODUCTION.

still maintains his undeviating course. Your prejudices and
your passions can no more blot them out from the record of the
past, than can the mists and the clouds blot out the sun from
the heavens. There they are firmly fixed in the firmament of
history, and you can neither deny them nor even ignore their
existence. In spite of yourself, you cannot fail to be deeply

impressed with their significance in settling the practical and
vital question : Which is the one true Church of Christ?
To unfold the logic of these two prominent facts, we will

offer a few remarks on each of them in succession.

They cover

the whole ground of Church History, giving a coloring to all its

parts, and knitting its facts together into one harmonious and
solid whole.
I. Perpetuity of the Church.

Is the Catholic Church human, or is she divine ?

This is the

important inquiry, the correct answer to which involves our

happiness, both in this life and in eternity.

If she be human,

we would naturally expect to find in her history the evidences

of change, decline, and dissolution, which we find in all merely
human institutions.

Like all these, she would have her begin­

ning, her culminating point, her decline, and her fall. If she be
divine, we would not be surprised to find her rudely buffeted in­

deed by the storms which threaten, and ultimately destroy all

human institutions, but we would yet expect to see her come
out of all these tempests, not only with the principle of life still
strong in her, but even with re-awakened energies and renewed
vitality. The principle announced by the wise Gamaliel, when
it was question in the Sanhedrim of crushing the Church in
her very infancy, will be here appropriate :

“ And now, therefore,” said the sage, “ I say to you, refrain
from these men, and let them alone ; for if this design or work

xii

THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE CHURCH.

he of men, it will fall to nothing ;

but if it be of

God,

you abb

NOT ABLE TO DESTROY IT, LEST PERHAPS YOU BE FOUND TO OPPOSE GOD.

(Acts v. 38, 39.)
We are willing to rest the issue upon the application of this
test, and we are, moreover, content that even the most bitter
adversaries of the Church shall make the application. They
dare not deny the great facts to which we shall refer, nor can
they logically resist the force of their application to the matter
in hand.
Considering the terrible struggles through which the Church
has passed during her weary pilgrimage of eighteen hundred
years on earth, her permanency, with her ever-increasing exten­
sion and vitality, is certainly the most remarkable fact in all his­
tory. Were she a merely human institution, according to all the
lights of the past, this perpetuity would be utterly incredible—
impossible. It would be a greater and more stupendous miracle
even, than that of her continued preservation by special divine
interposition, which we assert. In this latter hypothesis, the
fact would be at least consistent and intelligible ; in any other,
it would be utterly incomprehensible, and would border on the
impossible or absurd. Glance for a moment at the vicissitudes
of the strongest human institutions which the hand of man has
ever founded. Take, for instance, the Roman Empire, whose
framework was of iron, and which for centuries lorded it over
the conquered nations of the earth. This huge colossus, be­
striding the earth, was most strongly established upon its solid
and world-wide base at the birth of Christianity. It had reached
its culminating point of prosperity and power at the precise mo­
ment, when the Founder of the Church was born in a stable in
an obscure village of one of its most remote conquered provinces.
The-golden age of Augustus had dawned upon the world, and
the temple of Janus was closed in token of universal peace and
B

INTRODUCTION.

ΧΧϋ

prosperity. Here were then two claimants for universal empire ;
Augustus the Great, wielding the destinies of the most mighty

empire which the world had ever seen ; and Jesub of Nazareth,
the Infant Founder of a new empire, an apparently helpless
babe, bom in poverty and covered with swaddling clothes, weep­
ing in His manger, and having court paid to Him only by his

poor but Immaculate Mother, His devoted foster-father, and a
few peasant shepherds.

Which of these two, according to all

human calculation, was more likely to gain and retain the mas­
tery of t he world ? Which has actually obtained the ascendency ;

which has survived, and which has ceased to exist ?

Church History solves the problem.

The issue was fairly

made up between the two empires, and the Church founded by
Christ gained the final victory over the splendid empire founded

by Augustus.

During two hundred and fifty years the contest

fiercely raged, the Roman Empire, meanwhile, wielding all its

immense and terrible power to crush the iniant Church ere she

could have time to gain a sure foot-hold on the earth.

All the

odds were clearly against her in the fearful and bloody struggle.
Power, wealth, the passions, the sword, were all arrayed against

her, while.she could oppose to such fearful weapons nothing but
poverty, weakness, and unalterable meekness and patience.
The blood of her children flowed in torrents, while under her

merciful guidance they repaid evil by good, and shed not a
drop of blood in return.

Time and again, she was driven from

the surface of the earth and the light of day into dark caverns

under ground—into the now hallowed Catacombs—where in
darkness and sorrow she offered up with trembling hands her
pure prayers and holy sacrifice.

Still, after so many trials,

protracted through so long a period, the triumph over all her
powerful enemies remained with her ; and the victory, once
achieved, was as immortal as herself.

The Roman Empire,

CIVILIZING BARBARISM.

χχΐϋ

drunk with the blood of the saints, toppled over and fell to
rise no more ; while she calmly built up her temples amidst its
ruins, and erected the Rome of the Popes from the dtbria of
the Rome of the Cæsars. The former became, in many respects,
even more splendid, it was certainly more permanent than the
latter. The Cross, which appeared surrounded with a halo of
light to the admiring eyes of Constantine, vanquished the
Roman eagles which had been borne in all-conquering triumph
to the remotest corners of the earth. Who will not say that
the finger of God was surely here ?
But this wasnot all ; it was but the first part of the Church’s
triumph, her début on the troubled theatre of the world. The
Roman Empire fell under the stout and continued blows of the
Northmen, who for two centuries poured their almost count­
less hosts of barbarous invaders into the very heart of its im­
mense territory, where they swept every thing before them, and
then came thundering at the gates of the imperial city itself.
The Northmen conquered Imperial Rome ; did they conquer
the Church ? No ! But the Church conquered them ! They
came as ravenous wolves to devour ; the Church, through the
divine power which was in her, converted them into the gentle
lambs of her own fold ! Under her maternal training these
ruthless conquerors of Pagan Rome became the chief of her
own disciples, and the founders of new kingdoms and dynas­
ties, to which all the modern governments of Europe trace
back their origin. God was surely in her and with her, to en­
able her to achieve so glorious and so bloodless a revolution,
which is the beginning, the fountain-head of all modern civili­
zation. What, in fact, would have become of society had the
Church succumbed with the Roman Empire ? All would have
been anarchy and chaos, and order and civilization would
have been simply impossible. If all was not irretrievably

XXIV

INTRODUCTION.

lost, we owe it to the Catholic Church, as the hand-maid of

God.
After having survived the Roman Empire, and conquered
by civilizing barbarism, the imperishable Church was now des­

tined to win unfading laurels in another field, upon which the

fate of her own existence as well as that of human liberty and
civilization was to be decided ; and here, as everywhere else,
she came out of the contest, with her garments indeed dripping
blood, but bearing the palm-branch of victory in her hands.
We refer to the thousand years’ contest between the Crescent

and the Cross ; the most fierce, protracted, and momentous

struggle, perhaps, recorded in all history.

Our scope does not

require us to enter into details, which are, moreover, well

known to every reader of history.

to chronicle the result.

We are called on merely

This may he briefly stated, by saying,

that the Crescent trailed in the dust, and that the banner of the

Cross waved triumphant over the field ; and that the Cross, all
radiant with light, became a beacon of hope for the civilized

world, which thus escaped, as by a miracle, from the horrible

thraldom, the debased morals, the brutish darkness, that still

prevailed wherever the Crescent continued in the ascendant.
Nearly half the world was permitted to share this gloomy des­

tiny ; if the other half was rescued from a similar fate, we owe
the result to the noble exertions of the Popes, and to the

agency of the Church, divinely protected and guarantied from
destruction by the solemn promise of her divine Founder,

“ that the gates of hell should not prevail against her.”
Sneer at the Crusades as much as you will ; speak dis­
paragingly of the Popes who planned and animated them ; in­
veigh against “ the fanaticism ” which kept up this struggle fur
centuries, in spite of the more enlightened principles of modern
“ Political Economy join unblushingly with such heartless

THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS.

XXV

infidels as Voltaire and Gibbon, in this fierce, fashionable, and
satanic declamation ; forget that you are Christians, freemen,
and civilized men, in spite of those very deciaimers,and in con­
sequence of that very fanaticism :—you move us not. We are
not even disappointed at your course ; for we have been too
long accustomed to hear men of your stamp—the organs of the
world which crucified Jesus—railing in this strain. Go on with
your denunciations : they hurt us not ; they only injure your­
selves. The Church will continue to flourish in undiminished
splendor for centuries after you are dead, laid in the tomb, and
forgotten ! Go on : the world will praise you and raise tombs
to your memory ; and you will thus “ have received your re­
ward!” God grant that what the great St. Augustine says of
men like you may not be verified in your case ! Laudantur ubi
non sunt; cruciantur ubi sunt!
*
But pause one moment, and tell me, whether you question
the final and permanent result of the great struggle as above
recited ? Dare you deny it, or its momentous consequences
for civilization and society ? Dare you say, or even hint, that
scoffers of your class had any thing whatsoever to do with the
glorious triumphs achieved by such heroes of chivalry as 6 odfrey de Bouillon, Tancred, Richard Cœur de Lion, and St.Lo iis
of France, and by such far-seeing and saintly Pontiffs as
Gregory VII. and Urban IL? Had those immortal men been
imbued with the selfish and sneering spirit of Voltaire and
Gibbon, instead of being impelled by that of chivalry, what
would, in all human probability, be your fate now? Would you
be Christians or Mussulmans; would you be free or slaves;
would you be civilized or barbarians ?
When you will have answered these questions to your own
• ‘‘They are praised where they are not; they are tormented where they are I”

XXVI

INTRODUCTION.

satisfaction, will you please take the trouble to resolve others
of equal significance in relation to the matter in hand—the
divinely guarantied perpetuity of the Church ? What has be­
come of all those loud-mouthed adversaries of the Church, of
that vast and motley host of schismatics and heretics, of infi­
dels and traitors, from Judas Iscariot and Simon Magus in the
first century, down to Miller and Joe Smith, and the founder
of Spiritism in the nineteenth, who have successively lifted
their hands against the imperishable Church of all ages and
of all nations ? What has been the net and final result of all
their fierce declamations, and of their premature shouts of
victory ? Did they succeed in their contemplated work of de­
struction, or did they ingloriously fail ? Did they ruin the
Church by rending her inborn unity, or were they themselves
dashed to pieces against the rock upon which she had been

divinely built ? What was the ultimate fate of the thousand
and one heresies and sects, which ambitious or wicked men origi­
nated against the unity and divine character of the Church dur­
ing the first fifteen centuries ? They have all vanished from
the ace of the earth ; they are dead and buried, and long since

forj otten, except by those who from time to time fitfully and
pæ sionately revive their memory, in order to renew their fruit­
less assaults against the Church. They have nowhere else “ a
local habitation or a name
the world knows them not, and

heeds not the doom which has overtaken them ; God has judged
their founders !
And what has become of most of the numerous sects which
have sprung up since the sixteenth century ? The answer is
clear and patent to every reflecting man who has read history,
and who is in the habit of studying events in their antecedents
and consequents. Their fate was already foreshadowed in that
of their predecessors ; it was declared in advance by our blessed

MODERN INFIDELITY.

xxvii

Lord himself, when he laid down this great principle : “ Every
plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be
rooted up. Let them alone : they are blind and leaders of the
blind ; and if the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch.”
(St. Matthew xv. 13, 14.) Most of these human religions
have already “ fallen into the ditch ;” the others are well-nigh
its brink. Some yesterday, some to-day, others to-morrow—
all are hastening to the same fearful doom. Germany, the
fatherland of these modern sects, has already, to a very great
extent, lapsed into infidelity, or into rationalism and pantheism,
which are only other names for infidelity. The Bible, which was
so much vaunted by the founders of Protestantism, has now
become a book of myths and fables ; miracles, grace, and every
thing that is supernatural have been discarded, and very often
only those truths which belong to the natural order, and which
even a decent pagan would have maintained, are taught from
the chairs of the universities ; while from the very pulpit from
which Calvin launched his invectives against the Church, the
divinity of Christ, and every thing supernatural in His religion,
are covertly or openly impugned.
In France, the children of the sturdy Huguenots have, in a
great measure, adopted the same tenets of quasi-infidelity; in
spite of Guizot and some others, who try to stem the rushing
torrent of unbelief, little but the mere lifeless shell of Chris­
tianity remains, its vital kernel having long since disappeared.
In England, indeed, a semblance of faith is still preserved by
the aid of an immense and wealthy Church Establishment, the
rich funds of which were borrowed from the Catholic Church ;
but even in England, with all the influence of the Establish­
ment and the prestige of the government, the tendency of
belief is downward, rather than upward; Low-Church princi­
ples have gained the day over those of the High-Church ; and

xxviii

INTRODUCTION.

the infidel Bishop Colonso cannot or will not be authoritatively
silenced or condemned, while the almost undisguised infidelity
of the leading Churchmen who lately published the notorious
Essays and Reviews has not been officially rebuked.
A similar development of infidel tendencies is witnessed in
our own country; where, beginning with Boston, Unitarianism,
Universalism, Spiritism, and a hundred other sects, either
directly infidel or bordering on positive unbelief in Christianity
as a supernatural religion, are spreading like a canker over the
land. Alas ! that it should be so ; but the truth is even more
fearful than what would be conveyed by the picture which we
have here hastily drawn of waning Protestantism. The sects,

which still love to be called Evangelical, are manifestly on the
decline; they are threatened with being ingulfed by the infi­
del or semi-infidel masses which are ominously heaving beneath
them. The day must come, and it is not far distant, when the
dissenting sects of this country will go the way of the dissenting
sects in Europe. Having left the summit-level of Catholicity,
they are all fast hastening down the declivity of unbelief ; and
it is only a question of time, when they will all plunge head­

long together, like their numerous predecessors, into the fright­
ful abyss !
Perhaps the most striking, as it is certainly the saddest
evidence of this downward tendency, as existing in England
and America, was lately exhibited in the general howl of

indignation which went forth from the pulpit and the press of
both countries against the sainted and heroic Pius IX., for
having, in his Encyclical, with apostolic freedom and firmness,
dared hurl his censures against the mischievous and wicked
errors of modern revolutionists and unbelievers. In fierce
denunciation of the Pontiff, the sects of England and America,
openly and without a blush, have joined hands with European

THE IMMORTALITY OP THE PAPACY.

XXix

Rationalists, Naturalists, Pantheists, and Infidels ; and if there
has been any distinction or pre-eminence in the amount of
fury thus displayed, it would seem to have been won by the
sects calling themselves Evangelical !
Amidst all this Babel-like confusion of dissent, and this
rapid tendency to dissolution among the sects, what of the
Catholic Church ! Is she waning in her fortunes, diminishing
in her numbers, or losing her influence ? Is her dissolution
threatened ? Is her vitality even imperilled ? The answer
rises instinctively to the lips of every candid man: she was
never stronger, never more thoroughly alive, than she is at this
very day. Her terrible conflicts of eighteen centuries—con­
flicts which may continue for eighteen centuries more, should
the world last so long—have left her more vigorous than ever.
Her bishops were never before so numerous or devoted ; her
priests never more active or influential; her spirits never more
buoyant; her face never more radiant. She sends her mis­
sionaries to the most remote confines of the earth and to the
farthest off islands of the sea, with the same exuberant and
hopeful zeal which marked the apostolic age ; and her modern
apostles still pant for, win, and wear the crown of martyrdom,
with the same burning charity and the same abounding joy,
as did their predecessors in the race of spiritual conquest in
the halcyon days of her early history. In the often quoted
language of Lord Macaulay :—
“Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of
her long duration is approaching. She saw the commence­
ment of all the governments, and of all the ecclesiastical
establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no
assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all.
She was great and respected before the Saxon set foot on
Britain—before the Frank had crossed the Rhine—when Gre-

XXX

INTRODUCTION.

cian eloquence still flourished at Antioch—when idols were
still worshipped in the Temple of Mecca. * * * When we
reflect on the tremendous assaults which she has survived, we
find it difficult to conceive in what way she is to perish.” *
Yes; it is more than difficult, it is simply impossible that
she should perish. He who said, “Heaven and earth may
pass away, but My word shall not pass away,” built her
securely upon a Rock, and He pledged His solemn word that
“ the gates of hell should not prevail against her.” History
shows the faithful fulfilment of this divine prophecy and
promise. Its verdict was already foreshadowed in other pro­
phetic words of the inspired Record : “ And the rain fell, and

the floods came, and they beat upon that House ; and it fell
Rock.” (See Matt. vii. 25.) This

not, for it was founded on a

is the clue to the difficulty, the key of the position ; with it
all is clear, without it history were an inextricable labyrinth.
"Strong as the rock of the ocean, which stems
A thousand wild waves on the shore,”

she will stand unshaken amidst all the storms of the future, as
she has nobly withstood all the storms of the past.

During eighteen centuries the Church has thus triumph­

antly stood the test of Gamaliel.

Empires have arisen, flour­

ished for a time, and then crumbled into ruins, along her
pathway in history. Dynasties have changed and been extin­
guished ; thrones have tottered and fallen ; sceptres have been
broken; crowns have mouldered to dust: but she has sur­
vived all ; and she still stands up erect and vigorous in the
world ; not an antique, but a living and breathing existence,
having a vitality not sickly, not waning, but superabundant ; not
only living herself, but bountifully bestowing of her exuberant
Review of Bankù'H History of the Topes.

THE IMMORTALITY OF THE PAPACY.

XXX)

life upon the nations of the earth, and giving without losing any
of it herself; even as the sun giveth forth his light and heat,
without· impairing his own exhaustless store. She lives,and she
will live, “ all days even to the consummation of the world.”
She lives, the only divine and immortal institution of earth.
Christ is her Head, and Christ is God, and He stands pledged
that she shall share in His own immortality. Christ is her
Bridegroom, and she is His chosen Bride, ‘‘without spot, with­
out wrinkle,” all glorious and undefiled ; a divine and blooming
Bride, who knows no old age and feels no decay—“ doomed to
death, but fated not to die.” She has walked the world,
patiently and lovingly, bearing her crown of thorns, like her
heavenly Bridegroom ; she has been often scourged through it
as He was ; but like Him, she bears a charmed life, and cannot
be conquered by death. Immortality is written upon her brow,
and she will wear the wreath for ever more, in spite of the
world, the devil, and the flesh ! A pilgrim of faith and of love,
with her home in the heavens, she asks only a free passage
through this world ; and her omnipotent Bridegroom will see
that she obtain it, whether men will it or not.
We pass now to the second great fact of Church History,
which, after what we have said, need not detain us long :—

II. The Immortality of the Papacy.
Even from a human point of new, there is, perhaps, no more
remarkable or magnificent spectacle in history than that pre­
sented by the long line of Roman Pontiffs. The golden chain of the
succession stretches across the broad historic field, from St. Peter
in the first century, to Pius IX. in the nineteenth ; and not a
link of it has been broken by the changes of time and the rude
shocks of events, during more than eighteen centuries ! Com­

xxxii

INTRODUCTION.

pared with this venerable line of bishops, the oldest ancestral
and royal houses of Europe are but of yesterday. These have
all undergone the changes incident to human things ; that has
proved itself superior to all vicissitudes, and has come triumph­
ant out of every fiery ordeal. Through sunshine and tempest,
through whirlwinds and revolutions, through the wreck of

empires and the changes of dynasties, through ruins cumbering
its pathway during long ages, the Papacy has survived, and it
still lives, with undiminished vigor and ever-renewed vitality.

The imperial line of the Roman Cæsars began the race with
the Papacy ; it was strong and the Papacy was weak ; but

the line of the Cæsars, which was inaugurated under auspices

so promising and so splendid by Augustus, after a period of
less than five centuries, terminated disastrously and ingloriously in Augustulus (or the little Augustus) ; while the Papacy
was still young, and had hardly yet gained a firm foot-hold on

the earth.

The line of the Eastern Cæsars began with Con­

stantine in the fourth century, and closed with Constantine
Paleologus in the fifteenth ; still the Papacy remained, more

firmly seated than ever on the Chair of Peter.

The old French

monarchy began in the fifth century, and after having under­
gone manifold vicissitudes, and passed through the various
dynasties of the Merovingian, the Carlovingian, and the Cape­

tian houses, it was extinguished for a time at the close of the
last century, in the blood of Louis XVI., and though subse­

quently revived for a brief period, it seems that its sun has
now set forever ; still the Papacy exhibits no signs of decay.

The English monarchy has undergone similar changes, and

has passed through the successive dynasties of the British,

Saxon, Danish, Norman, Plantagenet, Tudor, Stuart, and

Brunswick houses ; but the Papacy, which was already four

centuries old when Hengist, the Saxon, first set foot on British

THE IMMORTALITY OP THE PAPACY.

xxxiii

soil, has outlived the past, and it bids fair to survive the present
and future royal lines.
*
The same may be said of the imperial
line of Germany, and of the royal line of Spain—not to speak
of the smaller principalities of Europe, or the comparatively
modern line of the Russian Czars. They are all of the earth,
earthly ; they have all in turn bowed to the decree of insta­
bility, and to the doom of dissolution, inscribed on all merely
human institutions ; while the Papacy has plainly risen above
this law of change, has exhibited no signs of decay which
would indicate approaching dissolution, and, after having bravely
battled with events for eighteen centuries, has immortality still
engraved on its triple crown.
This wonderful tenacity of life becomes still more astonish­
ing when we reflect upon the terrible conflicts through which
the Papacy, like the Church, has passed during its long pil­
grimage on earth. For three centuries the sword of persecu­
tion, wielded by the mightiest empire which the world ever
saw, was seldom returned to the scabbard, and to be a Roman
Pontiff was to be a candidate for martyrdom. More than thirty
of the early Pontiffs were made to pass from an earthly to a
heavenly crown, under the axe of the pagan executioner. At
each successive decapitation, the cruel instruments of imperial
* The following tabular view of the Royal Houses of France and England will exhibit,
at a glance, the changing fortunes of those famous dynasties:—
FRANCE.

ENGLAND.

Merovingian line began . . . . A. D. 448 Anglo-Saxon from fifth century to a. d. 1017
Danish, to................................ “
1043
Carlovingian.................................. “ 750
Saxon again, to....................... “
1®86
Capetian............................................ “ 987
Norman, to................................ “
*138
House of Valois, Second Capetian
1399
Branch.................................. “
1328 Plantagenet, to....................... “
House of Lancaster, to . . . . “ 1461
Valois—Orleans—Third Capetian
1485
Branch....................................... " 1498 House of York, to.................. “
Bourbon—Fourth Capetian Branch " 1589 Tudor, to........................ · . “ 1603
Stuart, to................................... “ 1549
Last of Bourbons—Louis Philippe
Commonwealth, to...................... “
—expelled from the throne in " 1848
Stuart again, to.......................... “ 1714
Hanover and Brunswick, to
“ 1855

xxxiv

INTRODUCTION.

HEREBY AND SCHISM.

despotism no doubt boasted that the line was extinct, and that
no priest would be found bold enough to step into the danger­
ous post stained with the blood of the previous incumbent.
No doubt the certain downfall of popery was then a hundred

times predicted, with at least as much earnestness, and with
more seeming probability, than it has been foretold on less

plausible grounds by many in modern times, who so loudly

vaunt their zeal for Christianity.

But as the pagan prophecies

were falsified by the event, so may we reasonably hope and
confidently expect that those of their Christian imitators will

not be realized.

If history convey any certain lesson, we may

safely derive this steadfast conclusion from its faithful and con­

stant verdict of eighteen centuries.
After having survived pagan persecution, the Papacy had

to contend successively with the barbarism which had over­
whelmed the Roman Empire ; with heresy, which in almost

every century threatened to rend the bosom of the Church ;
and with schism, which more immediately assailed its unity,
and threatened its integrity and its very life.

The Popes

triumphed over barbarism, by first converting, and then human­

izing and civilizing the barbarians.

The greatest obstacles

which they had to encounter, in carrying out this benevolent
mission, were presented by the untamed passions and the rude

violence of the semi-barbarous emperors, kings, and feudal
chieftains of the Middle Ages.

They quailed not, however,

before a long-continued opposition excited by the mighty ones

of the earth.

In the discharge of their duties, as Fathers of

Christendom and civilizers of the newly-converted European

nations, they trembled not in the presence of mail-clad warriors

or crowned robbers of the Church.

St. Gregory VII. con­

fronted the imperial tyrant and debauchee, Henry IV., with as
much spirit as that with which his sainted predecessor, St. Leo

XXXV

the Great, had confronted the ruthless Attila. If persuasion
and expostulation failed, measures of severity were adopted ;
and in the protracted and varied contest, the final result was
never doubtful. The Popes always triumphed in the end over
their mighty adversaries, however appalling and seemingly in­
surmountable were the difficulties against which they had to
contend.

Similar weapons were used against heresy in all its Protean
forms, and with similar results. The stricken monster, after
writhing for a time, and shifting its ground or changing its
form, never failed eventually to yield up its feverish life
under the stout blows of the Papacy. Cast out from the
Church, which is the garden of life, its vitality waned, and it
was doomed to go the way of all flesh ; while the life of faith
within the Church was endued with a new vigor, after every
triumphant contest with rebellion against its authority.
But the fiercest trial, perhaps, through which the Papacy had
to pass, was that of schism raising up rival claimants to the
Tiara. Yet through even this dangerous ordeal has the Papacy
passed unscathed.
Most of these schisms were of short
duration. The different antipopes, whom the violence of un­

principled emperors or kings set up at various times previous to
the fourteenth century, continued in their unhallowed rebellion
for a very brief period ; they were soon deserted by their fol­
lowers, and after a short career of mischief, the world knew
them no more. It was not so with the great Schism of the
West, which lasted for nearly forty years, at the close of
the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century. It
would seem as if God wished to test the vitality of the Papacy,
and to show to the world that it was plainly indestructible.
During forty years, Christendom was divided in its allegiance
between two, for a brief space among three claimants of the

INTRODUCTION.

papal crown. Christ, the great Head of the Church, seemed to
be slumbering, while the Bark of Peter was rudely buffeted
by the wares, which threatened it with shipwreck ; but, after
sufficiently trying the faith of His disciples, He arose from His
slumber, and, with the calm majesty of Divinity, rebuked the

winds and the waves, and suddenly there came a great calm!
The storm-tossed vessel had now escaped its greatest danger, and
it was henceforth to pursue its even course on comparatively

untroubled waters.

If ever the Papacy could have been de­

stroyed, it must have succumbed under the effects of the Great

But, instead of being destroyed, it came out of it

Schism.

stronger even than it went in.

It was invested with a new

vigor, and was established on a more solid basis than ever,

when Martin V., elected by the Council of Constance, in A. n.
1417, was received with universal acclamation by a united

Christendom. It was to know division no more ; and from that
day to this, no schism, worthy the name, has troubled the peace­
ful career of the Papacy.

To say that the Great Schism, or any previous one of

shorter duration, interrupted the line of the papal succession,
would betray a very slight and imperfect knowledge of the

subject, or a blind partisanship which is proof against calm
and logical argument.

The succession certainly continued in

one or the other of the lines ; and for the purpose of estab­
lishing its unbroken character, it really matters not much in

which.

Failing the line of Avignon, we may fall back upon

that of Rome—which, we have no doubt, is the true one ;—

and failing both, during the last eight years, we may still fall
back on that created by the Council of Pisa, which elected
Alexander V., after having attempted to depose the two other

claimants.

In any hypothesis, the succession is unbroken.

In

the whole contest there was no issue as to faith or principles,

THE BUCCESSION UNBROKEN.

xxxvii

but only a question as to the matter of fact—which was the
rightful claimant? The entire scandal is fairly ascribable, not
so much to the Popes, as to the selfish ambition of earthly mon­
archs, who wished to make the Papacy subservient to State
policy; and particularly to that of the most unprincipled, per­
haps, among all those who wore the crown at that stormy
period—Philip the Fair, of France.
As to the other objections usually alleged against the line
of the succession, they are comparatively trivial and unimpor­
tant. They are mere straws floating on the current, not
impeding its flow, but rather pointing out its course. An
interruption of a few months, or even of a few years, induced
by the calamities of the times, cannot be fairly objected as a
serious break in a line of Pontiffs which extends over eighteen

centuries. The succession is moral rather than physical, and
a space of time comparatively small is reputed as nothing,
according to the canon of sound jurisprudence fairly applicable

to such cases. If this rule be very properly brought into requi­
sition in regard to the line of succession in royal houses, why
may we not be permitted to extend it to the much longer one
of the Roman Pontiffs ? The sun is not blotted out from the
heavens by the transient cloud which for a day or a week may
hide his face ; and when the cloud passes away his rays shoot
forth with renewed brilliancy. So it has been with the
Papacy. It has been so in the matter of temporary inter­
ruption or obscuration ; it has been so also when its fair face,
like that of the sun, has been occasionally and partially
obscured by the dark spots of scandal.
And the impartial reader of Church History will not fail to
come to the conclusion, that in almost every instance in which
troubles and scandals threw a dark shadow for a time over the
Papacy, the princes of the earth were mainly the authors of
c

xxxviii

INTRODUCTION.

the evils which afflicted Christendom. Thus, for example, the
unworthy men, who sat on the papal chair at the close of the
ninth and the beginning of the tenth century, were thrust into
it by the intrigues and violence of wicked men and women, who
happened at that period to hold political power in the Roman

territory.

Intruded by violence, they became legitimate Pon­

tiffs only by the acquiescence and recognition of the Church ;
and whatever may have been the private or even public vices

of a few of 'them during these disastrous years, it is not even
claimed that they attempted any thing against the faith, or

introduced any innovation even into general discipline.

The

succession was preserved in the unworthy incumbent—unwor­
thy because, owing to the unhappy dissensions of the times,
the usual mode of election became impracticable.

Is it fair

to charge on the Papacy, in its normal state, the evils and
scandals which were plainly caused by a departure from the

wise rules regulating the order of promotion to the papal
chair, which were set aside by the hand of violence?

We

think not.

If one of the twelve Apostles, who were trained under the

immediate eye of our blessed Lord Himself, was permitted to

fall away and to turn traitor, to the fearful extent of selling
his Master for thirty pieces of silver, and if this sad defection
did not break the integrity of the apostolic college, or even
destroy its prestige, is it equitable or just to charge that a

very few Popes of doubtful morality, in a line numbering more
than two hundred and fifty, have ruined the Papacy, or dis­

graced it in the eyes of fair-minded men?

If even one-twelfth

of the Popes had led scandalous lives, the proportion would not
be greater than that which we would have been led to expect
from the precedent set in the first body of Christ’s ministers,
•elected by Himself for the high and holy office of evangeli·

MORALITY OF THE POPES.

xxxix

zing the world. But it is scarcely pretended, even by the
worst enemies of the Papacy, that the proportion has been so
great as this. Besides the few disedifying Pontiffs intruded
into the Holy See by wicked leaders of faction, to whom we
have already referred, there are, we believe, not more than
three or four to whose moral conduct reasonable exception
has been taken; and some of these may be plausibly defended
without straining the evidence.
The least defensible of all, perhaps, is Alexander VI.,
who occupied the papal chair at the end of the fifteenth
and the beginning of the sixteenth century; but immoral
as he certainly was before he was promoted to the Tiara,
there seems to be no sufficient evidence to show that his
immoralities were continued after he became Pope. His
great fault consisted in the favors which he extended to
the unworthy children who had been born to him many
years before his promotion; and their wickedness was made,
fairly or unfairly, to reflect back upon the character of their
parent. Much of the obloquy, with which contemporary
writers have visited the name of Alexander, is fairly traceable
to the scandalous conduct of Cæsar and Lucretia Borgia,
whose justly indignant enemies blamed the father for their
excesses and tyranny. Thus, Heli, the high-priest, was cen­
sured, and justly, for the permitted or unpunished crimes of
his two sons ; but it is not pretended, for all this, that Heli
was himself a wicked or immoral man. It is not the first, nor
the hundredth time, in the history of the world, that parental
indulgence and fondness have darkened the mind and blinded
the eye to’the faults of a wicked offspring. On the other
hand, it is not, we believe, even hinted on any side, that
Alexander VI., whatever may have been his short-comings as
a man, ever attempted, as Pontiff, to adulterate the faith,

xl

INTRODUCTION.

or to change any of the time-honored general usages and dis­
cipline of the Church. His wickedness, whatever it was, was
hurtful chiefly to himself.

In his public administration he

was a far-seeing statesman, and not an unwise or imprudent
Pontiff.

His timely interposition, and his wise arbitrament

which was accepted by the parties most deeply interested,

settled the fierce dispute which had arisen between

the

Spanish and Portuguese discoverers in the New World, and
thereby probably prevented a protracted war and untold
bloodshed and confusion of rights and claims among the early

American settlers.

Whatever opinion men may choose to

entertain of his moral character, these things should be fairly
taken into the account.
If there are thus lights, as well as shadows, in the character

of one so generally censured as Alexander VI., what may we
not anticipate as to that of a few other Pontiffs less open to

accusation?

Time was, and that not long ago, when such

Popes as Gregory VII. and Innocent III. were painted with
the darkest colors, as marked by all that was odious in rapa­

city and despotism; but two learned Protestant historians—
Voigt and Hurter
*
—lately stepped forth to the rescue, ana­

lyzed and published the original records of their lives ; and the
resulting verdict of all impartial men has been, that no two

Popes in the entire line were surrounded by a greater halo of
light and glory.

Take them all in all, the two hundred and fifty Popes and
more,j· who have successively occupied the Chair of Peter,
• Hurter since became a Catholic, probably in consequence of his researches into the
records of the Church during the glorious but much maligned pontificate of Innocent III.
He found the truth to be so utterly different from the current and accredited representations,
that a total reaction took place in bis candid and well-balanced mind. Whde a little learning
is a dangerous thing, much is invaluable to an honest man, who sincerely seeks the truth
and is prepared fearlessly to follow its teachings, no matter whither these may lead.
* Without al all breaking, or interfering with the line of tho succession, different Catho-

SAINTLY AND LEARNED POPES.

xli

constitute the most respectable and venerable body of men
whose deeds are recorded on the pages of history. Nearly all
of them were highly respectable men, learned, enlightened, and
pious, far beyond their age ; very many of them were vener­
able for their personal sanctity. Seventy-nine of them—nearly
a third of the entire number—were so remarkable for their
holiness of character as to merit being inscribed on the Calen­
dar of Sirin ts ; and this number includes thirty-three who
willingly laid down their lives for Christ and His Church. A
very large proportion of the others were men of blameless life,
and of indefatigable zeal for the propagation of the faith, while
not a few of them were possessed of great learning and
capacity. Such, for instance, were Innocent III., Innocent
lie writers assign different numbers of incumbents, in their catalogues of the Popes. The
late learned and holy Archbishop Kenrick reckons the number at two hundred and fifty-ono,
rigidly excluding all who were in any way doubtful. Other lists, not so critically composed,
swell tho number to two hundred and sixty-two, or even a few more. The difference is
more apparent than real ; and close examination will show that it does not in the least
clash with the substance of the succession. The following, among other items of difference,
will sufficiently establish this statement :—
1. Some historians maintain that Cletus and Anacletus, in the first century, were two
men, while others, more probably, believe these to be but two names of the same incumbent
2. Some admit Stephen VII. (a. d. 89G-7) among the genuine Popes, while others, with
Graveson, regard him as an intruder, which he certainly was at the beginning of his career.
3. Some lists, even among those published at Rome, admit tho names of Alexander V., and
of his successor, John XXIII., chosen by the Council of Pisa, while the more judicious
catalogues exclude them both. They lived during the later years of the Great Schism,
while there were already two other claimants of tho Tiara sitting respectively at Rome and
Avignon. 4. Other Pontiffs lived for so short a time after their election, as to have been
omitted in some of the catalogues. Thus Stephen IL, elected A. D. 752, survived only
three days; John XV., elected about tho year 985, lived also but a few days, and wns not
consecrated, Ac. 5. Some authors, again, with the Count De llalstre, reject several Popes,
who wore intruded into tho Chair of Peter, at tho clos·· of the ninth and the beginning of
tho tenth century; while others, much moro reasonably and soundly, still reckon those intru­
ders among the lawful Popes, on account of the subsequent recognition of, or acquiescence
in, their authority by tho Church.
It is thus manifest that the substance of the succession is not at all affected by tn·
slight differences in the various lists or catalogues of the Popes, drawn up by different utbors. These diverging views only exhibit the latitude wisely allowed t.> critic.mn n the
Catholic Church. Whatuvor may be the theories broached or inaiiitained by these learned
critics, tho integrity of the succession remains evidently untouched.

xlii

INTRODUCTION.

TV., Boniface VIII., and Benedict XIV.—not to name a host
of others in the earlier ages of the Church.
In this connection, it is a remarkable fact, and one which

shows how effectually Christ has watched over His Church,
in the person of His Vicars on earth, that during the last three
centuries—since the so-called

Reformation—not a single

unworthy or immoral Pope has occupied the venerable Chair
of Peter. While wickedness has abounded, and the very
foundations of the faith have been boldly undermined by
wicked men “ lying in wait to deceive,” God has taken care

of His own, and has spared scandals in the high places of His

Church.

The Reformation has, perhaps, been instrumental in

involuntarily and indirectly rendering this signal service to
the cause of the Church, which it so unblushingly maligned.

By removing from the pale of Catholic Christendom the most
turbulent and unrestrained of its members, it has contributed
to purify the atmosphere breathed by the great body of Chris­

tians, who remained faithful ; while by its bitter opposition, it

has quickened their zeal and nourished their vigilance.

Thus

God’s providence hath drawn good out of evil.
Compare the Popes with the sovereigns who have contem­

poraneously filled the various thrones of Europe and the world;
and mark the difference, or rather the contrast.

While among

the latter it is very difficult to discover even one just man, in a

long line of incumbents ; in the former, it is almost as difficult
to find one who is wicked.

Among the latter, personal moral­

ity, self-restraint, and purity are the exception ; among the

former, they are the rule.

Among the latter, a ruler now and

then appears clad with the virtues which mark the saint, as if
to show that sanctity is compatible with every condition in
life; among the former so many blameless and saintly men

appear, that we cease to wonder, and yield to no surprise on

PIUS IX. AND HI8 ENEMIES.

xiifi

discovering a new Pope who is true to the traditions of his
order. When we find a solitary flower in the bleak and dreary
desert, we are startled into unbounded admiration; when we
behold whole clusters of them in a flower-garden, we look with
calm pleasure on the beautiful spectacle, but take it as a
matter of course, and are not at all astonished.
With the long and brilliant line of the Popes thus staring
them in the face, let superficial men of the present day talk
of the downfall of the Papacy. So shallow men often prated
and predicted, during the centuries which have passed; but
the event never failed to falsify their prophecies, begotten
by their prejudice and hatred. The Papacy still endures, in
spite of their malignity. Let Pius IX. be again driven from
his throne, and be even dragged into captivity ; many of his
predecessors, including the last two who bore his honored name,
shared the same fate, and yet the Papacy survived the disaster.
The enemies of the Popes were themselves laid low, but in the
long run the Papacy itself never failed to triumph. This is the
sure conclusion reached by the logic of all history. No one ever
attempted to remove or destroy the Papacy, who was not, in his
own person, or at least in that of his early descendants or suc­
cessors, dashed to pieces against that rock upon which the Church
was divinely built by the Architect who has guaranteed her
safety. This is the true secret of the wonderful permanency, of
the divine vitality of the Papacy. Victor Emmanuel and Napoleon
ΙΠ. are protected by no such divine promise, they are clad in no
such invulnerable panoply, as that which shields their weak and
apparently defenceless victim. Let them beware.' Let them
learn a lesson from the teachings of the past! They and their
dynasties may fall or pass away; the Papacy will surely remain,
so surely as God liveth and is true to His word !
At no previous period of its history was the Papacy stronger

xliv

INTRODUCTION.

in its hold upon (ho confidence and affections of Christendom

than it is at the present day. Eighteen centuries of triumphant
conflict with the princes of the earth and the powers of darkness
have succeeded in convincing the Christian world of its invinci­
bility. and of the utter futility of opposition to its decisions

Gallicanism has waned, and has now well-nigh disappeared, under
(he influence of this growing conviction. One of the most grati­

fying spectacles which modern history presents to the eye of
the Christian is the unanimity and enthusiasm with which the
Catholic episcopate of the entire world, numbering about nine

hundred, and with them all Christendom, have responded to the

bold and independent declarations of the late Encyclical.

This

general and harmonious concert of assent has been marred by

no discordant, much less dissenting, voice.

In France and in

Italy, the bishops have nobly contemned the prohibition and

braved the despotic mandates and threats of Napoleon, and of
his bumble instrument, Victor Emmanuel.

Such being, then, the clear teachings of history in regard to
the Papacy, was it not fitting that, in a History of the Church,

the Popes should occupy a prominent place ?

They are the

chief executives of the Church, the centres around which cluster
all the facts connected with her history ; aye, the very pivot on

which they turn.

This was the happy conception of the Abb;'

Darras in composing his History, the first volume of which is
now presented to the public, for the first time in an English

dress. The idea itself, together with the fact that it has become
popular, is a hopeful sign of the times.

Coming from France,

which was erewhile the seat of the time-serving and factious

Gallicanism that Napoleon III. is seeking to resuscitate and in­
troduce, it is particularly consoling, as indicating the general
predominance, even in that empire, of sounder and more con

servative principles of Church polity.

CONCLUSION.

xlv

We conclude this Introduction by brief quotations from two
African Fathers ; one belonging to the second, the other to the
fifth century of the Church. Speaking of the heretics of his
day, Tertullian says : “ Let them exhibit the origin of their
churches ; let them evolve (unfold) the order of their bishops,
so running by succession from the beginning, that the first bishop
had for his author or predecessor one of the Apostles, or one of
the apostolic men who persevered in communion with the Apos­
tles. For in this way the apostolic churches exhibit their origin,
as the Church of Smyrna relates that Polycarp was placed
there by John; as the Church of Rome likewise relates that
Clement was ordained by Peter ; and in like manner the other
churches show those who were constituted bishops by the Apos­
tles, and made conservators of the apostolic seed. Let heretics
PRODUCE (feign) ANY THING LIKE THIS !
FlNGANT QUID TALE HÆ*
RETICI.

The great St. Augustine invites dissenters back to the bosom
of unity in the following affectionate language :—
“ Come to us, brethren, if you wish to be ingrafted in the
vine. We are afflicted at beholding you lying cut off from its
trunk. Count over the bishops in the very See of Peter, and
behold in that list of fathers how one succeeded the other. This
is the rock against which the proud gates of hell do not pre

vail.”f
• Do Pncscriptionibus.

f Contra partem Donati.

CONTENTS

Introduction....................................................................................................... Page xi.

CHAPTER

I.

1. Connection of Christianity with the past.—2. The fulness of time. Religions
and moral state of the world at the Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ.—3. His
life during thirty years.—4. Public life of our Lord.—5. Teaching of the
Saviour. Institution of the Sacraments.—6. Foundation of the Church.—
7. Passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.—8. His Ascen­
sion .......................................................................................................... Page 13.
CHAPTER

II.

§ I. Pontificate of St. Peter (a. d. 33, Juno 29—a. d. 07). 1. Pentecost.—2. Life
of the primitive Christians.—3. Election of the seven deacons.—4. Conversion
of St. Paul.—5. Calling of the Gentiles.—6. Persecution by Herod Agrippa.
Dispersion of the Apostles.—7. First mission of St. Paul.—8. Council of
Jerusalem.—9. Second mission of St. Paul.—10. Third mission of St. Pau).-11. Fourth mission of St. Paul.—12. First general persecution under Nero.
Martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul. § 11. Pontificate op St. Linus (a. ».
G7-78). 13. Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.—14. Death of St. Linus.
§ III. Pontificate of St. Cletus, or Anacletus (a. d. 78-91). 15. Identity
of St. Cletus, or Anaeletus.—16. Extension of Christianity into Gaul and Ger­
many. § IV. Pontificate of St. Clement I. (a. ». 91-100). 17. Letters of
St. Clement to the Corinthians.—18. Heresies of the first century.—19. Second
general persecution under Doinitian................................................. Page 28.
CHAPTER

III.

1. Importance of studying the first century.—2. Teaching of the Churoh. Its
authority.—3. Its simplicity.—4. Miracles. Confirmation of the doctrine
relating to them.—ô. Tradition.—6. Holy Scriptures. New Testament.—7.
The Gospels.—8. The emblems of the four Evangelists.—9. The Acts of the
Apostles.—10. Epistles of St. Paul.—11. Epistles of St. James, St. Peter, St.

2

CONTENTS.
John, and St. Jude.—12. The Apocalypse.—13. Principal points of doctrine
contained in the New Testament.—14. Government of the Church. Authority
of the Apostolic See.—15. Episcopacy.—16. Priesthood, Deaconship, Religious
Orders, Celibacy of the Clergy, Deaconesses.—17. Discipline.—18. Worship.
—19. Conclusion................................................................................................... Page 60.

CHAPTER

IV.

f I. Pontificate of St. Evaristub (a. d. 100-100).
1. Character of the third
general persecution under Trajan.—2. Letter of Pliny the Younger to Trajan.
—8. Reply of Trqjan.—4. Arrins Antoninus.—5. Martyrdom of St. Simeon,
bishop of Jerusalem.—6. Sect of Thebutis.—7. Unity of Government a guar­
antee of purity of faith.—8. Journey of St. Ignatius to Rome.—9. His martyr­
dom.—10. Martyrdom of St. Evaristus. § II. Pontificate of St. Alexander
I. (a. d. 109-119). 11. Regulations of St. Alexander I.—12. Martyrdom of
St. Onesimus, bishop of Ephesus—of St. Timothy—of St. Titus, &c.—13.
Epistle of St. Polycarp to the Philippians. —14. St. Papias, bishop of Hierapolis.
—15. Works of St. Dionysius the Areopagite.—16. Thérapeutes.—17. Revolt
of the Jews.—18. Death of the Emperor Trajan.—19. Character of the Em­
peror Adrian.—20. Martyrdom of Pope Alexander I. § III. Pontificate of
St. Sixtüs I. (a. d. 119-128). 21. Gnostics.—22. Martyrdom of St. Symphorosa, and her sons.—23. Martyrdom of SS. Sabina, Serapia, Zoe, <fcc.—24.
Martyrdom of Popo St. Sixtus I................................................................. Page 84.

CHAPTER V.
€1. Pontificate of St. Telesphorus (a. d. 128-138). 1. St. Telesphorus, Pope.2. Apology of St. Quadratus, and of Aristides.—3. Letter of Serenius Granianus, proconsul of Asia, to the Emperor Adrian.—4. Reply of Adrian.—5.
Revolt of the Jews.—6. The Talmud.—7. Version of Aquila.—8. Death of
Adrian.—9. Martyrdom of Pope St. Telesphorus. § II. Pontifiuate of St.
Hyoinus (a. d. 138-142). 10. Heresy of Cerdon and Marcion.—11. Death of
St. Hyginus. § III. Pontificate of St. Pius I. (a. d. 142-150). 12. Persecu­
tion continued under the reign of Antoninus.—18. St. Justin the Apologist.
His conversion.—14. Exhortation to the Greeks, the first work of St. Jnstiu.
—15. First Apology of St. Justin, addressed to the Emperor Antoninus.—16.
Decree of the Emperor Antoninus Pius in favor of the Christians.—17. Death
of Pope St. Pius I...................................................................................page ]03.

CHAPTER VI.
ί I. Pontificate of St. Anicetus (a. d. 150-161). 1. Different sects of Gnostics :
Cainites, Sccundiaus, Ptolemaitans, Ophites, Sethians, Marcosians, Colorba
sians, Archontiques, Antitaetes, Adamites or Prodiciuns.—2. Question about
Easter.-3. Voyage of St. Polycarp to Rome.—4. Foundation of the churches
of Lyons, Vienne, Valence, and Besançon.—5. St. Hegesippus.—6. Dialogue
between St. Justin and Tryphon.—7. Death of Pope St. Anicetus and the

3

CONTENTS.

Emperor Antonini». | II. Pontificate of St. 8οτκη (λ. ». 162-174j- *
Fourth general persecution under the Emperor Marcos Aurelius.—0. Martyr
dom of Ht. Felicitas nnd her «even son
*
nt Rome.—10. Letter from the Chm
*
.·
of Smyrna to the chnrchea of Asin.—11. Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, bishop
of Smyrna.—12. Celans, the philosopher.—13. Controversy between Creecen
tins the Cynic and St. Justin.—14. Second apology of St. Justin, addressed to
the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.—15. Martyrdom of St. Justin and his companion·.
—10. Miracle of the thundering legion.—17. illustrious bishops and doctor··
under the pontificate of St. Soter.—18. 8t. Dionysius, bishop of Corinth: his
letter to the Church of Rome.—19. Heretics. Tatien, chief of the Encratite·.
—20. Burdeeann
.
*
—21. Apelles, disciple of Marcion.—23. Montanus, Priscilla,
and Maximilia.—23. Death of Pope St. Soter............. ...................... Page 120.

CHAPTER

VII.

§ I. Pontificate of St. Electherios (a. d. 174-186). 1. The persecution renewed,
a. d. 177. Martyrs of Lyons: Sanctus, Maturus, Attalus, and Blandino.—2.
Journey of St. Irenæus to Ropie.—3. Martyrdom of SS. Epipodius and Alex­
ander at Lyons.—4. Of St. Symphorian at Autun.—5. Apology of Athenago­
ras. His treatise on the resurrection of the dead.—6. Apologies of St. Melito,
bishop of Sardis; of Claudius Apollinaris, bishop of Hierapolis; and of Milti­
ades.—7. Herinias. St. Theophilus, bishop of Antioch. Heresy of Hermog­
enes.—8. Conversion of King Lucius of Great Britain to Christianity.—
Death of Marcus Aurelius. Commodus succeeds him.—10. Apology and mar­
tyrdom of tho Senator Apollonius,—11. Version of the Holy Scriptures by
Theodotion. Work of St. Irenæus against Heresies.—12. Death of St. Eleu­
therius, a. d. 186................................................................................ Page 143.

CHAPTER

VIII.

§ I. Pontificate of St. Victor I. (a. d. 186-200). 1. Question of Easter.—2.
Letter from Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, to Pope St. Victor I.—3. Letter
from 8t. Irenæus to Pope St. Victor I.—4. Letter from the bishops of Pales­
tine to Pope St. Victor I.—5. Heresy of the Theodotians.—6. The Priest Gaius
refutes the Theodotians.—7. Other apologists of the Christian faith.—8. Chris­
tian schools.—9. Christian school of Alexandria, of St. Pantamus.—10. Clement
of Alexandria, his works.—11. Death of Pope St. Victor I........ Page 159.
CHAPTER

IX.

$ I. Pontificate of St. Ζει·πτεινπ8 (a. d. 200-217). 1. Fifth general persecution,
under Septimus Seven».—9. Scyllitan martyrs at Carthage.—3. Martyrdom
of St. Perpetua, St. Felicitas, and their companions, at Carthage.—4. Martyr­
dom of St. Leonides, father of Origen, at Alexandria (202). —5. Martyrdom of
St. Irenæus, bishop of Lyons.—6. Martyrdom of the disciples of Origen at
Alexandria (204).—7. Martyrdom of Potamiana, of St. Marcella, her mother,
of the soldier Basilidca, at Alexandria (204).—8. Tertulhan.—9. Conference

4

CONTENTS.

between Gains and Proeliis, nt Rome.—10. Voyage of Origen to Rome. The
Ootapla, Hexapla, Tetrapla. Bible of Origen.—11. St. Narcissus, bishop uf
Jerusalem.—12. St. Alexander, coadjutor of St. Narcissus, and bishop of Jeru­
salem.—13. Minucius Felix, Octavius, mid their friend Cecilius.—Caracalla,
emperor.—15. Massacres nt Alexandria. Flight of Origen to Cæsaren.—15.
Condemnation of the heretic Noctus.—17. St. Hippolytus, bishop of Porto.
Bis works.—18. Fall and penitence of Natalis, confessor of the faith. Death
of Pope St, Zephyrinus....................................................................................... Pago 171.

CHAPTER

X.

§ I. Pontificate of St. Callistus I. (a. n. 217-222). 1. Heliogabalus, emperor.—
2. Interview between Origen and Alexander Severus.—3. Labors of Origen.—
4. Journey of Origen into Greece. His ordination.—5. Julius Africanus.—6.
Death of St. Callistus I. Decrees of this Pope. § II. Pontificate of St.
Urban I. (a. n. 222-231). 7. Alexander Severus empcror.—8. Church of St.
Mary beyond the Tiber.—9. Excommunication of Origen.—10. Persecution at
Rome.—11. Martyrdom of SS. Valerianus, Tiburtius, and Maximus.—12. Mar­
tyrdom of St. Cecilia.—13. Martyrdom of St. Urban I. § III. Pontificate of
8t. Pontianos (a. d. 231-235). 14. Exile of Pope St. Pontianus.—15. Death
of Demetrius, patriarch of Alexandria.—16. Sixth general persecution by Max­
imus the Thracian. Martyrdom of St. Pontlhnus. § IV. Pontificate of St.
Antderos (December, a. d. 235—January, a. d. 236). 17. Conversion of Am­
brose, friend of Origen, and of Protoctites, priest of Oæsarea.—18. Martyrdom
of Pope St. Antherus...................................................................................... Page 198,

CHAPTER XT.
§1. Pontificate of St. Fabian (a. d. 236-250). 1. Election of Pope St. Fabian
(a. d. 236-250).—2. St. Gregory of Neocæsarea. Plan of Christian education
of Origen.—3. Election of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus to the bishopric of Neocæsarea.—1. His miracles.—5. Election of St. Alexander the collier to the
bishopric of Comana.—6. Relaxation in the morals of the faithful.__ 7. The
Empcror Philip checked by the Bishop St. Babylas at the gate of the church
at Antioch.—8. Heresy of Beryllus, bishop of Bozra (a. d. 242). Heresy
touching the resurrection.—9. Elcesaitro.—10. Conversion of St. Cyprian.—
11. Treatise on the vanity of idols. The Book of Testimonies of St. Cyprian.
—12. Promotion of St. Cyprian to the bishopric of Carthage.—13. Massacre
of the Christians at Alexandria—14. Seventh general persecution, under the
Emperor Decius. Death of St. Fabian. Works of his pontificate.... Page 217.

CHAPTER

XII.

? I. Vacancy in the See of Rome (January 20, a. d. 250—June 2, 251). 1. Char­
acter of the seventh general persecution, under Decius (250).—2. Martyrs of
Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, &c.—3. Martyrs of Asia.__ 4. Inter­
rogatory of St. Acacius, bishop of Antioch, in Pisidia.—5. Defections at Car-

CONTENTS.

5

thnge.—f>. Thur ίβcati, f}acr{flcati,Lilellntici,Lap»i. Billets of recommendation
from the martyr».—7. Letter of Loofah, ronfe«
*>r
of Carthage, to S’. Cyprian,
on the question of apostasie».—8. Reply of the clergy <>f Rome to St. Cyprian
on the question of apostasies.—9. Stihiafn of Felicissimus ami Novatne at Car­
thage. § 11. St. Cornelius Pope (June 2, a. d. 251—September 14, 252).
10. Election of Pope St. Cornelins, June 2, 251.—11. Novatian, first antipope.
— 12. Death of Decins (251). End of the seventh general persecution. St.
Paul, first hermit.—13. Council of Carthage (252). Treatises of St. Cyprian :
De Lapsi
,
*
De unitate Ecclesiis.—14. Council of Rome.—15. Second Council
of Carthage under St. Cyprian (252). Schism of Fortunatus at Carthago.—16.
Confession, exile, and death of St. Cornelius (September 14, 252). ? HI. St.
Lucira !.. Pope (October 18, a. d. 252—March 14, 253). 17. Election, pon­
tificate, and death of Pope St. Lucius I.—18. Death of Origen. Doubts of hu
orthodoxy. § IV". Sr. Stephen I., Pope (a. d. 258-257). 19. Election of Pope
Stephen I.—20. Universal plague (253-200).—21. Charity of the Christians.—
22. Letters and decisions of St. Cyprian on varions ecclesiastical affairs of his
time.—23. Question of the baptism of heretics.—24. Conncil of eighty-five
bishops at Carthage (September 1, 256).—25. Eighth general persecution,
under Valerian. Martyrdom of Pope St. Stephen I. (257). § V. St. Sixtus
IL, Pope (August 24, a. d. 257—August 6, 258). 26. Election of Pope St.
Sixtus IT. End of the affair of the rebaptizers.—27. Martyrdom of St. Cyprian,
at Carthage. Principal martyrs of the eighth general persecution, in the
various provinces of the empire.—28. Martyrdom of St. Cyril, a child of
Cæsarea, in Cappadocia.—29. Martyrdom of Pope St. Sixtus Π. (August, 258).
—30. Martyrdom of St. Lawrence.—31. End of the eighth general persecu­
tion ............................................................................... . .......................... Page 232.

CHAPTER XIII.
Ç I. Pontificate of St. Dionysius (July 22, a. d. 259—December 26, 269). 1.
Election of St. Dionysius. Charity of the Christians. Progress of Christianity.
—2. Decay of the empire under Gallienus.—3. Heresy of Sabellius.—4. Paul
of Samosata.—5. Death of St. Dionysius of Alexandria, and of St. Gregory
Thaumaturges.—6. Death of Pope St. Dionysius. § II. Pontificate of St.
Felix I. (December 27, a. d. 269—December 22, 274). 7. Election of Pope
St. Felix I.—8. Manes.—9. Letter of Manes to Marcellus.—10. Fundamental
principles of the error of Manes.—11. Conference between St. Archelaus,
Bishop of Carrhes, and Manes. Another conference between the Priest Dio­
dorus and Manes.—12. Ninth general persecution, under Aurelian.—13. Mar­
tyrdom of Pope St. Felix I. § ΙΠ. Pontificate of St. Eutycuian (January
4, a. d. 275—December 7, 283). 14. Election of St. Eutyehian. End of the
ninth general persecution.—15. Dorotheas, priest of Antioch. Achillas, of
Alexandria—16. St. Felix, of Nola.—17. Progress of Manicheism in Egypt
and Syria.—18. Death of St. Eutychian. § IV. Pontificate of St. Caifs
(December 10, a. d. 283—April 22, 296). 19. Election of St. Cains.—20.
Martyrdom of St. Sebastian.—21. Martyrdom of the Theban legion.—22.
Martyrdom of St. Victor, of Marseilles.—23. Cruelties of Riccius Varas.—34·

6

CONTENTS.
Sect of the Hieraciths in Egypt.—25. Conversion of Arnobins. Ilia seven
books against the Gentiles.—26. Election of Constantius Olilorus and Galerius
to the empire.—27. Instructions of St. Thomas, bishop of Alexandria, to the
Christian officers of the court of Dioclesian.—28. Death of Pope St. Gaius.
Page 208.

CHAPTER XIV.
f I. Sr. Marcellinus, Pope (June 80, a. d. 296—October 24, 304). 1. Election of
Pope Marcellinus.—2. Galerius begins the persecution.—3. Schism of the
Melctians. Council of Elvira.—4. Tenth general persecution, under Dioclesian
(a. n. 303).—5. General sketch of the tenth general persecution.—6. Martyrs
in the house of the emperor. The Sophists. Hierocles.—7. Martyrs in the
East.—8. Martyrs in the West.—9. Martyrdom of Pope St. Marcellinus (Octo­
ber 24, a. D. 304). § II. Vacancy of the See of Rome (October 24, a. d. 304—
May 19, 808). 10. Continuation and eud of the persecution of Dioclesian in
the West.—11. Martyrdom of St. Genesius.—12. Abdication of Dioclesian.—
13. Maximin Daia.—14. Continuation of the persecution in the East.—15.
Conventicle of traditor bishops at Cirtha. Canons of St. Peter, patriarch of
Alexandria. § III. St. Marcellus, Pope (May 19, a. d. 308—January 16,
810). , 16. Election of Pope St. Marcellus.—17. Constantine proclaimed em­
peror by the legions of Great Britain.—18. St. Methodius, bishop of Tyre.—
19. St. Anthony.—20. Death of St. Marcellus, pope. § IV. St. Eusebius,
Pope (April 2, a. d. 310—September 20, 310). 21. Election, exile, and death
of Pope St. Eusebius. § V. Vacancy of the See of Rome (September 25,
a. d. 810—July 2, 811).
22. Last crimes and punishment of MaximianHercules.—23. Edict of Galerius favorable to Christians. Death of Galerius.
—24. Deliverance of the Christian prisoners in the East. § VI. 8t. Melciiiades, Pope (July 2, a. d. 311—January 10, 314).
25. Election of Pope St.
Melchiades.—26. Schism of the Donatists at Carthage.—27. Maximin Daia
attempts, in spite of the edicts of Galerius, to renew the persecution.—28. War
between Maxentius and Constantine. Labarum. Victory of Constantine.—
29. Edict of Constantine proclaiming the Christian religion the religion of the
empire.—30. Council held at Rome, at the Lateran Palace, against the Dona­
tists.—31. Death of St. Melchiades.—32. End of the first epoch of ecclesiastical
history.......................................................................................................... Page 292.

CHAPTER

XV.

§ I. Review of τπε First Period of τπε Church (a. d. 1-312). 1. Rapid exten­
sion of Christianity in Italy.—2. Throughout the West.—3. In the East.—4.
Obstacles to the development of Christianity.—5. Causes favorable to this
development.—6. Pagan writers and philosophers hostile to Christianity:
Lucian, Celsus, Porphyry, Jamblicus, Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of
Thyanea, Hierocles.—7. First apologists.—8. Heresies. Schisms.—9. Govern­
ment, discipline, and worship.—10. Conclusion............................... Page 333.

CONTENTS.

7

SECOND PERIOD.

CHAPTER

I.

j I. Pontificate of St. Syi.vf.steb I. (January 31, a. d. 314—December 31, 335).
1. Second period of ecclesiastical history.—2. Election of Pope St. Sylvester.
—3. Lactantius. His works.—4. Eusebius of Cassares. Ilis works.—5. Soli­
taries. St. Anthony, St. Ammon, St. Pacomius, St. Hilarion, Fathers of the
Desert.—6. Council of Arles against the Donatists.—7. Councils of Ancyra, in
Galatia; of Neocrosarea, in Pontus; and of Gnngres, in Bithynia.—8. Chris­
tian legislation of Constantine.—9. Cruelties of Constantine.—10. Reaction
against Christianity. Persecution of Licinius. Martyrs.—11. War between
Constantine and Licinius. Defeat and death of Licinius.—12. Antecedents of
Arius.—13. Heresy of Arius.—14. Council of Alexandria against Arius.—15.
St. Athanasius, deacon of Alexandria.—16. League of Arius and Eusebius of
Nicomedia. Composition of the Thalia.—17. Letters of the Patriarch St
Alexander against Arianism.—18. Intervention of Constantine in the affairs
of Arianism.—19. First «ecumenical council at Nice, in Bithynia (a. d. 325).—
20. Opening of the council.—21. Public sitting of the Council of Nice.—22.
Profession of faith known as the Nicene Creed.—23. Quartodecimans. Ques­
tion of Easter judged by the Council of Nice.—24. Affair of the Meletians
treated by this council.—25. Canons of discipline of the Council of Nice, or
Apostolic Canons.—26. Hierarchic authority of the patriarchs regulated by the
Council of Nice.—27. Election and ordination of bishops and priests.—28.
Celibacy of the clergy.—29. Rules for the reconciliation of heretics, schismat­
ics, and lapsi.—30. Ecclesiastical discipline relative to marriage regulated by
the apostolic canons.—31. Close of the Council of Nice.—33. Deposition of
Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Theogni of Nice, by the Council of Alexandria. —
83. Foundation of churches and pious donations of Constantine.—34. Discovery
of the true cross by St. Helena, mother of Constantine.—35. Progress of the
faith beyond the limits of the Roman Empire.—36. Foundation of Constanti­
nople.—37. St. Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria. Intrigues of the Eusebians against Eustathius, patriarch of Antioch.—38. Arius is prevented by the
resistance of St. Athanasius from entering Alexandria. St. Anthony at Alex­
andria.—39. Arian Council of Tyre against St. Athanasius,—40. Exile of St
Athanasius to Treves by the Emperor Constantine.—41. Dedication of the
church of Jerusalem (September 13, a. d. 835).—43. Death of Pope St. Sylves­
ter (December 81, a. d. 88Ô).
Page 353.

s

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

II.

§ I. Pontificate or St. Mark (January 18, a. i>. 3.30—October 7, 330). 1. Elec­
tion of St. Mark to the Sovereign Pontificate.—2. Arian Council of Constanti­
nople. Deposition of Marcellus, bishop of Ancyra. Restoration of Arius.
His tragic death.—3. Death of Pope St. Mark (October 7, a. d. 336). § II.
Pontificate of Pope St. Julius I. (February 6, a. d. 337—April 12. 352). 4.
Election of Pope Julius I.—5. Letter of St. Anthony to the Emperor Constan­
tine. Exile of St. Paul, patriarch of Constantinople. Death of Constantine
the Great.—6. Recall of St. Athanasius to Alexandria, and of St. Paul to Con­
stantinople. Second exile of Paul. Eusebius of Nicomedia takes possession
of the Patriarchal Seo of Constantinople.—7. First Arian Council of Antioch.
—8. St. Athanasius is a second time driven from Alexandria. Gregory of
Cappadocia takes possession of his See. Council of Rome, convoked by Pope
St. Julius I,—9. Recall of the Patriarch St. Paul to Constantinople. His third
exile.—10. Second Arian Council of Antioch.—11. Catholic councils of Milan
and Sardica.—12. Return of St. Athanasius to Alexandria after his second
exile.' Return of St. Paul, patriarch of Constantinople.—13. Death of St.
Paul, the first hermit.—14. Circuracellians. Council of Carthage in regard to
them.—15. Persecution of the Christians by Sapor II., King of Persia.—16.
Raising of the first siege of Nisibis by Sapor II. Continuation of the persecu­
tion in Persia.—17. Raising of the second siege of Nisibis by Sapor II. St.
Ephrem, disciple of St. James of Nisibis.—18. Murder of Constans, Emperor
of the West. Triple usnrpÀtion of the empire.—19. Council of Sirmium.
Fourth and last exile of St. Paul, patriarch of Constantinople. His martyr­
dom.—20. Apparition of a miraculous cross at Jerusalem.—21. Death of Pope
St. Julius I....................................................................................................... Page 413.

CHAPTER

III.

§1. Pontificate of Liberius (May 22, a. d. 352—September 24, 366). 1. Elec­
tion of Pope Liberius.—2. The Arians bring new charges against St. Athana­
sius. Fall of Vincent of Capua.—3. Pope Liberius disavows the conduct of
Vincent of Capua, his legate.—4. Council of Milan (a. d. 355).—5. St. Athana­
sius banished by Constantius (a. d. 355).—G. Letter of Pope Liberius to the
exiled prelates.—7. Banishment of Pope Liberius to Berea, in Thrace.—8.
Fall of Osius of Curdova. Second Arian Council of Sirmium.—9. The contro­
verted fall of Liberius. State of the question —10. Semi-Arians. Anomceans.
Ætians. Eunomians. Eupsychians. —11. Arian Councils of Caesarea, Antioch,
Ancyra, and third of Sirmium.—12. Council of Rimini (a. d. 359).—13. Council
of Seleucia (a. d. 359).—14. Council of Constantinople (a. d. 360). First
Council of Paris.—15. Council of Antioch (a. d. 361).—16. Death of the
Emperor Constantius.—17. First studies and intimacy of St. Gregory Nazianten and St. Basil of Cæsarea.—18. St. Cyril of Jerusalem. His catechetical
instructions.—19. St. Nerses, patriarch of Armenia.—20. Doctors of the West.
St. Hilary of Poitiers. St. Martin of Tours. St. Eusebius of Vercelli. St.
Paulinus of Treves. Lucifer of Cagliari. Birth of St. Ambrose. Jerome and
Augustine.-21. Julian the Apostate, emperor.—22. Nature and causes of the

9

CONTENTS.

persecution of Julian the Apostate.—23. Edict to recall the banished, and to
deprive the clergy of their immunities, and the churches of their po«
*ewior>-.
—24. Return of St. Athanasius to Alexandria (a. d. 362).—25. Council of
Alexandria.—26. Edict of Julian the Apostate, forbidding the study of BellesLettres to the Christians.—27. Julian’s attempt to rebuild the Temple of Jeru­
salem. Death of Julian.—28. Macedonius. His heresy.—29. Death of Pope
Liberius..................................................................................................... Page 446.

CHAPTER

IV.

S I. Pontificate of St. Damasus (September 24, a. d. 366—December 11, 384).
1. Ursinus Antipope.—2. Arianism in the East, under the Emperor Valens.—
3. Basil of Oæsarea and the Prefect Modestos. Death of St. Athanasius at
Alexandria.—4. St. Martin, bishop of Tours. Election of St. Ambrose to the
Episcopacy.—5. St. Optatus, bishop of Milevum. St. Jerome.—6. Gratian
calls Theodosios the Great to the Government of the East. Death of St Basil
the Great.—7. St. Gregory Nuzianzen is appointed to the See of Constanti•
nople. Schism of Maxirnus at Constantinople.—8. Council of Constantinople.
Death of St. Meletius. Troubles arising from it. Retirement of St. Gregory
Nazianzen. Rights of the various Patriarchates.—9. Priscilllan. His heresy
condemned in the Council of Saragossa. Death of St. Damasus. § Π. Pon­
tificate of St. Sericius (January 1, a. d. 385—November 25. 398). 10.
Decretal of St. Sericius to Himerius, bishop of Tarragona.—11. St. Ambrose
persecuted at Milan, by the Empress Justina. Mission of St. Ambrose to the
Usurper Maximus.—12. Revolt of Antioch. St. Flavian. St. John Chrysos­
tom. Clemency of Theodosius.—13. Massacre at Thessalonica. Penance of
Theodosius. Massalians. Death of Theodosius the Great. Death of St. Am­
brose.—14. Conversion of St. Augustine.—15. St. Jerome retires to Bethle­
hem. St. Martin of Tonrs. St. Paulinas of Nola. St. Delphin and St. Aman­
dus of Bordeaux. St. Victrix at Rouen. St. Snlpitius Severus.—16. St John
Chrysostom elected to the See of Constantinople. Synesins. Death of St.
Sericius. § III. Pontificate of St. Anastasius I. (November 26, a. d. 398—
April 27, 402). 17. Dismissory Letters. First Council of Toledo.—18. Dis­
grace of Eutropius. Discussion between St. Jerome and the Priest Rutinus.—
19. Death of St. Martin, bishop of Tours. Death of St. Anastasius I.
Page 502.
CHAPTER

V.

§ I. Pontificate of St. Innocent I. (April, a. d. 402—March. 417). 1. Letter
*
of St. Innocent I. to various bishops of France, Spain, and Africa.—2. First
exile of St. John Chrysostom.—3. Second exile and death of St. John Chry­
sostom.—4. Invasion of Rome by Alario.—5. City of God, by St. Augustine.
Pelaginnism.—6. Death of St. Innocent I. § II. Pontificate or Sr. Zosimis
(August, a. d. 417—December, 418). 7. Labors and death of St. Zosimus.
6 III. Pontificate of St. Boniface I. (December 30, a. d. 418—October 25,
422). 8. Election of St. Boniface I. Antipope Eulalias. Question of the
*igbt of appeal to the Holy Seo agitated by the Bishops of Africa.—9. Preten-

Il)

CONTENTS.

nions of Atticus, Bishop of Constantinople, to jurisdiction over nil the Astatic
churches.—10. Death of St. Jerome mid of St. Boniface I. § IV. Pontificate
St. Celestin I. (November 3, a. d. 422—April 0, 432). 11. Semi-Pelagian
ism.—12. Cassian. St. Simeon Stylites. Invasion of Africa by Genseric.
Death of St. Augustine.—13. The Franks in Gaul. St. Lupus, of Troyes; St.
Encherins, of Lyons; St. Germanus, of Auxerre, &c.—14. Nestorius. Third
general council at Ephesus. Death of St. Celestin I. § V. Pontificate of
St. Sixtus III. (April 20, a. d. 432—March 28, 439). 15. Election of St.
Sixtus III.—10. Prudentius. Sedulius. Predestinarianism. St. Prosper.—
17. Theodosian Code. Barbarian invasion of the different provinces of the
of

Empire.

Death of St. Sixtus III........................'.......................................... Page 545.

CHAPTER VI.
£ I. Pontificate of St. Leo I., the Great (September 1, a. d. 439—April 11, 461).
1. Works of St. Leo the Great against different Heresies.—2. Eutyches. La­
trocinale of Ephcsue.—S. Mercian, Emperor of the East.—4. Council of Chal­
cedon, the Fourth of the General Councils.—6. Attila. He invades Gaul and
Italy. Retires before the Majesty of St. Leo the Great.—6. New troubles
raised in the East by Eutychianism.—7. Invasion of Rome by Genseric.—8.
Timothy Ælurus at Alexandria. Death of St. Leo the Great. § II. Pontifi­
cate of St. Hilary (November 12, a. d. 461—September 10, 467). 9. Election
of St. Hilary.—10. Efforts of St. Hilary to uphold the Laws of the Ecclesias­
tical Hierarchy.—11. Councils of Arles, of Tours, and of Vannes, in Gaul.—12.
Earthquake at Antioch. Burning of Constantinople. Death of St. Simeon
Stylites. § III. Pontificate of St. Simplicius (September 27, a. d. 467, to
the fall of the Western Empire, August 23, a. d. 476). 13. Election of St.
Simplicius.—14. St. Epiphanius of Pavia. St. Patiens of Lyons. St. Sidonius
Apollinaris.—15. Odoacer, King of the Ileruli, overthrows the Western Em­
pire.................................................................................................................. Page 581.

CHAPTER

VII.

§ Review of the Second Period of the History of the Church (a. d. 312—476).
1. Advance of the Gospel in the East.—2. Advance of the Church in the
West.—3. Pagan Polemics. Apologists of the Second Period.—4. Heresies,
Doctors, and Councils.—5. Growth of Monastic Institutions.—6. Government,
Discipline, andW’orsbip..................................................................................... Page 615.
Notes.

Page 629.

A

GENERAL HISTORY
OF THE

CATHOLIC CHURCH
FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA
UNTIL THE PRESENT TIME.

BY

M. L’ABBE J. E. DARRAS.
FIRST AMERICAN FROM THE LAST FRENCH EDITION

WITH AN

INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY THE MOST REV. JI. J. SPALDING, D. D.,
ABCHBISHOP OF BALTINOBE.

NEW YORK:

P. O’SHEA, PUBLISHER.
104 BLEECKER A 183 GREENE STS.

1905.

&We4

ft *■> or COOPOM. In the r« IS»·

By P. O'SHEA,
ft. C!.rh·. Oto. -< to

I"",c" S“" f" lh“
Di strict of Now York.

RECOMMENDATIONS
OF
®|jt

©encrai

iistorg

of

tbe

<ffrurrb.

LETTER FROM

HIS HOLINESS POPE PIÜS IX.
TO TUB

AUTHOR OF “THE GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH."

Dilecto filio presbytero J. E.
Darras, Lutetiam Parisio­
rum.

To our beloved Son, J. E.
Darras, Priest at Paris.

PIUS P. P. IX.

PIUS P. P. IX.

Dilecte Fili, Salutem et
Apostolicam Benedictionem :

Beloved Son, health and
the Apostolic Benediction :

Litteræ Tuæ XIII. Kalendas
Aprilis proximi ad nos datæ,
quibus exemplar offerre nobis
voluisti operis de historiii Ecclesiæ generali, fuerunt nobis
ipsis quam gratissimæ. Sig­
nificas enim id Tibi fuisse con­
silii, quod virum certe decet

Your letter of the twentieth
of March, accompanied by a
copy of your General History
of the Church, was most grate­
ful to us. The plan of your
work testifies your zeal for
sound doctrine and your sin­
gular and praiseworthy devo-

4

RECOM.VETD.ATrOiVS.

germanæ doctrines studio ac tion towards us and the Apos­
singularis erga Nos ipsos se· tolic See. If, as we trust, the
demque Apostolicam devo­ work (which we ourselves have

tionis et observantiæ laude not as yet been able to read)
praestantem. Si, ut confidi­ fulfils the design proposed, it
mus, consilio ipsi opus quod will be of the greatest use,
adhuc legere Nos non potui­ and will tend to stimulate a
mus, exacte respondeat, magno more profound study of this
illud usui erit istic futurum most important branch of Ec­
addetque omnibus stimulos ad clesiastical Science. We give
gravissimam eam ecclesiasti­ you, therefore, beloved son,

corum studiorum partem pœ-

merited thanks for your offer­

nitius internoscendam. Meri­ ing to us, and we earnestly
tas pro oblato ipso operis

pray Almighty God that He

munere cum Tibi, Dilecte Fili,

will multiply and preserve

persolvimus gratias, omnipo­ His gifts in you.

tentem Dominum suppliciter

And as a

pledge of this great favor, we

exoramus, ut sua in te mu­ add the Apostolic Benedic­
nera multiplicet ac tueatur. tion, which, with the sincere

Et tanti hujus boni auspicem

affection of our paternal heart,
adjungimus Apostolicam Be­ we lovingly impart to you.
nedictionem, quam intimo pa­
terni cordis affectu, ipsi Tibi,

Dilecte fili, amanter imperti­
mur.

Datum Romæ apud S. Pe­ Given at St. Peter’s, Rome,
trum, die 8 augusti, anni
the 8th of August, in the
1855, Pontificatus Nostri
year of our Lord 1855, and
anno X.
the tenth of our Pontificate.
Pius P. P. IX.

Pius P. P. IX.

RECOMMENDATIONS.

δ

FROM THE

MOST REV. JOHN McCLOSKY, D. D.,
ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK.

Dear Sir:—I am very glad to learn that you are about pub­
lishing an English version of the excellent Ecclesiastical History
of the Abbé Darras. The auspices under which the translation
is made, will, I am confident, secure for it both elegance and
fidelity. I trust that your laudable enterprise will meet all due
encouragement from the Catholic public.
Very truly, your friend and servant in Christ,
ψ JOHN, Archbishop of New York.
P. O’Shea, Esq.
New York,

Dec.

12, 1864.

FROM THE

MOST REV. M. J. SPALDING, D. D.,
ARCHBISHOP OF BALTIMORE.

Mr. P. O’ Shea :
After having looked over the proof-sheets of the first two
chapters in Darras’s Church History, which you are publishing
in an English translation, I feel renewed confidence that the
arrangements which have been made to secure a correct and
readable version of this valuable work will be entirely success­
ful ; and though my own engagements and distance from the
place of publication will not allow me to attend to details, yet I
will cheerfully render whatever assistance may be in my power,

6

RECOMMENDATIONS.

and I have no doubt concerning the ability of the intelligent
lady convert who has so zealousljr entered upon the task, and
has, moreover, enlisted the services of thoroughly qualified theo­
logians to aid her with their counsel in carrying out her praise­
worthy undertaking, which to her is a labor of love. The
conviction grows upon me, that this work, so warmly com­
mended by many learned men in France, will meet a want
which has been so long felt in this country—that of a good
Church History, neither too lengthy nor too compendious, and
at the same time replete with interesting and edifying details.
The four volumes which you are publishing contain a rich
array of facts, well stated and well put together, which will be
most agreeable and instructive to our Catholic people, all of
whom will of course seek to obtain the work for family use.
This Church History will also be found very opportune and
useful in our numerous Seminaries, Colleges, and Academies. I
wish you every success in your praiseworthy undertaking, and
hope you will receive sufficient patronage to defray all expenses.
ψ M. J. Spalding, Archbishop of Baltimore.
Baltimore, Dtc. 7,186-1.

FROM THE

MOST REV. J. B. PURCELL, D. D.,
ARCHBISHOP OF CINCINNATI.

Cincinnati. Nov. 15, 1864.

Mr. P. O’Shea:
Dear Sir :—Permit me to take this occasion, in answering
your Circular, to signify my concurrence in the judgment pro­
nounced on the Ecclesiastical History of the Abbé Darras.
Please send me five copies in volumes, cloth binding.
Respectfully yours,
J.
*
4
B. Purcell, Archbishop of Cincinnati.

RECOMMENDATIONS.

EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS
or

EMINENT FRENCH AND ITALIAN PRELATES,
TO THB

AUTHOR OF THE “GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH."

FROM

MONSEIGNEUR PARISIS,
BISHOP OF ARRAS.

I have read nearly the whole of the first volume of your
General History of the Church, and I have only congratulations
to address to you upon the work. Its spirit is excellent, its doc­
trine sound, and its style clear and unaffected. To have ranged
the facts of ecclesiastical history according to the succession of
pontiffs, just as the events of a kingdom are frequently related
in the order of reigns, is a very happy innovation. Your work
is in every respect truly admirable. We see in it, distinctly
portrayed, the Fathers of the Church and their writings, the
martyrs and their sufferings, the heretics and their numerous
errors. The Holy Scriptures, the canon law, and the whole dis­
cipline of the Church, are alike admirably expounded.
I do not hesitate to say to you, if'the other three volumes
are equal to the first, that your General History of the Church
will become a class-book of the highest usefulness in our
seminaries.
ψ P. L., Bishop qf Arras.

i

RECOMMENDATIONS.

FROM

MONSEIGNEUR DEBELAY,
ARCHBISHOP OF AVIGNON.

We have caused the work to be examined by a competent
judge, * * * and knowing well the excellent spirit by which
M. L’Abbé is animated, and his filial love for the Church,

We approve and recommend his work.
ψ J. Μ. M., Archbishop of Avignon.

FROM

MONSEIGNEUR CASANELLI D’ISTRIA,
BISHOP OF AJACCIO.

I received your first two volumes in Rome, and after having
examined them in my own way, I submitted them to the exami­

nation of two eminent men of learning here, Monseigneur Tizzani,
Professor in the Roman University, and the celebrated Jesuit

Father, Rev. P. Ballerini, Professor in the Roman College, no
lefe renowned in the Holy City for his profound erudition.
I have the satisfaction of making known to you the fact that

these, rigid censors agree with me in the high estimate I have

formed of your work. If the last two volumes are equal to the
first (and of this I have no doubt), I shall not hesitate to request
the superiors of my seminaries to adopt it in their institutions

RECOMMENDATION».

9

as the text-book of Ecclesiastical History ; and I shall congratu­
late myself on having been one of the first to profit by the fmit
of your labors. Meanwhile, may your enterprise prove a com­
plete success, and may God bless a pen so usefully employed in
the service of our Holy Mother the Church.
ψ X. T. Raphael, Bishop of Ajaccio.

FROM

MONSEIGNEUR DE SEGUR,
AUDITOR OF THE TRIBUNAL OF THE ROTA, AT ROME.

For a long time past, the friends of the Holy See and of the
Church were anxious to see a good Ecclesiastical History, short
yet complete, interesting in style, truly Catholic, yet moderate
and impartial, and fit to be used both by the clergy and the
laity. Allow me to congratulate you on your having been
chosen by the Almighty to execute so important a work,
and to have fulfilled so successfully all the conditions of your
arduous task.
In this age of logic and common sense, the evil and the good
tend more and more to separate, and soon there will be, without
doubt, only two adverse camps in the world Christianity and
the Catholic Church on the one side, socialistic revolution and
infidel philosophy on the other. Let ns all work, each accord­
ing to his measure, to increase the ranks of God’s army ; and let
us humbly thank our Lord when He permits us to serve in His
holy cause.
L. G. Be Segur.

FROM

VERY REV. FATHER ETIENNE,
SUPERIOR-GENERAL OF THE LAZARISTS.

I have charged with the examination of your work two

Fathers who have been Professors of History for many years in
the schools of our society.

They unite in praising it in the

highest terms. I therefore cheerfully add my approbation of
your History to the many indorsements which you have

received, and which no doubt you will still receive from other

sources.

Etienne, Superior-General.

DIVISIONS
OF THE

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

The History of the Church is divided into eight periods.
The first includes from the birth of Jesus Christ to the
conversion of Constantine the Great, A. D. 1 to A. D. 312.
The second includes from the conversion of Constantine to
the fall of the Western Empire, A. D. 312 to A. D. 476.
(The history of these two periods forms the first volume.)
The third includes from the fall of the Western Empire to
its re-establishment under Charlemagne, A. D. 477 to A. D. 800.
The fourth includes from Charlemagne to Pope Sylvester
II., A. D. 800 to A. D. 999.
(The history of these two periods forms the second volume.)
The fifth includes from Pope Sylvester II. to Pope Boni­
face VIII., A. D. 999 to A. D. 1303.
The sixth includes from Pope Boniface VIII. to Luther,
A. D. 1303 to A. D. 1517.
(The history of these two periods forms the third volume.)
The seventh includes from Luther to the treaty of West­
phalia, A. D. 1517 to A. D. 1648.
The eighth includes from the treaty of Westphalia to the
accession of Pope Pius IX. to the sovereign pontificate, A. D.
1648 to A. D. 1846.
(The history of these two periods forms the fourth and
last volume.)

Λ REMARK
UPON TUE

CHRONOLOGY OF THE CHURCH.

The chronology adopted in this work is that of the “Abrégé
Chronologique de THistoire Ecclésiastique,” 3 volumes, 12mo,
published in 1757, on the model of the great work on the his­
tory of France by the President Hainault. It is no part of our
plan to enter into the discussions that have arisen on the nu­
merous difficulties of chronology. We have adopted a system
already completed, not that it may, perhaps, be the most exact
in all its details, but because it is the one most generally fol­
lowed. We leave to the learned professors of that branch 01
science the care of pointing out, if they judge it best, the
chronological systems which present divergences more or less
important from the system we follow.

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

CHAPTER I.
1.

Connection of Christianity with the past.—2. The fulness of time. Religions
and moral state of the world at the Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ.—3. His
life during thirty years.—4. Public life of our Lord.—5. Teaching of the
Saviour. Institution of the Sacraments.—6. Foundation of the Church.—
7. Passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.—8. His Ascen­
sion.

1. The establishment of Christianity, which divides tho
history of the world into two distinct periods, was not an iso­
lated fact, unconnected with past ages ;—the forty preceding
centuries served as a vast avenue leading towards it. “ The
fall of the earthly Adam,” says St. Augustine, “ called forth
the heavenly Adam, the Redeemer of the first.” The promise
of a Saviour, made in the garden of Eden, was borne with them
in their exile by our first parents, and the remembrance of it
was perpetuated in the hearts of succeeding generations. God
renewed it to the patriarchs ; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob trans­
mitted it, with the privilege of seeing the expected Messiah born
of their race. By means of a phenomenon unique in history, a
people was chosen whose sole mission was to guard the deposit of
tradition, the Testament of the covenant made between God and
man; and this people, confined within the narrow limits of Judea,
obscure, destitute of national renown or military glory, alone
survives amid all the vicissitudes of empires. Egyptians.

14

GENERAL JHSTORV OF THE CHURCH.

Assyrians, Medes and Persians, Greeks and Romans, suc­
ceed each other, then fall and vanish. Sesostris, Nabuchodonosor, Cyrus, Alexander, Cæsar, made the world resound
with the noise of their victories. The Jewish people, some­
times protected, sometimes enslaved by all these conquerors,
resisted their oppression or submitted to their yoke with­
out any radical change in their own constitution, or mingling
their blood with that of the stranger races; and did not.
disappear like other conquered nations. Errors the most het­
erogeneous, modes of worship without end, creeds the most ab­
surd and the most opposite, successively swayed the earth under
the banners of the great conquerors of the world. Their reli­
gions shared the fate of their empires—Anubis is dethroned by
Mithra, who is the Zeus of the Greeks, the Jupiter of the
Romans. The Jewish people, alone, offer no example of varia­
tion in their faith. They carry with them everywhere a book
dictated to Moses many ages earlier than the epoch assigned
by the Greeks to the invention of writing. This book con­
tains a legislation, a ceremonial, and religious, civil, and mili­
tary codes. Their laws, rites, creeds, subsisted in the same
forms, from the epoch of Sinai to that of Cæsar. One hope,
one image, one aspiration pervades their history : it is the
hope of the Redeemer; the image of the Messiah, represented
by the patriarchs and the just of the Old Testament ; the
aspiration for the promised Christ, son of David and of Abra­
ham, the Pontiff King, whose reign shall have no end. Under
whatever point of view we judge this great fact, of a people
the most obscure, the least powerful of all, who maintain,
in the midst of the overthrow of other nations, their own
perpetual duration, we are obliged to recognize in it a miracu­
lous history, without precedent and without imitation. Poets,
such as Homer or Hesiod ; men of genius, such as Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle, charmed the rest of mankind by their théogo­
nies or philosophic systems. The Jewish people paid no hom­
age to their schools, whose renown extended throughout the
earth. They bad no part in the altars raised, or sacrifices of

THE FULNESS OF TIME.

15

victims made, to any idol, for the Jew disdained the wisdom
of the sages of Greece. His sacrifices are for Jehovah ; his
masters, his doctors, are the prophets, from Moses to Malachias,
through David, Elias, Eliseus, Isaias, Jeremias, Ezechiel,
Daniel, and others ; who all portray, in some form, the ex­
pected Messiah, and add new traits to His anticipated his­
tory, or reveal with greater clearness the date of His ad­
vent. The all-absorbing expectation of this people is the
coming of a Saviour, whom they are charged to announce to
mankind. It is wonderful to observe how this necessity of a
Saviour dominates, in spite of them, the pagan religions of
antiquity. Among them all, in fact, we find human sacrifices,
as if mankind had felt that they must be redeemed, but that
they were themselves insufficient for their ransom. Where
human blood did not flow, that of bulls and heifers inundated
the temples. A perpetual libation of blood was established,
which had its source in a confused idea of expiation, or of
religious redemption. Ancient civilization was established
upon two principles, which were derived from the same idea,
viz. : the inferiority of woman, and the common right to hold
slaves. To explain the debased condition of the first is
impossible, without recurring to the fall of man, as it is
related by Moses. Slavery, subsisting without question during
forty centuries, implies the principle of universal consent,
which flowed from the idea of religious expiation. The Jew­
ish people alone possessed the key to these enigmas, which
troubled the entire existence of pagan nations. They alone
had the secret of those vague hopes, of those aspirations for
an unknown liberator, for the new golden age, sung by Virgil,
and mysteriously agitating the East and the West.
2. Christ was to come, said St. Paul, in the fulness of time—
Ubi venit plenitudo temporis. The epoch of Augustus seemed to
realize the fulness of time of the ancient civilization. The
Roman empire, at its summit of power, had for its limits—on
the north, the Rhine and the Danube ; on the east, the Euphra­
tes ; on the south, Upper Egypt, the deserts of Africa, and

16

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Mount Atlas ; on the west, the seas of Spain and Gaul—nearly
three-fourths of the habitable globe. The power of Alexander
had, in some measure, approached this immense extent; but
the Macedonian conqueror, from his dying-bed at Babylon,
might have caught a glimpse of the dismemberment of his
empire. Nationalities, for a moment merged under his victorious
hand, were reconstituted as soon as his sword was broken
The Romans, on the contrary, had not so suddenly reached
universal domination ; but, when they had attained this object,
the entire world was modelled under their yoke ; their pio­
neers opened roads, which began at the eternal city, to end at
the extremities of the earth; their language was adopted, as a
mark of servitude, by the conquered nations ; and the world,
for ages, was Roman. Under the influence of a political con­
dition at once so brilliant and durable, the intellectual powers
had acquired the perfection of the age of Pericles, and its
splendor was reproduced in that of Augustus. Letters, arts,
and sciences were united in marvellous concert. The union
of all these advantages, nevertheless, betrayed more fully the
impotence of the human race to regenerate itself, and the need
of a divine Redeemer. In fact, the religious state of the world,
by a progression in an inverse sense, offered a most humiliating
spectacle. Gods of wood, or stone, assumed every form;
animals, garden vegetables, all had their altars ; and a
point was reached where nothing had the honors due to
the Divinity but sensuality or vice.
Two augurs could
not look each other in the face without a smile. The family
existed only in name ; and the emperors were obliged to enact
laws to prevent the extinction of the human race through an
infamous celibacy. Slavery was the common law, and the
wife, in every rank, was only the chief of slaves. Legality
of divorce, lawful prostitution, the exposure of infants, au­
thorized murder, at the public festivals or in the family, ar­
bitrary punishment of the condemned ; all were characteristic
signs of a profound degradation, beyond the reach of any
human remedy. The Messiah expected by the Jew’s could

EARLY LIFE OF CHRIST.

alone regenerate the world. It was for this peaceful Con
queror that the Roman slaves opened vast highways among
the nations ; it was to hear the glad tidings of His Gospel that
all people forgot their foreign idioms and spoke the language
of Rome, which was destined to become, at a later period, the
language of the Church.
3. Under the twelfth consulate of Augustus, in the 700th
year of the founding of Rome, the angel Gabriel was sent to
Nazareth, a little city of Judea, to a virgin whose name was
Mary, of the tribe of Judah, and of the line of David. He
announced to her that by the operation of the Holy Spirit, and
apart from the ordinary laws of nature, she should give birth
to the Son of David—to the Christ—to the Son of God—to
the Messiah, whose reign should be without end. Nine months
later, an edict of Cæsar Augustus was published, commanding
a census to be made of the inhabitants throughout the world :
and Mary went, with Joseph her spouse, a saintly old man. to
be registered at Bethlehem, the city of David. "‘And it cam··
to pass, that, when they were there, her days were accom­
plished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth
her first-born son, and wrapped him up in swaddling-clothes,
and laid him in a manger: because there was no room for them
in the inn.” The first who came to adore Jesus Christ, the
Sovereign of the world, whose birth was so strange, were shep­
herds. The Magi from the East, warned by a miraculous stir,
came in their turn, and 1. at the feet of the infant the trib­
utes proper to be offered to a king, to man, and to God—gold,
myrrh, and incense. The legal ceremonies were performed
around His crib. Jesus Christ submitted to the expiatory rite
of circumcision. Mary, virgin before, during, and after the
birth, accomplished the rites of her purification in the manner
of other Jewish women. God, the Redeemer, presented in the
temple which He was to replace by the temple of His everlast­
ing Church, was redeemed from the hands of the High-Priest
at the price of two doves. Meanwhile, the Son of God could
not descend upon earth without bringing disquietude to th··
2

20

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

journey, Jesus Christ multiplied seven loaves and five fishes,
until they were sufficient to satiate more than five thousand
persons. Tn the presence of Peter and James and John, His
disciples, He was transfigured, and appeared in all His glory
on Mount Tabor. Descending again among the Jews, Tie went
about doing good, and working miracles. A man born blind
opens his eyes to the light; a woman who had been ill eighteen
years, recovers her health by His word ; one sick of dropsy is
cured in the same manner. Finally, He closes this series of
marvellous works, which were public and well attested, which,
in fact, during three years, all Judea had witnessed, by the
resurrection of Lazarus, after he had lain three days enclosed
in his tomb, and his body had already become a prey to the
corruption of death.
5. We have begun by enumerating, in a summary way, the
principal miracles of Jesus Christ, because, in the eyes of the
multitude, they were the most substantial proofs of His divini­
ty. His doctrine was not less marvellous, and it was to pro­
duce in the religious and moral world the same transformation
which the power of the Son of God wrought upon the material
world. His mode of teaching resembled in nothing the meth­
ods of the philosophers and sages. He made no showy display
of words, no oratorical pretensions. lie was simple and famil­
iar in His discourse, presenting His sublime ideas under the
forms of parables or images. It was on the heart He wished
to engrave His law of charity, and it was to the heart that He
addressed himself. Especially He sought to teach the unity
of God, the Father of all men. lie established this fundamental
principle, not by arguments nor disputations, but with the
simple, natural, candid tone of a son who speaks of his father.
The idea which predominated in the ancient world was that
of a God angry and terrible, whom none could look upon and
live, and who must be appeased by the blood of victims and
of hecatombs. In the doctrine of the Saviour, God appeared
only as the father of the prodigal son ; as the fountain of living
waters for the thirsty soul, such as he was to the Sainnril. i

FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH.

21

at Jacob’s well ; or like the good shepherd who bears on his
shoulders the wandering sheep which he leads back to the
fold : finally, as the God of mercy and forgiveness. This is
the true and attractive characteristic of the New Testament,
which, for this reason, is called the law of mercy. The grace
of God thus descending upon earth, Jesus Christ established
the channels through which it was to be communicated to men.
These are the sacraments, the visible signs of the mysterious
and invisible operation of grace upon the soul, viz. : Baptism,
Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy
Orders, and Matrimony.
It must be distinctly remembered that nothing in the past
bore any resemblance to such institutions, or doctrines, or
works, as these. “ How the teachings of Jesus Christ stand
out in bold relief, detached by their divine character from all the
errors which surround them, in the midst of hypocritical doc­
tors, of captious scribes, of proud Pharisees ! How the ManGod detects their cunning by His own wisdom! How He
anathematizes all the vices by His sanctity ! How He ex­
hausts all the passions by His patience ! By His meekness,
He imparts strength to every weakness ! And how ready is
He to help in every affliction.”*
6. To perpetuate the benefits of the redemption which He
brought for man, and to assure our race of the purity of His
doctrine and the integrity of the sacraments which He insti­
tuted, it was incumbent on Jesus Christ to found, and, in fact.
He did found, a visible society, always teaching, always one,
which He made the depository of His doctrines. This is the
Catholic Church, whose history we now study, and whose divine
institution, such as it was given by the Saviour, we now pro­
ceed to examine in detail. Two objects are here worthy of
especial attention : (1.) the instruments chosen; (2.) the form
given.
(1.) “Jesus, walking along the shore of the sea of Galilee,
• AUGV8TB

Nicolas, Etmkt M le Chrétien, L iv.

p, 15.

22

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

and seeing the fishermen, said to them, Come with me, and
1 will make you fishers of men.” These fishermen, whose
whole fortune was in their nets, who had no knowledge but
that of their trade, were the chosen instruments, the first
founders of the Church ; that institution which was destined
to bear throughout the earth the light of truth—to confound
the wisdom of the philosophers, to seat itself in the Capi­
tal, and to reign, without limits and without end, over the
world. The names of these elect of God to conduct this
grand enterprise were utterly unknown to the world of phi­
losophers and the powerful of their time. Simon, who was
called Peter, John and James, sons of Zebedee, Andrew,
Peter’s brother, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew,
James, son of Alpheus, Simon of Cana, Jude, brother of
James, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed his master. The
weakness, the obscurity, the ignorance of these twelve Jews
were well calculated to throw into strong relief the divinity of
the doctrines which they were commanded to teach to man­
kind. Jesus Christ intended to employ the weak things of
the earth to confound the strong. He instructed them as a
characteristic of the success of their mission to remain weak,
humanly speaking, and not to rely upon any earthly help, or
artifice, or defence. “ Do not possess gold nor silver, nor
money in your purses........... And when they will not receive
you nor hear your words, going forth out of that house or city,
shake off the dust from your feet............. Behold I send you
as lambs in the midst of wolves.”
It is evident that Jesus Christ designed to reject, in the
composition of His Church, all that a man of the commonest
prudence would have sought for, and to incorporate with it all
which the same man infallibly would have rejected. It is this
which St. Paul terms the folly of the cross, and which the most
unexampled, the most brilliant, and the most enduring suc­
cesses have never ceased to proclaim, everywhere, to be the
wisdom of God.
(2.) The apostles of His Church being thus selected,

FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH.

23

Jesus Christ organized them in unity, and with authority
two correlative principles, without which no institution can
subsist. The twelve apostles were as yet like separate­
blocks awaiting the foundation-stone, in order to form with it.
and by means of it, one edifice. Simon was chosen by a special
calling ; henceforth he was to be called Peter ; et imposuit Himoiu
nomen Petrus, a prophetic name, for he was to become the rock
on which the Church should be built. His mission was ex­
plained to him a few days after, in a more explicit manner.
“ I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and on this rock I will
build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it, and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven
Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven,
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in
heaven.” Here, then, is already a supremacy constituted in
the hierarchy of the Church ; a chief placed above the other
chiefs ; a stone selected from among the other stones <>'i
the edifice. The authority of this sovereign chief is more
distinctly proclaimed by these words: “Feed my sheep; feed
my lambs.” To complete our citations on this subject, let
us add a passage which is too often neglected, yet which,
from its connection with others, places in still greater promi­
nence the prerogatives and functions of the Prince of th»·
apostles. “ Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to sift thee as
wheat, but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, and
\vhen thou shalt be converted, confirm thy brethren.” Cer­
tainly Jesus Christ could not more plainly manifest His will
to establish His Church on the unity of Peter, and to consti­
tute it under the authority of this supreme pastor, who should
feed the sheep and the lambs,—that is to say, following tin
interpretation of the Fathers and doctors, the bishops and th.
faithful,—who holds in his hands the keys of the kingdom oi
heaven, and who is charged to strengthen his brethren in the
faith. Peter and his successors were then invested with the
authority, the primacy, of the apostleship. They are the
centre of the Church, and with them must begin her history,

24

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

based on the unity of one headship and one faith, with the
assurance of that divine saying, “ I have prayed that thy
faith fail not.” This promise of infallibility is afterwards
renewed by another solemn declaration : “ Behold I am with
you all days oven to the end of the world.” And to seal
the unity of this divinely constituted hierarchy, Jesus Christ
thus addresses his Father : “ Holy Father, keep them in Thy
name whom Thou hast given me, that they may be one as we
are............. And not for them only do I pray, but for them
also, who through their word shall believe in me” (Christians
in every place and in all time, at that moment present to the
thought of the Saviour), “ that they may all be one, as Thou,
Father, in me and I in Thee, that they may also be one in us.”
Thus this nascent Church, destined ever to increase more and
more, will remain united to Jesus, its founder, by the un­
interrupted tradition of Peter and his successors ; and who­
ever would seek for salvation, must adhere to this unity, to
this authority of Peter and his successors : for Jesus Christ
has promised to be with them even to the consummation of
ages.
7. The public mission of the Saviour, the preaching of His
doctrine supported by miracles, the institution of the Church,
and of the sacraments which she was to dispense, occupied
only three years. The Jewish people had been witnesses of
this extraordinary life, they had seen the miracles which
Jesus had Strewed about His path, yet in this Messiah, true
son of David, whose every trait had been so clearly defined by
the prophets, they failed to recognize “ the Desired of all nations,
the Expectation of the world, the Desire of the everlasting hills.'
But this blindness had been predicted, and is the more easily
understood, because Christ, in the ideas of a gross and carnal
people, would be a conqueror, a hero, surrounded with glory and
magnificence. Jesus Christ, on the contrary, declared that His
kingdom was not of this world ; He preached a doctrine totally
opposed to the maxims of the world ; He taught men to detach
themselves from earthly inclinations, desires, and hopes, and

PASSION OF OtTR LORD.

25

to conquer, by mortification and sacrifices, the kingdom of
heaven, which suffers violence. The Pharisees, whom He
compared to whitened sepulchres, and whose hypocrisy He un­
masked ; the great, whom He alarmed by accepting the title
of king, the spiritual and pacific king of souls; the doctors of
the law, the priests, and scribes, whom He accused of “ impo­
sing on their brethren burdens which they would not touch with
the point of their finger,” united their common hatred, and re­
solved upon the death of one whom they regarded as only a man.
Jesus Christ was acquainted with their conspiracy; without
fearing, but without provoking them, He came to Jerusalem.
It was a short time after the resurrection of Lazarus ; the
people gave Him a triumphal entry, waving palm branches
around Him, and spreading their vestments for the passage of
the humble animal which bore the new king of Sion; one
only cry escaped from every lip : “ Hosanna ! Glory to the
Son of David !” Five days later, these acclamations of triumph
were changed into tumultuous vociferations : “ Crucify Him '
Crucify Him ! Let His blood be upon us and our children !"
What had occurred during this interval? Nothing which can
explain such a change. But the hour was come when the Son
of Man was to be delivered into the hands of His enemies.
Jesus Christ had celebrated the Passover with His disciples,
and had instituted at the last supper the Holy Eucharist,
the permanefit miracle of the love of a God who dwells in
the midst of men, to become their food and drink. The
same night, Judas Iscariot, his lips still tinged with the
Eucharistic blood, had sold his Master to the chief priests for
thirty pieces of silver, and betrayed the Son of Man by a kiss.
The crime was no sooner committed than despair entered the
traitor’s soul : he hastened to cast the money into the midst of
the temple, and hung himself. The Pharisees, the council of
the priests, and the people who had plotted the death of Jesus,
followed Him with shouts, crying, “He is a blasphemer.’’ They
accused Him also before the governor, Pontius Pilate, as the
enemy of Cæsar. Led before him, and questioned, if Ue were

26

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the Christ—if He were a king “ I am,” he replied, for, from
this moment, He spoke openly, and without parable. He was
then given over to the insults of the populace, spit upon,
beaten, stripped of His garments, fastened, naked, to a col­
umn ; and Pilate, showing Him to the people, exclaimed :
“Ecce Homo!” Yes, behold the man who pays the ransom
of all men, by suffering Himself in their place. His disciples
abandoned Him ; John and the holy women alone remained
faithful. A heavy cross was laid on His shoulders ; He falls
under its weight, but is forced on to Golgotha. His holy
Mother meets Him on this path of dolors. The daughters of
Jerusalem weep for Him, and He predicts to them, that soon
they will weep for the fate of their country and their chil­
dren. At the foot of Calvary the soldiers cast lots for his
clothing; they nail Him to the cross between two malefac­
tors, one of whom is converted, and becomes the first saint,
under the new law, who enters heaven, which is now opened
to man by the passion of the Son of God. At length lie cries,
“It is finished !” and He dies. All nature was moved—the rocks
were rent—the dead arose. The curtain of the holy of holies
was rent from the top to the bottom, and darkness covered
the earth. Witnesses of this divine death exclaimed, “This,
truly, was the Son of God!” Joseph of Arimathea solicited
and obtained from Pilate permission to bury the body of Jesus.
They laid it in a sepulchre cut in the rock, placing at tho
entrance an enormous stone. The Jews fixed their seal upon it,
and set a guard there (a. d. 33).
*
The consummatum est—It is
consummated—of Calvary announced to the world the accom­
plishment of all the prophecies. At the precise moment when
Jesus Christ expired, the seventy weeks of years predicted by
the prophet Daniel were ended. The fall of Adam was repaired
by the sacrifice of a God. The mediation of the Redeemer, the
reconciliation of man with God, was now an accomplished fact.
• ® e adopt hero tho most simplo chronology, without pretending to impose a prefer­
ence. We know tho opinion which places the death of our Lord Jesus Christ under the
consulate of tho Geminii, the 23d year of our era. It is supported by respectable authori­
ties, and has been adopted by some learned critics.

ASCENSION OF OHB LORD.

27

8. Three days after His death, Jesus Christ rises victo­
rious from the tomb—the guards are overturned, the stone of
the sepulchre is moved, the disciples once more behold their
Master, now become glorious, immortal. St. Thomas, -till
incredulous, touches the scars of His wounds, and places his
hand in the wound in His side. During forty days, Jesus
remains in the midst of them, renewing His instructions for
the completion of His work, and performing a multitude of
miracles. This fact of the resurrection, perfectly established
by the four Evangelists, superabundantly demonstrated by even
the incredulity of St. Thomas, “who refused, obstinately, to
believe,” said St. Leo the Great, “in order that the world might
be more fully assured of the fact,” is the basis of our faith, and
the confirmation of the divinity of the Church. “If Jesus
Christ be not risen again,” said St. Paul, “ then is our preach­
ing vain, and your faith is also vain.” It was during the forty
days our Saviour remained on earth after His resurrection that
His disciples, having seen Him, touched Him, spoken with Him.
and received His instructions, derived from Him their undaunted
courage to announce the Gospel. Finally, Jesus united them
around Him for the last time at Bethania; and on a mountain
near this city, He addressed to them these words: “AU power
has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go preach the
Gospel to every creature, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." He then
extended His hands over them and blessed them. At the same
moment He was raised up towards heaven, and a cloud re­
ceived Him out of their sight.

GENERAI. HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

28

CHAPTER II.
§ I. Pontificate

of

St. Peter (a.d. 33, June 29, a.d. 67).

1. Pentecost.—2. Life

of the primitive Christians.—3. Election of the seven deacons.—4. Conver­

sion of St. Paul.—5. Calling of the Gentiles.—6. Persecution by Herod
Agrippa.

Dispersion of the Apostles.—7. First mission of St. Paul.—

8. Council of Jerusalem.—9. Second mission of St. Paul.—10. Third mission
of St Paul—11. Fourth mission of St. Paul.—12. First general persecution
under Nero.

Martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul.

§ II. Pontificate

of

13. Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.—14. Death

St. Lincs (a.

d.

of St. Linus.

§ III. Pontificate of St. Cletus, or Anacletus (a. d. 78-91).

67-78).

15. Identity of St. Cletus, or Anacletus.—16. Extension of Christianity into
Gaul and Germany.

§ IV. Pontificate of St. Clement I. (a.d. 91-100).

17. Letters of St. Clement to the Corinthians.—18.

Heresies of the first

century.—19. Second general persecution under Domitian.

§1. Pontificate of St. Peter (a.d. 33, June 29, a.d. 67).

1. In ascending to heaven, the Son of God left to His dis­
ciples the charge to continue His mission, and to preach the
Gospel to all people. To fulfil their sublime calling, they had
need of great strength and high intelligence ; of nothing less
than the fulness of the Holy Ghost, which, according to the
promise of the Saviour, would instruct them in all things. Until
their apostleship was confirmed by the coming of the Holy
Spirit—the same which had descended upon Jesus, in the
form of a dove, at the commencement of His public life—the
apostles remained in the *
cœnaculum, or upper supper-room,
“with Mary, mother of Jesus, and the holy women, persevering
in prayer.” During these days of expectation, Peter, for the
• Used frequently by the primitive Chriatiane aa an oratory and placo of public worship

PENTECOST.

29

first time assuming the authority with which he had been in­
vested, “ to feed the sheep and the lambs,” in virtue of his
primacy, spoke, and explained the necessity of preserving
the original number of the Apostolic College, and of filling
the place of the traitor Judas by the election of a new apos­
tle. The choice fell upon Matthias. Thus were filled the
twelve thrones on which were to be seated the judges of
the twelve tribes of Israel. Several days after, on the fes­
tival which commemorated the promulgation of the law on
Mount Sinai, the Holy Spirit, in the form of tongues of fire,
descended upon the assembled apostles and disciples, and com­
municated to them the intelligence and ardent zeal which was
destined to renew the face of the earth. Since that mo­
ment this vivifying Spirit remains indissolubly united to the
Church, His mystical spouse, and preserves within her the
unity and love of the faith. Every period of ecclesiastical his­
tory presents to us the trace of His fecundating inspirations.
His gifts were soon made manifest in the Apostles. These
men, hitherto so slow to believe, so narrow in their views, so
vacillating and timid, from this marvellous hour display an
energy, a zeal, a courage, which faltered not until death. But
it was the gift of languages which at first made the strongest
impression upon the Jews and proselytes, who were assembled
from all quarters of the globe to celebrate, at Jerusalem, the
feast of Pentecost. Parthians and Medes, inhabitants of Asia
Minor and Mesopotamia, Jews from Egypt and Rome, from
Lybia, Crete, and Arabia, were amazed to hear, each in his
own language, the words of the disciples. The voice of
the Prince of the Apostles converted on this day to the faith
three thousand men. Some days later, Peter—for from him
emanated all the earliest acts of the rising Church—Peter,
with a word, cured a man lame from his birth, on the steps ot
the temple. The people assembled in wondering crowds to
see the prodigy. The Chief of the Apostles preached to the
multitude the name of Jesus Christ, and five thousand of them
were converted. The leaders of the Jews began to be alarmed

30

GENERAL HI8TORV OF THE CHURCH.

at such a manifestation of power in works and in words.
The priests and Sadducees commanded Peter and John to be
seized and cast into prison; and the following day they were
summoned before the Sanhedrim. In the presence of these
judges Peter preached the divinity of Jesus Christ, and His
resurrection from the dead. They commanded him never to
pronounce this divine name before the people. “Judge for
yourselves,” he replied, “if it be right to obey you rather than
God. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen
and heard.” They were liberated. Every day augmented the
number of believers who were converted to Jesus Christ by
the preaching, not less than the miracles of the Apostles. The
sick were placed in the streets, that, while Peter was pass­
ing, bis shadow might fall upon them ; and the people of the
adjacent towns brought to Jerusalem the possessed and the
sick of every description, and they returned healed. The rig­
orous measures of the synagogue were powerless to arrest the
rapid progress of the Church. Peter was thrown into prison,
but in the night he was delivered by an angel ; the Apostles
were beaten, but they rejoiced to bear this opprobrium for the
name of Jesus Christ. Already the question of putting them to
death had been agitated in the Sanhedrim, but one of its mem­
bers, Gamaliel, prevented this crime.
2. The multitude of the believers were of one heart and
one mind, and formed but one family, who held every thing in
common. There were no poor among them, because they who
had lands or houses sold them, and brought the price to the
Apostles for distribution among the *
needy.
They continued
the religious exercises in common use with the Jews, frequent­
ing the temple at the hours of prayer and sacrifice, where they
were accustomed to assemble under Solomon’s porch. They
dso assembled in the coenacles or oratories of the most commo­
dious or spacious houses of the Christians, under the direction
of the Apostles or of priests appointed by them. There they
• Hæc erat angelica respublica nihil ducere proprium, hoc protulit primum germon
naecens Ecclesia.—Chrysost., In Act Apost, 7.

ELECTION OF THE SEVEN DEACONS.

31

were instructed in the mysteries of faith and the maxims "f
Jesus Christ, persevering with fervor in prayer and in t! ·
communion of the breaking of bread; that is to say. in *■;··
reception of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. After
they took, in common, their ordinary nourishment. The*'·
were the repasts afterwards called ayapts (charity and affec­
tion). The community of goods did not lead to an entire
relinquishment of the right and possession of property—it was
never imposed on any one as a duty, nor was it ever introduced
into the other Churches. It is, therefore, a gross historic error
to pretend that the spirit of the Gospel in the primitive Church
was destructive of the rights of property. When Ananias and
Sapphira sought to deceive the Apostles, in reserving for them­
selves a part of the sum which they, had received for their
goods, Peter said to them, “ Why have you lied unto God ?
Were you not free to keep all for yourselves, and to enjoy it?”
The sudden death with which they were smitten at the feet of
the Prince of the Apostles demonstrated to the faithful th:::
they could not, with impunity, deceive the ministers of the
Lord. In exterior things, the Christians lived like the Jews,
with whom certain pagan contemporary authors have con­
founded them. Thev still observed the ceremonies of the law.
although, after tLeir fulfilment, in the person of Jesus Christ,
they had, in their figurative character, ceased to be obligatory.
This was an epoch of transition, which was not to close until
after the ruin of Jerusalem, announced by the prophetic words
of the Saviour, who had warned His own generation that
they would witness the catastrophe.
3. The complaints of certain Hellenistic Jews, of Greek
origin, who represented that their widows were forgotten in
the distribution of alms daily dispensed by the Apostles, gave
occasion, about this time, to the election of seven deacons (a.1».
33). They were chosen by the faithful, and presented to the
Apostles, who imposed hands on them. Stephen, Philip,
Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a prose­
lyte of Antioch (Acts vi.), were charged with this ministry.

82

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

which consisted in providing food for the poor and the distribu­
tion of the alms. They also served at the administration of the
Eucharist and preached the Gospel, as is proved by the example
of St. Stephen, (he most prominent among them. The numerous
conversions which God wrought through his word, marked him
as a subject for the fury of the priests. Accused by them of
blasphemy, Stephen was dragged without the walls of Jerusalem
and stoned. He died praying for his murderers, and was the
first among those martyrs of the Church whose blood has not
ceased to flow for the cause of God, and in vindication of the
truth, during eighteen centuries. The immediate effect of the
persecution which followed, and extended to all the Christian
inhabitants of Jerusalem, was to disperse the faithful over the ad­
jacent cities and through them, to found new churches in Pales­
tine, Samaria, and even in Phoenicia, Syria, and Cyprus. The
preaching and the miraculous cures of the Deacon Philip gained
over to the Gospel a great number of Samaritans, who afterwards
received the sacrament of Confirmation and the gifts of the Holy
Spirit from the hands of Peter and John. Λ providential meet
ing of Philip with an Ethiopian eunuch—of great authority
under the Queen Candace—who was returning from Jerusalem,
led to his conversion and baptism. On his return to his country,
he there propagated Christianity. About this time, Simon the
Magician, proposing to purchase from the Apostles, for money,
their power of communicating the gifts of the Holy Spirit, was
repulsed with horror by St. Peter. Such was the first attempt
to commit the abominable crime of simony, which has pre­
served the name of its author, and which consists in the sacri­
legious desire to purchase spiritual gifts with material offerings.
Simon, far from repenting his error, employed his imperfect
knowledge of the truths of the Gospel to broach a heresy,
the first which appeared in the Church. He claimed, as a
principle, that as no actions are good in their nature, therefore
works are of no avail for salvation; and that grace alone is
sufficient to save men, without co-operation with it on their
part. This was the germ of the heresy of Predeetinarianism.

CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL.

33

II is doctrine consisted in a sort of fusion of the elemenis of
Christianity with the fables of pagan mythology. This was
the germ of Gnosticism.
4. Among the persecutors of the faithful, who made him­
self most remarkable by his indefatigable activity, his passion­
ate and almost ferocious zeal, was Saul, still young, born
at Tarsus, in Cilicia, of Jewish parents, of the tribe of Benja­
min, but Roman citizens. During the martyrdom of St. Ste­
phen, Saul had charge of the garments of those who stoned
the holy deacon. Since then he had not ceased to pur­
sue the Christians ; but the time was come when the wolf
was to be changed into a lamb, the persecutor into an apos­
tle. This young Cilician, of unprepossessing exterior, was
destined to preach the Gospel before kings and peoples. *Th·
classic culture which he had acquired in the flourishing schools
of Tarsus, his native city, and his eloquence, which the celebrated
Longinus has placed by the side of that of Demosthenes, Æ
chines, and Isocrates, served to prepare him to preach the name
of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. The knowledge of the Hebrew
Scriptures and traditions, which he gained at the feet of Gama­
liel, eminently enabled him to expound the doctrines of Chris­
tianity to the Jews. By the sublimity of his talents, the energy
of his will, the ardor of his character, he was called to propagate
afar the Church of Christ, and to make known all the depth
and the riches of the evangelic doctrine, by. expounding it
with marvellous clearness in face of -the prejudices of Judaism
and the errors of paganism. To stay the progress of the
Gospel, Saul, in the years 35, 36, obtained letters from the
grand council, or Sanhedrim, of the Jews, addressed to the
chiefs of the synagogues in Palestine and Syria, which granted
him full powers to bring in chains, to Jerusalem, all Chris­
tians on whom he could lay hands. He was on his way to
Damascus, when, suddenly, on the road, he was enveloped by
a supernatural light. Stricken and dazzled, he fell to the
• Bossu BT,

3

Panttfyrique de St PuuL

84

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

ground, and hoard a voice, saying, “ Saul, why persecutest
thou mo ?" On his asking, “ Who art thou, Lord ?” he re­
ceived the answer, “ I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.” At
the same moment he was ordered to proceed to Damascus,
where he should learn what he must do. During his sojourn
in that city, the disciple Ananias, warned by a heavenly
vision, came to visit him; and, laying his hands upon him.
restored his sight, which he had lost on the road to Damascus,
and baptized him. Saul, entirely changed, began immediately
to preach the name of Christ, of whom he had been the most
ardent persecutor. He travelled over Arabia Petræa, either to
preach to the Jews whom he found there, or to prepare him­
self, in retreat, for his apostolic mission. After three years,
returning to Damascus, he was obliged to fly in the night, to
escape the snares of the Jew’s, who would have killed him.
He then made his first visit to Jerusalem, to see Peter, “to
observe, to study him,” says St. Chrysostom, “ as one greater,
as well as older, than himself.” “ To see him,” according to
Bossuet, “ in order to establish forever the principle, that
however learned, however holy one may be, he must see
Peter.” Saul, the persecutor, afterwards changed his name
into that of Paul the Apostle, to express, in a way to be un­
derstood, the interior transformation which grace had wrought
in him. He courageously preached the Gospel in the syna­
gogues, but the murderous attempts of the angry Hellenists
against him having soon obliged him to leave Jerusalem, he
returned to Tarsus.
5. About this time (a. d. 35) the Apostle St. James was
chosen by St. Peter, and raised to the dignity of Bishop of
Jerusalem. His merit had obtained for him the surname of
the Just. He was called the brother of the Lord, according
to the genius of the Hebrew tongue, because, being the son of
Alpheus and Mary, sister of the Blessed Virgin, he was related
to Jesus Christ. Leaving the disciples of Jerusalem under the
direction of this holy pastor, Peter began to travel over the
towns of Judea, to visit the saints, for so the first Christians

CALLING OP ΤΠΕ GENTILES.

36

were often called, and confirm them in the faith. Miracles,
then necessary to the propagation of the Gospel, accompanied
his word. At Lydda, otherwise called Diospolis, he restored
a paralytic to health, and all the inhabitants of this town
and of the country of Sharon were converted to the Lord.
At Joppa he recalled to life the widow Tabitha, and re­
stored her to the saints, for whom she was a model ; to the
poor, of whom she was a benefactress. Meanwhile, the hour
was come when the gates of the Church, hitherto open only
to the Jews, were to be equally free for the entrance of
pagans. Peter, who went about Palestine, employing the
time which the persecution allowed in forming and enlarging
the new churches, was prepared for this great event by a
warning received in a vision, that he should no longer con­
sider as unclean that which God had pronounced clean. At
the same time, another vision directed a man who feared God,
the centurion Cornelius, of Cœsarea, to send for the Chief of
the Apostles at Joppa, where he had just recalled to life
Tabitha, the widow» Peter obeyed the summons, and an­
nounced the Gospel to the centurion and his friends who
shared his sentiments. While he explained the divine doc­
trine, his auditory, composed chiefly of pagans, received, all at
once, the Holy Spirit ; and the faithful, who came with Peter,
heard them speak in languages which they had never learned.
Peter, therefore, had no hesitation in baptizing men so evi­
dently called of God. Thus the Church received these firstfruits of the Gentiles into her bosom. It should he remarked,
that to Peter alone, among the Apostles, God at first revealed
the mystery of the union of the Jews and Gentiles in the same
fold—a mystery the most difficult for the early disciples to
believe, educated as they had been in the maxims of Judaism,
and in a legal and absolute separation from other nations. Th«·
fact of the calling of the Gentiles was soon solemnly consecrated
by the foundation of the apostolic see of Antioch, of which St.
Peter was the first Bishop, and where the faithful were for
the first time called Christians {Christiani}. The Latin termi­

36

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

nation of this word gives reason to conclude that it was
originally employed by Romans living al Antioch.
6. A second persecution, but at this time especially direct­
ed against the chiefs of the rising Church, was instigated by
Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great, on whom the
Emperor Claudius had conferred, at the same lime, the royal
dignity and that of governor of Judea. To prove himself a
zealous Jew, and desirous to please the people, Herod Agrippa
ordered the decapitation of St. James, son of Zebedee, and the
imprisonment of Peter under a rigorous guard. The head of
the Church, for whose deliverance the faithful continued in
fervent prayer, was set at liberty during the night by an
angel. He left Jerusalem immediately, and the sudden death
of Agrippa, after which Judea became a Roman province, put
an end to the persecution. In the interval, the Apostles sep­
arated, to go and preach the Gospel to all nations. Before
their departure they composed a substantial abridgment of
Christian doctrine, commonly called the Apostles’ Creed, the
object of which was to secure unity of faith, as the primacy of
St. Peter would maintain unity in government. The history
of most of the Apostles, after their dispersion, is involved in
nearly impenetrable obscurity. St. Luke, from this period,
treats only of the acts of St. Paul, St. John, and St. James,
of whom we have more precise information than of the others.
Brief notices, which are often uncertain, are all that remain to
us. St. Matthias went to preach the Gospel in Colchis ; St.
Jude, in Mesopotamia ; St. Simon, in Lybia ; St. Matthew,
after having written his Gospel, at’the request of the faithful
in Judea, went into Ethiopia ; St. Bartholomew, into the
Greater Armenia; St. Thomas, to the Parthians, and even to
India ; St. Philip, after having evangelized Upper Asia, died
at Hierapolis, in Phrygia ; St. Andrew was sent to the
Scythians, whence he passed into Greece and Epirus; James,
son of Alpheus, remained at Jerusalem, of which he had been
appointed Bishop ; St. John preached in Asia Minor. Ac­
cording to the most probable opinions, the Blessed Virgin

FircHT MISSION OF ST. PAUL.

37

«accompanied him in his apostolic journeys. An annent and
generally received tradition attests that she died at Jerusalem
and the belief of the Church is, that, after her death, she wa .
by a glorious assumption, taken up body and soul into
heaven.”* She died, so far as is known, at Jerusalem,
about the years 45 or 47. St. Peter had, in the first place,
fixed his see at Antioch, of which he was the first Bishop.
After remaining there nearly seven years, he quitted it, to
establish at Rome the future residence of the vicars of
Christ. These two episcopates of St. Peter have been consid­
ered of such importance by the faithful, that, since the first
ages of the Church, two solemn festivals have been established
as memorials of them. In the interval between the foundation
of these two sees, the holy Apostle preached the Gospel in
Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia Minor, fol­
lowed by Mark, Pancratius, Marcian, Rufus, and Apollinaris,
future Bishops of Alexandria, Syracuse, and Capua. Mark,
his disciple, was, however, sent by St. Peter to found th»·
Church of Alexandria. The capital of Egypt thus received
the faith, by this intermediary, from St. Peter, as Rome, the
capital of the West, and Antioch, the capital of the East, wer··
founded, also, by the great Apostle. Before leaving his master,
St. Mark wrote his Gospel, at the request of the faithful at
Rome, who desired to preserve the remembrance of the preach­
ing of the head of the Apostles.
7. About the same time, St. Paul received at Antioch hi?
consecration to the apostleship. To this consecration he
appeals (Gal. i. 1) when he says that it is not by man, but by
the grace of Jesus Christ, that he has been made an Apostle.
Taking with him Barnabas and John Mark, they set out
together on their first mission. They preached the Gospel at
Salamina, capital of the Isle of Cyprus, first addjessing them* The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin has never been deiined an article of faith. It
is with it, as it was with the Immaculate Conception before the dogmatic decree of December
8, 1854, which tilled the Catholic world with joy. Nevertheless, the belief of the Assump­
tion of the Blessed Virgin, consecrated by tradition and by the feast celebrated in her
honor, in both the Latin and Greek Churches, is, of right, dear to all the faithful

38

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

selves to the synagogues, to winch their Jewish origin gave
them free entrance. Called to Paphos by the proconsul, Ser­
gius Paulus, Paul struck the impostor Ely mas (Bar-jesu),
who was in the city, with blindness, and gained the proconsul
to the faith.
*
From Paphos these messengers of good tidings
returned to the Asiatic continent, and from Perge, in Pam­
phylia, where Mark left them, they went to Antioch from
Pisidia. There, and at Iconium, in Lycaonia,' their word con­
verted to the Gospel a multitude of Jews and pagans. Among
the new disciples at Iconium was a young maiden, St. Thecla,
whose memory antiquity has celebrated, and placed her name
by the side of that of St. Stephen, because she was the first
martyr of her sex who had the glory of suffering for the name
of Jesus. Dragged before the pagan judges, who would have
forced her to deny her faith, she courageously resisted the
torture, and, by their order, was exposed to the beasts in the
amphitheatre. But the lions came crouching to her feet, not
daring to harm the body of the saintly virgin. The people,
touched by this spectacle, demanded the release of St. Thecla,
who ended her days in peace. She received, nevertheless, the
title of martyr, in accordance with the usage of the early ages of
the Church, when this name was given to all who had suffered
for the Gospel from torments fatal in their nature, even though
they had miraculously survived. At Lystra, where a word
from St. Paul publicly restored to a lame man the use of hie
limbs, the two Apostles were supposed to be gods, and the
people proposed to offer sacrifices to them, as to Jupiter and
Mercury ; but the same people suddenly changing their minds,
under the influence of the Jews, pursued Paul with stones, and
dragged him out of the city. They thought him dead, but the
will of God preserved him for other combats und other tri­
umphs. The Apostles departed the next day for Derbe, which
also they evangelized. In another visit to the believers of
* It is supposed by many that the Apostle changed his name from Saul to Paul in honor
Of this distinguished convert. This opinion is confirmed by tho fact that he is constantly
called Paul from this period.—A. B.

COUNCIL OP JERUSALEM.

39

Lystra, Antioch, Pisidia, and Iconium, they appointed pastors
to these rising churches ; and returning to Antioch, in Syria,
closed their first mission.
8. Called to the apostleship in an extraordinary manner.
St. Paul had received directly from God the understanding
necessary for his work. But, in order to give to his instruction
and discipline the exterior sanction of the truth, and a perfect
accordance with the doctrine and conduct of the other Apostles,
and urged, too, by a superior inspiration, he went to Jerusalem,
the second time since his conversion, accompanied by Barnaba.»
and Titus, whom he had brought from the darkness of pagan­
ism to the light of the Gospel. There he met St. Peter, who
had just arrived, and SS. James and John. From this time
the question of the positive obligation of the Mosaic law was
agitated among them ; and it was one of decided importance
to the progress of the Christian society. No question, indeed,
presented greater difficulties to the Jews—particularly to those
who lived at Jerusalem, in view of the temple, and in the
midst of the still subsisting sacrifices—than that of divesting
themselves of the prejudices through which they regarded the
exact observance of the law as the only means of justification and
salvation. It was only with extreme difficulty they could con­
ceive that faith in Jesus Christ was sufficient for the justification
of the pagan converts, without submitting to circumcision and
other legal prescriptions ; and they refused to communicate
with them so long as they failed to bear those marks of the
law of servitude. St. Paul opposed these requirements with
all his energy. The three Apostles, Peter, James, and John,
held the same doctrine, recognizing him and Barnabas as their
true colleagues, and decided that the two latter should be
specially sent to preach to the pagans, while the former contin­
ued to evangelize the Jews. Soon after the return of Paul
and Barnabas to Antioch, Peter joined them, and made no
scruple to eat with the uncircumcised believers, until the
arrival of some Christian Jews, sent by St. James. Fearing
io scandalize these austere zealots for the law, who regarded

40

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the uncircumcised and their repasts as unclean, St. Peter with­
drew himself from the table of the pagan converts. The agi­
tation which this incident occasioned in the Church at Antioch
showed the necessity of an authoritative decision on the part
of the Apostles united at Jerusalem. Paul and Barnabas were
sent thither as deputies. The five Evangelists, Peter, James,
John, Paul, and Barnabas, with the priests and faithful, consti­
tuted the first council, known as the Council of Jerusalem. St.
Peter, in his quality of head of the Church, opened the assem­
bly. He declared that in calling them to the faith, God had
made no difference between the Jews and Gentiles. The
Church of Jesus Christ was the prophetic mountain of Isaiah,
where all nations of the earth were to meet in the unity of
faith. St. Paul and St. James spoke in the same sense, and
the final decision of the council reduced the obligations of the
pagan converts to the following : 1st. To abstain from meats
offered in sacrifice ; 2d, from the flesh of strangled animals, and
from blood ; 3d, from fornication. The prohibition to partici­
pate in the meats of sacrifices was necessary to preserve the
new Christians from relapsing into paganism. As to fornica­
tion, the moral sense of the pagans was so extinct that they
looked upon it as an action of no consequence ; and it was
important that purity of manners should become a distinctive
mark of the new law. The prohibition of strangulated flesh was
sustained by the Church out of regard to the health of her
children ; that against blood had a higher origin. Blood, in the
sacrifices, was the principal offering reserved for the Lord. So
long as sacrifices continued to be offered in the temple of Jeru­
salem, it may readily be conceived that the Christians respect­
fully observed this prescription. To the Jewish mind absti­
nence from blood was a divine precept, obligatory on all men;
it was therefore necessary, in order to lessen their repugnance
to any kind of communication with the Gentiles, to impose, for
the time, the same prohibition on all Christians. The decision
of the council, preceded by these solemn words—·“ It has seemed
good to the Holy Spirit and to us,” was sent to the Churches

SECOND MISSION OF ST. PAUL.

41

of Syria and Cilicia ; and Paul, with Barnabas, returned to
Antioch, while Peter took the way to Rome.
9. In a short time St. Paul began a second mission, accom­
panied by Silas only—Barnabas having separated from them
because St. Paul refused to take John Mark with him
Barnabas, therefore, and John Mark embarked for the Isle of
Cyprus ; Paul and Silas went into Asia Minor. Providence
having permitted this separation, that the Gospel might be
preached in a greater number of places at the same time.
A. D. 53 St. Paul first visited the Churches of Northern Syria.
Cilicia, and Lycaonia. At Lystra he was joined by the young
Timothy, who was the son of a Greek father and a Jewish
mother, now a Christian. Conformably to the desire of St.
Paul, Timothy, in order to obtain easier access to the Jews,
was circumcised. The three heralds of the faith then travelled
over Phrygia, Galatia, and Mysia. At Troas the physician and
evangelist, Luke, joined them. A vision whith St. Paul had
in a dream, induced him to quit Asia and go into Macedonia.
At Philippi, a seller of purple, named Lydia, was converted,
with all her household. In this same city, on account of the
cure of a slave who was possessed by an evil spirit, Paul and
Silas, by order of the governor, after having been beaten with
rods, were cast into prison, as seducers of the people, and as
preachers of a new and not authorized religion. The joyful
constancy of the Apostles, and the miracle which opened their
dungeon in the night, so troubled the jailer, that, having been
instructed by St. Paul, he believed in Jesus Christ, and
received baptism, with all his family. The authorities of the
city, alarmed at the precipitation with which they had mal­
treated a Roman citizen, for St. Paul enjoyed this title bj
birth, restored the prisoners to liberty with much respect,
praying them, nevertheless, to depart. But the foundations
of the Church were already laid in Philippi. The Apostlemade a longer stay in the populous city of Thessalonica, where
there was a synagogue, and formed among the Jews a church,
which soon became flourishing. Meanwhile, the unbelieving

42

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Jews having sought, by calumnious charges, to extort from the
pagan authorities the condemnation of the holy missionaries,
they departed in (he night for the neighboring city of Berea,
where, among the Jewish inhabitants, they found greater sym­
pathy. Pursued, even in this city, by the Jews of Thessalon­
ica, Paul left Silas and Timothy, and, alone, sailed for Athens.
This city, the centre of civilization, arts, and letters, now
despoiled of her political importance, and reduced to be the
mere slave of Rome, still governed her masters by her science
and genius. The future consuls and Cæsare came to learn, in
her schools, to think justly and to speak well. The eye en­
countered, everywhere, statues and temples raised in honor of
the gods with pagan pomps and bloody sacrifices. One name­
less altar in this capital of polytheism, dedicated to the Un­
known God, furnished the Apostle a favorable subject for the
commencement of his work. Led by Stoics and Epicureans
before the Areopagus, the supreme tribunal in religious, mat­
ters, St. Paul announced, in the presence of an astonished audi­
tory, the one God Almighty, “ in whom we live, and move, and
have our being,” and who will judge the world by Him whom
He has raised from among the dead. Some replied to him in
mockery; others, that “ they would hear him another time."
A few believed in Jesus Christ, among whom was Dionysius,
member of the Areopagus, and an humble woman named
Damaris. From Athens St. Paul went, to the capital of
Achaia, the voluptuous Corinth, where he dwelt with a con­
verted Jew named Aquila, laboring with his own hands for
his support as a tent-maker, and preaching in the synagogue.
But here also the greater number of the Jews received his
doctrine with such hostility, that at length he turned, with
more success, towards the Greeks. lie formed, in a short
time, a community of believers, of whom Crispus, chief of the
synagogue, was a member, which, during the year and a half
it was under the direction of the Apostle, became one among
the most flourishing and numerous. A second time the Jews
carried their complaints before the proconsul Gallio, brother

THIRD MISSION OF ST. PAUL.

43

of the famous philosopher, Seneca ; but he dismissed them,
declaring that he would not interfere in a Jewish religious
quarrel. During these proceedings, Silas and Timothy, re­
turning from Macedonia, brought to St. Paul consoling accounts
of the state of the Churches in that, country. This was the
occasion of the First, and, soon after, of the Second Epistle of
St. Paul to the Thessalonians. The Apostle returned to
Syria, and, after a brief sojourn at Jerusalem, proceeded to
Antioch, having accomplished this second mission a. d. 56.
10. A third soon followed, which he began in Asia Minor.
He paused three days at Ephesus, preaching the Gospel to the
inhabitants and the numerous strangers attracted to this opu­
lent city, by commercial relations and the magnificence of the
Temple, of Diana, which was reckoned among the wonders of
the world. There was awakened the first suspicion that the
reign of Christ menaced the worship, until then all-powerful,
of the idols ; and that the great Diana of the Ephesians might
fall into dust before the Crucified. A tumult, excited by the
goldsmith Demetrius, whose models of the temple of the
great goddess might fall into discredit, endangered the life
of the Apostle ; but one of the magistrates of the city found
means to tranquillize the people. During this sojourn at
Ephesus, St. Paul wrote to the Christians of Galatia, to guard
them against the false judaizing doctors, who taught the posi­
tive obligation of the Mosaic law. It was during this same
interval that he sent Titus with his First Epistle to the Church
at Corinth, then threatened with intestine dissensions. Feel­
ing an ardent desire to see once more the faithful of Philippi,
Thessalonica, and Berea, he wrent, in the year 59, by Troas
into Macedonia, where he wrote his Second Epistle to the Co­
rinthians. From this it appears that for the accomplishment
of his mission he had suffered, chiefly from the Jews, the most
barbarous treatment, and incurred dangers of which St. Luke
makes no mention. It is probably at the same epoch that he
sent to his disciple Timothy, left by him at the head of the
church in Ephesus, a First Epistle, containing instructions on

44

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

his duty ns Bishop. Having afterwards turned his apostolic
zeal towards the churches of Greece, he sent by the deaconcss
Phoebe» who was going to Rome, his admirable Epistle to the
faithful of that city, who were beginning to form a church.
In the year GO, he hastened his return to Syria, with many
others from the churches of Arabia and Macedonia, to be
present at Jerusalem on the feast of Pentecost. At Miletus,
having assembled the bishops and priests of Ephesus and the
neighboring churches, he conjured them, in a touching dis­
course, to guard the flocks confided to their keeping; he
warned them against the false doctors who would soon appear;
and after praying with them, he departed, with a presentiment
of the perils that awaited him. At Cæsarea, he saw the
deacon Philip and his four daughters, who were endowed
with the gift of prophecy. At Jerusalem he found none of
the Apostles except St. James, Bishop of the city. The
numerous members of the Church at Jerusalem, all composed
of converted Jews, still held strongly to the observances of
the Mosaic law. Many of them were hostile to St. Paul, and
accused him, falsely, of having urged the Jews of the Diaspora
to set aside the law and circumcision.
*
St. James advised
him to remove this suspicion by undertaking a Jewish cere­
mony for four of the faithful, who ηολν accomplished, in the
temple, the vow of the·Nazarite. St. Paul consented, but
having been recognized by certain Jews of Asia Minor, they
pointed him out to the fanatical fury of the people as a con­
temner of the law and profaner of the temple ; and he would
have been massacred, but for the intervention of the Roman
tribune, Lysias. Conducted by Lysias himself before the
Sanhedrim, at the head of which was seated the high-priest
Ananias, a bitter enemy of the new faith, the sentence of
death was prepared, when Paul reminded the Pharisees present
in the assembly, that he had become an object of hatred to the
Sadducees for having maintained the doctrine of the resurrcc• The Jowe who were dispersed in the Roman provinces were called the Diaspora, from
two Greek words, nui and

THIRD MISSION OF ST. PACL.

45

tion. The spirit of party, kindling at once the whole nature
of the Pharisees, rendered them, for the moment, oblivion·
*
of
their former animosity against him who had desert· d their
sect, and they declared that they found nothing in him worthy
of chastisement. Lysias profited by this declaration to with­
draw St. Paul from the rage of the Sadducees; but knowing
that forty Zelotes (fanatical Jews) had sworn his death, he
had him conveyed to Cæsarea, before Felix the governor, with
a certificate of innocence. His enemies, and the high-priest
with them, pursued him to that city. Felix, not daring to
attack a Roman citizen, and hoping, also, that St. Paul would
purchase his liberty, remanded him to a not strict confinement,
where he passed two years. The implacable persecutors of
the Apostle accused him before Portius Festus, the successor
of Felix, and neglected nothing to procure bis condemnation.
St. Paul appealed from him to the emperor, and Portius
accepted the appeal. Soon after these proceedings the young
King Agrippa,
*
with Berenice his sister, wife, first of Herod,
King of Chalcis, and later of Palemon, King of Pontus, having
come to visit the new governor, Festus, and desirous to know
the celebrated prisoner who was spoken of by all Judea, St.
Paul was brought before them. The Apostle seized this occa­
sion to preach the Gospel before the powerful of the earth.
King Agrippa was a Jew. “ Believest thou the prophets '.”
demanded St. Paul of the king. “I know that thou belie vest.'
And Agrippa said to Paul: “Almost thou persuadest me to
be a Christian.” “ Would to God,” replied St. Paul, “ that not
only thou, but also all that hear me this day should become
such as I am, except these bonds!” And the king rose up,
and the governor, ami Berenice, and they that sat with them,
saying : “ This man has done nothing that merits either
death or the prison. He might have been set at liberty, if
he had not appealed to Caesar." In the year 62, St. Paul
♦ Thia Agrippa was a son of Herod Agrippa, deceased in a. d. 43 or 44- He wm
present with Titus at the siege of Jerusalem, and was the last king of the Jews. His fate,
after the dispersion, is not known Ik· probably died during tho reign of OouuUau.

46

GENERAL· HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

set out, as a prisoner, for Rome, accompanied by St. Luke and
Aristarchus. In consequence of a shipwreck on the coast of
Malta, lie was delayed three months on that island. On his
arrival at Puteoli (Pozzuoli), he received a fraternal reception
from the Church which was already formed there ; and finally,
in the year 63, the eighth of the reign of Nero, ho made hie
entry into the capital of the empire, in the midst of the Chris­
tian brethren who had hastened to meet him. Two years he
lived at Rome, under a slight restraint, enjoying the permission
to occupy a private lodging with the soldier who had charge
of him. and to receive those who came to visit him ; conse­
quently he was free to preach the Gospel. Here ceases the
narrative of the Acts of the Apostles by St. Luke. This mon­
ument of the primitive Church is the most precious of its
history. The first conquests of the Gospel in the pagan world
do not present a triumph, the effects of which vanish with the
times when they occurred. The position of the Church re­
mains the same in all ages. She has always had fierce enemies
to combat—Jews or Gentiles, heretics or unbelievers, philoso­
phers or executioners. St. Paul, that sublime missionary, who,
in passing, wins cities and kingdoms, is the model above
every other for all the teachers, all the ministers of Jesus
Christ. For them, as for him, their strength is in their own
weakness; they' triumph when they are vanquished.
11. During his captivity of two years at Rome, besides the
short letter sent to Philemon by Onesimus, a fugitive and con­
verted slave, whom he sent back to his master, St. Paul wrote
the Epistle to the Ephesians, which is a true evangelical
letter, addressed to the faithful in Asia Minor; the Epistle to
the Colossians, and that to the Philippians, in which he sets
forth, touching the resurrection of our Saviour, the principles
of faith, the redemption of fallen man, and the calling of the
Gentiles. At the same time, probably, he wrote the Epistle to
the Hebrews, addressed to the Jews in Judea and Jerusalem, hi
this epistle, St. Paul explains how Christianity came forth from
the Jewish religion, and how immeasurably superior the new

FIRST GENERAL PERSECUTION.

47

law is to the ancient. The apostolic, zeal of St. Peter and Si
Paul, united in the same city, occasioned a rapid progress of’
the church at Rome. The teachings of Christianity had found
I heir way even into the imperial court., so that St. Paul could
write to the Philippians : “All the faithful salute yon, espe­
cially those of Cæsar’s household.” At this epoch is placed the
apocryphal interview of St. Paul with Seneca. The almost
Christian maxims spread over the works of this philosopher,
leave no doubt that he had at least known the morals of the
Gospel. It was, apparently, to the good offices of influential
friends and disciples that the Apostle owed his deliverance
from imprisonment, in the beginning of the year 65. He
availed himself of his liberty to undertake immediately new
missions, of which, unfortunately, we have no precise informa­
tion. There is, nevertheless, reason to believe that he exe­
cutefl the project of a visit to Spain, which he mentions in his
Epistle to the Romans. This opinion is confirmed by the tes­
timony of a contemporary author, Clement of Rome, wh
informs us, “ that Paul was the herald of the Christian faith
to the whole world, and penetrated even to the limits of the
West.” The Apostle went also into the Island of Crete,
accompanied by his disciple Titus, whom he left there as over­
seer of the newly-founded churches, with power to institute
bishops and priests. lie sent to him afterwards, from Nicopo­
lis (Epirus), «an instruction on the manner of directing the
flock confided to his care. This is the Epistle to Titus, in the
canonical Scriptures. From Nicopolis Paul went to Corinth,
visited once more the churches of Troas and Miletus, and
returned to Rome towards the end of the year 66.
12. The first general persecution of the Church had just
begun, by order of Nero. The pretext was worthy of the
tyrant. Disgusted with the simplicity of the ancient edifices
of Rome ; or, rather, by a barbarous caprice, being disposed to
give g spectacle which might rival the taking of Troy, Nero
commanded the city to be set on fire. Of the fourteen divi­
sions which then composed it, four only escaped the flames.

48

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

The emperor, to exculpate himself from the infamy of his own
act, endeavored to fix it upon the Christians. lie had them
arrested and condemned to the most horrible torments. Some,
covered with skins of wild beasts, were hunted, torn, and de­
voured by dogs, in imitation of a barbarous chase ; others were
crucified. Some were enveloped in resinous and other com­
bustible matters, and fastened to posts along the streets, or in
the alleys of the imperial gardens. In the evening they were
set on fire, like torches destined to illumine the night. Nero,
meanwhile, walked about his gardens, or drove himself in a
car, by the light of these homicidal illuminations. St. Paul
was arrested and brought before the tribunal of this crowned
monster ; but he spoke with such eloquence and courage,
‘•'that he escaped,” as he says himself, “ from the fury of the
lion.” Nero was satisfied with sending him to prison. At
this time St. Peter was still free, in the midst of Borne, to
yield to the ardor of his zeal, to fortify the Church, or extend
the empire of faith, and, in the presence of Nero himself, to
confound the sacrilegious audacity of Simon Magus
lie cele­
brated the divine mysteries in the house of a Christian named
Pudens. Tradition has regarded this house as the first church
in Rome consecrated to divine worship by the Prince of the
Apostles. Paul, meanwhile, detained in strict captivity, and
in the near expectation of martyrdom, addressed a farewell epis­
tle to his well-beloved disciple. Timothy (a. d. 67). He warned
him to be on his guard against heretics, and, under this name, he
seems to designate more especially the followers of Simon
Magus and the Nicolaites. These last, availing themselves
of an equivocal expression of the holy deacon Nicolas, pre­
tended, upon this authority, to support a debauched sect, who
admitted promiscuous intercourse and the most revolting ex­
cesses. We know not on what pretext they mingled the name
of Nicolas with such scandals. Whatever it may be, St.
Irenæus informs us that these heretics taught the same errors
as the Cerinthians, of whom we shall treat hereafter. St. John
has refuted both, in the beginning of his Gospel. At length

βτ. LINUS (A. D. 67-78).

49

the conversion of one of the concubines of Nero by St. Peter,
brought upon him the wrath of the tyrant. He was arrested
and committed to the Mamertine prison, where he converted
to the faith his two guards, Processus and Martinianus.
Finally, St. Peter and St. Paul were summoned before the
governor of Rome. They, together, confessed the faith to
which they had consecrated their lives, and both were con­
demned to capital punishment. According to a tradition of
the highest antiquity in the Church, the two Apostles prophe­
sied, before their death, the approaching ruin of Jerusalem.
St. Peter, after having been beaten with rods, was crucified,
his head downwards, on Mount Janiculum, and buried in the
Aurelian Way, near the Temple of Apollo, in the same spot
which is now covered by the palace of the Vatican and the
Church of St. Peter, whose grandeur yields in nothing to the
most imposing ruins of the Rome of the Cæsars (June 29, a. d.
67). The same day, St. Paul, as a Roman citizen, was beheaded
near the Fulvian waters, in a place now nearly desert, a short
distance from the Basilica, entitled, St. Paul outside of the
*
Walls
The pontificate of St. Peter lasted thirty-three
years, of which twenty-five were passed at Rome. None of
his successors have reigned so long in the see of Rome. From
this exceptional duration originated the celebrated sentence
pronounced at each exaltation of the Roman pontiffs : zbinos
Petri non videbis—a wholesome reminder of the brevity of hu­
man things amid the most sublime grandeur here below.f

§ II. Pontificate

of

St. Linus (a. d. 67-78).

13. St. Linus, born at Volterra, in Tuscany, one of the
disciples mentioned in the Second Epistle to Timothy (iv. 21),
* The precise spot is marked by the handsome little church of the Three Fountains—
dclle tre Fontane—so called from a beautiful legend that the head of the Apostle, after
being severed from the body, made three leaps, fountains springing up at each point of
contact with the earth. Most visitors to the Eternal City have seen this church, and proved
the existence of the fountains.—A. B.
f For all that regards tho pontificate of St. Peter, see the “Origin of Christianity,'' by
Dr. Dcellinger, from whom we have borrowed much in this chapter.

4

50

GENERAL HISTORV OF THE CHURCH.

was the immediate successor of St. Peter. In the lifetime of
the Prince of the Apostles, he had been appointed to aid him
in the government of the Church. Under his pontificate an
event, matured by the divine justice, and predicted forty years
before by Jesus Christ, was consummated. Jerusalem had to
expiate a deicidc, and history furnishes no record of so terrible
a chastisement as hers. By a design of Providence, this city
was spared so long as she remained the cradle of Christianity;
but when faith had extended her conquests, when, far from
being useful for the propagation of the Gospel, the existence
of Jerusalem was rather an injury to its progress, from the
attachment of the Jewish converts to the Mosaic ceremonies
which they saw practised in the temple, then the vengeance
of God called the Roman legions around the walls of the holy
city. The generation who had heard the threatenings of Jesus
Christ had not passed away. St. Peter and St. Paul had fore­
told the near accomplishment of the prophecies, so that the
ruin of Jerusalem was at once the punishment of the most
horrible of crimes a clear proof of the divinity of the Sa­
viour, and of the religion which He had founded ; the
final separation between Christianity and the law of Moses,
and the seal of reprobation, impressed in characters of blood,
upon the Jewish nation. From the year 66, the party of
Zelotes, or Zealots, had taken up arms to shake off the Homan
power. Some slight successes gained over Cestius Gallus,
proconsul of Syria, exalted the hopes of the fanatics. Warned
by the predictions of the Saviour, the Christians, on the con­
trary, retired to Pella, to avoid the disasters of the coming
war. In fact, Nero, on hearing of the defeat of Cestius Gallus,
appointed Vespasian to conduct the war against the Jews;
apd be, with bis son Titus, seized immediately the fortresses
of Palestine, and then slowly approached the territory of Jeru­
salem, counting on the intestine divisions of the enemy to
attain his end. John of Guiseala, from the name of the for­
tress which he commanded in Galilee, escaped from it and fol­
lowed by a numerous band, threw himself into Jerusalem

ST. LINOS (A. D. 87-18).

Ô1

where he took the government into his own hands, and mal­
treated those who wished for peace. This served to produce
internal dissensions in face of the enemy ; and, as if to prolong
the agony of Jerusalem, Vespasian, on hearing that the legions
of Belgic Gaul had revolted against Nero, and proclaimed
Galba emperor, resolved to abandon the Jewish war for the
present, and, with his army, sailed for the shores of Italy, to
hold himself prepared for events. This interruption of the
war served only to augment the woes of Jerusalem and of all
Judea. The parties of Simon and of John Guiscala fought
against each other even within the city. Famine, earthcpiakes, the sinister lamentations of Jesus, son of Ananus,
mysterious voices which issued from the inner temple, were
presages of the ruin of this people. Vespasian, become empe­
ror himself after the transient reigns of Galba, Otho, and Vitel­
lius (a. d. 68), gave orders to his son Titus to pursue vigorously
the siege of Jerusalem. An immense multitude of Jews were
gathered within the city, for the festival of the Passover, when
Titus invested it with a wall of circumvallation, which ren­
dered all communication from without impossible. The city
was surrounded by a triple girdle of walls, protected by deep
valleys. But the Roman soldiers, encouraged by the presence
of the son of their emperor, succeeded in scaling the first ram­
parts. Five days after the commencement of the siege, the
second wall crumbled under their powerful machines. A Jew­
ish author, Flavius Josephus, who was with the army of Titus,
was sent to the besieged, and he used every means of persua­
sion which might incline them to surrender, but they drove
him back with reproach and outrages. The famine, meanwhile,
had become so fearful in this doomed city that the inhabitants
had recourse to the most horrible expedients to procure a
single morsel of food. They dragged the dead from their
graves, in the wild hope of finding aliment. A woman, a
mother, murdered her own infant, roasted and ate one-half of
its body, and presented the remainder to the famished soldiers,
whom the odor of this execrable meal had attracted to.the spot.

52

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

“It is my son," she said ; “be not more tender than a woman,
nor more compassionate than a mother.” On hearing of it
Titus declared that the ruins of Jerusalem should bury the
remembrance of such a crime. Among those who had suc­
ceeded in escaping from the city, one was found who had
swallowed a number of small pieces of gold. Λ report of thie
discovery being bruited about the camp, the soldiers captured
not less than two thousand fugitives, who were disembowelled,
in order to search for the treasures they were supposed
to contain. At length, on the fifth of July, a. d. 70, the
third wall was carried by assault; but the besieged, more
obstinate than ever, refused to yield, and took refuge in the
temple. This magnificent edifice was built like a fortress, and
completely defended by a square enclosure of impenetrable
walls. Titus had commanded that, at all hazards, this monu­
ment should be preserved. But a soldier, lifted up on the
shoulders of his comrades, “and instigated,” said Josephus,
“by a supernatural impulse,” threw in a firebrand, thus kin­
dling a conflagration that Titus strove in vain to extinguish.
The Jews within the temple were all burned, or they perished
by the sword. The conqueror passed a plough over the ruins
of Jerusalem, and left only three towers standing—Phasael,
Bippicus, and Mariamne. Eleven hundred thousand Jews,
according to Josephus, lost their lives during the siege ; ninety­
seven thousand were sold as slaves; John of Guiscala was
condemned to perpetual imprisonment; Simon, led to Rome in
chains, served to adorn the triumph of Titus, and was then
executed. Such was the end of the Hebrew nation. The
temple, the sacrifices, the legal priesthood, the distinction of
tribes—all disappeared before the sword of Titus, who pro­
claimed himself the instrument of divine vengeance, August
20, a.d. 70. The Christians, conducted by their Bishop, St.
Simeon, successor of St. James, returned to inhabit the ruins
of Jerusalem. Great numbers of Jews, enlightened at last by
the terrible accomplishment of the prophecies, opened thenhearts to the light of the faith.

ST. CLETUS JA. D. 7S-91).

53

14. After a pontificate of twelve years, St. Linns died nt
Rome. The most ancient monuments give him the title of
martyr. We have already remarked that the usage of the
primitive ages gave this title to those who had suffered for
Jesus Christ, even when their persecutors had not pursued
them to death. The Liber Pontificalis—Book of the Popes—
attributes to St. Linus an ordinance which prohibits women
from entering the assemblies of the faithful without a veil.
§ III. Pontificate of St. Cletus, or Anacletus (a. d. 78-91).

15. The succession of the Popes here presents an histori­
cal difficulty which has been fruitful in controversies—Is St.
Cletus different from St. Anacletus? Critics are divided on
this question. The learned researches of the Rev. Fathers
Lazzari and Pappenbrock have at length settled the question by
adopting the identity of the two names in the person of the same
pontiff. According to their opinion, which is now generally fol­
lowed, Cletus, elected the successor of St. Linus, a. d. 78, was
comprised in an order of exile against the Christians, enacted
under Vespasian by the governor of Rome. During the reign
of Titus, the pontiff, returning to his episcopal city, took the
name of Anacletus, or iterum Cletus. Thus is reconciled the
authority of the ancient Fathers and catalogues, who name this
Pope sometimes Cletus—sometimes Anacletus. In the first
year of his pontificate, a violent plague ravaged the city of
Rome (a. d. 78). The Christians manifested their charity and
devotion by their care of the infected, whom the pagans aban­
doned in the streets. There was not, at that time, any open
persecution against the faithful, but the magistrates could
readily find occasions and pretexts for exiling them, or deliv­
ering them to the executioner. In this manner St. Apolli­
naris, first bishop of Ravenna, suffered martyrdom, January
23, a. d. 79. Vespasian had no inclination to attach his name
to bloody edicts of proscription. Of a character merciful and
clement, he was but slightly moved by the charms of idolatry.

54

OENBRAt HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

His last words, on the approach of death, contained a jest upon
(he doctrine of the apotheosis : “ Behold,” said he, “ I am becoming a god!” (June 24, 79.) Titus, his son, the conqueror of
Jerusalem, succeeded him, and, in too short a reign, merited
the title of “ The delight of the human race.”
16. The Gospel was now making itself heard in all coun­
tries. Gaul, that land which the arms of Cæsar had opened for
the Apostles, received the messengers of good tidings in her
principal cities. At Tours flourished St. Gatien ; at Arles, St.
Trophimus; at Narbonne, St. Paul; at Toulouse, St. Saturni­
nus; at Paris, St. Dionysius; at Clermont, in Auvergne, St.
Austremonius ; at Limoges, St. Martial, &c. Although the
origin of these rising churches may be enveloped in obscurity,
the traditions of the people, and the formal testimony of St.
Irenæus and Tertullian, who mention, in their writings, the
churches of Gaul existing in their time, which was the second
century, do not allow us to refer to the third century the
birth of Christianity in *Gaul. At the same time, St. Maternus
founded the Church in Strasburgh, and perhaps also that of
Cologne ; St. Clement, that of Metz ; St. Eucherius, that of
Treves; St. Crescentius, that of Mayence. According to the
testimony of Tertullian, Christianity was already flourishing in
Spain. Thus the Church, half a century after the ascension
of the Saviour, had already won her title of Catholic, and had
representatives throughout the world. To Titus succeeded
his brother Domilian (September 13, a. d. 81), who made men
almost regret the loss of Nero. He had all his cruelty, and
united to it paroxysms of rage bordering on madness. His
first act was to banish philosophers from all Italy. Under this
name the Christians were included, and Pope St. Anacletus
suffered martyrdom at Koine, a. d. 91. He had established
twenty-five priests to fulfil the pastoral duty in the different
quarters of Koine.
• Baronius, ΜΛΏΙοη, Psgi, Noel Alexander, Mamacchi, and the most learned modern
critics. have refated, on thia point, the opinions of tho historians of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.

8T. CLEMENT (A. D. »1-100).

§ IV. Pontificate op St. Clement I. (a. d. 91-100).
17. St. Clement, the successor of St. Anacletus, was a
Roman, and a disciple of St. Peter. St. Paul eulogizes him in
his Epistle to the Philippians (iv. 3): “And I entreat thee
also, my sincere companion, help those women that have
labored with me in the Gospel, with Clement, and the rest of
my fellow-laborers, whose names are in the book of life."
The first care of the new pontiff was to appoint at Rome
seven notaries, whose duty was to collect the acts of the mar­
tyrs, and place them in the registers of the festivals of the
Church. Hence arose the institution of the Apostolic Protho­
notaries Participants, who were increased to the number of
twelve by Sixtus V. The Church of Corinth was at this time
troubled by a small number of its members, who, jealous of the
reputation of certain virtuous priests, had deposed them. The
case was appealed to the judgment of St. Clement I., who ad­
dressed two letters to the Corinthians, which have been praised
by all antiquity, and which, a century later, were still read
publicly in assemblies of the faithful. A fragment only of
the second epistle is extant. The first, which the eru­
dite believed to be lost, was published almost entire in the
last century, at Oxford, by Patricius Junius, a Scotchman,
from an ancient manuscript in the Royal Library, that dates
from the time of the first Council of Nice. The authenticity
of this precious document is generally admitted. St. Clement
there speaks with the authority which he held from the chair
of St. Peter; he decides the question as supreme judge, and
announces to the Corinthians that he sends to them five
legates : Claudius, Ephebius, Valerius, Vitorius, and Fortuna­
tus, who are charged to deliver this letter, and to use all
means for the re-establishment of peace among them. In pro­
portion as the Church enlarged the circle of her conquests,
error, by a parallel movement, seemed to develop herself to
hinder the progress of the Gospel. The heresies of this epoch
arose, some from expiring Judaism, others from the defenders

55

OBSBIUI HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

of paganism. After the ruin of Jerusalem, the Christian»
born Jews, who still held strongly to the forms of the Mosaic
religion, were divided into three sects, viz. : the Ebionites, the
Nnznrencs. and the Cerinthians.
18. The Ebionites, sectaries of the Stoic Jew, Ebion, gave
a predominance in their doctrine to Judaism. They regarded
all the ceremonies of the law as obligatory, and pretended that
Jesus Christ was merely a man, the son of Joseph and Mary.
Thev treated St. Paul as an apostate, because this Apostle, on
every page of his writings, demonstrates the divinity of the
Saviour. For the same reason they rejected all the Gospels
except that of St. Matthew, because there the testimony' of the
dogma which they denied seemed to them less precise. The
Nazarenos, on the contrary, recognized the divinity of Jesus
Christ, but they mingled in His history' certain errors borrowed
from an apocryphal gospel, which, to the exclusion of others,
they had adopted. They maintained that the obligations of the
Mosaic law were binding only on the Jewish converts. The
doctrine of Cerinthus, a Jew of Antioch, partook of the errors
of both the Ebionitcs and the Nazarenes. With the first, they
maintained the indispensable obligation of all to submit to the
law of Moses; with the second, they agreed that Jesus Christ
was God, but only since His baptism by John in the waters of
the Jordan. Up to that time He was nothing more than
man, born, according to the Ebionites, of Joseph and Mary.
At the moment of the Pussion, the Christ, the Son of God,
returned to His father; the man alone had suffered, died,
and risen again. Pagan philosophy also sought to mingle
itself with the verities of faith, to deprive them of their charac­
ter of divine revelation. The Docetes, from the Greek word
iMiu, to «i>ptar, destroyed the humanity of Jesus Christ in pre­
tending that He bad never had more than the appearance of a
body, and that all His life had been a sort of mysterious illusion,
deceiving men by the phantom of a body. Menander, also, à
disciple of Simon Magus, undertook to ally the doctrine of
the Gospel with the Platonic system on the formation of the

ST. CLEMENT (A. D. 91-100).

57

world. He taught that God, the supreme intelligence, had
given being to a multitude of inferior genii, who had moulded
the world and the human race. In his system, Jesus Christ
is not God, but merely an envoy of the good genii. This idea
was developed at a later period by the Gnostics, in their gene­
alogies of Eons.
*
By the side of these teachers of impiety,
catholic writers consoled the Church by their zeal and talents.
The Pastor, by Hermas, appeared about this time. Under
the allegory of the sheep which the shepherd guides to more
abundant pastures, the author describes the interior life of
grace and holiness of the primitive Christians. St. John, at
the age of more than ninety years, wrote his Gospel to refute
Ebion and Cerinthus, in their attack upon the divinity of Jesus
Christ and the reality of his human nature. His three epistles
are equally intended to combat these heretics.
19. The second persecution burst forth suddenly in the
midst of these pacific contests. Under the reign of Domitian,
virtue had become an unpardonable crime—for this reason the
Christians were entitled to the hatred of the tyrant. In the
year 95, an imperial edict was sent into all the provinces, com­
manding the faithful to be treated as declared enemies of the
state. The first victim at Rome was Flavius Clemens, first
cousin to the emperor, and his colleague in the consulate. He
had scarcely time to resign the fasces, the ensigns of his dig­
nity, when, by order of Domitian, he was led to execution.
Flavia Domatilla, his wife, was exiled for the same crime as
her husband. Another Flavia Domatilla, mother of Flavius
Clemens, was banished to the Isle of Pontia. She is honored
as a martyr, with Saints Nereus and Achilles, her eunuchs.
St. John was then at Rome. lie was plunged, near the Latin
gate, into a caldron of boiling oil, from which, by the power of
God, he escaped without the least injury. Domitian exiled
him to the Island of Patmos, where he wrote the Apocalypse,
according to a vision, in which the Saviour revealed the future
♦ This Greek term means spiritual beings intermediate between man and God.—
A. B.

58

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

to him under mysterious symbols. St. Andrew was martyred
in Achaia. He suffered on a cross in the form of χ, which,
since then, bears the name of St. Andrew. The death of
Domitian. a. d. 96, and the accession of Nerva to the throne,
restored peace to the Church, and St.John to liberty. The
Saint returned to Ephesus, where he continued to preside over
the Christians of Asia. We may refer to this epoch the
touching history, recounted by Clement of Alexandria, of a
young man, who, on his departure for Rome, had been left by
St. John in the care of a bishop of Asia, to be brought up and
instructed in religion. On his return from Patmos, the Apostle
heard that he had abandoned his faith and joined a band of
malefactors. St. John, despite his extreme age, was con­
veyed to the mountain where the robbers had their cave. He
pressed the miserable youth to his bosom, kissed his bloody
hand, assured him of pardon, if he would only repent ; and
having brought about his reconciliation with the Church, with
God and man, he conducted him back to Ephesus. The holy
Apostle, careful to preserve the deposit of faith in its utmost
purity, deposed a priest who was convicted of having published
an apocryphal work on the Acts of St. Paul. Sentiments of
the most tender charity overflowed his soul. “ Love one
another,"lieoften said to his disciples ; “ this precept contains
all the law." His whole life was an exemplification of this
heavenly principle drawn from the heart of his divine Master.
He died, in extreme old age, a. d. 100, the only one of the
Apostles who did not suffer martyrdom.
St. Peter and St. Paul had poured out their blood for Jesus
Christ; St. James the Less, at Jerusalem, had been killed in a
popular tumult; St. Bartholomew had been flayed alive in
Armenia ; St. Thomas had suffered martyrdom in India ; St.
Matthew, in Persia ; St. Andrew, in Achaia ; St. Jude, in
Mesopotamia; St. Simon, in Lybia ; St. Philip, in Phrygia;
St. James the Greater was put to death by Herod Agrippa at
Jerusalem ; St. Matthias was martyred in Colchis. Thus, all
the Apostles, save one, have laid the foundation of the Church

ST. CLEMENT (91-100).

59

in their own blood. Pope St. Clement I., spared in the per­
secution by Domitian, was exiled in the year of the accession
of Trajan to the empire (a. d. 100). The Church honors him
aa a martyr, but history has not preserved the details of his
death.

60

general history of the church.

CHAPTER III.
1. Importance of studying the first century—2. Teaching of the Church.

authority.—3. Its simplicity.—4. Miracles.

Its

Confirmation />f the doctrine

relating to them—5. Tradition.—6. Holy Scriptures.

New Testament.—

7. The Gospels.—8. The emblems of the four Evangelists.—9. The Acts
of the Apostles.—10. Epistles of St. Paul—11. Epistles of St. James, St.

Peter, St John, and St. Jude.—12. The Apocalypse.—13. Principal points
of doctrine contained in the New Testament—14. Government of the

Church.

Authority of the Apostolic See.—15. Episcopacy.—16. Priest­

hood, Deaconship, Religious Orders, Celibacy of the Clergy, Deaconesses.

—17. Discipline.—18. Worship.—19. Conclusion.

1. The first century presents a view of institutions in their
germ, which, at a later period, were developed in the bosom
of the Church. Unlike human society, the Church was not
left to be perfected by time. Her constitution, established by
God, contained, in its origin, the same elements which the
course of history has developed in all their fulness, by exhibit­
ing their influence on mankind. The study of this cen­
tury is, therefore, of the highest importance ; because all the
dogmas which heresy has attacked, as well as most of the in­
stitutions which, through error, have been calumniated or re­
jected, find a signal confirmation in the Apostolic teachings
and traditions.
For the sake of method, we shall treat this subject under
four principal heads : the doctrine of the Church, her govern­
ment, her discipline, and her worship.
I. Doctrine of the Church.

2. The first point to be observed in the Apostolic teaching
is the authority, as witnesses, of the disciples who were in­

REVIEW OF THE FIRST CENTURY.

61

structed by the Saviour Himself, and who alone form the link
between the Divine Word and the faith of succeeding ages.
3. From this principle of authority arose the simplicity which
marked their doctrine. They expounded the faith in the face of
Judaism and of pagan philosophy, without the resources of elo­
quence or any of the artifices of human language, with a force of
conviction derived from well-known, recent, and incontestable
facts. But this divine simplicity cannot be attributed, solely,
to the character of the Apostles, illiterate as they were. It
entered into the designs of Providence to proportionthe evangeli­
cal teaching to the intelligence of the poor and the lowly, by whom
Christianity began her conquests in the world : so that it is no
slight proof of the divinity of the Church, to find that the sim­
plicity of her Apostles, which, humanly speaking, would have
been the first and greatest obstacle to progress, was, on the
contrary, the most influential cause of her triumphs.
4. The teaching of the Apostles derived also a supernatural
force from the wonderful miracles which attested its truth.
We have seen that the shadow of St. Peter healed the sick.
His alms were—to the infirm, health; to the deaf, hearing; to
the blind, sight. The disciples of Jesus Christ wrought more
miracles in proof of His teaching than He had wrought Him­
self. The power of performing miracles, which God imparted
to His Church, and which she has always possessed, was ex­
hibited to a remarkable extent in the first century, in confirma­
tion of a doctrine, so marvellous in itself that it has been said,
“ That the conversion of the Avorld to Christianity, without the
aid of miracles, would have been the most wonderful of all
miracles.”
5. This doctrine was transmitted by the oral teaching of
the Apostles to their disciples, for Jesus Christ did not, like
Moses, write .His law. The new dispensation was to be en­
graven on the heart by charity, before being set forth in
books.
Besides this, the oral teaching of the Apostles was as much
divinely revealed as are the Holy Scriptures. To assort the

62

general history of the church.

contrary would be to deny the Apostles a prerogative which
all succeeding ages have accorded them. And, in fart, the
Church could not have lasted without some guarantee that the
teaching of its founders was infallible. It is therefore a funda­
mental error to neglect the teaching of tradition, and admit no
other authority than that of the Scriptures, in deciding all
questions of dogma, morals, discipline, and worship. A great
many regulations were prescribed to the early Christians con­
cerning the rising institutions, the external ceremonies which
should accompany the celebration of the holy mysteries, and the
rites to be observed in the administration of the sacraments,
which form no part of the Scriptures.
The Apostles, in obedience to the command of their divine
Master, went about the world—not composing treatises like the
philosophers, nor disputing like sophists or rhetoricians, but
teaching with authority. Souls were drawn to them by the
supernatural force of Grace. The principal points of faith
having been explained to these new converts, they were bap­
tized and admitted to the communion of the body and blood of
Jesus Christ. The imposition of hands conferred upon them
the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and the Apostles then left them,
and went in pursuit of other conquests.
6. But, when the Christians increased greatly in numbers, the
Apostles, notwithstanding the activity and fruitfulness of their
zeal, were unable to convey orally to all their disciples the
teachings of divine truth. Moreover, false doctrines threatened
to corrupt the deposit of tradition, and it became necessary to
refute them. Jews and Gentiles were equally hostile to the
Christian faith, and they must be combated. Hence it was of
the highest consequence to fix with certainty, and in writing,
the doctrine of Jesus Christ. And the New Testament, the
Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, came forth from the
consecrated hands of the Evangelists and Apostles.
7. Never before was the human tongue employed to teach
truths so sublime; never were truths taught with such sim­
plicity. The Gospel is not only the recital of the Avondrous

REVIEW OF THE FIRST CENTURY.

63

actions of a God descended among men, it is also a code of laws
which has regenerated mankind. Without it, there is neither
salvation for individuals nor repose for society. It is a clear
and precise revelation of the divine law, infinitely surpassing,
in every respect, the highest conceptions of the most celebrated ,
philosophers of antiquity ; it is a system of moral precepts so
perfect, that no
* higher idea of virtue can be conceived of than
is therein set forth ; yet, nevertheless, so adapted to all the
wants of mankind, that this sublime virtue has become popular
among the disciples of the Gospel. To the teachings of this
divine book alone can be attributed the heroic sanctity of
thousands of virgins, confessors, and martyrs, of every age and
condition, at all times, in all countries of the world. We find
in it, not the ordinary forms of human reasoning, nor the
scientific methods of the moralists and orators,—but each of
its words is like an immediate revelation from the Divinity.
We feel at every page that the most exalted authority, the most
merciful omnipotence condescends to the level of the intellect
and heart of man.
8. The early Fathers, followed by all the doctors of the
Church, have compared the four Evangelists to the four sym­
bolic creatures, who, in the vision of Ezechiel, formed the car
of God. The Man is employed as emblematic of St. Matthew,
who begins his Gospel with the recital of the human gene­
alogy of Jesus Christ. The Lion is the emblem of St. Mark,
who begins with the “voice of one crying in the desert.” The
Ox, an animal used for sacrifice, is the emblem of St. Luke,
whose Gospel commences with the sacrifice of Zachary.
Finally, the Eagle, with his lofty flight, his intrepid mien, is
the emblem of St. John, whose vigorous wing elevates him
above the things of earth, whose eye penetrates even unto the
throne of the Divinity !
9. The Acts of .the Apostles were written, at Rome, by
Saint Luke, two years after St. Peter had made this capital
the centre of Catholicity. They contain the history of the
first years of the Church, and a narrative of the voyages and

64

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

labors of the Apostles, particularly of St. Paul, of whom St.
Luke had been, for some time, the companion. They conclude
with (he arrival of St. Paul at Rome, whore, having appealed
to Crcsar, he was to be judged.
10. The fourteen Epistles of St. Paul, addressed to the
Romans, Corinthians, Hebrews, &c., follow next after the Acts
of the Apostles, in the catalogue of the canonical books as
arranged by the Church. This arrangement docs not imply
any supremacy or claim over St. Peter, whose epistles are
placed third in order, but is owing to their number, their
excellence, and the importance of the subjects they treat of.
Their sublimity surpasses all human eloquence and reasoning.
They were addressed to persons who had been recently con­
verted from the darkness of paganism to the light of the Gos­
pel, and were intended as spiritual nourishment for children in
the faith, as the milk of the Word, to be dispensed to the
little ones and the weak; yet this has not hindered men of the
loftiest genius, from St. Chrysostom to Bossuet, from finding
in the teaching of St. Paul an inexhaustible source of fruitful
inspiration and of admirable precepts.
11. We have already mentioned the Epistle of St. James,
addressed to the whole Catholic Church. It is placed immedi­
ately after the epistles of St. Paul in the canonical books of the
New Testament. This monument of the holy bishop of Jeru­
salem is so much the more precious, because it is the only one
of the inspired books which expressly mentions the sacrament
of Extreme Unction (chap. v. 14). Catholic tradition shows,
that the Church has always interpreted this passage in the
same manner that she does at present. Heretics have labored,
on their side, to alter this clear and precise text of the Apostle.
Some have entirely suppressed it ; so that it is not found in
the Bibles published by some of their societies established to
propagate Protestantism. The two Epistles of St. Peter, the
three Epistles of St. John, and the Catholic Epistle of St. Jude,
complete the series of letters written by the Apostles to the
churches they had evangelized. Received with the respect

REVIEW OF THE FIRST CENTURY.

65

due to the Word of God, read in the assemblies of the faithful
before the celebration of the divine mysteries, commented
on by the bishops or priests who presided at these assemblies,
communicated to various churches, they have been transmit­
ted, as a sacred deposit, to future ages. The severest penal­
ties were enacted against those who should alter the text or
change its sense. The solicitude of the primitive Christians
for the preservation of the Scriptures, is, for us, a sure guar­
antee of their integrity. The vigilance with which they con­
demned all private interpretations confirms the certitude of
tradition, which has preserved for us, through the succession
of Fathers and doctors, the true spirit of the Gospel, a living
and sound intelligence, within the bosom of the Catholic Church.
12. Finally, the Apocalypse of St. John completes the list
of the sacred Scriptures. With that eagle glance which pene­
trates the future, even to the gates of eternity, the sacred
volume is completed in a wonderful manner. In the Ohl Tes­
tament, four thousand years of expectation form, so to speak,
an immense avenue which ends in Jesus Christ. In the Apoc­
alypse, the world goes onward from Jesus Christ the Redeemer
to Jesus Christ the Supreme Judge—the glory of the elect, the
terror of the condemned. Between the first and the last
coming of our Lord there can be no new dispensation,
because there cannot be a second redemption The design of
the Apocalypse is to disclose to us, in a special manner, the
great work of God, whose justice inflicts terrible chastisements
upon the enemies of Ilis Church, and makes her triumph, not
only in heaven, where lie crowns the martyrs with eternal
glory, but even on earth where He establishes her, with all the
lustre which had been foretold by the prophets. There are
two ways of interpreting this mysterious book. One is general,
the plan of which is traced by Saint Augustin, in his great
work, The City of God. This method of interpretation is to
consider, in history, two empires mingled physically, but mor­
ally separate. One is the empire of Babylon, which signifies
confusion and trouble, the other is that of Jerusalem, which
5

66

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

signifies peace. The former is the world, the latter is the
Church, but the Church in her highest character, that is, in
the Saints, in the elect : In that, Satan reigns ; in this,
Jesus Christ: impiety ami pride rule in that; in this is the
scat of religion and truth: in that there is the joy which shall
be changed into eternal woe; in this, the suffering which shall
lead to eternal happiness. Wherever we find the world van­
quished. or Jesus Christ victorious, there we shall meet with a
wise interpretation of this divine prophecy. We may even
feel assured, according to the rule laid down by St. Au­
gustin, that we have divined in some degree the intention
of the Holy Spirit, who from all eternity has foreseen every
meaning which would be given to His Scriptures, and has
always approved those which were good, and were edifying to
the children of God.
*
The second manner of interpreting the
Apocalypse, is purely historical. It consists in applying the
symbols, described by St. John, to particular events. “ This
book," says St. Dionysius of Alexandria, “ contains a wonderful
but deeply hidden knowledge, of what happens every day.”
With the exception of some of those remarkable portions, of
which the early Christian tradition has preserved the meaning,
such as the application to pagan Rome of the character attrib­
uted by St. John to Babylon, interpretations of every kind
bave been given to the Apocalypse. The Church has passed
sentence only upon such of these interpretations as attacked
principles of the faith ; so that, after the labors of the most
erudite commentators, the opinion of St. Jerome is still sus­
tained in all its force : “ The Apocalypse,” says this great
doctor, “is as full of mysteries as of words.”
13. The Holy Scriptures, those venerable monuments of
the Apostolic age, were, from their origin, received with the
respect due to the Word of God. We find them quoted in the
Pastor of Hermes, in the letters of St. Clement, and in the letter
to Diognetus. Heretics endeavored, either to alter the sacred
text, or to introduce apocryphal gospels, under the names of
• BiÆâüCT. Explication de ΓApocalypse, passim.

REVIEW OF THE FIRST CENTURY.

67

the Apostles, such as the “Gospel of the Infancy,” the “Proto­
Gospel,” attributed to St. James, &c. But their efforts to cor­
rupt the Apostolic teaching at its source, have ended only in
demonstra ting the importance which the Church attached from
the beginning to the preservation of the New Testament pure
from all foreign admixtures. The sacred books and the
writings of the Apostolic Fathers, which have come down
to us, do not form a collection of works in which the Chris­
tian doctrines are set forth in a didactic manner, but rather
their history and morals. The Discipline of Secret, which was
so inviolably observed in the face of paganism, or of Juda­
ism, explains sufficiently this reserve of the ecclesiastical
authors. From this reserve, or silence, Protestants have
sought to drawr conclusions adverse to all points of dogma,
or discipline, that are not explicitly mentioned by those early
writers. Their arguments rest on a capital historic error.
They argue, as if religious initiation had been effected in the
first century by written instructions ; whereas it is the con­
trary which is true. Oral instruction, or the setting forth
of the truth, without any medium but the living voice, was
the striking characteristic of Apostolic teaching. Such is the
sacred origin of that tradition, or oral transmission of religious
truth, which began with the Saviour, and has pursued its
course amid persecutions and heresies, always unchangeable,
always respected. Tradition completes the written doctrine,
the sacred text confirms tradition ; we cannot separate one from
the other ; we cannot shake either of these two columns of the
temple without crumbling the whole edifice. “When we hear
the Fathers of the eleventh century proclaim the existence of
oral tradition and the secret transmission of doctrine as a
fundamental and preliminary article; when we find them lay­
ing down as a final rule the authority of tradition, in deter­
mining matters of Christian faith ; when we see all the
succeeding Fathers recognizing the force of tradition, and
appealing in the last resort to the tradition and authority
of the ancient Fathers in determining the teachings of the

68

GENERAI. HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Church. it is scarcely possible to conceive the bad faith
which has dared to reject it.”* If, also, we examine, in
detail, the particular points of doctrine set forth here and
there in several passages of Holy Writ, and by the writers of
the Apostolic age, we shall find, contained in them, nearly the
whole of Catholic theology : 1st. The origin and reason of our
existence; the root of Christianity in the history of the Hebrew
people, who were only the continued promise, the prophecy and
figure of it; the mystery of the Redemption, which was a
necessary consequence of the dogma of original sin; the
Adam of the new law of love, who was to redeem the
first Adam—the Adam of the law of fear.
2d. The pre­
cise and marked distinction between the law of Christ
and the law of Moses; the extension of the kingdom of
God over all people; the diffusion, among all nations, of
the truth, which, until then, was confined to one privileged
people: The Decalogue, or the moral law of the Jews, become
the moral code of the universe, while the ceremonial pre­
scriptions, particular rites, and legal observances of Moses
ceased to have any obligatory force. 3d. The divine inspira­
tion of the Scriptures recognized and proclaimed. 4th. The
establishment of the ecclesiastical hierarchy in its degrees of
order and of rank : St. Peter taking the first place in the
council of Jerusalem ; bishops appointed by the Apostles, and
placed at the head of the new churches ; and the orders of priests
and deacons. 5th. The three fundamental mysteries of Catholic
dogma : the Trinity, the Incarnation, the divinity and human­
ity of Jesus Christ; the redemption or satisfaction made by
Jesus Christ; and His Grace, the fruit of that redemption.
6th. The sacraments, channels of grace, the sources of spiritual
life and regeneration. 7th. Morality, of which their notion was
the same as that which obtains now. We can borrow from
the writers of the Apostolic age their own expressions, to
exhort to good works, to penitence, fasting, detachment from
the world, and prayer This doctrine of the early Church is
• M. L'Abbé Blaxc, Court iTIlûtoire Eccltt., passim.

REVIEW OF THE FIRST CENTURY.

69

the same that she has continued to teach during all the
succeeding ages. The necessity of upholding the truth against
heretical attacks led to the successive development of each
particular point of doctrine ; but the Popes and councils, in
defining each dogma, accept only the tradition which cornea
directly from the Apostles.

§ II. Government

of the

Church.

14. The integrity of doctrine and tne purity of tradition
require for their preservation the guarantee of a regularly consti­
tuted government. The first century of the Church, the Apos­
tolic age, while the first ministers of the good tidings were dis­
persed throughout the world to preach the name of Jesus Christ,
could present, it will readily be conceived, only the elements of a
hierarchy, which, at a later period, when the world should be­
come Christian, would be organized in a definite form. But these
elements sufficed to establish then the principles which are still
in vigor in the government of the Church. The primacy of St.
Peter is evident from the facts themselves ; he it was who pre­
sided at the election of Matthias ; he was the first to preach to
the Jews; it was he whom St. Paul came to see and to study,
as Bossuet expresses it ; it was he who presided at the Council
of Jerusalem, and promulgated its decision ; it was he who
proclaimed the mystery of the vocation of the Gentiles, which
was a scandal in the minds of the Jews ; it was he who founded
the Patriarchal See of Antioch, which became the first in the
East, because St. Peter had his seat there; it was he who
came to plant the cross in Rome, the capital of the world, and,
since then, the centre of Catholicity ; it was he who sent from
Rome his disciple St. Mark to establish the Church of Alex­
andria, which also became a Patriarchal See in memory of St.
Peter, who had founded it through his envoy. These marks
of honor, these singular prerogatives would be inexplicable, if
we did not presuppose the principle of the primacy of the pon

70

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

tificate legitimately exercised and unanimously acknowledged
in the person of Peter, by the other Apostles.
No personal advantages could be attributed to St. Peter over
any of the other Apostles. Was not St. John the disciple
whom Jesus loved, to whom in dying He confided His mother?
And yet it was not St. John who presided, who opened coun­
cils. who promulgated decisions. Was not St. Paul, by the
miracle of his conversion, by the grandeur of his eloquence, by
the depth and sublimity of his doctrines, more especially
pointed out for the veneration of the faithful ? And, neverthe­
less. it is St. Paul who conies to St. Peter to give an account
of his apostleship. Even from the fact of the famous discus­
sion between the Apostles, is it not to be supposed that to St.
Peter were referred the questions of dogma and discipline
which required an authoritative decision ? The words of Jesus
Christ, “ Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my
Church," were interpreted in the first century in the same sense
which we now give to them. They constituted supremacy in
the pontificate and unity in its authority. The primacy of St.
Peter existed and was exercised in a paternal manner, such as
was necessary to the Church in her infancy.
15. Bishops constitute the second rank of the hierarchy.
The election of St. Matthias to the apostleship long served as a
model to the Church in the choice of bishops. When the suf­
frages were found to be balanced between two persons equally
worthy of this honor, they recurred to a choice by lot, thus
leaving the decision to God alone. Bishops were also elected
by assemblies of the clergy and people, and consecrated by
other bishops. It is a fact worthy of remark, that nearly all
the bishops of the first centuries were inscribed in the cata­
logue of the saints. The heritage of virtue seemed as if trans­
mitted with the episcopal dignity. The example came from
the See of Piome, where, up to a. d. 500, scarcely three or four
Popes can be found who are not acknowledged as saints. In
the second century, the Emperor Alexander Severus referred
to the example of the Christians, to show what strictness should

REVIEW OF THE FIRST CENTURY.

71

be observed in the choice of public officers. “ The bishop was
elected, in the presence of the people, by the bishops of the
province, assembled in the cathedral church of the vacant see,
to the number of at least two or three ; for in those times it
was difficult to hold large councils, except in the intervals
between persecutions, and occasionally some of the sees re­
mained a long time vacant. The presence of the people was
deemed necessary, so that all being persuaded of the merit of
the candidate elected, should obey him the more willingly."
*
St. Paul made a law against the elevation of neophytes to the
episcopal dignity, in order to prevent the government of the
Church from being committed to the domination of proud or
ambitious men, or the deposit of tradition to the imperfect
knowledge of a new Christian. The bishop was, at once, the
father and the judge of the Christians in the primitive ages.
His decisions terminated the disputes which arose among the
faithful. He was charged with the care of the poor, of the
widows, and the orphans, and he presided at the distribution
of the alms which the early Christians placed at his disposal.
These alms are frequently mentioned in the Epistles of St.
Paul, under the name of “ collections.” It was also the duty of
bishops to preach; the ministry of the Word was, for a long time,
almost their exclusive privilege. Early in the fifth century,
we see that Valerius, the aged bishop of Hippo, made a glorious
exception to this usage, in confiding to St. Augustin, then only
a priest, the honor of taking his own place in the pulpit. The
election of bishops was, therefore, an event of extreme impor­
tance in the various churches. It was always preceded by
public fasting and prayers. Usually the election was made
during Saturday night or Sunday morning; the consecration
followed, of which the principal ceremony has always been the
imposition of hands; and this was immediately preceded by the
holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We find, in ancient authors, that
while performing sacred rites the bishops wore some exterior
mark of their dignity. Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, at the
• Fleury, 21<surs de Chretiens.

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

close of tho second century, writes that the Apostle St. John
wore on his head a plate of gold. St. Epiphanius relates the
same thing of St. James, the first bishop of Jerusalem. Others
make a like observation relative to St. Mark, first bishop uf
Alexandria. “ For the rest, the government of the bishops
was a government of charity. The clerics and, above all, the
priests formed a sort of permanent council for the bishop.
They assisted him in all public functions, as disciples who fol­
lowed their master; for they were attached to him as the
Apostles were to Jesus Christ.”* The bishops never failed to
preside at the public offices and prayers, to explain the Holy
Scriptures, and to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass on Sundays
and Holydays.
In the canons of the first centuries, we find a prohibition
against the celebration of the holy mysteries by a priest in the
church of a bishop, unless the latter be hindered by sickness
from fulfilling this august function. The dignity of the bishop
was held by the faithful in the highest honor ; and St. Poly­
carp remarks, that they vied with each other in trying to be
first to take off his shoes. These testimonials of veneration,
of which we find traces in the remotest ages of the Church, are
a sufficient reply to the calumnies of that party spirit which
presumes to accuse the episcopacy of having usurped, in later
times, distinctions and honors unknown to the Apostolic age.
16. Next to the bishops ranked the presbyteri seniores, or
priests chosen, as their name indicates, either from among the
elders, or the clerics most esteemed for the purity of their
morals and their holiness of life. The bishop often selected
them in accordance with the requests of the people, or at least
with their participation, and always with the counsel of his
clergy, and after a careful examination. They were often
obliged, in the Apostolic and earlier times of the Church, to
constrain those who were to be ordained to accept an honor
which their humility induced them sometimes positively to re­
fuse. The priests of each church were almost always chosen
• L'Abbé Fiæi ry, Ifaurn de Chrétiens.

REVIEW OF THE FIRST CENTURY.

73

from among those who had been baptized and who had exercised
the duties of clerics during several years. After ordination it
became their duty to reside in their Diocese, unless their own
bishop yielded them to another. They received an appointed
stipend, on account of their ministry, and lived by the altar,
fulfilling the counsel of the Apostle. The Church furnished
from her treasury all that was needful for the subsistence of
her clergy, and each of them received, by the week or month,
a portion, in kind or in money. The distribution of these
salaries was usually confided to a deacon, who, we find, as far
back as the second century, was called archdeacon in the
annals of the Roman Church. We have already seen that
deacons were instituted by the Apostles, to aid them in dis­
pensing the alms of the Church. To this function they united
others of a more elevated character, viz., to administer, in de­
fault of priests, the Sacrament of the Eucharist to the faithful,
and even to preach the Gospel, as may be observed in the ex­
ample of St. Stephen, the first of the deacons and martyrs.
The priesthood and the diaconate were, up to the twelfth cen­
tury, the only orders termed major or holy. This fact is made
known by a canon of the Council of Benevento, a. d. 1091,
under the presidency of Urban II. “ We term,” said he, “ the
diaconate and the priesthood holy orders.” The elevation of
the sub-diaconate to the rank of holy orders is attributed to
Innocent ifl., at the end of the twelfth century. However
this may be, “ it is known,” and these are the words of the
Council of Trent, “ that from the foundation of the Church the
name and particular functions of the orders of subdeacon, of
acolyth, of exorcist, of reader, and porter, were in use.” From
the first century, ecclesiastical celibacy was rigorously exacted
from the two holy orders, the diaconate and priesthood. St.
Epiphanius and St. Jerome, who attest this tradition, leave no
doubt in regard to it. They affirm that the usage of the three
great patriarchates of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch was, to
ordain none but virgin or continent clerics; and that if they
had been married before their ordination, they ceased from

"4

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

that moment to live in common with their wives. In the
first century we find also the germ of religious orders, who were
destined to become afterwards the soul of the Church. There
were from that time Christians called to a higher perfection,
who voluntarily practised all the exercises of penance, training
themselves in piety, after the model of St. Paul, “ by chastising
their body, and reducing it to servitude.” They were called
ascetics, that is to say, exercitants. They lived in retreat and in
continence, and they joined to Christian frugality extraordinary
abstinence and fasting. They practised xerophagy—eating only
dry food—sleeping on the bare earth, and dividing their time
between prayer, the study of the Scriptures, and manual labor.
“ We have seen,” says St. Paul, “ these men, of whom the
world is not worthy, wandering in deserts, in mountains,
covered with skins, living in dens, and in caves of the earth."
From the first century we find also virginity, that other glory
of the Church, practised in the midst of the disorders and im­
morality of the pagan world. If, in the transformation wrought
at once by the Gospel in pagan society, all were not equally
exemplary, we must still regard it as an extraordinary miracle
of heroism to behold generations of youthful maidens arise,
offering to God the sacrifice of all the joys of the world, to bury
their lives in retirement, in fasting, watching, and mortification.
Such examples had no parallel either in Judaism, where vir­
ginity was regarded as an opprobrium, or in pagarfism, where
the most infamous passions had their gods, their priests, and
their altars. The Christian virgins of the primitive age led an
ascetic life in the bosom of their families, renouncing even the
most innocent indulgence in dress or amusements. Silence,
retirement, poverty, labor, abstinence, and continual prayer
were the objects of their preference ; and thus the rising
Church was edified by the spectacle of their virtues, and by
their meritorious prayers and good works. Another institu­
tion, which lasted only during the first ages, had its origin
from the Apostles. It is that of deaconesses. Widows, the
most sensible and experienced, were selected for this honor.

REVIEW OF THE FIRST CENTURY.

75

The age for admission was first fixed at sixty years, but after­
wards at forty. The deaconesses exercised towards women
a part of the functions of deacons. Their charge was to visit
all persons of their sex whom poverty, sickness, or other mis­
fortunes rendered fit subjects of the care of the Church. They
instructed the catechumens, under the direction of the priests,
presented them for baptism, and moulded the newly baptized
in the Christian life. In the assemblies they guarded the
doors of the women’s side, taking care that each was placed
according to her rank, and observed silence and modesty. The
deaconesses gave an account of all their functions to the bishop,
and, by his order, to the priests and deacons. The institution
of deaconesses went out of use by degrees. Such is the form
under which the first century presents the Catholic hierarchy
and the government of the Church.

§ III. Discipline.

17. The regeneration of the moral nature of man, effected
by the coming of the Redeemer, was to exhibit itself in
the bosom of Christianity by a new life, and by manners un­
known to the corruption of ancient society. The picture of the
rising Church forms a striking contrast between the virtues
inspired by the doctrines of the Gospel and the vices of the
pagan world. The first church at Jerusalem was com­
posed of three thousand converts ; these converts heard the
instructions of the Apostles, prayed together, and in private
houses broke bread together. They placed their goods in
common, and sold their inheritances to distribute the price
among their brethren. Their mode of life, which conformed
to the counsels of evangelic perfection, has been depicted
by the apologists of the first centuries. “ Among us,” says
Athenagoras, “ will be found the ignorant, the poor, laborers,
and old women, who cannot perhaps define, by reasoning, the
truth of our doctrine ; they do not enter into discussions, but
they do good works. Loving our neighbor as ourselves, we

76

GEXEUAl. HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

have learned not to strike those who strike us ; not to go to
law against those who have robbed us ; if any one gives us a
blow on one check, wo present the other ; if they ask of us our
cost, we offer them also our cloak. Allowing for the differ­
ence of years, we regard some as our children, others as our
brethren and sisters. The most aged we honor as our fathers
and mothers. The hope of another life makes us despise the
present, even in the midst of lawful pleasures. Marriage with
us is a holy vocation, which imparts the grace necessary to
bring up our children in the fear of the Lord. We have re­
nounced your bloody spectacles, being persuaded that there is
very little difference between looking on murder and commit­
ting it. The pagans.expose their children to get rid of them;
we consider this action as homicide.” “We are accused of
being factious. The factiousness of Christians is to be united
in the same religion,
*
in the same morals, in the same hope.
We conspire to pray to God in common, and to read the Holy
Scriptures. If any one of us has sinned, he is deprived of
communion, and of hiking part in our assemblies of prayer,
until he has done penance. Old men, whose wisdom merits
this honor, preside in these assemblies. Every one contributes
a monthly sum, according to his means and inclination. This
treasure serves to feed and bury the poor, to support orphans,
shipwrecked sufferers, exiles, and those condemned, for the
cause of God, to the mines or to prisons. Every thing is in
common among us, except women. Our repasts in common
are explained by their name of agape, which signifies charily."
Certainly there must have been a strange blindness in the
pagan world not to have been seized with admiration at the
view of such noble sentiments and generous actions, in the
midst of the general enervation of manners and debasement of
character. There was found also a pretext for the disdain
which the pagans at first affected for the religion of Jesus
Christ, in the choice of the persons from whom it seemed that
recruits were taken by preference. According to them, the
• Tebtcllun, Apologétique

REVIEW OF THE FIRST CENTURY.

77

Christians were nothing more than coarse, ignorant, fanatical
sectaries, who would neither give nor discuss the reasons for
their worship, and were accustomed to reply, “ Do not inquire
about it ; the wisdom of this life is an evil, and its folly is
good.”* In the first century, the pagans confounded the reli­
gion of Jesus Christ with Judaism, and treated it with equal
contempt. But the rapid propagation of the Gospel called the
general attention to a doctrine which controlled the most ex­
alted intellects as well as the humblest, and which at the same
time invaded every country on the globe. The ruin of Jerusa­
lem, by separating Judaism in so decided a manner from Chris­
tianity, no longer permitted them to be confounded with each
other. The pagan world, alarmed at the view of its deserted
temples, its gods despised, its sacrifices fallen into neglect, its
morals, superstitions, and fables so boldly combated, essayed
to resuscitate its dying institutions by the sword, and to drown
Christianity in a sea of blood. The popular hatred, skilfully
directed by the emperors, magistrates, and priests of the false
gods, subserved their projects of vengeance, and history pre­
sents the unheard of spectacle of three centuries of massacres,
of murders, and of judicial tortures, publicly perpetrated
against thousands of victims of every age, and rank, and sex,
in all parts of the world, without the elevation of a single voice
among the spectators to utter, in the face of their murderers,
even one cry of indignation !
In the quotations from Athenagoras and Tertullian which we
have made, we find the principal features of the discipline
practised in the primitive age. We propose to examine them
a little more in detail. Baptism was usually administered by
immersion. The subject was three times plunged in the water,
and each time the minister named one of the Divine persons
of the Trinity; but baptism by aspersion was judged sufficient
in cases of necessity—as, for example, for sick persons The
people gave the name of Clinics to those who had been baptized
in this way in their beds. To baptism was united the anoint·
*
* 01U0KN, Cont. Cd»., lib. L

78

GENERAL BISTOHÏ or THE CHURCH.

ing with oil Messed at the altar. The newly baptized were
presented to the bishop, and. by the imposition of hands, they
received the Holy Ghost, or the Sacrament of Confirmation.
They were given honey to eat, to mark their entrance into the
true land of promise, and their spiritual infancy. During the
first week, the neophytes wore a white robe which they had
received on rising from the holy laver of water, as a type of the
innocence which they ought to preserve. Only adults changed
their names—since we find in the first century many' saints
whose names were derived from false gods, as Dionysius,
Demetrius, kc. The custom of changing the name, to take
that of a martyr or confessor, was not introduced until after
the Council of Nice. Solemn baptism was conferred only on
Easter eve, in order that the neophytes should rise with Jesus
Christ, or on the eve of Pentecost, that they might receive
the Holy Ghost with the Apostles. The sacrament of the
Eucharist was immediately administered to them. None were
admitted to baptism but after long and serious trial. Gladi­
ators, comedians, circus-riders, women of bad lives, and
diviners, could be baptized only after having renounced their
former modes of living, and given marks of a true and sincere
conversion. The Christians had for their rallying sign, or as
an abridged creed, the sign of the cross, which preceded each
of their actions. All their works—their labor, the seed-time,
the harvest, and the gathering of fruits—began ami ended
with prayer. A house newly constructed, or newly inhabited,
received a special benediction, and each meal always began
with prayer. The study and meditation of the Holy Scrip­
tures was the constant occupation of every Christian family.
Many saints of the primitive ages have been found buried with
the book of the Gospels on their breast. The austerity of their
lives fostered the spirit of prayer in the early Christians.
They at first counted as fasting days of obligation only those
which preceded Easter, now called Lent. The Church observed
them in memory of the passion of Jesus Christ. The fast of
Wednesday and Friday was not obligatory, being left to the

REVIEW OF THE FIRST CENTURY.

79

devotion of the faithful. All these fasts were in different
degrees, according to their duration and their rigor. Tho<··
of Wednesday and Friday lasted until none—three hour
*
after midday. Those of Lent, much more rigorous, extended
to vespers, that is, to sunset, nearly six o’clock in the
evening. The reason of fasting until none, was to honor the
death of Jesus Christ ; to vespers, to honor His burial.
The degrees of abstinence were also different : some observed
homophagy—abstinence from all cooked food; others xerophagy, which consisted in partaking only of dry fruits, such
as nuts, almonds, and things of that kind ; others contented
themselves with bread and water. The agape, or repast of
Christians in common, had been instituted in memory of the
supper, when Jesus Christ gave His body and blood as food
and drink to His Apostles. Each contributed his part towards
furnishing it. St. Paul specifies certain abuses which were
introduced into these assemblies. In their origin, the agape
were preceded by the breaking of bread, and the reception of
the Eucharist ; but as early as the end of the first century, from
respect to this august mystery, the custom had already prevailed
in many churches, to administer it only in the morning, and to
those who were fasting. The frequent persecutions had given
rise to a peculiar custom. Each Christian conveyed occar
sionally to his dwelling the eucharistie species, to communicate
himself, in case of necessity. '
Much has been said in these latter times of the commu­
nity of goods, which seems to be indicated by the passage
in the Acts of the Apostles : “The Christians sold their prop­
erty, and brought the price, and laid it at the feet of the Apos­
tles." Recent systems, which, under the modern name of So­
cialism, seek to renew in the public mind the Utopias of the
ancient spoliators, have striven to place themselves under the
patronage of the primitive Church, and to have it believed
that their principles were the principles of the Gospel. There
is in this a double error of fact and of right, which needs only
to be noted. In fact, the placing of the goods of the faith­

SO

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

ful in a common fund, never was. oven in the first century,
a general measure. The widow Tabitha, whose liberality
is praised in the Acts of the Apostles, had reserved to
herself the administration of her fortune. St. Paul said to the
rich, who complained of the simplicity of the agape, that they
wore at liberty to provide better things in their own houses.
In the matter of right, the community of goods was not oblig­
atory upon the early Christians ; it only afforded to some an
occasion to practise in a special manner evangelic perfection.
Thus, when Ananias and Sapphira brought to the Chief of the
Apostles only a part of their possessions, St. Peter said to them:
You wore free to keep all your fortune in your own hands; but
because you have intended to deceive the Lord, behold, His
hand will fall heavily on you. To extend to all Christians of
the present day the community of goods, would be the same
error as to declare as obligatory and universal the vows of pov­
erty, obedience, and chastity, which members of religions com­
munities impose on themselves. From the first century public
penance for great faults was introduced into the Church. The
various degrees of this penance were successively regulated by
the canons.
§ IV. Worship.

18. Public prayers occupied much time in the life of
the early Christians. Each congregation assembled on Sunday,
which the pagans named the day of the sun, and which, imme­
diately after the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, was
substituted by the Apostles for the Saturday of the Jews.
The place of meeting was at first one of those dining-halls
which the Latins called cœnacles, and which were in the upper
part of the house. Such was the hall from which the young
Eutychus fell, whom St. Paul restored to life. Later, the
persecutions obliged them to retreat into the crypts, or subter­
ranean caverns formed by quarries out of the city. Such were
the catacombs, which still exist in Rome, and which are so well

REVIEW OF THF. FIRST CENTURY.

81

described in the magnificent works on the Catacombs. The
great object of these assemblies was the celebration of the
sacrifice, to which the different names were given, of the Lords
Supper, the Breaking of Bread, the Oblation, the Collect (col­
lecta—assembly), Eucharist (act of thanksgiving), the Liturgy
(public office). There was but one daily sacrifice in each church ;
it was offered by the bishop, assisted hy his priests. The
celebration could be made by priests only in the absence or
illness of the bishop. The order of the Liturgy has changed,
according to times and places ; certain ceremonies have been
added or retrenched ; but the essentials have always remained
intact. From the earliest times, as we learn from their writers,
after the prayers they read certain passages, first from the Old
Testament, afterwards from the New. The reading of the
Gospel was followed by a discourse upon it from the bishop,
who added exhortations suited to the wants of his flock. This
first part of the sacrifice was the only one at which the cate­
chumens, who were being instructed in the faith, but were not
yet baptized, had a right to be present. After they had with­
drawn, the gifts were offered, viz., bread and wine mixed with
water, which were to become the elements of the sacrifice.
The people then gave to each other the kiss of peace—the men
to men, the women to women—as a sign of perfect union.
The action of the sacrifice now commenced; the words of con­
secration were pronounced over the sacred species ; the Lord’s
Prayer was recited ; the celebrant received the Holy Commu­
nion, and caused it to be distributed by the deacons to all pres­
*
ent.
Regularly, all who came within the Church communicated :
even infants received the sacrament of the altar. The Com­
munion was distributed under both species. The agape, which
followed the celebration of the holy mysteries, was an ordinary
repast, composed of offerings from each of the Christians. All
the ministers of the altar had a right to a special portion of it.
♦ The celebrant distributed only the Eucharistic wine through the deacon».—Note of the
Commission for the Examination of Books, appointed by the Archbishop of Aviguou to give
un account of this History of the Church.

6

I

$2

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

This fact explains the origin of the distributions in kind, of
which the custom was maintained, even in France, until the
Revolution of 1798. Several chapters still retain traces of it.
Besides the celebration of the holy mysteries, the Christians
assembled for public prayers at different hours, both morning
and evening. The recitation or chanting of the Psalms occu­
pied the greatest part in these offices. Matins seem to have
succeeded to the morning sacrifice of the ancient law. Vespers
took the place of the evening sacrifice, and they were instituted
to sanctify the beginning of the night. They were sometimes
called lucernarium—the prayer of lamps—because it was the
hour when they were lighted. The prayers of tierce, sexte, and
none, passed also into the use of the Christians, who adopted
them from the Jews. We find traces of them in the Acts of
the Apostles, and in authors of the first centuries. The use
of varied chants, kneeling and prostration during prayer, lighted
lamps, incense, holy water, all belong to the Apostolic age, in
which we also find all the elements of public worship as it is
regulated at the present day. Whatever regarded the Liturgy
was then carefully veiled in mystery ; and it is important to
establish this fact, since it explains the silence of the writers
of those ages on a multitude of questions and details. The
fear of exposing the evangelical doctrine and the sacraments
Io the profanation and railleries of the infidels, caused them to
be enveloped in inviolable secrecy. Not only did the priests
never celebrate the mysteries in the presence of a pagan, even of
a catechumen, but they regarded it a crime to mention to them
what passed there, or even to pronounce the solemn words in
their presence, or speak of the nature of the sacrament. In
their writings or public discourses, if the mysteries were alluded
to, only obscure or enigmatic expressions were employed. Thus,
io the New Testament, to break- bread signifies to consecrate
and distribute the Eucharist; but the pagans could not under­
stand it. This law of silence gave occasion for the most
absurd calumnies against the Christians. The apologists then
spoke, and the necessity of defending the Church from the

REVIEW OF THE FIRST CENTURY.

83

accusations of her enemies overcame the less important rule
of secrecy.
*
19. It has been shown, that the first age of the Church
presents to the view of the observer a doctrine, a hierarchy, a
discipline, and a worship, regularly constituted and solemnly
recognized. At the moment when the Church, founded by
Jesus Christ, took her place in pagan society, and announced
publicly Ker intention to overcome the world, she united all
the elements of strength and unity which could secure her
duration. Scarcely come forth from the hand of the Man-God,
she bore within her, in her constitution and laws, the character
of her divinity. We shall behold her in the coming ages, with
an unbounded expansion, extend her power throughout the
world, speak the language of every people, and bend all to her
yoke ; her discipline will be modified according to the wants
of her new children ; her worship will display the most solemn
and majestic pomp; her government will enlarge its resources
and multiply its means in proportion to the increase of her
empire ; her doctrine, attacked by heresy, will be vindicated,
and all questions will be successively defined, by her Sovereign
Pontiffs and her councils ; but this development, in time or
space, will lead to no new dogma, no rule, no measure, no law.
which does not find its warrant in the time of the Apostles,
from whom it is derived through a legitimate and uninterrupted
tradition. Men pass away; empires, forms of government,
institutions, human laws fall, one after the other, each paying
their tribute to the decay which awaits every work of man :
the Church alone remains to-day as she was yesterday, and
such as she will be at the consummation of ages, having sus­
tained from Time, the great spoiler of all human institutions,
neither radical change nor tarnish, because she has within her­
self the truth, which naught can modify nor change—Justificata
in semetipsa.
♦ This important point of discipline, which throws so much light on many thing» con
nected with the usages of the early Church, was called the Disciplina Arcani.—A. B.

OENBRAL 1IIS1ORT OF THF. CHORCH.

84

CHAPTER IV.
§ I. Pontificate of St. Evabibtub (a. d. 100-109).

1. Character of the third

general persecution under Trajan.—2. Letter of Pliny the Younger to Tra­

jan.—3. Reply of Trajan.—4.

Arrius Antoninus. — 5. Martyrdom of St

Simeon, bishop of Jerusalem.—0. Sect of Thebutis.—7. Unity of govern­
ment a guarantee of purity of faith.—8. Journey of St. Ignatius to Rome.

—9. His martyrdom.—10. Martyrdom of St. Evaristus.
of

St. Alexander I. (a.

d.

109-119).

§11. Pontificate

11. Regulations of St, Alexander I.

—12. Martyrdom of St, Oncsimus, bishop of Ephesus—of St. Timothy—of

St. Titus, Ac.—13. Epistle of St. Polycarp to the Philippians.—14. St.
Papias, bishop of Hierapolis.—15. Works of St. Dionysius the Arcopagite.—

16. Thérapeutes.—17. Revolt of the Jews.—18. Death of the Emperor Tra­
jan—19. Character of the Emperor Adrian.—20. Martyrdom of Pope Alex­
ander I. § III. Pontificate of St. Sixtüb I. (a. d. 119-128).

21. Gnos­

tics.—22. Martyrdom of St. Symphorosa, and her sons.—23. Martyrdom of
SS. Sabina, Serapia, Zoe, Ac,—24. Martyrdom of Pope St. Sixtus I.

11. Pontificate

of

St. Evaristus (a.

d.

100-109).

1. The second century opens with the third general per­
secution under Trajan. The persecution of the Christians
by this prince presents several points which distinguish it
from the cruelties of Néro and of Domitian.
The rapid
propagation of the Gospel had already made the Church
powerful, as well by the number as by the union and devoted­
ness of its members. Roman policy began to be alarmed at
the progress of a religion which threatened to leave neither
purchasers for the victims, nor adorers for their false gods.
The emperors had accustomed the people to an idolatrous
worship, the ceremonies of which excited the ridicule of their
own ministers. The Cæsare thought in sustaining polytheism
to support their authority—to strengthen their power--to :

ST. EVARISTUS (A. D. 100-109).

85

the empire. There was no want of legal enactments to
repress a now religion which they deemed seditious. One of
the most ancient ordinances of Roman legislation prohibited
the recognition of any god, without the approbation of the
senate ; and Trajan, although he was resolved to oppose the
progress of the Church, published no sanguinary edict, but
interdicted associations and nocturnal assemblies in the prov­
inces. The persecution was merely a political affair; the
Christians were accused of no crime ; their innocence was not
denied ; still less did the judges institute rigorous inquests
respecting the character, the doctrines, or the aims of the reli­
gion of Jesus Christ. It sufficed that this religion was new,
that it opposed the established worship, that the senate had
not sanctioned it, to make it the duty of the magistrates to sen­
tence its disciples to death ; and they were applauded “ for
preserving the multitude from a superstition whose confessors
obliged themselves by an oath to avoid any crime.”
2. Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia, the friend of
Trajan, wrote to him: “I have examined the conduct of the
Christians for myself. They are accustomed to assemble on a
certain day before sunrise, and to sing together hymns in honor
of Christ, whom they revere as a God. They oblige them­
selves by an oath to avoid all crimes—to commit neither fraud,
nor adultery, nor robbery ; never to break their word nor vio­
late a trust. They then retire, and reassemble to partake
together of an ordinary and innocent *repast." These last words
evidently refute the popular prejudice which accused the
Christians of immolating, in their assemblies, an infant, which
they divided among themselves and devoured ; an absurd in­
terpretation of the dogma of the Eucharist.
“ By this proscription of the Christians,” adds Pliny, “ a
multitude of persons of every age, sex, and condition, are
placed in peril, for this superstitious contagion has gained not
only the cities, but the towns and rural districts. The temples
of the gods are abandoned, the solemn sacrifices have long
• PUNU, Lib. x. Epist 97.

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

heon interrupted, and none purchase the victims. I have hesi­
tated not a little, to decide whether there ought not to be
borne difference allowed in cases like these, with respect to
see or rank ; whether tender infants ought not to be otherwise
dealt with than adults; whether the penitent should not be
pardoned; or whether it be not sufficient that they renounce
Christianity, if they have once professed it ; finally, whether
they are to be punished for the name only, without any other
crime, or for other crimes attached to the name.”
3. The emperor replied by an unheard of rule—“ not to
search for the Christians, but to punish them if they perse­
vered in their profession of faith when they had been
denounced and convicted. Conquirendi non sunt : si deferuntur
cl arguantur puniendi sunt." “It was,” said Tertullian, “a
strange decree, which, in forbidding the Christians to be
searched for, implicitly recognizes their innocence, and which
nevertheless ordains their punishment as criminals, upon a
simple denunciation." Such, in regard to the Christians, was
the Roman policy, caring little for virtue or truth, but fully
alive to providing for the interest of the moment.
4. The proconsuls, sent into the different provinces of the
empire, met everywhere Christians who, it was made to appear,
were enemies of the law. While Pliny governed Pontus and
Bithynia, An-ius Antoninus persecuted the faith in proconsular
Asia. In his passage through a city of his government, all the
Christians presented themselves at once before his tribunal.
Alarmed at their multitude, he sent only a limited number to
execution, and said to the others : “Wretches that you are, if
you are so determined to die, can you not find precipices or
cords ?”
5. About the same time, Atticus, governor of Syria, ordered
the arrest of the holy Simeon, bishop of Jerusalem, first cousin
of our Lord, and then a hundred and twenty years old. He was
tortured during several days, and endured his sufferings with
such constancy as to astonish even the proconsul, who did not
expect so much strength in a man of his age. Finally, he was

ST. EVARISTUS (A. D. 100-109).

87

fastened to a cross, and thus closed his glorious career—having
governed for forty years the Church of Jerusalem, which he
had the happiness to preserve from any invasion of heresies or
sects, during his whole pontificate. But when all the disciples
who had seen the Lord with their own eyes had passed from
earth, error began its work in the Church with more success.
6. The death of Simeon having left the See of Jerusalem
vacant, a schism arose, where hitherto all had been peace.
Thebutis, a converted Jew, aspired to the honor of succeed­
ing the holy bishop. The Christians made choice of Justus,
whose doctrines and morals inspired greater confidence ; and
Thebutis, in revenge, set himself at the head of a new heresy.
He taught, with the other sectaries educated in Judaism, th"
necessity of the works of the Mosaic law for salvation, and that
baptism and the other sacraments were insufficient for spiritual
regeneration.
7. The principle of unity in government established in
the Church by Jesus Christ Himself, as a safeguard of her
doctrine, had been misunderstood by certain Christians of
Philadelphia. The illustrious bishop of Antioch, St. Ignatius,
surnamed Theophorus, happened to pass by this place. While
he was in the midst of the faithful, who had assembled to hear
this heir of the apostolic traditions, who was the most celebra­
ted bishop of the East, he suddenly exclaimed, inspired by
the Spirit of God, who revealed to him the secrets of men's
hearts : “ Stand fast by your bishop, your priests, and deacons :
be immovable in unity and subordination." At these unex­
pected words, the culprits supposed that he had been informed
of their tendencies by the bishop of Philadelphia ; but he called
God to witness that no human voice had mentioned them to
him, but the Holy Spirit had inspired him to say : “ Do
nothing without the bishop, love unity, and fly dissensions."
His exhortations re established calm among the Christians of
Philadelphia. This was, in some sort, the testament of the
holy bishop to the churches of Asia.
8. A short time afterwards, Trajan came to Antioch, on his

88

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

return from an expedition against the Parthians. St. Ignatius
was summoned before his tribunal. “ Who art thou, malig­
nant devil ?” demanded the emperor. “No one has ever so
named Theophorus." he replied. “And who is Theophorus?”
••He who hears Christ in his heart.” “ Dost thou not believe
that we also bear in our hearts the gods who have aided us to
vanquish our enemies?” “ There is but one God, who created
the world; there is but one Jesus Christ, Ilis only Son,”
returned St. Ignatius. “What!” said the emperor, “that
Jesus Christ whom Pontius Pilate nailed to the cross ?”
After this interrogatory, Trajan pronounced his sentence.
‘•We ordain that Ignatius, who boasts that he carries the
Crucified in his heart, shall be chained and taken to Rome, to
be exposed to the beasts of the amphitheatre during the public
festivals.”
9. Was it the intention of the emperor, by transporting the
holy bishop to meet his death at Rome, to remove from the
Christian population in Asia the contagious spectacle of his
constancy, so that the blood he was about to shed might not
become the fruitful seed of new martyrs ? Did he hope, in
exposing Christian bishops to the outrages of the people in
the capital of the world, by showing them mixed up with the
vilest criminals and barbarian captives, to extinguish their
religion by public contempt? Or did he perhaps rely on the
long and wearisome voyage, the weight of his chains, the pri­
vations and fatigues of captivity, to triumph over the strength
and patience of an infirm old man ? However this may be,
the event falsified all his calculations. Never had the sanc­
tity of Ignatius attracted such homage as in his fetters—
never was his eloquence so far-reaching, so brilliant. His
voyage was a continued triumph. Arrived at Smyrna, St.
Polycarp, the bishop, came to kiss his chains. He received
three deputations from the churches of Ephesus, Magnesia, and
Tralles, and sent to each of them epistles which breathe the
true charity of the Apostles. Above all, he feared that the
faithful, through their prayers, might obtain from God the

ST. EVABISTÜ8 (A. D. 100-109).

89

delay of his martyrdom, or that, by human means, they might
obtain his pardon of the emperor. lie addressed to the Church.
“ which presides at Rome in charity,” touching supplications on
* this point. From Smyrna he was taken to Troas, and embarked
for Macedonia, which he traversed, and, taking ship at Epidamnus (Durazzo), passed down the Adriatic gulf, and by the
straits of Sicily entered the sea of Tuscany. He hastened
to reach Rome before the close of the festivals, that he might
soon consummate his martyrdom. The soldiers who guarded
him, revering his sanctity, were grieved at their approaching
separation from the holy man. Finally they landed. The
faithful came to meet him with mingled joy and sadness;
happy to embrace the saintly bishop, afflicted at his approach­
ing death. Some flattered themselves with the hope of gaining
the people to his cause, and perhaps of procuring his pardon.
St. Ignatius, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, was aware of
their thoughts, and besought them to love him with a true
love, and not to hinder his happiness by delaying his martyr­
dom. He then knelt on the shore, and prayed with the whole
•assembly, imploring the Son of God to have mercy on His
Church, to put an end to the persecution, and to preserve
among Christians the spirit of charity. At length, conducted
to the amphitheatre, he was, by the emperor’s orders, exposed
to the wild beasts. Torn in pieces by two lions, he had the
happiness which he had so much desired, to be ground, as he
expressed himself, like pure wheat, in order to be admitted to
the feast of the Lamb. His martyrdom occurred December
20th, a. d. 107. Ilis acts were recorded by eye-witnesses, and
sent to the churches of Asia, so that the remembrance of
his death might continue to confirm the faithful whom his
eloquence and example had edified during his life. The dea­
con Philo of Cilicia, and Reus Agathopodus, who had accom­
panied the holy martyr on this last voyage, piously conveyed
to Antioch his larger bones, which the teeth of the lions had
spared, as most precious relics.
10. Nearly at the same time, St. Evaristus gave his life

90

GENERAI. HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

for Jesus Christ, whose representative he had been on earth.
During this century, the chair of St. Peter was buta throne
lor martyrs. Pope Evaristus gave titles to the churches of
Rome, and appointed priests for their spiritual government. 4
He ordained that seven deacons should accompany the bishop
when he preached, either to sustain the dignity of his ministry
or to serve as witnesses of the1 truth, propter stylum veritatis.
In the course of his pontificate, from a. d. 96 to 109, he insti­
tuted and ordained fifteen bishops.

§11. Pontificate

of

St. Alexander I. (a.

d.

109-119).

11. St. Alexander, by birth a Roman, succeeded Evaristus.
In the midst of the persecutions by which the rising Church
passed through a baptism of blood, he ordained that the priests
should recall the remembrance of the passion of the Saviour be­
fore (he consecration ; a remembrance expressed in the words:
“Qui pridie quam pateretur, etc. He also ordained the mingling
of water with wine in the chalice. To repel the attacks of the
devil, the most fearful enemy of Christians, he recommended
that the dwellings of the faithful should be purified by water
mixed with salt, which had received the blessing of a priest.
In this solicitude of St. Alexander for the spiritual wants of
the Church, we recognize his vigilance to preserve and fix by
decrees the Apostolic traditions. These three institutions came,
in fact, from the Apostles. The last had particular advantages
for the recently converted people. It sanctified a pagan cus­
tom, and replaced the lustral waters by a Christian symbol of
tears of penitence ; and it was a reminder of the waters of bap­
tism, to which the blood of Jesus Christ, as a divine salt, had
imparted a regenerative virtue. There have been, from that
time, special prayers for the blessing of water. Some of these
which the Church has preserved for this ceremony, and which
breathe a perfume of holy and ancient simplicity, are, per­
haps, the same of which St. Alexander regulated the use in the
second century. Thus, according to the remark of Baronins,

8T. ALEXANDER I. (A. D. 109-119).

91

lhe pious (radiiions (hut canic from the Apostles were confirmed,
and received a regular sanction from their immediate successors.
12. While Antioch sent her saintly bishop to Rome to
receive the crown of martyrdom, the church of Ephesus had
the same glory. St. Onesimtis, a disciple of St. Paul, was
taken, enchained for Jesus Christ, to the capital of the empire,
where he was stoned. It seemed that the greatest examples
of constancy and of noble sacrifices were to be given in the very
centre of paganism ; that the prodigious fecundity of Christian
blood, on so vast a theatre, might be made still more glorious.
A little earlier, St. Timothy, also the disciple of St. Paul, to
whom St. Onesimtis had succeeded in the episcopal See of
Ephesus, had likewise sealed his faith with his blood. Titus,
bishop of Crete, had preceded him in the same glorious end.
lie was martyred at the age of ninety-four. St. Antistius,
bishop of Dyrrachium, in Macedonia, died, like his divine
Master, on the cross. St. Phocas, bishop of Synope, in Pon­
tus, gave also his life for Jesus Christ. The persecution ex­
tended to the extremities of the earth, in order to strike every­
where, at once, a religion which, though yet in its infancy,
already embraced the whole world. In proportion as the
sword of the executioner removed the bishops from their
churches, the election from among the clergy and the faithful
in union with the See of Rome gave successors to the martyred
prelates. Heron succeeded St. Ignatius in the See of Antioch ;
Zaccheus succeeded the bishop Justus, in the See of Jerusa­
lem; Primus succeeded the bishop Cerdon,
*
in the See of
Alexandria. The other churches, also, had their episcopal
succession ; and the tyrants, in sending her bishops each day
to die, made still more resplendent the immortality of the
Church, and the divinity of an institution which had from that
time such an abundance of life, that she developed it only the
more in proportion as she was persecuted.
13. St. Poly carp, bishop of Smyrna, a disciple of St. John
♦ Cerdon, bishop of Alexandria, was not Cordon the heretic, who lived in the reign of
Antoninus Pius.

92

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the Evangelist, inherited the influence which St. Ignatius had
exercised over the churches of Asia. On the occasion of the
martyrdom of the bishop of Antioch, his friend, he wrote to
the Philippians a celebrated epistle, which, in the times of St.
Jerome, was still read in the solemn assemblies of the faithful
of Asia. Although it is rather a moral exhortation than a
dogmatic treatise, it contains precious evidence on the dogmas
of the incarnation, of the atonement of Jesus Christ, of the
reality of His human nature and His passion, and on the eccle­
siastical hierarchy. In the rules of conduct which he ad­
dresses to all conditions of life—to young men, to virgins, to
the faithful engaged in marriage, to widows, to deaconesses, to
ministers of the altar themselves, and to deacons and priests—
he insists particularly on the necessity of prayer, fasting, and
other mortifications; and on the fear of the last judgment, on
chastity, on subordination, on condescension, and mutual
charity. His words, often borrowed from the Holy Scriptures,
especially from the Now Testament, the Evangelists, the Acts
of the Apostles, the Epistles of St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John,
superabundantly prove the respect in which at that time the
Church held those Apostolic monuments.
14. Nearly at the same time, St. Papias, bishop of llierapolis, in Phrygia, the friend of St. Polycarp, and perhaps,
like him, a disciple of St. John, made a collection in writing of
the oral traditions concerning the Saviour and His Apostles.
• He composed five books, entitled Exposition of the Discourses
of the Lord, of which Eusebius has preserved some fragments.
Antiquity has praised the eloquence, zeal, and piety of this
holy bishop. He fell, nevertheless, into the error of the Millenarians, attributed before him to Cerinthus. Misled by a
false interpretation of this passage of the Apocalypse, The jus2
shall rise, and shall reign a thousand years with Christ, he con­
cluded that after the resurrection there would be a reign of the
just on earth. Yet he did not people this new Eden with
material enjoyments or carnal delights, as Cerinthus had done,
who was imbued with the gross ideas of Judaism upon the

ST. ALEXANDER I. (A. D. 100-119)

93

reign of the Messiah. St. Papias, in maintaining this second
advent of Jesus Christ, admitted nothing but a spiritual hap­
piness, more worthy of Christian hope. The austerity of his
doctrines and his known virtue caused several Fathers to adopt,
somewhat later, the error of millenarianism, often called chiliasm, from the Greek word.
15. Among the contemporary writers of these holy person­
ages, the name of St. Dionysius the Areopagite must not be
omitted. Certain critics of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen­
turies ha ve very unwisely endeavored to contest the authenticity
of the works which bear his name. This error has been learn­
edly refuted by the Reverend Fathers Honoré de St. Marie and
Natalis Alexander. The books of this doctor which have come
down to us are the Treatise on the Divine Names, The Books
of the Celestial Hierarchy, of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, a book
on Mystical Theology, and letters. Embracing in a sublime
trilogy the entire world of the intelligences, “ his eagle flight,"
said St. Thomas Aquinas, “ has borne him successively to the
heaven of the most Holy Trinity, to the heaven of angelic
nature, and to the heaven of human nature." The magnifi­
cence of his style is worthy of the grandeur of his subjects,
yet sometimes there is found an obscurity, which the critics
attribute to three causes : 1st, the difficulty of expressing with
perfect clearness so abstruse a doctrine ; 2d, the peculiar style
of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, who wrote in the manner of
the Platonists, of whom the moderns have preserved no clear
knowledge ; 3d, the Discipline of Secret, which interdicted pre­
cise developments or explications, from the fear of exposing
the mysteries of our religion to the contempt of the pagans.
10. In the book of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy he speaks of
the faithful who in his time gave themselves up to contempla­
tive life in separation from the world. This passage should
be placed beside that of Philo the Jew, a contemporary writer,
on the subject of the Thérapeutes, or monks of the church of
Alexandria. “ They construct,” said this author, quoted by
Eusebius in his ecclesiastical history, “ small oratories in re­

94

GENERAL niSTORF OF THE CHURCH.

tired places in the country, to which they give the name
monasterium. There they pass their life, far from other mor­
tals, in the exercises of piety, and celebrate the august mys­
teries. The law of God, the oracles of the prophets, and other
Scriptures, arc the continual subjects of their meditations. The
whole day, from dawn till sunset, is consecrated to pious ex­
ercises, to singing Psalms and holy canticles. They reproach
themselves if they lose, in the care of their bodies, any part of
the day, which they reserve entirely for the contemplation of
heavenly things. Only after sunset they permit themselves to
partake of a frugal and scanty meal. To animate their soli­
tude, they have the writings of the ancients who founded their
religion, and from these they take their rule of conduct, and
the models whom they ought to imitate.” The writings which
Philo mentions, adds Eusebius, are nothing else than the Gos­
pels, the Epistles of the Apostles, and some commentaries com­
posed by the doctors of the Apostolic age.
These witnesses of Christian antiquity, which place monastic
institutions in the very earliest days of the Church, are not
without historic interest. What a spectacle the Christians,
newly withdrawn from the errors and corruption of paganism,
offered to the çorld! Whilst the maddest cruelty and the
most degrading passions sat in turn on the throne of the
Cæsars, and so pervaded the morals of society that they
scarcely excited a movement of indignation, the disciples of
Jesus, recalling the exiled virtues to the earth, gave the
degenerate Romans examples of disinterestedness, of mortifi­
cation. of contempt of earthly interests, of abstinence, and of
virtue, unknown to the best days of the republic ; or rather
they proved, in the midst of the amphitheatres, in the jaws of
the lions, in the flames of the pyre, under the sword of the
executioner, that a divine virtue flowed from the very name of
Jesus into their hearts.
17. fhe Jews, after the ruin of Jerusalem, were dispersed
abroad, and carried with them everywhere in their exile a
hatred of the Roman name. Towards the end of the reign of

ST. ALEXANDER I. (A. D. 109-119).

!»ÿ

Trajan, a. d. 114-117, they revolted at Alexandria, in Egypt,
and in Cyrenaica, where they were very numerous. It wool·1
be difficult to conceive how this unhappy nation dared to mat< h
itself against the forces of the empire, and at the very moment
when the victory of Trajan over the Parthians had given new
power to the Roman arms, if we did not remember that, always
seduced by false prophets, they believed themselves at length
called to inaugurate the reign of the Messiah, whom they still
expected, and to enter into the realization of these chimerical
hopes. This insurrection was marked by unparalleled cruel­
ties. Not satisfied with the murder of the Greeks and Romans
among whom they lived, their infuriate rage led them to eat
their flesh, to drink their blood, to make girdles of their intes­
tines, and to cover themselves with their skins. Great num­
bers were cut through the middle of the body, some were ex­
posed to beasts, or forced to kill each other like the vilest
gladiators. It was computed that two hundred thousand vic­
tims were sacrificed to their fury in Libyan Cyrenaica. Two
hundred and forty thousand were massacred in the isle of
Cyprus. Trajan sent Martius Turbo against them in Egypt
and Libya, who destroyed an immense multitude of the insur­
gents by the sword. Lucius Quietus made an equal carnage
in Mesopotamia. This first sedition was thus stifled in the
blood of its authors.
18. Trajan was not destined to see the end of these trou­
bles. Insatiable of triumphs, after having conquered the Par­
thians, subjugated Armenia and Babylonia, and ravaged a part
of Arabia, he laid siege to Afra, a city of the Agarenian Arabs.
A check obliged him to retreat, and he went to die at Selinonte,
in Cilicia, a. d. 117, at the moment when his recent conquests
were escaping from his authority, and throwing off the yoke
which he had imposed on them. A wise administrator in peace,
a skilful general in war, Trajan merited the love and admiration
of the Romans; but he tarnished his glory by the indulgence of
shameful passions, and by his cruelties towards the Christians.
The persecution which he ordered against the Church placed

96

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

him in personal relations with some of the most heroic among
her martyrs, most venerable among her bishops and confessors,
lie did not comprehend that the vitality of the empire was
weakened by the loss of those Christians whom ho com­
manded, on a single denunciation, to be thrown to the lions.
He was not capable of a sentiment of admiration for the con­
stancy and generous intrepidity of St. Ignatius and the other
pontiffs, whom he sent to die for the entertainment of the
Roman populace.
19. He bequeathed the purple to Adrian, his adopted son,
whom the Empress Plotina charged herself to make acceptable
to the senate. The new Cæsar had all the vices opposed to
his good qualities. lie loved the arts, yet sometimes sen­
tenced artists to death from jealousy; he was eager in the
pursuit of knowledge, but descended to the ridiculous super­
stitions of judicial astrology and magic ; he affected a profound
respect for the senate, to whom he owed the throne, yet had no
scruple in condemning the most virtuous senators to death to
gratify a caprice. With these inconsistencies in his character,
the diversities of opinion respecting Adrian are readily ex­
plained. He changed nothing in the last decisions of Trajan
respecting the Christians, who saw themselves still exposed to
the hate of the pagans.
20. Pope St. Alexander experienced about this time its
effects. He had converted to the faith many of the principal
citizens of Rome, among whom was Hermas, prefect of the
city. The priests of the idols and the pagan magistrates, irri­
tated by his zeal, condemned him to death, with his two priests,
Eventius aud Theodulus. They were beheaded May 3d, a. d.
119. In the course of his pontificate he consecrated five
bishops. Besides the decrees .relative to the Passion of the
Saviour, on mingling wine and water in the chalice, and ou holy
water, he is regarded as the first who, from respect to the
Divine Victim, ordered unleavened bread to be used in the holy
sacrifice. Of the flourishing condition of the Roman Church
at this time, we are enabled to judge from the high culogium

8Τ. SIXTUS 1. (A. D. 119-128).

97

pronounced by St. Ignatius, in hie epistle from Smyrna. He
calls it “ the well-beloved Church, filled with light, worthy of
God, abounding in sanctity, justly blessed, meriting all praise,
perfectly governed, presiding in charity, having the deposit of
the law of Christ, bearing the name of the Father, united ;*.<■cording to the flesh and the spirit, full of the grace of God,
without division or any impure alloy.”
§ III. Pontificate of St. Sixtus I. (a. d. 119-128).
21. Twenty-five days after the death of St. Alexander !..
St. Sixtus L, succeeded him. Under his pontificate the
Gnostics developed their erroneous doctrines, and led many
of the faithful into their errors. If we would have a true idea
of Gnosticism, we must abstract ourselves from the intellectual
centre in which we live, and return to the system of pagan
theogony which Basilides, Carpocrates, Epiphanius, and Valen­
tinus, who were the principal heads of the Gnostics, strove to
adapt to the Christian dogma. This fusion was effected under
the influence of the Alexandrian school, which, since the Ptol­
emies, had become the centre of the philosophic movement
during this epoch. Oriental science met in this common arena
with the systems of Pythagoras and Plato. Idolatry was puri­
fied, and elevated to the eminence of a scientific combination.
They left gross forms and fabulous mythology to the supersti­
tion of the vulgar, reserving to themselves more exalted knowl­
edge and higher science, which they concealed under this de­
ceptive appearance. This sublime doctrine was decorated with
the ostentatious name of Gnosis, knowledge par excellence. In
commencing the study of all philosophy the human mind finds
two problems, on the solution of which depend the results
of its investigations : viz., the existence of matter, and the
existence of evil. Following the materialists, matter is eter­
nal ; according to the dualists, the principle of evil has main­
tained its existence parallel with that of good from all eter­
nity. The pantheists insist that matter is God, and that evil
7

98

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

is only the prejudice of an intelligence too narrow to embrace
at once the entire proportions of being ; therefore, it does not
exist. Gnosticism tries another system, that of emanation.
Matter was not the immediate work of the Eternal Intelligence:
it owes its existence to an inferior demiurge, descended by a
series of successive generations from the first principle of all
being to the extreme confines of the divinity. The first Gnos­
tics, Saturninus, of Antioch, a disciple of Menander, Basilides,
of Alexandria, Carpocra-tes, and his son Epiphanius, also of
Alexandria, dogmatized, in the first thirty years of the reign
of Adrian, and gave circulation to the principles of Gnosticism.
But it was reserved to Valentinus to give their latest form to
these yet fluctuating doctrines. He appeared, only twenty
years later, under the pontificates of SS. Pius and Anicetue;
but not to intercept the historic narrative, we will here give a
succinct analysis of his system. According to Valentinus, the
First Cause of Being inhabited an invisible and unexplored
abyss, which he designated under the name of Βύθος, depth.
This eternal principle of life had remained many ages un­
known, in silence and repose, accompanied in this mysterious·
solitude by Έι-oiü, thought. They engendered Noùf, intelligence.,,
with Άλ?/0ε<α, truth. The four Eons (the name which Valen­
tinus gave to these spiritual principles) formed the sacred
Titrada, an imitation of the mysterious Quaternas of Pythag­
oras. Intelligence and truth produced λαγός, the word, and
Ζώ//, the life, who in their turn engendered man, ΚνΟγωπος, and
Εκκλιρσ, the church. From these eight superior Eons pro­
ceeded, always by Syzygies, twenty-two other generations,
completing the whole of the superior world, which he named
Pleroma, ζ/.ι^μα, plenitude. The last Eons of Pleroma pro­
duced, by successive generations, three essences : the pneu
*
malic, or spiritual, immutable, and indestructible ; the psychic,
or animal, capable of good and evgl ; the hylic, or material,
subject to destruction and death. To these three constitu­
tive elements of the human race corresponded three differ­
ent classes of men, The first was that of pneumatics, or

ST. SIXTOS I. (A. D. 119-128).

99

spirituals ; in them all was life, worth, and light: the Gnostics
ranged themselves in this category. The second, the psychites,
mixed natures, who led an animal life, yet preserved a ray of
intelligence. The third, hyliques, or materials, an effete race,
who led an earthly and abject life of the senses. The pneu­
matics only can reascend to the eternal principle in th.e joy of
the Pleroma, as a subtile vapor traverses all the lower strata
to resume its place in the higher regions of the air. The
psychites, to be lifted up from their lower state, must be
redeemed by the Eon Jesus, who was incarnate in the womb
of Mary, and who withdrew at the moment of the Passion, so
that only the animal Christ suffered. The redemption was not
extended to the hyliques, who are devoted to eternal death,
through the imperfection of their own substance. This pre­
sumptuous classification established the Gnostics in impecca­
bility. Formed of a purer element than other men, their
souls, in their· own esteem, could never be soiled hy corruption.
The disorders of the senses, the movements of concupiscence
changed not the tranquil peace they enjoyed in a region
superior to passions or desires. Such doctrines justified ever}’
excess and legitimated every crime. AU actions, even the
most culpable, became indifferent. All virtues, the grace of
the Incarnation, the Redemption, faith, good works, mortifica­
tions, even martyrdom, were only so many superstitions, as
ridiculous as they were useless. It is not difficult to conceive
the attraction which perverse human nature found in these
doctrines, and consequently the Gnostics multiplied rapidly in
the first two ages of the Church, and strangely compromised
the true faithful, who were supposed to hold the same opinions.
The accusations of nocturnal and infamous assemblies, of homi­
cidal festivities, of execrable orgies, fell upon Catholics, whom
the pagans took neither time nor pains to distinguish from the
sectaries ; and when the persecution was kindled, the culpable
went with incense in their hands to seek their safety at the
feet of idols, while the innocent and faithful Christians has­
tened to martyrdom.

10(1

OBNBRAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

22. These calumnies had excited the popular hatred against
the Christians to the highest degree in the first year of the
reign of Adrian, a. D. 117. Although this prince had issued
no edict against the faithful, the persecution, which towards
the end of Trajan’s reign had relaxed, now assumed a new
degree .of fury, and everywhere resounded the tumultuous
cry, Death to the Christians! which made many martyrs.
Among those who then sealed the Catholic faith with their
blood, the Church particularly honors St. Symphorosa and her
seven sons. This admirable widow lived with her family on the
hill of Tibur (Tivoli), near which the Emperor Adrian had just
constructed a magnificent palace, which he wished to open by
solemn sacrifices in honor of the gods of the empire. Follow­
ing his superstitious custom, in the midst of the ceremony he
interrogated the oracles. Their response, suggested perhaps
by the hatred of the priests against the Christians, was that
the widow Symphorosa, who lived on the neighboring heights,
made them mute by invoking her God, and that she should
first be constrained to offer incense to the idols. Led before
the prince, the heroic widow thus replied to his demands :
“ Getulius, my husband, and Amantius, his brother, were
tribunes in your armies: they preferred death to apostasy;
and if their punishment was disgraceful in the eyes of men,
in heaven it has covered them with immortal glory.” “ Either
sacrifice to the all-powerful gods, with thy sons, or I will make
thee offer thyself in sacrifice with them.” “And whence
comes to me the happiness to merit, with my children, to be
offered as a holocaust to my God ?” “ It is not to thy God
that I shall sacrifice thee, but to mine.” “Your gods cannot
receive me in sacrifice. If you order me to be burned for Christ,
the fire which consumes me will torment your demons far more
than me.” “ Make your choice ; either sacrifice to my gods or
die in torments.” “ It is vain to think of moving my resolu­
tion by your threats. My most ardent desire is to rest with
my husband, whom you sent to die for the name of Christ.”
The emperor commanded that she should be conducted to the

RT. SfXTDS I. (Λ. D'. 119-121).

101

temple of Hercules, that her face should be bruised with blows,
and that afterwards she should be suspended by her hair. As
she continued unshaken in her holy resolution, she was cast,
into the liver, with a heavy stone fastened about her neck.
The following day he caused seven stakes to be planted around
the temple of Hercules, on which were extended by pullies
the seven brothers, who were put to death by various modes
of punishment. Crescentius, the eldest, was pierced in the
throat by a sword ; the second, Julian, was transfixed by many
points of iron buried in his breast; Nemesius received a lance
in his heart ; Primitivus, in the stomach ; Justin had his back
broken ; Stracteus was disembowelled ; and Eugene, the
youngest, had his body riven from head to foot.
23. About the same time St. Sabina, widow, and St.
Serapia, virgin, received the crown of martyrdom in Umbria;
and St. Zoe, with her children, in Pamphylia. At Rome, St.
Eustachius also, with his wife and children, suffered death for
their Lord. He was an illustrious captain of the imperial
army; but he preferred to give his life for the King of Heaven
rather than, by betraying his conscience and the truth, to pass
it in glory and honor. Another soldier, probably a tribune,
suffered martyrdom. His memory is preserved in the follow­
ing inscription, graven on the stone of his sepulchre in the
catacombs : “ In the time of the Emperor ikdrian, Marius,
officer of the soldiers, and still young, has lived long enough,
for he has given his blood with his life for Jesus Christ. He
rests in peace.”
24. The Pope St. Sixtus was one of the last victims of
the persecution under the reign of Adrian. He died towards
the year 128, after governing the Church ten years. Accord­
ing to the Liber *
Pontificalis St. Sixtus made a decree which
reserved to the ministers alone the power of touching holy
things. He added to the Liturgy of the Mass the chant
of the Sanctus. Finally, he ordained that the bishops who
had been called to Rome on business should not be again re• Book of the Popes.

102

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

ceived in their respective places of jurisdiction without letters
from the Holy See, addressed in the form of greeting to their
people. These letters were called formata!. In the same man­
ner clerics could travel only with letters of communion from
lheir bishops; the bishops themselves were to bear letters of
communion from the Holy See. By these, the hierarchy
was constituted in unity of government, under the immutable
authority of the pontiffs, successors of St. Peter.

ST. TELESPHORUS (A. D. 128-138).

103

CHAPTER V.

§ I.

d. 128-138). 1. St. Telesphoms,
Pope. — 2. Apology of St. Quadratus, and of Aristides.—3. Letter of
Serenius Granianus, proconsul of Asia, to the Emperor Adrian.—4. Reply
of Adrian. — 5. Revolt of the Jews. — 6. The Talmud.—7. Version of
Aqnila. — 8. Death of Adrian. — 0. Martyrdom of Pope St Teleephonw.
§ II. Pontificate of St. Hyginus (a. d. 138-142). 10. Heresy of Cer­
don and Marcion.—11. Death of St. Hyginus. § III. Pontificate of St.
Pius I. (a. d. 142-150). 12. Persecution continued under the reign of
Antoninus.—13. St. Justin the Apologist. His conversion.—14. Exhortar
tion to the Greeks, the first work of St Justin.—15. First Apology of St
Justin, addressed to the Emperor Antoninus.—16. Decree of the Emperor
Antoninus Pius in favor of the Christians.—17. Death of Pope St Pius I.

Pontificate

of

St. Teiebphorub (a.

§ I. Pontificate

of

St. Telesphorüs (a. d. 128-138).

1. St. Telesphorüs succeeded St. Sixtus I. Before his eleva­
tion he had led the life of the anchorites, as we learn from tin
Liber Pontificalis, ex Anachoreta. To preside over the Christian
assemblies in the catacombs ; to ordain *priests and consecrate
bishops, to take the place of those who had suffered from the
sword of persecution ; to confirm in faith and patience the
churches shaken by the fury of tyrants ; to regulate the order of
the sacred ceremonies, and the forms of prayers or hymns that
accompanied them ; to place the ecclesiastical hierarchy on
solid foundations ; to watch over the maintenance of the holy
doctrines and traditions ; finally, to close a life of privations
and pious toil by the torments of martyrdom;—such were the
glorious privileges of the earliest Roman Pontiffs. 1st. The
Apostolic institution of Lent was maintained and confirmed
* There ordinations were usually hold about Christmas, inew ikcmibri. The Church,
from the earliest period, observed die practice of reserving fixed epochs for these important
ceremonies, which perpetuate the priesthood in the world.

104

ORNKRAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

by St. Telesphorus, who ordained a fast of seven weeks before
Easter. 2d. The custom of celebrating Mass only at the hour
of tierce—nine o’clock in the morning—was also maintained
by this pope, who allowed no exception but on the feast of the
Nativity, when it was celebrated in the night. 3d. He was
the first who introduced into the liturgy the Gloria in Excehit.
2. While Adrian visited the various provinces of bis em­
pire, he left behind him, together with shameful monuments
of his passions, useful ameliorations, and durable reforms.
Athens was especially the object of his care ; he did much for
its embellishment, and gave it his name—the City of Adrian.
During one of his visits there, St. Quadratus, whom Eusebius
represents as a disciple of the Apostles, a man of brilliant
genius and of apostolic zeal, availed himself of the occasion to
address to him an apology, or defence, on behalf of the Chris­
tians, a. d. 126. This work, the first of its kind, was still
extant in the time of St. Jerome, who mentions it with' high
eulogium. Only a fragment remains to us, on the reality of
the miracles of Jesus Christ, as distinguished from the en­
chantments and transient impressions of magic. “ The miracles
of the Saviour,” said the holy apologist, “ were always visible,
because they were always time. Those whom He cured, those
whom lie recalled from death to life, were seen, not only at
the moment of their cure, or of their resurrection, but long
afterwards; not only during the lifetime of the Saviour, but
many years after He had ascended to heaven ; some of them,
indeed, are still living.”
Aristides,a Christian philosopher of Athens, about the same
time, presented another apology to Adrian, in which he relies
on the testimony of the ancient philosophers to prove the
sublimity of the Catholic faith. This work is also lost to us.
The emperor, touched by these just representations, seems to
have adopted sentiments more favorable to the Christian
religion.
3. But that which chiefly contributed to put an end to the
persecution was the letter which, nearly at the same time.

ST. TELESPHORUS (A. D. 1Î8-I39).

105

Serenius Granianus, proconsul of Asia, addressed to Adrian on
the subject of the cruelties practised by the multitude upon
the Christians. It was a custom at the public festivals, that
the people of Rome, or of the provinces present, should have
liberty to ask of the prince or proconsuls any thing which their
passions, excited by the bloody spectacle, could suggest.
“ The Christiana to the lions" was the cry in every amphitheatre,
and without interrogatory, or process of law, or any valid
judgment, Christians, by thousands, were cast to the wild
beasts. Serenius, in his letter to the emperor, did not
hesitate to pronounce upon these proceedings as monstrous
iniquities. To sacrifice to the clamor of the populace a multi­
tude of victims of every age and rank, of both sexes, when
they were not even accused of any judicial crime, seemed to
him a barbarism unworthy of Rome and of Adrian.
4. The reply of the emperor was not addressed to Serenius
Granianus, who, in the interval, had probably relinquished the
government of Asia, but to his successor, Minucius Fundanus.
It is thus recorded by Eusebius : “ I have received the letter
addressed to me by the illustrious Serenius Granianus, your
predecessor. The affair appears to merit serious attention, in
order to protect these men (the Christians) from similar vexa­
tions, and that pretences may be withdrawn from informers for
future calumnies. If the inhabitants of any district have
charges to make against the Christians, which they are able in
person to sustain before your tribunal, let them have recourse
to this judicial mode ; but they must not be permitted to pur­
sue them with foolish or tumultuous clamor. Reason demands
that if there be any ground of accusation, you should have
cognizance of it. If they are convicted of actions contrary to
the laws, decide the case according to the gravity of the crime.
If, on the contrary, the accusation proves to be calumnious, let
the informer suffer merited punishment.”
This rescript was sent to other governors of provinces, and
the fury of persecution was relaxed, though not entirely extin­
guished ; for, on the one hand, the passions of the populace.

106

ORNERAI. HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

and, on the other, the hatred of the proconsuls for the very
name of Christian, together with the progressive decline of
respect and obedience towards the central authority, continued
still to leave multitudes of Christians a prey to the blind pas­
sions of the populace, or to judges misguided by their prejudices.
Ô. The Jews, always conquered, and always rebellious,
availed themselves of the absence of the emperor in distant
provinces to attempt a new insurrection. They were embit­
tered against the sovereignty of Adrian by a double motive.
This prince, who had undertaken to raise all the cities of his
vast empire from their ruins, had sent a pagan colony to
rebuild and inhabit Jerusalem. He also changed the name of
the ancient City of David to that of Ælia Capit olina. The Jews
could not endure without indignation the presence of these
idolaters, who raised altars to false gods in the very places
where the God of Abraham had been so long invoked by their
fathers. Another measure, too, had outraged their devoted
attachment to the law of Moses. Adrian had prohibited, un­
der pain of death, the circumcision of their infants. This was
to take away the seal of their covenant with God—the sacred
sign which distinguished them from the pagans. A sullen dis­
content soon became apparent among them. They assembled
in the vast subterranean cavities near their cities, and secretly
organized a revolt. A cunning impostor contrived to turn these
hostile inclinations to the profit of his own ambition. He was
Barchocebas, or the Son of the Star. He announced himself as
the envoy of God, to deliver the Jewish people from the
oppression of their enemies. The star of Jacob, predicted by
Balaam, was the sign of his advent ; he was the Messiah prom­
ised by the prophets, and expected by the patriarchs. The
rabbi Akiba placed the resources of his science and influence
at the service of the false prophet, and Barchocebas was
hailed as the Saviour of Jerusalem. He soon found him­
self at the head of a multitude of partisans, and the first use he
made of his power was to persecute with the greatest cruelty
the Christians who refused to abjur e their faith in Jesus Christ,

8T. TELE8PH0RÜ8 (A. D. 128-139).

107

and to enter into the league which he formed against the
Roman domination. The tortures to which he condemned
these victims surpassed in barbarity and cruelty all that
pagan rage had hitherto invented. Meanwhile he extended
his intrigues throughout the East among the Jews, and sought
for the enemies of the empire in all directions. In the neigh­
boring tribes he found a multitude greedy for pillage, ready
to swell the number of his troops. The Romans, at first,
despised this insurrectionary movement in a nation which they
had so often conquered, and its importance was only discov­
ered when the extent of its ramifications became apparent.
The governor of Judea, Tinnius Rufus, began by sending to
execution a crowd of persons, without distinction of age or sex.
This act of cruel severity served only to excite the insurgents
to greater fury. Their revolt at once, in every point in Syria,
alarmed the governor, who called on the emperor for re-enforcements. Adrian summoned from Great Britain Julius Severus,
reputed to be the greatest gênerai of his time, and dispatched
■him to the aid of Tinnius Rufus. Seeing the numbers of his
enemies, Severus avoided a general attack, preferring a slower
mode of warfare to the dangers of an uncertain combat. He
therefore attacked them separately, to force them into narrower
limits, and to cut off their supplies. His skilful manœuvres were
completely successful. Within two years he captured, in suc­
cession. every fortified place in Judea, and destroyed more than
six hundred thousand Jews, without including those who per­
ished by famine, fire, or want. An immense multitude were
sold in the markets of Terebinth and Gaza. Such as were not
sold in those cities were transported into Egypt. This fright­
ful disaster surpassed those which Nabnohodonosor and Titus
had inflicted upon Judea. Barchocebas lost his life at the
siege of Bether, where the rebels had fixed the centre of their
operations. Jerusalem no longer preserved any traces of her
past glories. The stones which had served in the erection of
the temple, were now employed to build a theatre. Over one
jf the gates was placed a marble hog, to the Jews the most

JOS

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

impure of animals. A statue of Jupiter was set upon the Holy
Sepulchre; and one of Venus was raised upon Calvary. A
sacred wood for pagan sacrifices was planted at Bethlehem.
The consecration to Adonis of the grotto where Jesus was
horn, profaned this holy place. The dispersed Israelites were
prohibited from entering Jerusalem—neither were they al­
lowed to approach it—however strong might be their love of
Sion. They were obliged to purchase at a great price the per­
mission, on one day of the year, to bathe with their tears the
places upon which, in other times, their religion had shed such
splendor. St. Jerome, who, in his time, was a witness of this
lugubrious ceremony, says: “After having purchased the
blood of the Saviour, they purchase their own tears ; they
pay a ransom for the privilege of weeping. What a dismal
spectacle, on the anniversary of the day when Jerusalem was
taken and destroyed by the Romans, to see the approach, in
mournful attire, of a multitude of people—of women and men,
bending under the weight of years, and covered with rags,
whose bearing attests the anger of the Lord, in the exhaustion '
of their bodies, and in their torn garments !”
This catastrophe was advantageous, however, to the Chris­
tian Church in Jerusalem, which hitherto had been governed
by bishops converted from Judaism, and was consequently
attached to the observances of the Mosaic law. A residence
in this city being now permitted only to the Gentiles, the
Church was recruited chiefly by her conquests among them.
Besides, in the utter dispersion of a people condemned by God,
this last tempest gave a new force to the proofs of Chris­
tianity, which, according to the prophets, was to succeed
Judaism, and rise on its ruins, a. d. 134.
6. Far from confessing their offences in the presence of
these terrible judgments of Heaven, the Jewish doctors sought
more diligently than ever to blind themselves, and to lead their
unhappy compatriots into the same errors. From hatred to
Christianity, and in order to weaken the proofs of the divinity
of Jesus Christ, which is made so evident in the prophecies,

ST. TELESPHORUS (A. D. 128-139).

109

they began the composition of the Talmud, or doctrine, an enor­
mous compilation of their oral traditions. This work is divided
into two parts ; the Mischna, or law, which is the text, and the
Ghemur, or complement, which is a commentary on. the other.
The entire collection forms twelve volumes in folio. Among its
fables and puerile inventions there is a hatred of the name of
Christian, which is not even dissembled. This book is per­
haps the greatest obstacle to the conversion of the Jews.
7. At this epoch, a work of another class, but with the
same object, was undertaken by an apostate Christian. Aquila,
a native of Sinope, in Pontus, was first a pagan. The miracles
which he saw performed among the Christians converted him,
and he was baptized ; but his attachment to astrology, which,
in spite of the counsels of the bishops, he refused to abandon,
caused his excommunication, and he was excluded from the
Church. To avenge this injury, he was circumcised, and
openly embraced Judaism. Carrying his hatred still further,
he applied himself to the study of the Hebrew tongue ; and
hfter acquiring a thorough knowledge of it, he commenced a
new Greek version of the Scriptures, to correct that of the
Septuagint. He endeavored especially to make it literal, and
succeeded so well that even St. Jerome pronounces his trans­
lation very exact. But the same Father reproaches him for
having designedly'weakened the passages which serve to es­
tablish the divinity of Jesus Christ.
8. All these desperate efforts to hinder the progressive
advancement of the Catholic Church ended by imparting to it
new strength. The dispersed Jews carried everywhere the
testimony of the victory of Christianity, and the heretics, in
yielding to the disorders of an infamous life, condemned them­
selves ; in fine, the emperors achieved the ruin of their own
authority by the excesses of every description to which they
abandoned themselves. Adrian expired a. d. 138. Towards
the close of his life, this prince became melancholy and cruel.
He condemned to death his brother-in-law Setvienus, and
Fuercus, his grand-nephew. He was suspected of poisoning

110

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

his wife Sabina, whom he afterwards placed among the divini­
ties of the empire. He complained that he, who at, his will
had sent so many to execution, could not die himself. Finally
he expired-suffocated by an excess in eating, cursing the phy­
sicians, and jesting upon his soul. Antoninus Pius, his adopted
son. a prince worthy of the surname which his virtues and his
gratitude towards his benefactor had gained for him, succeeded
to the throne. His fine qualities endeared him to the Romans
and made him venerable to strangers, even to the barbarian
sovereigns, who chose him more than once for arbiter in their
disputes.
9. The same year Pope St. Telesphorus ended his Apostolic
career by a glorious martyrdom. Tie had governed the Church
ten years. St. Hyginus, converted from philosophism—ex phi?
losopho—was his successor.
§H. Pontificate of St. Hyîiinus (a. d. 138-142).

10. At this time Cerdon, a Syrian Gnostic, came to Rome,
where Valentinus was preaching his heresy, and Marcion
followed soon after. Cerdon had borrowed his fundamental
errors from the Gnostics, but he had given them a new form.
Though condemned and excommunicated by St. Hyginus, he
continued, nevertheless, to spread the poison of his doctrines
among the faithful, and openly taught the principles of dualism.
According to his system, there are two gods ; one who is good
and beneficent, the other just and severe ; one invisible and
unknown, the other visible and apparent ; the first, the father
of Jesus Christ, the second, creator' of the universe ; the for­
mer, author of grace, the latter, of the law.
Marcion, originally from Sinope, in Pontus, was at first his
disciple. The son of a holy man, who in the end was made a
bishop, he had received a Christian education, and in his early
youth made a profession of ascetic life. But having had the
misfortune to yield to an impure passion, his father, who suf­
fered from the disgrace of his ignominy, excommunicated him

ST. HYGINUS (A. D. 13S-H3).

Ill

and drove him from the Church. In spite of his entreaties to
be readmitted to the communion of the faithful, the hishop
continued inflexible, and Marcion went to Rome. Being of an
active and enterprising disposition, he undertook to propagate
the-doctrines of Cerdon, which he had adopted, and he brought
so much ardor and success to his work that he outshone his
master. He denied that the Son of God was really incarnate,
and that our bodies would rise again ; because, he said, it was
repugnant to the Son of God to be clothed with the corruption
and impiety of matter, and to the soul to have for its companion
in glory a body evil in its nature. But his system was par­
ticularly remarkable in its moral part. Adopting seriously the
warfare which the Gnostics declared against the body, Marcion
and his disciples fasted to mortify the flesh ; they preached
virginity, and had among them austere virgins ; they received
for baptism only those who lived-in continence. From the
same principles they exalted martyrdom, and pretended to
seek for it. In thus avoiding the impurities of the other
Gnostics, Marcion rendered his doctrine more dangerous for
weak minds, who had enough of natural probity to avoid those
degraded sects. This circumstance explains the rapid prog­
ress of the Marcionites in the East and West—a progress
attested by St. Justin during the lifetime of this sectary.
11. Again the See of St. Peter was left vacant. St.
Hyginus occupied it only four years. It is not known by
what kind of torments he obtained the title of martyr. It is
believed, from an expression in the Liber Pontificate, that he
made a decree relative to the various orders and functions of
clerics. In this decree, it has been thought, is discovered the
origin of cardinals. If it be meant that St. Hyginus was the
first to fix the titles of the suburbicary *bishops, which were
afterwards given exclusively to cardinals, this remark may
have some foundation. The name and dignity of the *cardinal
ate we believe to be of a far more recent date.
St. Pius I. succeeded St. Hyginus..
♦ The Bishops occupying Sees in the neighborhood of Boid*.

112

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

§ III. Pontificate

of

St. Piüs I. (a.d. 142-150).

12. Although mildness and clemency were characteristic
of the Emperor Antoninus, the faithful during his reign were
not the less a prey to the most cruel persecution. The following inscription in the cemetery of St. Calixtus, to the martyr
St. Alexander, furnishes us with a proof of it : “ Alexander
Ims ceased to live on earth, only to begin an immortal life in
heaven. Be closed his career under the Emperor Antoninus,
who, beholden to the Christians for great services, returns to
them evil for good. For whoever bends the knee to offer
homage to the true God is conducted to punishment. Oh,
wretched times ! when we can avoid the executioner neither
in caverns nor even in the midst of sacrifices and prayers !
What is more miserable than life ? At the same time, what is
more miserable than death, when parents and friends are not
permitted to render sepulchral honors to the objects of their
tenderness?" These touching complaints, mingled with Chris­
tian resignation and holy hope, doubtless afforded consolation
to the sorrows of the faithful who lost their brethren in the
faith in the midst of torments ; but they could not reach the
throne of the Cæsars. An eloquent voice about this time
brought them before it.
13. St. Justin was born at *
Neapolis, a city of Palestine,
of a family of pagan colonists, established there by the Emperor
Vespasian. It had pleased God, whose grace brought him
to a knowledge of the truth, to endow him with an ardent
temperament, eager in the pursuit of science, and with a natural
preference for philosophic researches. He yielded to them
from his youth with a passionate attachment. Having ex­
hausted the doctrines of the Stoics, the Peripatetics, the Pytha­
goreans, without allaying the thirst after truth which consumed
his soul, he had embraced the Platonic philosophy, the spirit­
ualism of which accorded best with his elevated intellect.
Ont day, while walking alone on the border of the sea which
* The ancient Sichem.

8T. PID8 I. (A. D. 142-160).

113

bathes the shores of his country, in order to abandon himself
more quietly to his accustomed meditations, he met with an
unknown man, of venerable exterior, who entered into conver­
sation on wisdom, on God and His perfections, and on the
destiny of man ; and he intimated how much philosophy, even
that of the divine Plato, is powerless to enlighten the human
mind on these fundamental points. “ What guides, then, have
we to follow,” asked Justin, “ if these have been unable to
arrive at truth ?” “ At a remote period,” replied the old man,
“ long before those who are called sages, there were just men,
friends of God, who, speaking under the inspiration of the
divine Spirit, foretold the events which are now passing in the
world. They were termed prophets. They only have known
the truth ; they only have brought it to mankind. When we
read their works with faith, they reveal to the mind the only
doctrines worthy of true philosophy. In their discourses they
do not confine themselves to syllogistic forms or subtle reason­
ings ; the testimony which they give to truth is superior to
all demonstration. Their oracles, which are now fulfilled
before our eyes, command our belief in their truth. Add to
these the miracles which they performed in the name of the
one God, Creator and Father of all things, and in predicting
the advent of His Son Jesus Christ. Pray, then, that the
gates of light may be opened to your mind, for no one can
either see or understand the truth unless God and His Christ
prepare his soul for it.”
The fruitless study of the vain systems and contradictions
of pagan philosophy had left the heart of Justin in agitation
and disquietude ; these words inspired him with a strong de­
sire to draw from a source hitherto neglected. “ I was soon
convinced,” he adds, in finishing this relation, “ that there
alone was to be found a philosophy well grounded and useful
to men ; and it is for this reason that I am now a Christian.”
Phis important conquest of the Gospel over the wisdom of
paganism was made during the last years of the reign of Adrian,
a. d. 132 to 138.
8

114

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CUURCH.

14. Justin retained in his new sphere of life the pallium, or
mantle of tho philosophers. It is believed that he became a
member of the Roman clergy. Hitherto the education of
youth had remained in the hands of pagan philosophers. St.
Tustin was tho first to open a Catholic school, where he
moulded the minds of his pupils in the faith. The celebrated
Tatian was one of his disciples. His ardent and efficacious
faith manifested itself in eminent works. His first publication,
entitled Exhortation to the Greeks, was written to dissipate the
prejudices of the pagans against Christianity. He proves,
with an erudition which is never at fault, that the books of
Moses are anterior to all the writings of the pagan philosophers
and poets, and that the Mosaic traditions, disfigured by a mul­
titude of accidental and local errors, are to be found in theii'
principal data in the pagan théogonies ; and he refers, as au
example, to the dogma of the unity of God, the basis of Jewish
revelation, which is preserved in the works of the most es­
teemed pagan authors. From this the enemies of Catholicity,
from Julian the Apostate down to the Protestant sects, have
taken occasion to accuse St. Justin, and the Fathers of the
earliest ages, of Platonism. This charge cannot be sustained.
The philosophy of Plato is mingled with so many obscurities,
jContradictions, and errors, that to extract Catholic truth from
it is impossible. Besides, Aristobulus, Josephus, St. Justin,
Origen, and Eusebius of Cæsarea, have proved that Plato had
knowledge of the Hebrew books, and that he had drawn this
part of his doctrine, so little resembling that which belonged to
himself, from them. And even if it were possible that a man
possessed of a genius which antiquity had denominated divine,
had, by help of the scattered traditions surviving in the bosom
of humanity, arrived at the attainment of some few of the
sublime verities which Christianity has established, far from
making it a subject of reproach to the doctors of the Church
who avail themselves of the use of testimony so precious, why
cannot it be seen that their object was to bring forward the evi­
dence of a new and admirable argument for the faith, since it is

ST. PIU8 I. (A. D. 14S-160).

115

proved that it is conformable to the natural religion nf the
highest intellects?
*
15. This work was only a prelude to the publication by
St. Justin of his first Apology, which the persecutions, now
more active against the Christians, rendered highly opportune.
He addressed it in these terms to the princes who then gov­
erned the Roman world : “ To the Emperor Titus Ælius Adri­
anna Antoninus Pius, Cæsar Augustus; to Verissimus, his son,
a friend of truth ; to Lucius, equally a friend of truth, son of
Ciesar, and adopted son of Pius ; to the Sacred Senate ; and
to all the Roman people, on behalf of the men of every Con­
dition, who, as Christians, are unjustly hated and persecuted,
I, Justin, son of Priscus, grandson of Bacchius, of the colony
of Flavia Neapolis, in Syrian Palestine, as one of them, have
presented this address.”
“ Reason,” he continues, “ makes it a duty in those who
are truly pious and philosophic to love truth, and to love it so
much as to sacrifice to it the prejudices which they have in­
herited from their ancestors, and even life itself. Princes,
you are denominated pious and philosophic, the guardians of
justice and the friends of truth : we shall see if you merit
these titles. For although we address to you this appeal, do
not imagine that it is intended to flatter you or to ask favors.
Our only desire is, that you will order a severe inquest to be
made, and if we are found guilty, let us be punished with all
the rigor of the law. And be not deceived : if in judging us
you listen only with the intention of gratifying superstitious men
blinded with passion, or believing idle rumors, your sentence
will injure only yourselves. For us, although you cannot con­
vict us of any crime, you may immolate us, but you cannot
hurt us.”jThis firmness and elevated mode of reasoning are sustained
* Seo, on this subject, tho Etudes Historiques of M. do Chateaubriand, Etude deuxième,
seconde partie.
f W·· have taken thia elegant analysis from the exordium to the Apology by the dtilfd
pen of M. L’Abbé Blanc. Cours d* Histoire Ecclésiastique, seconde partie, 133, promi ι
édition

116

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

throughout the Apology. He is indignant that the simple
avowal of being a Christian is sufficient to lead to condemna,
tion, while those who apostatize before the tribunals are ab­
solved with the honors due to innocence and virtue ; as if jus­
tice did not rigorously demand, first of all, an examination of
the conduct of the accused, in order to condemn or absolve him
according to his works. “ It seems,” he adds, with a rare energy
of expression, “that you fear lest all the world should become
virtuous, and that you will no longer find subjects for punish­
ment : a thought more worthy of executioners than of just
and generous princes.” He passes on to a simple, clear, and
precise exposition of the Christian doctrines. Without pre­
tension, as without timidity, he gives a portrait of their man­
ners. “ We have,” said he, “ among us men who formerly
were violent and passionate—but now bumble and patient,
converted by the exemplary fives of the Christians, or by their
integrity in business.” In reply to the reproach of rebellion
against the princes and the laws of the empire by which the
generous constancy of the Christians was dishonored : “ We
adore one only God, but in all else we obey you with joy, ac­
knowledging you as the emperors and masters of men, and we
pray that, with sovereign power, you may also be just.”
Finally he approaches the most delicate part of his work,
that of the accusations which were heaped upon Christians.
He was unabk to refute them victoriously without violating
the Discipline of the Secret,* which, as we have stated, was rigor­
ously observed from the first century. Yet it was impossi­
ble to recede before a public opinion which the infamies
of the Gnostics contributed every day still further to mislead.
“ It is reasonable,” said an historian, “ to believe that in this
part of his address St. Justin had an understanding with Pope
St. Pius I., and that it was by his consent he treated of
certain dogmas so explicitly, especially of the Eucharist.” He
explains the Catholic doctrine on this sacrament, and that of
• For a full account of this Discipline of the Secret, a moat important feature m early
Church History, see Bishop Trovern's excellent Amicable Discuesion.—A. B.

ST. PIUS I. (A. D. 143-lSO).

117

Baptism, avoiding, however, the sacramental forms. “We do
not,” said he, 11 receive the Eucharist as common bread, nor as
an ordinary beverage. But as, by the word of God, Jesus
Christ was incarnate and took upon Himself flesh and blood for
our salvation, thus the bread and wine, sanctified by the
prayer of His Word, becomes the flesh and blood of the same
Jesus Christ incarnate, to become our flesh and our blood by
its transformation into our food.” Here follow details of other
circumstances which accompany the principal action of the
sacrifice, of which he might speak without impropriety; such
as the prayers, exhortations, readings of the lives of the Saints,
the kiss of peace, and the collections for the poor.
Having completed this faithful portrait of the usages of
Christians, and of their conduct in the religious assemblies, he
concludes with the same independence of language and thought
which attended his exordium : “ Such is our doctrine : if you
find it reasonable, respect it—if you see in it only frivolities,
despise it ; but condemn not, on this account, thousands of in­
nocent persons. We might demand justice of you, in virtue
of the letter of the great and illustrious Cæsar, Adrian, your
father ; but λνβ prefer to rely on the merits of our cause and
the justice of this appeal. If you persist in sacrificing the
truth to popular fury, do what is in your power. When princes
prefer to flatter public opinion rather than to respect the in­
terests of right and justice, they act no better than the brigands
in the forests.”
16. Did this work, which breathes the dignity and modera­
tion of virtue herself, touch the heart of Antoninus ? From
the imperial rescript, of which Eusebius has preserved the
text, we are permitted to conjecture that it did. The faithful
of Asia and Greece, persecuted like those of Rome, also ad­
dressed complaints to the emperor upon the vexations of every
kind which they suffered from their countrymen. The pagans
cast upon the Christians the odium of every public calamity,
which they considered as divine vengeance for the outrages
perpetrated on the gods by this impious sect. About this

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

period, A. D. 148-150, many terrible calamities broke out, all
at once—a cruel famine, the inundation of the Tiber, and an
earthquake, which overwhelmed many cities in Asia and in
the isle of Rhodes. The sanguinary cries of the populace
against the Christians then resounded with greater fury than
ever: and to check the effects of this blind rage, Antoninus
found himself obliged to send to the Asiatic cities the following
decree in favor of the disciples of Christ :*
“ The Emperor Titus Ælius Adrianus Antoninus Augustus
Pius, sovereign pontiff', in the fifteenth year of his tribunitial
authority, consul for the third time, father of his country, to
the people of Asia, health :
“ I doubt not that the gods themselves take care to detect
the Christians, whatever efforts they may make to conceal
themselves. In fact, they have both more interest and
more power than you, to punish those who refuse to adore
them. But you, who never cease to torment those people,
to accuse their doctrines of atheism, and to impute to them
crimes for which you can furnish no proofs, beware, lest in­
stead of bringing them to better ways of thinking, you do
but render them the more obstinate ; for they desire less to
live, than to die for their God. As they are always ready to
yield up their lives rather than submit to your will, they seem
to remain victors in their combats with you. As for the
earthquakes, past or present, be advised, and compare your
conduct with that of the Christians. When these misfortunes
occur, you become entirely discouraged, while the Christians,
on the contrary, feel their confidence in their God redoubled.
In the midst of public calamities, you seem to have no confi­
dence in the gods, you neglect the sacred worship, you forget
the Divinity, and, unable to endure that others should honor
him, you become envious, and persecute them to death. Many
governors of provinces wrote to my divine father on this sub­
• TillemoDt, Pagi, and Orei, have sufficiently proved that this Edict should be attributed
to the Emperor Antoninus, and not to Marcus Aurelius, his »>iocessor. iw Home historians
have suDPoaed. after Fleury.

ST. PIUS I. (A. D. 142-160).

119

ject, and he replied that the Christians should not he disturbed,
unless they were convicted of violating the laws of the em­
pire. A great number of letters have been addressed to
ourselves, all demanding instructions relative to the same
subject, and our responses have been made conformable to
the intentions of our divine father. When hereafter any
action is brought against a Christian on account of his reli­
gion, let the accused be released, and see that the accuser is
punished according to the rigor of the laws.”
This ordinance of Antoninus was solemnly promulgated at
Ephesus, the seat of the general assemblies of Asia
*
Copies
were sent to the governors of other cities : Larissa, Thessa­
lonica, Athens, &c., and peace for a short time was granted to
the Church.
17. During this interval, Pope St. Pius I. died, a. d. 150.
Some martyrologies bestow on him the title of martyr, without
informing us of the manner of his death. From the Liber
Pontificalis we learn that he commanded those who returned
to the faith, after renouncing the heresy of the Jews, to be re­
baptized. f By this heresy of the Jews is meant the error of
the Jewish converts who remained attached to the legal ob­
servances, believing them to be obligatory and indispensable
for salvation. This decree of St. Pius I. intimates, according
to a remark of Baronius, that there existed sects separated
from Catholic unity, in which baptism was preserved, so that
it was unnecessary to renew it, in the case of a conversion to
the Catholic faith ; and others, wherein it had been corrupted,
especially among the heresies born of Judaism. Such was
probably that of the Corinthians. St. Anicetus succeeded St.
Pius I. in the government of the Church, a. d. 150.
♦ We find from thia epoch a sort of national representation for the various provinces of
the Roman empire. The deputies of each town assembled in a city, called commune, to de­
liberate on public affairs.
f Constituit hæreticum venientem ex Jüdœorum hæreei suscipi et baptizari,

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

120

CHAPTER VI.
§ 1. Pontificatk OF St. Anicetus (a. d. 150-161).

1. Different sects of

Gnostics : dunites, Secundians, Ptolemaitans, Ophites, Sethians, Marcosiatis,

Colorbasians, Archontiques, Antitactcs, Adamites or Prodicians.—2. Question
about Easter.—3. Voyage of St. Polycarp to Rome.—4. Foundation of the
churches of Lyons, Vienne, Valence, and Besançon.—5. St. Hegesippus.—

6. Dialogue between St. Justin and Tryphon.—7. Death of Pope St. Anice-

tns sod the Emperor Antoniuus.

§ II. Pontificate

of

St. Soter (a.

d.

162-174). 8. Fourth general persecution under the Emperor Marcus Aure­

lius.—9. Martyrdom of St. Felicitas and her seven sons at Rome.—10. Let­
ter from the Church of Smyrna to the churches of Asia.—11. Martyrdom of

St Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna—12. Celsus, the philosopher.—13. Contro­
versy between Crescentius the Cynic and St. Justin.—14. Second apology
of St Justin, addressed to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.—15. Martyrdom
of St. Justin and bis companions.—16. Miracle of the thundering legion.—

17. Illustrious bishops and doctors under the pontificate of St. Soter.—18. St.

Dionysius, bishop of Corinth : his letter to the Church of Rome.—19. Here­
tics. Tatian, chief of the Encratites.—20. Bardesanus.—21. Apelles, disciple
of Marcion.—22. Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilia.—23. Death of Pope

St. Soter.

§ I. Pontificate of St. Anicetus (a. d. 150-161).
1. It is the nature of error to be always variable, and to
multiply itself under divers forms, but never to re-establish
the unity from which it separated, when it departed from the
truth. During the pontificate of St. Anicetus, numerous sects,
the impure vegetation of Gnosticism, raised their heads, having
nothing in common but their hatred and contempt for Catholic
dogmas, and for Christians who continued faithful to the doc­
trines of Jesus Christ and Apostolic instruction. It will be
sufficient to give only the names of these absurd systems, the
offspring of the Gnosis of Valentinus, and so low in rank that

ST. ANICETUS (A. D. ISO-181).

121

most of them have not even secured to their authors the
pitiable notoriety of heresiarchs.
First, the Archontiques (from άρχων, prince), who attributed
the creation of the world to different rival powers. They
rejected the sacraments, and gave themselves up to .shameful
disorders. The Adamites, disciples of an impostor named Grodicus, who would have the world to return to the nakedness
of Adam. The Cainites, who, by a strange inversion of ideas,
had a devotion towards all whom the Scriptures signalized for
impiety and crimes.
The Antitactes, or Contraries, followed the same system.
They regarded the Divinity as the evil principle, and main­
tained, consequently, that virtue is worthy of all chastise­
ments, and vice, of every recompense. The Ophites were dis­
tinguished by their veneration for the serpent, which they
respected as the author of all wisdom, in memory of the
serpent that beguiled the first woman in the earthly Paradise.
2. While these absurd fancies divided Gnosticism into as
many parties as there were doctors in its circle, the Church
continued to organize herself more completely in unity and
discipline. The question of the day on which Easter should
be celebrated, began to be agitated between the Eastern and
Western Churches. In the time of the Apostles, Sunday had
been substituted for Saturday for the assemblies of the faithful,
yet by complaisance towards the newly converted Jews, there
had been a certain toleration for their observance of Saturday.
The Apostolic institution naturally led to the transfer of the
celebration of Easter from the fourteenth day of the month of
Nisan (March—ikpril) to the Sunday which followed it. St.
Peter established this usage in the Church of Rome, which
ought to be the model of all the other churches, as she is their
mistress and mother. But this disciplinary measure was not
made general at that time. The memory and the traditions of
St. John still lived in the person of his disciple St. Polycarp ;
the churches of Asia preserved the usages which the beloved
Apostle had there introduced : Rome, in her prudence, toler­

122

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

ated 8 divergence which had so respectable a beginning, but
prepared in the end to adopt such measures as circumstances
might dictate.
3. It was probably with a view of conferring on this sub­
ject with Pope St. Anicetus, that the illustrious bishop of
Smyrna came to Rome. He was received there with all the
demonstrations of esteem and respect due to the merit and
eminent sanctity of this illustrious disciple of the Apostles.
St. Anicetus and St. Polycarp held a friendly discussion upon
the question on which the two churches were divided. The
Pope considered it of the highest importance to persuade St.
Polycarp to abandon his ancient custom, knowing the powerful
effect of his example upon the Asiatic bishops. His predeces­
sors had labored with prudent zeal to remove, by degrees, the
Judaic observances introduced into the Church by Jewish con­
verts, and their efforts had been crowned with success. This
one point alone remained to be cleared up. But the authority
of St. John, and the inviolable attachment which St. Polycarp
cherished for his venerated master, overshadowed in his mind
all the arguments of this sovereign pontiff. St. Anicetus then
regarded it as a duty to leave the matter on its ancient foot­
ing, and to tolerate, even in Rome, their accustomed observ­
ance by Asiatic visitors to that city. This diversity of opinion
in no way weakened the ties of concord. To pay more honor
to his guest, St. Anicetus invited him to celebrate the holy
mysteries in his presence, in the city of Rome. The Easter
controversy was not again renewed, until the pontificate of St.
Victor, towards the close of this century. The sojourn of St.
Polycarp at Rome was marked by the conversion of a large
number of heretics, who were restored to the unity of the faith
as much by the power of his example as by the authority of
his age, his zeal, and his wisdom. He had conversed familiarly,
in his youth, with the Apostles and disciples of the Lord.
Imbued with the doctrines of such excellent masters, and full of
their spirit, whenever he heard the blasphemies of some inno­
vator he was accustomed to exclaim, with indignation : “ For

ST. ANICETUS (A. D. IfiO-lSl).

123

what times, Lord, hast Thou then reserved me?” In confer­
ring with the Marcionites and Valentinians, whose errors were
then the most widely diffused, he protested, in a loud voice,
that the doctrine of the Catholic Church was the only one he
had learned from the lips of the Apostles. His testimony
made a favorable impression upon many of them. Having one
day met the heretic Marcion, the latter had the boldness to ask
if he recognized him. “Yes,” replied St. Polycarp, “I know
thee for the first-born of Satan.” At length he bade farewell
to the sovereign pontiff, and the two saints separated with
tender embraces, having given reciprocally the kiss of peace.
They were to unite again only in heaven, which both were
destined to reach by the path of martyrdom.
4. It is generally believed that the foundation of the
church at Lyons may be dated from this epoch. St. Pothinus,
disciple of St. Polycarp, went thither to preach the faith, and
he established the episcopal see. St. Irenæus succeeded him.
SS. Ferreolus, Ferrutius, Felix, Fortunatus, and Achilles, their
disciples, evangelized the cities of Besançon, Vienne, and
Valence.
5. St. Hegesippus, by origin a Jew, had passed from the
profession of Judaism to that of Christianity, and he came to
Rome under the pontificate of St. Anicetus. Following the
example of the ancient sages of Greece, who travelled into the
distant regions of Italy, Egypt, and the most remote provinces
of the East, to enjoy the conversation of the celebrated men
of those countries, Hegesippus had undertaken a voyage to the
Christian cities to confer with their holy bishops and the most
illustrious doctors. He could himself claim a place among
them, for Eusebius of Cæsarea places him in the number of
the defenders of the truth, who vindicated it against the
attacks of heresy in works full of erudition and eloquence.
But the limit of his learned pilgrimage was Rome, the seat
of religion from which proceeded all the churches of the
universe, like rays from a common centre. It was there
he composed an ecclesiastical history, in which he points

134

GENERAL HISTORY OF HIE CHURCH.

ont the succession of the popes from St. Peter to St. Anicetus.
This precious work, the loss of which we cannot too much
deplore, was, it appears, the object and the fruit of his travels.
He wrote it in a simple and familiar manner, to imitate the
style of the saints whose virtues he recorded. He died about
the year 180, in the reign of Commodus ; and the Church has
inscribed his name among the holy priests whose memory she
celebrates.
6. About the time of the visits of St. Hegesippus and St.
Polycarp to Rome, St. Justin made a voyage to Asia. The
philosopher’s mantle, which he had never laid aside, attracted
to him, at Ephesus, the Jew- Tryphon, who, driven from Jeru­
salem by the events of the last war under Adrian, had retired
into Greece, where he occupied himself in constant application
to the study of philosophy. Always consumed by zeal for the
salvation of souls, St. Justin strove to lead him to the knowl­
edge of the truth, to faith in Jesus Christ. In a discussion,
which lasted two days, he endeavored to prove to him, in the
first place, that the law of Moses had been abolished ; secondly,
to demonstrate the divinity of Jesus Christ, of whom he relates
the incarnation, the life, the doctrines, the death, and resur­
rection·, thirdly, to explain the vocation of the Gentiles to the
light of the Gospel and the divine institution of the Church.
The strength of his reasoning, his profound doctrine and elo­
quence, reduced Tryphon to silence, but they failed to convert
him. God reserves the understanding of the truths of the
Gospel to humble and docile hearts ; He refuses it to the
proud, pulled up by false philosophy. On his return to Rome,
St. Justin wrote a report of his conferences with the Hel­
lenist Jew, according to the promise which he had made to
him, as a guarantee of the sincerity of his arguments. It
would appear that the Hebrews could never abandon the
hope of seeing Jerusalem one day flourishing as in the times
of David and Solomon. This sentiment obtained credence
even among faithful Catholics, on the authority of Papias
and other millenarians. The Church had not yet condemned

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125

this opinion, therefore it remained open. St. Justin appears
to have favored it; for, in closing his discussion with Tryphon, he says to him that Jerusalem would he rebuilt, and
that the saints would reign there with Christ in His glory.
The Jew refused to believe that he really thought so, imagin­
ing that he held this language only to tlatter his secret hopes,
and more surely to attract him to the doctrines of the Gospel.
Offended by such a suspicion, St. Justin replied : “I am not
so vile as to hold language opposed to my thought. I am not
alone in this opinion. Many Christians as well as myself re­
gard it as indubitable. I will not, however, conceal from you
that many others are of a different opinion. But to convince
you that I have no intention'to deceive, I will wrili. in a
special treatise, all the conferences which we have i. d to­
gether, and I will profess publicly this article, as I have done
to you.” In fact, the zealous doctor seeks to support this
error by many texts from the Holy Scriptures, among which he
quotes particularly from the Apocalypse. Certain innovators
have made use of this fact as a point from which to attack the
authority of tradition. But the sincerity with which St. Jus­
tin admits that this doctrine was far from being universal in
the Church, is sufficient to prove that it was merely the private
opinion of individuals, and not one of the dogmas transmitted
in Catholicity through the channels of Apostolic tradition.
*
7. The Emperor Antoninus having died, after a reign of
twenty-two years, a. d. 161, Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher,
his adopted son, hastened to place him among the gods, and to
possess the inheritance which he had left on earth. To his great
regret, he found himself obliged to share it with Lucius Verus,
his adopted brother, Tvho was designated by the will of the
deceased emperor as his colleague in the empire. But a few
years later he disembarrassed himself of him by poison. The
♦ The error of tho Millennrians, advocated by Papiae, Bishop of Hierapolis, and a few
others of the early Christian writers, was entirely different from that broached by Cerinthus
and his detestable followers. The latter maintained a thousand years' reign of impure
orgies and carnal delights. This horrible system, akin to that afterwards adopted by
Mohammed, was always repudiated by orthodox Christians.—A. B.

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universe was disposed Io bless this crime ; for, during his brief
reign. Lucius Venis proved himself, by his cruelties and de­
baucheries, the equal of Tiberius or Nero. In the same year
another prince, whose power continued to grow beside the
palace of the Crasars, died, covered with the glorious purpl.·
of martyrdom. The Pope, St. Anicetus, marked by his death
the transition from the pacific reign of Antoninus to the fourth
general persecution under Marcus Aurelius. The Liber Ponlijicabs informs us that, according to the precept of the Apostle,
Anicetus forbade the clerics to wear long hair. We under­
stand this ordinance doubtlessly to refer to the clerical tonsure,
which dates from the Apostolic age. After a vacancy of
several months, St. Soter was called to succeed him in the
chair of St. Peter, and to guide the helm of the Church during
the tempest just rising against her (a. d. 162).

Π. Pontificate

of

St. Soter (a. d. 162-174).

8. Marcus Aurelius, in ascending the imperial throne,
ought to it virtues which history has eulogized. But his
love of philosophy made him unjust towards the Christians.
Of the Stoic school, he liked not the disciples of the Cross.
“We should always be ready to die,” said he, in one of
his maxims, “in virtue of a judgment of our own, and
not from pure obstinacy, like the Christians.” In spite of
the firmness of soul which he displayed in his sentences,
he proved himself the most superstitious of idolaters. On
the point of departure for an expedition into Germany, he
celebrated, during seven days, a solemn festival to the gods, to
render them propitious. Sumptuous tables were spread in the
temples, on which the most exquisite viands were served for
the idols of wood, stone, or metal, which were placed around
on rich cushions. He immolated for this ridiculous ceremony
so many white beeves, that a pithy epigram on the subject
was circulated. “ The white bullocks to the Emperor Marcus
Aurelius : If thou shouldst return victorious, we are all lost.’

ST. SOTER (A. D. 163-174).

127

[n the first years of his reign he addressed the following
decree to the governors of the empire, which was the signa!
for the fourth general persecution against the Church : “ The
Emperor Marcus Aurelius, to all his administrators and
officers : We hear that those who in these times call them­
selves Christians, violate with impunity the laws of the empire,
and the ordinances of our predecessors. Arrest them, and if
they refuse to sacrifice to our gods, punish them with divers
torments. Be careful that justice be always allied with
severity, and that punishment cease with the crime.”
9. The popular fury, long restrained by the benevolence of
Antoninus, burst forth with new violence so soon as this san­
guinary edict was promulgated in the different provinces.
While St. Glyceria died for the faith at Heraclea, in Thrace,
St. Felicitas and her seven sons were the first victims stricken
at Rome by the persecution. The pagan pontiffs denounced
to Marcus Aurelius the attachment of this noble family to the
law of Christ. The prefect of Rome, Publius, received orders
to compel Felicitas and her sons to sacrifice to the gods. Led
privately before him, the holy widow heroically protested that
neither promises nor menaces could shake her resolution.
“ Wretched woman,” said Publius, “ if death has so many
charms for you, do not at least hinder your children from
preserving their lives !” “ My children will live,” replied
Felicitas, “ if, like me, they refuse to sacrifice to your idols ;
but if they should have the misfortune to commit such a crime,
their death will be eternal.”
The next day Felicitas and her sons were brought before
the tribunal of Publius, which was prepared in the field of
Mars. “ Have pity on your children," said the judge. “De­
stroy not, in the flower of their age, young people of such high
promise.” “ Your compassion,” she replied, ·· is an impiety,
and your soft words cruel. My sons, raise your thoughts and
desires to heaven. There Jesus Christ awaits you with His
saints. Combat for your souls, and prove yourselves worthy
of His love.” At these words, Publius commanded her to be

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

«truck in the face, “Dost thou dare,” he cried, “ in my pres­
ence, to excite them to despise the orders of my master?'’
He then called up the seven children in succession. They all
confessed the firth of Jesus Christ with equal firmness. With
the worthy sons of Felicitas the persuasions of Publius failed,
as well as his threats of the most cruel tortures. Januarius,
the eldest, merited, by the holy boldness of his answers, to be
scourged with rods. Felix, the second, showed the same con­
stancy. “They to whom you wish me to sacrifice are neither
gods nor have they any power at all. Whoever sacrifices to
these mute idols plunges himself into eternal misery.” “ We
know." replied Sylvanus, “what recompense is reserved for the
just, and that chastisements without end await sinners ; there­
fore we disobey the edicts of men, that we may follow the
eternal laws of God.” “I am the servant of Jesus Christ,”
exclaimed Alexander; “ I confess Him with my lips; I believe
in Hito with my heart ; I adore Him without ceasing. This
God gives to youth the wisdom of age. As to your divinities,
they, with their adorers, will be cast into eternal punishment."
Vital and Martial also continued immovable. A report of this
case having been laid before the Emperor, the seven Christian
heroes were sent to different judges to be put to death by
various modes of torture. The first expired under whips
armed with lead. The second and the third were beaten to
death with sticks. The fourth was thrown headlong from a
height. The three others were beheaded. St. Felicitas, al­
ready seven times martyred, ended her life by decapitation.
10. The persecution raged with equal violence in Asia.
A celebrated letter addressed by the Church of Smyrna to that
of Philadelphia, and to all the churches in the world, has pre­
served details of the combats which the Christians had to sup­
port against the enemies of their faith : “ The martyrs’ flesh was
so torn by the whips that their bones were laid bare, and their
veins and arteries might be counted. Touched by compassion,
the spectators could not refrain from expressions of pity ; but
the martyrs uttered not a sigh, nor a groan, as if they wei

ST. SOTER (A. D. 1R2-1T4).

12!)

strangers to themselves, or Jesus Christ himself was there
to console them by His presence. They who were con­
demned to the beasts, were subjected to various tortures in the
prisons. The tyrants hoped by these measures to make them
deny their faith, but their hellish efforts proved useless. The
young and courageous Germanicus signalized his constancy
above all the others. When the moment for his combat ap­
proached, the proconsul exhorted him to have compassion upon
himself. Without replying, the intrepid Christian champion,
with a single bound, threw himself before the beasts, who
quickly tore asunder his bleeding limbs ! Surprised and irrita­
ted at this heroic courage, the populace shouted as if with one
voice : ‘ Death to the atheists’ ” (this name was given to the
Christians because they refused to sacrifice to the gods) ; “ ‘ let
Polycarp be brought !’ ”
11. The saintly bishop, on the approach of the storm
which burst upon his flock, had at first refused to leave Smyrna,
where he had been pastor during seventy years. He long
resisted the entreaties of his people, but at last consented to
be removed to a country house, near the gates of the city.
Three days before his arrest, he had a divine revelation, after
which he said to his disciples : “ I shall be burned alive.” A
domestic betrayed his retreat, and towards evening guided the
soldiers to the apartment in which he reposed. On seeing the
bishop so full of majesty, so affable, so gentle and dignified,
they were seized with a respectful fear, and, astonished at
the exasperation of the magistrates, many of them regretted
that they had come to arrest this admirable old man. The
disciple of St. John, in obedience to the orders of the proconsul, made his entry into his episcopal city on an ass, as
Christ had done in Jerusalem. The people cried out, “Here
is the doctor of Asia ! the father of the Christians, the enemy
of our gods. Let loose a lion on Polycarp !” This could
not now be done, because the combats with the beasts
were ended.
Then the populace renewed their shouts
"Let Polyoarp be burned alive!” In vain the proconsul ex
9

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

horted him to spare his white hairs, and blaspheme Christ.
Polycarp replied : “I have served Him these eighty and six
years, and never has He done me evil. How can I blaspheme
my Saviour and my King?”—“If you do not change your sen­
timents, I shall order you to be consumed by fire.” “You
speak to me of a fire which burns for an hour, and is then ex­
tinguished, because you know nothing of the judgment to come,
and the eternal torments that are reserved for the impious."
During this time the people ran in crowds to bring wood from
houses, and from the public baths. The wood and other com­
bustibles were heaped all round him. The executioners would
have nailed him to the stake, but he said to them : “ Suffer me
to be as I am. He who gives me grace to undergo this fire
will enable me to stand firm in the midst of the flames.” He
was then left unbound on the pyre, “ like a sheep chosen from
the flock,” records the letter from Smyrna—“ like an agreea­
ble holocaust, and accepted of God.” Looking up to heaven,
he prayed : “ 0 Almighty Lord God, Father of thy beloved and
blessed Son Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the knowl­
edge of Thee, God of angels, powers, and every creature, I bless
Thee for having been pleased, in Thy goodness, to bring me to
this hour, that I may partake of the chalice of thy Christ for
the resurrection to eternal life in the incorruptibleness of the
Holy Spirit, and receive a portion in the number of Thy martyrs,
amongst whom grant me to be received this day as a pleasing
sacrifice. Wherefore for all things I bless and glorify Thee,
through the eternal High Priest Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son,
with whom, to Thee and the Holy Ghost, be glory, now and
forever !”
He had scarcely finished, when fire was set to the pyre.
The flames, by a wonderful prodigy, ranged themselves around
the martyr’s head like the sails of a ship swelled by the winds.
His acts relate that his body resembled silver or gold tried in
the crucible, and exhaled an odor of incense, as of precious per­
fumes. The pagans seeing that it could not be consumed by
the flames, commanded a spearman, one of those who in the

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131

amphitheatre gave the last stroke to the wild beasts, to plunge
a sword into his bosom. The man, obeying this barbarous
order, pierced Polycarp, when his blood poured forth in such
streams that it extinguished the fire. The Christians were
glad of this phenomenon, as it nurtured in them the pious
hope of being able to obtain at least some holy relics of
their bishop, but the pagans kept a careful guard around
the pyre. The officer who presided at the execution, accord­
ing to the Gentile custom, burned the body of the holy mar­
tyr. “For ourselves,” continues the letter from the faithful
of Smyrna. “ we took up the bones, more precious than jew­
els or gold, and deposited them honorably in a place at which
may God grant us to assemble with joy to celebrate each year
the birthday of the martyr, that it may remind us of those who
have fought, and renew the courage of generations to come,
by the noble examples of their forefathers in the faith.”
Such is the narrative of the death of St. Polycarp, which, ac­
cording to the most probable calculations, occurred February
23d, a. d. 166. All the churches of Asia Minor, and through­
out the world, desired to read the account of this glorious com­
bat ; and the example of the saintly bishop of Smyrna, who in
his lifetime converted so many infidels, had, after his death, the
privilege of confirming the Christians in their faith.
12. While the generous blood of the martyrs flowed at the
stake, under the fangs of wild beasts, or the sword of the exe­
cutioner, the pagan philosophers sharpened the weapons of
their irony and sarcasm against the Christians, and gathered
courage to insult men who knew how to die for their faith.
Celsus, the Epicurean, made himself notorious in this kind of
warfare, which was both cowardly and cruel. His book enti­
tled Discourse upon Truth, was nothing more than a bitter
satire upon the Jews and Christians, whom the philosopher
seems to confound in equal contempt. He repeats all the
calumnies which had been vulgarly accredited among the Ro­
mans of this epoch against Moses and his legislation. He
then engages a Christian and a Jew in a discussion, and fin-

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jibes by turning both info derision. Although he maintains tl.c
most insulting tone in this diatribe, admissions escape from
him which are sufficient alone to establish against him the
Itrnth of Christianity. He grants that this religion, whose lim­
its, even in his time, had no bounds short of the known world,
had been founded by a crucified Jew, who had for his associ­
ates in this great work a dozen unknown and illiterate fisher­
men. He reproaches the Christians for no other crimes than
those of holding secret assemblies which were prohibited by
the magistrates, of detesting idols and their altars, and of
blaspheming the gods. He does not deny that Jesus Christ
and His disciples, even those who were then living, wrought
miracles; but instead of receiving them as proofs of divine
power, he attributes them to enchantment and the artifices of
magic. His work is the first which had for its object a direct
attack upon Christianity. The Fathers of the Church, es­
pecially Origen, have victoriously refuted all the sophistries of
Celsus.
13. Another philosopher of the Cynic school, also wrote
against the Christians, about this time. It was Crescentius.
known for his baseness, and his sordid avarice, which did not.
|however, hinder him from being a pensioner of Marcus Aurelius,
’and being publicly honored by imperial favor. St. Justin pro­
voked him to a public controversy. In the presence of a crowd
of witnesses, he clearly convicted him of being either entirely
ignorant of the Christian doctrines, or of being the most flagitious
of men; supremely ignorant, if he really believed the absurdities
which he circulated against the religion of Jesus Christ; and
wicked, above all, if, knowing the doctrine and mysteries taught
by the Church, he dared to defame the faithful and to induce
princes, magistrates, and people, to believe them to be men
without religion, piety, or faith in God. Their conferences
were frequent, and ended each time to the greater glory of
Christianity and to the confusion of philosophy. Crescentius,
a dishonest adversary, in revenge for his defeat, denounced
Justin to the judges appointed to pursue the Christians. The

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133

intrepid defender of the truth showed no hesitation in sustain­
ing it, even at the peril of his life.
14. St. Justin published a second apology about this time,
which he addressed to the Emperor Mateus Aurelius. He re­
capitulated the ideas which he had developed more at length in
his address to Antoninus. The superiority of the doctrines of
Jesus Christ is established by quotations even from the poets
and sages of Greece. “ The Christians,” he says, “ possess
the truth entire, the perfect Word in Christ; whilst each phi­
losopher, in so far as he has taught any thing good, possessed
it only in parts, or fragments of truth.” He yields to the just
indignation which the blind cruelty of the magistrates towards
the faithful naturally excited in every generous soul. “ The
Christian Ptolemy,” said he, “ is conducted before the governor,
who asks him, ‘ Are you a Christian ?’ Strong in the purity of
his conscience and the holiness of his faith, he bravely confesses
that he has studied in that school of virtue. On the order of
the judge, Ptolemy is conducted to execution. Another Chris­
tian, Lucius,who was present at these strange proceedings, could
not refrain from speaking to the governor. ‘ By what law do
you condemn a man to death who has been convicted of neither
adultery nor fornication, nor homicide, nor theft, nor, in fact, of
any crime, a man who is guilty only of being a Christian ? The
sentence you have just pronounced in the name of Cæsar and
of the august senate of Borne dishonors the religious em­
peror, the son of Cæsar, who is proud of being called the friend
of wisdom.’ The only reply was, to send Lucius to die, as
an adherent of the Christians. In submitting himself to the ex­
ecutioners, he thanked the unworthy magistrate for delivering
him from the service of such barbarous masters, and sending
him by a speedy death to the Father and Lord of heaven.
You accuse us,” continues St. Justin, “of committing horrible
crimes in secret. But these abominations, with which, by the most
atrocious calumnies, you charge us, and which we detest, you
fear not to commit yourselves, in public. Might we not, taking
advantage of your example, boldly assert that these actions

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are virtuous? May we not. reply that in murdering children,
as you falsely accuse us, we celebrate the mysteries of Saturn,
in which the hands of the most illustrious personages of the
empire are stained with human blood ? And as to our pre­
tended incests, may we not assert that we follow the example
of your Jupiter and other gods,—that we practise the morals
of Epicurus,—of your philosophers, and your poets? And yet
it is because we teach that these maxims must be scrupulously
condemned, and that we must practise the virtues opposed to
these monstrous vices, that you persecute us without relaxa­
tion, and send us to death.” The genius of St. Justin had not
been enfeebled by years. We recognize, in these manly
accents, the vigorous independence, the lofty and proud elo­
quence of the newly converted Christian. “ Whatever may be
the judgment you form of us,” he adds, in conclusion, “ our
doctrine is worth more than all the writings of the Epicureans,
or tho infamous verses and the immodest books that are re­
presented on the stage, and read with entire liberty.”
15. The lips of this eloquent apologist were soon closed by
martyrdom. Shortly after the publication of his address to
Marcus Aurelius, St. Justin and several of his disciples were
arrested, through the denunciation of the Cynic Crescentias.
“What philosophy dost thou teach?” demanded Rusticus,
the prefect of Rome. “I have tried all sorts of doctrine,”
replied Justin, “and finally I have adopted that of the Chris­
tians, although1 it is calumniated by those who know nothing
of it" The disciples of the holy doctor, Chariton, llierax,
Pion, Eyelpistus, and Liberienu.s, also generously confessed their
faith. Then addressing himself anew to Justin, “Listen,"
said the prefect; “thou, who passest for eloquent, and who
believest that thou hast found the true wisdom, when thou
shalt be torn with whips from head to foot, dost thou imagine
that thou const mount to heaven?” “I imagine nothing,”
replied St. Justin; “I know it. I am so assured of it, that not
a doubt remains. Jesus Christ has promised this recompense
to all who shall have obeyed LLis law.” Rusticus, finding the

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135

holy confessors immovable in their resolution, pronounced their
sentence in these terms : “ Let those who have refused to sac­
rifice to the gods, and to conform to the edict of the emperor,
be publicly whipped, and then led to death, as prescribed by
law.” They were conducted to the place of punishment, and,
after suffering flagellation, were beheaded. Their bodies,
secretly brought away by some of the faithful, were buried
with the honors due to martyrs.
16. But a miraculous event obliged Marcus Aurelius, and
the people of his empire, to show themselves less hostile towards
the Christians. This prince, surprised in the country of the
Quadi, was shut in, with his legions, among the mountains uf
Bohemia, by the barbarians (a. d. 174). Superior in numbers,
the enemy seized all the passages, and deprived the Romans of
every means of getting water, hoping, by the intensity of their
thirst, to overcome a force which they were unable to conquer
by arras. There were in the imperial army many Christian
soldiers, chiefly from Melitene, in Armenia, and its neighbor­
hood. In this extremity these threw themselves on their knees,
and offered fervent supplications to God for relief. Suddenly,
thick clouds accumulated in the air above them, and soon a
beneficent rain fell over the camp. So terribly pressed were
the Romans by thirst, that they first raised their heads and
received the water in their mouths ; then gathering it in their
bucklers and casques, they drank abundantly, and watered
their horses. Profiting by this disorder, the enemy fell upon
them, so that the Romans were obliged to drink and fight at
the same time, for they were so parched by thirst that there
were wounded men who drank their own blood, mixed with
the water which had fallen from their casques. The rain was
soon attended with thunder and lightning, which, falling on
the barbarians, without touching the Roman army, they were
repulsed, and forced to sue for the emperor’s clemency.
After a miracle so unquestionable, granted to the solicita­
tions of the disciples of Jesus Christ, the evidence of which
the emperor could not deny, he commanded a cessation ot the

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

persecutions which he had ordered against them. The brief
peace now allowed to the Christians, is the strongest proof that
the general opinion attributed to them the victory over the
barbarians, and the safety of the imperial army.
17. The decimation of her children by the executioners
served to display the wonderful fecundity of the Church.
There flourished under the pontificate of St. Soter a great
number of illustrious persons and holy doctors, whose noble
example and learned works made them the edification of the
faithful and the glory of their age. Besides Hegesippus and
St. Justin, of whom we have spoken, Philip, bishop of Gortyna,
in the Isle of Candia, employed his talents and learning to
refute the errors of Marcion. Modistus and Musan us combated
the heretics of their time, with equal success. St. Apollinaris,
bishop of Hierapolis, St. Meliton, bishop of Sardis, Athenagoras,
a Christian philosopher of Athens, opened the way by their
pious studies and labors to the apologies for Christianity
which were to be published at a later period. Finally, Irenæus
in Gaul, first a simple priest in the church of Lyons, of which
he was destined to be the most illustrious bishop, prepared
his magnificent work against Heresies—one of the most pre­
cious monuments of the primitive Church.
18. St. Dionysius, successor of Primus in the episcopal see
of Corinth, was one of the most distinguished prelates of this
epoch. His zeal and charity were not limited to the instruc­
tion of his own flock ; he extended them to other churches, and,
after the manner of the Apostles, maintained an epistolary
correspondence with the bishops of the different provinces.
Eusebius of Cæsarea has preserved fragments of his epistles to
the churches of Lacedæmon, Athens, Nicomedia, Gortyna, and
Gnosse in Crete (Candia). The most remarkable of them is
unquestionably that addressed to the church of Rome. He
justifies himself, with Pope St. Soter, in regard to certain errors
which it was supposed were contained in his letters to different
churches. “ The apostles of falsehood,” said he, “ have altered
my epistles, adding or retrenching at their pleasure, so as to

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favor their heresies. Need we be astonished that they have
attempted to corrupt even the Holy Gospels, when they suppose
it to be to their interest to alter the writings of so inferior an
authority ?” Another passage recalls the ancient and touching
charity of the Roman pontiffs, who, in their paternal solicitude,
ministered to the wants of all the churches in the world, and
to the indigence or necessities of the faithful exiled for the
faith, or condemned by the persecutors to the quarries and
mines. “ Your blessed bishop, Soter,” he adds, “ not only pre­
serves this usage, but does still more, in distributing more
abundant alms than his predecessors to the indigent in the
provinces, and in receiving, with affectionate charity, the
brethren who visit Rome ; lavishing upon them the consola­
tions of faith, with the tenderness of a father who receives his
children into his arms.”
19. By the side of these illustrious doctors, whose genius
shone in the bosom of Catholic unity with all the splendor of
truth, the Church was grieved by sad defections. Tatian, a
* native of Assyria, one of the most celebrated disciples of St.
Justin, had at first edified his brethren in the faith by the
example of his virtues, as much as by the wisdom of his wri­
tings. He had composed a polemical treatise after the manner
of his master, entitled an Oration against the Greeks. Euse­
bius and St. Jerome extol it highly. It is remarkable that
in this discourse he branded, in advance, the errors of the
Gnostics, which unhappily he afterwards adopted. Inflated
with his success and the brilliancy of his reputation, he dis­
dained the simplicity of faith, and despised its rule, to follow
his own reason : he wished to have a system of his own ; to
found a school ; and he became merely a sectary. He threw
himself into Gnosticism, and adopted the Marcionist theory,
with the sons of Valentinus. Admitting the two principles of
Marcion, to explain the origin of evil, he distinguished himself
by pressing more vigorously this error to its consequences, and
reducing these to practice. He condemned marriage, as an
adultery and a fornication ; he forbade, as Theodoret reports, to

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eat the flesh of animals and to drink wine. This abstinence
from all sensual pleasures gitve to his disciples the name of
Encroûtes, or Continents. This new heresy soon split up into
several sects. The Severians, from the name of their chief,
Severus, admitted the Law and the Prophets, but they inter­
preted them in accordance with their own views. Later, the
Apotactitae, or Renounces, added to the errors of Tatian an
absolute renunciation of all earthly goods, condemning the
holding of property as an injustice, and pretending to conform,
in this manner of life, to the precepts and example of the
Apostles. Tatian, whose misfortune it was to serve as the
chief of these innovators, composed, after his separation from
the Church, a great number of works, which are all now lost.
He wrote, among others, a Concordance of the Four Gospels—
the first attempt of this kind. The title alone of this work is
sufficient to establish the fact that the Church was in tranquil
possession of the four Gospels as early as the middle of the
second century.
20. During the same period, a learned Syrian afflicted the
faithful by the scandal of his revolt from the Church. Bardesanus had a cultivated mind, was a fervent Christian in the
first years that followed his conversion, and, like Tatian, an
intrepid defender of the truth. Eloquent in his native tongue,
the Syriac, full of fire and vivacity in controversy, he wrote
various polemical treatises, and an infinity of lesser works
against Marcion and the other heresiarchs. These productions,
translated into Greek by his disciples, preserved, even in a
foreign idiom, an elegance and force which St. Jerome admired.
The most celebrated is the Dialogue on Destiny, against judicial
astrology, which seems to have been addressed to the emperor
Marcus Aurelius, who was known for his superstitious faith in
impostors and diviners. The reputation of Bardesanus was so
distinguished, that the Pagans, considering him as an important
conquest, sent to him Apollonius, the favorite of Marcus Aure­
lius, to persuade him by the most seductive promises to quit
the Christian religion. He replied to their advances, with as

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139

much courage as wisdom : “ I do not fear death, neither can
I avoid it, even if I were to yield to the desires of the emperor.'’
His firmness on this occasion placed him, in the opinion of the
faithful, almost in the rank of the confessors of the faith. But
the more his attachment to the truth had elevated him in the
Church, the deeper was his fall. He embraced the errors of
Valentinus, which he taught a long time to the disciples whom
his talents had seduced. Having at length recognized the
absurdity of Gnosticism, and returned to more Christian senti­
ments, he combated the system which had misled him. But
he still preserved some remains of his errors, which formed a
sort of middle system of semi-Gnosticism, to which he gave his
name. Marinus, one of his sectaries, informs us that Barde
*
sanus admitted two principles, the one good, the other evil ;
this was the dominant idea of the Syrian school and of Marcion.
According to him, the body of Christ came down from heaven,
and not from the womb of Mary, and there was no resurrection
of the dead.
21. The heresy of Marcion, which then infected the
Church, had taken a new growth from the false preaching of
Apelles, the most famous disciple of this sectary. Chased from
the company of his master, on account of a great scandal which
he had given, he took refuge at Alexandria, where he propa­
gated his own errors. He said that the Creator had wished
to form the visible universe in imitation of a superior world,
but bad been unable to attain to its perfection. For this
reason, He had repented of His imperfect work. He said
that Jesus Christ had not had even the appearance of a body,
as Marcion pretended, nor true flesh, as the Gospel teaches,
but, in descending from heaven, He had made for Himself an
aerial body, formed of the most subtile parts of each of the
regions He traversed ; and that, after His resurrection, He had
restored each part to its original element, so that the spirit alone
returned to heaven. This system induced him to deny the
resurrection of the body, with the other Marcionites. To
seduce the simple-minded more easily, he pretended to possess

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

secrets of the future, and published, under the name of
PhaNcrotis. or Rerelations, the hallucinations of a girl named
Philomena. whom he gave out as a prophetess. Apelles lived
to an advanced age. As an old man, he affected austere
morals, and a grave and severe exterior. Rodon, a Catholic
doctor, in a public conference with him, having found him
contradicting himself several times, constrained him finally to
assert that a man’s religion ought not to be so scrupulously
examined; that each should remain firm in the belief which he
has once embraced ; and that they who place their hope in
Jesus Christ, to whatsoever sect they may belong, will be saved,
provided they be found full of good works. Thus it is that,
by an inexorable logic, all heresies, all errors, necessarily force
themselves into a universal indifferentism.
22. Montanus, an epileptic, or rather demoniac, as the fathers
style him, or, perhaps, simply an impostor, born in Mysia, a
province which then formed part of Phrygia, gave birth to a
new sect, about the middle of the second century, of which
illuminism seems to have been the most salient characteristic.
Subject to convulsions of an extraordinary nature, he pretended
that during these attacks he received divine inspirations, to
give a new degree of perfection to the Christian religion and
morals. Two opulent women, Priscilla and Maximilia, carried
away by some gross illusion, or by their passions, deserted
their families to follow this fanatic. After his example, they
also bad ecstasies, prophesied, and shared with Montanus the
honor of figuring at the head of their party. They claimed
to have succeeded the Catholic prophets Agab, Judas,
Silas, the daughters of St. Philip, Quadratus, and the
prophetess Ammia, of Philadelphia, affirming that God had
given them a mission to perpetuate the gift of prophecy,
which was never to be lost in the Church. Montanus boasted
of having in himself alone the plenitude of the Holy Ghost,
which the Apostles had received only in part on the day of
Pentecost. Consequently, he named himself the Paraclete, and
claimed the office of reforming the Church. St. Paul had per-

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141

niittcd second marriages ; Montanus interdicted them as in­
famous. The Church taught the indissolubility of marriage,
supported by the text of the Gospel ; Montanus pretended
that it is permitted at any time to sunder its bonds. The
Apostles had instituted one Lent only ; Montanus ordered
three in the year. His sectaries fasted with so much rigor tba1
(hey sometimes passed the whole day without food. There
were other fast-days in which they ate only towards evening.
He forbade his disciples to fly in times of persecution, and
recommended them to offer themselves voluntarily for martyr­
dom. Inexorable towards sinners, he rarely admitted any to
penance. He did not deny the power of the Church to remit
sins, but he granted it only to spiritual persons—to an apos­
tle, or a prophet. His partisans affected to establish among
themselves a regular hierarchy, at the bead of which they
placed a patriarch, as the supreme chief of the sect. Next
came those whom they named Genomes, then the bishops, who
occupied only the third rank. They had fixed the seat of their
heresy in Pepuza, a little town of Phrygia, which, among them­
selves, they agreed to name Jerusalem. There it was that,
under the appearance of an inflexible austerity, they indulged
themselves in all the disorders of a licentious life, according
to the testimony of Apollonius, an ecclesiastical writer of that
time, who utters vehement reproaches against them. Under
the denomination of Phrygians, or Cataphrygians, the Montanists spread themselves over a great part of Asia, and in­
fested even Africa, w’here, at the commencement of the second
century, they already had several churches. Meanwhile, the
bishops began to move against these scandalous innovations.
Serapion, bishop of Antioch, Apollinaris, of Hierapolis,
Aelius Publius, of Thrace, meeting together in solemn council,
formally condemned the new heresy and its supporters.. They
had already been denounced by Pope St. Soter, who now con­
firmed the sentence of this council, and anathematized Mon­
tanus and his disciples, and this judgment was afterwards
renewed by St. Eleutherius. Montanus, blinded by his pride

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

and the madness to winch he had surrendered himself, refused
submission to the sentence pronounced against him. He con­
tinued to play (he part of an illuminée ; and it is believed that
in one of his transports, in concert with Maximilia, his proph­
etess, he committed suicide—probably with a view the sooner
to enter into possession of the eternal beatitude.
23. In the midst of these struggles against heretics within
and persecutions without, Pope St. Soter received the recom­
pense of his toils. He died in the year 174. The Roman
Martyrology gives him the title of martyr, without any details
as to the mode of his execution. He suffered for the faith, ap­
parently before the miracle of the Thundering Legion, which
took place the same year, and, for a season, arrested the per­
secution against the Christians. The Liber Pontificalia attrib­
utes to him a decree, which prohibits religious women (nuns)
to touch the sacred pall, or offer incense in the church. He
was distinguished for his charity in aiding poor churches and
suffering Christians, according to the testimony of St. Dio­
nysius of Corinth, to whom he had written a letter, which is
lost. St. Eleutherius, who had been a deacon under Pope
Anicetus, was his successor.

8T. ELEUTHERIUS (A. D. 174-18R).

CHAPTER VII.

§ I. Pontificate of St. Eleutherius (a. d. 174-186). 1. The Persecution
renewed, a. d. 177.—Martyrs of Lyons—Sanctus, Maturus, Attalus, and Blaudina.—2. Journey of St Irenæus to Rome.—3. Martyrdom of SS. Epipodius and Alexander at Lynns.—4. Of St. Symphorian at Antun.—5. Apology
of Athenagoras. His treatise on het resurrection of the dead.—6. Apolo­
gies of St. Melito, bishop of Sardis, of Claudius Apollinaris, bishop of
Hierapolis, and of Miltiades.—7. Hermias—St Theophilus, bishop of
Antioch—Heresy of Hermogenes.—8. Conversion of King Lucius of Great
Britain to Christianity.— 9. Death of Marcus Aurelius. Commodus suc­
ceeds him.—10. Apology and martyrdom of the Senator Apollonius.—
11. Version of the Holy Scriptures by Theodotion. Work of St. Irenæus
against Heresies.—12. Death of St. Eleutherius, a. d. 186.

§ I. Pontificate of St. Eleutherius (a. d. 174-186).

1. The calm which the Church enjoyed after the miraulof the Thundering Legion lasted scarcely three years. The
persecution was rekindled with greater violence than before,
yet it is probable that Marcus Aurelius was not the author of
this sanguinary reaction. Some historians even assure us that,
about this time, he issued an edict favorable to the Christians.
But the popular hatred, restrained during a brief period,
broke out with the greater violence, because the Gnostic sects,
which were increasing every day, furnished by their disorders
occasions for multiplied calumnies against a religion which
they profaned, while bearing its name. The monuments of
this epoch all attest that the pagans accused the Christians
of renewing the horrors of the Feast of Thyestes and the
Marriage of Œdipus in their nocturnal *assemblies.
These
• Letter
*
from the Church of Lyons to th· Churches of Asia and Phrygia.—Ecsnrea
of Cæsarea, ffût Eccks.

144

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

reproaches would seem inexplicable. if the conduct of the
Gnostics h»<i not given rise to them. The Discipline of Se­
cret regarding the Sacrament of I he Eucharist, though it was
inviolably respected during the first, ccnlury, had not prevent­
ed St. Justin from exculpating the faithful from the accusation
of infanticide; and no Christian usage could serve as a pretext
for the accusation of incestuous unions, which was reiterated
against them. It was heresy, then, which supplied arms to
the pagans, and delivered the Christians to their fury. The
new storm was most severe in Gaul, which then gave to
the Church its first fruits of martyrdom.
Following the
touching custom which had been established, of sending tn the
other churches narrations of the combats sustained for the
faith, the confessors of Lyons and Vienne, who were the
principal sufferers from the cruelty of the persecutors,
addressed a letter to their brethren in Asia, in which they
recounted the glorious conflicts of their martyrs. Eusebius has
pre. erred this monument of faith and charity, which is as re­
markable for the purity and charm of its style as it is interest­
ing in its matter. “ The animosity of the pagans against us was
such," they say, “ that they drove us out of private houses,
as well as from the baths and other public places ; our
presence, in whatever place we might be, was sufficient to
bring upon us the outrages of the populace. The confessors
endured, with the most generous constancy, all that could
be suffered from the cruel insults of the insolent mob.
Their goods were pillaged, they were stoned, and exposed to
every excess which a furious people could invent against
those whom they regarded as their enemies. Dragged to the
forum and questioned by the magistrates, they bravely con­
fessed their faith, and were cast into prison until the arrival
of the governor. As soon as he was informed of the affair,
he ordered the arrest of the most distinguished Christians and
firmest supporters of the two churches of Vienne and Lyons.
The fury of the multitude, of the governor, and of the soldiers,
was fiercest against Sanctus, deacon of Vienne ; Maturus, a

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145

neophyte, full of zeal and courage ; Attalus, originally of Per­
gamus, one of the most intrepid defenders of the faith ; and
Blandina, a young slave, delicate and fragile, but who
had fortitude enough to weary the executioners employed
to torture her, by turns, from morning until evening. After
having subjected her to every kind of pain, they confessed
themselves vanquished, and wholly unable to comprehend
how she could still breathe after enduring such a succes­
sion of torments, any one of which seemed enough to put
an end to her life. The deacon, Sanctus, proved himself not
less firm in his faith. To all the interrogations of the governor
as to his name, his origin, his country, his only response was,
‘I am a Christian.’ Plates of red-hot copper were applied
to the most tender parts of his body. The holy martyr saw
his flesh thus roasted without changing his posture, because
Jesus Christ, the source of life, shed upon him a heavenly
dew which refreshed and strengthened him. Some days after
his persecutors subjected him to new torments, when the
inflammation of his former wounds had rendered them so
painful that he could hardly bear the slightest touch. His
body, exhausted by pain, far from sinking under this new
trial, recovered .its former suppleness, so that, by the grace of
Jesus Christ, the last wounds became a remedy to the first.
At length, they condemned these heroic confessors to be ex­
posed to the wild beasts. Maturus and Sanctus were the first
taken to the amphitheatre. They were beaten with rods, and
then made to sit upon a red-hot iron chair, their burning flesh
diffusing an insupportable odor. Yet the spectators were
impatient in demanding other torments, to overcome their
inexhaustible patience. They were afterwards exposed to
the wild beasts, and in this manner furnished, during a whole
day, the cruel amusement to the people, which is usually given
by the combats of gladiators. As, notwithstanding all these
tortures, they still breathed, the executioners were obliged to
slaughter them under the amphitheatre. Attalus was known
to the people as an intrepid champion of the faith. The spec10

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

tators, with loud cries, demanded that he should be brought on
the arena. To satisfy their rage, the holy martyr was led
there. They forced him to walk around the amphitheatre,
bearing a placard with these words in Latin written upon it:
'This is Attalus, the Christian.' Before being exposed to the
beasts he was placed on the heated chair. While his flesh
broiled, and the odor of this human holocaust was spread
around, he said, in reply to the accusations of homicide which
these people made against the Christians: ‘You yourselves
roast human flesh as if it were to be eaten ; but for us, we
never eat men, and our religion forbids all crimes.’ Blandina,
the last of this heroic society of martyrs, entered the lists
with as much joy as if she had been conducted to a nuptial
feast. After she had suffered the whips, the lacerations of the
beasts, and the heated chair, she was fastened in a net and
laid before a bull, who threw her up many times into the air.
But the saint, filled with the hope which her faith imparted
to her sold, thought only of Jesus Christ, and was insensible
to her torments. Finally they pierced the throat of this inno­
cent victim, and the pagans confessed that they had never
seen a woman suffer such horrible tortures with so great courage.
2. “The disciple of St. Poly carp, the venerable St. Pothinus,
first bishop of Lyons, bore witness, by his death, to the faith
which he had brought to this city. More than ninety years
old, he was so very sick and feeble that it was necessary to
carry him to the tribunal. It seemed that his soul still re­
mained attached to his body, only to serve for the greater
triumph in it of Jesus Christ. As the soldiers bore him along,
he was followed by a crowd, who vociferated the vilest insults ;
but these outrages neither disturbed the holy man nor hin­
dered him from boldly confessing his faith. ‘ Who is the
God of the Christians ?’ the governor asked him. ‘ You will
learn it, if you become worthy of the knowledge,’ replied the
intrepid bishop. Immediately, and without regard to his
age, he was most outrageously treated by the furious popu­
lace ; those nearest struck him with their fists and feet ; thoso

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147

farther removed hurled at him any projectile they found at
kind. They would have reproached it themselves as a crim·
not to have insulted the holy old man, only thinking of aven­
ging on his person the honor of their gods. After enduring this
horrible treatment without a complaint, St. Pothinus was
thrown into prison, where, two days afterwards, he died of his
wounds.”—St. Ircnæus succeeded him in the episcopal chair of
Lyons. lie went to Rome to receive the episcopal consecra­
tion from the hands of Pope St. Eleutherius. Another object
made the journey necessary. The errors of Montanus and
the false prophecies of Priscilla and Maximilia threatened to
spread into Gaul. Some Christians, even among the con­
fessors of the faith, had given examples of abstinence which
seemed, by their scrupulous austerity, to approach the
erroneous rigorism of the heretics. It was to inform the
sovereign Pontiff of this state of things, and to receive his
advice, that St. Irenaeus undertook the journey to Rome,
charged with letters to the Pope from the clergy and faithful
of Lyons.
3. The persecution continued with the same violence
against this people thus left for a time without a pastor. No
retreat could secure the victims from the researches of their
enemies. Two young men—Alexander, a Greek, and Epipodius,
a native of Lyons, both in the flower of their age—were closely
united by the ties of Christian friendship. Both belonged to
illustrious families ; they stimulated each other to piety, and
prepared for martyrdom by the purity of their lives, their in­
nocence of heart, and by works of charity and mercy. At
the commencement of the persecution they retired into the
village of Pierre Encise, near Lyons, and lived together in
solitude with a Christian widow w’ho had offered them an asy­
lum. Discovered by the satellites of the governor, they
were cast into prison ; and three days afterwards, with their
hands tied behind their backs, like the vilest criminals, they
were led before the tribunal. On the demand of the inagistrate, they replied, “ We are Christians. ’ “ Of what use

US

GENERAL BISTORT OF THE CHURCH.

has it been to torture so many of these Christians to death,
if they still dare to speak of Christ?” cried the angry judge.
Separating the two friends, to prevent their mutual exhnr
tâtions to remain faithful to their God, ho first called up
Epipodius. “ The crucified, whom you adore,” said he to his
prisoner, “forbids the joys and pleasures that form the
charm of life; our gods, on the contrary, receive our joy­
ous homage in the midst of festivals and flowers : change,
then, this austerity so intolerable, for the agreeable pleasures
of youth.” “With the Christians,” replied the generous
martyr, “ the soul commands, the body obeys. The atrocities
by which you suppose you honor your idols, can only procure
for you eternal death.” The judge, on this, ordered him to be
struck on the face with the fist. His mouth all bloody,
Epipodius cried out, “Jesus Christ is my God, one only God,
with the Father and the Holy Ghost.” They then extended
him on the instrument of torture, and the men approached to
tear his sides with iron claws. But the people, fearing tc
see the victim expire in the hands of strangers, vociferously
nsisted that be should be given to them, that they might rend
him in pieces. The tumult increasing, there was danger of a
riot. To prevent it, the governor hastened to order Epipodius
to be beheaded ; and the martyr’s soul departed, to receive in
heaven the reward of his constancy. The next day the gov­
ernor summoned Alexander. “ Sacrifice to the gods,” said he ;
“take warning by the example of the others, for we have so
pursued the Christians that you alone remain of all that
impious race.” “You are mistaken,” Alexander replied;
“the name of Christian cannot perish. The life of men
perpetuates it, and their death propagates it.” The holy
martyr was then extended, his legs separated, and in this
state three men by turn relieved one another in beating him.
He endured this slow and cruel torture without uttering a
complaint. At last the governor, finding him immovable,
condemned him to die on the cross. The sentence was
executed. The Christians were fortunate in eluding the

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119

vigilance of the soldiers while they gained possession of the
bodies of these saintly martyrs, and the same tomb reunited
the heroic friends. To the names of these noble confessors of
the faith, should be united those of SS. Marcellus and Valerian,
who, having escaped from Lyons, suffered martyrdom in two
neighboring cities ; the first at Châlons sur Saône, the second
at Trenorchium, now Tournus.
4. The city of Autun was a witness, at the same time, of
the devotion and courage of St. Symphorian. Descended from
one of the best families of the city, and distinguished by his
brilliant education, this young and intrepid Christian met one
day a solemn procession, made in honor of Cybele, the mother
of the gods. He was unable to refrain from public expressions
of his contempt for idols, and boldly ridiculed this superstitious
worship. The offended pagans dragged him before the proconsul Heraclius, as a seditious man, who refused to adore the
divinities of the empire. “Why dost thou refuse to pay hom­
age to the mother of the gods ?” demanded the judge. “ I adore
the true God,” replied Symphorian. “ As for this idol of your
demons, if you will allow me, I will break it with a hammer
before your eyes.” “Is it not enough to be sacrilegious?
wilt thou also be chastised as a rebel ?” Heraclius then or­
dered him to be beaten with rods, and taken to prison. Some
«lays after, he was subjected to an interrogatory, and the most
seductive promises were made to him. Wealth, gratifications,
military honors, imperial favors, every thing was offered that
could minister to his enjoyment, if he would but consent to
sacrifice to the immortal gods. “ I go,” said Heraclius, “ to
decorate with flowers the altars of Apollo, Cybele, and Diana,
and you will unite with me in a solemn sacrifice.” The saint
rejected these insidious propositions of the judge with horror.
He portrayed, in all their extravagance and absurdity, the in­
sensate dances of the Corybantes, in honor of Cybele, the
impostures of the priests who gave out the oracles of Apollo,
and the superstitious games in honor of Diana. Heraclius con­
demned him to be beheaded. As they led the martyr to the

15G

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

place of execution, without the walls of the city, his mother,
venerable for her piety and her age, hastened, not to unman
him by her tears, but to fortify and animate him by her ex­
hortations. From the height of the ramparts, she cried out :
« Symphorian, my son, my dear son, lift up your thoughts to
the living God; prove your courage and your faith. Death is
not to be feared when it surely leads to life. That you may
not regret the earth, raise your eyes towards heaven, and de­
spise the torments which last but for a little while ; if you are
constant, they will be changed into everlasting happiness.”
Sustained by the voice of his tender mother, and by the
strength of divine grace, the young Christian generously sub­
mitted to martyrdom. His precious relics, gathered by the
piety of the faithful, were deposited in a narrow cell, over
which a majestic church and a celebrated monastery were in
after-times erected.
5. From the violence of the persecution in Gaul may be
conjectured the ravages which it made in the other provinces
of the empire. So many atrocities committed against the
Christians inspired eloquent writers to embrace with ardor the
defence of faith and virtue, so shamefully misunderstood. In
the name of all the faithful of Greece, Athenagoras, a Christian
philosopher of Athens, addressed to the Emperor Marcus
Aurelius and his son Commodus, recently associated with him
in the empire, an apology, entitled Legation, because it was an
embassy from the oppressed to their persecutors. In this
work, which has a style full of dignity and force, and a clear
and precise logic, he exposes and victoriously refutes the accu­
sations of the pagans against Christianity. “You permit,”
said he, “ all nations, all cities, all citizens, to live according to
their laws, to pi.dess their religion, to preserve their cere­
monies, to honor the gods of their fathers, even where they
are so ridiculous as the cat-gods and crocodile-deities of tho
Egyptians ; to us, alone, you have interdicted the privilege of
bearing the name of Christian, and of living according to our
*law. ; and yet this name is innocent, and our laws are just and

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151

good. The pretext for the violence practised against us is the
vulgar accusation of atheism, incest, and inhuman repasts. If
the Christians were convicted of such crimes, it would be just
to exterminate their sect ; to wash out in their blood so much
wickedness, without sparing age, or sex, or rank. But the
emperors themselves are the irrefragable witnesses of the in­
justice of these and similar calumnies, since by many edicts
they have forbidden pursuits against the Christians ; whereas,
such researches could never be too exact or severe, if the
abominations of which we are accused had the least founda­
tion.” Athenagoras then examines in detail the grounds of each
accusation, and demonstrates its frivolity and injustice. He
concludes by expressions full of fire and eloquence, when re­
plying to the impostures circulated among the people, of the
pretended homicidal festivals of the Christians : “ We are ac­
cused of this frightful crime, we who have renounced your
spectacles of gladiators and wild beasts, because we find but
small difference between applauding murder and committing it !
We believe that it is a crime to expose an infant, as is done
every day at the gates of your palace, in the streets, and in public
places ; yet you accuse us of murdering them for a barbarous
feast ! Our religion commands us to believe in the resurrec­
tion of the dead; if this belief appears to you devoid of
reason, ridicule, if you choose, our simplicity, but never accuse
us of making ourselves a living tomb of those who are one day
to be resuscitated from the dead !”
It seems that the dogma of the resurrection was a frequent
object of attack by the pagans. The saintly apologist, who
only slightly touches this point of Catholic faith at the cluse
of his Legation, wrote a treatise especially On the Resurrection
of the Dead, in which he proves its possibility, against the ob­
jections drawn from the transformation of the body, and show?
its reality by reasons drawn from the divine order of things,
from propriety and justice.
We remark, in general, in these two works of Athenagoras,
the only ones of his which are extant, the ideas ami reasonings

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

of St. Justin, presented in a more cautious style. Ho in­
sists less on the Scriptures, and more on reason. Yet he
does not confine himself to the part of the accused who
merely defends himself. The apologist makes himself, lit­
tle by little, the accuser, and attempts chiefly to show how
much of absurdity and impurity there is in paganism, which
he places in contrast with the doctrine and manners of the
Christians.
6. About the same time (178), St. Melito, bishop of Sardis,
also presented an apology to the two emperors. The earth­
quake which had recently overthrown the city of Smyrna, had
directed the popular fury against the Christians of Asia, who
were held responsible for every public calamity. “ In virtue of
the new decrees published in our provinces,” said the bishop,
“the Christians are exposed to a persecution such as they have
never before suffered. Their greedy calumniators take advan­
tage of these ordinances, to rob openly their unhappy victims.
For this reason, we supplicate you to take cognizance of those
who are accused, and to judge whether they merit such
treatment. If, among your predecessors, Nero and Domitian gloried in their cruel persecutions of the Christians,
Adrian, your grandfather, and Antoninus, your father, have
signalized towards us their justice and clemency. In address­
ing our supplications and our hopes to the foot of your throne,
we doubt not, that we shall find the same benevolence, the
same humanity.” This fragment, cited by Eusebius, is all that
remains of the work of St. Melito. Claudius Apollinaris,
bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, also proved his zeal for reli­
gion, by an apology addressed to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Christian antiquity has praised the elegance of his style and
his erudition in sacred and profane letters, but his works have
not reached us. The same must be said of Miltiades, whom
Tertullian numbers among the eminent men who had refuted
the errors of Valentinus. He also composed, for the defence
of Christian philosophy, which he professed, a remarkable
apology, addressed to the Heads of this Age, that is to say, to

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153

the governors of provinces and cities, where their duties
brought them into contact with the Christians.
7. At the same epoch lived Hermias, a writer celebrated for
the new method which he employed to confound paganism.
Until this time, the Christian authors had confined themselves
to proofs of the superiority of the evangelic dogmas over
idolatry, by placing in a strong light the doctrines of Jesus
Christ, in order to vindicate them from the calumnies with
which they were loaded ; but Hermias adopted the opposite
method. He attacked the pagan worship with the arms of ridi­
cule and bitter irony. He was surnamed the Christian Lucian.
His work, entitled The Philosophers Rallied, is the most adroit
ridicule which has been brought to bear against paganism. A
masterpiece of its kind, it is as remarkable for clearness and
precision as for its vivacity, wit, and grace. He passes the
philosophers in review. Each of them sets forth his system
on the gods, the soul of man, and the beginning of things;
and the succeeding one always overturns what his predecessor
had attempted to construct.
All the cultivated and superior minds then living within
the Church employed their talents in eloquent works, to
establish the divinity of religion. St. Theophilus, sixth bishop
of Antioch after St. Peter, published three discourses against
the detractors of the Christian faith. He addressed them to
Autolycus, a learned pagan, whom, in his pastoral solicitude,
he sought to enlighten in the Christian faith. The principal
subjects treated by the illustrious bishop are, the nature of
God, His providence, the order of the world, the absurdity of
idolatry, the ignorance of the philosophers, and the vain
chimeras of the pagan poets on the origin of being, as opposed
to the purity of Christian doctrine and morals. In another
work, he undertakes to refute Hermogenes, a heretic of his
time, who taught, with tho Platonists and Stoics, that matter
is eternal. His disciples, of whom Hermias and Seleucus were
the most celebrated, received from Tertullian the name of Ma­
teriarii, and they were the precursors of the modern Materialists.

1Ô4

GENERAL HISTORT OF THE CHURCH.

8. Notwithstanding the efforts of these able apologists, the
fire of persecution was not extinguished. But if the Church,
decimated by the executioners, lost her children by martyr­
dom in the different provinces of the Roman empire, she ex­
panded her bosom to receive distant nations, who felt them­
selves mysteriously attracted by the light of divine truth.
Lucius, king of one of the small states of Great Britain,
sent a solemn embassy to the Pope, to ask for missionaries
to instruct his people, and procure for them the knowledge of
the Gospel. St. Eleutherius received the envoys with joy.
He gave them priests, whose preaching was so successful,
that in the time of Tertullian, the cross had already been
planted in the most northern regions of Great Britain, which
hitherto had proved inaccessible to the Roman eagles.
Lucius is honored with a public devotion, December 3d.
9. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius, after having entered
(a. d. ISO) Pannonia, to engage in a war with the Marco­
manni, expired, leaving the purple to his son Commodus, who
was suspected, and not without foundation, of having abridged
the days of his father. The cruelties and debauchery of the
new reign surpassed all that was remembered of Nero or Domitian. Commodus had all the beggars and cripples of the city
disguised as giants or monsters, only that he might massacre
them with his club, and give himself the name of the Roman
Hercules. Meeting one day a man of extraordinary height,
he cut him in two, to exhibit his strength, and to enjoy
the pleasure of seeing the entrails of his victim fall out. He
ordered that Rome should change her name, and be called
the Colony of Commodus. Incest, and the most abominable
crimes, defiled the palace of this crowned fool, who was seated
on the throne of the world. By a secret design of His provi­
dence, God suffered to be thus loosened the reins of the most
shameful passions of humanity, that, at last, frightened at her
own excesses, she might throw’ herself into the arms of a re­
ligion which alone preserves the secret of virtue. The persecu­
tion continued during the first two years which followed the

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155

death of Marcus Aurelius. It ceased afterwards, perhaps
through the influence of Marcia, to whom Commodus had just
granted the honor of empress, and who was favorably disposed
towards the Christians.
10. The calm of this unexpected peace, after tempests of
such long duration, produced numerous conversions. At Rome
many personages of the highest distinction embraced the faith
with their families. Apollonius, a senator, illustrious in letters
and philosophy, was of this number. One of his slaves
denounced him as a Christian before Perennis, the prætorian
prefect. The ordinances which forbade the accusation of
Christians, under pain of incurring the chastisement due to
calumniators, had just been restored. Perennis, consequently,
ordered the slave to be crucified and his legs broken. By
a strange contradiction, he afterwards ordered Apollonius
to justify himself before the Senate, and give an account
of his conduct. Apollonius composed a solid and eloquent
apology, in which he candidly confessed the Christian religion,
and defended it from the accusations brought against it. He
read this discourse before the assembled Senate, but he soon
sealed with his blood his courageous profession of faith ; for,
according to the edict of Trajan, still in force, a Christian,
once brought to justice, could not be released unless he apos­
tatized. A decree of the senators, his colleagues, condemned
Apollonius to be beheaded. The sentence was executed a. d.
189.
11. We know of no other martyrs who suffered under
Commodus. But if the faithful had peace with the idolaters,
the Church had still to suffer from the heretics. Theodotion,
of Ephesus, first a disciple of Tatian, afterwards a Marcionite,
and finally a Jew, undertook a translation of the Holy Scrip­
tures into Hebrew Greek. His intention was, to weaken the
force of those passages of the prophets which teach the
divinity of the Messiah. In spite of his hostile purpose, he did
not succeed to any extent in altering these sacred sources, and
his version became a new arm in favor of evangelic truth in the

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GENERAL IÏISTORÎ OF THE CHURCH.

bands of the fathers of the Church. St. Irenæus notices it in
his great Treatise against Heresies. The holy bishop of Lyons,
on his return to his flock, where the persecution had made such
terrible ravages, found the churches of Celtic Gaul infested
with the errors of the Marcosians, whose sacrilegious impostures
and pretensions had seduced the weak. They allowed their
adepts the most monstrous excesses, under the pretence of
impeccability common to all the Gnostic sects. Irenæus com­
bated the heresies of these false doctors, and was led, with this
view, to compose a complete refutation of the whole Valentinian system. To succeed in such a work, it was necessary
to unite to a profound knowledge of the Scriptures, and a rare
penetration of spirit, the study of the Greek and Oriental
systems of philosophy. St. Irenæus, formed by St. Polycarp,
had drawn from his lessons the Apostolic doctrines and
traditions in all their purity. While still young, he was
familiar with the works of the profane poets and philosophers,
as is proved by the frequent quotations he makes from their
maxims; and he had studied with care all the writings of
Valentinus and his disciples. Prepared by these labors for the
work which he meditated, he at length finished his immortal pro­
duction, “ Against Heresies.’’ lie wrote in Greek, his mother
tongue, but we have only a few fragments of the original
text, preserved by Eusebius. That which we have is a Latin
translation, made, probably, in the lifetime of St. Irenæus, for
the use of his people in the churches of Gaul. It is divided
into five books. The first is devoted to the exposition of the
Gnostic heresies, all included in Valentinianism. Considering
this system as the latest development of Gnosticism, he makes
it the centre of all his arguments. In the second he combats all
these errors with the arms of good sense and sound logic,
showing their absurdities and incoherencies, and opposing
them with arguments drawn from reason. In the third book he
refutes them by tradition, by the Holy Scriptures, and the text
of the four Evangelists. He continues the same mode of
reasoning in the fourth and fifth books, where he cites the

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157

Epistles of the Apostles, which he had particularly reserved
for the close. The chief source from which St. Irenæus
draws his proofs is tradition, of which he shows the existence,
the character, and sacred authority, in the Church. Not being
able to follow up the succession of the bishops in each see,
he contents himself with appealing to the tradition of the
Roman church, the greatest and most venerable of all. “ It is
necessary,” * said he, “ for the faithful of every country,
to conform to the teachings of the See of Rome, because of
its eminent primacy, in which has always been preserved the
tradition of the Apostles.” The heretics, on the contrary,
being new men, have no root in the past. They each date
from a chief, whose name they take in borrowing his doc­
trines. With them there is no succession of authority, doc­
trine, or apostleship ; the caprice of an arrogant spirit is their
only law, their sole origin. The argument of tradition, which
all the fathers have unceasingly employed in their controver­
sies, had a peculiar force under the pen of a writer who
counted, between the Apostles and himself, no other inter­
mediary than the illustrious martyr, St. Polycarp, bishop of
Smyrna. Nothing is more touching than the manner in
which St. Irenæus speaks of his ancient master, in a letter
to the priest Fiori nus, who had the misfortune to fall into the
snares of the heretics. “ While yet a child,” says the illus­
trious bishop, “ I saw you in Asia Minor, in the house of
Polycarp, where you, who were living in the court of the
emperor, came to see the holy bishop, and strove to obtain
his esteem. The memory of childhood grows with the
understanding and mingles with it, so that I could point out the
place where the blessed Polycarp was seated when he spoke,
his bearing, his mode of life, and the discourses he made to
the people. He told us how he had lived with John and the
♦Ad hanc enim Ecclesiam, propter potiorem principalitatem, nocesse est omnem
convenire Ecclesiam, hoc est, eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his qui sunt
undique conservata est ea quæ est ab Apostolis traditio.—Advers [larti, lib. üi-, «P 3
No. 2.

15S

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

others who had seen Jesus Christ. He related to us their
instructions. and many things which ho had heard them say
concerning the Lord, His miracles, and Ilis doctrines. God
gare me the grace to listen to these discourses with the
greatest attention, and to engrave them on my heart.” It
was thin in the century succeeding the Apostles, that St.
Irenæos, relying on the tradition and doctrine which he had
received from them, combated the false novelties of his time.
12. The illustrious bishop of Lyons did not finish his great
work during the pontificate of St. Eleutherius. This Pope
died a. d. 186. He is honored with the title of martyr, which is
given him in the Roman Martyrology. He renewed, says the
Liber Pontificalis, the prohibition to regard as impure any
ordinary aliment proper for the food of *
man. This ordinance
was provoked by the immoderate and superstitious abstinences
of the Encratites and Montanists. St. Victor, an African by
birth, was elected to the sovereign pontificate, a. d. 186.
* Et hoc iterum firmavit, ut nulla esca usualis a Christianis repudiaretur, maxime fideli·
bw, quam Deus creavit, quæ tamen rationalis et humana esset.

8Τ. VICTOR I. (A. D. 188-200).

CHAPTER VIII.
§ I.

I. (a. d. 186-200).—!. Question of Easter.—
2. Letter from Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, to Pope St. Victor I.—
3. Letter from St. Irenæus to Pope St. Victor I.—4. Letter from the
bishops of Palestine to Pope St Victor I.—5. Heresy of the Theodotians.—0. The priest Gaius refutes the Thcodotians.—7. Other apologists
of the Christian Faith.—8. Christian Schools.—9. Christian school of
Alexandria, St. Pantænus.—10. Clement of Alexandria, his works.—11.
Death of Pope St. Victor I.
Pontificate

of

St. Victor

§ 1. Pontificate of St. Victor I.
1. The question respecting the time of celebrating the
festival of Easter, raised a quarter of a century before, by St.
Polycarp, in his interview with Pope Anicetus, had not been
decided by the predecessors of St. Victor I. The Asiatics
had, therefore, continued their old usage of celebrating it on
the same day with the Jews. As time passed on, this erro­
neous custom seemed to have acquired also the right of pre­
scription. It maintained, besides, between the Asiatic and
Latin Churches, a troublesome divergence in regard to festi­
vals, to fasts, and to whatever was regulated by the day of the
Easter celebration. Since the final destruction of Jerusalem
by Adrian, the motive of complaisance to the Jews newly con­
verted, who still cherished a very strong attachment to the
Mosaic rites, had ceased to exist. On the other hand, the
obsfinacy of the Asiatics had been increased by the sort of
tacit consent of Pope Anicetus, and by the authority of St.
Polycarp. Even at Rome, the priests Blastus and Florinus
from Asia, had endeavored to persuade the faithful that they
could not, in conscience, follow the usage of the Latin Church
for the celebration of Easter. Matters went so far that,

JGl)

GENERAL HISTORV OF THE CHURCH.

fearing a schism, the Pontiffs SS. Soter and Eleutherius found
themselves obliged to withdraw from the Asiatics resident at
Rome the permission to conform to the custom of theii
country; so that by the exaggerated ideas of the Asiatics a
point of discipline had become a doctrinal question. St.
Victor would no longer tolerate this error ; he therefore re­
solved to labor efficaciously to establish a perfect uniformity
in all the churches. With this design, he convoked at Rome
a council of all the bishops of Italy. It was there solemnly
decided that Easter should be celebrated on Sunday, a day
consecrated from the time of the Apostles to the memory of
the glorious resurrection of Christ ; and the fathers inter­
dicted the observance for the future of the Jewish usage in
the celebration of this solemnity. Victor sent the synodical
letter to the bishops of all the provinces of the Catholic world
By his order, Theophilus of Cæsarea assembled the bishops
of Palestine ; St. Irenæus of Lyons, those of the Gauls ; Bacchylus of Corinth, those of Achaia ; Demetrius of Alexandria,
those of Egypt ; and Palma d’Amastris, those of Pontus. These
assemblies unanimously adopted the views of the Pontiff, and
the letters which they addressed to him are all agreed on the
necessity of conforming to the custom of the Latin Church
for the celebration of Easter.
2. But Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, had been appointed
by St. Victor to preside in the council of proconsular Asia.
As might have been easily foreseen, the bishops of this country
were not disposed to abandon an ancient custom in their prov­
ince, supported, too, by a venerable tradition. “ It is among our­
selves,” wrote Polycrates to St. Victor, in returning to him an
account of the operations of the assembly, “ it is in Asia that
these great lights of the Church sleep in the Lord. Philip,
one of the twelve, at Hierapolis; John, who reposed on the
bosom of the Lord, the holy pontiff who wore the frontlet of
gold, martyr and doctor, came to die at Ephesus ; Poly­
carp, the illustrious bishop of Smyrna ; Thraseas, bishop and
martyr of Eumenia; the blessed Melito, bishop of Sardis, whe

ST. VICTOR I. (A. D. 180-200).

161

in all his thoughts and actions was inspired and directed by
the Holy Ghost. These great personages have celebrated
Easter on the fourteenth day of the lunar month, following the
text of the Gospel, and observing the rule of faith. And I,
Polycrates, the humblest of the bishops, having lived sixtyfive years in the service of the Lord, observe the tradition of
my masters and my fathers. I will not suffer myself to be
alarmed by threats, knowing the word of the Apostles, ‘ It is
better to obey God than man.” ’ In proportion as the letters
of the other councils had brought consolation to the Pope, that
of Polycrates grieved him. The bishop of Ephesus intrenched
himself behind a tradition, respectable doubtless, and for which
the Roman pontiffs had shown much consideration, by tolerat­
ing it during a century and a half ; but he did not enter into
the motives which had actuated the Pope. Far from this, he
insinuated that the usage of the Asiatics only was founded on
the rule of faith. This was to favor the schismatics, whom
the Pontiffs had to combat in the bosom of Rome herself. One
fact worthy of remark in this discussion is, that the supremacy
of the Pope is not questioned by the Asiatic bishops. They
make no complaint of his interference, by an abuse of power,
in the conduct of remote and independent churches. On the
contrary, Polycrates, in closing his letter, implicitly recognizes
that the authority of the Pope, which he believes himself in
conscience obliged to resist, has no equal among men, nor can
be controlled, except by the authority of God. However this
might be, Victor felt that the period of compromise was past.
He prepared a sentence of excommunication against the Asi­
atics, and in his letters declared them henceforth separated
from the unity of the Church.
*
3. This determination of the Pope re-echoed throughout
the Catholic world. Ephesus, Smyrna, and so many other
sees, illustrated by the Apostles or their disciples, under the
weight of sentence of excommunication, offered an afflicting
spectacle to the bishops of other provinces, most of whom were
• Ab unitote Ecctesiw proreus ulienos esso pronuntiat,—Ecs'Birs, lib v, cap. 23

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

in relations of friendship or gratitude with the Churches of
Asia. Besides, the bond of charity united them more closely
at this epoch, when they were threatened with the same
menaces and persecutions. The greater number of the bishops
wrote to the Pope, some with force and vehemence, others
with wise reserve and praiseworthy moderation. St. Ircnœus
was of the latter number. He began his letter by stating the
conformity of his belief with that of the Roman Church, and
the necessity of celebrating Easter on Sunday ; but he did not
see, in the attachment of the Asiatic Churches to their an­
cient usage, a sufficient reason for separating them from Catho­
lic communion. “ The pontiffs,” said he to St. Victor, “ who
before Soter governed the Roman Church, viz., Anicetus, Pius,
Hyginus, Telesphorus, Sixtus, preserved peace with the
Churches whose observance was not conformable to theirs.
This divergence of opinion did not hinder them from sending
official letters to the bishops of Asia, and thus maintaining
communion with them.” He cited, as a proof of this tolerance,
the interview between St. Polycarp and St. Anicetus, on this
same question. “Be cautious,” added the holy bishop of
Lyons, “ in cutting off from catholic unity entire Churches, for
a custom which they have received from their fathers in the
faith.” St. Irenaeus wrote, in the same spirit, to a large number
of bishops, to interest them on behalf of the Asiatics. From
the quotations we have made, it is evident that St. Irenæus
considered the controversy between the Pope and the dissidents
as purely a point of discipline.
4. The bishops of Palestine, nearer to the centre of this
dissension, and consequently better situated to appreciate its
true character, judged otherwise. Narcissus of Jerusalem,
Cassius of Tyre, Clarus of Ptolemais, and other prelates of the
provinces, came together in council, under the presidency of
Theophilus of Cæsarea, to whom Pope St. Victor had delegated
his *authority, wrote to the Pope a synodical letter, in which
* Papa Victor direxit auctoritatem ad Theophilum. Cæsuriensis Palestiuæ antistitem.—
Um, tome i.t (col 596.)

ST. VICTOR I. (A. D. 186-200).

163

they declare their attachment to the tradition of the Latin
Church in the celebration of Easter. They establish its author
ity on irrefragable proofs, and end by praying the Pope to give
to their letter the greatest possible publicity, “ in order,” they
say, “ that the Catholic world may not suspect us of being ac­
complices with those who separate themselves from the way
of truth.” St. Victor, meanwhile, touched by the solicitude
of so many illustrious and saintly bishops, softened the rigor
of his first sentence. It satisfied him to know that the im­
proper custom of the Asiatics met with general disapprobation.
The tolerance of it was interrupted, and the error could no
longer claim prescription. Its extinction had become only a
question of time. It was important, henceforward, to guard
against wounding susceptibilities, to leave minds leisure to
comprehend and digest the truth, in proportion as the question
disengaged itself from the personal animosities with which it
had been environed. The sequel showed the prudence and
wisdom of the pontiff. In the following century, the Asiatics
returned to the universal practice ; and this question was again
agitated at Nice, only because certain bishops of Syria and
Mesopotamia still thought it a duty to resume, for their par­
ticular usage, the Asiatic custom, unanimously abandoned by
the Catholic world.
5. St. Victor, at the same time, excommunicated the heresiarch Theodotus and his adherents. Theodotus of Byzan­
tium was a currier, but his reputation for learning and virtue
raised him above his profession. Arrested as a Christian,
during the persecution under Marcus /Yurelius, he apostatized,
to escape its torments. The reproaches which his cowardice
brought upon him induced him to quit Byzantium, and to take
refuge in Rome, where he hoped to remain unknown. But the
indelible brand of apostasy seemed marked upon his brow,
and he did not find at Rome the repose which his own country
had refused him. Weary of conflict, he thought to justify his
crime by becoming a heresiarch. “ It is not God that I have
denied,” said he, “ it is only a man and henceforth he taught

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

publicly that the Word was not God, thus renewing the heresies
of Cerinthus and Ebion. The universal tradition of tho
Church was totally opposed to this new system. Theodotus
essayed to prove that tradition had been corrupted by the later
Popes. The Holy Scriptures, whose precise and formal texts
could not be distorted to sustain the erroneous interpretations
of the apostate, were altered in the editions which he placed
in the hands of his disciples. Artemas, one among them, con­
tributed to bring some reputation to tho sect, by his talents
and eloquence. Soon afterwards, another Theodotus, called
the Banker, Argentarius, also a disciple of the currier, added a
new error to those of his master. He pretended that Jesus
Christ, a pure man, conceived of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin
Mary, was inferior to Melchisedec, because it was written of
him, Thou art a priest forever, according to the order of Mclchisedech. It appears that the text where St. Paul represents
Nelchisedech “without father, without mother, without geneilogy, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life, but
ikened to the Son of God, continuetha priest forever,”* served
he Melchisedechians as a pretext to make of him a superhuman
being, incomprehensible, and almost divine, and as a conse­
quence to elevate him above Jesus Christ, whose divinity they
denied.
6. The priest Caius, who lived at Rome at the end of tho
second century, refuted these innovators. “ The Theodotians,”
said he, “are confounded first by the testimony of the Roly
Scriptures, afterwards by the writings of Justin, Miltiades,
Tatian, and others, who have defended the true doctrine
against the heretics, who were their contemporaries ; and they
all attest the divinity of Jesus Christ. From the first age of
the Church, hymns and sacred songs have celebrated Jesus
Christ, the Word of God, and attributed divinity to Uim.”t
7. The truth did not fail of eloquent defenders. Men of
the finest genius, unsurpassed by any whom the Church had,
• Hebrews, rii., 3,
f Pealmi quoque et cantica fratrum jampridom a fidelibus conscripta, Christum Verbum
Dei concelebrant, divinitatem ei tribuendo.

ST. VICTOR I. (A. D. 186-200).

I(JÔ

until that time, numbered within her bosom, adorned the
closing years of the second century. While Irenaeus shed
lustre upon Gaul, Pantenus and Clement, in Egypt, set forth
the brilliant treasures of their knowledge and eloquence in
the Christian school of Alexandria, which they, alone, would
have been sufficient to immortalize. Origen, yet a child, gave
astonishing proofs of early intelligence. Tertullian, in Africa,
the first among the Latins, entered the lists with his crushing
logic and his powerful eloquence. To these celebrated names,
Eusebius adds those of other writers whose works, unhappily
for us, are lost. The philosopher Maximus, who had composed
several important treatises on the questions so much debated
by the heretics—viz., the origin of evil and the existence of
matter—Candidus and Appion, who wrote commentaries on the
work of the six days—Sextus, author of a book on the resur­
rection—and Heraclytus, who left analytical treatises on the
epistles of St. Paul. But above all these glories of the Church,
the attention of the Catholic world was particularly attracted
to the school of Alexandria, which then shone with the great­
est splendor.
8. The Apostles had laid the foundations of those insti­
tutions, which, under the name of Christian schools, perpet­
uated in the bosom of the Church the tradition of teaching. It
entered into their mission to provide for all that was necessary
to prepare subjects able at a later day to preach, and gov­
ern the churches. St. Paul having formed his disciple Timo­
thy by his own example and instruction, recommended him,
in his turn, to choose able men, and to exercise them in the
evangelic ministry of the word. Tradition has preserved the
memory of the numerous disciples of St. John, at Ephesus,
where this Apostle passed the last years of his life. The bish­
ops. successors of the Apostles, and stationed in each see, did
not fail to give a more stable form to these establishments,
and to form them into regular schools.
9. Alexandria contained an establishment of this kind,
which St. Jerome informs us was the creation of St. Mark the

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Evangelist. A city, peopled by philosophers, the centre of
the prevailing opinions; an intellectual focus, where all the
sciences then known were cultivated, had need of a system
of Christian instruction more developed, more complete. It
was time to exhibit Catholic science in its own brilliant lights
—to oppose it to the vain systems of human philosophy—to
demonstrate its superiority : to produce its evidences—to
unfold it as a whole—and to present a just appreciation of
its consequences upon the happiness of mankind- To found
a seminary for the truth, in the midst of the seats of error,
was the intention of the bishops of Alexandria. To place
before the most learned auditory in the world apostles of
pre-eminent sanctity and eloquence, was their constant aim,
and they succeeded. In the year 179, the illustrious Pantenus occupied this eminent post. A Sicilian by birth,
he had been educated at first in the principles of the
Stoic philosophy—had discovered the truth, and was con­
verted to the Christian faith. He brought to the service of
this sacred cause an indefatigable zeal, useful and varied
knowledge, and an eloquence the reputation of which had
overleaped the bounds of the Roman empire, and passed into
India. An embassy had been sent to him from that country,
praying him to announce the Gospel to them. Clement of
Alexandria, his disciple, said of him : “ This bee of Sicily,
from the juice of the flowers which he has gathered in the
celestial meadows of the Apostles and Prophets, produces in
the minds of his auditors a treasure of immortal learning and
virtue.” lie tore himself away, nevertheless, from the ap­
plauses of the Alexandrian youth, and from the successes of
an apostleship which he had made illustrious, to undertake
tbe toils of the distant mission that was opened to him.
Appointed by Demetrius, patriarch of Alexandria, apostle and
bishop of the oriental nations, he penetrated the Indies, whither
he was called. It was not until long years after, when ago
hud broken his strength, that he returned to Alexandria. The
see was then held by Origen, disciple and successor of Clement

BT. VICTOR I. (A. D. 188-200).

167

of Alexandria. Pantenus felt his youth, in some sort, revive in
this young man, whose glory was then without an equal. He
took pleasure in praising his doctrines and eloquence, and in
conciliating for him the veneration, friendship, and esteem,
with which the greatest men of the age honored himself. St.
Pantenus died about the year 216.
10. His most glorious conquest had been the conversion
of Clement of Alexandria, who succeeded him as director of
the Christian school. Titus Flavius Clement, a native, accord­
ing to some authorities, of Alexandria, according to others, of
Athens, had been educated in paganism. An insatiable desire
of knowledge had enabled him, in his laborious youth, to ex­
haust the treasures of human learning and the principal sys­
tems of philosophy. Wearied by the doubts and contradic­
tions which he encountered at each step, he applied himself
to the examination of the modes of worship and religious doc­
trines of Greece, Rome, and of the different nations of the
world. With this object, he travelled in the East, in Greece,
and in Italy, and finally terminated his wanderings in the pur­
suit of truth in Egypt, at the feet of St. Pantenus, whose
persuasive and touching eloquence put an end to all his
irresolution, and attached him forever to the Christian religion.
At first, a fervent neophyte ; later, a zealous priest ; he be­
came an indefatigable apostle. After the departure of St.
Pantenus for the Indies, Clement of Alexandria continued his
work. He brought to his tusk an immense erudition, language
full of unction and charm, and a sanctity of life which im­
parted to his instructions the irresistible authority of example.
Not content with instructing his auditory by his voice alone,
he wrote many treatises, for the benefit of such as were unable
to follow the course of his lessons. “ The ancient priesti,”
ho said, “ did not write, because they could not lay aside
teaching. Perhaps, also, they thought that the same talents
could not successfully be applied to both; but written works
serve to protect doctrines, in transmitting to posterity the
primitive traditions. ” In fact, the Fathers had not written

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

until this time, except to meet the urgent necessities of con­
troversy with paganism or heresy. The Church, essentially
dogmatic, especially in her first age, ns we have already
*
said,
had not yet found, amid the tempests which agitated
her. the leisure to develop, in learned works, the sublime
philosophy she taught in the world.
Clement of Alexan­
dria took the first step in the new path which was opened to
Christian genius. In the three books of the Pedagogue, and in
the eight Stromata, the two most important of his works still
extant, he constantly places religion at the summit of science,
by proving the excellence of its dogmas, and their harmony
with sound reason. The Pedagogue, composed for the Cate­
chumens, whose spiritual infancy was directed by Clement,
is an abridgment of the whole of Christian morals. Jesus
Christ himself, the Word of God, and wisdom incarnate, is
presented as a model and master. He teaches the true wis­
dom. He bestows on simple and pure hearts solid grandeur,
durable happiness, and the supreme good. This work of ini­
tiation into the faith, ends with a description of the holy
practices, the austere morals, and the inexhaustible charity of
the Christians. The author afterwards rendered it complete,
by his great composition, which he called the Stromata, or
Miscellanies, which he himself says were to contain “ the Catho­
lic truth, mingled with the instructions of philosophy ; or,
rather, they would present it covered and hidden, like the nut
in its shell.” These expressions indicate the state of mind of
Clement of Alexandria, in commencing this work, which he
terms, in another place, The son of his souZ.f On the one hand,
he was restrained by the prejudice which had grown up among
Christians, of the inutility of writings on religion purely
pl^osophical ; and, by the Discipline of Secret, which imposed
entire reserve on the subject of the mysteries, dogmas, and sac­
raments. On the other hand, he felt himself invincibly
attracted to engage in a controversy with Pagan philosophy,·
* Chap-1.—SM® of the Church in the first century.
I Anitnæ liberi sunt scripta.—Sthouat, lib. 1, § 1, p. 316.

ST. VICTOR 1. (A. D. 180-200).

160

which should result in the triumph of the evangelic doctrine’
over all merely human conceptions, and which should also
serve for the instruction of the faithful, in giving them sound
ideas of a superior order, on the practice of Christian perfec­
tion, and preserve them from the seductions of false mystics,
which at that epoch Gnosticism had multiplied. Divided be­
tween these two considerations, he endeavored to conciliate
them in his work. He informs us “ that he has sowed the
Christian dogmas in his book in such a way that the unin­
itiated in the knowledge of the mysteries cannot easily dis­
cover our holy traditions.”* The obscurity of the terms which
he employs in treating of the sacraments, is transparent to
the faithful, and is equivocal and ambiguous only to the
Pagans, to whom it was important that the secret of the
Church should not be revealed. The affected disorder of the
matter was also a part of his general design. He compares
the Stromata, “ not to those beautiful gardens, where all is
disposed with art and elegance, but to a mountain, covered by
nature with forests and plants of every kind, growing all
together, as if thrown there by chance.”·!· In spite of his
precautions, his plan is perceptible, at least in its fundamental
ideas. He treats first of philosophy in general, and presents
it under its various aspects. He then speaks of faith, the
foundation of Christian life; of the virtues which purify and
ornament the soul, in delivering it from the unregulated move­
ments of the passions. He combats briefly the errors of the
Encratites, on the subjects of continence, marriage, and martyr­
dom. He then comes to the picture of the true sage, the
philosopher, the Gnostic par excellence, that is to say, of the
Christian, elevated by the practice of all the virtues, to the
contemplation of God, and of His sublime beauty; living,
henceforth, a life almost superhumai), and exhibiting on earth
the perfections of evangelic virtue. To reach this eminent
♦ üt a quolibet eorum qui mysteriis non eunt initiati non faci!» inveniri possint snnebe
traditiones.—Strom., lib. iv., § 1, p. 565.
i Strom., lib. vil., § 18, p 901.

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

degree of Christian sanctity, to triumph over the miseries, the
imperfections, the weaknesses of fallen humanity, is not this
the supreme end which Religion points out to all her chil­
dren ? Is it not in this way that she advances them, each
according to his vocation, and his co-operation with the graces
which are imparted to him by the Holy Spirit ? This, also, is
the end which Clement of Alexandria proposed to himself in
this work.
We have also from the same author an Exhortation to the
Gentiles, in which he magnificently sets forth the excellence
and purity of the Christian religion, by comparing it with the
idolatrous worship,whose infamous mysteries he unveils without
mercy, and a short treatise which has for its title and subject,
J17/0 of the rich can be saved? He composed, besides, eight
books of Ilypotyposes, or Instructions : a grand commentary on
the whole Scriptures, on which Eusebius and St. Jerome
bestow the highest encomiums—unhappily only some incom
plete fragments remain to us—a controversial treatise on the
question of Easter, in which he opposes the usage of the
Asiatics ; and various controversial works against the Encratites and Montaniste.
11. While Clement wrote his Stromata at Alexandria, St.
Victor closed his pontificate, in the year 200. The Liber Pon­
tificalis, and the Roman Martyrology, both give him the title of
martyr, without mentioning the particulars of his death. Euse­
bius informs us that the holy pontiff composed several writings,
now lost, and St. Jerome places him first among the Fathers
of the Latin Church. Besides his decree relative to the cel­
ebration of Easter, he declared, by an ordinance, that the com­
mon water of a fountain, pond, river, or sea, could be used in
case of necessity, in the administration of baptism. This leads
to the supposition that, until then, it had been the rule to use
holy water in administering this sacrament. St. Zephyriuus,
a Roman by birth, succeeded him.

ST. ZEPHYRINUS (A. D. 200-217).

171

CHAPTER IX.
§ J.

d. 200-217). 1. Fifth general per
Bccution, under Septimius Severus.— 2. Scyllitan martyrs at Carthage.—
3. Martyrdom of St. Perpetua, St. Felicitas, and their companions, at Car­
thage.—4. Martyrdom of St. Leonides, father of Origen, at Alexandria
(202).—5. Martyrdom of SL Irenæus, bishop of Lyons.—6. Martyrdom of
the disciples of Origen at Alexandria (204).—7. Martyrdom of Potamiana,
of St. Marcella, her mother, of the soldier Basilidcs, at Alexandria (204).
8. Tertullian.—9. Conference between Gaius and Prochis, at Rome.—10.
Voyage of Origen to Rome. The Octapla, Hexapla, Tctrapla. Bible of
Origen.—11. St. Narcissus, bishop of Jerusalem.—12. St. Alexander, coad­
jutor of St. Narcissus, and bishop of Jerusalem.—13. Minucius Felix, Octa­
vius, and their friend Cecilius.—Caracalla, emperor.—15. Massacres at Alex­
andria. Flight of Origen to Caesarea.—16. Condemnation of the heretic
Noetus.—17. St Hippolytus, bishop of Porto. His works.—IS. Fall and
penitence of Natalis, confessor of the faith. Death of Pope St Zephyrinus.

Pontificate

of

St. Zephyrinus (a.

§ I. Pontificate of Ρογε St. Zephyrinus (a. d. 200-217).

1. Commodus, having been strangled by his principal concu­
bine, aided by two prefects of the Prætorium, ended his life
on the eve of the day on which he had ordered the assassin­
ation of the two consuls of Rome by a troop of gladiators.
Pertinax, an old general, who had risen by his genins, having
been the son of a slave who sold charcoal in Liguria, reigned
ninety-seven days. Fearing that he intended to establish the
ancient discipline, the pretorian soldiers cut off his head, and
bore it in triumph round their camp, on the end of a pike.
From the ramparts of Rome, the empire was offered to the
highest bidder. Didius Julianus purchased it at the price of
twelve hundred drachms for each soldier, nearly six hundred
dollars, payable immediately to him ; the empire was thus

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GENERAL HISTORÏ OF THE CHURCH.

disposed of by the legions, and the senate ratified the bargain.
But the purchaser was unable to pay the price agreed upon.
Sixty-six days after, he was deposed by the senate, and con­
ducted to execution. Three generals were then each pro­
claimed Emperor by their troops, and assumed the purple at
the same time: Pescennius Niger in the East, Blodius Albinus
in Great Britain (England), and Septimius Severus in Illyria.
The last, three times victorious over Niger, in Asia, was
equally fortunate against Albinus at the battle of Lyons.
The crown remained his own. Severus was born at Leptis, on
the coast of Africa. lie had both the Punic faith and cruelty.
His first act of authority was to force the senators to place
Commodus in the rank of the gods. “ It becomes them, in­
deed,” said he, “to be scrupulous ! Are they any better than
that tyrant?" Nevertheless, he was at first favorable to the
Christians, and confided the education of his son to one of
them, named Proculus, and he protected those members of the
senate who had been converted to Christianity. But afterwards
be changed these happy dispositions, and in the year 202, he
forbade, under the heaviest penalties, the profession of the reli­
gion of Jesus Christ. He enforced this decree with the obsti­
nacy natural to his character; and, as the multitude had not
even awaited this signal to gratify their fury against the Chris­
tians, the persecution soon became general.
2. At Carthage, the proconsul Saturninus summoned before
his tribunal Speratus, Narzalis, Ci tlinus, Veturius, Felix, Aquili­
nus, Lotantius, Januaria, AcyIlina, Generosa, Vestina, Donata,
and Secunda. When the proconsul ordered them to sacrifice
to the false gods, Speratus replied : “We have never violated
the laws. No one can accuse us of any crime. Our religion
commands us even to pray for those who unjustly persecute us.”
“We also,” rejoined the proconsul, “have a religion full of
good and pious teaching. Swear, then, with us, by the genius
of the emperors, our masters.” “ I know not the genius of the
emperors, but I can loyally maintain faith, hope, and charity.
We adore only one Lord and one God. King of kings, Empe­

ST. ZEPllYRINUS (A. D. 200-217).

173

ror of all nations.” Each of the confessors replied with the
same courage, and Saturninus sent them all to prison. The
trial was resumed the next day. On this occasion, Satur­
ninus addressed the women : “ Obey the emperors, our
masters, and sacrifice to the gods.” Donata replied: “We
desire to pay to the emperors all the homage and respect doe
to them, but we can adore Jesus Christ only, who is the true
God.” Vestina followed: “That which I must always meditate
in my heart, and pronounce with my lips, is that I am a Chris­
tian.” Secunda added : “And I also am a Christian. I will
persevere in this faith of my companions, and my own. Never
will wc adore your gods.” Speratus was then interrogated
anew. Full of holy enthusiasm, he exclaimed, addressing the
crowd who filled the pretorium : “ If you wish to know the
thoughts of my heart, listen : I am a Christian.” All the other
confessors with one voice repeated the same profession of faith.
“I give you a respite of three days,” then said Saturninus, “to
reflect on the part you may wish to take, and to retract the
errors of this impious sect.” “ No delay will change our be­
lief,” replied Speratus ; “ we will die with joy for the religion
of Jesus Christ. Rather take time yourself to deliberateabandon the shameful worship of idols, and become a disciple
of the Gospel. Have courage to do so, or hesitate no longer to
pronounce sentence against us.” Saturninus then commanded
these generous Christians to be decapitated. “We give thanks
to God,” they said, while they were being conducted to the
place of execution, “ that He does us the honor this day to
receive us into heaven, for the confession of His name”—and
the noble victims were immolated. Their martyrdom took
place on the seventeenth of July, a. d. 200.
3. Soon after this, Vi via Perpetua, of Carthage, twenty-two
years of age, and of illustrious birth, was arrested. Her father
and mother were still living. She was married, and nursed an
infant. They seized with her Felicitas, a Christian slave, mar­
ried, and pregnant. Revocatus, Saturninus, Secundulus, ami Sa­
turus, were joined with them as companions in captivity. The

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

father of Perpetua, a zealous pagan, besought his daughter to
sacrifice. “Some days having elapsed since I last saw mv
father’’ (it is Perpetua herself who writes this narrative of the
commencement of her martyrdom), “ I gave thanks to God for
this, and his absence strengthened me. It was in this interval
that we were baptized”—(she and also Revocatus were only
catechumens when they were arrested). “I prayed for naught
else, on coming out of the water, but patience in my bodily suf­
ferings. A few days afterwards they threw us into a dungeon.
I was frightened, for I had never seen such darkness." It was a
bitter day! The heat was stifling because of the crowd; the
soldiers pushed against us ; and I was dying of anxiety on ac­
count of my infant. Then the blessed deacons, Tertius and
Pomponius, who assisted us, obtained, by means of money, per­
mission for us to go out, and pass some hours in a more commo­
dious place (han the prison. We profited by this advantage. I
suckled my infant, and commended him to my mother’s care ;
I encouraged my brother, but I was parched with grief to see
how much sorrow I caused them. Several days I passed in
this anguish. There was a rumor that we were to be inter­
rogated. My father came from the city to the prison, over­
whelmed with distress. lie said to me : ‘ My child, have pity
on my white hairs; have pity on me ! If I am worthy of
being called thy father, if I have brought thee up to this age,
if I have preferred thee to thy brothers, make me not a reproach
among men. Think of thy mother : see thy son, who cannot
live when thou art gone. Lay aside this obstinacy, lest we all
be ruined!’ My father expressed his tenderness for me by
kissing mj hands, throwing himself at my feet, weeping, not
calling me his daughter, but his lady. I grieved for him,
seeing that of all my family he would be the only one who
would not rejoice at our martyrdom.
*
I said, to console him,
‘Whatever happens on the scaffold will be that which is most
pleasing to God ; for be assured that we are not in our own
power, but in His.’ He went away sorrowful.
• All the other members of her family were Christians.

ST. ZEPÏIYRINÜ8 (A. D. 200-217).

175

“ The next day, while at dinner, they came to take us to
be interrogated. The report of it had reached the neighboring
districts, and a crowd of people assembled near the tribunal.
The others underwent the interrogation, and generously con­
fessed Jesus Christ. When my turn came, my father ap­
proached me, holding my son in his arms, and said : ‘ Have
pity on your child!’ The procurator Hilarian added, ‘Spare
the age of your father ; spare the infancy of your son.
Sacrifice to the gods, for the prosperity of the emperor.’ ‘I can­
not,’ said I. ‘ Are you a Christian?’ ‘lam a Christian.’ As my
father endeavored to withdraw me from the tribunal, Hilarian
commanded that he should be driven away, and he received a
blow from the rod of a lictor. I felt it as if I had been stricken
myself—so much did I suffer to see the white hairs of my
father insulted, because of me. Hilarian then pronounced our
sentence, condemning us all to be exposed to the beasts.
We returned joyfully to the prison.”*
“ Secund ulus died there. Felicitas was in the eighth
month of her pregnancy : seeing the day of the spectacles so
near, she was greatly afflicted, fearing that her martyrdom
would be deferred, because it was not permitted to put preg­
nant women to death. The prayers of the confessors obtained
for her a prompt and happy delivery. She gave birth to a
girl, whom a Christian woman brought up as her own child.
On the eve of their combat they were given, according to
custom, their last supper, which was termed the free repast,
and which was made in public. The Christians obtained per­
mission on this occasion to remain within the prison, the
keeper of which was already converted. The martyrs changed
* Wo have scrupulously reproduced the recital of St Perpetua. “ Human literature."
says M. Rohrbacher, “has nothing approaching it. A young woman, a mother, of distin­
guished birth, cherished by all her friends, beholds herself separated from her father.mother,
brothers, husband, and her infant, to bo devoured by wild beasts, before all the people:
she sees her aged father, whom aho loves, and who loves her most tenderly, kiss ber hands,
throw himself on his knees, to prevail with her to pronounce one word which will save her
from danger: sho compassionates the sorrow of her father, she consoles him but she will
not pronounce that word, because it would be an apostasy: and sho writes al this on th·
eve of her torments, with a candor and a calm above human nature."

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CENTRAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

their dying feast into an agape. To the people around them
they said : 1 Observe our faces well, that you may know us
on the day of judgment.’ ”
“The next morning they left the prison for the amphi­
theatre, ns if on their way to heaven. Their laces shone with
ineffable joy. At the door they were required, according tc
custom, to put on the ornaments worn by those who appeared
at this spectacle. These wore, for men, a red mantle, the
habit of the priests of Saturn ; for women, a fillet around the
head, the symbol of the priestesses of Ceres. The martyrs
refused these liveries of idolatry. 4 We are here only to main­
tain our freedom,’ they said ; 4 we have sacrificed our lives rather
than do any thing of this kind ; we have already told you so.’
Saturninus and Revocatus were first abandoned to the fury
of a leopard and a bear, who dragged them about some
minutes, without inflicting serious injury. Saturus was exposed
to a wild boar, who, respecting the martyr, attacked the
hunter, and inflicted upon him a mortal wound. Perpetua and
Felicitas were stripped and put into nets, to be exposed to a
furious cow; but the people revolted at this refinement of
cruelty. These generous women were then clothed in flowing
garments. Perpetua, the first exposed, was thrown into the
air, and fell on her back ; she sat up, gathering her loosened
hair, to avoid the appearance of mourning, and seeing Felicitas
all bruised by her fall, she extended her hand to aid her in
rising. Both then stood, prepared for a new combat ; but the
people, whose cruelty was softened, would not have them
exposed a second time, and they were reconducted to the
Sanavivaria gate, where Pvusticus, the deacon, was unbounded
in his cares for them. Saturus was now presented to a leopard,
who, seizing him in his jaws, at once threw him on the ground,
bathed in blood. 4 There is a baptism that will save him,’
shouted the people ; an ironical allusion to the sacrament of
the Christians. But the martyr, turning towards the soldier
Pudens, whose conversion he had undertaken, ‘Adieu,’ he
eaid ;4 remember my faith ; let my death confirm you in fidelity

ST. ZEPHYRINCS (A. D. 200-21Π

17"

to Jesus Christ.’ He then asked for the ring which Padens
wore, bathed it in his wound, and restored it, as a pledge of
their friendship, and a memento of his blood. Finally, he
expired in the place where they were accustomed to put an
end to those whom the beasts had left still breathing. The
people demanded that the other martyrs should be brought
again to the centre of the amphitheatre, to have the pleasure
of seeing them receive their death-blows, and accustom them­
selves to the view of homicide. They rose and came of
themselves, to consummate their martyrdom, after giving to
each other the holy kiss of peace. Saturninus and Revo­
catus received the last stroke immovable and in silence ;
Felicitas fell into the hands of an inexpert executioner, who
forced from her a cry of pain (for these murders were a sort of
apprenticeship for unpractised gladiators) ; Perpetua herself
guided the trembling hand of the man to her throat."
*
4. The persecution was not less furious in Egypt. Alex­
andria was especially marked for vengeance by the Pagans,
because of her eminence in Catholic science. Septimius Severus
visited the city soon after his edict of persecution was pro­
claimed, and ordered the Christians to be pursued with the ut­
most rigor. They were arrested in the Thebaid, and in every
province in Egypt, wherever they could be seized, and brought
to the city for execution, so that it became the capital of pro­
scriptions. Clement of Alexandria, obliged to fly from the
murderers, wrote, from his place of concealment: “Everyday
we see fountains of Christian blood flowing; every day we see
our martyrs consumed in the flames of the pyre, interrogated
in the midst of tortures, decapitated by the sword. Their
fidelity to Jesus Christ leads them to these glorious combats,
and teaches them to testify their piety by the effusion of their
blood.”f Leonides was arrested with an innumerable crowd
of Christians. Origen, his son, whom he had brought up with
the greatest care, had just reached his seventeenth year.
M But,” said St. Jerome, “ from his childhood he was a great
• Act Since r, p. 80 et ecq.
12

f Stromata, lib. L, p. 41A

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

man." Besides the liberal arts and belles-let tres, St. Leonides
had given him a knowledge of the Scriptures, some sentences
of which he made him every day commit to memory, and
recite before beginning his profane studies. Origen devoted
himself with an application which was not content with merely
the literal sense, but sought for the more hidden meaning.
St. Leonides discouraged this excessive ardor for knowledge,
yet from the depths of his heart he blessed God for giving
him such a son. Often, while Origen slept, he approached
the bed where his child lay, and opening his bosom, kissed it
with respect, as a sanctuary where dwelt the Spirit of God.
So holy an education produced its fruits. When Origen heard
of his father’s imprisonment for the faith, neither the tears nor
the supplications of his mother could retain him. She was
obliged to have recourse to a maternal stratagem, and conceal
his clothing, to prevent him from going to oifei himself a cap­
tive for Jesus Christ. He was consoled by writing to St.
Leonides a letter, full of eloquence and force, in which he
encouraged him to martyrdom. “ Have confidence,” he wrote ;
“give yourself no trouble about us” (he had six brothers
younger than himself). “ Leave all for Jesus Christ ; He will
be your recompense.” St. Leonides was beheaded, and his
property confiscated for the benefit of the public treasury,
a.d.202.
5. St. Irenæus, at the same time, had the happiness of shed­
ding his blood for the faith which he had so gloriously defended
in his works. Septimius Severus, on hearing that the numbers
of the faithful were multiplying in Lyons, through the zeal of
this pious prelate, adopted measures worthy of his cruelty.
He sent orders to his soldiers to surround the city, and put to
the sword all who confessed themselves Christians. The mas­
sacre was almost general, and the blood of the martyrs flowed
in streams through the public places. St. Irenæus was led
before the tyrant, who commanded him to be put to death,
applauding himself for having thus silenced both the pastor
mid his flock. An ancient inscription, still to be seen in

ST. ΖΕΡΠΥΚΙΝ08 (A. D. 200-217).

179

Lyons, at the door of the principal church, says the holy
victims of the faith numbered nineteen thousand men, without
including women and children. Among the martyrs of Gaul,
at this epoch, was St. Andeolus, subdeacon, sent by St. Poly­
carp to preach the Gospel, who was put to death at Viviers.
6. After the departure of Clement of Alexandria, who had
retired into Cappadocia, to the house of bishop Alexander,
the Christian school had been for some time dispersed by
the violence of the persecution. Origen had the courage
to revive it, even under the sword of the persecutors, a. d.
203. He sold his books of grammar and profane science, on
the condition that he should be furnished with four *oboli a
day for his sustenance. Thus freed from the care of his
daily wants, he commenced his work with incredible ardor.
He passed the whole night in study and watching, to pre­
pare the eloquent instructions which he addressed on the
morrow to his disciples. When nature, overcome by sleep,
yielded to the necessity of repose, he rested some moments on
the bare ground, and quickly resumed his work. In a few
years he had committed to memory all of the Holy Scriptures,
and, with the knowledge of the text which his memory fur­
nished, applied himself to the immense labor which he bestowed
on the Bible. The austerity of his life corresponded to his
indefatigable ardor for learning. He never drank wine. His
frequent fasts and his habitual abstinence had nearly cost
him his life. Even in winter he went barefoot, allowed him­
self only a single habit, and refused all that his friends
wished to give him. Such sanctity, united to his prodigious
talents, attracted a crowd of disciples, even from among the
most distinguished learned men and philosophers. Heraclas,
who afterwards became bishop of Alexandria ; Plutarch, his
brother; the two Sereni, Heraclides, Heron, and many other
young men, eagerly placed themselves under his direction
By this, they exposed themselves to the vengeance of the per­
secutors, who did not spare them. They were sent to prise»
♦ About eight cento of our money.—Λ’η. tram.

ISO

GENERAL HISTORY OF ΤΠΕ CHURCH.

ITemclas alone escaped their search ; Providence had other views
for him. Origen made incredible efforts to bear to his spiritual
children the consolations and encouragements of religion. He
visited the martyrs in their prison, accompanied them to the
interrogatory, exhorted them even in their place of torments,
nnd gave them, in the presence of the pagans and the soldiers,
st the last moment, the kiss of peace. It was miraculous that
he escaped the rage of the Gentiles, who were several times
on the point of stoning him. They even posted soldiers at the
loor of his residence to murder him, and the furious people often
dragged him along the streets of the city. Several times he
was tortured, but God would not permit him to be removed
from the Church of which he was one of the glories. One
day the infidels seized him, and, having sha ved his head, in
imitation of the priests of the idols, they clothed him in robes
worn by those who sacrificed ; thus attired, they placed him
on the highest step of the temple of Serapis, and gave him
palms to be distributed, according to custom, to those who
iscended. Origen received them, and,lifting them up, “ Come,”
ie cried, “ come and receive these palms ; not as those of
your idols, but as the palms of Jesus Christ, my God.” His
disciples were sent to be executed. Plutarch, Heraclides,
Heron, and one of the Sereni, were beheaded ; the other
was burned alive. They also sent to the flames the young
catechumen, Herais, who was preparing to receive baptism,
and attended the instructions of Origen.
.7. At the same time, Alexandria witnessed the death of a
young Christian, a martyr to chastity. Potamiana was a slave.
Her master, inflamed by her rare beauty, could not obtain her
consent to his infamous desires. lie delivered her to the
governor of Alexandria, Aquila, in the hope that the view of
torments and threats of death would subdue her virtuous con­
stancy. Aquila, having found her immovable, applied the
torture. The executioners exhausted their strength in vain
against this noble victim. At length, the governor ordered an
immense caldron filled with pitch to be placed over a fire, and

81. ZEPHYRfSÜS ÎA. D. 200-21*1.

181

when it was boiling, “ Obey thy master," he said to Potamiana,
(i or I will plunge thee, living, into this heated caldron.
“ God forbid," replied the saint, “ that any judge should be
so wicked as to condemn me to do a criminal action.” Other
threats of Aquila having had no more effect than this, he com­
manded that she should be stripped and cast into the caldron.
The chaste martyr had the right of repelling the outrage
offered to her modesty, and she was plunged with her garments
on into the heated caldron. The governor appointed one of
his guards, Basilides, to preside at the execution. On
approaching the martyr, the soldier felt his heart moved by a
supernatural grace. He drove away the people who crowded
on the passage of Potamiana, to insult her virtue. When on
the point of being thrown into tho caldron, she promised to
intercede for him with the Lord, assuring him that he would
speedily feel the effects of her gratitude. When she had
ceased tn speak, they lowered her gradually into the boiling
pitch, until her head was submerged. At the same time her
mother, St. Marcella, was burned alive.
Some days after, the soldiers, companions of Basilides, having
endeavored to force him to swear, with them, by the gods of the
empire, Basilides refused, declaring that he was a Christian. The
soldiers at first supposed he was merely in jest; but, becoming
convinced of the sincerity of his declaration, they conducted
him to the governor, who threw him into prison. The Chris­
tians, astonished at so sudden a conversion, came to visit the
new brother whom the Lord had given them. “ Potamiana
appeared to me," he said, “ three days after her martyrdom.
She placed a crown on my head, saying that she had obtained
for me grace from the Lord, and that soon He would call mo
to His glory.” He was baptized, and the next day the lie tor’s
axe opened for him the gates of eternal life.
8. “ A secret power of conversion arose from the blood of
the martyrs, which thus became the seed of Christianity.” This
is an expression of Tertullian, who had himself yielded to the
marvellous attraction. Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus,

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the son of a centurion of pro-consular troops, was born at Car­
thage. a. D. 160. Ho studied all the sciences, and succeeded
in each of them. His style, lively, concise, energetic, brilliant
in metaphors and novel thoughts, and in expressions of an
always happy audacity, recalled the thunders of Demosthenes,
in the language of Tacitus. It would seem that if Logic wanted
to choose a style of eloquence, she would select that of Tertullian. In his writings, each word is a sentence, each argu­
ment a victory. The African Bossuet, nothing would be want­
ing to his glory if he had always made humility the safeguard
of his genius.
Although a pagan by the prejudices of birth and education,
he was unable to resist the profound impression made on his
soul by the invincible cons.tancy of the martyrs. He embraced
the faith of Jesus Christ, became a priest, and soon after
addressed to the magistrates of the Roman empire the most
eloquent apology which had yet been written.
“It is not a favor which the Christian religion demands of
you,” said he, “ for she is not herself surprised at her recep­
tion. A stranger in this world, she knows that among stran­
gers, enemies are easily found. Her origin, her home, her
hopes, her credit, and her glory, are in heaven. She only asks
that she shall not be condemned without being known.
“ The proof that she is unknown is, that ceasing to be igno­
rant of her, men cease, at the same time, to hate her. It is the
knowledge of our faith that gives us Christians by thousands.
Behold, and see why it is that we fiH your cities, your islands,
your villages, and your fields, with a multitude which alarms
you, and yet you never suspect that there may be, in this
strength of attraction, some good that you do not compre­
hend. A criminal trembles when he is detected—denies when
he is interrogated, or confesses only with tears. No Christian
blushes before your tribunals ; his only regret is that he has
not always been a child of the faith. It is a strange sort of
crime, which has no vicious character, no fear, no confusion,
no evasions, no repentance, no regrets !

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183

“You proceed against us by a singular subversion of all
justice. You torture criminals to force them to confess their
crime : you apply it to Christians to constrain them to deny
it. When a man cries out, ‘I am a Christian,’ he tells you
what he is ; you torture him to make him say what he is not.
Appointed to search for the truth, you would force us into
falsehood. Such a contradiction ought to make you fear, lest
there be some secret and unknown power which inclines you
thus to violate all the forms of equity and law. You believe
that a Christian is guilty of all crimes, that he is the enemy of
the gods, the emperors, the laws, morals, and of all nature—
yet you force him to deny it, to be absolved !
“ It is said that we have the barbarism to murder, in our
assemblies, an infant, whose flesh we eat, and that to this feast
of Thyestes, succeed the most infamous orgies. It is said,
and notwithstanding the long time during which it has been
repeated, you have never yet taken the pains to verify the
facts. Either prove these accusations, if you believe them
to have any foundation, or cease to credit them, when you
have not verified them. Every day we are hunted—we
are surprised in the midst of our assemblies—has any one
ever met with any thing on which to ground these accusa­
tions ?
“ People thirsting for Christian blood, upright judges,
magistrates, so rigorous towards us, what will be your reply
when I reproach you with being yourselves the murderers of
your own children ? You expose them by thousands, in the
streets and public places, to the dogs which devour them ; you
rid yourselves of them by drowning, or you leave them to perish
of hunger—to die by the sword would be a death too gentle
for these tender victims. Among Christians, homicide is un­
known. In our eyes, it is murder even to prevent a birth
—while you sow everywhere the fruit of your debauches.
If you had taken notice of the disorders which are committed
among yourselves, you must have perceived that they have no
existence among Christians. There are two kinds of blind­

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

ness, which often go together; that of not seeing what is, and
of imagining (hat which is not.”
We regret that we cannot reproduce the whole of this most
eloquent pleading. What a spectacle was offered to the world
in this champion, who stood alone to defend the truth, and
whose voice rose above the clamors of the amphitheatre, the
threats of the persecutors, and the clank of chains ! Never
was the struggle of the two powers which divide the world,—
the struggle of material power against truth,—better delineated.
The logic of Tertullian did not arrest the persecution, and yet,
in the last analysis, this logic remained victorious. It was
sufficient for the moment, that, on the ground of the discussion
where the Christian doctor was placed, he had obliged pagan­
ism and philosophy to serve as footstools to the throne of
Christ. This new character of religious controversy is revealed
in other writings published by Tertullian, nearly at the same
time as the Apologeticus. The treatises, Ad nationes libri duo:
De Testimonio Animœ: Adversus Judœos: Adversus Hermogenem,
Valentinianos, Marcionem : Adversus Praxeam : De carne Christi:
De resurrectione carnis,
*
succeeded each other without inter­
ruption, in less than five years. Pressed by the numerous
adversaries whom he attacked all at once, and equally pressed
for time which seemed always insufficient for his indefatigable
zeal, Tertullian purposed to group together all the enemies of
the Church, all the heresies of his time and of the ages to
come, in order to oppose to their pretensions a general argu­
ment proving their inadmissibility. He realizes this idea in
the capital dissertation, De Prcescriptionibus, the most impor­
tant of his works, without excepting even his immortal Apolo
geticus (208). The arguments which he uses had already been
employed by St. Irenæus in his work, Adversus Hccreses, but
Tertullian gives them a wider application. He says to the
chiefs of sects : “You are innovators; you teach doctrines con­
• In English: Tv the Nations (Gentiles)—The Testimony of the Soul—Against Jew—
llennogeiu·', the Valentiniane, Marcion, Praxeas—The Flesh of Christ—The Resumefai of the Flesh.

8T. ZEPHYRINÜS (A. D. 200-217).

185

trary to those that we hold from the Apostles. Where are
your titles against our possession?” Olim politico, prior possideo. Tertullian’s works on morals are neither less important
nor less numerous. They amount to twelve, published between
the years 198 and 204. In the last, entitled De Patientiii. there
is a passage which the sad defection of this great genius ren­
ders almost prophetic : “It is bold, I confess, in me, to venture
to write on patience—I, who am utterly incapable of giving an
example of it. It is, nevertheless, a sori of consolation to
occupy myself with a virtue which it is not granted to me to
enjoy, like the sick, who never cease to speak in praise of the
health which they have not. The virtue of patience bears such
a preponderance in the things of God, that we can neither
fulfil any precept, nor do any acceptable work, without it.” In
these words there is a kind of presentiment of the extremities
into which the violence of his character might hurry him. Dur­
ing fifteen years, Tertullian deserved well of the Church by his
labors as a writer, while he edified her as a priest by his sacer­
dotal virtues. He had reached the age of forty-five years. His
talents had been ripened by controversy. His style, bold and
picturesque, had received a higher lustre from the uninterrupted
series of his triumphs. What promise for an old age so crowned
with glory ! Wounded pride, the burning ardor of a character
which years had not served to render more flexible, crushed
forever this brilliant destiny. Certain affronts received from
inferior or jealous clergymen, personal injuries, of which St.
Jerome, who reports the fact, does not mention the nature,
but which Tertullian should have despised, in the high posi­
tion in which bis works had placed him, were the first
causes of this lamentable separation. A decree of St. Zephyrinus, admitting penitent adulterers to penance, appeared to
Tertullian to indicate a relaxation of doctrine. He made it an
occasion to consummate his schism. Disregarding all pro­
priety, he directed his attacks against this immutable rock
of the Church, which is destined to witness innumerable, yet
always impotent revolts. Alas' Tertullian, the author of

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the Apologetica and of the Book de Prœscriptionibus, was a
Montanistl Priscilla and Maximilla became in his eyes
inspired prophetesses, whose sanctity he feared not to cele­
brate, whose miracles he published.
But it was chiefly
against the authority of the sovereign Pontiff, that he was
excited beyond measure. “ I hear,” said he, “ that a solemn
decree has been published. The Bishop of bishops says,
‘I remit the sins of adultery and fornication to those who
will accomplish their penance.’ Such a doctrine ought to be
read, not in the churches, but in the dens of crime.” The
question of second marriages is treated by Tertullian with the
same disdain of tradition and authority. The constant teach­
ing of the Church regarded them as legitimate. Although the
first Christians, from the desire of a more perfect life, abstained,
for the greater part, none thought of blaming them as being
contrary to the law of God. Tertullian assumed that as Jesus
Christ had repealed the libellum repudii granted to the Jews
by Moses, ad duritiam cordis, so the Holy Spirit, by the mouth
of Montanus and his two prophetesses, had forbidden second
marriages. Montanus and two poor visionaries were legislators
of the same authority as Jesus Christ ! This fallen genius did
not stop with these absurdities. He continued to follow the
path of the inexorable rigorism in which he had engaged. We
seek in vain, through the pages on which he pours out the full
bitterness of his soul against the authority of the Church and
her Head, some indication of a return, some trace of repentance
Bis old age passed on in this afflicting obstinacy, which was a
perpetual insult to the glory of his youth. Antiquity, it is
true, informs us that he separated from the Montanists, but it
was only to form another sect, who were named Tertullianists,
the last remains of whom St. Augustine restored to Catholic
unity. The death of Tertullian is placed about the year 245.
9. The heresy of Montanus, supported by the name of
Tertullian, caused, even at Rome, and under the eyes of the
holy Pontili' St. Zephyrinus, some deplorable perversions.
The Pope pronounced a sentence of excommunication against

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1S7

the sectaries of the new prophets (for this was the name given
to the Montanists). Under his direction, orthodox doctors
labored to refute the heresy. A celebrated conference was
held about the year 212, between the Catholic Gaius and the
Montanist Proclus. The conversion of the latter was the
fruit of the learning and eloquence of Gaius, who wrote a
report of the controversy. His work has not reached us.
10. While the West resounded with the din of Tertulliane
fall, the East lent an ear to the instructions of Origen. This
young doctor had won the admiration of the Roman world.
Even the polytheists paid homage to his learning and talents.
The pagan philosophers consulted him, dedicated to him their
works, or cited his authority in their writings. One day he
entered the school of Plotinus, at the moment when the latter
was giving a lesson. The philosopher blushed, interrupted his
discourse, and only resumed it at the solicitation of his illus-.
trions auditor, on whom he pronounced a pompous eulogy in
continuing his instruction. The zeal of Origen, and the
simplicity and ardor of his faith, equalled his genius. The
excess into which he was led by his timorous conscience, and
the interpretation, in too absolute a sense, of an allegorical
expression in the Gospel, are known. This action excited, in
the sequel, persecutions of which we must speak hereafter.
At the moment, Demetrius, patriarch of Alexandria, his bishop,
regarded it as nothing more than the exaggerated fervor of a
young man. He made him sensible of his fault. Origen
acknowledged it with humility, and afterwards disavowed it
publicly, in his homilies on the Gospels. Meanwhile, the
desire to see Rome, the principal *Church, induced him to
undertake the voyage thither (212).
We may readily imagine the reception which St. Zephyrinus would give to a man whose reputation, since the defection
of Tertullian, was unequalled in the Church. At this epoch,
Origen was engaged in a gigantic work on the Holy Scriptures.
His voyage to Rome, like those which he undertook at a later
• Id Matth., Tract., 7 sub fin.—Origkx, Opera.

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GENERAL HISTORY ΟΓ THE CHURCH.

period Io the different countries of the known world, wag
perhaps connected with tho project he had conceived. Struck
by the variety of readings presented by the different editions
of the Sacred Writings, he purposed to embrace them al)
in a single edition, which should thus become a universal
Bible. On returning to Alexandria, he commpnced the work,
which occupied him during twenty years. To gain time for
this and his lessons on theology, the Holy Scriptures, and
philosophy, which he gave to the multitude of his disciples,
he divided the care of instructing the catechumens with
Ileraclas, a distinguished scholar and philosopher, whom he
appointed to train the neophytes in elementary knowledge.
Having completed this arrangement, Origen set himself to
the study of Hebrew, with his accustomed energy. When he
had overcome the difficulties of this idiom, so foreign to the
genius of the Greek tongue, he published his great edition of
the Scriptures in eight columns, which took the name of Ociapla.
The first column contained the Hebrew text in Hebrew letters ;
the second, the same text in Greek letters (for the convenience
of those who understood Hebrew, without being able to read
it); the third, contained the version of Aquila ; the fourth,
that of Symmachus ; the fifth, the Septuagint ; the sixth,
that of Theodotion; the seventh and eighth, two Greek
versions of unknown authors, which Origen had found, one at
Jericho, the other at Nicopolis, in Epirus. The Hegapla did
not include the two last versions, and had, consequently, only
six columns. Desirous to place this work within the reach of a
greater number of readers, he put forth another edition, which
contained only the four most important versions—that of
Aquila, of Symmachus, of the Septuagint, and Theodotion.
This edition was called Tetrapla. It is to be remarked that
Origen was always careful to place the Septuagint in the midst
of thé other interpretations, to serve as a standard of comparison
among them. The principal object of Origen was, in fact, to
complete the version of the Septuagint, while retaining it for the
basis of his work ; for it was at that time the authorized ver-

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ISO

cion of the Catholic Church, which regarded it as the canonical
version, in spite of the opposition of the Samaritans and Jews.
Origen notes scrupulously all the additions which he believes
ought to be made to it. To this effect, he uses the following
signs : 1. That which is wanting in the Septuagint, is marked
by an asterisk. These gaps are filled, by preference, from the
version of Theodotion ; in his default, from that of Aquila ; and
finally, in default of both, from that of Symmachus. 2.
Another sign, called obelos, marks the words or phrases of the
Septuagint which are wanting in the original Hebrew. Hence,
there are two kinds of copies of the Septuagint : those which
contain the primitive text, and those of the text collated by
Origen. The first is called Editio κοινή, or Vulgaris ; the other,
Edilio Hcxaplaris. During more than fifty years the original
copy of the Octapla remained hidden in a corner of the city of
Tyre, where Origen expired, probably because the expenses
of copying a work in forty or fifty volumes exceeded the
resources of a private individual. This precious work would
perhaps have perished, had not Eusebius brought it to light,
and placed it in the library of Pamphilus, the martyr, at
Cæsarca.
11. While the illustrious Origen adorned the Church of
Alexandria by his labors, St. Narcissus, bishop of Jerusalem,
edified his episcopal city by the example of his virtues. This
venerable man had received from God the gift of miracles.
Eusebius of Cæsarea relates, that in the night on the eve of
Easter, the oil failed, and the deacons were unable to light the
lamps of the church. St. Narcissus directed them to draw
water from a well near by, and bring it to him. Having
blessed this water, he had it poured into the lamps, when it
was found changed into oil. But his sanctity could not protect
him from calumny ; or rather, his zeal and apostolic vigor
made him a mark for the shafts of the wicked. Certain
Christians, unworthy of the name, unwilling to bear the
severity with which the pious bishop reproved their disorders,
conspired against him, and accused him of an atrocious crime

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They attested their deposition by perjury, accompanied by
imprecations. “If I do not speak the truth, let me die in
flames," said one. “ I consent,” said another, “ to be a prey
to the most horrible diseases.” “And I am willing to lose
my sight,” said a third. Narcissus, unwilling to continue a
ministry which suspicion had compromised, tore himself away
from the tears and supplications of the faithful. He had long
desired the happiness of solitude ; he withdrew into a desert,
and during many years nothing was heard of the saintly bishop
of Jerusalem. Meantime, his calumniators received the due
chastisement of their crimes. The house of the first took fire,
and he perished in it, with all his family ; an unknown malady
consumed the second ; his body was but one infected wound,
and he expired in frightful torments ; the third, seized with
fright at this manifestation of divine vengeance, publicly
confessed his fault, and was so deeply penetrated with remorse,
that by continual weeping he lost his sight. Three bishops,
Dius, Germamon, and Gordius, had succeeded each other in
the Pontifical See of Jerusalem, when Narcissus, then nearly
a hundred and ten years old, reappeared in his episcopal city.
They besought him to resume the government of his flock, and
he consented with reluctance, because of his great age.
12. It pleased God soon to send him an assistant worthy of
discharging his eminent functions. In a vision the Lord com­
manded him to choose for his successor the traveller whom he
should meet the next morning at the gate of the city. Several
of his people, who had had the same revelation, went out with
him at the dawn of the day. A venerable stranger presented
himself, who came on a pilgrimage to visit the places conse­
crated by the life, miracles, and passion of the Saviour. It
was Alexander, bishop of Cappadocia. A disciple of St.
Pantenus and of Clement of Alexandria, he had passed his
youth in the study of theology. His merit had elevated him
to the episcopate, and in it he had given an example of every
virtue. The persecution of Septimius Severus presented him
with an occasion of generously confessing his faith. Seized by

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the persecutors, he was thrown into prison, where he remained
seven years, encouraging the faithful by his letters, to perse­
vere in the practice of religion. After his long and hard
captivity, he undertook this voyage to Jerusalem. The
clergy of the city, with Narcissus at their head, saluted the
holy confessor, and in spite of his humble resistance, retained
him as their bishop. This is the first instance of a bishop
being transferred from one see to another, and given for a
coadjutor to a bishop still living.
13. Never had the Church been more fruitful in saints
and great men, than at this epoch. She extended her con­
quests everywhere ; philosophy bowed before her. The time
when the rhetoricians and sophists, proud of a vain learning,
regarded her as the asylum of all material and moral poverty,
and fit only for slaves, was already far away. Clement of
Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, had, in the estimation of the
pagans, reconciled her with genius. The persecutions only
made her power more manifest. A supernatural strength
was necessary to train so many thousand men for martyr­
dom. There must be a vigorous sap in that religion, to
transform into heroes so many disciples, recruited from all
classes of Roman society, in the midst of a degenerate peo­
ple. We have seen soldiers embracing the Christian reli­
gion, converted by the constancy of the martyrs whom they
tortured ; and now we find judges themselves, who, on quit­
ting the tribunal where they had just condemned the wit­
nesses of Jesus Christ, could not resist the evidence, and
demanded baptism. Minucius Felix, and his friend Octavius,
Roman magistrates, were remarkable for the violent hatred
they bore to the Christian name. The most cruel torments,
the most frightful tortures were employed by them against the
disciples of the Gospel. Some months later, they made a
public profession of belonging to that sect which they had
hitherto persecuted, and abjured Paganism. One who was a
friend of both, Cecilius of Ostia, had not yet opened his heart
to the light of faith. They went to visit him at his country

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

house, and undertook that conversion of which Minucius has
left a history in the dialogue which bears his name. One
morning tho three interlocutors were walking together on the
sea-shore : at first, they watched the children, who amused
themselves in skimming flattened pebbles along the surface of
the water; after a little time, Minucius seated himself between
his two friends. Cecilius, who had saluted an idol of Serapis,
inquired “why the Christians hide themselves; why they have
neither temples, nor altars, nor images? Who is their God?
Whence does he come ? Where is this only, solitary, aban­
doned God, whom no free nation knows ? a God of so little
power that he, with his adorers, is a captive of the Romans ?
The Romans, without this God, reign and enjoy the empire of
the world. You Christians make no use of perfumes ; you do
not crown yourselves with flowers ; you are pale and trem­
bling; you will never rise again, as you imagine ; and you do
not really live now, while awaiting this chimerical resurrection."
Octavius replied that the world is the temple of God ; that a
pure life and good works are the true sacrifice. lie refutes
the objection drawn from Roman grandeur, and turns to their
advantage the reproach of poverty addressed to the disciples
of the Gospel. He overthrows the calumnies which the
pagans disseminate against the faithful ; the nocturnal orgies,
the infanticide repasts, the incestuous unions. Finally, he
unfolds to his friend the Christian philosophy, free from the
clouds that prejudice, error, and popular passions, accumulated
around it. Few of the dialogues of Plato offer a finer scenic
effect, or a more noble discourse. Cecilius was converted,
returned to Cyrtha, in Africa, his country ; became a priest,
and had, as it is believed, the happiness to convert St. Cyprian
to the faith, at a later period.
14. Meantime, Septimius Severus, who had allied his name
with the seventh general persecution, died at York, in Great
Britain (a. d. 211), while pronouncing these words, since become
celebrated, “ Omnia fui, cl nihil expedit,” “ I have been every
Uiiug, and it amounts to nothing.” The year before, just as he

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had gained a great victory over the Caledonians, with whom
he was at war, on returning from the field of battle, he saw
Caracalla, the eldest of his sons, with a naked sword in his
hands, prepared to strike him from behind. The wretched
father entered his tent, placed himself in his bed with a sword
beside him, and ordered his son to be called. “ If thou wishest
to kill me,” he said to him, “ take this sword, or command Papinian, here present, to pierce my throat ; he will obey thee, for
I make thee emperor.” Caracalla, in fact, succeeded Septimus
Severus. The first use he made of his authority, was to put
to death his brother Geta, who had been associated with him
in the empire. Twenty thousand Romans, who were sus­
pected of having lamented the young prince, were murdered.
Notwithstanding his cruelty, the new emperor did not revive
the edicts of persecution ; he left the magistrates and people
free to continue or to cease to persecute the Christians.
15. Having heard that the inhabitants of Alexandria had
indulged themselves in certain pleasantries concerning his
sacred person, he took occasion to visit that city. Disguising
his ulterior projects under the mask of gentleness and clem­
ency, he entered the city, and received all imaginable honors.
Suddenly, by order of the tyrant, the soldiers of his army
spread themselves in every quarter, and massacred, during
several days and nights, all whom they found, without dis­
tinction of age, sex, or condition. Caracalla amused himself
with viewing these scenes of horror from the top of the
temple of Serapis. Origen had recently returned from a
journey in Arabia, having been invited by the governor—who
had heard of his great reputation—to confer with him on
scientific subjects. He was obliged again to leave his country,
to escape the fate reserved for his unhappy townsmen. He
therefore went to Caesarea, in Palestine, and began a course
of public instruction. The bishops of this province invited
him—although not a priest—to expound the Scriptures in
their presence to the assemblies of the faithful. Demetrius,
patriarch of Alexandria, made objection to it ; but St. Alex­
is

194

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

ander, bishop of Jerusalem, and Theoctistus of Cæsarcn,
replied to him in these terms : “You say it is contrary to all
tradition that laymen should speak before bishops and expound
the Scriptures : this opinion seems to us erroneous. In fact,
when bishops find laymen capable of aiding their brethren in
the interpretation of the holy books, they request them to in­
struct the people. For example: at Laranda, Bishop Neo
caused Evelpius to speak; at Iconium, Bishop Celsus em­
ployed Paulinus; at Synnada, Bishop Atticus availed him­
self of the services of Theodosius. This discussion proves two
things: 1st. That the usage of the primitive Church had been,
sometimes to permit laymen of eminent learning and sanctity to
speak in the assemblies of the faithful in order to explain the
Holy Scriptures ; 2d. That this usage in the third century was
falling into disuse. However, Demetrius does not seem to
have relished the reasons alleged by his colleagues in the epis­
copate, or probably happy to find a pretext for recalling to
Alexandria a man who was the glory of his church, he sent
two deacons to Origen, who determined him to return to
Egypt.
16. About this time, by a singular coincidence, there was
at Ephesus a heretic, who, reasoning on the same principles
as Praxeas,with whom he had never had any connection, had
arrived at the same errors, which he taught in Asia, while
Praxeas disseminated them in the West. Noetus, originally of
Smyrna, vain to an extravagant degree, fancied himself called
to restore the Catholic dogma to its ancient purity, which,
according to him, it had lost. He declared seriously that the
authority of Moses and Aaron had been bestowed upon him.
He taught that God the Father united Himself to the man
Jesus Christ, was born, had suffered, ami died with him,
whence it followed that the same divine person was called
sometimes the Father, sometimes the Son, indifferently. This
gave to his partisans the name of Patripasaians, because they
believed that God the Father had suffered. The priests of
the Church of Smyrna, under the presidency of the bishop,

8T. 80TER (A. D. 182-174).

195

summoned the heretic before them. He obstinately persisted
in his false doctrines, and was, with his disciples, cut off
from the Church.
17. Precisely as Praxeas had encountered a doctor who
victoriously maintained the defence of catholic truth. Noetus
found in St. Hippolytus, then a priest of the Roman Church,
afterwards bishop of Porto, and martyr of the faith, a vigorous
antagonist. St. Hippolytus, like St. Alexander, of Jerusa­
lem, and Origen, had been a disciple of Clement of Alexan­
*dria.
The taste for study and the love of science which he
had acquired at this school, grew in him with his age. Many
works were the fruits of his erudition and vigils. Few of
them have reached us. There remain only fragments of his
work against Noetus and some extracts, gathered in 869 hy
Anastasius, the Librarian, of a refutation of the heretic Beron,
who dogmatized at the same time as Noetus and Praxeas. under
the Pontificate of St. Zephyrinus. This new sectary, first
engaged in the Gnostic systems of Valentinus, had abandoned
them, to fall speedily into other errors. Confounding the two
natures united in Jesus Christ, but distinct, one from the
other, he pretended that the body of the Saviour wrought the
same things as the divinity, and that, by reciprocity, the
divinity was subject to the same accidents as the flesh. St.
Hippolytus combats with great precision this false doc­
trine which Nestorius, Eutyches, and the Monothelites,
renewed, in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries. To mark
more clearly the distinction of the two natures, he uses an
• In 1551, or some excavations were being made near the Church of St. Lawrence, with­
out the walls of Rome, on the road to Tivoli, there was found in the ruins of sn undent
church of St Hippolytus, a marble statue, representing a man seated in a pulpit, on the
two sides of which were graven, in Greek characters, two cycles, each of sixteen years, and
which, repeated seven times, determine for a hundred and twelve years, the one the four­
teenth dny of the moons of March, the other the Easter Sundays. In this statue, now
deposited in the Vatican, all the learned agree in recognizing St. Hippolyt i-, who, the
ancients inform us, really composed a pascal cycle of sixteen years. The saint gives notice
that his cycle begins in the first year of the reign of Alexander Severus, and that tins year
the pascal term fell upon April 13th, on Saturday, and that Easter was celebrated the
21st—which marks the year 222.

19Ô

GENERAL IlflTOBV Of Ί,Ί^ CHURCH.

ingenious and very just comparison. “ When I speak with
the tongue, or write with the hand, I express outwardly by
both of them only one and the same thought of my
but it does not follow that this thought w the natural product
of the tongue or the hand. In the same manner, the most
blessed flesh of Jesus Christ in being the instrument of the
Divine operations, did not, for that reason, become of itself a
creating power.”
We have, besides, from this writer, two dissertations entitled
*
the one, 0ratio de Consunimalione Mundi' ; the other, De Anti·
chrido cl Secundo Adventu. Domini nostri Jesu Christi
*
When
St. Hippolytus was occupied ip the composition of these
various works, he was only a priest. About the year 2Ü1
he was named the first bishop of Portp, near Rome, by Pope
St. Cornelius.
IS. Thus Catholic truth found, faithful defenders, who
consoled her under the rigor of the persecutions, and the
ravages of heresy. About the same time, St. Zephyriuus had
the happiness of receiving into the bosom of the Church an
unhappy victim of error. Under his pontificate, a Christian
named Natalis, after having generously confessed the name of
Jesus Christ, before the tribunals, had allowed himself to be
seduced by tjie disciples of Theodotus, the currier. He bad
even consented to be ordained bishop of this sect, on the
promise of a monthly pension of a. hundred and fifty Roman
denarii (about twenty-five dollars of American money). “ But,"
says a contemporary author, “ our G,od and Lord Jesus Christ,
full of mercy and not willing that a confessor who had had a
part in His sufferings· should be left to perish out of the
Church, gave him the grace to acknowledge his crime. One
morning, clothed in sackcloth, covered, with ashes, and shed­
ding torrents of tears, he came to throw himself at the feet of
St. Zephyrinus. He confessed his fault, in presence of the
faithful, who were touched by his humility and repentance—
»h> Etigimli ; Discourse on the Ε,μ. of the World—Antiçhrù!, and the second coming of our

8T. %ErtlYRlWB (A. D. 20O-1Û).

Ï9Î

the sovereign Pontiff reconciled him with the Church, and
admitted him to her communion.
19. Soon after, St. Zcphyrinus went to receive in heaven
the recompense of his labors. Some martyrologies give him
the title of martyr ; other historians observe, on the contrary,
that he was the first Roman pontiff who had not died in tor­
ments. He expired in 217, the same year which saw Cara­
calla perish near Carrhas, in Mesopotamia, under the blows of
Macrinus, prefect of the prætorium. The Liber Pontificalia
attributes several decrees to St. Zephyrinus : 1st. That the
deacons and priests shall be ordained in the présence of all
the clergy and people. 2d. That henceforth, for the consecra­
tion of the precious blood of Jesus Christ, cups of glass or
crystal shall be used, and not vases of wood, as had been
hitherto the practice. 3d. That all the priests should assist
at the church when the bishop celebrated the holy mysteries.
St. Callistus I., by birth a Roman, succeeded him.

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

198

CHAPTER X.
§ I. Pontificate of St. Callistus I. (a. d. 217-222).
1. Heliogabalos emperor.—2. Interview between Origen and Alexander Seve­

rus.—3. Labors of Origen.—4. Journey of Origen into Greece.

His ordi­

nation.—5. Julius Africanus.—6. Death of St. Callistus L—Decrees of this

Pope.

§11. Pontificate of St. Urban I. (a. d. 222-231).
7. Alexander Severus emperor. 8.—Church of St. Mary beyond the Tiber.—
9. Excommunication of Origen.—10. Persecution at Rome.—11. Martyr­

dom of SS. Valerianus, Tiburtius, and Maximus.—12. Martyrdom of SL

Cecilia.—13. Martyrdom of St. Urban I.

§ IIL Pontificate of St. Pontianos (a. d. 231-235).
14. Exile of Pope St Pontianus.—15. Death of Demetrius, patriarch of Alex­
andria—16. Sixth general persecution by Maximinus the Thracian.

Martyr­

dom of St. Pontianus.
§ IV. Pontificate of St. Anteros (December, a. d. 235—January, a. d. 236).
17. Conversion of Ambrose, friend of Origen, and of Protoctites, priest of Cæsa-

rea.—18. Martyrdom of Pope St Anterus.

§1. Pontificate

of

St. Callistus I. (a. d. 217-222).

1. Frivolous ancT inconsistent in his character, Macrinus
had coveted the empire. A crime had placed him on the
throne, from which he was soon driven. Ilis genius was not
equal to his ambition. After a reign of fourteen months,
the army removed the usurper from power as easily as it had
permitted him to assume it. Macrinus was murdered by the
soldiers of the legion of Emessa, in Syria, who brought in
triumph to Rome the young Heliogabalus, grand nephew of
Septimus Severus. “It was necessary,” said a celebrated

8T. CALLISTUS I. (A. D. 217-223).

199

writer, “ that all the vibes should have disgraced the throne,
before men would consent to place there a religion which con­
demned all vices and all passions.”* The city of Romulus·, of
Scipio, and of Cæsar, beheld the arrival of a young Syrian, a
priest of the sun, having a painted circlet around his eyes,
cheeks colored with vermilion, and wearing a tiara, a collar,
bracelets, a tunic of cloth of gold, a silk robe of the Phoenician
pattern, and sandals ornamented with carved stones; this
young Syrian, surrounded by eunuchs, buffoons, chanter.-, and
dwarfs, danced and marched backwards before a triangular
stone, the image of the god whose priest he was. This was
Heliogabalus, the new emperor. He surpassed Nero in
cruelty, Caracalla in prodigality : but the vice which chiefly
governed the world under his reign was impurity. He con­
verted the imperial palace into a sink of debauchery. Hiprefect of the prætorium was a buffoon ; coachmen and strollers
became senators and consuls. He created a senate of women,
to decide upon questions of fashion.
2. While this crowned fool dishonored the throne, Alexan­
der Severus, his cousin, acquired, under the direction of his
mother, Mammæa, the great art of ruling. Mammæa loved
and admired Christianity; it appears that she even professed
it. In the year 218, four years before the elevation of her son
to the empire, having heard at Antioch, which at that time
was her place of residence, of the great reputation of Origen,
she sent an escort of honor to accompany the great doctor to
her palace. Origen remained some time near Mammæa and the
future emperor; he discoursed with them on the Christian
religion, the divinity of its origin, the sublimity of its dogmas,
and the purity of its morals. The young prince was pleased
with these lessons ; and if in the sequel he exhibited no taste
for the dissolute habits of his cousin Heliogabalus, if he
appeared in the whole course of his life a lover of justice and
humanity, his contemporaries, as well as posterity, have attrib
*
* Etudes Historiques, par M- de Chateaubriand.

200

GKffiRAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

uted these high qualities to the Christian influence of his
early education. Origen left Antioch loaded, by his illustrious
host, with honors; and returned to Alexandria to devote
himself to the studies which he loved.
3. He had recently converted to the Catholic faith Am­
brose. a rich man of Alexandria, who had been attached to the
sect of the Valentiniane. This new disciple, charmed with the
eloquence and erudition of his master, stimulated still further
the natural ardor of Origen for labor. He requested of him
a general commentary on all the books of the Holy Scriptures:
the doctor set himself to work, and composed his Εξηνηπνια (com­
mentaries)—Treatise against Celsus—Defence of the Christian
Religion against Celsus the Philosopher, one of his best produc­
tions. Ambrose furnished all that was necessary to meet the
expenses of these works. He induced his master to lodge in
his house, that he might be in a better position to promote his
studies—and he placed at his disposal seven secretaries, not­
arii. to write at his dictation. Other scribes, librarii, made
neat copies of the first proofs of the notarii. Finally, others
again multiplied copies of the same works.
Stenographers
reproduced the oral instructions, which the learned doctor
gave every day to his auditory. Origen revised the manu­
scripts, in the presence of his friend, during the hours
of repasts, that not a moment of his precious time should
be lost. Origen yielded to the well-intentioned exac­
tions of Ambrose, whom he sometimes laughingly called
his overseer. The multiplicity of his labors, and the diversity
of his occupation, excited his imagination instead of exhausting
it. He labored night and day with incredible ardor. His
constitution, though frail and delicate, nevertheless sustained
this lengthened toil. In this way ho composed nearly six
thousand works, if we include in the number his homilies and
letters. This indefatigable application gave him among his
contemporaries the name of Adamantinus (constitution of
diamond).
4. Meanwhile, the churches of Greece were lamenting the

8T. CALLISTUS 1. (A. U. 2Π

201

ravages made among them by the heres’n - of the Valen­
tiniane, of the Montanists, and of Noctns. They called for
Origen, that prodigy of eloquence, in whom was revived
the learning of the holy Fathers, to combat these new
sectaries. He forced himself away from his studious retreat
and his laborious exercises, to yield to this call of charity.
Ambrose would not be separated from his illustrious friend,
and accompanied him in his journey. Origen travelled by
land, and entering Palestine, went to salute St. Alexander,
bishop of Jerusalem, and Theoctistus, of Cæsarea, his ancient
hosts. Demetrius, patriarch of Alexandria, had given him, on
his departure, letters of communion, in which he referred in
the highest terms to the knowledge and virtue of his catechist.
The bishops of Palestine, from their admiration of this great
man, desired to attach him in a special manner to the Church,
which, as a simple layman, he had served with so much glory.
They therefore imposed hands on him, and ordained him priest.
He was then forty years of age. Origen continued his journey.
At Nicopolis (the ancient Emmaus), he saw the learned Julius
Africanus ; and, passing on to Ephesus, reduced the heretics to a
humiliating silence. In every city he held conferences with the
sectaries, whom he confounded by the clearness of his argu­
ments, leaving them no other resource to cover their defeat
than that of changing the published reports of the controver­
sies, and of attributing to the Catholic doctor, in these in­
tentional falsifications, opinions and reasonings which he had
never pronounced—a species of calumny which they used
without scruple.
Demetrius, having heard at Alexandria of the ordination
of Origen, wrote to the bishops of Palestine to complain of
this irregular proceeding. Whether it was jealousy, as is inti­
mated by Eusebius and St. Jerome, or simply zeal for the
preservation of ecclesiastical discipline, which actuated Deme­
trius under these circumstances, is a question which probably
may never be determined. However it may have been, the
patriarch of Alexandria made bitter recriminations. He in­

202

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

formed the bishops of Asia, in circular letters, that Origen,
by an action until now unknown, had infringed the laws of
the Church, and had incurred canonical irregularity. Alex­
ander replied that he had conferred the priesthood on Origen
on the strength of the letters of recommendation given by
Demetrius; and that he was ignorant of the facts mentioned
in the subsequent letters of the patriarch.
After rather
long negotiations, this difference was settled, and Origen
returned to Alexandria. But the peace which he enjoyed was
not of long duration.
5. Julius Africanus, whom Origen met in Palestine, was
one of the most learned men of this epoch. He was from
Emmaus, a small country town, which Vespasian changed into
a city, under the name of Nicopolis. It had been recently
burned by Quintilius Varus, governor of Syria. Julius Africa­
nus, sent as a deputy by his compatriots to the Emperor Helio­
gabalus, had obtained its restoration. The chronological labors
of Julius Africanus have made him celebrated. To prove the
antiquity of religion, and the novelty of the pagan histories,
he wrote in Greek, his mother-tongue, a universal history,
from the creation of the world to the fourth year of the reign
of Heliogabalus, a. d. 221. This important work, which still
existed in the time of Photius, is now lost. He wrote another
book, which he named *Kestos; or, The Embroidered Girdle, in
imitation of the Stromates, or Tapestry, of Clement of Alexan­
dria. Natural history, agriculture, geography, history, geome­
try, and medicine, furnished the materials for this work, which
has reached our days. An Epistle to Aristides, in which Julius
Africanus seeks to reconcile the two genealogies of Jesus
Christ according to St. Matthew and St. Luke, has also escaped
the wreck of time. “ It is,” said the author, “ a common tra­
dition in Palestine, that Jacob and Heli were uterine brothers;
Heli dying without children, Jacob espoused his widow, and
was the father of Joseph according to nature, while Heli was
• Histoire do la littérature Grecque profane, t. v. p. 269 : Paris, librairie Gide, 1832.

ST. CALLISTUS I. (A. D. 217-222).

203

his father according to law.” The interview between Origen
and Julius Africanus gave rise to a bibliographic controversy
between these two learned men. Origen employed, in presence
of Julius Africanus, a quotation from the History of Susanna.
Africanus declared it to be apocryphal. In a letter which he
wrote to Origen on this subject, which is still extant, he
defends his thesis, relying for the principal foundation of his
argument on the absence of the History of Susanna in the copies
of the Jews. Origen replied from Nicomedia, that the catholic
radition, until then unanimous, was a sufficient guarantee of its
authenticity. He added, that it was not safe to remove the
bounds fixed by the Fathers; and besides, in the present ques­
tion, the tradition of the Jewish doctors was itself in conformity
with the opinion of the Church. The Alexandrian doctor at the
same time engaged St. Hippolytus to write a commentary on
the History of Susanna. This is all that is known of the labors
and history of Julius Africanus.
6. St. Callistus did not live to witness the last persecutions
of Origen. Although the Christians generally were less dis­
turbed, and the edicts of Septimus Severus had fallen into
desuetude, the emperors lost no occasion to wound, in the
persons of popes, bishops, and priests, a religion which they
always hoped to *
destroy
In the latter years of the pon­
tificate of St. Callistus, the saintly priest Callipodius was
beheaded. His body, ignominiously dragged through the
streets of Rome, and cast into the Tiber, was buried with the
highest honors by the holy pope. A similar fate awaited the
latter. Some time afterwards he was imprisoned, and left to
suffer all the horrors of famine. His persecutors allowed him
only food enough to preserve his strength sufficiently to
endure the torment of the rods with which he was beaten
every day. The good old man was finally precipitated from the
• Such were, in fact, according to St. Cyprian, a few years later, the dispositions of the
Emperor Decius: “Cum tyrannus infestus sacerdotibus Dei fanda et nvfauda comminaretur
cum multo patientius et tolerabilius audirot levari adversus se .emulum principem 4u.n1
constitui Romæ Dei sacerdotem."—St. Ctpriax: £)»sfc-fa ad .IMo.iùiiam.

204

general history of τπε

cntfRcn.

window of his prison to.the bottom of a well, where he expired,
October 14th. a. d. 222. The reign of Heliogabalus ended
the same year. He had prepared himself for all emergencies,
when it might become necessary to die by his own hand;
cords of silk, a golden poniard, poisons enclosed in vases of
crystal and porphyry—an interior court, paved with precious
stones, upon which he intended to throw himself from a lofty
tower. But all these resources failed him. He had lived in
dens of infamy—he was killed in a sewer; and his body was
thrown into the Tiber, where he had cast the good priest Cab
lipodius. The Liber Pontificalis attributes to St. Callistus a
decree which, according to apostolic tradition, regulated the
Embcr-Days: This Pontiff ordained that three times in the
year, a fast on bread, wine and oil, should be observed oh
Saturday, according to the words of the Prophet. Baronins be­
lieves that it should read four times, because the prophecy of
Zacharias, to which it alludes,
*
says positively that the
thanksgiving fast for the blessings of Providence should be Cele­
brated four times in the year. St. Callistus gave his name to
the celebrated cemetery of the Appian Way—in which were
deposited the glorious remains of forty-six popes and many
martyrs.f Among the bishops ordained by this pontiff may
be named Hippolytus, of Porto, whom we have already men­
tioned. St. Urban L, by birth a Roman, was elected to
succeed St. Callistus.

§ II. Pontificate

of

St. Urban I. (a.

d.

222-231)4

7. The death of Heliogabalus left the throne to the son of
Mammiea, the young disciple of Origem Alexander Sevetus
had conceived for Christianity and its divine founder a respect
• Thus sailh the Lord of hosts : Tho fast of the fourth month, and tho fast of the fifth,
and the fast of the seventh, and tho fast of tho tenth, shaU bo to the house of Judah, joy,
and gladness, and great solemnities : only love ye truth and peace.—Zacharias viii., 19
| The number is estimated at 1*14,000.
I See, for this period of ecclesiastical hiatory, L'Histoire de SaiiUe Cécile, par le R P.
dom P. GUIHAKOBB.

ST. URBAN I. (A. D. 232-231).

205

which he ever preserved. The Lararium (oratory) of his palace
included not only the statues of the gods, and the emperors
who had merited most of the human race ; Alexander had also
placed there the statue of Jesus Christ, to whom he rendered
divine honors, His admiration for the Son of Mary was so
unfeigned, that he even laid a proposition before the senate to
admit tn a rank among the gods the founder of a religion
whose morals were so pure. The senate desired to consult
the oracles upon this imperial proposition, and Lampridius, a
contemporary author, reports their response to have been, that
if this new apotheosis were to be celebrated, the temples
would be soon abandoned, and all the world would become
Christian. The maxim, Do unto others only that which you
would wish them to do to you, was constantly on the lips of Alex­
ander, and he freely acknowledged that he had borrowed
it from the Christians. lie had it engraved in his palaces
and on the public edifices. By his order, a herald proclaimed
it publicly in the punishment of criminals. A fact related by
Lampridius, and which throws great light on the situation of the
Church in Rome, will serve to make known the impartiality of
Alexander in cases affecting the Christians.
8. In the region beyond the Tiber, at the foot of the Mount
Janiculum, was situated the famous Taberna meritoria, from
which it was said that in the year of Rome 718, a fountain of
oil had burst forth and flowed a whole day, like a mysterious
*river. Under the pontificate of St. Callistus I., this celebrated
place had passed into the possession of the Christians. The
pontiff erected a church on the spot, and dedicated it to the
Mother of the Saviour. The new sanctuary bore the name of
“ St. Mary beyond the Tiber.” But the Popinarii (tavern-keep­
ers) laid complaints before Alexander, because a place hitherto
open for the advantage of the public, had been taken from them
to be consecrated to a worship which was not recognized by the
• This fact is reported in the chronicles of Eusebius, and in those of St Prosper,
D’Idacius, and D'Orosius. Dion Cassius montions it in his History of Rome, lib. xiiii. p.
303, edit, of 160G.

206

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

laws of the empire. The good dispositions of the prince
towards the Christians appear in his decision of this case. “I
prefer,” he said, “ that God should be honored in this place in
any manner whatever, rather than to restore it again to the
venders of wine.”
9. Meanwhile the East, warmly interested in the glory and
reputation of Origen, engaged passionately in the discussion
which had arisen at Alexandria regarding him. A council of
bishops of the province, with the patriarch Demetrius at their
head, had begun by examining the affair of his ordination. It
was decided that Origen should not be deposed from the
priesthood, but that he should withdraw from Alexandria, and
that he should no longer have the privilege of continuing his
lessons. The celebrated catechist had not awaited the result
of the deliberations of the assembly, but had retired, in
advance, to Palestine, leaving the direction of the catechu­
mens to Ileraclas, his disciple. The affair could not stop here.
In the prodigious number of the works that had issued from
the pen of the Alexandrian doctor, numerous errors were be­
lieved to exist. Were they the work of heretics, who had
interpolated them without his knowledge? or, were they simple
hypotheses which his rich imagination had taken pleasure in
creating on points not yet defined ? or, were they a conse­
quence of the human weakness to which the loftiest minds
must pay their tribute whenever they depart from the rule
traced by the Church ? To whatever cause they may be due,
when examined in a second council, assembled by the care,
and under the presidency of Demetrius, they were judged to
be of sufficient gravity to lead to the deposition and even the
excommunication of Origen. St. Jerome, while warmly de­
fending the learned Alexandrian, informs us that Rome and
the bishops of the Universal Church adhered to the acts of
the council of Alexandria. But the Bishops of Palestine,
Arabia, and Phoenicia, refused to believe in the culpabil­
ity of Origen. This illustrious doctor, on learning his con­
demnation, addressed to the churches of Egypt a letter, in

ST. URBAN I. (A. D. 222-231).

207

which he explains himself in an orthodox manner on all the
contested points, and demands that they shall not render him
responsible for interpolations made in his writings. These
spontaneous testimonies of attachment to catholic truth were
sufficient to establish the innocence of Origen with his friends.
Yet some erroneous doctrines are still imputed to him. for the
most part extracted from his book Peri archon; or, Of the Fini
Causes. He says there, 1st. That matter was created from all
eternity; that, after this world, there will be many others, as
before it many others have had an existence ; God being never
unoccupied, creation is for him a necessity. 2d. That all
souls were created before the world in a perfect equality, and
with subtile bodies which are inseparable from them; that,
having fallen into various faults, they were exiled in the
angelic nature, in human forms, and even to the sun and stars,
according to the degree of their culpability; that the soul
which continued intimately united by charity to its Creator,
merited, by its perseverance, to be joined, by an indissoluble
tie, to the person of Christ. 3d. That, delivered from their
bondage, souls go to heaven to receive the prize of their
merits, or to hell, to endure the pain of their sins ; but that
neither recompense nor punishment are eternal, because the
damned and the blessed, preserving their free will, the latter
can be expelled from heaven by a new fault, and the former,
by their repentance, may participate in the benefits nf the uni­
versal redemption, from which the Divine Goodness does not
even exclude the devil. 4th. That the fire of hell is nothing
more than remorse of conscience. Origen has also been
accused of favoring Pelagianism ; of supposing man capable of
elevating himself to a perfection which could free him from all
sin, or even from all temptation; of not having a firm belief in
the transmission of original sin; and of treatingas irrémissible,
sins committed after the reception of the Holy Spirit. If we
are permitted to think that Origen himself was a stranger to
these errors, it cannot be denied that heretics have given
them as from him. It is a misfortune of great men that their

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GENERAL HISTORY OK THE CHURCH.

authority often serves to accredit opinions which were not
theirs, but the germ of which may be detected in their
writings. All the East was troubled by innovators, who,
under the shadow of Origen’s name, denied the divinity of
Jesus Christ, and the eternity of punishment; and maintained
the pre-existence of souls, and the reality of an anterior life,
in which they had been capable of merit or demerit. At a
later period, a. d. 553, we shall see Origenism condemned by
the second council of Constantinople, the fifth ecumenical
council.
10. In spite of the good-will of Alexander towards Chris­
tianity, and the thirty years of peace which had followed the
fifth general persecution under Septimus Severus, the Roman
legislation had not been changed in its hostile disposition
against the disciples of Jesus Christ The legists of tho impe­
rial palace. Domitius Ulpian and Julius Paulus, whose names
are as imposing in the origin of jurisprudence as they are odious
in the annals of Christianity, had taken pleasure in bringing
together, in their compilations, the ordinances which devoted
the faithful to death. The Roman superstition and the hatred
of the people against the Christians, watched together over
the maintenance of those sanguinary edicts, and the tolerance
of the prince, which could provisionally suspend the execution
of them, went not so far as to efface them from the code of
the empire. A caprice of the populace, or the ill-will of some
subaltern magistrate, sufficed to renew the ancient persecu­
tions against the Church. In this way the virgins Martina and
Tatiana gave their fives for Jesus Christ. The Pope St. Urban
I., twice summoned to the pretori urn, generously confessed his
faith. It had been impossible for him to live within the city,
and bis ordinary retreat was in the catacombs of the Appian
way, in the cemetery which his predecessor, St. Callistus, had
recently enlarged. In the spring of the year 230, the Empe­
ror Alexander quitted Rome to direct an expedition against
the Persians. He left, in the quality of prefect, Turcius Almachius, a personage known for his hatred against the Christians.

8T. ORBAN I. (A. D. Î22-Î31).

209

Tho occasion appeared to him favorable to indulge in violem■<
towards them, and he exercised it at first on those belonging
to the lower orders. Not content with mangling their bodi·.by tortures of all kinds, Almachius resolved that they should
be deprived of sepulture. It was with gold that devoted
Christians had to purchase from the executioners the pre­
cious remains of the martyrs. They lovingly reunited the
limbs, separated by the sword, and gathered their blood with
sponges, which they afterwards pressed into vials for ampulke;
and to preserve for Christian posterity the full testimonials
of their victory, they sought diligently even for the instru­
ments of torture.
11. Illustrious victims, also, were reserved for the fury of
Almachius and the palm of Martyrdom. Cecilia, a Roman
virgin, descended from the ancient and noble race of the
Cecilii, in the midst of a pagan family had received the faith
in her earliest infancy, and devoted to God her virginity.
Her parents had married her, against her wishes, to a young
pagan, named Valerian. Marriages between Christians and
pagans still occurred at this epoch, and if they sometimes led
into difficult situations, they were often the instruments em­
ployed by God to gain the infidel party to the true faith. The
Church, conformably to the Apostolic doctrine, strongly disap­
proved them, and necessity alone could excuse the faithful who
contracted them. However it might have been in this instance,
Cecilia said to Valerian, “ I am under the care of an angel
whom God has appointed protector of my virginity. Be cau­
tious, therefore, to do nothing which can excite against you
the anger of the Lord.” Astonished at this language, the
young pagan respected his spouse, and said that he would
believe in Jesus Christ, if he could seo the angel who guarded
Cecilia. The pious virgin availed herself of the occasion to
instruct him in the truths of the Gospel, and soon Valerian
declared himself ready to receive baptism. He went ini··
the catacombs of the Appian way, to throw himselt at the feef
of St. Urban, who conferred on him the sacrament ot regen14

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

oration. Tiburtius, his brother, had, soon after, the same
happiness. These two neophytes distinguished themselves
among all the Christians of Rome, by their zeal in gathering
the bodies of the martyrs immolated by the orders of
Almachius. Soon they were denounced to this magistrate,
who commanded them to appear before his tribunal. They
courageously confessed their faith, and refused to offer liba­
tions to the gods. “To what god do you pay homage?"
inquired Almachius. “ Is there any other,” replied the mar­
tyrs, “ that you should ask us such a question in regard to
God ? Is there more than one ?” “ But at least tell me the
name of this one God, of whom you speak ?” “ The name
of God neither you nor any mortal can discover. It is in­
communicable.” “ But Jupiter, is not that the name of a
god?" “You are under a mistake,” said Valerian, “Jupiter
is the name of a corrupter, a libertine. Your own authors
represent him as a homicide, a man guilty of all the vices;
and you dare to call him a god !
I am astonished at your
hardihood ; for the name of God can only belong to a being who
has nothing in common with sin, and who possesses all the
virtues.” “And so,” replied Almachius, “ the entire universe
is in error; you and your brother only know the true God."
Do not deceive yourself,” said Valerian ; “ the Christians,
those who have embraced this holy doctrine, are already
innumerable in the empire. It is you who form the minority;
you are the planks which float on the sea after a shipwreck,
and have no other destination than to be burned.” The gen­
erous boldness of Valerian had its immediate recompense.
Almachius ordered him to be scourged with rods. During
his punishment, the young patrician addressed the crowd:
“ Citizens of Rome,” he cried, “ let not the view of these
torments hinder you from confessing the truth : believe in
the Lord, who alone is holy. Destroy the gods of wood and
stone to which Almachius burns his incense : crush them into
dust, and know that they who adore them will be eternally
tormented.” At length Almachius condemned the two brothers

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211

to bo decapitated, and sent them to Maximus, his registrar,
with orders to execute the sentence the following day, at a
spot four miles from Rome. During the night, the holy con­
fessors, and Cecilia, who came to visit them, converted Maxi­
mus, his family, and the soldiers who guarded their prison ;
and, at the appointed hour, they finished, together, their glo­
rious martyrdom. Almachius, informed of the conversion of
Maximus, caused him to be beaten to death with whips loaded
with lead, which was the punishment of persons of inferior rank.
St. Cecilia deposited the bodies of the three martyrs in the
cemetory of St. Callistus, and, foreseeing that the persecution
would soon fall upon herself, she prevented the confiscation of
her goods by distributing them to the poor, and employed the
last hours which she had still to live, in the conversion of
a multitude of pagans whom her example and instructions led
to the faith. Pope St. Urban had the joy to receive in his
arms these new children of the Church.
12. As she had anticipated, Almachius gave the order for
her appearance before him. The virgin answered the ques­
tions of the prefect with a holy assurance. “ Whence comes it
that you have this boldness before me?” said he to her.—
“From a pure conscience, and a simple faith.”—“Art thou
ignorant that thou art in my power?”—“And you—do you
know who is my spouse and my defender?”—“Who is he?”
—“The Lord Jesus Christ.”—“Knowest thou not that our
masters, the invincible emperors, have ordered that those
who will not deny they are Christians shall be punished,
and they who will consent to deny shall be acquitted ?"—
“Your emperors are in error. The law on which you rely
proves only one thing—it is, that you are cruel, and we are
innocent. In fact, if the name of Christian were a crime, it
would be our part to deny it, and yours to force us by
torments to confess it.”—“ Unhappy creature, knowest thou
not that the power of life and death is placed in my hands by
the emperor?”—“ How can you say that the prince has con­
ferred on you the power of life and death ? You well know

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GENERAI. JIISrORY OF THE CHURCH.

that yon have only the power of den th. You can take away
life from those who enjoy it, but you cannot restore it to the
dead. Say, then, that the emperor has made of you a minister
of death, and nothing more.”—“ Cease this audacity, and sac­
rifice to the gods.”—“You call these mute stones gods ? They
are incapable of protecting themselves from the flames, or
of drawing you out. Christ only can save from death, and
deliver the guilty man from the fire.” These were the last
words of Cecilia before the judge. Almachius gave orders
that she should be taken home, and inclosed in the bath-room
of her palace, called by the Romans the Caldarium, which
should be heated to the degree of suffocation, and continued
until the virgin, left without air under its burning vault,
should die without the necessity of an executioner. But the
saint, after remaining three days in this heated atmosphere,
was still living. Almachius then sent a lictor into the bath­
room to take oil' her head. The soldier struck her three times
with his axe, and, his work unfinished, withdrew (the law
forbade its further continuance), leaving the saint bathed in
blood. St. Cecilia lived three days afterwards, and finally
yielded to God her glorious soul, November 22d, a. d. 230.
13. Some time after this event, Pope St. Urban was
brought before Almachius. “Is this,” said he, “that seducer
whom the Christians have made their pope ?” “ Yes,” replied
the venerable man, “ it is I, who have seduced men to aban­
don the ways of iniquity, to lead them into the ways of
justice.” St. Urban was cast into prison with two priests
who had been arrested with him. A second interrogatory was
equally unfavorable to the views of Almachius. The two
priests, having generously confessed their faith, were scourged
with loaded whips. During this torture, Almachius said to
the pontiff, “ Thou art old, and for this reason thou regardest
death as rest; thou art jealous of these young men; thou
persuadest them to sacrifice their lives, because thy own is
nearly at an end.” One of the priests, indignant at this out­
rage, interrupted the prefect: “Your words are evident false­

RT. PONTIANUS IA. D. 231-23Î).

213

hoods,” he said. “Our father, from his youth, has always
regarded Jesus Christ as his life, and death as a gain. More
than once he has confessed Christ, and exposed his life for the
flock confided to him.” Led back to prison, Urban converted
to the faith the jailor, Anolinus, who soon paid with his life
for the honor of being enrolled among the followers of the
Lord. Finally, by the order of Almachius, the confessors
were led out on the Nomentana road to be decapitated.
On the way, Urban thus exhorted his companions . “ It is
the Lord who calls us; He who has said: ‘Come to me. all
ye that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you.’
Until now we have known the Lord only as in a glass,
and as an enigma ; behold the moment when we go to see
Him, face to face !” The persecutors beheaded them, and the
bodies of the martyrs were taken by Christiana to the ceme­
tery of Pretextatus, May 25th, a. d. 231. St. Urban provided
for the dignity of the service in the churches of Rome. He
replaced the vases of the altar with silver ones, and caused
to be made, among other things, twenty-five silver patens for
various churches of the city. These patens were of large
dimensions, for they were destined to receive the breads which
each one of the faithful, who was to communicate, brought
as an offering. The Liber Pontificalia makes no mention of the
decrees attributed, afterwards, to St. Urban, on the doubtful
authority of Mercator. Pontianus, a Roman, was elevated to
the see of St. Peter in the following month of June.

§ III. Pontificate of St. Pontianus (a. d. 231-235).

11. The return of Alexander Severus restored, for some
time, tranquillity to the Church of Rome—at least, the violence
of Almachius does not seem to have been prolonged beyond this
epoch. The impressions of the emperor, when he was made
acquainted with the acts of the prefect, are not known. It h
to be supposed that this prince, who detested cruelty, must
have blamed the excesses of the prefect, but it does not

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appear that he expressed in any way his displeasure at the
judicial murder of so many Christians. However this may
have been, the system followed under the reign of Alexander
in regard to the sovereign pontiffs, was not slow in being
* applied toPontianus. This saintly pope had to suffer persecu­
tion for his ministry : he was not condemned to death, but an
order emanating from the imperial court exiled him, with the
priest Hippolytus (not the bishop of Porto), to the isle of
Buccina, one of the wildest on the southern coast of Sardinia.
Separated from his see, Pontianus abdicated.
15. As yet, the affair of the excommunication of Origen
was not concluded. This doctor always complained that the
bishops called together by Demetrius, the patriarch of Alex­
andria, had judged of his doctrine from interpolated books
which the heretics circulated in his name. Palestine con­
tinued to offer him the hospitality which Egypt, his native
land, refused. His habitual residence was at Cæsarea. Theoctistus, and St. Alexander of Jerusalem, had confided to him
the charge of interpreter of the Scriptures, and found so much
utility and pleasure in his learned discourses, that they were
rarely separated from him. Firmilianus, bishop of Cæsarea, in
Cappadocia, shared in their admiration for this great man.
Sometimes he sent for Origen, for the benefit of the churches
which he directed; sometimes he went to visit him in Judea,
to confer on divine things. Demetrius died a. d. 231,
having occupied the see of Alexandria forty-three years.
The affection which he manifested for Origen during the first
period of his episcopate, the severity which he used against
him afterwards, the cause of the Alexandrian doctor sus­
tained by holy bishops, his contemporaries, and embraced
with warmth by St. Jerome—present a problem that has
never been solved, and leaves posterity in doubt of the true
sentiments of Origen. But the death of the patriarch, and the
election of Heraclas, the disciple and friend of Origen, who
was elevated to the see of Alexandria, put an end to the
strife. The chair of catechist, left vacant by the promotion of

ST. ANTEROS (A. D. 235-JAN. A. D. 23€).

215

Heraclas to the episcopate, was confided to another disciple of
Origen, St. Dionysius of Alexandria, who was also destined
to fill the patriarchal see.
16. Alexander had undertaken an expedition against the
Germans. The legions, dissatisfied with his severity in the
re-establishment of military discipline, and instigated by Max­
iminus, of Thrace, assassinated him near Mayence, in the twen­
ty-eighth year of his age (a. d. 235). Maximinus hastened
to reap the fruits of the crime. The new emperor, formerly a
shepherd in the mountains of Thrace, was a giant of eight feet
and a half in height, coarse and ignorant, speaking the Latin
very imperfectly, despising men, and of a character arrogant,
hard, and ferocious. Ilis first act was to publish edicts of
death against the Christians, whom he detested for the sole
reason that Alexander had loved them. This was the sixth
general persecution of the Church. The decrees of Maxi­
minus were specially directed against those who taught in the
Church, or governed it. The material impossibility of extend­
ing them to all the faithful without depopulating the empire,
not less than the hope of extinguishing religion in the blood of
its chiefs and pastors, had dictated this policy. An order was
was immediately expedited to the isle to which Alexander
had banished him, for the execution of Pope St. Pontianus
(November, a. d. 235). His body was afterwards transported
to Rome, and deposited, under the pontificate of St. Fabian,
in the cemetery of St. Callistus. Eleven days afterwards.
St. Anterus, a Greek by birth, succeeded him, December
3d, a. d. 235.
§ TV. Pontificate

of St.

Anterus (Dec. a. d. 235-Jan. a. d. 236).

17. The reputation of Origen, in the East, pointed him out
to the persecutors as the most indefatigable of the doctors of
the Church, and he was sought for with particular care.
But having retired into Cappadocia, near the Bishop Firmilianus, his friend, he lay concealed two years in the house of

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

a rich and pious woman, named Juliana. Ilis friend Ambrose,
then a deacon, and Protoctites, a priest of Crosarea, in Pales­
tine, were seized and conveyed into Germany, where Maximinus then was. Origen wrote to his friend an exhortation
to martyrdom. The two confessors gave, in the presence of
the tyrant, a solemn homage to the Christian faith ; neverthe­
less, they were not put to death ; and the end of the reign of
Maximinus, which happened at the close of the same year
(236), restored them to liberty. The martyrdom of St. Ursula
and her companions at Cologne, is placed at this epoch
*
These were, with the Pope St. Anterus, the only known vic­
tims of the sixth persecution by Maximinus.
18. St. Anterus signalized his pontificate, which lasted
only a month, by the care he took to put together the acts of
the martyrs, collected by notaries appointed for the purpose
since the time of St. Clement I. These glorious archives were
to teach Christians, in ages to come, the worth of a victory
purchased with so much blood. Anterus was denounced be­
fore Maximinus, as one affecting to honor the memory of the
enemies of the empire and of the gods. He was beheaded
January 3d, a. d, 236.
• The common tradition of the elevon thousand virgins reposes evidently on the false
manner of reading the expressions: Ursula et XL Μ. V. Some authors pretend that tho
name of Uiidccimi/fa, companion of St. Ursula, has given rise to this error.

ST. FABIAN (A. D. 238-250).

217

CHAPTER XT.
§ I.
1.

Pontificats

of

St. Fabian (a. d.

236-250).

Election of Pope St. Fabian (a. d. 236-250).—2. St. Gregory of Neocæsarea.
Plan of Christian education of Origen. 3. Election of St. Gregory Thanm»·
turgus to the bishopric of Neocæsarea. 4. Ilis miracles. 5. Election of
St. Alexander the collier to the bishopric of Coinana. 6. Relaxation
in the morals of the faithful. 7. The Emperor Philip checked by the
Bishop St Babylas at the gate of the cliorch at Antioch. 8. Heresy of
Beryllus, bishop of Bozra (a. d. 242). Heresy touching the resurrection.
9. Elcesaitæ. 10. Conversion of St. Cyprian. 11. Treatise on the vanity
of idols. The book of Testimonies of St Cyprian. 12. Promotion of St.
Cyprian to the bishopric of Carthage. 13. Massacre of the Christians at
Alexandria. 14. Seventh general persecution, under the Emperor Decius.
Death of St. Fabian. Works of his pontificate.

§ I. Pontificate of St. Fabian (a. d. 236-250).

1. The usurpation of Maximinus had been the signal for
the most complete anarchy in the empire. The legions ’■>
ated at will new Cæsars, who appeared a moment on rhe
throne, and fell under the poniard of a rival, abandoned by
their soldiers almost as soon as they were elected. From the
year 235, in which Maximinus died, to the year 244. the Gordians, father and son, Puppianus, Balbinus, and Gordian III., in
turn assumed the purple, which soon served as their winding­
sheet. “ But, by the side of these elections by the sword,
the peaceable elections of those other sovereigns, who reigned
by the staff, continued.”* Eusebius relates the marvellous
circumstance which attended the promotion of St. Fabian to
the sovereign pontificate. As the brethren were assembled for
the election, several persons of distinction were proposed. No
♦ M. db Chateaubrjani*: Eludât Hutoriqvee.

Discours, I·" parue.

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

one thought of Fabian, when a dove, flying above the assem­
bly, came to rest on his head. He was unanimously pro­
claimed, January 10th, a. d. 236.
2. By a privilege common to all great men, the name of
Origen is found mingled in all that was most holy and illustri­
ous in his time. He was still at Cæsarea when Providence
led there a young man destined in the designs of God to be­
come the instrument of great things. Gregory, of Ncocæsarea, in
Pontus, of noble and worthy but pagan parentage, accompanied
his sister, who was married to a jurist whom the governor of
Palestine had brought with him, as recordci to aid in the ad­
ministration of the provinces. He had just closed his course of
study of the Roman law, with high distinction, and had already
appeared at the bar with success, when, by the grace of God,
he met with Origen. The sort of charm which the eloquent
Alexandrian exercised over others acted with the more power
upon Gregory, as the young man was better prepared for it by
chaste morals and a life exempt from the corruption so frequent
in the Pagan world. Having come to Cæsarea only to escort
his sister, and to return forthwith to his home, the young
orator soon formed such an attachment for Origen that they
were compared to Jonathan and David. From that time, for­
getting affairs, country, parents, ambitious projects, or pro­
fane studies, he thought of nothing but to profit by the lessons
of a master who led him into a heavenly country, until now
unknown. He afterwards wrote the method used by the
Christian philosopher to bend his soul, by slow degrees,
under the yoke of faith. This plan of Christian education in
the third century presents, in its vast extent, the best reply
to those who pretend that in its origin the faith was dissemi­
nated through the world by the fanaticism of narrow and
ignorant minds. It may, at the same time, give an idea of
the universality of Origen’s knowledge. “ Like a skilful agri­
culturist," said St. Gregory, “ who examines in all its aspects
the land which he intends to prepare for cultivation, Origen
sounded and penetrated the sentiments of his disciples, making

ST. FABIAN (A. D. 23A-260).

219

inquiries, and reflecting upon their replies. When he had pre­
pared them to receive the seed of truth, he instructed them in
various branches of philosophy : in logic, to form their judg­
ment, by teaching them to discriminate between solid reason­
ings and the specious sophisms of error; in physics, to make
them admire the wisdom of God by an analytic knowledge of
Ilis works ; in geometry, to habituate their minds to rectitude
by the rigor of mathematical propositions; in astronomy, to ele­
vate and extend their thoughts, by giving them immensity for
a horizon ; finally, in morals—not those of the philosophers
whose definitions and sterile divisions give birth to no virtue,
but practical morals, making them study in themselves the
movements of the passions, so that the soul, seeing itself as
in a mirror, may extirpate every vice, even to the roots. He
then approached theology, or the knowledge of God. He
made them read on Providence, which has created the world
and governs it, all that has been written by the ancients,
philosophers or poets, Greeks or barbarians, without otherwise
minding their systems, their sects, or their particular opin­
ions. In this labyrinth of pagan philosophy he served as
their guide to discern whatever might be really true and use­
ful, without allowing them to be fascinated by the pomp and
ornaments of language.
*
He laid it down as a principle, that
in whatever regards God, we must trust only God, and the
prophets inspired by him. And then he commenced the
interpretation of the Scriptures, which he knew thoroughly,
and which, by the grace of God, he had penetrated in all their
most secret depths.”
3. After five years employed in these studies, Gregory
received baptism, and prepared to leave the master who had
revealed to his youth a new path and another life. In pres­
ence of a numerous assemblage, he addressed to him, with a
trembling voice, his last adieu. “ Pray the Lord,” he said,
♦“It is permitted," wrote Origen to Gregory, "in coming out of Egypt to enter the land
of promise, to bring away tiie riches of the Egyptians, nnd to use them for the construction
of the tabernacle, although experience has taught mo that this is useful to few-"

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

at the close, “ to console us in this separation ; pray Hirn
to send His good angel for our guide; but pray Him, above
all, to bring us back near to you; more than all the rest,
this would console us.” Such were, in those happy days
of the rising Church, the ties of gratitude and attachment
that united the Christian disciples to their learned masters.
On his return to Neocæearea, Gregory, in whom his country­
men expected to find an eloquent orator and an eminent
jurist, showed himself to his astonished fellow-citizens only
as the most fervent of neophytes, lie abandoned all that
he possessed in the world, and retired into a solitary countryhouse, to be there alone with God. Such conduct, in a city
which counted only seventeen Christians, seemed folly; but
it was the folly of the Cross which converted the world. Phedimus, archbishop of Amasea, elected Gregory to the episcopate
of Neocæsarea. It was difficult to overcome the resistance of
the saint, who fled from solitude to solitude, to escape the
burden of the episcopate. Here is revealed, in all its pleni­
tude, the power of miracles which Jesus Christ imparted to
His disciples, when lie said hat they should do still more
wonderful things than Himself. Each step of the new bishop
was accompanied by prodigies.
4. “Command this rock to go to such a place,” said a
pagan priest to him, “and I will believe in Jesus.” Gregory,
animated by that faith which removes mountains, spoke to
the rock, which displaced itself and went to the designated
spot. Each morning the house of Busonius, which had given
hospitality to the man of God, was invaded by a crowd of sick
persons, whom Gregory healed, in passing. He soon became
the spiritual king of this city, though, when he entered it, he
had not a roof under which to rest his head. “ Of what con­
sequence is it,” he said, to his murmuring disciples, “are we
not protected under the wing of God ? Do you find the vault
of heaven too narrow for you ? Think of building the house
of your soul, and do not afflict yourselves that you do not find
edifices prepared for you.” Quickly he laid the plan of a

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221

church, and all hastened to contribute money or labor for its
construction. lie reconciled disputes; the tribunals were
deserted. He controlled the elements as he regulated con­
sciences ; the overflowing waves of the Lycus obeyed his
voice. The name of Wonder-Worker (Thaumaturgus) was
given him, and history has preserved it. The prodigies he
wrought have been attested by all contemporary writers :
St. Gregory, of Nyssa, St. Basil, Rufinus, St. Jerome, the his­
torian Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret ; so that on this
point history can defy the most malevolent criticism. Their
authenticity, besides, can be immediately established by this
fact, that in dying, the saintly bishop, who had found but sev­
enteen Christians in taking possession of the see of Neocæsarea,
left there scarcely as many infidels. So rapid, so complete
a conversion, would be an inexplicable miracle, without the
numerous miracles which effected it.
5. The divine power, which shone in the person of St.
Gregory Thaumaturgus, multiplied the number of Christians
in all that country. The city of Comana requested him to
come and organize a church, by giving her a bishop. On the
day fixed for the assembly, the chiefs and magistrates of the
city sought one among the most noble, the most eloquent, the
most distinguished for the qualities which they saw shiningin
St. Gregory, to be presented to him. “ You ought not,” said the
illustrious bishop, “ to exclude from your choice the humblest
and poorest. The Spirit breatheth where He willeth."—“ If you
wish to choose from among the citizens,” laughingly replied
one of the magistrates, “ take Alexander the collier."—·“ Well !
who is this Alexander?” responded Gregory. They led before
him a man half naked, clothed only in rags, his face and hands
blackened by charcoal. All the assembly began to laugh at his
appearance ; the collier alone remained calm, seeming con­
tented with his position, and by his grave and modest exterior
giving evidence of his interior recollection and peace. Greg­
ory took him aside. After a serious conference with him, the
Thaumaturgus returned alone to the assembly, and pronounced

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CRUNCH.

a discourse on the fearful responsibilities of the episcopate.
He was closing his remarks, when a man, vested with the pon­
tifical ornaments, was introduced. Every eye was turned
towards him ; it was Alexander the collier, who, by the order
of Gregory, had been thus transformed. “ Do not be sur­
prised," said the Thaumaturgus, “ if you were mistaken in
judging according to the senses. The demon wished to have
rendered this vessel of election useless, by keeping him con­
cealed." After the consecration, which took place immedi­
ately, the new bishop delivered a discourse to the people. Hie
speech was solid, strong, and full of good sense, though with
few ornaments; his air and demeanor were noble and majestic.
Under the exterior of a collier, Gregory had discovered true
merit and solid virtue. St. Alexander worthily governed the
church of Comana, and suffered martyrdom by fire in the per­
secution of Decius.
6. These generations of illustrious saints, produced by the
power of the Gospel, labored together to propagate and main
tain the sacred fire which Jesus Christ came to bring upon
earth. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that no
disorder then existed in the Church, no irregularity to be
deplored. Certain writers have drawn a picture as much the
more brilliant of the Christian perfection of the third century,
as they were preparing themselves to be more severe on the
ages following. The truth is, that Jesus Christ remains
with His Church at all times, but at no time is absolute per­
fection to be found on earth. In all ages, we recognize,
in the bosom of the Church, man and God ; the miseries of the
one, and the mercies of the other. Origen complains “ that
many come to the assemblies of the faithful only on the holydays, and come much less to be edified and instructed than
to follow custom, or repose themselves more at their ease."
“Some,” he says, again, “remain to chat about things indif­
ferent, or even profane. Even the women disturb the silence
and recollection of the holy mysteries.”* He reproaches the
♦ Exod., Hora. 12 et 13.—Origen.

ST. FABIAN (A. D. 23C-250).

223

Christians with attending exclusively to their temporal affairs,
to their fields, their commerce, their litigations. “ Instead of
applying themselves to the meditation of the divine word, they
are passionately addicted to the spectacles of the circus, horse­
races, and the combats of wrestlers."
*
Some there are, who
have faith, who come to church, bow to the priests,
show themselves devoted and affectionate towards the
servants of God, give voluntarily for the decoration and sup­
port of the altar ; but they take no care to correct their
morals, nor quit their former life, but remain in their vices
and iniquities. The evil was not confined to the laity.
Origen laments that already in his time there were found
ambitious men who intrigued for the honors of the priesthood,
or the episcopate, in spite of their personal unworthiness, and
who sought in their holy functions only the profit and pomp
of the highest ranks. “ Let prelates learn,” he says, “ from
Moses, not to appoint their successors by testament among
their relatives or connections, as if the government of the
Church were an inheritance." Elsewhere, speaking of the
display made by bishops : “ We would almost," he said, “ have
guards like kings ; we make ourselves terrible and difficult of
access, chiefly to the poor; we treat them who speak with us
and ask for some favor, in a manner which the most cruel
tyrants and governors would nut assume towards suppliants."
These passages, and others of a similar character, which we
may remark in the writings of the Fathers of the third cen­
tury, prove that at that epoch, as in every other in the history
of the Church, the tares were found mingled with the good
grain. The work of God, nevertheless, was going on, in spite
of these stains, propagating itself and gradually bringing
the world under the yoke of the faith.
7. 2k fact which proved all the power of ecclesiastical disci­
pline at this epoch, occurred a. d. 244. The Emperor Philip
bad assassinated Gordian III., to usurp his power. This
prince, if his conduct were not that of a Christian, had at least
♦ Levit.. Hom. 9.—Oriom.

224

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the failli of one. The testimony of contemporary authora
loaves no doubt of it. But political prudence forbade the
public profession of a faith proscribed by the laws and usages
of the empire. Nevertheless, in cities where Christians were
in the majority, he did not hesitate to show himself at their
ceremonies. Being at Antioch in a. d. 244, on the 14th of
April, the day on which the Easter festival was celebrated, he
presented himself to the assembly of the faithful. But St.
Baby las, bishop of that city, stopped him at the door, and
reproached him for the murder of Gordian, and the ambition
which had tempted him to commit this crime, declaring that
he was unworthy to participate in the holy mysteries, until ho
had expiated his sin by penance. Philip submitted, and was
afterwards reconciled to the Church. Origen, at a later date,
wrote to him and to the Empress Severa two letters, which
were still extant in the time of St. Jerome. In them was
remarked a certain tone of authority, which denotes a Christian
doctor writing to Christians.
8. Origen had been called, two years before, to the council
of Philadelphia, in Arabia, to defend the doctrine of the Church
against Beryllus, bishop of Bozra. This prelate, who, with
this exception, has left the reputation of a pious and learned
doctor, had fallen into a heresy which was a renewal of that
of the Theodotians. He pretended that Jesus Christ bad
not existed before the incarnation, and had only' begun to be
God on being born of the Virgin. He added that lie had
been God only because the Father dwelt in Him, as in the
prophets. He thus denied the divinity of the Word. These
grave errors were exposed by the bishops of Arabia, who
endeavored to recall Beryllus to the orthodox faith ; but by
an obstinacy fearful in a prelate, whom, in spite of the
heresy into which he had fallen, St. Jerome places among
the most illustrious and learned writers of the Church, he
refused to yield. Origen then was called to the Council of
Philadelphia, convoked for this object; its acts were still preserved in the time of Eusebius.
Private conferences not

ST. FABIAN (A. D. 230-2. .

225

having had, at first, the success which had been anticipated,
Origen, in a public discussion, proved, with so much clear­
ness and strength, the true Catholic dogma, that Beryllu
*.
convinced by his arguments, finally acknowledged the truth.
He was grateful to Origen, and expressed his thanks in
several touching letters. It seemed that wherever error
showed itself, Origen was called to resist its progress, and
that this great man was, in some sort, tradition personified.
Several years later we find him again in Arabia, crushing a
sect of heretics, who taught that the soul died with the body,
to resume a new life at the resurrection. Origen explained
Catholic truth in a manner so intelligible, that they who had
embraced this heresy abandoned it entirely.
9. The study of the Holy Scriptures, which formed the
ordinary occupation of the new converts, gave rise at this
time to a sect of heretics, of whom Elcesai seems to have been
the head. They rejected certain parts of the sacred books, and
selected, at then- pleasure, such passages as were agreeable to
them in the Old or the New Testament, and proscribed all the
remainder. They rejected altogether the Epistles of St. Paul,
and extolled a book, the work, doubtless, of one of their
chiefs, whose words they regarded as inspired by the Holy
Spirit. Faith in this work remitted sins. They maintained
that it is allowable to yield to persecution, to dissemble the
faith, and to adore idols, provided the heart has no part in it.
Origen wrote several treatises against them, and combated
their heresies with the victorious eloquence of genius, rest­
ing on tradition and Catholic belief.
10. Another light arose at this time on the soil of Africa,
so prolific in men of sanctity and faith. St. Cyprian was one
of the most brilliant conquests of the Gospel over pagan phi­
losophy. Of an illustrious family, who had long been habitu­
ated to proconsular honors, he had enriched the heritage of his
ancestry by the lustre of his talents and eloquence, and the
pagans considered him as the rampart of expiring idolatry.
The truth had long pressed upon his heart, and it was not
IS

226

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

until after ripe deliberations that he yielded to the voice of
the holy priest Cecilius, whose name ho afterwards united to
that which he rendered so celebrated. But finally, Thascius
Cœcilius Cyprianus received baptism, and made a public profcs·
sion of Christianity. Here is the account which he gave to a
friend, of the great victory he had just gained over his doubts
and hesitation: “It seemed to me,” he wrote, “very hard to be
born again, to lead a new life, and to become another man in
the same body. Is it possible, said I, at once to lay aside the
deeply rooted, the inveterate habits which seem born with us,
and which long use has strengthened, even to old age ? How
can he learn frugality who has been accustomed to an abundant
and delicately served table ? And he who has always been
clothed in rich fabrics, in shining purple and gold, how can he
bring himself down to a simple and common habit ? Accustomed
to the splendors of the fasces, to honors, to a numerous retinue
of friends and clients, how can a man resolve to sink into pri­
vate life, into the obscurity of a solitude which is looked upon
with disdain ? Thus I thought within myself, and in despair
of finding any thing better, I loved the evil which had become
natural to me. But when this life-giving water had washed
away the stains from my past life, when my purified heart had
received the light and the heavenly spirit from on high, my
doubts, to my infinite astonishment, had vanished ; all was
open, all was luminous ; what before seemed impossible, was
now easy. I perceived that that which was born according
to the flesh, and lived under the law of sin, came from the
earth, and that what is animated by the grace of the Holy
Ghost, comes from God. You know it, assuredly, my dear
friend, and you acknowledge the blessing that has delivered
us from the death of sin, to restore us to the life of virtue."
In these accents we recognize the wondrous transformation
which the grace of baptism had wrought in the soul of the
neophyte, and the superabundance of joy of a renewed
heart. The pagans, from whom he had separated, returned
to him iu sarcasms all the discredit which such a conversion

8T. ΡΑ ΒΙΑ N (A. D. 216-250).

227

cast upon their doctrines. They ironically named him Copriamu,
by a poor comparison of his name to a Greek word which
means a dunghill. But the humiliations of the Gospel were glo­
rious to the disciple of the Cross. He embraced holy austeri­
ties with fervor. His wealth, the inheritance of a long line of
ancestors, augmented by the places he had occupied and the
services he had rendered, was distributed to the poor. He
made vows of perfect continence, wore the humble mantle of
the Christian philosophers, like St. Justin and Tertullian, and
commenced the study of Scripture, less to satisfy a vain desire
of knowledge, than to seek for rules of conduct. Among eccle­
siastical authors, he loved most his compatriot Tertullian, with
whom his genius had the greatest affinities. He did not allow
a day to pass without reading some passages from this author ;
and when he asked for his works, he was in the habit of saying,
“ Give me the master.”
11. As a response to the reproaches of the pagans, who
demanded an account of his conversion, he first wrote his
Treatise on the Vanity of Idols, where he proves the absurdity
of idolatrous worship, and demonstrates the unity of God and
the divinity of Jesus Christ. His work Of the. Testimonies
appeared soon afterwards. A general view of religion is there
presented, with the method which was afterwards followed and
developed more largely in the scholastic theology. The first
part is a treatise on the true religion against the Jews. He
proves that the law of the Jews had a character essentially tem­
porary, and transitory ; that it was to be destroyed ; that in
it Christ was announced, to establish a new temple, a new
sacrifice, a new priesthood, and a new church ; that the
nations were called to obtain, by His merits, the remission
of their sins. The second part is a dogmatic treatise on the
divinity and the incarnation of Jesus Christ. He proves that
Jesus Christ is the Word of God; that He is God and man;
that the prophets had predicted His passion. His crucifixion,
His resurrection, His ascension, and His eternal reign by the
power of the Cross. The third part is a moral theology, treat­

228

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

ing of the practical consequences of the Christian dogmas, and
of the rules of conduct for the direction of souls.
12. So much knowledge and piety authorized a departure
from the prescription of St. Paul which prohibits the ordina­
tion of a neophyte, and which had been hitherto observed in
all the churches. St. Cyprian was, therefore, elevated to the
dignity of the priesthood, and a year after (a. d. 248), the
death of Donatus having left the episcopal see of Carthage
vacant, the faithful unanimously demanded him for their
bishop. He alone believed himself unworthy of the honor,
which he preferred, he said, to leave to his elders in the
faith. But the people besieged his dwelling, and closed all
the avenues leading to it. The modest prisoner was finally
led, against his will, to the episcopal chair, where his election
was confirmed by the judgment of the bishops of the province
and the acclamations of the multitude. Five restless and am­
bitious priests protested against his election. The saint par­
doned them with a kindness which was admired by every one,
and treated them as his best friends. But this condescension
did not succeed in touching these envious and obstinate spirits;
their jealousy became the germ of long and envenomed dis­
cords, the echoes of which resounded through all the Church
at a later period. The distrust that was entertained by
some persons, owing to his sudden promotion to the episco­
pate, joined to his profound humility, determined St. Cyprian
to do nothing without the counsel of his clergy and the par­
ticipation of the people; not that he believed it an obligation,
for he wrote afterwards to the Bishop Rogatian, who consulted
him on the subject, that by the authority of his chair he
had all the power necessary to govern his church, and chastise
the rebellious members of his clergy and people. It would
be, then, a mistake to conclude, from the single example of
St. Cyprian, that all the bishops of his time did the same,
and that the bishops of all times ought to imitate him.
Providence, in placing St. Cyprian in the episcopal see of
Carthage, prepared for this church a powerful defence against

8T. FABIAN (A. D. 33A-260).

229

the persecution which a year later was to fall upon the
Christians.
13. From the last year of the Emperor Philip (a. d 249),
and while all the rest of the Church was in peace under the
government of this prince, a storm, the precursor of more violent
tempests, broke out in Alexandria. This tumultuous city, the
emporium of all the commerce of the East, and the home of
every sect, was inhabited by a numerous and hardy popula­
tion, whose manners verged on ferocity and whose hands were
often bloody. The popular passions were easily excited, and
the massacres which followed their civil discords more than
once caused the Roman governors to tremble. A pagan poet
attempted to revive the idolatrous superstitions of which the
progress of Christianity threatened every day the approaching
ruin, and soon after the election of Heraclae to the patriarchate,
profiting by the attention which this event had turned towards
the faithful, he excited the populace against the adorers of
Christ. His burning words, the inspired tone in which he
gave utterance to them, reanimated all the ancient fnry. The
cry, Away with the Christians! became the universal cry, and
the extermination of the faithful began with a saintly old
man named Metras, whom the seditious attempted to force to
apostatize. On his refusal, they seized him, beat him down
with sticks, tore out his eyes, and transpierced his face with
sharpened reeds. Having dragged him in this state through
the streets of the city, they took him into a suburb and finished
his martyrdom by stoning him. This innocent blood only
whetted their fury. A devout woman, called Quinta, became
their next victim. They led her, in a crowd, to a temple of
idols, and commanded her to adore their gods. She repelled,
with horror, the incense they offered her. Instantly her feet
were bound, and she was dragged, her head downwards, over the
pavements of the city, where she left fragments of her bleed­
ing flesh, and finally was stoned in the suburb. These first
violences still further stimulating the rage of the populace,
they invaded the houses of the faithful, pillaged them of their

230

GENERAL HISTORY OF TUB CHURCH.

furniture and precious vases, then, throwing the rest through
the windows, they made bonfires of it in the streets. It seemed
as if one half of the city were taking the other by assault. In
the midst of these excesses, the conduct of the Christians was
admirable. Scarcely a single example of apostasy could be
found. The children, the women, the virgins, generously con­
fessed their faith, and lost, with joy, their worldly goods, to
acquire rights in the heavenly kingdom. The seditious bad
seized a virgin named Apollonia. They broke all her teeth
with clubs, and, leading her without the walls of Alexandria,
kindled a large fire, ready to cast her into it if she refused to
adore the gods. She begged for a little time, as if it were for
reflection, but when they had left her to herself, urged, doubt­
less, by an inspiration, she darted into the fire and was con­
sumed. A fervent Christian, Serapion, was taken in his own
house. They broke all his limbs at the joints, and as he still
lived after this horrible torture, they cast him out of a win­
dow on the pavement, where he expired. Tracked like wild
beasts, massacred by those who passed by, the Christians
could not leave their bouses, and the number of victims was
immense. The vengeance of the pagans only relaxed whdh
the civil war turned their arms against each other, and left
the faithful to a repose which was not of long duration.
14. Great events had just changed the face of the empire.
Decius, sent by the Emperor Philip as his lieutenant into Pan­
nonia, corrupted the legions, and returned at their head to
attack their master, who was vanquished and murdered by his
own soldiers at Verona (a. d. 249). The throne was once more
the recompense of crime. Decius bore a savage hatred against
the Christians, and inaugurated his reign by a bloody edict
against the faithful, addressed to all the governors of the prov­
inces. It was the signal for the seventh general persecution.
The first victim was the saintly Pope Fabian, who was beheaded
January 20th, a. d. 250. He illustrated a pontificate of four­
teen years by his piety and labors. As soon as promoted, he
had caused to be transported from Sardinia to Rome the body

8T. FABIAN (A. D. 238-250).

231

of St. Pontianus, the predecessor of St. AnterUS, who had died
in that island, and whom he buried in the cemetery of St.
Callistus. He raised many altars over the tombs of martyrs,
and recommended to notice carefully the day of their death,
in order to celebrate their anniversary. With the same object
he established a commission of seven sub-deacons to edit the
acts of the martyrs. Baronius attributes to him the conver­
sion and baptism of the Emperor Philip and his son. Atten­
tive in watching over the deposit of faith which was confided
to him, he wrote many letters to reprove the heresy of Priva­
tus, bishop of Lambesa, a Roman colony in Numidia. History
does not relate the nature of this heresy. St. Cyprian informs
us only that Privatus was condemned and deposed for hie
crimes, in a council of ninety bishops, held at Lambesa and
confirmed by the letters and authority of St. Fabian. We
shall soon find again the name of Privatus, in the schism of
Novatus, against St. Cyprian, at Carthage. St. Fabian
regularly divided the resources which the charity of the faith­
ful placed in his hands for the poor. He confided their dis­
tribution to the seven deacons of the Roman Church ; giving
each the care of two of the fourteen districts of the city.
Such are the details furnished by the Liber Pontificalis con­
cerning the pious labors of St. Fabian.

232

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

CHAPTER XII.
g i. Vacancy in the See of Rome (Jan. 20, a. d. 250—Juno 2, 251).
1. Character of the seventh general persecution under Decius (250).__ 2. Martyrs
of Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, etc.—3. Martyrs of Asia.—4. In­

terrogatory of St. Aeacius, bishop of Antioch, in Pisidia.—5. Defections at
Carthage.—6. Thurificati, Sacrificati, Libellatici, Lapsi.

Billets of recom­

mendation from the martyrs.—7. Letter of Lucian, confessor of Carthage,

to SL Cyprian, on the question of apostasies.—8. Reply of the clergy of
Rome to St. Cyprian on the question of apostasies.—9. Schism of Felicisei-

mus and Novatus at Carthage.

§ II. St. Cornelius Pope (June 2, a. d. 251—Sept. 14, 252).

10. Election of Pope St. Cornelius, June 2,251.—11. Novatian, first antipope.—
12. Death of Decius (251).

End of the seventh general persecution.

Paul, firet hermit.—13. Council of Carthage (252).

St

Treatises of St. Cyprian,

De Lapsis, De unitale Ecclesiœ.—14. Council of Rome.—15. Second council

of Carthage under St. Cyprian (252).

Schism of Fortunatus at Carthage.—

16. Confession, exile, and death of St. Cornelius (Sept. 14, 252).
§ IIL St. Lucius I., Pope (Oct.'18, a. d. 252—March 14, 253).
17. Election, pontificate, and death of Pope St. Lucius I.—18. Death of Ori­

gen.

Doubts of his orthodoxy.

§ IV. St. Stephen I., Pope (a. d. 253-257).

19. Election of Pope St. Stephen I.— 20. Universal plague (253-200).—

21. Charity of the Christians.—22. Letters and decisions of St. Cyprian on
various ecclesiastical affairs of his time.—23. Question of the Baptism of

heretics.—24. Council of eighty-five bishops at Carthage (Sept. 1, 256).—

25.

Eighth general persecution, under Valerian.

Martyrdom of Pope St.

Stephen I. (257).

§ V. St. Sixtus II., Pope (Aug. 24, a. d. 257—Aug. 6, 257).

26.

Election of Pope St. Sixtus II.—End of the affair of the rebaptizem,—
27.

Martyrdom of St. Cyprian, at Carthage.

Principal martyrs of the

eighth general persecution, in the various provinces of the empire.—
28 Martyrdom of St. Cyril, a child of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia.—29. Mar­
tyrdom of Pope St Sixtus II. (August, 258).—30. Martyrdom of St. Law­

rence.—31. End of the eighth general persecution.

VACANCY IN THE SEE OP ROME (A. t>. 280-251).

§ I. Vacancy in

the

233

See of Rome (a. d. 250-251).

1. The seventh general persecution opened with such
violence, that it was not possible for the Church of Rome to
assemble for the election of a successor to the late Pontiff St.
Fabian. A copy of the edict of proscription was sent to all
the governors of provinces at the same time that the elevation
of Decius to the empire was announced to them. The new
prince declared “ that, resolved to treat all his subjects with
clemency, he was hindered by the sect of Christians, who, by
their impiety, called down the anger of the gods, and all other
calamities upon the empire. He commanded, therefore, that
every Christian, without distinction of quality or rank, of sex
or age, should be compelled to sacrifice in the temples ; that
such as refused should be confined in the public prisons, and
subjected at first to the lesser punishments, to overcome, by
degrees, their constancy ; and, finally, if they continued obsti­
nate, they should be cast into the sea, or thrown alive into the
midst of flames, or exposed to beasts, or suspended upon trees
to become the food of birds of prey, or torn to pieces in many
ways, by the most cruel torments.” The new edict, read pub­
licly in the praetorian camp, was affixed on the capitol, and
successively in all the cities and towns in the empire. A pecu­
liar character, noted by St. Augustine, marks this proscrip­
tion. “ The persecutors,” said this father, “had observed
that, in proportion as the Christians were put to death, their
numbers increased from their martyrs’ blood. They feared to
depopulate the empire if they destroyed so many thousands
of the faithful. The edicts no longer bore the ancient form,
‘ Whoever confesses himself a Christian shall be put to death;
but only, ‘ shall be tormented until he renounces his faith.' Under
this apparent mildness, the demon of the south concealed a fire
far more dangerous. How many, in fact, who would have
courageously suffered a speedy death, became disheartened at
the view of long and varied torments !” Never was a more
formidable tempest raised against the Church of Jesus Christ.

234

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Princes, governors, people, and senate, all that was most dis­
tinguished among the Romans, joined together to efface
from the earth the name of Christian. Decius was convinced
that, in its essence, Christianity was incompatible with the
constitution and spirit of the empire. “The magistrates sus­
pended all cases, private or public, to apply themselves to the
great, the important affair—the arrest and punishment of the
faithful. The heated iron chairs, the steel claws, the pyre,
the sword, the beasts, all the instruments invented by the
cruelty of man, lacerated, by night and by day, the bodies of
martyrs ; and each tormentor seemed to fear that he might not
be so barbarous as his fellows. Neighbors, relatives, friends,
heartlessly betrayed each other, and denounced Christians
before the magistrates. The provinces were in consternation;
families were decimated ; cities became deserts ; and the des­
erts were peopled. Soon the prisons were insufficient for the
multitudes arrested for their fajth, and most of the public
edifices were converted into prisons.”* St. Gregory, of Nyssa,
who gives us this picture of the Christians, has exaggerated
nothing. All the pagan authors agree that Decius had im­
posed two tasks upon himself : to put a stop forever, in the
whole extent of the Roman empire, to the propagation of the
Christian religion, and to the invasion of the barbarians. He
succeeded in neither. Faith emerged triumphantly from this rude
trial, and the Goths, under their King Cuiva, captured Nicopolis
and Martianopolis, took Philippopolis by assault, massacred a
hundred thousand inhabitants, and carried away a crowd of
illustrious prisoners, under the eyes of the powerless emperor.
2. These reverses served only to redouble the wrath of
Decius, who attributed them to the impiety of the Christians.
At Rome, Moses and Maximus, priests, Nicostratus, a deacon,
and an immense multitude of the faithful, filled all the state­
prisons. SS. Abden and Sennen, Persians, SS. Victoria and
Anatolia, Romans, shed their blood for Jesus Christ. The
venerable St. Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, was dragged to
• St. Ukegoby, of Nyssa, p. 518.—Vita Thaumat.

VACANCY IN THE SEE OF ROME (A. D. 250-551).

235

the tribunal of the governor of Palestine, at Cæsarea, and
put in irons, where he died from bad treatment. At Antioch,
the bishop, St. Babylas, was sent to prison, and deaired to be
buried in the chains in which he died. Origen, whose reputa­
tion marked him as one of the noblest victims, was thrown
into a dungeon, with an iron collar about his neck, and
shackles on his feet, so fastened as to separate his legs as far
as possible. They did not let him die, in the hope that his
faL might draw many Christians after him. He remained
immovable, and found means, from his prison, to write letters
ol encouragement to his brethren, sufferers like himself for the
faith. Al Comana, the bishop, St. Alexander, whose election
we have mentioned, was burned alive. In Alexandria, where
the Ch) istians had, in the preceding year, been so cruelly per­
secuted, the most sanguinary scenes were renewed. The sight
of the torments intimidated many of the faithful, especially
among the higher classes, and, unhappily, many defections
took place. Some allowed themselves to be conducted,
pale and trembling, to the altars of the false gods; others
hastened there of themselves, crying out that they had never
been Christians, and proving it but too truly by their conduct.
There were those who allowed themselves to be dragged to
prison, yet scarcely waited a day to sacrifice to the idols ; or,
if they had the courage to endure the first tortures, yielded to
the second. The faith, nevertheless, counted glorious martyrs.
The aged Julian, broken by infirmities, and Eunus, resisted all
menaces : they were placed on camels, and whipped while
they were driven through the city. At length they were cast
into the flames, around which the populace danced and in­
sulted their victims. St. Macarius, an Egyptian, met the same
fate. SS. Epimachus and Alexander, after suffering the
whips, the iron claws, and many other tortures, were also
burned alive. Four women,. Mercuria, Dionysia, and two of
the name of Ammonaria, were beheaded. Heron, Ater, Isi­
dore, and Nemesian, Egyptians, and four soldiers, Ammon,
Zeno. Ptolemy, and Ingenuus, were burned alive. A child

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named Dioscorus was brought before the judge, who, having in
vain tried to vanquish him by flatteries and torments, aston­
ished at his courage and the wisdom of his answers, ended ’»v
setting him at liberty, “ because of his age, which,” he said,
“ made him not responsible for his conduct.” A Christian called
Ischyrion was the steward of a magistrate, who commanded
him to sacrifice to the gods ; on his refusal, this barbarous
master seized a stake, with which he transpierced his bowels
and laid him dead at his feet. St. Dionysius, bishop of Alexdria, escaped, as by a miracle, from the hands of his persecu­
tors, and took refuge in a deserted place, whence he consoled
and governed his church through devoted priests and deacons,
who found means to preserve secret relations with him. Thus
the general persecution succeeding the temporary violence
of intestine riots, at Alexandria, perfected more and more the
virtue of the servants of God. During the sedition, there
was only one apostate ; after the edict of Decius, on the
contrary, few truly faithful were found. It is certainly less diffi­
cult to resist a popular tumult, of which we hope soon to see the
end, than a sovereign power, against which there is no resource
but in an humble and generous faith, ready to expect all from
God and to suffer all for His name.
St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, at Neocæsarea, in Pontus, was
successful in preserving all the faithful of his jurisdiction in
the faith and courage of the true servants of Jesus Christ.
He advised the Christians to avoid the dangers of persecution
by flight, and he himself retired to a deserted valley, where he
eluded the vigilance of the soldiers sent in pursuit of him.
The executioners revenged themselves by carrying off a
crowd of Christians who had taken refuge in the neighboring
country. All generously confessed their faith, and several of
the number had the glory of giving their lives for it. Troad,
a young man of a noble race, was of this number ; after fright­
ful tortures, he received the crown of martyrdom.
3. All the churches of Asia counted multitudes of cour­
ageous Christians, whom torments could not move. St. Maxi-

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237

mus, St. Peter of Lampsacus, inscribed their names, in the
outset, on the list of martyrs. The last, young and of remark­
able beauty, received an order to sacrifice to Venus., “lam
astonished,” he replied, “ that a magistrate would wish to force
me to adore an infamous prostitute, all the actions of whom
were crimes which it is your duty to punish in others with
severity.” On this refusal, the proconsul ordered him to be
extended on a wheel, between pieces of wood fastened to his
body with iron chains, so arranged that the wheel, in turning,
crushed, gradually, all his bones. The courage of the Chris­
tian hero failed not for an instant during this cruel torture,
and the proconsul ended by ordering his head to be struck
off. As this magistrate, named Optimus, was departing for
the city of Troad, three other Christians were brought before
him—Andrew, Paul, and Nicomacus. The latter, full of an
impatient presumption, cried out, in a loud voice, that he
was a Christian. His two companions, more modest, awaited
their trial, and humbly replied that they, too, adored Jesus
Christ. The proconsul commanded Nicomacus to be laid
on the rack, but he was unable to bear the torments, and
cried out in the midst of them, “ I have never been a Chris­
tian! I sacrifice to the gods!” The proconsul ordered him to
be instantly released, but the unhappy apostate failed to enjoy
the life he had so unworthily purchased, and soon expired.
Among the crowd of spectators, a young virgin named Dio­
nysia, about sixteen years of age, called out, “Miserable man!
to gain a momentary ease, must you precipitate yourself into
eternal punishment!” For these courageous words she was
taken before the proconsul, who endeavored to intimidate her
by frightful threats. “My God is greater than you." she said ;
“He can give me strength to suffer all your torments.”
The proconsul ordered her to be removed to an infamous
house, and Andrew and Paul were returned to prison. By a
miracle of divine power, Dyonisia escaped from the den of cor­
ruption without stain, and was beheaded on the day following.
Andrew and Paul were delivered to the people, who were not

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less cruel than tho beasts of the amphitheatre. They were
publicly whipped in the streets of the city, then hound by the
feet, and dragged, their heads downward, into a suburb, and
stoned by the populace.
When we insist on the narration of those horrors, which were
renewed with the same courage on one side and the same bar­
barity on the other, throughout the empire, it is to add more
strength to the argument for the divinity of the Church, which
is drawn from the violence of the persecutions. The philoso­
phy of the last century has sought to question the atrocities
charged upon the pagan emperors, and has taken the side
of the persecutors against their victims. It is our part
to state the facts in all their bloody reality. To this
long martyrology we might add a hundred other illustrious
names: at Smyrna, the saintly priest Pionius; at Cæsarea,
in Cappadocia, St. Mercurius; at Melitene, in Armenia, St.
Polyeuctes—the two latter, distinguished officers of the army;
at Pergamus, St. Carpus, bishop of Thyatira, and his compan­
ions; in Syria, St. Christopher and St. Themistocles. This
last pastured his sheep on a mountain where a Christian was
concealed, and he suffered death rather than to betray the
retreat of the proscribed victim. In Ionia, the seven sleepers,
that is to say, the seven brothers, who, to escape the perse­
cution, left Ephesus, and entered a cavern, where they were
shut in, and thus slept in the Lord. In Pamphylia, St. Nestor,
bishop of Side, with St. Conon, a gardener, and many others.
In Crete, St. Cyril, bishop of Gortynas, and ten other martyrs.
At Nicea, in Bithynia, the saints Tryphon and Respicius; at
Nicomedia, in the same province, the saints Marcian and
Lucian. And, finally, in Sicily, the illustrious virgin and
martyr, St. Agatha. She was as distinguished by her birth
as by the virtues with which her soul was adorned. The gov­
ernor, captivated by her beauty, caused her to be arrested as a
Christian, and had her placed in the hands of a woman of evil
life, to be corrupted. His infamous calculation was baffled.
In a trial, where he referred to her noble birth, “ The most

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239

illustrious nobility,” sho replied, “ consists in being the servant
of Jesus Christ.” When he commanded her to adore the gods,
she asked: “Would you like your wife to be a Venus, and
would it please her to have you imitate Jupiter?" The
governor made no reply, but ordered her to be smitten on the
face and returned to prison. The next day she suffered
the torture with such courage that the angry judge added tor­
ments still more horrible, and had her breasts torn away. God
willed to manifest the glory of His servant ; during the follow­
ing night she was miraculously healed. But, four days after­
wards she expired, in the midst of tortures, while making this
prayer : “ Lord, my God ! Thou hast protected me from my cra­
dle ; Thou hast uprooted from my heart the love of the world,and
hast given me patience to suffer. Lord, receive now my spirit.”
4. We should not omit a trait which contrasts with the
general cruelties ; it relates to St. Acacius, bishop of Antioch,
in Pisidia. He was brought before the proconsul Marcion.
with Piso, bishop of Troas, and the priest Menander. “You
ought to love our princes well,” said the proconsul, “you who
live under the Roman laws.” “And who loves the emperor
more than the Christians ?” replied Acacius. “We pray con­
tinually for him, that he may live long—that he may govern
the people with justice, and that, his reign may be peaceable;
we pray, also, for the soldiers, and for all the world." The
holy bishop continued to reply with so much wisdom and good
sense, that the proconsul considered it his duty to send a
report of his examination to the emperor. Decius admired it
so much that he released the bishop, and gave as a recompense
to Marcion the government of Pamphylia. A profound lesson
may be learned from this fact; it shows us, in practice, the
real policy of Christians who have only prayers, even for
the governments that oppress them. The words of St. Paul
are : obedite prœpositis *vestris
If, in the sequel of his­
tory, certain events appear at the first glance contrary to this
general rule, it will not be difficult to discover that they
» Obey those placed over you.

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

occurred in a society greatly modified, the bases of which
had become Christian. The faithful were not then, on one side
subjects, and on the other, Christians. These two duties were
blended together. They were subjects of Jesus Christ, of
whom the sovereigns proclaimed themselves the ministers·
and this was admirably expressed by the word, then in use,
the Christian republic. At a later period we shall see the
application of this doctrine.
5. While these noble examples of courage produced so
many martyrs and confessors in all parts of the world, the
Church had to mourn many terrible defections. The bishop
of Smyrna, Eudemon, the unworthy successor of the great
saints who had illustrated that see, fell into apostasy, and by
his fall led away many of the faithful. Repostus, bishop of
Suturna, in Africa, Jovinius and Maximus, whose sees are un­
known, of the same province, Fortunatian, of Assur, also of
Africa, all sacrificed to the idols. In Spain, Basilides, bishop
of Leon, and Martial, bishop of Merida, declared, by a public
edict, that they renounced the faith. But no city, after Alex­
andria, saw more lamentable apostasies than that of Car­
thage. The fury of the pagans at first was turned entirely
against the Bishop St. Cyprian. The circus and amphitheatre
resounded with incessant shouts of Cyprian to the lions ! The
holy man hoped by his withdrawal to appease the violence of
the sedition. He was proscribed—a price was set upon bis
head, and his property confiscated. From his retreat he
assisted his flock by his exhortations, encouragements, and
prayers ; but he had the grief to perceive that his efforts were
too often useless. He thus expresses himself. a On the
first threatenings of the enemy, the greater number of our
brethren betrayed the faith ; they were not prostrated by the
violence of the persecution, but cast themselves down by a
voluntary fall.” Before they had even been taken, or ques­
tioned, clergy and people ran, of their own accord, to the public
place, as if they had only awaited the occasion to apostatize.
They came in such crowds, to renounce Christianity, that the

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241

magistrates proposed to postpone it until the next day, because
of the lateness of the hour ; but they besought them not to
defer it. Many, not content with ruining themselves, perse­
cuted others, and led them off to the altars of the idols. Some
brought their children to the pagan priests, to destroy in them
the grace of baptism. The rich, especially, showed the greatest
weakness, and their wealth became the cause of their ruin.
Many, however, suffered death courageously for Jesus Christ.
Mappalicus, Paul, Fortumon, Bassus, all expired in torments,
and a large number of confessors died in prison.
6. There were several degrees of apostasy : these timid
Christians were classed in three different categories, which
were termed the thurificati, sacrificati, libellatici. The thurificati
had only offered incense to the idols. The sacrificati had sac­
rificed to the false gods, or eaten immolated viands. The
libellatici had gone to the magistrates, declaring that, as Chris­
tians, they were not permitted to offer sacrifice, but they offered
money in order to procure an exemption from this ceremony.
Through avarice or humanity, the proconsuls and governors
gave them then a billet (libellum), purporting that they had
renounced Jesus Christ, and sacrificed to the gods of the em­
pire, though they had done no such thing. These billets
were read publicly, and their bearers were left in peace.
All who belonged to these three categories were, without
distinction, named lapsi (fallen), and for each of them canoni­
cal penances were appointed. In proportion as the persecution
abated from exhaustion, or because the governors awaited the
issue of the war in which the Emperor Decius was engaged
against the Goths, many fallen Christians, among both the
clergy and the people, wished to re-enter the Church to parti­
cipate in the holy Eucharist, or resume their functions, with­
out a preparatory penance. To accomplish this, they abused
a very holy practice. The martyrs or confessors gave to those
who had had the misfortune to apostatize, letters of recom­
mendation to the bishops. The Church had much respect for
these missives, and when the suppliants were otherwise well
16

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disposed, she abridged for them the period of satisfactory pen­
ance. But they did not confine themselves to this. Several
confessors, and particularly one among them named Lucian, of
Carthage, undertook to give, without distinction, either in their
own name or in that of martyrs from whom they said they
had received the order, letters of recommendation, expressed
in general terms: “Let N., and they who are with him, be
admitted to the communion;” so that a single person could
present twenty or thirty others, as members of his family, or
of his household. Men were even found who made a traffic of
these billets of indulgence ; and some priests, without consult­
ing the bishop, arrogated to themselves the right to reconcile
to the Church, and admit to the sacraments, all who presented
themselves furnished with one of the recommendations just
referred to.
7. St. Cyprian protested in the strongest terms against
these unworthy abuses. From the place of his concealment
he gave the most precise instructions, and sent to the clergy
of Rome all the details of this affair. At the same time he
explained the cause of his retreat, which had been misinter­
preted at Rome. Lucian, on his side, urged by certain undis­
ciplined priests and deacons, pressed the reconciliation of the
apostates, on the strength of the billets from the martyrs. He
dared even to address to St. Cyprian, in the name of all the con­
fessors, this letter : “ All the confessors to the *
Pope Cyprian,
greeting : Be it known to you, that we have given the peace
to all of whom you have taken information on the subject of
their conduct since their fall, and we request that you apprise
of it the other bishops. We wish that you may have peace with
the holy martyrs. Written by Lucian, in presence of an exor­
cist and a reader.” In consequence of this strange letter, the
people in various places rose against their prelates, and exacted
from them, on the instant, the communion which they believed
had been granted to all by the -martyrs and confessors. St.
• The name of Pope, or Father, was given at that time to all the bishops in general, and
«omolimea to simple priests.

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243

Cyprian, in this difficult situation, again wrote to the church
of Rome, and transmitted to it the billet of Lucian, and all
the other documents relative to this affair.
8. The priests who administered the church of Rome
during the vacancy in the Holy See, responded by an admira­
ble letter in which they entirely approved the conduct of the
holy bishop, blamed the arrogance of the apostates, and still
more the indiscretion of those who instigated them. “Nothing
is more advisable in time of peace,’’ they say, “ nothing more
necessary during the war of persecution, than to cling invio­
lably to the discipline of the Church : to abandon it, is to
abandon the rudder in the midst of a tempest. This is not a
maxim of recent growth among us : this severity, this faith,
this discipline, prevailed from the earliest times. The Apostle
could not have said that our faith was spoken of in all the
world, if at that time it had not taken deep roots; and it
would be a great crime to degenerate from such glory.
“ May God forbid that the Roman Church should lose her
vigor by a profane indulgence ; or that she should relax the
bands of severity by overturning the majesty of the faith. In
presence of the defections which are each day more numerous,
to grant to those who have fallen the remedy of a reconcilia­
tion which can be of no service, is, by a false compassion, to
add new wounds to that of apostasy, by taking from these
unfortunate people the resource of a healing penance : it is not
to cure—it is to give a death-blow. Since the martyrdom of
Fabian, of glorious memory, we have been unable, from the
difficulties of the times, to elect a bishop who may regulate
all these affairs, and examine with authority and prudence
those who have fallen. But we think, with you, that we must
await the close of the persecution to consider the question of
apostasies, and consult with the bishops, the confessors, and
laymen, who have remained film. For it seems to us that it
would give too much ground for offence if one only gave sen­
tence on a crime so universal.
“ Behold, in fact, the entire world full of the ruins of

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

those who have fallen. An evil of such extent demands great
prudence and efficacious remedies; and those who would repair
it ought to act with circumspection, lest that which might be
done against the rules should be judged null by all. Let us
pray for each other. Let us pray for the fallen, that they may
rise and recognize the magnitude of their crime, that they
may become penitent and patient; that by their restlessness
they may not trouble the yet insecure state of the Church,
nor kindle within it an intestine persecution ; that they may
knock at the doors, but not break them open.
“Assembled with some bishops of the adjacent cities, and
with those whom persecution has driven here from other dis­
tant provinces, we have thought we would innovate in nothing
before the election of a bishop of Rome. Until that time, let
all be held in suspense who can wait. In regard to those who
are in imminent danger of death, when they give signs of a
true repentance, let them be admitted. But let us take care that
the froward have no occasion to praise our extreme leniency, and
that the truly penitent do not accuse us of excessive severity.”
This decree, especially addressed to St. Cyprian, was sent
to all the churches in Christendom, because it responded to a
general demand. Such was then the Roman Church. De­
prived of her chief by martyrdom, exposed to the rudest blows
from persecutors, not only she remained unshaken, but com­
municated her firmness to the other churches over which she
ceased not to watch. Attentive to all the designs of error, she
knew how to resist its snares and to forewarn the faithful. An
instance of this occurred in the case of Privatus, the heretical
bishop of Lambesa, who, taking advantage of the persecution
and the vacancy of the Holy See, had sent to Rome for letters
of communion. St. Cyprian had warned the Roman clergy to
guard against his artifices. “ You have followed your custom,"
replied the priests of Rome to the bishop of Carthage, “ in giv­
ing us notice of what concerns you, for we ought all to watch
over the body of the Church, whose members are distributed
throughout the provinces. But before the receipt of your

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245

letters, the underhand dealings of that heretic had not escaped
us. Futurus, an agent of Privatus, came to obtain from ns
letters of communion ; his attempts have been fruitless." His­
tory records facts of this nature with care ; they prove, on
the one hand, the anxiety of the heretics of that time to obtain
the support of the see of Rome, as the centre of doctrine and
authority ; and on the other, the vigilance with which the see
of Rome guarded the deposit of faith.
9. The question of the apostates did not cease, in spite of
this decision, to agitate the church of Carthage. St. Cyprian
sent two priests to examine the age, the condition, and the
merits of those who were to be promoted on his return to eccle­
siastical functions, and to give an account of those who had
fallen. This mission excited the displeasure of some malcon­
tents. An artful man, named Felicissimus, sustained by the
five priests who had been opposed to the election of St.
Cyprian, declared himself openly in revolt againt his bishop.
Among these was Novatus, an unworthy priest, whose crimes
were equally atrocious and notorious. By his own authority,
he appointed Felicissimus a deacon, and, leaving him at Car­
thage, he went to Rome with the intention, doubtless, to pre­
sent these facts in colors which would be advantageous to
himself.

§ II. St. Cornelius, Pope (June 2, a. d. 251—Sept. 14, 252).
10. The widowhood of the church of Rome had ceased.
Many bishops, whom the persecution had brought to Rome,
united with the clergy and the faithful, and elected, as pope,
St. Cornelius. “ It was necessary,” said St. Cyprian, “ to con­
strain the new pontiff to accept this dignity. Nothing was
seen in him but the tranquillity and modesty belonging to
those whom God chooses for bishops. It was thus that he
reached the highest degree of the priesthood, after having
passed through all the grades of the hierarchy; having shown
himself, in each, an instrument of divine grace.”
11. An election so conformable to ecclesiastical discipline

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was, nevertheless, contested. Novatus had brought to Rome
his turbulent and factious spirit. He allied himself to an ambi­
tions priest named Novatian, who intrigued for the sovereign
pontificate. Novatian protested against the election of St.
Cornelius, calumniously accusing him of being a libellatic, which
means, as we have already explained, that he had purchased
his life for money, during the persecution. At length, yield­
ing to the counsels of Novatus, he, with four Roman priests,
separated entirely from St. Cornelius, and got himself ordained
by three bishops from remote parts of Italy, whose good faith
he grossly imposed on, by plunging them into a state bordering
on ebriety, and thus became definitively the first antipope
whose pride afflicted the Church. To schism he joined heresy.
According to him, the Church had no power to grant peace to
the fallen in the persecution, whatever penance they might
accomplish, and never was it permissible to communicate with
them. He also positively condemned second marriages. His
disciples named themselves, on account of this affectation of
severity, Cathari, or Puritans. To retain them in schism, he
made them swear, on the holy Eucharist, to remain faithful to
him. “ Swear to me,” he said, when giving them communion,
“ swear to me, by the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ,
never to leave me to return to Cornelius.” The misguided
people whom he addressed never received the Eucharist with­
out having made this oath, and a malediction against the ven­
erable pontiff took the place of the word Amen, which they
were accustomed to say when communicating. That which
rendered this schism most dangerous, was the reputation of
eloquence and authority which Novation enjoyed. He spared
nothing to attract the faithful into his perverse way. St.
Jerome has preserved a list of his numerous writings. He
sent deputies to various churches, with letters to inform them
of his election. He spoke seriously of the constraint which
had forced him to accept the pontificate. The names of the
cunfessors whom he had seduced contributed to mislead the
simple-minded, and to trouble the consciences of many.

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12. Thus, to the horrors of the seventh general persecution
succeeded the disorder of schism. After the death of the
emperor, who was defeated and killed by the Goths (251),
near Philippopolis, the instruments of torment ceased to lacerate
the Christians. The violence of Decius was transient, like his
power. He had been the scourge which God had used to
punish the relaxation of the faithful. From his short but
terrible persecution may be dated the movement which, at a
later epoch, peopled the desert with the faithful, and gave birth
to the wonders of monastic institutions. A young man of the
lower Thebaid (a. d. 251), named Paul, flying from the perse­
cutors, found a grotto, shaded by a palm-tree, near which
rippled a fountain. Paul took possession of this grotto, lived
alone in it, under the eye of God, ninety years, and acquired
from this solitude the glory of being the first Christian hermit.
13. The schism and heresy of Novatian found able adver­
saries in that Christian society which, always invincible, came
forth from the persecution of Decius. St. Dionysius, bishop
of Alexandria, replied in these terms to the letters of notifica­
tion from the antipope : “ If you have been ordained against
your wish, give proof of it by abdicating, of your own free-will,
for you ought to suffer every thing rather than to divide the
Church of God. The martyrdom which you will have endured
to avoid a schism, will not be less glorious than the other."
A council of seventy bishops, assembled at Carthage by the
care of St. Cyprian, pronounced the same decision, and St.
Cornelius was acknowledged as the lawful pope. Felicissimus
and the five priests who had caused so much trouble in the
Church were anathematized. The question of the apostates,
seriously examined, was solved by framing penitential canons,
which are thus summed up : 1st. The libelluhci, who had
undertaken penances immediately after their fall, were to be
from that time admitted to communion. 2d. The sacrificati
were treated with more severity, without, however, taking
from them the hope of pardon, lest an excessive rigor might
throw them into schism or heresy. The duration of their

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canonical penitence should be proportioned to the degree of
their culpability and to their present dispositions. They who
had yielded to the violence of torture, would be admitted after
three years of penitence. All the details for the examination
which the lapsi should undergo were regulated, and also the
various penances to be imposed on them. These regulations,
with the acts of the council, were sent to Pope St. Cornelius.
As a commentary on these disciplinary ordinances, St. Cyp­
rian composed and published his treatise, De Lapsis, where
are found all the eloquence of a Father of the Church and all
the love of a good pastor. A short time after he wrote his
book, De Unitate Ecclesiœ, to forewarn the faithful against the
schism of Novatian.
14. St. Cornelius also had called at Rome a council of
sixty bishops. They anathematized Novatian and his errors.
The pope gave notice of the fact to all the churches, and the
schismatics were overwhelmed by the powerful unanimity
opposed to them. Maximus, Urban, Sidonius, and Macarius,
Roman priests, who had followed the antipope, submitted,
with the faithful whom they had led into rebellion. St.
Cornelius received them with benignity to the communion of
the Church, and restored their dignities. He had also the joy
to receive the abjuration of one of the bishops who had conse­
crated Novatian, but he admitted him only to lay communion,
and named another bishop in his place. These happy tidings
imparted joy to all Christendom. St. Cyprian wrote to assure
the pope of his own satisfaction at these events.
15. He held, at this moment, a second council at Carthage,
composed of forty-two bishops. The penitential canons rela­
tive to the apostates were rendered more mild. They ruled
that the lapsi might be admitted to communion, even when
they were not in danger of death, and without insisting on the
precise duration heretofore fixed for doing penance. Tho
Church, at that time, attentive as ever to the spiritual good
of her children, knew how to apply, to modify, to temper, her
regulations according to circumstances ; and, immovable in her

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249

faith, she proportioned her discipline to the various wants of
the times. Privatus, the heretic bishop of Lambesa, in Nu­
midia, whose seditious proceedings we have already noted,
presented himself at the second council of Carthage, to justify
himself respecting the crimes for which he had been deposed.
This new attempt failed, like its predecessors. In revenge, ho
assembled a conventicle, in which, after having anathematized
St. Cyprian, he ordained, as bishop of Carthage, Fortunatus,
one of the five seditious priests who fostered the troubles
of this Church. The schismatics dispatched Felicissimus to
Rome, and, what was very remarkable, directed him, not to
Novatian, so much was the influence of the antipope lessened
even among his partisans, but to St. Cornelius. The pontiff
rejected his advances with apostolic vigor, and wrote of it
to St. Cyprian, reproaching him, in terms full of kindness,
that he had not received advices from him on this subject.
The illustrious bishop of Carthage replied in these words:
*
“ The schismatics have, then, dared to cross the seas, and
present their letters before the chair of St. Peter—to the
Church of the churches, whence emanates sacerdotal unity,
without reflecting that they to whom they address themselves
are those Romans whose faith the apostle so highly praised,
and to whom infidelity can find no access. Condemned by our
council, these desperate men doubtless regard the authority of
the African bishops insufficient. Their cause has been exam­
ined, their sentence is pronounced.” Certain writers, unfavor­
able to the primacy of the see of Rome, have affected to find
in this letter of St. Cyprian a protestation against appeals in
general to the sovereign pontiff. But Cecilian, successor of
•St. Cyprian, who appealed to Rome against the Donatists ; St.
Athanasius, who appealed to Rome against the Arians; St.
John Chrysostom, who appealed to Romo against his private
enemies ; St. Cyprian himself, who had previously appealed to
Rome against Novatus and Felicissimus, suffice to establish,
by striking examples, the doctrine of the Church on this point.
• Tho whole of this passage may be found, Ophb 8. Cm. Epiai 55.

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

In point of fact, the schismatics in question did not appeal:
knowing, as all the world knew, that the chair of St. Peter
was. as it is still, the source of unity and sacerdotal legitimacy,
they demanded letters of communion merely to gain authority
for their false bishop.
16. The glorious pontificate of St. Cornelius was drawing
to its close. The Emperor Gallus, on succeeding Decius, had
preserved his hostility to Christianity. He ordered St. Corne­
lius to prison. “ The empire,” in the magnificent language of
St. Cyprian, “ was again vanquished by the priesthood.” The
pope nobly confessed the name of Jesus Christ, and was exiled
to Civita Vecchia, where his glorious *
death occurred, Sep­
tember 14, a. d. 252. “He merited,” said St. Cyprian, “the
palm of confessors, for he had defied the fury of tyrants, by
daring to accept a title which then was a sentence of death."
A virginal purity, with the greatest prudence and firmness,
characterized St. Cornelius. A .decree is attributed to him
which forbade any Christian to take an oath, or to pronounce
vows, until he had reached fourteen years of age.

§ III. St. Lucius I., Pope (Oct. 18,

a. d.

252—Mar. 4, 253).

17. St. Lucius I., one of the priests who had been banished
with Pope St. Cornelius, was appointed his successor, amid the
applauses of the universal Church. But his promotion only
made him a mark for the proscription of Gallus, whose policy
in regard to the Christians seems to have been to strike
chiefly the pastors, the better to destroy the flock. St. Lucius,
like his predecessor, was banished ; and received, in his place
of banishment, letters from St. Cyprian, who felicitated him
on his generous confession. Some months afterwards, the
holy pope was restored to the affection of the faithful at Rome,
who received him with transports of joy. The persecution,
nevertheless, continued. The emperor had given orders to his
governors to spare all the schismatics of the party of the anti
*
• Pontificate of Bucherius.

ST. LUCIUS I. (A. D. 252-253).

251

pope Novatian, hoping, probably, that intestine dissensions
would have better success against the Church than the vio­
lence of arms. “ The Lord,” said St. Cyprian, on this subject,
in a second letter to Lucius, “ wishes, by this, to confound the
heretics, and to show which is the true Church ; who is the
one bishop legitimately elected ; who are those whom the
enemy attacks, and those, on the contrary, whom the demon
spares, as belonging to himself.” St. Lucius survived these
testimonials of the fidelity and devotion of Christian Africa
only a few months. He died March 4, a. d. 253. In the short
period of his pontificate, he sanctioned, by a decree, the doc­
trine of the Church touching the lapai; admitting them to
communion after a sufficient penance. He renewed the ordi­
nances of his predecessors relative to the serious examination
of the capacity and morals of the candidates for holy orders,
and prohibited the clergy from having in their houses, or in
their service, other women than their near relatives.
18. In the beginning of this same year (253), a man died,
exhausted by gigantic labors, leaving a great name, on which
history is divided. Origen expired at Tyre, bequeathing to
posterity as many disputes, after his death, as during life.
To say of him only what is incontestible, we will merely
recapitulate the principal facts of his stormy life. His virtue,
his love of poverty, his humility, the courage with which he
confessed the faith, his immense labors, can never be doubted
by any one. He had the glory to count among his disciples,
martyrs, doctors, and illustrious bishops : St. Heraclas and
St. Dionysius, both bishops of Alexandria, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, and his brother St. Athenodorus, also bishop in
Pontus, St. Firmilian, Beryllus, bishop of Bozra, whom he
reclaimed from heresy, St. Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, &c.
But, as if every thing that relates to the reputation of Origen
should offer a contrast, he had on the one hand a crowd of
illustrious disciples, and on the other, most detestable heretics,
who called themselves Oriyenians. This sect, which still
existed in the time of St. Epiphanius, renewed all the abomi­

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

nations of the Gnostics, and pretended to justify them by the
doctrine of Origen. The prodigious number of the writings
of this great man contributed, perhaps, to bring them into
disfavor. He had composed not less than six thousand.
In the rapidity of composition which so enormous a produc­
tion demanded, in the necessity of dictating to two or three at
the same time, and of leaving to the care of the stenographers
themselves afterwards to collect and publish his discourses, it
is not possible to suppose that many involuntary errors have
not escaped attention. When we add, that the doctrine of the
Church was not, at this epoch, as it was afterwards, fixed
and defined by the councils in proportion as heresy, calling
attention to each dogma in particular, provoked an infallible
decision, we shall, perhaps, find the errors of Origen, of which
we have already recapitulated the chief, more excusable.
However it may be, these fearful words have been pronounced
of this great genius : No one has surpassed him, cither in good
or in evil. Ubi bene, nemo melius ; ubi male, nemo pejus. His
eternal salvation remains among the secrets of God. “ But, if
we must fear for him,” said Le Nain de Tillemont, “let us fear
still more for ourselves, lest we fall into faults which make us
tremble for an Origen.”

§ IV. St. Stephen I., Pope (May 13, a.

d.

253—Aug. 2, 257).

19. St. Stephen was elected sovereign pontiff, May 13, a.d.
253. He was designated, in advance, to the suffrages of the
clergy and faithful of Rome, by the confidence placed in him
by his two predecessors. St. Cornelius had confided to him
the administration of the Church property. St. Lucius L, at
his death, had confided to him the care and guidance of the
Church.
20. Tho two first years of his pontificate were marked by
one of the most horrible plagues of which history has preserved
the remembrance. From Ethiopia, where it first appeared, it
spread over every part of the empire, leaving victims by
myriads in its track. At Rome, five thousand were carried oil

ST. STEPHEN I. (A. D. 253-257).

203

in a single day. St. Stephen proved himself the worthy
pastor of his suffering flock. He sent supplies to Syria, to
Arabia, and wherever the plague broke out. St. Dionysius, of
Alexandria, wrote to thank him for his attentive charity. The
deportment of the Christians, in these distressing circumstances,
commanded the admiration even of their enemies. The pagans
had so great a horror of the contagion, that, forgetting all
the laws of nature, they threw their diseased relatives out of
the windows, as if they could banish death at the same time
with the infected. St. Cyprian, who gives us many frightful
details, relates, that the streets of Carthage were full of the
dying, and of unburied corpses. Houses, made empty by the
pestilence, became a prey to infamous thieves, who profited by
the calamity to enrich themselves with the spoils of the dead.
At the call of their bishop, the Christians assembled, and took
charge of the different quarters of the city, aiding, without
distinction, the pagans and the faithful. The rich contributed
from their wealth, the poor their labor, and order was soon
restored. The pagans, touched by this sublime devotion, were
converted in great numbers to the religion that inspired it.
St. Cyprian exerted himself in every way to provide for so
many wants ; he encouraged the weak, directed the ardor of
the most zealous, and consoled all in their sufferings. In the
midst of the ruins created by the plague, he wrote his Treatise
on Mortality, where he mingled all the tenderness of his feelings
with the elevated conceptions of faith. At Neocæsarea, St.
Gregory Thaumaturgus gave the same example to his people.
St. Dionysius at Alexandria, St. Maximus at Nola, in short,
all the Catholic bishops, offered this eloquent spectacle to the
pagan world ; and these Christians, who, by order of the em­
peror, were hunted in every place to be thrown to the lions,
rushed with intrepidity amidst the dangers of pestilence and
the terrors of death, to the relief of those self-same men who
so often had been their persecutors.
21. Christian charity increased with the misfortunes of
the empire. The Scythians, the Goths, the Persians, precur-

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

sors of the formidable army of barbarians who were surround­
ing more and more closely the Roman provinces, devastated
the frontiers in turn, ruined the cities, and led away captive
those whom the plague had spared. Eight bishops of Numidia
had the grief to see their flocks thus dragged into slavery.
They wrote of this disaster to St. Cyprian, who, with many
tears, read these letters to his people, from whom he collected
alms, to the amount of a hundred thousand sesterces, which
he sent to the bishops. “ If,” he wrote, “ to try our charity,
God sends you another such calamity, fear not to let us hear
of it. We pray constantly that this misfortune may not be
renewed ; but be assured, if the case should happen, we will
gladly give all that is in our power.” To encourage still more
the charitable inclinations of his people, the eloquent bishop
wrote his book, On Good Works and Alms-deeds, an admirable
exhortation to Christian charity.
22. The reputation of St. Cyprian for virtue and learning,
caused him to be consulted as the oracle of the universal
Church. He succeeded to the brilliant heritage of Origen,
and his voluminous correspondence attests his zeal for the
maintenance of faith and ecclesiastical discipline. He wrote
to a bishop of a strange abuse which had been introduced
in the holy sacrifice of the Mass, during the persecution. As it
was celebrated at the dawn of day, and as the custom of the
primitive Church was to distribute the communion under the
species of wine, as well as of bread, it was feared that the
odor of wine might betray the faithful, and some ignorant
ministers put water, only, in the chalice. St. Cyprian restored
the apostolic tradition on this point, and taught that the
mingling of water with the wine signified the union of the
Church with Jesus Christ, from whom she could not be
separated. Fortunatian, bishop of Assur, having apostatized
during the persecution, had been deposed, and replaced by
Epictetus. When peace was restored to the Church, Fortuna­
tian wanted to resume the possession of his see. St. Cyprian
wrote to Epictetus and to the faithful at Assur, that it must

ST. STEPHEN I. (A. D. 253-257).

255

not be permitted. Encratius, a bishop, consulted St. Cyprian
concerning a comedian, who, after having left the theatre, was
converted, but still continued to prepare young men for the
stage. “It is my opinion,” replied the bishop of Carthage,
“ that it is not becoming, either to the majesty of God or to
the discipline of the Gospel, to sully the purity of the Church
by such a scandal. If the comedian is poor, let him be assisted
with the other brethren who are poor like himself.” A priest
of the Church of Fumes, in Africa, called Geminius Faustinus,
had accepted the administration of a wardship. St. Cyprian
recalled the discipline then in force, and especially a decree of
one of the preceding councils of Carthage, which forbade the
nomination by testament of a clergyman as tutor or guardian,
that he might not be drawn away from prayer and the ministry
of the altar. “ If any one, in spite of this prohibition, dare to
disobey it, the holy sacrifice shall not be offered for him.”
Marcion, bishop of Arles, in Gaul, left the Catholic Church, to
attach himself to the anti-pope Novatian. Faustinus, bishop
of Lyons, and the other bishops of the province, wrote of it to
St. Cyprian, who referred the subject to the pope, and prayed
him to interpose his authority in this affair. “ Send,” he wrote
to St. Stephen, “ to the clergy and people of Arles letters by
which Marcion may be excommunicated, and another bishop
appointed to gather the flock of Christ, which is still scattered.”
St. Cyprian acted with the same respect for the decisions of
the Holy See in another affair belonging to the Church in
Spain. Basilides, bishop of Leon, and Martial, bishop of
Astorga, had fallen, during the persecution, into the cowardice
of the libellatici. After the peace, they deceived the confidence
of the Holy See by false representations, and, by means of
the letters which they had fraudulently obtained, they pre­
tended to retain their sees. St. Cyprian, who at this time
was presiding over a council of thirty-eight bishops, wrote a
letter, in the name of his colleagues, to the priest Felix, to the
people of Leon and Astorga, and to the deacon Lelius. “ Let
them observe,” said he, “ what has been ordained by Pope St.

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Cornelius. The libellatici can be admitted to penance, but they
must be excluded from the honor of the priesthood, and from
all clerical functions.”
23. A question of still more serious importance had arisen
in the Church. St. Cyprian took an active part in it. Unhap­
pily his zeal was not always confined within the limits of
true wisdom ; and when we see this illustrious doctor openly
resist St. Stephen, we are reminded that a saint is always a
man. The question to be decided was, whether the baptism
conferred by heretics is valid or not ; and whether those among
them who were restored to the bosom of the Church should be
rebaptized. In our times, such a question would be decided as
soon as proposed. Baptism is a sacrament which can be val­
idly conferred even by a pagan, provided the prescriptions of
the Church are observed. To make the effects of the sacra­
ments dependent on the dispositions of those who are their
ministers, is an error notorious, defined, condemned ; which
would lead, in practice, to the most disastrous consequences.
Heretics and schismatics cannot lawfully administer the sacra­
ments, but they do it validly. This distinction, evident to us,
was not so clear before the decision of the Church. St. Cyp­
rian took the opposite view, and maintained, openly, that the
baptism performed by heretics and schismatics was null, and
that those who were converted should be baptized : baptized,
he said, for he would not use the word rebaptized, the better
to show that they had not been baptized up to that point.
He held the erroneous doctrine of Agrippinus, one of his
predecessors in the see of Carthage. The schism of the anti­
pope, Novatian, had given much actuality to this question, by
the great number of sectaries who demanded re-entrance into
the Catholic communion. The particular councils of Synnada,
and of Iconium in Phrygia, had just decided that the baptism
of heretics was null, by the mere fact that it was conferred
out of the Church. Pope St. Stephen I. immediately wrote to
the bishops of the neighboring provinces not to communicate
with those who rebaptize heretics. The bishops of Numidia

ST. STEPlfEN I. (A. I). 253-257).

257

consulted St. Cyprian on this question. In the name of thirtytwo bishops, assembled in council at Carthage, he replied that,
following the doctrine of his predecessors, none could be bap­
tized out of the Church. “To confer the grace of a sacrament,”
he says, “he who administers it must first possess it: since no
one can give that which he has not.” He admits that the cus­
tom had generally prevailed, not to rebaptize heretics; “bat,"
he adds, “ it is not custom, but reason, which ought to pre­
scribe the rule.” A bishop of his party, at a later period,
expressed this thought in another form : “Jesus Christ said, ‘I
am the truth,’ but not, ‘I am the usage.’” Such is the thesis
which St. Cyprian supported with all the vigor of his elo­
quence, in a multitude of private letters and treatises, in
which he does not always spare St. Stephen. The year fol­
lowing (256), he held another council of seventy-one bishops,
at Carthage, when he decided according to his own views the
question of the baptism of heretics. He sent the acts of this
council to the pope.- “ It is especially to you," he said in his
letter, “ that we should send all that more closely concerns the
sacerdotal authority, or the unity and dignity of the Catholic
Church. We have judged that they who have been defiled by
the profane water of the heretics, ought to be baptized when
they return to the Church, and that the laying on of hands is
not sufficient to give them the Holy Spirit.” This was the
state of the question when it reached the tribunal of the
Roman pontiff. Two councils of Phrygia, two councils of
Africa, and a considerable number of bishops of all the prov­
inces, had openly embraced the error. The most illustrious
doctor in Christendom, the eloquent bishop of Carthage, whose
decisions all the Church had been habituated to regard as
oracles, supported them by the mighty power of his reasoning,
of his authority, and reputation. The Church has rarely found
herself in such peril. It was not sufficient for the Holy See
to proclaim the truth ; circumspection was required, which
could control the situation, and, by indulgence, reclaim those
whom an intemperate rigor might drive into a hopeless heresy.
17

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

St. Stephen comprehended his position, and acted with merci­
ful firmness. Without undertaking discussions with minds
prepossessed, he was content to declare, with simplicity, the
apostolic doctrine, leaving to the truth the time to germinate
in their souls. Unfortunately, we have only fragments of
his letter to the African bishops, but these arc sufficient to
manifest the spirit in which it was composed. He speaks of
the chair of St. Peter, the foundation of the Church, on which
he is seated, after an uninterrupted succession. He lays down
the traditional doctrine, which is opposed to the council of Car­
thage. He defines the rule by this precept, which has passed
into a theological axiom, Nihil innovatur nisi quod traditum cd
(Let there be no innovation unless by the sanction of tradi­
tion). He declares, at the close, that if they persevere obsti­
nately in their error, he shall be forced to break with the
bishops of Africa.
24. Rome had spoken : there lay the truth : there was the
right. Yet we must confess, in sorrow for the weakness of
human nature, St. Cyprian yielded not. “ What presumption
does it not indicate,” he wrote to the Bishop Pompey, when
sending him the pope’s reply, “ to prefer a human tradition to
the order of God !” He convoked at Carthage a council of the
three provinces of Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania : eightyfive bishops answered his call, and assembled September 1,
a. d. 256. In his opening discourse, he complains of the tyranny
which the Bishop of bishops pretends to exercise in the Church.
When the votes were taken, all were unanimous in supporting
the opinion contrary to the papal decision ; one saying, “ that
it was in the Scriptures;' another, “that no one can give that
which he has not;” another, “Jesus Christ said, 11 am the
truth,' not, I am the usage;" finally, another, “ that no one pre­
fers usage to reason and truth, for reason and truth always
exclude usage” From these forms of expression may be seen
how much the discussion had tended to embitter their minds.
St. Cyprian would not, in spite of this unhappy dissension,
break with Pope St. Stephen. He sent a deputation to convey

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259

to him the acts of the council. His envoys were badly
received, and the new incident only complicated the question,
and still more envenomed it. St. Stephen having proclaimed
the law, judged it best not to execute the threatenings he bad
expressed, but left events to time and reflection. St. Cyprian,
on his side, in the height of the controversy, published two
tracts, which could not fail in the sequel to react most favora­
bly upon himself: the first, De Utilitate Patientia ; the second,
De Invidia. And St. Augustine writes, that “ he cannot doubt
of the return of this great man to the truth, although the
authentic proofs of it were suppressed, probably by those who.
possessed by the same error, were unwilling to be deprived of
such patronage.”
25. The eighth general persecution cut short this question
in blood, and sent the defenders of both sides to martyrdom.
If we were tempted to judge great and holy bishops with
severity for a transient aberration, who would not pause, filled
with respect and admiration, before these glorious champions
of the faith ? They had a right to sustain with some warmth,
in a pacific discussion, what they believed to be the truth,
when they had the courage to profess the truth under the
sword of their executioners. Their fault was nobly effaced,
before God and men, in their own blood. During the five
years since the Emperor Valerian ascended the throne, he
had constantly favored the Christians ; and doubtless by the
permission of Providence, success had crowned his enterprises.
Suddenly he changed his conduct, and at the same time the
fortune of his arms failed him, and, three years later, he was
captured by the Persians, and reduced to serve as a footstool
to their king when he mounted his horse. In a. d. 257, yield­
ing to the solicitations of Macrinus, his favorite, he signed the
edict of the eighth general persecution. Paganism, after so
many sanguinary and useless attempts, still hoped to extin­
guish the religion of Jesus Christ by persecution. A Christian
named Hippolytus ; Adrias and Paulina, with their two young
children, Neo and Mary ; the deacon Marcellus, the tribune

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Nemesius, and his daughter Lucilia ; Sempronius, Olympiae
and Exuperia, with their son Theodulus, were the first vic­
tims at Rome, where the persecution commenced. Pope St.
Stephen was particularly sought for by the persecutors. He
was taken, with the clergy who had not left him, and Valerian
admitted him alone to his presence. The two sovereignties of
the faith and of the sword were face to face : the one could
give sentence of death, but the other knew how to die ; the
future was the heritage of the latter. “Is it thou,” said
Valerian, “who seekest to overthrow the republic, and who
persuadeat the people to abandon the worship of the gods?"
“I seek not to overthrow the republic,” replied Stephen; “but
I exhort the people to abandon the worship of demons, which
they adore in the idols, and to know the true God, and Him
whom He has sent, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
Valerian ordered the saintly pope to be taken to the temple of
Mars, to hear his sentence, and he was beheaded August 2,
a. d. 257. His body was deposited in the cemetery of St.
Callistus; but it was removed, August 17, a. d. 762, under St.
Paul I., to the church of SS. Stephen and Sylvester, built by
this pope, which is now called St. Sylvester in capite, because
the head of St. John Baptist is preserved there.

§ V. St. Sixtos IL, Pope (Aug. 24,

a d.

257—Aug. 6, 258). ■

26. Notwithstanding the violence of the persecution, the
clergy and faithful assembled to give a successor to St. Ste­
phen, in the person of Sixtus II. The new pontiff had long
been archdeacon of the Roman Church—an office of considera­
ble dignity, to which belonged the administration of ecclesi­
astical property, and which now passed into the hands of St.
Lawrence. The sovereign pontificate, under existing circum­
stances, was only a shorter road to martyrdom. St. Sixtus
IL proved himself worthy of this sublime vocation. Under
the shadow of the persecution that threatened him, he found
enough of calm and tranquillity of soul to terminate, in concert

ST. SIXTOS Π. (A. D. 257-258).

261

with St. Dionysius, of Alexandria, the question of rebaptism.
St. Dionysius, driven from his see by Emilianus, prefect of
Egypt, had been exiled to Lybia, in the little town of Cefro.
The inhabitants, all pagans, were converted by him, and he
soon formed, in this remote country, a church as fervent as that
from which he had been separated by violence. He wrote
several times to St. Sixtus, to inform him of the efforts he had
made to lead back the dissidents to the decision of Pope St.
Stephen I. He had the consolation to witness the return to
unity of all whom a transient error had separated.
27. St Cyprian, on the first intimation of the approaching
persecution, had written, in a style of great fervor, an Exhorta­
tion to Martyrdom, which he addressed to all the faithful of his
church. He was the first seized, and conducted before Pater­
nus, the proconsul of Africa, who merely sent him in exile
to Curuba, a seaport, twenty leagues distant from Carthage.
But Galerius Maximus, successor of Paternus, came to Car­
thage with more hostile designs. He ordered the bishop to be
led to the pretorium. An immense crowd gathered to hear
the trial of the illustrious doctor. “ Are you Thasius Cypri­
anus ?” demanded the proconsul. “ I am,” replied the saint.
“ Are you the bishop of these sacrilegious Christians ?” “ I
am.” “ The august emperors command you to sacrifice to
the gods.” “I shall do nothing of the kind.” “Think of
what you are doing.” “ In a cause so just, there is no time
for deliberation. Execute your orders.” The sentence was
prepared, and the proconsul read the decree : “ Thasius Cypri­
anus shall die by the sword.” “ Deo gratia#,” responded the
noble bishop. The Christians in the crowd cried out, “ Let us
die with him.” A tumultuous scene then followed the judg­
ment, and the proconsul ordered the removal of St. Cyprian
from the city, to prevent the sedition that he feared. The
bishop of Carthage bandaged his own eyes; a priest and
deacon who accompanied him to the place of execution, bound
his hands ; he gave twenty-five pieces of gold to the swords­
man, and presented his head, which was struck off with a

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GENERAL HISTORY OP THE CHURCH.

single blow. The Christians collected the blood of the martyr,
in cloths of linen and silk, September 14, λ. d. 258. Eight
of his disciples-—most of them clerics of the Church of Car­
thage-Lucius, Montanus, Flavianus, Julien, Victoric, Primu­
lus, Remus, and Donatien, imitated their sainted bishop in his
courage and in his death. The city of Cyrtha, in Numidia,
counted its martyrs by thousands. They were led into a val­
ley bordering on the river, between two ranges of hills, elevated
on both sides, as if to favor the spectacle. They were then
ranged in line, their eyes bandaged, and the executioner passed
on from one to another, striking off their heads. This atro­
cious butchery lasted a great part of the day. In Spain, St.
Fructuosus, bishop of Tarragona, with his two deacons, was
led before the imperial governor, Emilianus. “ Have you
heard the order of the emperors?” demanded the proconsul.
“I know not what they have ordered,” replied the bishop;
“as for myself, I am a Christian.” “ They have ordered that
the gods shall be adored.” “ I adore one only God, who has
made heaven and earth, and sea, and all that they contain."
“Know you not that there are gods?” “No.” “Well, we
will instruct you.” The governor, turning to Augurus, one of
the deacons, counselled him not to be hindered by what Fruc­
tuosus had just said. Augurus declared that he also adored the
one Almighty God. “ And you,” said Emilianus to Eulogius,
the other deacon, “ do you, too, adore your bishop, Fruc­
tuosus?” “I adore, not Fructuosus, but the God whom he
adores.” “Are you, then, a bishop?” The saint replied, “I
am.” “Say, rather, that you have been.” And he condemned
all three to be burned alive. At Antioch, the governor ordered
the priest Sapricius to be put to death. A Christian, Nicephorus, who, for some years, had entertained a bitter enmity
agaiust this priest, followed him in the crowd, and, while on
the way, entreated his pardon before he ascended to heaven.
But Sapricius was inexorable. Arrived at the place of execu­
tion, this unhappy priest, so hard towards his brother, had not
the courage to face death, and cried out that he was ready to

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263

sacrifice to the gods. He was released. “ What have you
done ?” said Nicephorus. “ Martyr of Jesus Christ, lose not
the crown that you have already merited by so many tor­
ments.” Ilis exhortations were in vain; and this immortal
crown, of which Sapricius had made himself doubly unworthy,
was transferred to Nicephorus ; for the tormentors merely
changed their victims, and, by order of the governor, they
beheaded him. At Toulouse, in Gaul, St. Saturninus was
dragged by a furious bull, and died for the faith.
28. At Cæsarea, in Palestine, three friends sealed their
friendship by martyrdom. They presented themselves together
to the governor, who condemned them to the beasts. These
three heroes of Christian friendship were Priscus, Malchus,
and Alexander. An instance, still more remarkable, was that
of a child, named Cyril, which excited the admiration of Cæs­
area, in Cappadocia. The father of this boy was an idolator,
and, in his hatred of the name of Christian, had driven his son
from his house, and abandoned him entirely to public charity.
Cyril was brought, by soldiers, into the presence of the gov­
ernor. “My child,” said the judge, with gentleness, “I can
easily pardon your fault, in consideration of your age. You
need nothing but to be restored to your father’s favor. Do right,
and renounce your superstition.” The holy child replied: “I
am glad to sutler reproaches For ray conduct. I rejoice to be
driven from my father’s house ; God will receive me in one
much more grand and beautiful. I willingly renounce the
goods of this world, that I may be rich in heaven. I am not
afraid of death, because it is followed by a better life.” Then
the judge, assuming a tone calculated to intimidate a child,
threatened him with cruel torments ; had him bound, as if to be
taken to the place of execution ; ordered a pyre to be prepared
and set in flames. The courage of Cyril seemed to be only the
more assured. He allowed himself to be led about, without
shedding a single tear. They approached the fire, as if to cast
him into it, but his constancy was unmoved. The judge had
secretly ordered them to go no further. When it was evident

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that the view of torments had made no impression upon him,
he was brought back to the judge, who said to him, “You
have seen the fire, you have looked at the sword ; now will
you be good, and, by submission to my will, and that of your
father, will you not deserve to regain his affection, so that yon
can return home again?” The young Cyril replied: “Yon
have done me a great wrong to recall me ; I fear neither the
fire nor the sword ; I am anxious to go to a home far more
desirable, and I sigh for riches more solid than the possessions
of my father. Do not delay, but let me die, that I may the
sooner be with God.” The assistants wept to hear him speak
thus; buthe said: “You ought to rejoice, instead of weeping.
Far from desiring to soften me by your tears, you ought to
encourage me to suffer every thing. You know not what glory
awaits me; nor what is my hope; nor the heavenly city to
which I am going. Let me end this earthly life !” With
these sentiments, he received the crown of martyrdom. While
reading this page of Church history, we know not which should
most excite our astonishment, the faith that, at so tender an
age, inspires such noble and heroic sentiments, or the blindness
of the pagans, who could hope to .triumph over such faith by
the sword or the pyre.
29. St. Sixtus II. had preceded, on his way to heaven, this
pleiad of glorious mar yrs whom' the edicts of Valerian multi­
plied in all parts of the empire. History has not preserved
more than a few brief records of their heroic acts. On the
Gth of August, a. d. 258, while the holy pontiff celebrated
the holy mysteries in the cemetery of Callistus, the soldiers
laid hands on his person, and bore him off to execution.
“Where are you going, my father, without your son?” cried
Lawrence, archdeacon of the Roman Church ; “ Whither do
you go, holy pontiff, without your deacon ?” St. Sixtus replied :
“ It is not I, my son, who abandon thee. But a more fearful
combat awaits thee : in three days thou wilt follow me.” As
he spoke these words, a soldier smote off his head. He bad
occupied the Holy See eleven months and six days. He

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265

had sent to Gaul St. Peregrinus, first bishop of Auxerre, and
had transferred the bodies of SS. Peter and Paul to the cata­
combs, in order to place the precious deposit in greater secu­
rity. Among the praises which antiquity bestowed on St.
Sixtus IL, we remark especially that of being a mild and
pacific pontiff. It was to his meekness that was reserved the
consolatory mission of terminating the question concerning
rebaptism, which had filled the pontificate of his predecessor
with bitterness.
30. The prefect of Rome, possessed with the belief that
the Christians had great treasures in concealment, which he
coveted, ordered Lawrence, who had the care of them, to be
brought before him. “ You complain,” he said, “that you are
treated with cruelty. There is now no question of punishments;
I require only what depends on yourself. It is reported that in
your ceremonies the pontiffs offer libations in golden vases ;
that the blood of the victims is received in chalices of silver ;
and that, to illuminate your nocturnal sacrifices, you have wax
lights fitted upon golden chandeliers. It is said, too, that, to
furnish these offerings, the brethren sell their inheritances, and
often reduce their children to poverty. Bring to the light these
hidden treasures. The emperor has need of them to pay the
soldiers, and to re-establish the finances of the state. I under­
stand, that, according to your doctrine, we must render to
every one that which belongs to him. The emperor claims, as
his own, the money which bears the stamp of his image : ren­
der, then, as you say, to Cæsar that which belongs to Cæsar.
If I mistake not, your God does not coin money; he has not
brought silver into the world, he brought only words. Give
us, then, the money, and keep the words.” ·· I confess,
returned Lawrence, “that our Church is rich: the emperor
himself has not such great treasures. You shall see all that
she has most precious, but give me time to put all in order,
and make an inventory and valuation." The prefect gave him
three days of delay. In this interval, Lawrence went about
the city, seeking, in every street, the poor, to whose wants he

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administered. He brought them all—lepers, blind, lame, par­
alytic, sick, many covered with ulcers—and ranged them in
the court of the church. “Come,” said he to the prefect,
“ you will find a great court full of precious vases, and ingots
of gold heaped under the galleries.” Then, opening the door,
he exhibited to the prefect an assemblage of all human in­
firmities. “These," said he, “are the treasures I promised
you. I add to them pearls and precious stones; you see
the virgins and widows—they are the crown of the Church.
Make the best of this wealth for Rome, the emperor, and your­
self.” The only reply of the prefect was to order an immense
gridiron, under which burning coals were placed. The holy
deacon was extended upon it, and had the strength, in the
midst of the tortures of this holocaust, to say to the tyrant,
“ Turn me on the other side, I am sufficiently roasted on this.
It is cooked enough ; you can eat it.” And thus he gave up
his soul to God, a martyr to faith and charity.
31. After the death of the victim comes the punishment
of the persecutor. Rarely has divine justice marked this truth
in a more striking way. The plague recommenced its rava­
ges with a fury hitherto unknown.. Even the elements seemed
to lend themselves to avenge the blood of the just which
had inundated the earth. During many days, Italy was
enveloped in thick darkness. Rome, Libya, and Asia, were
covered with ruins by frightful earthquakes, and the barbari­
ans began to take possession of the Roman world. The Ger­
mans invaded Gaul to the Pyrenees, crossed these mountains,
ravaged a part of Spain, and showed themselves on the shores
of Mauritania to a people astonished to behold this new race of
men. The Alemanni, another German tribe, advanced upon
Italy, to the number of three hundred thousand, even to the
vicinity of Rome. The Goths, Sarmatians, and Quadi, devas­
tated Illyria. Scythia poured forth her populations on Asia
Minor and Greece. These warriors, half naked, embarked on
the Black Sea in a kind of floating cabins, trusting themselves
to a stormy sea and to timid mariners. They surprised Trebi-

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267

zonde, ravaged Pontus, and, chaining the Roman captives to
the oars of their vessels, returned triumphant to their des­
erts. Other Goths or Scythians, encouraged by this example,
compelled their prisoners to construct a fleet, left the borders
of the Tanais, passed the Bosphorus, entered Asia, pillaged
Chalcedon, and retired by the light of the flames which con­
sumed Nicea and Nicomedia. In fine, to complete the picture
of all these disasters, Valerian, who had deluged the world
with Christian blood, became a prisoner of Sapor, king of
Persia, and served as a footstool to his conqueror when he
mounted his horse ; and, as if vengeance is ever destined to
survive crime, after the death of the Roman emperor, his skin,
stuffed, tanned, and painted red, remained suspended, during
several centuries, under the vaulted roof of the great temple
of the Persians. The son of Valerian, Gallienus himself,
regarding his father’s misfortune as an abdication, said no
more, on receiving this frightful intelligence, than, “I knew
my father was mortal.” This series of disasters put an end
to the eighth general persecution.

20S

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

CHAPTER XIII.
§ I. Pontificate of St. Dionysius (July 22, a. d. 259—Dec. 26, 269).
1. Election of St Dionysius.

Charity of the Christians.

Progress of Chris­

tianity.—2. Decay of the Empire under Gallienus.—3. Heresy of Sabel-

|ius.—4. Pau) of Samosata.—5. Death of St. Dionysius of Alexandria, and
of St. Gregory Thauinaturgus.—6. Death of Pope St. Dionysius.
§ Π. Pontificate of St. Felix I. (Dec. 27, a. d. 269—Dec. 22. 274).

7. Election of Pope St. Felix I.—8. Manes.—9. Letter of Manes to Marcel­
lus.—10. Fundamental principles of the error of Manes.—11. Conference

between St Archelaus, Bishop of Carrhcs, and Manes.

Another conference

between the priest Diodorus and Manes.—12. Ninth general persecution

under Aurelian.—13. Martyrdom of Pope St. Felix I.

§ III. Pontificate of St. Eutycuian (Jan. 4, a. d. 275—Dec. 7, 283).

14. Election of St. Eutychian.
Dorotheas, priest of Antioch.

End of the ninth general persecution.—15.
Achillas of Alexandria.—16. St. Felix, of

Kola.—17. Progress of Manicheism in Egypt and Syria.—18. Death of
BL Eutychian.

§ IV. Pontificate of St. Caius (Dec. 10, a. d. 283—April 22, 296).

19. Election of St Caius.—20. Martyrdom of St. Sebastian.—21. Martyrdom
of the Theban legion.—22. Martyrdom of St. Victor of Marseilles.—
23. Cruelties of Riccius Varus.—24. Sect of the Hieracithæ in Egypt25. Conversion of Arnobius.

His seven books against the Gentiles.—

26. Election of Constantius Chlorus and Galerius to the empire.—27. In­
structions of St Thomas, bishop of Alexandria, to the Christian officers of
the court of Dioclesian.—28. Death of Pope St. Caius.

§ I. Pontificate of St. Dionysius (July 22, a.
26, 269).

d.

259—Dec.

1. St. Dionysius was elected pope July 22, a. d. 259, ami
consecrated by Maximus, bishop of Ostia. The ancient usage,
then in vigor, which St. Augustine remarked in his time,
gave to the bishops of Ostia the privilege of consecrating the

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269

Roman pontiffs. The calamities which desolated the empire
offered, from the first, a vast field to the zeal and charity of
St. Dionysius. He sent considerable sums of money to Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, to redeem the captives who had fallen into
the hands of the barbarians. It might be said that the Chris­
tians were wholly occupied in paying, by benefits, the torments
which they had suffered from their persecutors. The other St.
Dionysius, the illustrious bishop of Alexandria, on returning
from exile, found his episcopal city in all the horrors of civil
war. Each edifice of this immense city became a fortress, each
street a field of battle. Many of its population had perished,
and the Bruchion was empty. It was not permitted to pass
from one quarter to another, and it was less difficult to write or
to receive an answer from the East in the West, than from Alex­
andria to Alexandria. To the civil war, succeeded famine and
pestilence. The bishops and the Christians multiplied them­
selves, as it were, to supply every want, to calm all animosi­
ties, to console the unfortunate. It was a glorious spectacle to
see Christianity bear sway amid all these ruins that human
passions had accumulated around themselves, and to increase
by means of all that seemed destined to annihilate it. The
barbarians began to yield to its influence. Among their cap­
tives, they had taken many holy bishops and priests, who healed
the sick, expelled demons, in the name of Jesus Christ, and
taught virtue by their discourses and example. The barbari­
ans admired them, and became persuaded that, by imitating
their virtues, they would render God propitious. Many made
themselves the disciples of their slaves, received baptism, and
founded new churches. Such was the commencement of Chris­
tianity among the Goths, Sarmatians, and Germans.
2. While a life-giving virtue thus flowed from the name of
Jesus Christ over the Roman and barbarian world, paganism
exhausted itself in pleasures or in idle dreams. On each new
disaster, Gallienus laughed, and inquired what would be the
amusements, or the plays, for the next day. Porphyry wrote
treatises against the Christians whom the emperors condemned

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to death ; and Plotinus, his master of philosophy, obtained of
Gallienus tho gift of a ruined city of Campania, to which ho
gave the name of Platonopolis, where he proposed to establish
the famous republic of Plato. These fine projects failed, in
spite of imperial favor and gold. They were all that expiring
paganism found to oppose the invasions of the barbarians and
the conquests of Christianity, which profited by every blow
directed against it. At the death of Gallienus, thirty generals
took the purple at the same time, which served them oftener
as a winding-sheet than a mantle. The moral world already
belonged to the Christians ; the empire was soon to become the
possession of barbarians.
3. Intestine dissensions, meanwhile, were not wanting to
this religion, so often tried by violent persecutions. In a. d.
257, Sabellius had renewed, in Libyan Cyrenaica, the heresy
of Noetus and Praxias. With them, he denied the Trinity,
and the real distinction of the three divine persons. Many
Egyptian bishops adopted these errors, and heresy was propa­
gated to such a degree that one hardly dared to call Jesus
Christ the Son of God. St. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria,
multiplied, in this peril of the faith, his exhortations, his let­
ters, his efforts, to second the triumph of sound doctrine. He
insisted, with great force, in his discourses and treatises, on the
distinction of the three persons in the holy Trinity. “ Jesus
Christ, in His Gospel, says of himself : ‘ I am the vine, my
Father is the Husbandman.’ Now the vine and the husband­
man, the work and the workman, are not the same thing."
Certain of the faithful, well instructed in doctrine, on reading
these words of the bishop of Alexandria, imagined that he
taught that the Son was a creature, and that he did not regard
Him as όμοουαιός, or consubstantial with the Father. This term
consubstantial, which, at a later epoch, was to raise so much
opposition, is remarkable in the mouth of simple Christians,
sixty years before the council of Nice. From this, they took
occasion to accuse St. Dionysius of Alexandria, before the
Pope St. Dionysius. The sovereign pontiff' convoked, at Rome

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271

(a. d. 261), a council, which at once condemned the two oppo­
site but equally impious errors, of those who held the doctrine
of Sabellius, and of those who said that the Word had been
created, made, or formed, and that He was not consubstantial
with the Father. The pope afterwards wrote to St. Dionysius
of Alexandria, desiring him to explain his doctrine, and to
justify himself from the errors imputed to him. The patriarch
of Alexandria replied by protesting his faith in the word consubstantial. In his letter to the pope, and in a special treatise,
he gives the reasons which had induced him to insist more
particularly on the proofs of the distinction of the persons
in the holy Trinity, in his reply to Sabellius. His justifica­
tion was complete, because his attachment to the true doctrines
had never varied. At a later period St. Athanasius used his
name and his works to confound the Arians.
4. A heresiarch, more formidable than Sabellius, dogma­
tized in Syria—Paul, of Samosata, bishop of Antioch (a. d.
263). Of morals more than suspected, his character was arro­
gant; loving splendor and show, he had sought, in the high
dignity he had attained, only the means of gratifying his pas­
sions. He affected the luxury of the Roman magistrates and
proconsuls. His episcopal chair resembled the tribune of a
provincial governor, and he required applauses to enhance the
eloquence of his discourses. The favor of Zenobia, queen of
Palmyra, which he enjoyed, contributed much to nourish his
pride. This princess, in religion a Jewess, desired to be in­
structed in the Christian doctrine, and addressed herself for
this purpose to Paul of Samosata. This unworthy bishop pre­
tended to explain the Incarnation by admitting in Jesus Christ
two persons, or, following the Greek, hypostases, the one. Son
of God, by nature, and existing before time began ; the other,
son of David, born in time, and who had only received the
name of the Son of God after His union with the Word, as a
city receives the name of its sovereign, a house that of its
founder. This error, which was afterwards developed by Ν··<tori us, and to which he gave his name, was vigorously refuted

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

by St. Dionysius of Alexandria, who is everywhere found in
the breach when the true faith needs a defender. “The Word
made Himself flesh,” said the holy patriarch, “ without division
or separation. Two persons do not exist in Him, as if tho
Word dwelt in man, but was not united to him. How dare
you, then, speak of Jesus Christ as a man distinguished for
his genius—He, the true God, adored by all creatures, with
the Father and the Holy Spirit, incarnate of the Holy Virgin
Mary, Mother of God?” The name of the Mother of God,
given to the blessed Virgin by St. Dionysius of Alexandria,
and afterwards confirmed by the general council of Ephesus,
was not new in the Church. St. Methodius, of Patara, had
already employed it. Origen had used it, in his commentary
on the Gospel of St. Luke ; and in his treatise on the epistle
to the Romans, he develops, at large, the reasons why he has
given this name to the blessed Virgin. Two councils assem­
bled in succession, at Antioch (a. d. 264-268), condemned the
errors of Paul of Samosata ; but their author, by the use of
subterfuges, and by protesting his submission, had succeeded
in avoiding a personal anathema. Finally, a third council
(a. d. 269), held in the same city, solemnly deposed him, and
elected another bishop in his place.
5. St. Dionysius, of Alexandria, did not live to close this
affair. He expired a. d. 264, during the first council of Antioch,
which had been convoked, in great part, through his influence.
He filled the patriarchal see of Alexandria seventeen years,
and his name is gloriously identified with all the conflicts of
that stormy period. His works, his courage under persecu­
tion, his virtues, and his genius, have won for him the title of
Great. Nearly at the same time, another disciple of Origen
died, the not less illustrious St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, bishop
of Neocæsarea, whom the enemies of the Church called a sec­
ond Moses, on account of his miracles. “ I give thanks to
God,” said he, before his death, “ that, having found, on com­
ing to this city, only seventeen Christians, I leave to my suc­
cessor only seventeen infidels.” He forbade that a place

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273

should be purchased for his sepulchre, “so that posterity shall
know that Gregory had no possession on this earth, not even a
tomb.” That was a happy age in the Church, where sanctity
was left as a heritage, and where she always found a disciple
to receive the mantle of Elias !
6. The Pope St. Dionysius died December 26, a. d. 269,
after a pontificate of ten years. St. Paul calls him a pope
illustrious for the purity of his faith and virtues. The two
heresies of Sabellius, and Paul of Samosata, had found in him
a formidable adversary. He apportioned the churches of
Rome, and the cemeteries, among the priests, and completed
the boundaries of the dioceses and parishes. He ordained
St. Zamas, first bishop of Bologna, and took great pains to
restore their primitive vigor to the various canons and usages
of discipline, which had been disturbed by the persecution of
Valerian. This excellent Pontiff had a profound knowledge
of the doctrines of the Church, which he proved at the time
of the discussion on the baptism of heretics ; when, being only
a priest, he warmly sustained the decision of St. Stephen I. ;
and at a later period, by uniting with his namesake, St. Dio­
nysius of Alexandria, when the latter sought to moderate the
severity of the sentence, and to counsel pacific measures.
§ II. St. Felix I., Pope (Dec. 27, a. d. 269—Dec. 22, 274).

7. On the day following the decease of Pope St. Dionysios,
St. Felix, the first of the name, was elected to succeed him.
Shortly after, he received a letter, addressed to his prede­
cessor, in which the bishops of the council of Antioch informed
the holy see of the condemnation of Paul of Samosata. The
new pope confirmed it by his authority, and wrote, on this
subject, to Maximus, bishop of Alexandria, who had succeeded
St. Dionysius in the government of that Church: “We be­
lieve,” said he, “ in Jesus Christ, our Lord, born of the Virgin
Mary. We believe that He is the eternal Word, the only Son
of God. No : He was not a man, in whom God only sojourned.
18

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Son of God, He was perfect God, and perfect man, after Hie
Incarnation, and no distinction of two persons could be found
in Him.”
8. From the remote bounds of Persia, another heresiarch,
whose name and aberrations were destined to a longer duration,
prepared new troubles for the Church. He announced himself
as the envoy of God, to recall the world to the truth, and Chris­
tians to purity of faith. His costume was as strange as his
doctrines, and its singularity struck the imagination of the
multitude. He wore sandals, with soles of great thickness, to
add to the height of his stature, and a flowing mantle of many
colors, which gave something aerial to his movements. He had
a large staff of ebony, on which he leaned as he walked. Under
his arm he carried a book, written in Babylonish characters.
One of his legs was covered with red cloth, the other with
green. In this guise, resembling that of a Persian satrap, the
slave Cubricus exhibited himself as Manes, the heresiarch, the
father of Manicheism. He claimed to possess the gift of mira­
cles, and pretended to cure all diseases by the virtue of his
prayers. Cast into prison for impostures, he killed his jailor;
he succeeded in escaping from his prison and from Persia, his
native country, and presented himself at Carrhes, in Mesopo­
tamia, the ancient Haran of the Scriptures, preceded by the
reputation which, with the aid of his dupes or accomplices, he
gained, and by the following strange letter, which he addressed
to Marcellus, disciple of St. Archelaus, bishop of that city :
9. “ Manes, apostle of Jesus Christ, and all the saints and
virgins who are with me : to Marcellus, my well-beloved son :
grace, mercy, and peace,, from God the Father and our Lord
Jesus Christ. May the hand of light preserve thee from the
evils of this present world, from its dangers, and from the
snares of the principle of evil. Amen.
“ 1 have heard, with joy, that thy charity is great, but it
grieves me to see that thy faith is not conformable to the true
doctrine. Sent from God to restore the human race, which has
gone astray, I have considered it needful to write to thee for

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275

the salvation of thy soul, and for the spiritual good of those
who surround thee. Learn, then, my son, to discern the
errors which the common doctors teach. They declare that
good and evil, light and darkness, the flesh and the spirit, arise
from the same principle, and they continually confound one with
the other. IIow dare they to say that God is the author and
the creator of Satan and his works of wickedness? They go
still farther, and are not ashamed to affirm that the Word, the
only Son of the Father, is the son of a woman named Mary, and
formed of flesh and blood, the principles of corruption and of
death. I do not, at this time, note other errors, reserving
them until I shall be near thee. I doubt not the eagerness
with which thou wilt embrace the true doctrine, as soon as
thou shalt know it. For the rest, it is not by constraint, like
the other doctors, it is by persuasion that I shall diffuse the
faith.”
10. The system of duality, which Manes brought to the
West, was not new. The ancient belief of the Persians in the
genius of good, and the genius of evil, had given it birth. In
ascending to the origin of this doctrine, we find it stated in
the system of Pythagoras, and later personified in Ormuzd and
Zerdast, the Persian gods. The work of Manes was, however,
from these pagan elements to compose a theogony, which, to a
certain point, adapted itself to the Christian dogma. He taught
the existence of two eternal gods, born of themselves, but
opposed to each other : one, the principle of good, which he
named Light; the other, the principle of evil, which he named
Darkness. The human soul was a spark from the light; the
body, a portion taken from darkness. Then followed the ema­
nations and generations of principles, which Manes borrowed
from Gnosticism.
11. The presence of Manes at Carrhes had attracted to the
conferences which he opened with the saintly Bishop Archelaus
an immense auditory. Despite the prestige of his renown, and
his wonderful art in speaking, to which he owed his name—for
Manes, in the Persian tongue, signifies the son of eloquence—

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the horesiarch was vanquished by the simple logic and tho
ardent faith of the bishop. This triumph, which all the
assembly acknowledged by applauses, was such, that Turbon,
a favorite disciple of Manes, abandoned his master, to place
himself on the side of Archelaus.
The new Paraclete—for Manes assumed this title also—had,
if possible, still less success in another conference with Diodo­
rus, a holy priest in a neighboring town. The multitude, assem­
bled to hear this controversy, took so warmly the part of the
true doctrine, that they drove away the heresiarch, threaten­
ing to send him before the king of Persia. Manes contrived
to escape, and sought refuge in a fortress on the frontier. He
was soon seized by soldiers of the king of Persia, who flayed
him alive, to avenge the death of the jailor. His body was
abandoned to the dogs and birds of prey; and his skin, stuffed,
was exposed over the gate of the city, a. d. 284, where it was
still to be seen in the time of SS. Cyril and Epiphanius.
We have anticipated events to bring into connection all
that history has preserved of importance in the life and actions
of Manes. His doctrines died not with him ; and we shall fre­
quently have occasion to meet them in conflict with the faith
of the Church.
12. Aurelian, become emperor in a. d. 270, was at first
favorable to the Christians. Soon afterwards, the idea of
attaching to his name the destruction of a religion which he
saw extending with such rapidity in all parts of the empire,
made him a persecutor. At the moment when he was about
to sign his first edict of proscription, a thunderbolt fell near
him, and forced the pen from his hand. This warning was
insufficient to change his sanguinary purpose ; and, some
months after, a. d. 274, he instituted the ninth general per­
secution. As if God had chosen to measure the years of his
reign by his protection of the Christians, scarcely, eight months
had passed, when, ou his way to the East, in prosecuting the
war against the Persians, he was killed by the officers
of his army, between Heraclea and Byzantium. His edicts

8T. EUTYCHIAN (A. D. 275-283).

had not even had time for publication in the distant prov­
inces ; but it was sufficient that his hostile intentions against
the Christians were known, to make many martyrs. In the
provinces of Gaul, where he had signed the edict of gen­
eral persecution, they were most numerous. St. Columba at
Sens, St. Patroclus and St. Savinian at Troyes, St. Reverianus at Autun, St. Prisus at Auxerre, were the most celebra­
ted. Italy had also her victims : St. Agapitus of Palestrina,
St. Restitua of Sora, in Latium, SS. Felix and Irenæus, and
St. Mastiola of Sutri, gave their lives for the faith. In the
East, history has preserved the names of the holy martyrs
Conon and Mamas.
13. The dignity of Pope St. Felix I. had attracted towards
him the attacks of the persecutors. He expired in torments,
December 22, λ. d. 274. The Pontificulis attributes to him the
renewal of the already ancient ordinance to celebrate the holy
sacrifice of the Mass on the tombs of martyrs. He also
instituted the consecration of altars, by placing in them
relics of martyrs. St. Felix governed the Church nearly
five years. He was deposited in the cemetery in the Aurelian
Way, on the spot where a church was afterwards consecrated
by Felix II., two miles distant from Rome.
§ III. St. Eutychian, Pope (Jan. 4, a. d. 275—Dec. 7, 283).

14. Eutychian succeeded St. Felix Jan. 4th, a. d. 275. The
ninth general persecution had just ceased with the life of Aure­
lian, whose last victim had been Pope St. Felix I. It was a
passing storm, the precursor of another, the most terrible of all
that had yet raged around the bark of the Church. Under the
government of Eutychian, the faithful breathed in peace, while
the imperial purple passed, by turns, to the shoulders of Taci­
tus, Probus, Carus, Carinus, and Numerianus, whom a caprice
of the praetorians placed on the throne or on the scaffbli’,
Barbarians, under the various names of Gepidie, Jutes, Van­
dals, Blemmyes, Alani, Goths, Franks, Burgundians, availed

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themselves of this rapid succession of emperors, to invade
different portions of the empire. Sometimes conquered in
gigantic combats, where four hundred thousand were left on
the field of battle, their innumerable hordes sent forth their
incessantly renewed myriads into Syria, Asia Minor, Thrace, and
on the shores of the Bosphorus. In the West, they assailed
Great Britain, Germany, Gaul, Spain, and the frontiers of Italy
Christianity gained in power by all the losses of the empire.
The barbarians found in the Roman world but one principle
possessing vitality and strength—the Christian faith—and
gradually they yielded to its mysterious influence.
15. Saintly bishops succeeded each other in the sees of the
great cities. At Antioch, St. Cyril effaced the last traces of
the heresy of Paul of Samosata, and reconciled with the Church
St. Lucian, the priest, who, for a brief period misled by error,
was, in the end, one of the martyrs of Dioclesian’s persecution
(a. d. 279). At the same time, a patriarch of Christian virtues
and learning, Dorotheas, a priest of Antioch, left, at the age of
one hundred and five years, the example of a long life passed in
the study and practice of a religion which was his happiness and
glory. Profoundly versed in human learning, he had applied
his knowledge to the interpretation of the Scriptures, which
he read in the original text. He died full of years and merits,
leaving the reputation of one of the most learned doctors of his
time. Alexandria, under the government of her bishop, Theo·
nas, sustained her ancient renown. Achillas occupied the chair
of Clement and Origen. He was a profound philosopher and a
fervent Christian. Another priest, Pierius, also gave lessons
there. Rich in the treasures of science which he had amassed,
he lived in poverty. A powerful dialectician, he applied to the­
ology the method which he acquired from the ancient philoso­
phy, and merited, at the same time, by his eloquence, the
surname of the new Origen. In Pontus, the excellent Bishop
Meletius was called the Attic honey, from the sweetness and
florid eloquence of his speech.
16. At this time, a holy confessor edified the city of Nola,

8T. ΕΟΤν.’,ΠΤΑ» (A. D. 275-383).

279

in Campania, by his virtues,and the tranquil death that crowned
them. Felix, a priest, had been imprisoned in the persecution
of Decius; while his bishop, St. Maximus, had, through hi
*
precautions, reached an asylum in the desert. Miraculously
delivered, Felix returned to his astonished fellow-citizens. The
persecution of Valerian obliged him to seek concealment in a
dry cistern, where a poor woman every day brought him a lit­
tle bread. Solitude developed the faculty of meditation in
the soul of Felix to a high degree. On returning to his coun­
try, after the death of Valerian, he refused the episcopate,
which the faithful offered him, that he might occupy himself
entirely in the contemplation of divine things. His speech
was full of gravity and solemn instruction. The ministry of
preaching alone brought him among men. The remainder of
his time he lived in an isolated garden, which he cultivated
with his own hands, dividing its products with the poor.
Poor himself, he had only a single garment, which he often
exchanged with some mendicant; and when he was urged
to accept the presents of the rich, he replied that he wished
only to abound in the grace of Jesus Christ, and in eternal
good. He thus finished his pilgrimage in a happy old age, and
was buried in his beloved solitude, to which he would be faith­
ful, even after his death.
17. Yet, side by side with these illustrious confessors, error
still found ardent sectaries. Hernias in Egypt. Addas or
Adimantus in Palestine and Syria, Thomas in Persia, and even
in India, all disciples of Manes, propagated the doctrines of
their master. The obstacles they encountered in this work of
darkness only stimulated them to stronger efforts ; and these
tares, which the enemy by their hands cast into the field of the
husbandman, fructified under the cover of night. Their seem
ing austerities, and the hypocrisy with which they dissimulated
the impiety of their belief, attracted proselytes. They slept
on mats of rushes or reeds, laid on the ground ; had particular
days for fasting and abstinence ; and affected, before simple
people, to honor the Blessed Virgin and the relics of saints.

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

while they considered such devotion ns profane and super­
stitious. By these means, they had such success in propagating
their heresy, that, in the time of St. Augustine, it was spread
throughout the world ; and this great genius, before his con­
version, was long held in its chains.
18. Pope St. Eutychian died December 7, a. d. 283, hav­
ing governed the Church nearly nine years. With the exception
of some cruelties perpetrated in their own name, by certain
governors, in their provinces, the faithful were in peace during
his entire pontificate. The Saints Trophimus, Sabbas, and
Dorymedon, at Antioch in Pisidia, are the only martyrs of this
epoch whose names have been preserved. The hour of the
great persecution was not yet come. St. Eutychian prescribed,
under certain circumstances, the benediction of branches of
trees and fruits. lie instituted, according to Bury, the offer­
tory of the Mass; Full of solicitude for the preservation of
the relics of the martyrs, he commanded that their bodies
should always be buried in a colobio or dalmatic of a red color ;
formerly, they were wrapped in white linen tinged with their
blood. St. Eutychian was deposited in the cemetery of Cal­
listus, and afterwards transported to the city of Luni, his
native place. After the ruin of this city by the barbarians,
he was deposited at Savona, to which the episcopal see of
Luni was transferred.

§ IV. St. Caius, Pope (Dec. 16, a. d. 283—April 22, a. d. 296).
19. St. Caius was elected to succeed St. Eutychian in the
chair of St. Peter (Dec. 16, a. d. 283). A circumstance of some
note has been preserved respecting Caius. His family, origi­
nally of Dalmatia, was united by close ties of relationship with
that of the future Emperor Dioclesian, who, at first, a slave of
the Roman senator Anullinus, amused himself by killing all
the wild boars in the forest of his master, because a Druidess
had promised him the purple de sanguine Apri. He had not yet
met the prefect of the prætorium, Aper, whom he pierced with

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281

his sword, crying, “ I have killed the fated boar.” Providence
destined to two members of the same family two sovereignties
widely different: one purchased, by murder, a crown which
he was to stain with the blood of thousands of Christians; the
other, by his virtues, obtained a spiritual royalty which so
many of his predecessors had purchased with their blood.
These two events succeeded each other, at the interval of a year,
and the name of Dioclesian was inscribed in the calendars of the
empire, a. d. 284. Perhaps to this relationship of the pope with
the emperor are due the fourteen years of peace that elapsed
between the coronation of Dioclesian and the tenth general
persecution which he afterwards ordered. Not that this interval
was passed in tranquillity by the faithful—for the last edicts
of Aurelian had never been revoked, and Christians were
always regarded as a sect inimical to the empire, whom the
governors gloried in opposing. Besides, Dioclesian had asso­
ciated with him the son of a poor laborer of Pannonia, who.
under the name of Maximian-Hercules, saw himself, in one
day, created Cæsar, sovereign pontiff, and god. Dioclesian
appropriated the East to himself, and left the West to the new
Cæsar. This latter professed the most violent hatred for the
Christians, and lost no occasion to persecute them. There
were martyrs enough to satisfy even his cruelty.
20. The Church of Home then counted among the most
fervent of the faithful a distinguished officer of the imperial
army. Sebastian, captain of a company of prætorian guards,
was a native of Narbonne, in Gaul. He visited Christians who
were imprisoned for the faith, assisted them with his credit
and the influence of his rank, encouraged the weak, and
exhorted the pagans, whom he converted in great numbers to
the religion of Jesus Christ, by his example and conversa­
tion. Even the prefect of Rome, Chromatins, with all his
family, his clients, and his slaves, to the number of fourteen
hundred persons, received , baptism through his zeal. The
house of Chromatins became like a temple, where Pope St. Caius
celebrated the divine mysteries, and distributed to these neo­

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

phytes the body of Jesus Christ and the bread of the evangelic
word. Meanwhile, the progress of Christianity gave umbrage
to Maximian-Hercules. To avoid an open persecution, Chroma­
tins, whose quality of senator detained him at Rome, solicited
and obtained from the emperor, under the pretext of restoring
his feeble health, permission to retire to his estates in Campa­
nia. The day of separation came, and Caius went yet once
more to offer the holy sacrifice in this house of benediction.
Addressing them at the close, he said : “ Our Lord Jesus
Christ, knowing our human frailty, has formed two classes
among those who believe in Him—confessors and martyrs—in
order that they who do not think themselves strong enough to
endure the weight of persecution may withdraw, leaving the
chief glory to the soldiers of Christ, whom they can, at least,
assist in their combats. Let those, then, who desire it, follow
Chromatius and his son Tiburtius in their retreat ; and let those
who have the courage, stay with me in the city. Distance cannot
separate hearts united by the grace of Jesus Christ; and if,
with our mortal eyes, we see you no more, you will ever be
present with us in the interior of our souls.” He was like
Gideon, selecting only the bravest soldiers for the combat.
Tiburtius, hearing his counsels, cried out, “ I conjure you, 0
father, and Bishop of bishops, command me not to fly the per­
secution. All my desire is to give my life for my God. Would
that I had a thousand to offer Him !” St. Caius yielded,
though with tears, to the supplications of this noble youth, and
the assembly separated : some followed Chromatius to Campa­
nia; others remained with the pope. St. Sebastian was one
of the latter. Castulus, another officer, steward of the baths,
received them in the imperial palace itself, where Caius was
in greater safety than elsewhere. Maximian had now begun
to persecute the Christians. St. Zoe, a devout lady, going
to pray at the tomb of SS. Peter and Paul, ou the day of their
festival, was dragged before a magistrate, who, unable to
compel her to sacrifice to the gods, ordered her to be sus­
pended, by the hair, to a tree, and a fire of dung to be lighted

ST. CAIUS (A. D. 3Ha-29«).

283

at her feet, which suffocated her. They then fastened a lartre
stone to her neck, and threw her into the Tiber, “ fearing," the
pagans said, “ that the Christians might make her a goddess."
Nicostratus, first secretary of the prefecture of Rome, husband
of St. Zoe, Tranquillinus, Claudius, Castor, Victorinas, and
Symphorian, were also arrested as Christians; the Roman pre­
fect ordered all to be cast into the sea. Tiburtius, the generous
son of Chromatius, was taken, through the perfidy of a false
brother bribed by the imperial police to act as a spy in the
Christian assemblies. “ What !" said Tiburtius to the magis­
trates, “ because I refuse to adore a harlot, in the person
of Venus, the incestuous Jupiter, a cheat like Mercury, and
Saturn the murderer of his children, I dishonor my race, I
am infamous ?” This Christian hero was beheaded. Castulus,
the harborer of the Christians, a victim of the same treason as
Tiburtius, suffered torture, and was finally cast, living, into a
pit, which was then filled with sand. St. Sebastian,
in his uniform as captain of the prætorian guards, had never
ceased to visit the martyrs, to encourage them in their tor­
tures, and to gather their remains after death. MaximianHercules, who had commanded all these punishments, had
gone into Gaul to repress a formidable insurrection of the
Bagaudes—Belgian peasants—who commenced a revolt some­
what similar to those which broke out in France during the
middle ages. It is asserted, but without proof, that their
chiefs, Elianus and Amandus, were Christians. The exactions
of the Roman governors had aroused these rustic legions
against their pitiless masters. In the absence of Maximian·
Hercules, St. Sebastian was denounced to Dioclesian as encour­
aging the impiety of the Christians. The captain of the
guards appeared before the emperor, who reproached him with
ingratitude in thus repaying his obligations to him, and of
using against his government the authority with which he
had himself invested him. Sebastian replied, that “he had
not ceased to be faithful to his duties, and to offer prayers for
the health of the prince and the empire; but having long

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

since discovered the folly of adoring gods of stone, he had
addressed his prayers to the true God, who is jn heaven, and
to His Son Jesus Chridt.” Dioclesian was irritated by this
language, and calling for a company of Mauritanian archers,
who served among his guards, Sebastian was stripped of his
clothing, the archers pierced him with their arrows, and left
him for dead on the spot. Irene, widow of Castulus, came
at night to take away the martyred body. As he still breathed,
she conveyed him to her abode within the imperial palace, and,
some days afterwards, Dioclesian was astonished to find in the
midst of his courtiers, ranged along his passage on the main
staircase of the palace, Sebastian, the captain of his guards.
The emperor was furious, and ordered him to be taken instantly
to the hippodrome of the palace, where the holy martyr was
beaten to death with chibs : his body was cast into a sewer,
from which it was drawn by the Christians (a. d. 288).
21. Christianity had invaded every place, even the impe­
rial army. Maximian-Hercules resolved at all hazards to pre­
vent its propagation among his soldiers, especially at the
moment when he marched against the Bagaudes, who, it was
said, with or without truth, had Christian leaders. lie had
paused, while crossing the Alps, at the village of Octodurus,
now Martinach, in Valais, to give some repose to his troops,
At this place he was joined by the Theban legion, which
Dioclesian had ordered from the East, and which he now sent to
increase Maximian’s forces. This legion, composed entirely of
Christians, had its cantonments at Agauna, at the foot of what
is now the Great St. Bernard. Maximian-Hercules intended to
employ them, like the others, in searching for the Christians
of the country, whom he put to death. The Theban legion
formally refused to obey his orders. Maximian replied to this
first act of disobedience by ordering them to be decimated.
AU the soldiers who composed it were ranged at random in
several lines. The executioners passed, counting the soldiers,
and every tenth man was beheaded. Those who remained,
after this butchery, refused again to obey the order of Maxi­

8T. CA1U8 (Λ. D. 283-296).

285

mian. A second decimation had no other result. The angry
Cæsar preferred to endanger the success of his arms, rather
than to yield to what he chose to term the obstinacy of these
mutineers. Without awaiting the answer to an address which
the Theban legion had sent to Dioclesian, he brought them
all together into a valley, which he surrounded with his troops,
and ordered to be massacred before his eyes this band of
heroes, who suffered themselves to be murdered for the name
of Christ, whose soldiers they had been before they had
enlisted in the service of the empire.
22. The march of Maximian-Hercules across Gaul was tan­
tamount to a general execution of the Christians. On his way
through Marseilles, Victor, a Christian officer, having refused,
before the Cæsar himself, to sacrifice to the gods, was dragged
through all the streets of the city, his feet and hands bound,
exposed to the outrages of a vile population. Afterward tortured
on the rack, then cast into a subterranean dungeon, Victor con­
verted the soldiers who guarded him, and at night procured them
baptism. The day following, these new Christians were decapi­
tated in his presence, by order of Maximian. Victor was sus­
pended upon a beam and scourged, until, weary of their toil, the
executioners threw him, dying, into his dungeon. MaximianHercules essayed to overcome the patience of the martyr by the
duration and diversity of his torments. Three days afterwards,
he ordered him into his presence, and, directing him towards a
tripod on a portable altar, commanded him to lay incense upon
it, in honor of Jupiter. Victor approached, as if to obey, and
with his foot overturned both the altar and tripod. The
enraged emperor ordered his foot to be cut oil’ on the spot. He
was then placed under the stone of a hand-mill, which his tor­
mentors turned slowly, to break his bones by degrees. During
this terrible operation, the machine broke. To finish him,
Maximian odered his head to be removed from his bruised and
mutilated body, which was thrown into the sea; but the waves
brought it back to the shore, and these precious remains were
gathered by Christians, and buried in a grotto cut in the rock.

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

23. Arles had also her celebrated martyr in the person
of St. Genesius, recorder of the proconsular tribunal, who,
not able to endure the work of transcribing the unjust sen­
tences dictated against the Christians, threw at his feet the
wax tablets on which he wrote, fled, and crossed the Rhine by
swimming. Arrested on the opposite bank, he declared him­
self a Christian, and atoned, by the loss of his head, for this
act of courageous indignation. Every step of Maximian was
marked by new victims. St. Foi, a virgin, near Agde; St.
Caprais, bishop of Agen j Tiberius, Modestes, and Florentius, at
Vienne; Ferriol, a military tribune, and one of his soldiers
named Julian, at Brioude ; Vincent, Orontius, and Victor, at
Embrun ; at Nantes SS. Donatian and Rogatian, two brothers,
illustrious by their birth, were beheaded after suffering every
species of torture. Belgium was the chosen theatre for the
cruelties of Maximian-Hercules, seconded in his sanguinary
projects by Riccius Varus, governor of Belgic Gaul, which com­
prehended a part of what is now northern France. The most
distinguished martyrs were—at Amiens, the bishop St. Firmin,
Victorius, Lucian, and Gentian, their host ; at Augusta, capital
of Vermandois, since destroyed, St. Quentin; at Soissons,
SS. Crispin and Crispinian ; at Tournay, St. Piat, a priest; at
Fismes, near Rheims, the virgin St. Mæcra ; at Louvre, near
Lutetia, St. Just or Justin ; besides a great number at Trêves,
the ordinary residence of Riccius Varus. The East, though
more tranquil, had also proconsuls who distinguished them­
selves by their cruelties to the Christians. Lysias, governor
of Asia Minor, exhibited there the inhumanity of Riccius
Varus in the West, and these two names have a cruel celebrity
in the martyrologies of this epoch. Claudius, Asterius, and
Neo, Domnina and Theonilla, and the two illustrious brothers
SS. Cosrnas and Damian, physicians of the town of Egea, in
Lycia, suffered martyrdom by his orders.
24. About a. d. 290, a new sect arose in Egypt. Hierax, of
of Leontopolis, its author, was a man of austere life, of rigid
morals, eating nothing which had had life, and abstaining from

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287

wine. He seems to have belonged to that class of minds, of
overstrained views, who would impose on all Christians a life
holy in itself, but to which all are not called. The rigorism of
his principles carried him so far as to see in the body only an
emanation of the genius of evil ; and, on this point, he agrees
with the Manichees, among whom Baronins ranks him. From
this foundation he proceeds to deny the resurrection of the
flesh, insisting that the most precise texts of Scripture on this
subject refer only to the spiritual resurrection of the soul. He
condemned marriage, and admitted to his communion only vir­
gins, excluding all others from the kingdom of heaven. He re­
jected, also, the doctrine of the Church concerning baptized in­
fants who die before the age of reason, and held that they could
not enter heaven, nor be crowned, because they had never com­
bated. Other errors are found in his writings on the Holy Trin­
ity, the mystery of which, according to the usual process of
heretics, he proposed to elucidate by images and ideas entirely
human. For example : he compared the three divine persons to
three wicks lighted in the same lamp, by the same oil ; which
seems to indicate a distinct substance in the three persons.
The regularity of his morals, and the erudition displayed in
his works, led many Christians into his false doctrines ; and
when he died, pen in hand, at the age of more than ninety
years, the sect of the Hieracites was one of the most consider­
able in Egypt. We do not perceive that the Church con­
demned them until the council of Nice, which answered them
victoriously, and, in particular, the errors on the Trinity, by the
magnificent and most just expression of “Light of light,"
applied to the generation of the Son of God.
25. While Maximian-Hercules multiplied martyrs, to ex­
tinguish in their blood the religion of Jesus Christ, a famous
rhetorician of Sicca, in proconsular Africa, studied in silence
this so much persecuted faith. The truth shone into his soul,
hitherto sincerely attached to the pagan worship. He avows
frankly that he was honestly a practical idolater. “When 1
saw,” said he, “ the richly colored bands in the hollow of a tree,

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

or the stones bedewed with oil, I adored them; I offered
petitions, as if they had possessed some secret virtue, and
addressed my vows to an insensible trunk.” At length, grace
was victorious, and Arnobius asked for baptism. As a pledge
of bis conversion, he did not hesitate to burn publicly that
which he had adored. He wrote, in a vigorous and energetic
style, seven books against idolatry, in which he answers all
the objections of the pagans against the Church. The scandal
of the Cross especially astonished the Gentiles : “Your God,”
said they to the Christians, “ died on a gibbet.”—“ Well, what
of that?” replies Arnobius. “Pythagoras was burned alive;
Socrates was condemned to drink hemlock ; Regulus perished
by a most cruel death : are they dishonored ? It is not the
sentence, it is the crime which constitutes the infamy. You
have made a god of Bacchus, because he taught men the use
of wine; a goddess of Ceres, because she taught them to make
bread. What honors, then, are not due to Jesus Christ, even
though He had been only a man, to have brought us the knowl­
edge most necessary to the human race, and to have taught
us to know God, the world, and ourselves ! But Christ is
not a man; Christ is God; God above all things; God by
the nature of His being. Yet, once again, in spite of your
sneers, in spite of your abuse, once more, though your ears
split in hearing it, Christ is God—God appearing to us
in the form of a man ! You have the most striking proofs
of it before you : the most incontestable proofs. Do you
not see in how short a time His religion has spread over
the whole earth ? Is there a nation so barbarous that it has
not softened and civilized? Observe this crowd of men of
genius, of orators, grammarians, jurists, philosophers, who
solicit its instructions, and for it abjure the belief of all
their lives. The more you multiply threats and tortures
against this religion, the more this religion is augmented.
You employ tormentors and racks to destroy the faith; and
these racks and these tormentors are a new attraction to
believe in Christ, and to prefer His doctrines to all earthly

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289

goods. Is not the finger of God in this ? You scoff at our cre­
dulity—our inclination to accept the faith. But all in this
world begins by faith. You yourselves, in the intellectual
order, have faith in some certain philosopher. We have faith
in Christ, because He has proved by miracles the truth of His
doctrines. Your philosophers, your chosen ones, what mira­
cles have they wrought? Where is he among them whose
word has ever been capable of calming the tempest, of restor­
ing sight to the blind, of raising the dead?” The whole work
of Arnobius is full of passages similar to these. He wrote in
the first fervor of his conversion, when he was only a catechu­
men, and little instructed in the truths of faith. This circum­
stance explains why we find in his works a certain inexactness,
and even some errors, which ancient Christianity did not reprove,
because of the peculiar situation of the author. The greatest
glory of Arnobius, after this, is to have had for his disciple
Lactantius, who has been surnamed the Christian Cicero.
26. Dioclesian did not consider himself,strong enough to
support, with the aid of Maximian-Hercules only, the weight
of an empire which the barbarians disputed with him on every
side. He therefore resolved to create two new Cæsars, and to
give them the guardianship of the Rhine and the Danube.
The new masters of the world, whom the will of a crowned
slave called to the throne, were Constantius Chlorus and Gale­
rius. The first repudiated the Princess Helena, of whom he had
a son who was afterwards Constantine the Great, to espouse
Theodora, daughter-in-law of Maximian-Hercules. Already,
among the names of these persecutors, we see the dawning
destinies to which were attached the victory of the Church.
Galerius espoused Valeria, daughter of Dioclesian. He was a
Cæsar more barbarian than Roman. His mother, a slave from
beyond the Danube, had given him the full type of the savage
nations of Dacia. His height was colossal : his look, voice,
gestures—all were terrible. The four new sovereigns went to
fix thcmselvesj Dioclesian at Nicomedia, Maximian at Rome,
Constantius Chlorus in Great Britain, and Galerius at Trêves.
19

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GENERAI HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

27. To console himself in the division of the empire, Dioclesian modelled his court after the magnificence of Olympian
royalty. He gave himself the surname of Jupiter, instead
of the laurel crown, he assumed the diadem, and to the
purple mantle he added a robe of silk and cloth of gold.
Whoever was introduced into the presence of the emperor,
prostrated himself and adored him. He obliged them to
address him as Your Eternity, a title which his successors,
who passed like shadows, took great care to preserve. Mean­
while, he allowed Christians very freely to approach his pres­
ence. Many filled important functions around him. Such were
Dorotheas, Gorgonins, St. Peter, and Lucian, invested with
the dignity of major-domo, or grand chamberlain of the palace.
We still have the instructions that St. Theonas, bishop of Alex­
andria, addressed to the latter, which are not the least inter­
esting pages of the ecclesiastical history of that epoch. It is
curious to note how the Church, through her bishops, com­
manded her children to practise obedience, respect, devotion,
affection, towards princes, in whose name religion was so often
persecuted. St. Theonas exhorts the grand chamberlain and
all the Christian officers to make themselves agreeable to their
master, by the regularity, the promptitude of their service, and,
at the same time, by the gayety and amiability of their char­
acter—“ in order,” he said, “ that the sovereign, fatigued with
the affairs of state, may find his joy and repose in the gentle­
ness, the patience, the open countenance, and exact obedience
of his servants. His orders, when they are not in opposition
to God, should be regarded as the orders of God himself.” He
instructs them that no influence of money or of interest should
ever induce them to give bad advice to the prince, to sell their
credit, or to strengthen injustice. He recommends them to
avoid all rivalries—hatred, disputes, intrigues ; never to allow
their names to be mixed up with parties who contend for influ­
ence at court, and lose in questions of personal vanity the
spirit and time which ought to be employed only for the public
good. He exhorts them to be affable, ready to serve others—

ST. CAIL’S <A. D.

291

to aid men of merit ; in fine, to use their power for the good
of all. Christianity had made such progress at the court of
Dioclesian, that the Empress Prisca and her daughter Valeria
received baptism ; and Constantine, brought up in the interior
of the palace, learned to love the Christian piety which he
afterwards professed.
28. Pope St. Caius expired April 22d, a. d. 296, having
governed the Church twelve years. He confirmed, by decrees,
the usage which required clerics to pass, in the seven
inferior orders of the Church, a suitable time, before they
could be eligible to the episcopal office. Worthy of execu­
ting the apostolic ministry in so stormy an epoch and in the
midst of the dangers of a persecution incessantly renewed,
St. Caius merited the eulogiums which antiquity has pro­
nounced upon him. He was, say the historians, a pontiff of
rare prudence and of courageous virtue. The body of the
blessed pope was deposited in the cemetery of St. Callistus.

general history of the church.

292

CHAPTER XTV.
§ I. St. Marcellinua, Pope (June 30, a. d. 296—October 24, 304).

1. Election of Pope Marccllinus.—2. Galerius begins the persecution.—3. Schism

of the Mcletians.

Council of Elvira.—4. Tenth general persecution under

Dioclesian (a. d. 303).—5. General sketch of the tenth general persecution.

—6. Martyrs in the house of the emperor.

The sophists.

Hierocles.—

7. Martyrs in the East.—8. Martyrs in the West.—9. Martyrdom of Pope

St. Marccllinus, October 24, a. d. 304.
§ IL Vacancy of the See of Rome (October 24, a. d. 304—May 19, 308).

10.

Continuation and end of the persecution of Dioclesian in the WestIl.

Martyrdom of St. Gcnesins.—12. Abdication of Dioclesian.—13. Maxi­

min Daia.—14. Continuation of the persecution in the East.—15. Conven­
ticle of traditor bishops at Cirtha.

Canons of St. Peter, patriarch of Alex­

andria.
§ III. St. Marcellus, Pope (May 19, a. d. 308—Jan. 16, 310).
16. Election of Pope St. Marcellus.—17. Constantine proclaimed emperor by

the legions of Great Britain.—18. St. Methodius, bishop of Tyre.—19. St.

Anthony.—20. Death of St. Marcellus, pope.
§ IV. St. Eusebius, Pope (April 2, a. d. 310—Sept. 20, 310).

21. Election, exile, and death of Pope St. Eusebius.
§ V. Vacancy of the See of Rome (Sept 25, a. d. 310—July 2. 311).

22. Last crimes and punishment of Maximian-Hcrculcs.—23. Edict of Galerius
favorable to Christians.

Death of Galerius.—24. Deliverance of the Chris­

tian prisoners in the East.

§ VI. St. Melchiades, Pope (July 2, a. d. 311—Jan. 10, 314).

25. Election of Pope St. Melchiades.—26. Schism of the Donatists at Carthage.
—27. Maximin Daia attempts, in spite of the edicts of Galerins, to renew

the persecution.—28. War between Maxentius and Constantine.

Labarum.

Victory of Constantine.—29. Edict of Constantine proclaiming the Christian

ST. MARCELLINUS (À. D. 3M-304).

293

religion the religion of the empire.—30. Council held at Rome, at the Lute,
ran palace, against the Donatists.—31. Death of St. Melchiades.—32. End
of the first epoch of ecclesiastical history.

§ I. St. Marcellinus, Pope (June 30, a. d. 296—Oct. 24, 304).

1. Marcellinus, a Roman priest, was elected successor to
St. Caius. Theodoret pronounces an appropriate eulogium
on this pope, by declaring that he proved himself as strong as
the persecution that came in his time. God reserved for him.
indeed, the glory of being one of the first victims of this last
terrific storm, which, according to all human probability,
should have annihilated the Church at the commencement
of the fourth century. The Donatists, nevertheless, dared to
attack his illustrious memory. In their conventicle at Carthage,
a. d. 411, they produced the pretended acts of a false council of
Sinuessa, which accused St. Marcellinus of having delivered to
the persecutors consecrated vessels and the books of the Scrip­
tures; but Catholic antiquity has sufficiently avenged this
*
calumny. The pontiff, who offered his head to the execu­
tioner, and who died for his faith, is so far above such attacks
that there is no need of refuting them.
♦ Bossuet, in his Defence of the Declaration of the Gallican
(lib. ix. cap. 31), expresses himself on tho subject of St Marcellinus and the council of Sinuessa as follow·.
"What shall I say of Marcellinus, who, as many once believed, burnt incense to the idols,
or what of that council of Sinuessa, which, it was said, was convoked against him ? Whether
false or true, is of no importance to us. Some casuists, for three hundred years, believed
it true, and held it so for the reason that on certain occasions a synod might be convened,
not,' indeed, to judge tho supreme pontiff, but to persuade or remonstrate, in order that he
should be induced, from modesty, at least to abdicate." But in a note wo read farther:
“ No controversy now exists concerning the council of Sinuessa among the learned, for that
it was supposititious, the barbarous style and absurd opinions clearly prove; and that the
incense-burning of Marcellinus, of which none of tlie ancient writers speak, must be fabu­
lous. And it is tho more so, because Theodoret (lib. II., cap. 3) says that Marcellinus
flourished in a time of persecution, which ho would not say of a pontiff who had offered
incense to idols. And although tho Donatists brought this charge of idolatry against Mar­
cellinus, it was false, and unsnstained by a single witness, as they were accustomed to
accuse many others—among them the most saintly pontiffa Melchiades, Marcellus. and
Sylvester. But tho synod of three hundred bishops was never mentioned by them, nor
by St. Augustine in his books against Petilianum. Neither was it very practicable, io a
time of persecution, to assemble three hundred bishops; for, in a time of general peace.
Constantine was barely able to bring together an equal number at the round! of Niro.
These remarks are sufllcient for a bungling fable."

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

2. Galerius, the crowned Dacian, had inherited from hia
idolatrous mother a violent hatred of Christianity. His first
experience in arms was unsuccessful ; sent by Dioclesian
against Narses, king of Persia, λ. d. 294, he was thrice beaten.
On his return, clothed as he was with the purple, he was
suffered to walk unnoticed the length of a mile, by his
stern master’s chariot.
Galerius felt the lesson. The
following year, after a second expedition, he presented to
Dioclesian, in chains, the most illustrious Persian warriors;
all the family of Narses, as captives ; all the equipages and all
the riches of the army which he had completely vanquished.
From this day he became formidable to Dioclesian himself,
and claimed the right to avenge his past humiliations upon
the Christians. He began, therefore, on his own account, and
without giving himself the trouble to ascertain the sentiments
of the three other princes, to put in action the most rigorous
measures against the faithful (a. d. 298). His vengeance fell
first upon the officers of his household, and the soldiers and
most notable Christians of his army. He deprived them of
their employments, drove them from his presence with insults,
and sentenced to the last degrees of punishment those whom
he judged to be the most obstinate. History has preserved the
names of some of the soldiers who suffered under these circum­
stances: Maximilian, who was beheaded at Tebesta, in Numidia;
Marcellus, a centurion of Trajan’s legion, at Tangier, in Mauri­
tania, who, on the day of the emperor’s festival, refusing to offer
sacrifice for the life of His Eternity, threw away the symbol of
his office, the vine-branch, with which the centurions chastised
the soldiers, removed his baldrick aud military girdle, and
avowed himself a Christian. He was beheaded. While Agric­
ola, prefect of the pretorium, dictated the sentence, Cassian,
the recorder, declared that he never would consent to write so
unjust an act, and trod under foot both the stylet and tablets.
Martyrdom was the price of his generous indignation. It
is reported that at the same epoch forty Christian soldiers
were martyred for the faith, in the province of Lauriac, a

ST. MARCELLIJÎÜ8 (A. D. 296-30·).

city now ruined, which was situated near the mouth of the
Ems.
3. These cruelties of Galerius were in some some sort per­
sonal, although his colleagues did nothing to hinder them.
The greater part of the Church continued in peace, and en­
joyed even a kind of favor in the vicinity of Dioclesian, who
had just issued an edict against the Manichees, condemning
them to the punishment of fire. The schism of Meletius alone
troubled the harmony of the Church, whose dogma was being
more explicity defined and better comprised under the influ­
ence of frequent minor councils. Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis, in the Thebais, had been convicted of many crimes, and,
among others, of having sacrificed to idols. He was deposed
in a council held at Alexandria by St. Peter, successor of St.
Theonas. Far from submitting to this condemnation, and to
the canonical penance, he separated from the communion of
the bishop of Alexandria and his other colleagues, thus com­
mencing the schism of the Meletians, which afterwards in­
creased, and was not ended until a. d. 325, at the Council of
Nice. A council held at Elvira, in Spain (a. d. 301), is cele­
brated for its disciplinary canons, the most ancient that have
been perfectly preserved. Valerius, bishop of Saragossa, and
Osius of Cordova, took part in it. Severity prevails in these
eighty-one canons, where, in twelve cases, the bishops refuse,
even to the end of life, not penance, it is true, but communion,
to the culpable. They decree this punishment against the
Christian who has voluntarily apostatized ; to him who, after
baptism, accepts the charge of flamen, or priest of the idols,
and oilers sacrifices ; to the informer, who, by his perfidy, has
caused the death of any one ; to homicides ; to women who
have left their husbands to marry again ; to virgins consecrated
to God, who have betrayed their vows to live in disorder, etc.
There is a remarkable decree which forbids having pictures in
the churches, “ fearing,” say the Fathers, “ lest the object
of our worship and adoration be exposed on the walls.
They feared, doubtless, lest these paintings, in times of perse-

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Hition, should be profaned by tho infidels, or serve as a pretext
for their outrages and calumnies. Christian antiquity has
always given this interpretation to this canon, which has noth­
ing in common with the iconoclastic fury.
4. Towards the close of tho year 302, frequent and mys­
terious interviews were remarked between Dioclesian and the
Cesar Galerius, at the palace of Nicomedia. It was a ques­
tion with them to resume the design of Nero, and to take such
skilful measures, that they might, at length, by a terrible but
decisive blow, exterminate Christianity forever. The old em­
peror—history renders him this justice—long resisted the
proposal. “ It was dangerous,” he said, “ again to trouble the
peace of the world, and to shed torrents of blood. Besides,
punishments led to nothing ; for the Christians asked for noth­
ing better than to die.” In fine, urged by Galerius, Dioclesian
consented to submit the question to a council of magistrates
and officers of the army. The counsellors trembled before the
Cæsar from the banks of the Danube ; all voices agreed upon
the necessity of pursuing the enemies of public worship. Dio­
clesian, still hesitating, sent to consult the oracle of Apollo of
Miletus. Apollo replied, “ That the just, spread over the earth,
hindered him from speaking the truth." The Pythoness com­
plained that she was mute ; the diviners declared that the just,
to whom Apollo referred, were the Christians. The per­
secution was resolved upon, and the epoch of the festival
of the Terminales (February 23, a. d. 303), the last day of
the Roman year, was appointed, to be also the term in the
expectation of the persecutors of the Christian religion.
The decree of extermination was, in substance : “ The churches
shall be destroyed and the sacred books burned ; the Christians
shall be deprived of all honors, all dignities, and condemned to
punishment without distinction of order or rank ; they may be
cited before the tribunals, but will not be permitted them­
selves to cite any one, even in cases where they have
been robbed, or injured, or even for adultery. Christian
freedmen shall again be reduced to slavery.” A special edict

BT. MARCELLINCS (A. D. 206-304).

297

was directed against the bishops, which commanded that they
should be put in irons and forced to abjure. The attack com­
menced with the church of Nicomedia, in the presence of the two
emperors. At break of day, the prefect of the city, followed
by generals, officers, and a detachment of soldiers, arrive at
the church, situated on a hill, and surrounded by noble edifices.
They break the doors, and seek everywhere some figure of
the God whom the Christians adore. The writings which they
find are delivered to the flames, and all the rest to pillage.
Dioclesian and Galerius stood at a window of the palace, pre­
siding at this first execution, and encouraging their emissaries
by voice and gestures. Galerius wished the church to be fired ;
but Dioclesian, fearing lest the flames should be communica­
ted to the rest of the city, sent the pretorians, armed with
axes and hammers, and in a few hours the building was razed
to the ground. Couriers were dispatched to the Emperor Maximian-IIercules and to the Cæsar Constantius Chlorus, to convey
the new decree, and the orders for its execution. The aged
Maximian received them with joy—for they had long been the
object of his desires. Constantius, when made acquainted with
them, summoned all the Christian officers of his palace, aud
proposed to their choice either to retain their .offices, if
they would sacrifice to the idols, or, if they refused, to be ban­
ished from his presence, with the loss of his favor. Some,
preferring their worldly interests to their religion, declared
themselves ready to ofl'er sacrifice. The others remained im­
movable in their faith. But what was their surprise, on hearing
Constantius declare that he held the apostates as cowards ;
and that, since he could not hope they would be more faithful
to their prince than to their God, he dismissed them forever
from his service. The others, on the contrary, he retained
near his person, made them his body-guard, and considered
them as the most devoted of his servants. Gaul, which was
under his jurisdiction, escaped the general persecution through
his benevolent protection, as if God had been satisfied with the
martyrs that Maximian-Uercules had strewed along his passage

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

sixteen years before (a. d. 287), while the Church, elsewhere,
was in peace. Constantius, however, to avoid irritating the
emperors by openly making light of their decrees, per­
mitted the church buildings to be destroyed, “ considering,"
said Lactantius, “that after the storm they could be rebuilt,”
5. Meanwhile, the persecution had at once extended from
the Tiber to the extremities of the empire, Gaul only excepted.
Everywhere churches fell in ruins- under the blows of tho sol­
diers. The magistrates fixed their tribunals in, the temples or
near the statues of the false gods, and compelled the multitude
to sacrifice ; whoever refused to adore the gods was condemned
and delivered to the executioner. The prisons were over­
crowded with victims ; the roads were covered with troops of
mutilated men, who were sent out to die, either in the depths
of the ruins or at the public docks. Whips, racks, iron hooks,
the cross, or ferocious beasts, mangled the flesh of tender in­
fants and their mothers ; here, naked women were hung upon
posts by the feet, and left to die by this immodest and cruel
torture; there, the limbs of martyrs were fastened to trees
forcibly drawn together, which, when loosened, tore them in
fragments. Each province had its peculiar torments : in Meso­
potamia it was a slow fire; in Pontus, the wheel; the axe in
Arabia; melted lead in Cappadocia. Frequently, when the
sufferer was expiring from excess of torture, the executioners
relieved the thirst of the confessor, or threw water on his face,
lest his burning fever should hasten his death. Sometimes,
weary of consuming their victims separately, the pagans threw
many at once into the flames ; the bones of the victims, reduced
to ashes, were scattered to the winds.
*
6. The household of the emperor was the first exposed to
the tyrant’s cruelty. Valeria, daughter of Dioclesian, and his
wife, Prisca, had not strength to resist the torture, and offered
sacrifice. Dorotheus, chief of the eunuchs, Gorgonins, Peter,
Judas, Mygdonius, and Mardonius, suffered death at Nicome­
dia. The tormentors poured salt and vinegar on the wounds
♦ M. DE

Chauteaubriand : Etudes Historiques.

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299

of Peter. Tie was stretched on a gridiron, and his flesh roasted
like the meats for a feast. Women, children, and old men
were cast indiscriminately into fires prepared fur the purpose,
while other victims, crowded into barks, were precipitated into
the sea. St. Anthimus, bishop of Nicomedia, and all the priests,
deacons, and clerks of that church were seized, and on their
confession alone, without any other examination, they were
led to execution. To enforce the decree which prohibited
Christians from prosecuting any cause before the tribunals,
there were placed in each hall of justice, even in the cabinets
of the judges, portable altars, on which parties were made to
offer sacrifice before pleading their cause. At Nicomedia, the
governor of the province of Bithynia was seen as much trans­
ported with joy as if he had conquered a barbarous nation,
because a Christian who had resisted him during two years at
last yielded to the violence of his torture. Two pagan soph­
ists of Nicomedia, while surrounded by victims accumulated in
all the prisons of the city, while bleeding and mutilated bodies
encumbered the streets, had the ferocious courage to write
books against these Christians, whom they might at least have
left to die in peace. One of them, a professor of philosophy,
whose work is analyzed by Lactantius, without caring to pre­
serve his name, had filled his treatise with so much abuse of
the victims, and such base adulation of the tyrants, that he
gained only contempt even from the pagans. The other, not
less violent, but more artful, was a judge at Nicomedia, named
Hierocles. He entitled his book Philalethes, The Friend of
Truth, as Celsus had called his Discourse of Truth. He
addressed it to the Christians, and “ touched,” as he said. “ by
their deplorable situation, he would not attack them, but
merely offer them some salutary counsels.” Thus he
skilfully takes the double part, dear to his molevQlent
soul, of tormentor and philanthropist; he made himself the
counsellor of those whom, as judge, he sent to execution. In
other respects his book was only a tissue of objections against
the truth of Christianity, chiefly drawn from the works of Cel-

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

sus. His success surpassed, if it were possible, the hopes even
of the author, for in recompense of his abusive libel Hierocles
was appointed, by Galerius, governor of Bithynia, and, soon
after, of the important province of Egypt. He exhibited such
animosity against the Christians that he is ranked among the
most sanguinary enemies of a religion which, during the space
of three centuries, had almost as many persecutors as the
empire had counted sovereigns.
7. It would be impossible to enumerate the names of all
this army of martyrs, whom their tormentors sent to heaven
from all parts of the earth, in execution of the imperial
decrees. Pontus, Cappadocia, Phrygia, Armenia, Mauritania,
Thrace, witnessed the renewal, at the same moment, within
their borders, of all the horrors which had ensanguined the
whole of Nicomedia and Bithynia. St. Theodotus, an innkeeper
of Ancyra, in Galatia, merited admiration for his courage aud
his faith. He suffered martyrdom with a crowd of Christians
whom he strengthened by his exhortations and example.
Seven virgins, companions of St. Thecusa, exposed by the
infamous magistrates in places of debauchery, miraculously
preserved their honor, to present it pure, with their blood, on
the altar of the Lamb. Antioch had her legion of confessors,
among whom was St. Romanus, who was strangled, after Dio·
clesian had ordered his tongue to be cut out and had subjected
him to intolerable tortures. During his interrogatory, the
judge having attempted to prove the superiority of the pagan
over the Christian religion, Romanus requested permission to
address some questions to a little child, that the pure truth
might be heard from his lips. Barallah, a boy seven years
old, was brought. Romanus asked : “ Is it more reasonable
to adore one God, than to adore thousands who fight against
each other?” Barallah replied : “ There is only one God; we
ought not to adore many.” The judge ordered him to be
whipped so cruelly that his blood flowed profusely. The spec­
tators wore melted to tears. The judge—if we can associate
the name of justice with such misdeeds — condemned this

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301

heroic child to be beheaded. The mother of Barallah car­
ried him in her arms to the place of execution. She kissed
him tenderly, recommended herself to his prayers,placed him in
the hands of the murderer, spread her mantle in a position to
gather the blood of the young martyr, and gained leave to take
away his precious remains. At Tyre, the tormentors, weary of
torturing their victims, having exhausted all known means of
punishment, sent them to the beasts of the amphitheatre to
finish their work. Lions, leopards, bears, or wild boars, were
loosed upon them. But these animals, by Divine permission,
or perhaps disdaining these bloody remnants of human cruelty,
refused to touch the martyrs, and furiously attacked the pagans,
who provoked them with boar-spears and spikes. In fine, they
were obliged to behead these generous confessors of the faith.
At Cæsarea, in Palestine, Procopius, exorcist of the church in
Jerusalem, who had just arrived in the city, was led before the
governor, who offered him incense and commanded him to burn
it to the divinity of the four emperors. Procopius replied by
this saying of Homer,
κοίρανος ίστω—One master is enough—
when he was immediately beheaded. All the bishops of Pales­
tine were transported to Cæsarea to be subjected to the most
hideous tortures. The judges held it of the highest importance
to make the people believe that the bishops had sacrificed,
hoping, by the pretence of their example, to influence their
flocks. They bound the hands of a bishop to an altar of the
idols, while they burnt incense upon it; then sent him away,
declaring that he had sacrificed. Another was released, half
dead, from tho rack ; he was carried oft’, while they published
that he had finally denied his faith. If any one had yet
strength enough to protest against this imposture, he was
struck in the face, many hands stopped his mouth, and he was
sent elsewhere, and declared to have a place among the apos­
tates. Egypt witnessed frightful scenes of cruelty. In the
Thebais, martyrs were fastened to stakes, exposed to the
burning sun, and left to die of hunger. Instead of iron claws,
fragments of broken glass and pottery were used to lacerate

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general history of the church.

their bodies ; their nails were torn up with iron points, and
boiling oil poured on the wounds ; women were suspended
naked by one of their feet, the head downwards ; some were
burned on a gridiron, or crucified, generally the head down;
others were cut in pieces, or fastened to the tails of wild horses.
These horrors were renewed during two entire years, and
sometimes a hundred executions were counted in a single day
in the same city. Among this array of martyrs were Philoroma, a military tribune of Alexandria, and Phileas, bishop of
Thmwis, whose constancy' and heroism drew tears even from
their murderers. These execrable cruelties, scarcely to be
believed—if, from examples too recent we did not know to
what degree of barbarity a people can descend when they
yield to their bloodthirsty instincts—were sometimes extended
over entire cities. In Phrygia there was a town of eight to
ten thousand inhabitants, whose governor, treasurer, all the
officers, and all the population, declared themselves Christians.
The matter was referred to the emperor; but Dioclesian, who
had beheaded the principal citizens of Antioch because a pre­
tender to the empire had, during two days, occupied that city,
and had been driven from it by the inhabitants on the third,
felt no embarrassment on account of a miserable little town of
Phrygia. He sent soldiers who set fire to every part of it,
burned the place and all its population, without even sparing
children at the breast, and returned only after they had con­
verted it into a heap of ashes. Carthage and Numidia were
equally the scene of bloody persecutions. In this province
they' sought especially the inspired books. Mensuriua, then
bishop of Carthage, to save them from the soldiers, had them
carried away from the basilica, and left there only heretical
writings. The emissaries of the proconsul, in making their
perquisition, took off and burned all the books without exam­
ination ; but Paul, bishop of Cirtha, now Constantine, in
Algeria, and twelve other bishops of this province, delivered
the Scriptures and the consecrated vessels, to avoid torture.
The name of traddors was given to all who betrayed the same

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303

weakness. At a later period we shall see how disastrous
were the consequences of their cowardice.
8. The West was not less fruitful in confessors of the
faith. Spain, that land in which Christianity had already east
such deep roots, counted her martyrs by thousands. The proconsul Dacian was charged with the execution of the edicts
against them, and he spared no exertions to persecute to the
utmost a multitude of the faithful, who looked upon death as
their highest good. At Saragossa eighteen gave their lives for
Jesus Christ. The most celebrated of these was St. Vincent,
who had the glory of being praised by St, Augustine and by
the poet Prudentius. He was archdeacon of Valerius, the
bishop of Saragossa. This prelate, too aged to dispense the
word in person to his people, had devolved this care on Vin­
cent. The young deacon, full of zeal and erudition, and nur­
tured upon the meditation of the Holy Scriptures, applied
himself efficiently to the holy ministry. On the coming of
Dacian, his reputation for sanctity and eloquence marked him
at once for persecution. He was arrested, with his bishop,
Valerius, whom the proconsul, on account of his advanced age,
merely sent into exile. Vincent was put to the rack. At
each torture, when the rack dislocated his bones, or the iron
claws mangled his limbs, the martyr turned laughingly towards
Dacian, saying, “No one has ever been more friendly to me
than yourself;” or perhaps he reproached the tormentors, who
were covered with sweat, for their want of strength and cour­
age. Twice these ministers of a superhuman cruelty inter­
rupted the torture to regain their strength, and to leave the
wounds of the martyr to cool, in order to redouble his suffer­
ings when renewed. Dacian burned with rage. He ordered
this mutilated body, of which the intestines were already ex­
posed, to be taken from the rack and laid on an iron bed, over
a heated brazier. Those parts of the body which were not
turned towards the fire were burned with blades of red-hot
iron. On the bleeding wounds they threw salt, the sting of
which, aided by the fire, penetrated the tlesh. This punish-

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

ment, whose atrocity revolts the imagination, made no change
in the constancy of the Christian hero, and the proconsul
ordered him to be thrown into a dungeon which had been
strewed with fragments of broken pottery. The guards, half
opening the door of the dungeon, were amazed to see the
martyr walking, and singing the praises of God. This spec­
tacle of an invincible faith converted them to the Christian
religion. Dacian, by a refinement of cruelty, and resolved to
deny Vincent the glory of dying in torments, had him placed
on a soft bed, where he intended to have his wounds dressed,
that he might be prepared for new tortures ; but scarcely had
the martyr been laid there, when he expired. His body was
thrown into a field, to be devoured by wild beasts and birds of
prey. There it remained, untouched and incorrupt, for fifteen
days. The governor then ordered it to be sewed in a sack, and
thrown into the sea. The waves brought it ashore, and the
Christians gave it sepulture in a neighboring church. A child
of twelve years old, named Eulalia, at Merida, gave evidence,
at that tender age, of courage equal to St. Vincent. Dacian,
at whose tribunal she, of her own accord, presented herself to
confess her faith, at first attempted to gain her by caresses.
He then commanded the instruments of torture to be placed
before her, and, at the same time, incense, to be offered to
the gods. Eulalia spit in his face, overturned the idols, and
threw the offerings far from her. On the instant, the tormen­
tors tore her delicate limbs with iron hooks. As she counted
the strokes, she said : “ This is a writing which engraves on
my body the victory of Jesus Christ.” Lighted torches were
applied to her bleeding wounds ; her hair, with which she
covered her bosom, caught fire and smothered her. At Com­
plutum, two youthful brothers, Justus, of thirteen, and Pastor,
of seven years old, rivalled the heroism of St. Eulalia. On
learning the arrival of Dacian, they left school and went to
declare to the proconsul that they were Christians. After
having them whipped until they bled, Dacian sent them to be
decapitated. Sicily, and all Italy, counted thousands of mar-

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305

tyre. At Catania, the deacon Eupliua was arrested while he
was reading the Gospel to the people, and taken at once to
execution. At Syracuse, the illustrious virgin St. Lucy, whose
name is inserted in the canon of the Mass, died to preserve the
honor of her virginity, which the protection of her God guar­
anteed in the infamous den to which the magistrate had
consigned her. In Tuscany, Sabinus, bishop of Assisi, suf­
fered martyrdom with Marcellus and Exuperantitis, deacons,
and many clerks. Venustianus, governor of Tuscany, whom
St. Sabinus had cured of an inveterate ophthalmia, embraced
the faith of his victim. He was beheaded, with his wife and
children, who were converted by his example.
9. Every thing leads to the belief, according to Tillemont,
that St. Marcellinus at this time (October 24, a. d. 304) received
the crown of martyrdom. He was deposited in the cemetery
of St. Priscilla, in the Via Salaria, near the bridge of Salaro.
We have mentioned that the Donatists, some years later, dared
to calumniate the memory of this holy pontiff. They pretend
that St. Marcellinus, unable to endure the torture, had denied
his faith. This falsehood was ornamented by all the circum­
stances which could give it the appearance of truth. It pur­
ported that the pontiff, acknowledging his fault, had presented
himself as a suppliant before a council of three hundred bish­
ops, assembled at Sinuessa. There he had confessed it, and
requested, with tears, that a penance should be imposed on
him proportionate to the guilt he had incurred. The council
was said to have replied : “ Pronounce your sentence yourself;
the chief See ought not to be judged except by itself." But
in this odious fabrication all is false; the accusation is now
recognized as calumnious, and, consequently, the innocence
of the pontiff is admitted. St. Augustine, speaking of Peti­
lius, the author of this fable, says : “ He accuses Marcellinus
of being a traditor, a wicked and sacrilegious man ; I de­
clare him innocent. It is not necessary to weary myself to
prove his innocence, for Petilius does not venture to prove
his accusation.” This falsehood has been repeated in our
20

306

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

day but the learned labors of Sohelstrate, Roccaberti, Pierre
*
de Marca, Pierre Constant, Papebrock, Noel Alexander, Pagi,
Aguirre. Sangallo, Xavier de Marca, have fully vindicated the
innocence of St. Marcellinus, and cleared him from all calumnies.

§ II. Vacancy

in the

See

of Rome (Oct. 20,
19, 308).

λ. d.

304—May

10. The violence of the persecution, which fell chiefly on
the ministers of the Church, prevented the Roman clergy, for
nearly four years, from holding an election for a successor to
St. Marcellinus. The number of Martyrs, meantime, was con­
tinually increasing. St. Agnes, a Roman virgin, is one of the
most celebrated. She had scarcely reached the age of fifteen ;
her rare beauty had captivated a son of the Roman prefect,who
wished to make her his wife. But the young Christian had
chosen Jesus Christ for her spouse. Forced by the prefect into
a place of prostitution, her virginity was miraculously pre­
served. The flames of a pyre, prepared to consume her, sepa­
rated around her body without touching it. Finally, her head
was stricken off by the sword of a soldier, and she was united
forever to her God. The name of Agnes was placed in the
canon of the Mass. Nearly at the same time, St. Soteris,
virgin, the exorcist Peter, Arthemius, jailer of the prison,
converted by the captive Christians, his wife Candida, his
daughter Paulina, and the priest Marcellinus, all suffered mar­
tyrdom at Rome. Other parts of Italy were not spared. At
Bologna, Agricola was taken, with Vitalis, his slave, who was
* The Roman breviary (26th April, Lectio V.) admits the full of St. Marcellinus. Bareniue warns us, on this point, that the Roman Church has no intention to impose on us, ns
proved facta, the historic facts reported in the legends of the saints. There are some which
the critic can and ought to contest, when they are not maintained by grave authority, or pe­
remptory proofs. Lambertini, afterwards pope under the name of Benedict XIV. (De Serremm Dei Beatificatione, lib. iv., p. 2, c. 13, No. 8), pronounces in the same sense in connec­
tion with the question which occupies us. Ho assures us that the fact cited by the Roman
breviary, respecting the fall of St Marcellinus, is false: 1st. Because of the silence on this
point of all the ancient writers on the lives of the pontiffs. 2d. Because of the impostures
of the Donatists, who could never prove the truth of their assertions : and ho recalls the
words of St. Augustine which we have already quoted.

VACANCY IN TILE 8EE OP ROME (A. D. 30+-308).

307

fastened to a cross and executed first, to intimidate his master.
Both were interred in the Jewish cemetery ; St. Ambrose after­
wards removed them, /it Milan, SS. Nazarins and Celsus,
Nabor and Felix, Gervase and Protase, whose relics were also
discovered by St. Ambrose. At Aquila, SS. Cantina and Cantianus, with their sister, Cantianella, of the consular family
of Anicius. At Augusta, in Rhetia (Augsburgh), a courtesan
named Afra, converted to the faith, gave an example of heroic
courage; she was burned alive on an island of the Lech, by
order of the proconsul Gaius. In Pannonia, St. Ireneus, bishop
of Sirmium, and Victorinus, bishop of Petaw, gave their lives
for Jesus Christ. In Thrace, Philip, bishop of Heraclea, Seve­
rus, priest, and Hermes, deacon, were burned alive.
11. These were the last victims of the persecution in the
West. A great event, which was destined to change the face
of the world, placed the whole of western Europe in the hands
of Constantius Chlorus. This prince, equitable, virtuous, benev­
olent to Christians, extinguished the fires which, during two
years, had not ceased to devour them by thousands. Diocle­
sian had come to Rome at the commencement of the year 304,
to celebrate his triumph over the Persians, Egyptians, and
the tribes of Libya. The medals struck in his honor, the
arches ranged along his passage, named him, among bis other
titles of glory, the emperor victorious over the Christian impiety.
In the theatre the mysteries of that religion were parodied,
which Dioclesian boasted to have effaced from the world. In
presence of the emperor and all the court, and the populace,
drunk with joy, the comedian Genesius, clothed in the white
dress of a neophyte, simulated with sacrilegious railleries all
the ceremonies of the Christian baptism. Each gesture of the
actor was saluted by frenzied applauses from the crowd. Mean­
time, the water fell upon the body of Genesius, while the con­
secrating words were pronounced. The actor rose a Christian.
He advanced to the front of the stage. “ Hear me, he ex­
claimed, “ august emperor, officers, philosophers, and people
of Rome ! Whenever the name of Christian has reached my

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

ears, it has penetrated me with horror. I have informed
myself with exactitude in the mysteries of this detested reli­
gion. only to amuse you; but when the baptismal water
touched mo, I saw a hand which camo from heaven, and
shining angels above me. They read in a book all the sins I
had committed since my infancy, and washed them in the
water in which I had been baptized, and presented me with
the book, which was whiter than snow.” It was at first sup­
posed that these words belonged to the part, and the applauses
were redoubled; but the new Christian insisted on his sin­
cerity, and finally triumphed over the incredulity with which
he had been received. Dioclesian, incensed, ordered him to
be beaten with clubs ; after this, he was laid on the rack ; his
body was torn with iron hooks, and lighted torches were
applied to his wounds. Finally, he was beheaded for that
God who had been so late revealed to him, but whom he had
so faithfully confessed from the instant that he had known
Him.
12. The martyrdom of St. Genesius was the last ordered
by Dioclesian. Some days after, he departed from Rome,
where his Oriental luxury had awakened the raillery of the
Quirites. The Cæsars had begun to find the morals of the
degenerate Romans too austere, and royalty fled from the
ancient capital. A fearful malady attacked this emperor, who
had presumed to measure his power with that of the true God.
On his return to Nicomedia, where his mind was weakened by
suffering, he met Galerius, who assumed the tone of a master,
and spoke of having him massacred by the troops if he per­
sisted in holding the empire. There was seen on a plain,
crowded with multitudes of the great, the people, and the sol­
diery, the aged tyrant on an elevated tribune, from which he
declared, that having need of repose, he ceded his power to
Galerius. At the same time he nominated a new Cæsar: it
was Daia, or Daza Maximin, formerly a keeper of flocks,
and son of the sister of Galerius. The emperor threw his
purple mantle over the shoulders of the late shepherd, and

VACANCY IN THE SEE OP ROME (A. D. 304-308),

309

Dioclesian, now Diodes, pursued the way to Salona, his native
land (a. d. 305). Maximian-Hercules also hid down the
sovereign authority at Milan, in favor of Constantius Chlorus,
and nominated as Cæsar, Valerius Severus, an obscure favorite
of Galerius, on the same day on which Dioclesian accomplished
his sacrifice at Nicomedia. Maximian having in the sequel
again seized the purple, invited Dioclesian to follow his exam­
ple. The latter replied : “ If you could see the fine cabbages
I have planted at Salona, you would not speak to me of
empire.” These stoical words were falsified by bitter regrets.
The hand of God was heavy on these two persecutors and on
their race ; Lactantius has recorded their end in his magnifi­
cent work, De Morte Persecutorum. Maximian was murdered,
with his son of eight and his daughter of seven years old.
His wife was thrown, living, into the Orontes, where he had
ordered so many Christian women to be drowned. Dioclesian,
an emperor without empire, tormented by regret, and doubtless
also by remorse, could not sleep, could not eat in his solitude
of Salona ; he resolved to die of hunger, and St. Jerome informs
us that before he expired he vomited out his tongue, all eaten
by worms. Prisca, his wife, and Valeria, his daughter, as fugi­
tives, disguised under wretched clothing, had been recognized,
arrested, beheaded at Thessalonica, and cast into the sea.
Why had they not the courage to die for the God whom they
had so deplorably denied !
13. As yet the Christians had gained nothing by these
changes of the Cæsars. In the East, Maximian Daia, to whom
was assigned the government of that part of the world, or
rather the power of treading it under foot, understood nothing
of cither war or civil affairs ; he brought into the service of
the empire nothing but an insatiable ferocity; it was through
this quality that he had gained Galerius. This last, a crowned
monster, gave to the world examples of cruelty which, even
after Nero, Tiberius, or Caligula, might still seem new. He
kept a number of bears to whom he gave his own name, and
every day several Christians were thrown to them in his

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

presence, while he laughed with hideous enjoyment as he saw
the brutes grind their yet palpitating limbs. It was especially
af his banquets that he indulged himself in this ferocious
pleasure. Another mode of torture, of his own invention,
pleased him still more, because it prolonged his horrid diver­
sions. Martyrs were fastened to a stake, and a slow fire was
kept burning under the soles of their feet, until the flesh,
completely charred, fell from the bones. Then, with torches
which burned without flames, each of the members was roasted
in succession, until no part of the body remained untouched.
Meantime, the head was sprinkled with fresh water, and the
lips and mouth were moistened, to prevent the victim from
dying too soon. Some are known to have lived several days
in these tortures, to the great delight of Galerius, who gloated
over their sufferings.
14. The blood of martyrs, therefore, continued to flow in the
East. At Aquileia, St. Anastasia, widow of a Roman ambassa­
dor in Persia, was beheaded on the same day as the priest St.
Chrysogonus, who had instructed her in the faith and sustained
her in her captivity. Both names were placed by the Church
in the prayers of the Canon. At Thessalonica, St. Agape, St.
Chionia, and St. Irene, were burned alive. Irene, before her
torture, had been exposed several days in a house of de­
bauchery, where she was divinely preserved stainless. At
Tarsus, in Cilicia, Taracus, Probus, and Andronicus, dragged
successively from Tarsus to Mopsuesta and Anazarba, cities
of Cilicia, to be interrogated by the proconsul Maximus, ex­
hausted, in turn, all manner of tortures—the rack, the hooks,
and the red-hot spits on which they were impaled. No part
of their bodies was left without a wound. The eyes were put
out, the teeth broken, the tongue cut off ; in fine, more resem­
bling mutilated corpses than living men, they were thrown to
the beasts in the amphitheatre of Tarsus, in presence of the
whole population. A she-bear and a furious lioness came one
after the other to lick their bleeding wounds, and caressingly
crouched at their feet. Maximus, more cruel than these ani-

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311

mais, commanded the gladiators to behead the martyrs, who
were thus released to receive the recompense of their courage
and unshaken constancy. In this same province of Cilicia
lived St. Julitta, who was arrested by order of the governor,
with her son, St. Cyr, four years of age. This child, seeing
the tortures of his mother, cried out that he was a Christian
like her. Alexander, the governor, took him by the foot and
dashed his head against the steps of his tribune. His brains
were scattered near the courageous mother, who uttered only
these words : “ I thank Thee, my God, for having crowned the
son before the mother.” The judge ordered her feet to be
plunged in boiling pitch, while her flesh was torn by the iron
hooks. Julitta ceased not to confess her faith. Finally, this
judge, or rather this torturer, gagged her, and ordered her to
be decapitated. Another martyrdom occurred at Tarsus, in
Cilicia, under extraordinary circumstances. Boniface, a pagan,
steward of Aglae, a Roman lady, had long maintained a crimi­
nal intercourse with his mistress. Touched at length by grace,
and resolved to change her life, Aglae sent her steward into
the East to bring her some relics of the martyrs. Boniface,
on quitting her, said in pleasantry, “ that he prayed her to
receive his own relics, if ever they should be brought to her
under the name of a martyr.” On his arrival at Tarsus, he
found the public place filled with Christians, who were suffer
*
ing the most horrible tortures. Deeply moved by the spec­
tacle, he approached the martyrs, and was so touched by their
constancy, that he exclaimed, “ I, also, am a Christian.” The
governor ordered him to be seized and joined to the band of
holy confessors. His body, redeemed by the domestics he had
brought with him, was conveyed to Aglae, who placed these
precious remains in a magnificent oratory which she erected
fifty stadia from Rome. At Cæsarea, in Palestine, Appien
and Edesius, brothers by birth and faith, were cast into the
sea. Agapius was devoured by beasts in the amphitheatre.
Theodosia, a virgin eighteen years of age, was torn by the iron
hooks, and drowned in the Mediterranean. The priest Pam-

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

philuB, Valens, a deacon, and a great number of Christians,
were beheaded at the same time. St. Pamphilus had written
an apology for Origen : Eusebius, of Cæsarea, had conceived
so high an esteem for him, that he bore the surname of Pam­
philus, from respect to the memory of this saint. In Syria,
St. Domnina and her daughters Prodosca and Berenice, to
avoid the torments and outrages to which the persons of their
sex were exposed, drowned themselves in a river. At Amasea,
the soldier Theodorus confessed Jesus Christ before the judges,
who granted him time to deliberate. He profited by it to set
fire to the temple of Cybele. Retaken, and long tortured on
the rack, he was burned alive. In Egypt, more than two
hundred and fifty confessors were sent to the mines, after
having each their right eye destroyed, and the tendon of the
left foot burned, so as to make their lives only a long martyr­
dom. At Antioch, St. Pelagie, a virgin, seeing her house sur­
rounded by persecutors, threw herself from the roof. Her
mother and sisters having learned that they, too, were sought
for, threw themselves into a river, and clasping each other by
the hand, they were drowned. In Palestine, thirty-nine con­
fessors were beheaded at a single execution. Four others,
among whom were Peles and Nilus, Egyptian bishops, were
consumed by fire.
15. This long martyrology, of which every detail is a trait
of heroism and of faith, was filled within the years 304, 305,
306, 307—during the vacancy of the see of Rome. An in­
stant of relaxation gave the opportunity (a. d. 305) to eleven
ur twelve bishops of Numidia to assemble at Cyrtha, now
Constantine, in Algeria. This conventicle, formed of traditor
bishops, who at first reproached each other for their criipes,
and who finished by a compact of alliance, elected for bishop
of Cyrtha another traditor, named Sylvanus. By a contradic­
tion, which might appear strange if experience had not taught
that men the most indulgent toward themselves are usually
most severe to others, these same bishops, six years later,
deposed Cecilian, bishop of Carthage, as having been ordained

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313

by traditore. While ministers, unworthy of the God of peace
and charity, gave this scandal to the world, St. Peter, patriarch
of Alexandria, gave to his Church canons or rules of conduct
for the feeble Christians who had been unable to resist the
violence of the persecution. This monument of the ancient
discipline of the Church breathes the gentleness and compas­
sionate discretion of the good pastor. The longest of the
penalties prescribed by St. Peter of Alexandria is three years.
It includes masters who had sent their Christian slaves in
their place to the tribunals, to suffer for them. They who
had yielded only from weakness or pusillanimity, even without
having given battle, could be received into communion after a
year of penance. Such is the virtue of the saints, full of that
merciful condescension of the Son of man, who is come to seek,
not the fust, but sinners.
§ III. St. Marcellus, Pope (May 19, a. d. 308—Jan. 16, 310).
IG. Long after the bloody persecution had ceased at Rome,
the clergy were sought after and imprisoned. It was not until
May 19, a. d. 308, that they could assemble and put an end to
the vacancy of the Holy See and the widowhood of the Church.
They elected Pope St. Marcellus, one of the priests whom St.
Marcellinus had had almost constantly with him. Christian
antiquity praises his firmness in maintaining the vigor of disci­
pline. After the ravages of persecution, large numbers of
Christians, who had not had the courage to confess their faith
in presence of the tormentors, tumultuously demanded to be re­
stored to the Church without passing through the salutary tests
of canonical penance. To rèceive them at once would have
been merciful, but weak. St. Marcellus comprehended this,
and resisted their attempts, even at the expense of his per­
sonal repose and tranquillity. This is the eulogy which Pope
Damasus made of him, without adding other details on the cir­
cumstances of the conflict which he was obliged to sustain.
17. And now the name, so dear to the Church, of Constan­

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

tine tho Great began io dawn upon the world. The Provi­
dence which guarded hisdes finies disengaged him by degrees
from the trammels which it seemed must bind down his rising
glory. Son of Constantius Chlorus and of Helena, the daughter
of a Roman inn-keeper—left, through the repudiation of his
mother, without favor or protection—he was induced to attach
himself to the court of Dioclesian, and bore arms in Egypt and
Persia. His valor and affability soon won him popularity in
the camp. The abdication of Dioclesian threw him into the
power of Galerius, who, jealous of his credit with the soldiers,
wished to get rid of him by engaging him in combat—first
with a Sarmatian, afterwards with a lion. Constantine, happily
escaping in both these trials, withdrew by flight from the snares
of Galerius. To prevent pursuit, from post to post he ham­
strung the horses he had used, and rejoined his father at
Boulogne at the moment when, having vanquished Carausius,
he was embarking for Great Britain. Constantius died at
York, some months afterwards (a. d. 306). The legions, by a
last essay of their power, and without awaiting the election of
the palace, proclaimed Constantine emperor. Galerius, spite
of his ill will, was constrained to have this detested rival in
power. Other discomfitures awaited him. His tyranny had
revolted the Romans, who threw off the yoke, and offered the
purple to Maxentius, son of Maximian-Hercules. The father
left his retreat, joined his son, gained by presents the army
which Galerius sent against them under the command of Se­
verus, his colleague in the empire, and forced the general to
bleed himself to death (a. d. 307). Galerius hastened in per­
son with his legions to the gates of Rome. He found it
fortified, and defended by Maximian and Maxentius, who had
foreseen his attack. Two legions abandoned him, and he
shamefully fled with the rest, ravaging all the country on his
passage, to prevent the possibility of being pursued by the
two emperors (a. d. 308).
18. While the Church, agitated by the storm of persecu­
tion, was calumniated by the philosophers, she found among

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315

her children able and ardent defenders. Christian antiquity
has preserved the memory of the learned and numerous Works
of St. Methodius, at first bishop of Olympia, a maritime city
of Lycia, afterwards bishop of Tyre. St. Jerome calls him
the copious orator ; St. Epiphani us, a glorious champion for the
truth ; St. Gregory of Nyssa, a well of erudition ; Andrew of
Cæsarea, the great Methodius. He wrote during the persecu­
tion of Dioclesian, and was one of its illustrious victims. His
greatest work was a refutation of the fifteen books of impious
calumnies which the philosopher Porphyry had compiled
against Christianity. Nothing now remains of this admirable
production of St. Methodius but the fragments cited by St.
John Damascene. It needed courage to defend the cause of
Christians under the ban of the world, when they met only
tormentors and death. The errors of Origen, or rather those
which were accredited under this name in the East, also
attracted the attention of Methodius. He wrote, to controvert
them, several special treatises, On the Resurrection, on The
Episode of the Witch of Endor, who made Samuel appear to King
Saul, on Free-will, and on The Creatures. Commentaries on the
greater part of the Scriptural books completed the cycle of this
useful and laborious life. All these works, written in Greek,
are lost to us.
19. The persecution which closed the world to the Chris­
tians, had opened their way to solitude. At this epoch, the
desert, according to the prophetic expression, was seen covered
with flowers. We have already mentioned St. Paul, the first
hermit, who, a. d. 250, in the persecution of Decius, entered on
this way, where generations of recluses were to follow him.
Another patriarch of anchoritic life illustrated the desert at
this time. It was St. Anthony, born in Egypt, of noble and
worthy parentage. At twenty years of age he one day heard
in church those words of tho Gospel, “If thou wilt be perfect,
go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and come, fol­
low me, and you shall have treasures in heaven.” He received
the evangelic counsel to the letter. The next day, possessing

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nothing of nil the opulence he had inherited, he left his family
and country, and placed himself under the care of a holy old
man who had lived many years in solitude. The product of
the rush mats which he made with his own hands sufficed
for the support of this youth, reared in luxury and case. He
strove to stifle in his heart all remembrance of the world, and
occupied himself constantly in meditations on the Scriptures,
which he suceeded in committing entirely to memory. The
demon struggled energetically to crush in this heroic soul the
germs of the virtues which were to be developed at a later
period with so much splendor, for the honor and spiritual
advantage of the Church. Impure phantoms, worldly remi­
niscences, his nobility of birth, the desire of glory, the pleas­
ures of life, incessantly revisited the thoughts of the young
anchorite, who, to overcome them, plunged into still deeper
solitude and redoubled his prayers, his vigils, fasts, and aus­
terities. These interior conflicts, so well known under the
name of Temptations of St. Anthony, ended by a brilliant victory
over the spirit of darkness. As he exclaimed, one day, in the
bitterness of his heart, “Where art Thou, Lord, and why hast
Thou abandoned me ?” a voice replied, “ I have been ever at
thy side ; I wished to be a spectator of thy courage. Because
thou hast resisted, my help shaU never fail thee.” Anthony
returned thanks to his Deliverer, and the following day settled
himself in a retired mountain of the Thebais, in the midst of
abandoned ruins, to live far from the sight of men, only sup­
ported by the favors of God. There he passed twenty years,
unknown to the world. The reputation of his sanctity then
brought to him a crowd of disciples. At length (a. d. 307) he
came forth from his mysterious abode, healing the sick on his
way, consoling the afflicted, quieting dissensions, reconciling
inveterate enemies, and visiting the monasteries which had
been peopled under his direction, some east, some west of the
Nile, near the city of Arsinoe. The solitaries listened to his
words as oracles. “ The mountains of the Thebais were full
of Christians, who passed the day and night in chanting

ST. MARCELLOS (A. D. 309-310).

317

psalms, in study, fasts, prayers, labor, and alms-giving; pre­
serving among each other the spirit of peace, union, and
charity. At the view of these pious solitaries, whose whole
conversation was in heaven, we can hardly avoid crying, with
the prophet, ‘ How magnificent are thy tabernacles, 0 Jacob !
how beautiful thy tents, 0 Israel ! As woody valleys, as
watered gardens near the rivers, as tabernacles which the
Lord hath pitched, as cedars by the water-side.’”* These ex­
pressions, full of holy enthusiasm, which such a spectacle drew
forth some years later, are from the eloquent St. Athanasius,
bishop of Alexandria. God thus prepared, in the labor of a
fruitful solitude, soldiers for the truth, ready to come down
into the lists, as did St. Anthony afterwards, to be her cour­
ageous defenders. The time had not yet come.
20. St. Marcellus gave his blood for that faith which nearly
all his predecessors had confessed, like him, in torments. He
was to be the last pope of the third century to suffer martyr­
dom. Imprisoned by command of Maxentius, who ordered him
to renounce the title of bishop and sacrifice to the idols, he
was condemned to serve among the slaves employed in th
imperial stables. After nine months of this odious pun’ nment, the holy pope was delivered at night by his clergy, and
received into the hospitable dwelling of Lucina, a Roman lady,
who concealed him with the greatest care. The house of this
noble widow was from that time consecrated into a church,
to which the faithful came in secret to receive instructions
from the courageous pontiff. But this retreat was discovered
by the police of the tyrant. Maxentius ordered St. Marcellus
to be seized and condemned to death. Constantine was to
avenge on the tyrant the effusion of this innocent blood. The
body of the blessed martyr was piously interred by Lucina,
who was faithful to him in death, as she had been in life.
He was afterwards removed into the Church of St. Marcellus,
which he had founded. The firmness of this pontiff in main• ST.

Athana8IV3.— Vita & Anton.

31S

GENERAL HISTORY’ OF* THE CHURCH.

tainingthe rules of canonical penance, caused him to bo unjustly
accused of excessive rigor by certain writers.
*
This conduct
was conformable to the rules of the Church, and to the duty
of a pope charged to make them respected by all catholics.
§ IV. St. Eusebius, Pope (April 2, a. d. 310—Sept. 26, 310).
21. St. Eusebius, by birth a Greek, who in the world had
practised the profession of medicine, succeeded St. Marcellus.
During the brief term of his pontificate, St. Eusebius signalized
his zeal and vigilance for the maintenance of the faith in all
its purity. Some heretics troubled the peace of the Church of
Rome; so far as we can judge from an ancient inscription of
this epoch, their errors were chiefly on questions of discipline.
St. Eusebius exhibited the same firmness as his predecessor to
secure the integrity of canonical penances in regard to the
lapsi. Maxentius, whose power, in spite of Galerius, was con­
solidated at Rome, did not persecute the Christians; but he
pretended, by an abuse which we shall often find renewed in
♦he course of history, to intermeddle with their internal govern·
il nt. Two months after the election of St. Eusebius, Maxen­
tius exiled him into Sicily, as a punishment for his apostolic
vigor in maintaining the laws of discipline, of which he,
Maxentius, could not understand the necessity. The saintly
pope died there, September 26, of the same year, 310, having
governed the Church nearly five months.

§ V. Vacancy

in the

See of Rome (Sept. 26, a. d. 310—July
2, 311).

22. The commencement of the year 310 witnessed the
punishment of one of the persecutors of the Church. Maximian-Hercules had soon become embroiled with Maxentius,
his son, who reigned at Rome. He passed into Gaul, and
Flel'KY.—Histoire Ecclesiastique, tome

11, p. 573.

VACANCY IN THE SEE OF ROME (A. D. 310-311).

319

received from Constantine, the husband of his daughter
Fausta, a noble and generous hospitality, which he recom­
pensed by crimes. When Constantine (a. d. 308), occupied
with some of his legions in repressing, on the shores of the
Rhine, the incursions of the Franks, had left his father-in-law
with the rest of the army in Provence, Maxiinian had seduced
the principal officers and the governors of the city, and seized
the reins of power. On this intelligence, Constantine has­
tened, by forced marches, to Arles, which opened her gates to
him. He pursued and captured the usurper under the walls
of Marseilles, and took no other vengeance than to despoil him
of the purple, and to keep him in his palace, near his person.
Impunity emboldened this veteran in crime. He obliged Fausta
to promise to leave open the door of Constantine's sleepingchamber ; and one night, escaping the vigilance of the guards,
he approached the imperial bed, and pierced the slumberer
with his poniard : it was a eunuch, whom Constantine, in­
structed of the plot by the faithful Fausta, had placed in his
bed. Maximian, taken in the fact, with the bloody poniard
in his hand, and exulting in the assassination of his son-in-law,
was permitted to choose the manner of his own death, and
strangled himself with his own hands—thus avenging the
blood of so many martyrs which he had taken a cruel pleasure
in shedding (a. d. 310).
23. During eight years the persecution commenced by
Dioclesian weighed upon the East. Of all who had taken a
part in it, and who glorified themselves for having annihilated
the Christian *name, none were now living except Galerius.
His hour was approaching. He prepared by new cruelties
to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his reign, when the
hand of God was laid upon him. A frightful ulcer extended
over the lower part of his body, from which there escaped
• “ Dioclesian, Ciesar-Augustus, after having adopted Galerius in tho East, abolished
the superstitions of Christ, and extended the worship of the gods." And this other inscrip­
tion, also found in Spain: "Dioclesian Jupiter, Maximian.Herculee.Casar-Angustus.jftw
having extended tho Roman empire In the East and in tho West, and abolished the name
of Christians who overturned the state."—(AiWip. numim. a/nd Qnter. p. 380.)

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

continually black and corrupted blood, with worms constantly
reproduced, and an intolerable odor. The upper portions of
his bust were so reduced, that they resembled a skeleton, on
the bones of which a livid skin had been drawn ; but the legs
and feet were so swollen as to have lost all shape. Amid
these horrible sufferings, caused by an incurable disease,
Galerius changed from an excessive cruelty to an unaccus­
tomed clemency. In the first period of his sickness, he
ordered the unsuccessful physicians to be thrown to the beasts
in the amphitheatre. As these executions failed to cure him,
he began to make salutary reflections on his past life. The
remembrance of the Christians whose blood he had shed in
torrents troubled his sleepless nights, and, weary of human
remedies, he was disposed to appease the wrath of God, whom
he had so outraged. The city of Sardica, witness of his suf­
ferings, was also the witness of his tardy repentance. From
■this city he. dated an edict which restored to the Christians the
free exercise of their religion. All the titles that he assumes
in this monument, which Eusebius has preserved, only prove
the more his inability to destroy a religion that forced from
him, on his bed of death, a testimony of benevolence.
*
Galerius
• Here is the text of this edict: “The Emperor Cæsar Galerius Valerius Maximian,
invincible, august sovereign Pontiff—great in Germany, in Egypt, in Sarmatia, in Thebais, in
Persia, in Carpathia, in Armenia, in Media, in Adiabene, the twentieth year of his tribunitial
power, the nineteenth of his empire, consul for the eighth time, father of the country,
proconsul, to the inhabitants of the provinces, greeting:—
“ In the constant care which we take of the public interesta, we sought at first to re­
vive the manners of the ancient Romans, and to bring back the Christians to the religion of
our ancestors, which they had abandoned. Yielding to a new influence, they had rejected
the maxims of their fathers, and organized assemblies for a new worship. In consequence
of our ordinances, a great number of them were punished by divers tortures. Neverthe­
less, since we see that those who remain persevere in their sentiments, and refuse to servo
the gods, although they have no liberty to adore the God of the Christians, consulting only
our clemency and that natural goodness which has ever inclined us to the side of indulgence,
we have thought it a duty to extend even to them our paternal mercy. They can, therefore,
freely profess their religion, and re-establish the places of their assemblies, in submitting
themselves to the laws of the empire. We shall make known to the magistrates, by an­
other decree, the course they wiU have to pursue. In virtue of this favor which wo grant to
them, the Christians are required to pray to their God for our health, and for the welfare
of the republic, that the empire may prosper in every part, and that they may themselves
live in security and peace."

VACANCY IN THE SEE OF ROME (A. D. 310-311).

321

did not long survive this final act of justice. He died like
Antiochus, after having lived like him. Before his death, b*
recommended his wife, Valeria, and Candidianus, his son, to
Licinius, whom, from nothing, he had elevated to the rank of
Caesar. Licinius hastened to put both of them to death as
soon as Galerius had closed his eyes, by way of discharging
his debt of gratitude. The Divine justice made use of the
fury of these crowned monsters to inflict on all the race of the
persecutors the chastisements of their father’s crimes. The
death of Galerius left the empire legitimately divided between
Constantine, Licinius, and Maximinus, who, acknowledging all
three for august, but disputing among them the pre-eminence,
reigned, the first in Gaul, Spain, and Great Britain ; the second
in Illyria ; the third in Asia, the East, and Egypt. The centre
of the empire—that is to say, Italy and Africa—was in th··
power of Maxentius, who, never having been regularly pro­
claimed emperor, either by Dioclesian or Galerius, was re­
garded as a usurper, in Latin, tyrannus.
24. The news of the edict of Galerius produced through­
out the East, on behalf of the Christians, that which the Jewhad experienced at the close of the Babylonian captivity. All
the confessors detained in dungeons were delivered: those who
labored in chains, at the bottom of the mines, were restore·!
to light and liberty. In all the cities the Christians again
celebrated their assemblies, made their ordinary collections for
the poor, the widows, and orphans. Charity reappeared in the
world with the religion of Jesus Christ. The pagans, who fancied
they had assisted at the funeral solemnities of Christianity,
were surprised at so unexpected a revolution, and proclaimed
aloud that the Christians’ God, who had conquered the Cæsars.
was the only great, the only true God. The confessors, deliv­
ered from their chains, returned to their country, and moved
about the cities in the midst of acclamations and songs of
triumph. They were seen in numerous troops on the great
roads and in the public places, chanting psalms and canticles.
The population, even pagans, participated in their joy, and the
21

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

reappearance of the Christians was like a public festival for the
empire, which, for the space of eight years had labored to ex­
terminate them throughout its extent.

§ VI. St. Melchiades, Pope (July 2,

a. d.

311—Jan. 10, 314).

25. After a vacancy of nine months, the reason of which
history does not record, the chair of St. Peter was occupied by
Melchiades. It was the lot of this ponti ft' to gather in peace
what his predecessors had sowed in storms and blood. His
first act was to send the Deacons Strattan and Cassian to
resume the possession of churches and other properties, which,
according to the new' edicts, were to be restored to the
Christians.
26. The first year of the pontificate of St. Melchiades (a.d.
311) was marked by the consummation of the schism of the
Donatists at Carthage. The African bishops, profiting by the
peace of the Church, assembled at Carthage to give a successor
to Mansurius, bishop of that city, who died during the perse­
cution. The Deacon Cecilian was elected by a unanimous
vote. Felix, bishop of Aptongus, imposed hands on him,
seated him in the episcopal chair, and gave him the inventory
of the vases of gold and silver which Mansurius had confided
to the care of the elders of the Church. Some unfaithful
depositors had hoped to turn certain of these precious objects
to their own advantage, and leagued with two intriguing dea­
cons, Botrus and Celeusius, who had carried their pretensions
even to the see of Carthage. In concert, they called together
the Numidian bishops who had not been convoked for the ordi­
nation of Cecilian. These prelates were the same whom we
have seen in 305 assembled to ordain the traditor Sylvanus,
bishop of Cirtba. Under the direction of Donatus, bishop of
Casa Nigra, in Numidia, they formed a false council and de­
posed Cecilian, on the pretext that Felix of Aptongus, who
had imposed hands upon him, was a traditor; that besides
this, Cecilian had refused to appear at their assembly; and

ST. MF.LCIHAUES (A. D. 3II-3H).

323

finally, that while he was still a deacon, he had hindered
the faithful from bearing succors to the martyrs in prison
during the persecution of Dioclesian. Considering, for these
reasons, the see of Carthage vacant, they elected and ordained
as bishop the reader Majorinus, thus raising altar against
altar in the same church. Such was the origin of the long
schism at Carthage, which took its name from Donatus, of
Casa Nigra, who was its most ardent and chief instigator.
Cecilian was not moved by these troubles and calumnies. He
considered himself as sufficiently justified by the sole fact that
he remained, said St. Augustine, “ united in communion with
the Roman Church, where the principality of the apostolic chair
has always been in vigor, and where he was ready to plead
his cause.” We shall see, in the sequel, the Church of Rome
pronounce her judgment, and render justice to innocence and
truth (a. d. 311).
27. The edict of Galerius which gave freedom to Christians
had been executed, as soon as known, in all the provinces of
the empire. None of the colleagues of the aged Cæsar would
have dared to resist the expression of his will, authentically
promulgated. But it was a dear sacrifice to the sanguinary
instincte of Maximin Daia to relinquish the daily executions,
the cruel diversions of the amphitheatre, which must cease for
want of victims now ; and in the year that followed the death
of Galerius (October, a. d. 311) he published a decree forbid­
ding Christians to assemble in the cities for the exercise of
their worship, on the pretence that they disturbed public order
and tranquillity. The governors and proconsuls, divining the
intentions of the emperor under the milder forms that still
veiled them, comprehended that a new persecution was in
view ; they consequently recommenced by calumniating their
morals, and outraging the memory of their divine founder.
The false acts of Pilate, filled with blasphemies against Jesus
Christ, were scattered over all the East which was under the
control of Maximinus, as if taken from the importai archives.
Women of vicious life were suborned, who declared, before the

324

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

tribunals, that in their assemblies the Christians celebrated in­
famous mysteries, and that they had themselves taken a part
in them. The tormentors were soon again at work. The eyes
of confessors were torn out, or their hands, or foot, or ears
were cut off. Maximinus had forbidden their punishments to
be carried further than mutilation; hut this recommendation
soon fell into oblivion : the age of martyrs seemed to have
returned. St. Peter, bishop of Alexandria, gave his life for
the faith, and also SS. Theodore, Hesychius, and Pachomius,
bishops of diilerent churches. At Antinous, the monk Apol­
lonius, thrown upon a burning pyre, was miraculously pre­
served from the flames. This prodigy converted the judge
who had condemned him. He was named Arianus; in his turn
he became a martyr to this new faith, which had but just sub­
dued his heart, but already was stronger than death. lie was
thrown into the sea, with many other confessors, by order of
the prefect of Alexandria. At Emesa, the bishop Sylvanus
was devoured by the beasts of the amphitheatre. At Nicome­
dia, the priest St. Lucian suffered a new species of punish­
ment. After being left several days without food, when
he was tortured by the pangs of hunger, a sumptuous table
was placed before him, covered with meats and viands offered
to the idols. He resisted this temptation, the most violent,
doubtless, to nature; his head was struck off. Maximin Paia
carried his hatred to Christianity and his fanaticism for idola­
try to insanity. The Armenian nation, and their king, Tiri­
dates, had just been converted to the faith of Jesus Christ by
the preaching of St. Gregory, surnamed the Illuminator, the
apostle of Armenia. On hearing of this, Maximinus, without
regarding the respect due to the title of allies of the Romans,
which Armenia merited by her traditional fidelity, instantly
declared war, and entered the country at the head of a for­
midable army. But the Armenians could easily deal with
this barbarian, destitute of intelligence and military talent.
They beat‘him in every encounter, and drove him ignomini­
ously from their country. In the cities of Armenia subject

8T. MELCniADES (A. D. 311-314).

325

tn the Romans, there were at this epoch a great number
of martyrs. As nations, these Christians of the first ages
defended the true religion, arms in hand; as individuals, they
died for it.
28. Meantime, the great event of the fourth century was
accomplished at the gates of Rome (a. d. 312). Maxentius had
declared war against Constantine to avenge, as he said, the
death of Maximian-Hercules, his father; but, in reality, to
accomplish a long cherished design to take possession of Gaul.
Constantine resolved to anticipate the plans of his enemy.
Maxentius had re-established the pretorians; his army was
composed of a hundred and seventy thousand infantry and
eighteen thousand cavalry. Constantine did not hesitate to
attack Maxentius and this formidable force with only his
forty thousand veterans. He passed the Cottian Alps on one
of those indestructible roads made by the Romans, took Susa
by assault, defeated a corps of heavy cavalry near Turin, an­
other at Brescia; Verona capitulated; the captive garrison
were bound in chains forged from the swords of the van­
quished ; and in this triumphal march Constantine arrived at
the gates of Rome. Maxentius remained within the walls,
because an oracle threatened him with death if he came out
of them ; but his captains, chiefly men of experience, held the
country for him. Constantine was encamped opposite the Milvian bridge, now Ponte Molle. One day, as he advanced at
the head of a body of troops, towards mid-day, a brilliant cross
of light formed itself in the midst of the sky, in the direction
of the sun. On this miraculous cross appeared, in letters of
fire, these Latin words : In hoc signo vinces. The apparition
of this prodigy, which was seen by the whole army, deeply
moved Constantine, who, long years afterwards, related it him­
self to Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea. All that day he was pre­
occupied with this marvellous vision. The night following,
the same cross appeared to him anew, and Jesus Christ,
revealing Himself, ordered him to place this image upon his
standards. The next day, at the side of the Roman eagles, a

326

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

banner of « form hitherto unknown was remarked. If, was a
long staff of gilded wood, bearing near the top a transverse
beam, forming a cross, from the arms of which floated a ban­
ner of cloth of gold and jewels; above it sparkled a crown of
gold and precious stones, in the midst of which was the mono­
gram of Christ, formed of the two Greek initials of this name.
This monogram and the image of the cross were also placed
on the casques of the soldiers. Such was the famous Labarum : and in this manner the cross, reserved until then ns
an infamous gibbet for the vilest criminals, after three cen­
turies of outrages, incredulity, and persecutions, triumphed
over the world, took its place among the most sacred things,
and became the standard of the Roman legions, which the con­
quered world regarded only with respect and admiration. “The
battle which was about to be fought between Maxentius and
Constantine,” says M. de Chateaubriand, “ is of the small num­
ber of those which, as a material expression of the conflict of
opinions, became, not a single fact in war, but a veritable revo­
lution. Two religions and two worlds met at the Milvian
bridge ; two religions were face to face, armed, on the bank of
the Tiber, in view of the Capitol. Maxentius interrogated the
Sybilline books, sacrificed lions, and opened pregnant women to
search the bosom of infants torn from their mother’s bowels—
fur it was supposed that hearts that had never palpitated
could not conceal an imposture. Constantine came by a divine
impulse and the greatness of his genius. These words are
engraven on his triumphal arch : Instinctu Divinitates, mentis
magnitudine. The ancient gods of the Janiculum had, ranged
around their altars, the legions who in their name had con­
quered the world : in the face of these soldiers were those of
Jesus Christ. The Labarum surmounted the eagles, and the
earth of Saturn beheld the reign of Him who preached on
the mountain ; time and the human race had made a step in
advance.”* This battle of Actium, for Christianity, was fought
M. DE

Chateaubriand: Etudes Historiques.

Ed. Charpentier, p. 218.

ST.

MBLCII1ADES (A. D. 311-314).

327

October 28, a. d. 312. Maxentius, at length unfaithful to the
vow he made not to fight outside of Rome, crossed the Tiber,
throwing up behind him a wooden bridge, divided into two
movable parts. Ilis plan was to draw Constantine on this
bridge, then to separate its parts, and to drown his enemy in
the river beneath. He ranged his army in order of battle,
the rear being backed by the Tiber—a fault in strategy, and
an enormous imprudence, since the soldiers, if obliged in the
least to fall back, were instantly precipitated into the river.
Constantine, as a skilful general, deployed his army advan­
tageously in the plain, and by masterly combinations supplied
his deficiency in numbers. The troops of Maxentius were
broken at the first shock. The bravest were killed at their
posts, the others, confused, blinded, threw themselves into the
Tiber, and the greater part were swallowed up. The flying
Maxentius hastened towards the bridge he had constructed.
The weight of the multitude who passed upon it at the same
moment broke it down, and Maxentius, falling into the water,
perished by the means which he had prepared for the destruc­
tion of his rival. The God of the Christians had fulfilled His
promise to Constantine, and the Labarum was victorious. The
following day Constantine made his triumphant entry into
Rome, where the joy of all classes equalled his own. The
terror of the name of Maxentius was so great that the
people were reluctant to give credit to the report of his death,
fearing his terrible vengeance if the rumor should prove false.
But the body of the tyrant, which had sunk in the mud of
the river, having been found and recognized, was brought into
the city as the proof and pledge of the deliverance of the
Romans. Their joy was no longer concealed, and the eager
crowd pressed around to gratify themselves with a view of the
conqueror’s face, all flushed with victory. “ Never was there a
day,” said the orator Nazarius, “ since the foundation of Rome,
that was happier than this ; none of the boasted triumphs
of antiquity can enter into comparison with the triumph of
Constantine. In it there were not exhibited the chiefs of the

328

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

enemy in chains, marching before the car of the conqueror, but
all of the Roman nobles, delivered from the exactions which
the tyrant had imposed on them. Barbarians were not cast
into the dungeons, but citizens of consular rank were released,
whom the avarice and cruelty of Maxentius detained there.
They who formed the procession in this festival were not cap­
tive strangers, but Rome herself, set at liberty. She had
gained no conquest over an enemy, but she had regained her­
self; she had not enriched herself with new spoils, but she
had herself ceased to be the prey of a tyrant ; and her crown­
ing glory is, that in exchange for servitude, she has resumed
her right to empire. In place of prisoners of war, which the
conqueror disdained to mingle with this pomp, each sub­
stituted in his thought another kind of captives: they saw
enchained the monsters most terrible to the human race;
impiety subjugated; perfidy vanquished; audacity enchained;
tyranny, fury, cruelty, pride and arrogance, license and de­
bauch, furious enemies whose excesses we had felt, and who
now chafed with rage to perceive that they were powerless to
injure us.”*
The sword of the victor rested in the scabbard : the fight
was ended ; the sole act of severity of the Christian hero was
an act of rigorous justice, and at the same time of wise policy
—he dispersed the pretorian militia, who, during two centuries
and a half, had held in check the emperor and the empire, and
had set up the purple at auction. Some months afterwards,
• Translated from Crevier: Histoire des Empereurs, t. xii. Wo give the text of this elo­
quent passage: “Nullus post urliem conditam dies Romano illuxit imperio, cujus tam effusa,
Umquo insignis gratulatio aut fuerit, aut esse debuerit. Nulli tam lœtï triumphi, quos anualium vetustae consecratos in litteris habet. Non agebantur quidem onto currum vincti
duces, sed incedebat soluta nobilitas. Non conjecti in carcerem Barbari sed deducti e carcere consulares. Non captivi alienigenæ introitu millium honestaverunt, sed Roma jam
libera. Nihil ex hostiis accepit sed seipsam recuperavit, nec præda auctior facta est, sed
esse præda desivit, et (quo nihil adjici ad gloriæ magnitudinem potest) imperium recepit qu.c
servili iim sustinebat Duci sane omnibus videbantur subacta vitiorum agmina, qua.· urbem
graviter obsiderent Scelus domitum, victa perfidia, diffidens sibi audacia, et importunitas
catenata, et cruenta crudelitas inani terrori frondebat. Superbia atque arrogantia debellata·,
luxurie» coercita, et libido constricta nexu ferreo tenebantur."—(Nazah. Poneg: Gmslantiu,
Aufuit)

8T. MELCHtADES (A. D. 311-314).

329

another victory, won by Licinius, near Heraclea, coat Maxen­
tius Daia his power and his life.
*
With him disappeared the
last persecution of the Christian religion.
29. Constantine signalized his accession to the sovereign
power in Rome by an edict in favor of Christians. He granted
them liberty to build new churches, and to regain possession
of those of which the persecution had deprived them. This
decree, dated at Milan, was sent to all the consuls and gover­
nors of provinces. For the first time during three centuries,
an emperor dared openly to proclaim his sympathy for the
faith of Jesus Christ, and for the first time this act was received
with unanimous consent. Constantine bestowed on the minis­
ters of the Christian religion the privileges enjoyed by pagan
priests. Clergy were to be exempted from all imposts, services,
and public charges. The pontiffs became men of consideration,
having the confidence of the sovereign. Thus was definitively
closed a combat of three centuries, between the Church of
Jesus Christ and idolatrous Rome. During three centurie;·,
idolatrous Rome persecutes the Church by her emperors and
her idols—during three centuries the Church suffers and
dies in her martyrs. At the end of these three centuries,
idolatrous Rome witnessed the destruction, at once, of idols
and persecutors ; whilst the Church, overcoming them all, saw
a youthful hero display on his banners the sign, hitherto igno­
minious, of Christ, the cross which, henceforth, will be the
glorious standard of regenerated humanity, a. d. 313.
• Maximinus was greatly chagrined at the victory of Constantine and his alliance with
Licinius, and, with an army of seventy thousand mon, he advanced, by rapid marches, from
Syria, to attack them. Licinius, who was his antagonist, had already twenty thousand soldier».
Some days before tho battle an angel appeared to him in the night, and warned him to rise
quickly, and with all hie army to offer prayers to the sovereign God. promising him the vic­
tory if he did so. Early the next morning Licinius called his secretary and dictated to him
the prayer which the angel had repeated to him, and ordered this writing to be distributed to aU his army. On the day of battle, his soldiers having three times recited the prayer,
full of confidence, fell upon the troops of Maximinuii, so far superior in numbers, and made
a great carnage. Maximinus, obliged to fly with his troops, poisoned himedf al farsus,
after having loaded his stomach with wino and meats. He died some days after, in exces­
sive suffering. His death gavo liberty to all the churches.—(Abrcye
Λ Γϋι»·
luire EccluweUqu^ t 1, p. 129.)

330

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

30. Scarcely had the successor of the Cæsars entered
Rome as victor, when he sought out the representative of a
spiritual royalty, whoso purple, until now, had been the blood
of martyrs. From this time there were two sovereignties
recognized and proclaimed in the world, that of the pope,
and that of the emperor : one without other force than the
Divine promises, without other support than its meekness,
without other arms than its faith ; the other exterior, ruler
by the sword, by legislation, wealth and power, but submitted
to the authority of the pontiffs in things within the domain
of faith. It is the great glory of Constantine that he under­
stood the character and executed perfectly the part of the
Christian emperor, who was designated by the name of the
external bishop. The Donatists, on learning of his accession to
the empire, laid before him a request to be supported by his
authority. “We have recourse to you, most excellent em­
peror,” they said, “you who came of an equitable race; you
whose fathers alone among the emperors never ordered a per­
secution against Christians ; we entreat that it may please you
to give us for judges bishops from Gaul, because that country,
exempt from the proscription, has not, like us, had the misfor­
tune to know traditore. Let, then, the differences which have
occurred in the African Church be judged by the bishops of
Gaul. Signed by Lucian, Narsutius, Dignus, Capito, Fiden­
tius, and the other bishops of the party of Majorinus.” The
response of Constantine to this unworthy supplication ought
to be written in letters of gold: “What!” he exclaimed,
“you ask me for judges, you, bishops, of me who am in worldly
life, and who myself await the judgment of Jesus Christ!"
He sent all the memorials and papers of this affair to the pope,
St. Melchiades, under whose presidency was opened, October
2 (a. d. 313), at the residence of the Empress Fausta, named
the Lateran palace, a council composed of nineteen bishops
from Italy and Gaul. Donatus appeared as the accuser of
Cecilian, the legitimate bishop of Carthage. Convicted him­
self of having rebaptized heretics, and ordained tradi tors as

ST. MELOHIAMB (A. 0.311-3)4).

331

bishops, he withdrew from the council. The assembled prel­
ates then examined in detail the acts of the conventicle
of the bishops of Numidia, who, (a. d. 311) had condemned
Cecilian. They were found tainted with irregularities, vio­
lence, and party spirit. Each of the heads of accusation
alleged against Cecilian was discussed and carefully weighed.
None could bear a serious examination. They were only a
tissue of false inventions and calumnies. The question thus
elucidated, St. Melchiades, with the unanimous concurrence of
the bishops in council, proclaimed the innocence of Cecilian
and the legitimacy of his ordination. But by that spirit of
eminent prudence which distinguishes all measures emanating
from the holy sco, the pope did not separate from his com­
munion either the bishops who had condemned Cecilian, or
those who had been sent to Rome to accuse him. He ever
offered, adds St. Augustine, to receive in his communion tho?
who had been ordained by Majorinus, the Donatist bishop ·
Carthage ; and it was so ordered, that in all places where
there were two bishops, in consequence of the schism, he who
had the seniority of ordination should be maintained, and
the other should have the first vacant see. Donatus of Caaœ
Nigrce was alone excepted from these merciful measures. He
was condemned as the author of all the trouble. He departed
for Carthage more bitter than ever, and ready to foment new
discord.
31. Pope St. Melchiades did not live to see the end of this
affair. He died three months after the close of the council,
January 10 (a. d. 314). His moderation, prudence, and
charity were eulogized by St. Augustine, who, referring to this
holy pontiff, exclaims : “ 0 excellent man ! true son of peace;
true father of Christian people!" He was deposited in the
cemetery of Callistus, and afterwards removed to the Church
of St. Silvester in capite by St. Paul I. Constantine, when he
gave St. Melchiades the Lateran palace, added to this imperial
munificence an annual rent, sufficient to maintain the dignity
of the head of the Church ; and thus the Roman pontiffs were

332

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

placed in a state of independence whidh allowed them to exer­
cise (heir ministry with apostolic liberty for the general good
of society. The gratitude and confidence of the people grad­
ually invested them with a sovereignty which was conse­
crated by time and custom. Charlemagne, at a later period,
completed this noble thought of · Constantine ; and the holy
see, a spiritual and pacific power, placed in the midst of civil
governments, respected by all, and independent of all, became
the supreme moderator and arbiter of Christendom.
32. The first period of the history of the Church ends with
St. Melchiades. The conversion of the Cæsars was about to
change the face of the world. “ When, after three hundred
years of tortures,” said the R. P. de Lacordairc, “ Constantine
saw, from the height of Mount Alario, the Labarum in the air,
it was the blood of Christians which had germinated in the
shade, and had risen, like dew, up to heaven, and unfolded
itself in the form of the cross triumphant. Our public liberty
was the fruit of an unexampled moral liberty. Our entry into
the Forum of princes, was the fruit of an empire which we
had exercised over ourselves even unto death. We might
well reign after such an apprenticeship to servitude. We had
won the right to clothe our doctrine in a robe of purple after
all the blood they had shed upon it. But this reign was not
long, if we give this name to the time which passed between
Constantine and the barbarians—a time so full of contro­
versies, when the Catholic doctrine never quitted for a single
day the pen and the sword.”*
Conférences de Notre Dame de Paris (29 Novembre,

1845,

par le R. P. U de Lacordaire,)

REVIEW OF THE FIRST PERIOD OF THE CHURCH (A. D. 1-3V2)

333

CHAPTER XV.
§ I.
1.

Review

of tub first period of the

Church (a. d. 1-312).

Rapid extension of Christianity in Italy.—2. Thronghont the West.—3. In
the East.—4. Obstacles to the Development of Christianity.—5. Causes
favorable to this Development.—6. Pagan Writers and Philosophers hostile to
Christianity—Lucian, Celsus, Porphyry, Jamblicus, Philostratue’s Life of
Apollonius of Thyanea. Hierocles.—7. First apologists.—8. Heresies.
Schisms.—9. Government, Discipline, and Worship.—10. Conclusion.
*

1. In concluding the recital of the sanguinary persecutions
of three hundred years’ duration, it is interesting to note the
marvellous extension of Christianity under the sword of the
executioner. “ At the commencement of the second century,"
says St. Justin, “there is no people among whom we do not
find believers in Jesus Christ.” We read also, in St. Irenæus,
that “ the Church was spread over all the earth, and to the
most remote extremities of the world." The expressions of
Tertullian are not less remarkable. “ We are of yesterday,
yet we fill all that belongs to you; we leave to you only your
temples. If we would separate ourselves from you, or with­
draw into some distant land, the loss of so many citizens would
weaken your power; you would shudder over the desola­
tion, the silence of a world in some sort extinct; you would
seek in vain for men to command." It would be satisfactory
to know what was, at the epoch of the persecution of Dioclesian, the relative number of the Christians and of the pagans.
In default of precise and positive information on this question,
♦ See, for the first and second period?, the work of Dr. Dcellmger, proft wr of history
in the University of Munich. Orione du C/vvtuinume, 2 vole. 8vo., from which wo have
borrowed the principal ideas of this chapter.

334

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

a rapid view taken of the East and West will give us an
approximation to the growth of the Church at the close of the
third century. Borne had within her walls forty churches
under the pontificate of St. Silvester I. (a. d. 314-335).
Ancient local traditions attribute the foundation of most of
the Churches in Italy to the disciples of St. Peter. Lucca
regards as her first apostle St. Paulinus, who was sent to
Etruria by the prince of the Apostles. Fiesole, St. Romulus;
Ravenna, St. Apollinaris ; Milan, St. Anathalon ; Aquileia,
St, Mark; Bologna, St. Zamas, sent by Pope St. Dionysius
(a. d. 259) ; Zeno, first bishop of Verona, suffered martyrdom
under the Emperor Gallienus (λ. d. 255). Pozzuoli had for its
first bishop, Patrolas, mentioned by St. Paul in his Epistle to
the Romans. The ancient martyrologies date at an equally
remote epoch the apostolic institution of Beneventum, of Pris­
cus at Capua, of St, Asper at Naples, of Philip of Argyrium
at Palermo, and St. Marcian, first bishop of Syracuse.
2. The origin of Christianity in proconsular Africa, though
rather obscure in the first century, was gloriously developed in
the second. The principal see of the Church, from the desert
of Barca to the Atlantic, was Carthage, a magnificent and popu­
lous city, long since raised from its ruins, and then, through its
commerce, connected with the whole world. Towards the end
of the second century, Agrippinus, who was bishop of this city,
convoked a synod of seventy other bishops. In the time of
Tertullian the religion of Jesus Christ had penetrated among
the primitive Africans, the Getuli and Moors, who inhabited
the interior of the country in the gorges and the valleys of
Atlas—chiefly nomadic tribes, speaking an idiom of their own.
In the three first centuries the northwest of Africa was divided
into three ecclesiastical provinces, viz.: proconsular Africa,
Numidia, and Mauritania. In the following century there were
six, including those just mentioned, viz. : the Tripolitan, which
had only five bishops, the Byicacene, and Mauritania Cæsariensis. The Church of Spain (a. d. 250) appears for the first
time in history when two bishops, Basilidee of Astorga and

REVIEW OF ΤΠΕ FIRST PERIOD OF THE CHURCH (Λ. D. 1-311). 335

Martial of Leon, having apostatized in the persecution of De­
cius, were deposed by a synod. The apostolic epoch of the first
bishops of that country is not less supported by traditions
sufficiently probable. In a. d. 306 the council of Elvira
(Eliberis), held by nineteen Spanish bishops, proves that
Christianity at that epoch was flourishing in that country.
The Gauls, converted as early as the close of the first century
by the disciples of the Apostles, who had seen SS. Pothinus
and Irenæus at Lyons, St. Trophimus at Arles, St. Benignus
at Autun, St. Victor at Marseilles, SS. Donatian and Rogatian
at Nantes, could count in the third century almost as many
episcopal sees as there were important cities. In the council
of Arles, held against the Donatists (a. d. 314), there were pres­
ent the bishops of Rheims, of Rouen, of Vaison, of Bordeaux,
and envoys from the Churches of Mendez (Gabales) of Orange,
Apt, and Nice. In the countries on the right bank of the
Rhine, and divided into upper and lower Germany, the Chris­
tian religion was already powerful in the second century.
Treves, Cologne, Maestricht, Spires, Mayence, were so many
religious centres, whence the doctrine of the Gospel was
spread over the more remote countries of Germany. The
borders of the Danube, Norica, Vindelicia, and Rhetia (Aus­
tria, Bavaria, the Tyrol, and the Grisons), whose principal
cities were populated by Roman colonies (Lauriarum, Augusta
Vindelicorum, Tridentum), Larch, Augsburg, Trent, had early
received the seeds of faith, and the persecution of Dioclesian
made numerous martyrs there. Great Britain had received,
under the reign of Claudius, Roman colonies, who brought
with them the doctrines of the Gospel—and almost the entire
people wrere Christians. Gildas, the most ancient writer of
this nation, relates that in (a. d. 303) on the promulgation of
the sanguinary edict of Dioclesian the churches were demol­
ished, the sacred books burned publicly in the streets, and a
multitude of priests and laics were put to death—so that the
forests and caverns which served as places of refuge to the
Christians seemed to have more inhabitants than the cities.

336

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

The first British martyr was St. Alban de Verulam, converted
by a fugitive priest to whom he had given hospitality. After
the close of the persecution there appeared at the synod of
Arles three British bishops, Eborius of York, Restitutus of
London, and Adelphius de civitate coloniœ Londincnsium (per­
haps Lincoln). Thrace, Heminontus, Rhodope, Scythia, and
lower Mesia had on the shores of the Mediterranean churches
as flourishing as those of Great Britain. In Macedonia, Thes­
salonica, Philippi, Beræa, the apostolic churches had not
degenerated in the third century from their primitive fervor.
Athens, the capital of ancient Greek civilization, Byzantium,
destined to become the queen of a new empire, had long been
conquests of the faith.
3. The East presented the same scenes of Christian faith
and fecundity. From Jerusalem, the cradle of Christianity,
the Gospel had been spread over all the cities of Palestine,
Phoenicia, and Syria. The names of Caesarea, of Palestine, of
Tyre, Sidon, Ptolemais, Berytus, Tripoli, Biblos, Seleucia,
Apemea, Hieropolis, Samosata, and, above all, Antioch, recall
great and illustrious churches. In Roman Arabia, Bozra, in
the Osrhoene, Edessa, the capital, had received the Gospel at
an early period. In Mesopotamia and Chaldea the churches
of Amida, Nisibis, Seleucia, and Ctesiphon were celebrated.
Asia Minor, evangelized by St. Paul, had its illustrious sees
of Ephesus, Laodicea, Pergamos, Philadelphia, Thyatira, Tar­
sus, Mopsuesta, Smyrna, Iconium, Myra, Miletus, Antioch of
Pisidia, Corinth, Nice, Chalcedon, etc. The isles of Crete,
Cyprus, and the Archipelago, were filled with Christians.
Armenia, and even Persia, in spite of the frequent persecutions
which were directed against Christianity, counted numerous
and flourishing churches. Egypt, evangelized by St. Mark,
who founded the patriarchate of Alexandria, sent to the Council
of Nice the bishops of Naucrates, Phtinontis, Pelusium, Panephysus, Memphis, and Heraclea. The Thebais, which was to
be so fruitful in examples of sanctity, had, in the third cen­
tury, as episcopal churches, Antinoe, Hcrmopolis, and Lycop-

TIEVIEW OF THE FIRST PERIOD OF THE CHURCH (A. D. 1-313), 337

olis. Ptolemais was the metropolis of the Pentopolis, which
numbered many bishoprics.
4. Hence it is evident that the conquests of Christianity
in the third century included all the countries of the known
world. So rapid an extension has struck historians the most
hostile to the Church. They have endeavored to explain the
fact by causes purely natural. They have pretended that
persecutions directed in the three first centuries against the
faithful were far from having the characters of universality,
perseverance, and cruelty which we have attributed to them.
This last objection, once the watchword of the philosophy of
the eighteenth century, will now obtain no credence among
enlightened minds. The facts are too palpable, too numerous,
too well established by evidence, to be contradicted in so fla­
grant a manner. To an impartial observer, the propagation of
Christianity in the midst of a society where, during three hun­
dred years, the name of Christian was a capital crime, can only
be explained by admitting the divinity of its doctrine and
mission. Every thing, in fact, was opposed to its diffusion.
Polytheism, rooted in the manners, habits, belief, literature,
legislation, public and private life, disposed of all power, rallied
all sympathies, commanded respect and imposed submission.
Despite its moral weakness and the incredulity of the educated
classes, it is not the less a fact, that in the early times of the
Church the great mass of the people were bound by an uld
hereditary attachment to the worship of idols. The Gospel
bad not only to combat the strong impressions of youth,
the polytheistic education and prejudices imbibed with the
mother’s first teachings, but polytheism itself was regarded as
the primitive religion, whose origin was concealed in the night
of time ; under whose protecting influences were fonfled the
families and foundations of empires. In the Roman world, the
worship of the gods, and the institutions that belonged to it,
were bound by the closest ties to the system of the state, and
bore, from the beginning, an imprint of politics. The centre
of the empire, the city on the seven hills, was herself the
22

338

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

object of religions worship. The belief in the divinities of the
empire was so identified with the sentiment of patriotism, that
it seemed impossible to abandon one without violating the
other. To attack traditions consolidated by the laws of
many ages, confirmed by the victorious majesty and the uni­
versal domination of Rome, was high treason—was to shake
the very foundations of the state—was to be the declared
enemy of the commonwealth. Such was the manner of think­
ing. deeply rooted and everywhere accepted, against which, as
against a wall of brass, it would seem that all the efforts of the
evangelic messengers must have been annihilated. To these
external obstacles, others were joined arising from the intrinsic
severity of Christian morals, the austerity of its dogmas, and
the mystery that enveloped its worship. He who sincerely
embraced the faith of Jesus Christ at this epoch, virtually ban­
ished himself from civil life and from the whole world, such
as paganism had made it. He could take no part in the public
ceremonies, all being placed under the invocation of the gods;
nor in the spectacles; nor in the favorite games of the people;
nor in the bloody combats of the gladiators. He was excluded
from the festivals and joyous solemnities where the emperor
distributed the flesh of the victims ; he was excluded from the
repasts of families or of societies, all preceded by libations to
idols. The Christian life, therefore, appeared to the pagans as
an unsocial spirit of isolation, indicating a hatred of society.
From the little that is known of the kind of frenzy with
which the people rushed to'the representations of the circus,
and to the conflicts of the arena, there is no difficulty in under­
standing Tertullian, who said : “ The idea of being obliged to
renounce the pleasures, the sensualities, the passions of the
world, deters more from Christianity than the fear of being
condemned to death for having embraced it.” The dogma of
the unity of God, openly professed by the faithful, and falsely
interpreted by the pagans, caused them to be held as con­
temners of all religion, and even atheists. The pagans were
the more disposed to adopt this accusation, because the Chris-

REVIEW OF THE FIRST PERIOD OF THE CHURCH (A. D. M12).

?i39

tians never disguised their contempt for all which, according to
idolatrous ideas, was an expression of worship; and nothing
analogous was remarked among them. For these reasons,
the apparition of Christianity excited the popular hatred as
if against an impious sect without gods, without temples, and
without altars. Imbued with the opinion that Christians were
atheists, and that these men, over whom hovered the wrath of
heaven, ought to be extirpated, the multitude cried with one
voice to the magistrates and governors, ΑΙρε τους Μιους (exter­
minate the atheists) ! The more the Christians were obliged
to hold their assemblies in secret, and in the night, the greater
was the facility of the pagans in receiving the calumny, spread
abroad at an early period, that they committed in these assem­
blies horrible crimes against nature. A child, covered with
flour, they said, was offered to the neophyte who was to be
initiated ; he, unconscious of what he did, pierced it with a
knife ; the blood of the murdered infant was received in a cup;
the members partook of it as food; and they were thus united
by the ties of a common sacrifice. This horrible feast, they
averred, was followed by indescribable scenes of orgies and of
incests. The accusation of anthropophagy had its birth, as we
have already remarked,
*
in the disfigured pagan ideas of the
Eucharist. The kiss of peace, which the Christians gave each
other befere the breaking of bread—the name of agapœ (char­
ity), consecrated for the common repast that followed the
assemblies—were the innocent origin of the frightful calum­
nies of incest and unnatural crimes. At a later period, as we
have remarked, the striking dissolution of the Gnostics seemed
to authorize the pagans in extending to the Christian religion,
as a whole, the charge of atrocities which were perpetrated
only by sects repudiated by all the faithful. In thus bringing
together all the motives for the hatred of paganism against the
Church, we can easily account for the general explosion of ven* Let us bo permitted to remark, ou this subject, that these calumnies are an irrefragable
proof of tho faith of the earliest Christians in the real Presence, uud transubsUotiation, now
denied by tho Protestant sects.

34(1

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

gcance, of persecution, of cruelty, which ensanguined the three
first centuries. What the emperors proscribed from policy
was the object of popular execration. Never did any sen­
timent of indignation against the torrents of blood, the gra­
tuitous tortures, the unheard of torments inflicted on the
Christians,, burst forth from the multitude, who, on the con­
trary. rejoiced to witness the death of the enemies of gods and
men.
5. To struggle against all the obstacles which the united
interests, the passions, the prejudices, habits, and superstitions
of men opposed to her, the Church employed no other anus
than the simple power of her doctrines which gained converts
even in the midst of the tormentors. The exemplary life of
the Christians, the calm of their conscience, their contempt of
all that were the chosen objects of life to other men, the ardor
with which they hastened to death as to a better and more
enduring life, produced deep impressions on minds moulded by
paganism to effeminacy, sensuality, and exaggerated enjoy­
ment of luxury. They felt, in spite of themselves, that there
was in this doctrine a strength of spiritual regeneration, and,
as it were, re-establishment of human dignity. The zeal of the
Christians to propagate the faith which they had themselves
received, as a supreme good which they were in haste to share
with their brethren, contrasted also with the cold indiffer­
ence of paganism. “ Most of these apostolic disciples,” said
Eusebius, “as soon as they were initiated in the Christian life,
wandered over the most distant lands to make known the
name of Jesus Christ, and everywhere they spread the Holy
Gospel. Thousands of the pagans who heard their discourses
opened their hearts, also, to the adoration of the true God.”
Immovable in their attachment to their faith, threats, tor­
ments, the view of death under the most hideous form only
inflamed their courage. “ Man is of God only, not of the
emperor,” they said, writes Tertullian.
Strangers to all
human fear, they replied by a tranquil refusal of obedience to
each attempt of the state over their life as Christians, and

REVIEW OF THE FIRST PERIOD OF THE CHURCH (A. D. 1-313».

?41

declared they had no orders to follow in this matter hut those
of God and His Church. The principal means employed to
annihilate the new faith, persecutions and tortures, produced
a diametrically opposite effect. “As the fruitful branches of
the vine are often cut away,” said St. Justin, “to produce
stronger and more abundant buds, so the pagans, without
intending it, use the same treatment with us ; for Christianity
is a vine planted by God the Father and Jesus Christ the
Saviour.” In presence of such a spectacle those of the pagans
who were not quite deprived of their senses, nor completely
blinded, began to suspect that it was something more than an
illusion which raised so many persons of both sexes, and of
all ages, above ordinary weakness, and inspired them with in­
vincible constancy. Often, too, this joyous contempt of death
and suffering made a powerful impression on some of the
spectators, and a spontaneous conversion was the consequence.
6. It was especially by the sword that paganism strove to
destroy the religion of Jesus Christ ; yet the pagan writers and
philosophers undertook, on their part, the task of ruining, in
the opinion of men, a doctrine which the emperors and magis­
trates sought to extinguish in blood. Lucian was conspicuous
in this unworthy strife, which he carried on with the weapons
of sarcasm and irony that were peculiar to him. This super­
ficial scoffer, a contemporary of the two Emperors Antoninus,
was, by his Epicurean opinions, the enemy of all religion, under
whatever form it might appear. As a consequence he saw
in Christianity only' one of the innumerable phases of human
folly, on which he poured the gall of his mockery. In his
picture of Peregrine Proteus, he introduces this impostor as
connected with the Christians, and takes occasion to recount,
in a satirical tone, whatever he knows of the disciples of the
Gospel. “ These poor people,” he says, “ imagine themselves
immortal, soul and body ; consequently they hold death in
contempt, and many among them offer to meet it voluntarily.
Their first legislation persuaded them that they are all
brethren as soon as they deny the Hellenic gods and adore

342

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

their crucified sophist. They equally despise every thing else,
regarding their property as common, and by this credulity
become an easy prey to the first artful impostor, who can
soon make his fortune among men of so little sense.” Lucian,
as it is evident, had lent only a very fugitive attention to the
new faith, and suspected nothing of its importance. His
friend Celsus, the philosopher, was the first who wrote a work
especially directed against Christianity. This volume, entitled
Discourse of Truth, of which we can only judge by the refuta­
tion of it by Origen, includes all the popular calumnies against
Christianity and its author. Christians, according to him, ajc a
body of recent growth, who have revolted from the Jews.
Jesus Christ, born of a vicious mother, educated in Egypt in
the occult sciences of the hierophants, gathered around him by
magic arts twelve miserable fishermen. The prodigies which
occupied his life were mere enchantments and impostures.
His doctrine, an absurd mixture of old Jewish traditions,
joined to some moral precepts long before professed by Greek
philosophers, cannot sustain the examination of enlightened or
serious minds. The adepts of this new doctrine find recruits
among the vilest and the most ignorant. “There are,”he
said, “in many private houses coarse and ignorant men, woolen
manufacturers, weavers, etc., who say nothing before the elders
or fathers of the family. But if they meet in some secluded
place a few children or women, they indoctrinate them, tell­
ing them that they must not listen to their fathers and
teachers, because they have narrow minds, incapable of relish­
ing the truth. They thus induce the children to shake off the
yoke of parental authority, engage them to go to some subter­
ranean den, or perhaps to the shop of a fuller or shoemaker,
to hear the doctors of the new science and learn what is
perfection. To their other follies,” he adds, “ they unite the
absurd pretension of seeing some day their superstition be­
come the faith of all the world. But what man of sense would
suppose it possible that all the people in the world, Greek and
barbarians, would ever submit themselves to one and the same

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belief—to one and the same worship?" Yet that, which seemed
an impossibility to the pagan philosopher became not the less
true—not the less verified, ami his testimony brings into a
stronger light the triumph of the Gospel over all impossibili­
ties and all obstacles. Porphyry, born at Bactanea, in Syria
(a. d. 233), a disciple of Plotinus, and, without contradiction,
the first pagan philosopher of his time, followed in the footsteps
of Celsus. Ile wrote, in Sicily, fifteen books against Chris­
tianity, which were dignified by the pagans with the surname
of Divine. The most distinguished of the doctor-. Methodius,
Apollinaris, Eusebius, refuted him ; unfortunately these refu­
tations are all lost, with the work itself, of which, however,
we can discover the plan by the passages occasionally
quoted by the Fathers. Porphyry directed his attacks par­
ticularly against these books of the Old and New Testa­
ment, in which he hoped to find contradictions, absurdities,
improbabilities, or impossibilities. lie applied himself with
uncommon zeal to combat the prophecies of Daniel, which
he asserts were not written until after the events that they
announce. We give place to some of his other objection.,:
Jesus Christ called himself the son of God; yet he destroyed
the sacrifices of the ancient law which had been established
by God. God could not thus condemn himself. There is no
proportion between the sin committed in time, and eternal
chastisement. Therefore, the Christian law which sanctions
eternal punishment is a monstrous law. If the Christ is the
only way of salvation, as -the faithful pretend, why did he
come so late ? The miracles wrought at the martyrs’ tombs
were, in the view of Porphyry, only magical enchantments or
demoniac illusions. The question of miracles was that which
most embarrassed the philosophers in their hostile arguments.
It is remarkable that not one of them attempts to deny them.
All their efforts tend to explain them in a manner more or less
ingenious, but never to doubt them. Jamblicus, born at Chalcis,
in Celosyria, towards the end of the third century, a neopla­
tonic philosopher of the school of Porphyry, turned all the

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GENERAI. HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

resources of his mind to discover a satisfactory solution of
this difficulty. His Life of Pythagoras is still extant, in
which he teaches the means of communicating with the divin­
ity or with demons, and pretends to have found the secret of
working miracles. In this work Pythagoras is represented as a
thauinaturgus as powerful as Jesus Christ, who arrived at
this marvellous knowledge by his acquaintance with the
theurgic mysteries. But the most audacious attempt of this
kind was hazarded by the rhetorician of Lemnas, Philostratus, under the reign of Septimius Severus (a. d. 196-211) in
his Biography of Apollonius of Thyana. We can conceive that
to a certain point, the name of Pythagoras, already surrounded
in the shadow of ages with a mythic aureola, could have been
brought forward by Jamblicus for the admiration of a distant
age, when it was hardly possible to verify the fables which
might be attached to his memory. But Apollonius of Thy­
ana died in the year 97 of the Christian era, and the remem­
brance of his impostures was still recent among an almost
contemporary generation. However this may be, the hero of
Philostratus appears in this apotheosis as a manifestation of
the divinity on earth strewing prodigies along his path, com­
manding the elements, seeing through distant space, holding
converse with spirits, predicting the future, and relating it, not
with the conciseness of a prophet, but with the details of a
historian. After numerous adventures, and peregrinations
worthy of the Odyssey, he is accused, before Domitian, by
one of his disciples, the covetous Euphrates. Without being
discomposed on account of the danger that awraits him, be
goes to Rome, predicts his death, and at the hour of peril
is abandoned by his friends. Horribly tortured by order of
Domitian, he is left for dead ; and afterwards, appearing
to one of his friends, he desires him to touch him, to convince
himself that he is yet living, and is not a shade come from
hell. Such is tho gospel of this Messiah of Philostratus. The
philosophers of the eighteenth century endeavored, in their
turn, to exhume his memory, and to oppose him to the divinity

REVIEW OF THE FIRST PERIOD OF THE CHURCH (Λ. D. 1-313).

345

of Jesus Christ. But if Philostratus said the truth, why did
not the world adore Apollonius of Thyana? Or, if Philostratus
has written only fables, why awaken from the sleep of ages
the name of an impostor who had not the ability to find a
single disciple to survive him? Hierocles, the governor of
Bithynia under Dioclesian, whose furious pursuit of the
faithful in the tenth persecution we have already remarked,
was careful not to omit Apollonius of Thyana in his hypocriti­
cal Discourse of Truth addressed to the Disciples of Jews Christ.
“ The Christians,” he said, “ boast always that their Jesus
restored sight to several blind persons, and did other similar
things ; but we possess many distinguished men, to whom,
with much more justice, we attribute equal and greater mira­
cles; for, besides Aristeus and Pythagoras, Apollonius of
Thyana has accomplished great and wonderful things. Added
to this, these doings of Jesus have been reported by Peter and
Paul, and other men of their class, jugglers and gross impos­
tors ; while the purest motives have actuated men the most
enlightened, friends of truth, such as Maximus, Damis, and
Philostratus, to signalize the actions of Apollonius.” We
should regard only the silliness of these expressions, if they
did not show us the hand that traced them covered with the
blood of the many noble victims whose faith Hierocles insulted
while he held the sword raised above their heads.
7. Contemporaneously with the first pagan edict against
the Christians, these began on their side to publish apologies,
intended either to inspire the emperors and governors with
kinder feelings towards the faithful, or to imbue cultivated
minds with more correct notions of a religion so despised and
misunderstood, or, in fine, to unveil the vulnerable parts of
polytheism, and to justify the disciples of the new faith in
their separation from the religion of the state. The first
works of this kind presented (a. d. 131) to the emperor
Adrian, by Quadratus and Aristides, are lost, as also those of
Miltiades, Apollinaris of Hieropolis, and Melito of Sardis.
We have mentioned, at their date, the apologies of St. Justin,

346

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Tn tian. Terlullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. All
the objections of philosophy—al] the sophisms and prejudices
of polytheism are completely refuted in these works. The
truth is vindicated from all calumnies, explained with candor
supported by facts, and disengaged from the mists with which
passion and ignorance sought to obscure it.
8. It was not from exterior attacks only that the Church
was obliged to defend herself. Scarcely organized, adversaries
had arisen from her own bosom, so much the more dangerous
because they used against her arms which they might be said
to have borrowed from herself. In treating of the heresies, we
have remarked the diversity of their characters. Arising at
first from the spirit of Judaism, which would have implanted
its usages upon the doctrine of the Gospel and survive its
defeat by imposing itself on its conqueror, they brought up,
at first, only questions of ceremonial. Such are the errors
of Cerinthus and Ebion. Paganism, also, essayed an irruption.
It brought forth various Gnostic sects, which, from Simon the
Magician to Valentinus, multiplied themselves under many
forms, of which we have already given a recapitulation so
explicit that we need not again return to them. The strength
of Gnosticism soon became exhausted, and towards the close
of the third century it disappeared.
Manicheism, which
renewed some of its errors, succeeded it. The dualism of
principles, the antagonism between matter and spirit, form
the basis of the Manichean doctrine, which finally loses
itself in the vast abyss of Pantheism. To accommodate this
importation of the religious system of India to the genius of
the West, Manes attempted to unite with it a series of emana­
tions, which connected his heresy with Gnosticism. Africa
was the first infested by the errors of Manes, which were dif­
fused with great rapidity throughout the empire. In a. d. 29G,
the Emperor Dioclesian enacted a law’ of great severity against
the Manichees. As they came from Persia, the enemy of Rome,
and founded a dangerous sect which gave reason to fear the
introduction of the abominable usages and incestuous laws of

REVIEW OF THE FIRST PERIOD OP THE CHURCH (A. D. 1-313).

347

the Persians into the empire, the law ordained that their chiefs
should be burnt, the others beheaded, and those of a more dis­
tinguished rank, after having been despoiled of their goods,
should be transported to the mines. Exposed to these terrible
edicts, Manicheism, as a body, was soon extinct, and pre­
served only isolated sectaries, without union or body of doc­
trine, and without communication among its members. It is
given to truth alone to achieve an open triumph in the arena
of bloody persecutions. Dioclesian published against the
Catholic faith edicts still more cruel than those against the
Manichees. Catholicity came forth conqueror from a conflict
in which Manicheism sunk irretrievably. Besides the greater
forms of heresy which have been mentioned, there arose,
during the earliest times of the Church, sects who did not
attack the whole of her doctrines, but only particular dogmas.
Those of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Redemption, were
most frequently called in question by the heresiarchs of the
first ages, under various forms and titles. Some, actuated by
dispositions radically antichristian, denied the divinity of the
Redeemer, and by this, the Redemption itself. Against these,
the Church defended the divinity of Jesus Christ, as she had
defended His humanity in opposition to the Gnostics. Others
taught a union of the divinity with Jesus Christ, rejecting the
distinction of persons, and refusing to acknowledge, in the
names of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the various aspects
of.one only divine person; they maintained that the Hord
which was united to Christ, was that only God Himself, or the
Father. We have in their time signalized the names and ten­
dencies of each of these heretics. Their generation, beginning
with Praxias, and ending, in the fourth century, with Arius,
continued, during this interval, to renew their various attacks,
which all, in the last analysis, arrived at the same point—the
negation of the divinity of Jesus Christ. That no manner of
attack on the rising Church should be wanting, and that, by
repelling all, she should better prove the measure of divine
strength that sustained her, the long and obstinate schisms of

346

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Tatian. Terlullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. All
the objections of philosophy—al] the sophisms and prejudices
of polytheism are completely refuted in these works. The
truth is vindicated from all calumnies, explained with candor
supported by facts, and disengaged from the mists with which
passion and ignorance sought to obscure it.
8. It was not from exterior attacks only that the Church
was obliged to defend herself. Scarcely organized, adversaries
had arisen from her own bosom, so much the more dangerous
because they used against her arms which they might be said
to have borrowed from herself. In treating of the heresies, we
have remarked the diversity of their characters. Arising at
first from the spirit of Judaism, which would have implanted
its usages upon the doctrine of the Gospel and survive its
defeat by imposing itself on its conqueror, they brought up,
at first, only questions of ceremonial. Such are the errors
of Cerinthus and Ebion. Paganism, also, essayed an irruption.
It brought forth various Gnostic sects, which, from Simon the
Magician to Valentinus, multiplied themselves under many
forms, of which we have already given a recapitulation so
explicit that we need not again return to them. The strength
of Gnosticism soon became exhausted, and towards the close
of the third century it disappeared.
Manicheism, which
renewed some of its errors, succeeded it. The dualism of
principles, the antagonism between matter and spirit, form
the basis of the Manichean doctrine, which finally loses
itself in the vast abyss of Pantheism. To accommodate this
importation of the religious system of India to the genius of
the West, Manes attempted to unite with it a series of emana­
tions, which connected his heresy with Gnosticism. Africa
was the first infested by the errors of Manes, which were dif­
fused with great rapidity throughout the empire. In a. d. 29G,
the Emperor Dioclesian enacted a law’ of great severity against
the Manichees. As they came from Persia, the enemy of Rome,
and founded a dangerous sect which gave reason to fear the
introduction of the abominable usages and incestuous laws of

REVIEW OF THE FIRST PERIOD OP THE CHURCH (A. D. 1-313).

347

the Persians into the empire, the law ordained that their chiefs
should be burnt, the others beheaded, and those of a more dis­
tinguished rank, after having been despoiled of their goods,
should be transported to the mines. Exposed to these terrible
edicts, Manicheism, as a body, was soon extinct, and pre­
served only isolated sectaries, without union or body of doc­
trine, and without communication among its members. It is
given to truth alone to achieve an open triumph in the arena
of bloody persecutions. Dioclesian published against the
Catholic faith edicts still more cruel than those against the
Manichees. Catholicity came forth conqueror from a conflict
in which Manicheism sunk irretrievably. Besides the greater
forms of heresy which have been mentioned, there arose,
during the earliest times of the Church, sects who did not
attack the whole of her doctrines, but only particular dogmas.
Those of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Redemption, were
most frequently called in question by the heresiarchs of the
first ages, under various forms and titles. Some, actuated by
dispositions radically antichristian, denied the divinity of the
Redeemer, and by this, the Redemption itself. Against these,
the Church defended the divinity of Jesus Christ, as she had
defended His humanity in opposition to the Gnostics. Others
taught a union of the divinity with Jesus Christ, rejecting the
distinction of persons, and refusing to acknowledge, in the
names of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the various aspects
of.one only divine person; they maintained that the Hord
which was united to Christ, was that only God Himself, or the
Father. We have in their time signalized the names and ten­
dencies of each of these heretics. Their generation, beginning
with Praxias, and ending, in the fourth century, with Arius,
continued, during this interval, to renew their various attacks,
which all, in the last analysis, arrived at the same point—the
negation of the divinity of Jesus Christ. That no manner of
attack on the rising Church should be wanting, and that, by
repelling all, she should better prove the measure of divine
strength that sustained her, the long and obstinate schisms of

3Ô0

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

profited by the momentary peace to construct churches and
basilicas, where they held their assemblies. The persecutions
of Maximinus destroyed a multitude of these holy places
thus raised by the piety of the faithful. Afterwards, in
proportion as paganism abandoned her temples, the Chris­
tians purified them and inaugurated there the worship of
the true God. The form of these primitive monuments of the
rising Church was naturally modelled according to the rules
of Roman architecture. The religious archeologists of modern
times have carefully studied the modifications which different
epochs and the influence of varying climates have produced on
the construction of churches. In the three first centuries the
principal parts of each basilica were the atrium, vestibule,
where the catechumens, the penitents, and the neophytes
were placed, who had not the right to approach nearer to the
celebration of the mysteriës, and whom the deacons notified to
withdraw from the interior of the temple at the solemn mo­
ment ; the baptistery, with its sacred piscinæ, where baptism
was confirmed by immersion ; ordinarily, there were two
piscinæ, one for men, the other for women, for the baptism of
whom recourse was had to deaconesses—the interior of the
basilica separated by a large screen into two distinct parts,
for men and for women ; finally, the sacrarium, sanctuary,
so arranged that the seat of the bishop being placed nearest
the altar, the other ministers were placed, in their hierarchical
order, nearer to the people. Between the sacrarium and the
interior of the church a sort of ambo or tribune placed the
preacher in a position to be heard by the men and women at
the same time. Most of the basilicas of the third century
were disposed in this manner.
The holy mysteries were
always offered upon an altar inclosing the bodies of martyrs.
In the catacombs the tombs of the saints served for altars.
From this pious practice arose the custom of inserting relics
in the consecrated stones on which repose, during the sacri­
fice of the Mass, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus
Christ. The Church, attentive to the preservation of the

REVIEW OF THE FIRST PERIOD OF THE CHURCH (A. D. 1-312).

351

mortal remains of her children, destined one day to rise in
glory, consecrated, from the earliest period, places separate
from the pagan sepultures to deposit her dead. Tertullian
mentions these κοιμητήσια
*
cemeteries where the bodies of the
just repose in the sleep of death, awaiting the hour of resur­
rection. The tombs of the faithful were often covered with
paintings and sculptures illustrative of their faith.f St.
Cyprian recommends the faithful of Carthage to offer prayers
for the dead as a holy and charitable office. Thus, in the
three first centuries, we find in action all of the Christian
institutions which Protestants have rejected as recent inno­
vations.
Public penance was fixed by the canonical rules established
by minor councils. This we have had frequent occasion to
remark. These rules were not so invariable but that they
might be subjected to modifications required by the differ­
ence of times and the particular usage of churches. They who
were submitted to public penance, presented themselves, on the
first day of Lent,at the door of the church, in a mourning dress;
the prelate put ashes on their heads, and gave them a hair­
cloth to put on; they then prostrated themselves while prayers
were offered in their behalf. At the end of the prayers, the
prelate made them an exhortation ; after which they were led
to the door of the church, which was closed upon them.
These penitents came, on festivals, to the door of the basilica,
and remained there during the offices. After a certain time
they were admitted to hear the instructions, but were obliged
to go out before the prayers of the consecration. At a later
period they were admitted to the prayers, but prostrate.
Finally, they were allowed to pray standing, like the others,
only with the difference that they were placed on the left side
in the church. These four orders of penitents were known
by the names of the weepers {plorantes), hearers {auditores),
the prostrate {prostrati), and slanders {consistenti).
♦ From <οίμί>·, to sleep.
f See flume Souterraine, and tho work of M. Raoul Rochette, Sur les Cnucowboa

352

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Such was, in her dogma, hierarchy, and discipline, the
Church, against which the powers of Boman magistrates and
governors were as naught. She had an interior and divine life
which neither the sword of the executioner, nor popular
hatred, nor the captious arguments of the philosophers, nor the
shackles of a hostile legislation could reach. Like Jesus Christ
rising from the sealed tomb, the Church was to rise victorious
over every obstacle, every enemy, to reign at last over the
world.

SECOND PERIOD
ον

THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.
From A. I). 314 to A. D. 476.

CHAPTER I.
§ L

Pontificate of St. Sylvester

I. (Jan. 31, A. d. 314—Dec. 31, 335).

Second period of ecclesiastical history.—2. Election of Pope St. Sylvester.
—3. Lactantius. His works. — 4. Eusebius of Cæsarea. His works.—
5. Solitaries. St. Anthony, St Ammon, St Pacomius, St. Hilarion, Fathers
of the Desert.—6. Council of Arles against the Donatists.—7. Councils of
Ancyra, in Galatia, of Neocæsarea, in Pontus, and of Gangrcs, in Bithynia.—
8. Christian legislation of Constantine. — 9. Cruelties of Constantine.—
10. Reaction against Christianity. Persecution of Licinius. Martyrs.—
11. War between Constantine and Licinius. Defeat and death of Licinin
.*
12. Antecedents of Arius.—13. Heresy of Arius.—14. Council of Alexan­
dria against Arius.—15. St. Athanasius, deacon of Alexandria.—16. League
of Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia. Composition of the Thalia.—17. Let­
ters of the Patriarch St. Alexander against Arianism.—18. Intervention of
Constantino in the affairs of Arianism.—1ft. First (ecumenical council at
Nico, in Bithynia (a. d. 325).—20. Opening of the council.—21. Public
sitting of the Council of Nice.—22. Profession of faith known as the Nicenc
Creed.—23. Quartodecimans. Question of Easter judged by the Council
of Nice.—24. Affair of the Meletiana treated by this council.—25. Canons
of discipline of the Council of Nice, or Apostolic Canons.—26. Hierarchic
authority of the patriarchs regulated by the Council of Nice.—27. Elec­
tion and ordination of bishops and priests.—28. Celibacy of the clergy —
20. Rules for tho reconciliation of heretics, schismatics, and hpti —
30. Ecclesiastical discipline relative to marriage regulated by the apostoli ·
canons.—31. Close of the Council of Nice.—3J. Deposition of Euseliiv»
of Nicomedia, and Thcogni of Nice, by the Council of Alexandri.·.—
33. Foundation of churches and pious donations of Constantine.—34. Dis­
covery of the true cross by St. Helena, mother of Constantine.—35. Pn-j
ress of the faith beyond the limits of the Roman empire.—36. Foundation u
23

1.

364

GENERAL HISTORY OK THE CHURCH.

Constantinople.—37. St. Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria. Intrigncs of
the Etisebians against St. Eustathius, patriarch of Antioch.—38. Aria
*
in
prevented by the resistance of St. Athanasius from entering Alexandri». St.
Anthony at Alexandria.—39. Arian Council of Tyre against St. Atlianasius.
—40. Exile of St. Athanasius to Treves by the Emperor Constantine.—
41. Dedication of the church of Jerusalem (Sept. 13, a. d. 335).—42. Death
of Pope St. Sylvester (Dec. 31, a. d. 335).

§ I. St. Sylvester I., Pope (Jan. 31, a. d. 314—Dec. 31,335).

1. The first period had been as a baptism of blood to the
Church. All the strength of a society powerful by its victories
—by the splendor of a civilization which reached its highest
point in the Augustan age—by the glories of eloquence, poe­
try, and the arts—all were combined against the religion of
Jesus Christ. The struggle, prolonged through three centu­
ries, ended to the advantage of the Church, which, with Con­
stantine, was elevated upon the throne of the Caesars. It was
the commencement of a new era. To the combats with tor­
mentors succeeded enterprises against errors, false doctrines,
heresies. The right of the Church to live was no longer dis­
puted; her possession of the truth will now be contested.
Attempts will be made to corrupt the integrity of her dogmas,
the purity of her faith, the legitimacy of her divine traditions.
Error will rally round herself minds turned astray, but powerful
by the seductions of eloquence, and even entire populations,
and emperors, and kings. The Church will oppose them by
the solemn decisions of her ecumenical councils, the lights and
erudition of her doctors.
2. This new era opens with the election of St. Sylvester to
the sovereign pontificate, January 31, a. d. 314. He was a
Roman priest, the son of Rufinus and St. Justa. God called
him to a tranquil pontificate, and the longest since that of
St. Peter. The Emperor Constantine enriched the Church
which Sylvester governed with gifts of his imperial munifi­
cence. The pontiff addressed to the clergy various regula­
tions appropriate to the new condition of things. Antiquity is

ST. SYLVESTER 1. (A. D. 314-33»),

366

united in praise of their wisdom and importance, without ref­
erence to the special subjects of them. St. Sylvester is the
first pope who has been represented as crowned with the tiara.
This solemn ornament accorded well with the triumph of the
Church ; she had purchased the right to wear this crown by
the blood of her martyrs.
3. The grand spectacle which the victory of the Church
over paganism had just given the world was well calculated to
inspire the genius of Christian authors ; they were naturally
inclined to review the past, to analyze each phase of this
heroic conflict, to develop the new principles which the Christian
religion introduced into the world, and to verify by its history
each advance of the Church. Such is the character of the
works of two illustrious writers of this epoch, Lactantius, and
Eusebius of Cœsarea. Lactantius, who has been named the
Christian Cicero, professed rhetoric at Nicomedia, when he
was summoned by Constantine to preside over the education
of the Caesar Crispus, his eldest son. The instructions of
such a master formed an accomplished prince. On a calum­
nious accusation of Fausta, his step-mother, Crispus was put
to death, and left to Lactantius the sorrow of surviving a
pupil worthy of him. The most celebrated work of Lactan­
tius is his Treatise on the Death of Persecutors. The tragic end
of so many emperors who had shed the blood of Christians
was a subject to tempt the pen of an apologist. The divine
justice, whose finger marks each page of his recital, must have
made deep impressions on a generation who were contempo­
raries of these memorable facts. The logical sequence of his
subject naturally led Lactantius to compose a second treatise
on The Wrath of God, where he proves, against the stoic phi­
losophers, that God is not indifferent to good and evil; that
He has chastisements and vengeance for the wicked, as He has
recompenses for the just. He especially develops the idea of
an active and vigilant Providence in his book Of the Works of
God. The Christian system of Providence is again explained
in a work of more importance and extent, entitled, The Diviu

366

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Institutions, and divided into seven books : 1. Of false religion;
2. Of the origin of error; 3. Of false wisdom; 4. Of true
wisdom ; 5. Of justice ; 6. Of true worship ; 7. Of the life of
the beatified. This immense work, which included the whole
economy of religion, was abridged by the authoç himself. We
have still this double work, that was intended to second the
movement which then inclined the minds of men towards the
study of Christianity, and responded to the wants of an epoch
of transition between pagan errors and the light of the Gos­
pel. The charm of the style of Lactantius, his harmonious
and pure Latinity, which brought back the age of Augustus,
contributed to disseminate his works and to win souls to the
faith.
4. At the same time Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea, pub­
lished, in Greek, his great work of Evangelic Preparation and
Demonstration. In the first part, he prepares the mind to be­
lieve the Gospel ; in the second, he demonstrates its truth.
He takes his reader from the midst of the shadows of pagan­
ism to lead him, as if by the hand, to the splendors of the
true faith. In the Preparation, divided into fifteen books, he
begins by refuting the fabulous theogony of the poets, the
physico-allegorical theogony of the philosophers, and the
political or legal theogony of the cities and provinces. When
the moral world left its seat to seek support upon the founda­
tion of evangelical doctrine, it was needful to prove the empti­
ness of the groundwork on which it had rested for so many ages.
Having overthrown the errors of paganism, it remained to be
shown how much the Jewish religion had served as an avenue
and preparation to that of Jesus Christ. This is the object
proposed by the bishop of Cæsarea in a lengthened and pro­
found discussion on the books of Moses and the prophets,
which embraced the twenty books of the Evangelic Demonstra­
tion, of which only the first ten are extant. At this point of
view, the religion of Jesus Christ ceases to be a new religion
in the world. It begins at the fall of Adam, which leads
to the promise of a Saviour ; it is perpetuated in the patri·

ST. SYLVESTER I. (A. D. 314-336)

367

archs, in the exceptional existence of the Hebrew people, in
the hopes of the just, in the figures of the Old Testament, in
the inspired voice of the prophets, and is finally realized by
the coming of the Messiah, who fulfils all the prophecies,
verifies all the figures, crowns all the hopes, answers the
expectations of the Jews, the desire of the patriarchs, and
the promise of a Restorer of the human race, made by God
Himself in the infancy of the world. The scope of such a
work is evidently no less vast than magnificent, and was
equal to all the exigencies of the then existing polemics.
Eusebius here displays an immense erudition. His style is
simple and pure, clear and precise. The Ecclesiastical History
follows closely after the Evangelic Demonstration. It is less a
finished work, or history properly so called, than a collection
of historical pieces, of long extracts from ancient authors
whose works have been lost. The conduct of Eusebius of
Cæsarea, in the great question of Arianism, was not exempt
from reproach. Nor is the period of his history which touches
upon the facts of that heresy always so impartial as could be
wished. Apart from this defect, Eusebius rendered an emi­
nent service in preserving to history the precious monumenta
of the primitive Church. This work on the Christian religion
in the past may be regarded as the complement of his great
production of the Preparation and the Evangelic Demonstration.
Eusebius was an indefatigable historian. The better to include
all the great facts regarding the human race, and to connect
them with Christianity, which ascends from the Saviour, by
the prophets, Moses, and the patriarchs, to Adam, who teas of
God, to unveil the providential designs over earthly empires,
which all meet in the divine and eternal empire of Jesus
Christ, he composed his Chronicle, or tables of universal his­
tory from the beginning of the world, year by year, to his
own time. It is the plan which, many ages later, Bossuet so
magnificently developed in his immortal masterpiece—-rhe
Discours sur ΓHistoire Universelle. Eusebius, in the compila­
tion of his Chronicle, availed himself of the analogous labors of

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Justin of Palestine, Clement of Alexandria, Tatian of Babylon.
Theophilus of Antioch, and Julius Africanus, who had handled
tills subject before him.
5. While the doctors were employed in thus sustaining the
Christian faith by their learning and eloquence, God multi­
plied in the desert a generation of pious hermits who made
it still more respected by their miracles and the example of
their manners. Their inviolable attachment to the maxims
and laws of the Church were destined, also, at a later period,
to make their monasteries a secure defence against the seduc­
tions of heresy and error. Every halt made by St. Anthony
in the rocky solitudes was marked by the foundation of a
holy' retreat, which the ardent piety of those happy ages
had speedily filled. The holy patriarch had finally taken up
his abode on Mount Colzin, afterwards named St. Anthony, a
day’s journey from the Red Sea. The animals of the desert
respected his labors and the fields he had cultivated. God
renewed for him the miracle of the rock of Moses, and caused
springs of living water to burst forth under his feet. The
sick came in crowds to be healed by his prayers. Pagan
philosophers came to ask him questions, and carried away
the treasure of true wisdom which they had found in the
replies of this man, sublimely ignorant. Other solitudes were
peopled by other saints. Ammon, of a noble and rich family,
to gratify his parents, had just concluded an illustrious alli­
ance. On the day of his marriage he read to his young
bride the praises of St. Paul on the state of virginity, and
persuaded her to live, by mutual agreement, in perfect con­
tinence. After eighteen years of this angelic life, the death
of his parents permitted Ammon to retire to a mountain of
Nitria, where, under the direction of St. Anthony, he passed
twenty-two years in the practice of all the virtues, founded
many monasteries, and closed in peace a career which heaven
had blessed. The attraction to solitude exercised its influence
in every rank of society. Some young soldiers, enrolled by
force during the war between Maxentius and Constantine.

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landed one day at Thebes, in Egypt. They were locked up
like prisoners, and treated with excessive rigor. Unknown
men visited them, embraced them as their children, and
procured them all the comfort and consolation within their
power. One of the soldiers inquired who were these benefi­
cent men, and learned that they were Christians who lived
in retreat, prayer, and the exercise of charity. The young
soldier’s name was Pacomius. The remembrance lived in his
t heart, and bore the fruit of salvation. When his military
service was ended, he returned to the mountains of the
Thebais to knock at the cell-door of the holy hermit Palemon. “ Bread and salt are my only food," said the vener­
able man to him. “ I pass half the night in singing psalms, or
in meditation upon the Holy Scriptures.” Pacomius, though
really frightened at such austerities, replied : “ I hope in our
Lord Jesus Christ, that, sustained by your prayers, I shall
persevere until death in this manner of life." He kept his word.
After a novitiate of several years he accompanied Palemon to
the vast desert of Tabenna, in the diocese of Tentyra or Denderah, and built several monasteries, to which he gave a rule,
and which contained, before his death, seven thousand reli­
gious. Nearly at the same time Hilarion. of Gaza in Pales­
tine, whose studious youth encouraged the most flattering
hopes, having heard of St. Anthony, went to him. and under
this great master learned the secrets of ascetic life. He
quitted him. to avoid the considerable numbers who were
every day attracted by the reputation of the holy patriarch,
and, accompanied by several disciples, returned to inaugurate
the solitary life in Palestine. His vestments were a sack, a
tunic of skins, which St. Anthony had given him, «and a
peasant’s cloak. Some dry figs, which he ate only after the
going down of the sun, were his only food during six years.
At a later period he increased his austerities. He labored
with his hands, cultivating the soil, and weaving rush or
wicker baskets, like the solitaries of Egypt. A little cell, con­
structed by himself, four feet wide, five in height—of course

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lower than his own figure, but a little longer, for sleepingservcd for Ins dwelling, or rather tomb. Even to extreme
old age he rested on the hard ground, and then with extreme
regret consented to make use of a rush mat. The gift of mir­
acles was, even in this world, the recompense of the holy
anchorite ; and when the sick Syrians came to ask, at the feet
of St. Anthony, a remedy for their evils, “ Why,” he would
say, “ have you fatigued yourselves to come so far, when you
have near you my son llilarion?”
6. Meanwhile the council of Lateran, held by the Pope St.
Melchiades, against the Donatists, had not ended the contro­
versy which ambitious bishops, unworthy of their august posi­
tion, continued still more to embitter. The return of Donatus,
of Casœ Nigrœ, to Carthage, had been for Cecilian, the -Catholic
bishop, the signal to prepare for a persecution more violent and
angry than ever. The schismatics always maintained that the
ordination of Cecilian was null, because Felix of Aptonga, the
consecrating prelate, had been a traditor during the persecu­
tion. They pretended that this question had not been suffi­
ciently examined at the council of Lateran, and demanded a
new judgment—refusing to be guided by the first—and again
addressed their complaints to Constantine. “ What !” cried the
emperor, on receiving their demands, “ they lodge appeals like
the pagans in their suits at law !” To satisfy them, he ordered
juridical information to be obtained by the proconsul of Africa
on the subject of the conduct of Felix of Aptonga during
the persecution. Felix was solemnly recognized as innocent,
and his principal accuser was convicted of having falsified a
public act to give some color to his calumny. This inquest
and the sentence that followed it did not satisfy the animosity
of the schismatics. Their complaints recommenced with the
same obstinacy. Constantine then sent them to a council
which was held at Arles, in Gaul, “ not,” said St. Augustine,
“ that there was need of a new judgment, after that of the
council of Lateran, but to put an end to their importuni­
ties, and with the desire to rebuke their impudence.” The

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361

emperor assembled, at the expense of the public treasury, the
bishops of Italy, Sicily, Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Great Britain
Pope St. Sylvester sent them four legates—two priests and
two deacons. The sittings of the council opened August 1,
a. d. 314. Cecilian, the accused bishop of Carthage, was
there in person. His cause was once more examined. Two
charges were laid against him : the first, that, as a simple
deacon, during the persecution, he had gone, by order of the
Bishop Mensurius, to the door of the prison, with whips and
a troop of armed men, to prevent food from being conveyed to
the martyrs therein confined; the second, already so often
stated, that the prelates who had consecrated him, and par­
ticularly Felix of Aptonga, had been traditors. These two
points, after full deliberation, were found entirely false. The
innocence of Cecilian was proclaimed, his calumniators con­
*
demned.
The fathers of Arles, having concluded this first and
principal question, occupied themselves in the embodiment of
canons of discipline, which they sent to the pope, with a syn­
odal letter prepared in the name of all the bishops present.
We transcribe here the commencement of this letter, which is
a valuable proof of the filial veneration of the ancient Church
of Gaul for the Holy See.
“ To the well-beloved Pope Sylvester: Marinus Agreeing,
etc., eternal greetings in the Lord. United together in the
bonds of charity, in the unity of our holy mother the Catholic
Church, assembled in the city of Arles by the desire of the
most pious emperor, we salute you, most glorious pope, with
the veneration which is your due. We have been called
to struggle against turbulent men, who have no respect for
the law and traditions of the Church. But by the authority
of God, ever present, and by the inviolable rule of the
the truth, they have been confounded. There was neither
agreement nor solidity in their discourses, their accusations,
or proofs. For this reason, in the name of God and the
Church, our mother, they have been unanimously condemned.
And would to God, well-beloved brother, that you had judged

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

it proper to assist at this grand scene: their condemnation
would have been more solemn, and our joy more entire. But
you cannot quit those places where the Apostles constantly
preside, and where their blood continually gives glory to God."
The judgment of the council of Arles did not, more than
that of Lateran, impose silence on the Donatists. They dared
again to appeal to the emperor. Constantine, with a view of
putting an end to this unceasing discussion, brought it before
his consistorium, or private council. He summoned before him
Cecilian and his accusers, heard both parties, listened to all
the charges, made himself acquainted with the whole affair, and
finally gave a sentence entirely conformable to that of the two
councils; he declared Cecilian entirely innocent. The impe­
rial decision had no better results than the decrees of the
councils. When men have begun to substitute their views,
their judgments, their personal passions, for the voibe of au­
thority, it is rare that they pause in this career. The Donatists
pretended, this time, that the emperor had allowed himself to
be biased by Osius of Cordova, who was favorable to the
cause of Cecilian. If they had the right to invalidate his
judgment, why had they invoked it? If they invoked it,
why did they not yield to it ? The logic of error is the same
at all times; and the history of the Church will furnish us
with many other proofs of the obstinacy of heretics, and their
dexterity in creating pretexts to elude all decisions. Constan­
tine, tired of their intrigues, finished by banishing the most
seditious. But these rigorous measures against bishops whom
he had been inclined to cherish, if they had been worthy of
their exalted vocation, were repugnant to his character. He
soon recalled them ; but clemency towards them was not more
successful than justice, and in the sequel we shall find that
they filled Africa with murders and violence.
7. In the same year (a. d. 314) were held the councils of
Ancyra, in Galatia, and Neocæsarea, in Pontus. The canons
of discipline decreed in these councils, together with those of
Arles (a. d. 314), Gangres (a. d. 324), and the oecumenical

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363

council of Nice (a. d. 325), form, as a whole, the collection
known as the Apostolic Canons. We shall analyze them with
those of the council of Nice.
8. The influence of Christianity was diffused in the Roman
world by means of these assemblies of bishops, where the
people gradually habituated themselves to seek for the true
principles of justice. Legislation lost its pagan hardness in
contact with evangelical charity. Constantine admirably sec­
onded this movement, so advantageous to religion and to civ­
ilization. By a law of a. d. 314, he ordained, under the most
severe penalties, that any one having knowledge of persons
unjustly held in servitude, should give notice thereof to the
magistrates, by whom they should be immediately released.
And he proclaimed the principle, eminently Christian, that
even sixty years of bondage could not debar a man of bis
right to freedom. The great question of slavery, which then
weighed upon half the human race, was worthy of the atten­
tion of a Christian emperor. The pagan laws had incumbered
emancipation with formalities, which made it rare and difficult.
To make it legal, the act must be performed in the pres­
ence of prætors and consuls themselves. Constantine re­
moved all these obstacles, by permitting the manumission of
slaves in the Church, in presence of Christian people and the
bishops, requiring no other formalities than a simple attesta­
tion, signed by the ministers of the Church (a. d. 316). He
declared, by a subsequent law, that those who had been manu­
mitted in this way, should enjoy all the rights of Roman
citizens. The preceding year (a. d. 315) he had abolished the
ancient and barbarous custom of branding on tbe forehead,
with heated iron, those who had been condemned to the
amphitheatre or the mines. “ We forbid," he said, “ that
the face of man be thus dishonored, because it bears on it
traces of the majesty of heaven.” The same year he abolished
the punishment of the cross, reserved until then for slaves
Since Jesus Christ had willed to die on it, and the cross had
become the standard of the Roman legions, and the ornament

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of the imperini crown, its ignominy had become glorious. Con·
stuntinc published in all the cities of Italy, and caused to be
engraved on brass, as if to make it perpetual, a law which with­
drew from the father of a family the right to put to death the
young infant which he would not of was unable to support.
This legalized child-murder, which Rome had brought from
Sparta, is, without contradiction, the greatest stain on pagan
civilization. The emperor ordained that when a father should
bring to the officers of finance a child which he could not
maintain, they should draw upon either the public treasury or
the imperial domain for a sum necessary to feed and clothe the
infant, and without delay, because of the feebleness of the
child. In a. d. 323, he enacted for Africa a law not less
charitable, commanding the proconsuls, governors, and Réas­
surera to give assistance to parents whom indigence obliged to
sell their children. In a. d. 325, he interdicted the combats
of gladiators. Under the Roman emperors, the standard of
public morality was so low, that a shameful calculation
had made it necessary to inflict fines and legal punishments
upon those who lived in a state of celibacy ! Christianity, which condemned licentiousness as a crime, which
admits of only two conditions of life, marriage, or perfect con­
tinence, and which, at the same time, held virginity in honor,
and sanctified the duties of the married, required a modifica­
tion in the laws created for a state of things which disap­
peared as evangelical perfection was diffused on a larger scale.
Constantine therefore abolished the law of Augustus on
celibacy, which had an injurious effect on continence and
virginity. To consecrate Christian usages, and to encourage
their becoming general, a new law rendered obligatory the
observation of Sunday throughout the empire. From the
time of the Apostles, this first day of the week, the day of
the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and of the descent of the
Holy Spirit in the cenacle, had become the Dies Dominica
the Lord’s Day. It was chiefly on this day that the catechu­
mens received instructions, and that Jews and pagans were

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365

admitted to the public instructions of the Church. The
decree of Constantine placed the observation of Sunday
under the safeguard of the laws. The tribunals were closed,
and ordinary labors interrupted. The only exception was
in favor of agriculture, where the necessities are some­
times too urgent to admit of delay, and this exception is still
consecrated by the discipline of the Church. The faithful
interpreter of all Christian sentiments, the emperor did not
practise against paganism the violence which paganism bad
not ceased, during three centuries, to inflict upon the religion
of Jesus Christ. He respected in error the sort of right to
which immemorial usage had entitled it, and enacted no edicts
of proscription ; but he prohibited the consecration of new
idols. This law was accompanied by another, which ordained
the restoration of churches injured during the persecution,
and their augmentation or enlargement, or the erection of new
buildings, more in proportion to the increase of the faithful.
“ We hope,” he said, “ that all our subjects will embrace the
faith of the true God.” He offered, from his own estates,
the necessary expenses for these buildings, and desired that
nothing should be spared to make them suitable to the dignity
of the great God who was adored in them. All these ordinances
were crowned by the law of June 23 (a. d. 318), which per­
mitted parties to decline the jurisdiction of the magistrates,
and to submit themselves to the judgment of the bishops.
This was to inaugurate the magistracy of the pontiffs, whom
we shall see become the judges of their people, as they were
the pastors.
9. Such measures, dictated by eminent piety and wisdom,
have obtained for Constantine the praises of all historians.
Yet, astonishing as it may seem, he was not himself a Chris­
tian, though he sought to gain over all his empire to the
religion of Jesus Christ. He received baptism only a few
days before his death. This delay was to be regretted for his
glory. By a strange contrast, but one which is not unique in
the annals of mankind, this prince, whose administrative :u :s

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

bore so strong an imprint of humanity, whose morals, by the
report of all his contemporaries, were chaste and pure, did
not always in his conduct observe Christian moderation and
gentleness. In his wars against the Franks, he sent his
captives, even kings, more than once to be devoured by the
beasts in the amphitheatre. This spectacle recalled the san­
guinary gods of the Capitol—not the God of the Gospel.
We shall see him put to death Licinius, his former colleague
in the empire, contrary to his sworn faith ; and afterwards, by
a still more odious cruelty, sentence to the same, fate the
young Licinius, his own nephew, a child of eleven years of age.
Eusebius of Caesarea, the exaggerated panegyrist of the em­
peror, has not considered it his duty to mention these details.
But history must be neither a satire nor a eulogium a priori ;
above all, and so far as human judgment will admit, it ought
to be and to remain the truth. On the calumnious accusation
of Fausta, his second wife, and without taking time for a
mature examination of the facts, Constantine condemned to
death the eldest of his own children, the worthy pupil of
Lactantius, the Cæsar Crispus, at scarcely twenty-five years
of age, and when he had just won the brilliant honors of a naval
victory. Eusebius himself eulogizes him. He soon after dis­
covered the innocence of the young prince, and that he had
been the victim of the artifices of his step-mother. Fausta
was then, by his order, suffocated in a vapor bath. Doubtless in these deplorable circumstances Constantine was more
unfortunate than culpable. The Roman law which placed the
children, the wife, the entire family at the discretion of its
head, absolved him according to the laws then in force ; but
the law of the decemvirs was not the law of Jesus Christ,
nor even that of humanity. The titles of eternity, of adora­
tion, introduced into the etiquette of the imperial court by the
pride of idolatrous princes, and the impious adulation of cour­
tiers, were not abolished by Constantine. Vanity is the last
sentiment that dies in the heart of men, and it requires all
the power of the sacraments and the efficacy of grace to

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367

combat it with success. These facts, however we may regret
them in the life of Constantine, must not make us oblivion,
of the glory which is due to him, for the wise and Christian
institutions which he bestowed on the empire ; and the
writers who have undertaken to reflect the odium of these
particular acts upon his entire reign have yielded too much
to a spirit of depreciation, not less unjust and more detesta­
ble than that of the most ultra panegyrist. In Constantine
they especially assail the emperor who had been the first to
elevate Christianity upon the throne.
10. The religious movement, favored by Constantine,
wounded too many interests and prejudices not to give
occasion for a reaction on the part of expiring paganism.
Licinius, emperor of the East, put himself at the head of the
retrograde movement. After publishing several edicts which
attacked, though with a certain reserve, the religion of Jesus
Christ, he proceeded to an open persecution, a. d. 319, removed
all the Christians from his palace, and sent many into exile.
He then commanded all public functionaries to sacrifice to the
idols, under pain of destitution. His cruelties were especially
directed against the bishops, whom he hated, precisely because
they were beloved by Constantine. Among his victims was
St. Basil, bishop of Amasea, in Pontus, who was put to the
torture. The other bishops of this province were not spared.
The bodies of some of them were cut in pieces, and cast into
the sea. as food for fishes. St. Blaise, bishop of Sebaste, in
Armenia, after having had his flesh torn by iron combs, was
beheaded, with two young Christian children. Seven women,
detected in collecting drops of hie blood, were also put to
death. In the same city, forty Christian soldiers were exposed
at night, naked, on a frozen pond. Near it was prepared a
warm bath for those who should have the weakness to aposta­
tize. Only one, renouncing the glory of martyrdom, came to
plunge into the warm water, when he immediately expired.
Meantime the guard, who watched at the place of execution,
saw an angel descend from heaven, bearing forty crowns, but

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

only thirty-nine were found to receive them. Struck with
this heavenly vision, (he guard called the commandant of
the post, declared himself a Christian, laid aside his clothes,
and joined the thirty-nine martyrs to obtain the fortieth
crown. The following day tho bodies were placed on a car­
riage to be conveyed to the pyre. One of them, the youngest,
still breathed. The executioners left him, in the hope that
he might change his resolution. But his mother took him
in her arms, and laid him herself on the vehicle, saying,
“ Go, my son, finish with thy companions this happy jour­
ney, so that thou shalt not be the last to present thyself to
God.”
11. This persecution, added to certain political difficulties,
brought about a decisive war between Licinius and Constan­
tine. The preparations on both sides were immense. Con­
stantine had a hundred and thirty thousand men, on sea and
land ; his son Crispus commanded the fleet. The forces of
Licinius numbered nearly a hundred and seventy thousand.
Constantine placed the Labarum at the head of his troops on
their march. It was kept in a tent separated from the camp,
where the emperor often retired for prayer. Licinius sur­
rounded himself with diviners from Egypt, sacrificers, and
soothsayers, who promised him victory in magnificent verses.
The battle was fought July 3, λ. d. 324, near Adrianople.
Licinius, defeated, fled, leaving thirty-four thousand dead on
the field. His fleet was destroyed in the waters of the Bos­
phorus, by Crispus. A second engagement took place under
the walls of Chalcedon. The remainder of the army of Licin­
ius was cut to pieces ; with difficulty he escaped the sword of
the conqueror, with three thousand men, and fled to inclose
himself within the walls of Nicomedia, whither Constantine
followed to besiege him, and, finally, reduced him to come as a
suppliant to implore pardon. Constantine promised to spare
his life, but within the same year he put him to death, with
his son, the young Licinius, in contempt of his oath and solemn
treaties. This event left Constantine sole master of the world.

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and through him the Christian religion triumphed in the Roman
empire.
12. Scarcely had the last hopes of paganism fallen in the
East with Licinius, under the victorious arms of Constantine,
when a new enemy, not less dangerous, arose in the bosom of
the Church, against the Church herself. An error, which brought
back idolatry under another name, and aimed at nothing else
than to sap the very foundation of Christianity, spread over
the great cities of the East, always eager in the pursuit of nov­
elties, and passionately addicted to discussions and conflicts of
ideas. The new heresy bore the name of its author, Arius, and
owed its origin, like most of the errors which desolate the
Church in all ages, to wounded pride and disappointed ambtion.
Arius, a priest of Alexandria, was born, like Sabellius, in Cyrenaic Libya. He was tall in stature, of an imposing form, a
grave and serious demeanor, of affable manners, and of mild
and agreeable conversation. His austere morals, his mortified
exterior, an apparent zeal for religion, a rare talent for dialec­
tics, fair acquirements, but superficial in profane and ecclesi­
astical science, served to conceal a depth of secret restlessness
and unbounded ambition. At the time of the Meletian schism,
Arius, not yet in orders, was one of the first to throw him­
self into it. But he soon drew back, was received into the
communion of the Church, and ordained priest by the holy
Patriarch Achillas, who confided to him the government of
one of the principal churches of Alexandria, and even the
public teaching of the sacred Scriptures. The vanity of
Arius knew no limits ; he aspired to the patriarchal seat of
Alexandria. When, on the death of Achillas, the election of
St. Alexander to the pontificate destroyed his hopes, he
threw off all restraint. The morals of the new patriarch
were unassailable ; he therefore attempted to calumniate bis
doctrines, and did not hesitate, in the hope of success, to make
a public profession of heresy
13. St. Alexander, following the doctrine of the Gospel
and the Apostles, taught that the Son of God is equal to His
24

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Father, and of the same substance. The Greek word όμοοίοιος,
consubstantiel, which categorically expresses the truth of the
Christian dogma, had been employed by the two Saints Dio­
nysius of Romo and Alexandria, and bad already become a
common expression. Arius pretended that this was the erro­
neous doctrine of Sabellius, that by it the personality of the
Word was annihilated, and confounded with the Father. Un­
der the pretext of a clearer distinction of the Persons, Arius
maintained that the Son had been created—that He is not
eternal ; that He was taken out of nothingness ; that of His
free will He was capable of vice or virtue, equally with other
men. Philosophically, the character of Arianism was the
separation of the world from God. He laid down, as a first
principle, that God is too great for the creature to bear His
immediate action; too great to put Himself in immediate rela­
tions with that which is finite.
Consequently, when God
willed to create the world, He first formed the Word, to
create all the rest hy Him. In this system, it is evident,
the Word is only a creature more distinguished and of a
nature more sublime than others. He is not eternal, although
He is anterior to the world ; He is not even God, though the
Arians give Him this name. The worship they pay to Him is
merely idolatry under another form. All the heresies, thus
pushed to their ultimate consequences, end in absurdity.
Arius was careful to hide from his sectaries the logical conse­
quences of his doctrine ; the most simple minds would have
revolted from them. When three ages had just avowed, by
myriads of martyrs, their faith in the divinity of the Son of
God, a Christian, a preacher, a priest, who directly opposed
this faith, would have been ill received. The heresiarch, there­
fore, only insinuated that there were degrees in the Trinity,
and that the Son, born of the Father, was less great, and less
ancient than the Father.
14. At first, these errors were confined to the circle of
private conversations. Arius in this way tried his strength iu
his part of heresiarch. He displayed all the resources of his

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371

imagination and eloquence to mislead and seduce his auditors.
Finally, when he felt assured of the dispositions of the greater
number, when he saw himself surrounded, applauded, sus­
tained, he dared the encounter of public discussion, and openly
preached his new doctrine in the pulpits of Alexandria. The
whole city flocked to hear his discourses. Christians learned
from him that the faith of their fathers was a fable, that Jesus
Christ was God only by participation. Arius willingly admit­
ted that the Word had existed before all ages, because the
words of the Scriptures are explicit ; but he maintained, at the
same time, that He was not co-eternal with God, and that His
existence had a beginning. These errors soon came to the
knowledge of St. Alexander, who, at first, endeavored to win
back the heresiarch by charitable warnings. His measures of
gentleness and conciliation failed before the obstinacy and
vanity of Arius. As his party increased from day to day, St.
Alexander, to arrest the progress of the evil, assembled his
clergy in two solemn conferences. Arius appeared before
them. The controverted points were discussed. The error
was opposed by Catholic tradition, the witness of the Scrip­
tures, and the fathers. Arius refused to yield. Finally, the
patriarch, having exhausted all means of moderation, convoked
at Alexandria a council of nearly a hundred bishops of Egypt
and Libya. Arius having renewed his blasphemies before
them, was, with his principal adherents, excommunicated,
a. d. 320.
15. The Patriarch St. Alexander had with him, to aid in
the struggle with the Arians, a young deacon whose name will
soon become the rampart of the faith and the centre of
ecclesiastical history in the fourth century. This was Athan­
asius, who thus began, at the side of a holy and pious bishop,
his laborius career of apostle and doctor. Of a faith pro­
found and immovable, a penetration which opened the most
intricate affairs to his vision, a prudence which the snares of
his enemies never found at fault, a logic which dissipated,
like cobwebs, the most astute sophisms, an eloquence which

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made the most difficult questions compréhensible to ordinary
minds, and a firmness which the entire world could not move,
we shall see him in turn pass from triumph into exile—from
the patriarchal chair of Alexandria to the deserts of the
Thebais and the mountains of Nitria; the model of bishops
and the admiration of anchorets, as admirable for his piety
as for his knowledge, and always worthy of the hatred and
persecutions of the enemies of the faith. The first part of
his life was passed in ascetic exercises, under the direction of
St. Anthony, to whom he was united by the ties of unalter­
able friendship. In this austere school he acquired the invin­
cible courage, the persevering energy, which he exhibited
against innumerable adversaries, bishops, priests, and em­
perors, triumphing at the same time, in discussion, by
the clearness and precision of his logic, and in the written
strife of polemics by the rapidity, the vehemence, the
eloquence and vigor of his composition ; in persecution,
by his unconquerable boldness, and the unalterable tran­
quillity of his great soul. Such was St. Athanasius, whom
we shall see, after half a century of toil, of exile, of fugitive
wanderings, win the glory of uniting his name forever with
the triumph of Catholic truth over Arianism.
16. On quitting Alexandria, after his condemnation by the
council, Arius complained that he owed this treatment only to
the influence of the deacon Athanasius. It was known that
the patriarch had the most entire confidence in him, and
admitted him to all his counsels. The heresiarch retired into
Palestine, where he spared nothing to gain nevr partisans,
lie had the address to draw to his party several bishops, the
most influential of whom was Eusebius of Nicomedia, his
ancient associate. This prelate belonged to that class men­
tioned in the Gospel, who do not enter the fold by the door,
and who, like the hireling, betray the interests of the flock.
He was suspected of having apostatized during the persecu­
tion. He afterwards became, no one knew how, bishop ot
Berytus in Phoenicia. An adroit courtier, he had succeeded in

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373

gaining the good graces of the princess Constantia, sister of
Constantine, and wife of Licinius. The metropolitan bishop­
ric of Nicomedia becoming vacant, Eusebius, who measured
the episcopal dignity by the greatness of its seat, left the
little city of Berytus, without any canonical authorization,
for the imperial city of Nicomedia. When Licinius, whose
resilience was in this latter capital, made war at the same
time against the Christians and Constantine, Eusebius was
the confidential friend of Licinius. But when Constantine
was victor, he was among the first to bow for the favor of
Constantine. His was one of those servile dispositions which
follow every car of triumph, and which all conquerors find
in their train—a miserable spoil, which should be cast off
as worthless ; but such men know how to make them­
selves necessary by flattering the vanity of the new master,
and placing at his command a devotion which, on the first
change, will be offered with equal hypocrisy to his successor.
Eusebius was thus a worthy patron for a heresiarch. The
following letter was addressed to him by Arius, from his
retreat in Palestine. We transcribe it, because it clearly ex­
plains his heresy.
“ To the much esteemed Lord—to the man of God, the
faithful, orthodox Eusebius, Arius, unjustly persecuted by
the Patriarch Alexander, for the victorious truth which you
yourself defend, health and benediction in the Lord. My
father Ammonias is setting out for Nicomedia, and I have
thought it my duty to take this occasion to salute you, and at
the same time to inform your charity of the persecution to
which we are unjustly subjected by the bishop. He has ex­
cited every one against us, and drives us as reprobates from
his imperial city. Our only crime is the refusal to adhere to
his erroneous doctrine and to say with him, God is eternal ;
the Son is eternal : the Father and the Son have always
coexisted. The Son is from eternity, always begotten.
The Father does not precede the Son a moment, not even in
thought. God always, the Son always; the Son proceeds

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

from God. Because Eusebius of Cæsarea, your brother, Theodotus, Paulinus, Athanasius, Gregory, Aetius,
*
according to
the faith of all the Orientals, maintain that God is anterior to
the Son, they have been anathematized. There have been
excepted from this excommunication only Philogonus, Hel­
lanicus, and Macarius, these ignorant heretics who pretend
that the Sou is, some say, an expiration or breath, the others
a projection from the Father. These are so many impieties,
which we cannot admit, even if these heretics threatened
us with a thousand deaths. For us, that which we profess
and believe, we have taught, and we continue to teach. By
the will and the counsel of the Father, the Word subsisted
before all time and before all ages, in fulness God, only Son
unchangeable. But before being begotten or created, He had
no existence. We are persecuted for having declared, ‘The
Son has a beginning, and God has not.’ They are violent
against us for maintaining that the Word is taken from noth­
ing, which we have said because He is neither a part of
God, nor derived from any creature. Behold the cause of
our sufferings : you know the rest. I wish you all prosperity
in the Lord. Remember us in our afflictions.” Eusebius of
Nicomedia replied to this letter with the assurance of his
entire adhesion to the principles it contained. “Your senti­
ments are good, and you ought to wish to see them universally
adopted. Who can believe that that which has been created
could have being before having received it? Must it not
first have begun to be ?” Not satisfied with giving this en­
couragement to the heresiarch, he wrote to the bishops his
• The bishops whom in this letter Arius mentions as his partisans are Eusebius of
Cæsarea in Palestine, the historian, Theodotus of Laodicea in Syria, Paulinus of Tyre,
Athanasius of Anazarba in Cilicia, Gregory of Berytus, Aetius of Lydda, or Diospolis;
when he adds that they hare boon anathematized, it is a calumny, since these names
wore not mentioned in the council of Alexandria. The three bishops, whom he pro­
nounces ignorant, because they were unfavorable to him, arc St. Philogonus, bishop of
Antioch, whose merit had elevated him to this apostolic see, to succeed Tyrannus, who
had occupied it from the year a. d. 299 to 312; Hellanicus, bishop of Tripoli in Phoenicia;
and St. Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, who had succeeded Hermon in a. d. 314. St.
Athanasius considered the last us among tho greatest bishops of his age.

8T. SYLVESTER l. (A. 1». 314-31I6).

375

partisans to rouse their zeal in behalf of the new doctrine.
In his letter to Paulinus, the Arian bishop of Tyre, he praises
the ardor of Eusebius of Cæsarea in defending their common
error. He urges all his adherents to write to the Patriarch
Alexander, being persuaded, he says, that he will yield
to their reiterated demands. Arius soon went to Nicomedia
to join his devoted protector. He was received with the
highest honors. The better to diffuse the venom of their
heresy, and to popularize it sp far as it was in their power,
they composed a collection of chants, containing their whole
doctrine, which they named Thalia. The measure and the
airs were the same as those of the" obscene songs then in
vogue among the populace. They were adapted to travel­
lers, sailors, laborers, and slaves in the tread-mill. We
have already seen the same means employed by Valentinian, and Harmonius his disciple, to popularize Gnosticism.
The instinct of heresy is always the same. It has small
regard for the dignity of its dogmas, or for the morality or
propriety of its manner of propagating them; success is the
only end.
17. Against all these skilfully combined efforts, Catholic
truth opposed an old man as her defender—the illustrious
patriarch of Alexandria. But this old man, in the ardor of his
faith, found the activity of his youth renewed. Besides, he was
seconded by the deacon Athanasius. St. Alexander wrote to all
the bishops of the East, and to the Pope St. Sylvester, to inform
them of the intrigues of Arius, and to brand him with heresy.
He sent to them a memorial, or profession of faith, requesting
them to subscribe to it, in order to crush the heresy under the
weight of their unanimous suffrages. St. Epiphanius knew of
seventy of these letters, addressed to different prelates. As
the new sect relied especially on the credit which its avowed
protector, Eusebius of Nicomedia, enjoyed at court, St.
Alexander did not hesitate to attack, publicly, this usurping
bishop. He did it in a circular letter addressed to all the
churches in the world. “I had at first," said the saintly patri-

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

arch, “ thought it my duty to be silent, to stifle the evil in the
persons of the apostates, and not to offend the ears of the
pious faithful by the relation of their blasphemies. But since
Eusebius assumes the right to dispose of the affairs of the
Church, because he left Berytus and usurped the church of
Nicomedia without receiving the punishment he deserves, since
he places himself at the head of these heretics, and writes on all
sides in their favor, I am obliged to raise my voice to make
known to all who the apostates are and the nature of their
heresy, in order that you may be guarded against their bold
attempts.” Before dispatching these letters, St. Alexander
assembled his clergy, made known their contents, and engaged
them to subscribe to what he had written. Eusebius and
Arius also convoked an assembly of their partisans at Nicome­
dia. Their error was solemnly approved, and they wrote to
all the churches to communicate with the Arians. Troubles
only increased in the midst of this conflict. Not only the
bishops and priests entered into the controversy, the whole
people were divided, and took part for or against the truth.
All minds were in a ferment; the name of Arius occupied
every one; the Thalia had done its work.
18. Such was the state of the East when the victories of
Adrianople, Byzantium, and Chalcedon, over Licinius, brought
Constantine there. This prince, deceived by the underhand
dealing of Eusebius, saw nothing at first in all these debates
but an idle war of words. He thought to settle the whole
matter by writing to both parties to cease their strife. But
matters were no longer at a point where an imperial letter could
appease them. It was a question whether Jesus Christ was
God. The Catholic bishops could not for an instant leave this
question in doubt. On the other hand, the vanity and personal
interests of the Arians were engaged in this conflict; they would
not recede. Osins of Cordova and St. Alexander advised Con­
stantine to assemble an oecumenical council, όικούμένηςγής, that
is, of the whole world. The emperor saw that it was the only
means of ending a controversy which every day became more

ST. SYLVESTER I. (Λ. D; 314-333).

377

bitter. In concert with St. Sylvester, he summoned a general
assembly of all the bishops in the world, to meet at Nice, in
Bithynia, in the month of June, a. d. 325.
19. The bishops came from every quarter of the globe, to
the number of three hundred and eighteen, exclusive of priests,
deacons, and acolytes. All the travelling expenses of the
bishops and their trains were paid out of the public treas­
ury. Never had a more imposing spectacle been given to the
world. The flower of the human race were assembled, not to
treat of frivolous or ephemeral questions of politics, divisions
of territories, or of the constitutions of empires. Immortal
interests were at stake, the very principles of faith and reli­
gious life. All these venerable relics, saved from the prisons
and torments of the persecutors, these old men, crowned
with victory more than years, who bore the glorious marks of
the tortures they had endured for Christ, came to sustain by
their testimony the divinity of Him whom they had confessed
in the presence of their tormentors. The living echo of
Catholic tradition, they brought to this august assembly the
doctrines of the past ages ; they linked the present to the
Apostolic times, and bequeathed to souls yet to come the
truth they had drawn almost from its source. Among these
great luminaries of the Church, the most remarkable were
Osius of Cordova, who was the legate of St. Sylvester, univer­
sally celebrated for his learning, piety, and consummate pru­
dence ; the holy Bishop Paphnutius, bishop of Upper Thebais,
and Potamon, bishop of Heraclea, who had both paid the penalty
of their profession of faith by the loss of the right eye ; St. Paul,
bishop of Neocæsarea on the Euphrates, whose tendons had been
burned with red-hot irons during the persecution of Licinius;
St. James of Nisibis, in Mesopotamia, and St. Nicholas, bishop
of Myra, both illustrious for numerous miracles ; St. Amphion,
bishop of Epiphania, who had suffered torture for the name
of Jesus Christ under Dioclesian ; St. Basil, Bishop of Amasea;
St. Meletius, of Sebastopolis ; St. Hypatias, of Gangres, in
Paphlagonia ; St. Macarius, patriarch of Jerusalem ; St. Eustar

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

thius, of Antioch, and that illustrious bishop of Alexandria,
St. Alexander, who had been the first to call upon the error
of Arius the anathema of the Church. He was accompanied
by his deacon Athanasius, who was destined, in his turn, to be
the soul of so many councils. At the side of these prelates,
these glorious defenders of the faith, the Arians had brought
to Nice all their adherents, of whom the principal were
Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Eusebius of Cæsarea; Theognis,
of Nice ; Patrophilus, of Scythopolis ; Maris, of Chalcedon,
and Narcissus, of Neroniad. Besides Osins of Cordova, papal
legate, St. Sylvester had sent, as his representatives, the
Roman priests Vito and Vincent, who subscribed their names,
before those of the bishops, to the acts of the council.
20. Before the day appointed for the public assembly, the
bishops met in a church large enough to contain all of them—
these are the very words of Eusebius of Cæsarea ; they held
there many private conferences, to which Arius was called.
He developed the entire series of his errors; he maintained
that God had not always been Father ; that there was a time
when the Son did not exist; that the Word was made from
nothing, the creature and work of God, but more perfect
than the others. In consequence, Jesus Christ was not God
by nature, but only by a sort of participation. He added:
“That He was not the substantial Word of the Father, nor
His wisdom, by whom all has been made ; but that He was
Himself created by the eternal wisdom ; that He is in all
things foreign to the substance of the Father; that He is not
the peculiar and natural production of the Father, the natural
virtue of God, in the words of the Scriptures, but the effect
of His free will. That the Son cannot perfectly know the
Father, and that He can possess that knowledge only within
the bounds of His finite and limited nature.” The fathers
stopped their ears in horror at the exposition of these odious
blasphemies, and protested, by their indignation, against a
doctrine opposed to the belief of the Church. Most of thorn
wished to condemn these impious heretics without further

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379

debate, in order to hold to the faith which they bad received
by apostolic tradition. But the Arian bishops maintained that
an opinion is not to be implicitly followed on the ground of
mere antiquity, and they accordingly called for amore thorough
investigation of the subject. Each of the propositions of
Arius, therefore, became a separate matter of discussion. The
orthodox bishops at first urged the Ariane to give a clear
definition of what they understood by the name of Son, which
the sacred text gives to the Word. “ For if Christ be not
the Son of God by nature, but only by a kind of participation
of the divine perfections, what has He above the angels and
saints; and why is He called the only son of God?" “He
is called the only Son of God,” answered the Arians, “because
He alone was made by God alone ; whereas God made all other
creatures through His Son.’’ “ Senseless and impious novel­
ty,” cried the orthodox fathers, “since it presupposes two
absurd and sacrilegious ideas : either that through impotence,
God was unable, alone, to create all other creatures, or that
through pride He was unwilling to do it, though He possessed
the power. The doctrine is, besides, contrary to the very
text of Scripture : God Himself made us. Ipsefecit nos. There
is bid one God from whom all things are, and one Lord Jesus
Christ, through whom are all things." The Arians had recourse
to another subterfuge : “ As other creatures could not bear
the immediate action of the Infinite Being, God first created
the Son alone, and then, all other creatures through the Son."
“ The distinction is worthless," replied the Catholics; “for if
creatures could not bear the immediate action of God, how
could the Son bear this action, since He is also, in your system,
but a creature? If creatures needed an intermediate agent
between God and themselves, the Son, who is but a creature,
needed one also, and this intermediate agent would need
another, and so on, ad infinitum. But if, to escape this absurd
consequence, you admit that the Son, although but a creature,
could have been created immediately by the uncreated Being,
you must, of necessity, grant that the uncreated Being could

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

have created all other creatures in the same manner, and your
necessity of the production of the Word falls to the ground.'’
21. The 9th of June, a. d. 325, the day appointed for the
public session, had arrived. The preliminary discussions, in
the preceding conferences, had removed every difficulty. The
orthodox bishops were unanimous in heaping anathemas upon
the impiety of Arianism. The Emperor Constantine had come
to Nice, to add to the solemnity of the sentence the majesty
of the imperial presence. All the bishops, priests and deacons,
who were to take part in the deliberations of the council,
proceeded to the great hall of the palace, which had been pre­
pared for their reception ; here, also a throne of gold had been
placed for the emperor. When Constantine appeared, clothed
in the imperial purple, and wearing a cloak bright with pre­
cious gems, the fathers rose, to honor, in his person, the
prince who had drawn the Christian religion from the darkness
of the catacombs, and brought it into the full splendor of
these august solemnities. Constantine received their hom­
age with respectful modesty. On reaching the upper end of
the hall, he remained standing, and only the repeated wishes
of the bishops could induce him to take his seat upon the
throne prepared for him. St. Eustathius of Antioch then
rose and addressed the emperor, returning thanks to God for
the wonders accomplished during his reign in favor of religion.
Constantine replied, in Latin ; his discourse was rendered by
interpreters into Greek, as most of the Eastern fathers under­
stood that language better, since it was more prevalent in the
East. He gave expression to the joy which he felt at the
sight of so many prelates assembled from all parts of the
world, and to his earnest desire of putting an end by their
agreement to such fatal dissensions. He then gave way to
those who presided over the council, and left them at full
liberty to enter upon a thorough examination of all doctrinal
questions. The discussion with Arius was therefore resumed,
before the emperor. His partisans laid before the council a
profession of faith drawn up by themselves, and containing all

ST. SYLVESTER I. (A. D. 314-335).

381

their errors touching the nature of the Son of God. All the
orthodox fathers, who were in overwhelming majority in the
council, unanimously rejected it. They then passed to the
consideration of the terms to be used in defining the Catholic
belief on the generation of the Word, and it was first proposed
to use the expression of the Scriptures, The Son w of God.
But the Arians interpreting it according to their doctrine,
made no difficulty about signing the profession, “ For it is
also written,” they said, “in another text, All things are of God."
This formula, then, did not, in reality, distinguish the Word
from creatures. The Catholics then clearly explained that by
the words, The Son is of God, they meant to express that
He is of the very substance of God; which cannot be pred­
icated of any creature. It was next suggested to use the
expression that the Son is the strength of the Father. His sole
wisdom, His eternal image, which is like to Him in all things.
The Arians found means to abuse each of these new terms. The
word strength is often used in the sacred writings, to designate
a created power (Joel ii. 22). The term image was not more
precise, since it is written that man was made to the image
and likeness of God. Seeing this Avant of honesty in their
adversaries, the Catholics were forced, in order to express them­
selves more categorically, to include the meaning of the Scrip­
ture in a single word, and to say that the Son is unsubstantial
with the Father, δμοούσιος, an expression which has since gained
so much celebrity. “ It means that the Son is not only like
to the Father, but so united as to be only one with Him, and
that the likeness of the Son is not the same as that which
is attributed to creatures. Besides, bodies may be alike, and
still be separated and distant, as happens among men, in the
case of a father and son, however they may resemble each
other ; but the generation of the Son of God is very different.
He is not only like, but inseparable from, the substance of the
Father; the Father and the Son are one. The Word is al­
ways in the Father, and the Father in the Word,
*
just as
• Futi'RY. IMory of Ou Church, Lib. xi.

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

brightness is in regard to light.” All these ideas were in­
cluded in the term unsubstantial, which the Arians refused to
receive, alleging that it was not Scriptural, and that it con­
tained a heterodox meaning. “ For that which is of the same
substance with another,” said they, “ partakes of it in one of
three ways, by division, by emanation, or by production: by
production, as a plant from its root ; by emanation, as the
offspring from the father; by division, as two or three goblets
made from a single mass of gold. But no one of these inodes
of participation can be ascribed to the generation of the Son
of God.” The Catholic bishops replied that the term unsub­
stantial, as attributed to the Word, included no idea of body,
and conveyed no meaning of division or lessening of the sub­
stance of the Father, which is essentially immaterial and
spiritual; that it signifies only the unity of substance in
the Father and the Son, coexisting from all eternity, the
Father never without the Son, the Son never without the
Father. As to the objection that the word unsubstantial is
not found in Scripture, the fathers answered, that the sense
is here,above the form; and that the idea of consubstantiality
is embodied in every page of Holy Writ, so that the absence
of the word is of no force against the doctrine. Besides,
they observed, the term is not new, since either St. Dionysius
uses it to explain the nature of the Word, and usage has
made it familiar in Christian speech. The alleged passages
of the two holy doctors, were referred to, and even Eusebius
of Cæsarea was forced to grant the correctness of the quota­
tions. The term unsubstantial was therefore adopted by nil
the orthodox fathers, as best calculated to meet all the subtle­
ties and evasions of error, and it has ever been the terror of
the Arians.
22. The important question once discussed and settled, it
remained to draw up a Catholic profession of faith. Osius of
Cordova, the legate of Pope St. Sylvester, composed the
formulas, and Hermogenes, afterwards bishop of Cæsarea, in
Cappadocia, wrote it at his dictation. This profession, known

ST. SYLVESTER I. (A. D. SU-335),

as the Nicene Creed, has become the received expression of
Catholic?faith. It has stood the test of ages, and all generations
have used it as a solemn act of faith. Sung in every Catholic
Church throughout the world, blended with the prayers of
the liturgy on the lips of doctors and faithful, it is the oath
of loyalty to Catholic doctrine, pronounced in the consecra­
tion of bishops. Osius then read aloud, in Greek, this
formula, re-echoed since by every Christian voice: “We
believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of all things
visible and invisible ; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, only Son
of God, born of the Father before all agçs : God of God,
light of light, true God of true God. Begotten, not made; consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made, both
in Heaven and on Earth ; who for us, men, and for our salva­
tion, came down from Heaven, became incarnate, and was made
man ; suffered, rose again on the third day, and ascended into
Heaven, whence he shall come again to judge the living and
the dead. And in the Holy Ghost. And if any say : There
was a time when the Son was not; He was not before being
begotten ; He was drawn from nothing ; or if any hold that the
Son is not of the same nature and substance as the Father ; He
is mutable and subject to changes, like a created being; the holy
Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes them.’’ All the
bishops present, with the exception of seventeen Arians,
signed the profession. On the following day the number
of its opponents was reduced to five : Eusebius of Nicome­
dia, Theognis of Nice, Maris of Chalcedon, Theonns and
Secundus of Libya. Eusebius of Cæsarea, one of the seven­
teen who had, on the eve, refused to receive the term consubstantial, now gave in his adhesion. The emperor, meanwhile,
had threatened to banish those who persisted in opposing the
Catholic doctrine. The word banishment was most effective.
Eusebius of Nicomedia, Theognis of Nice, and Maris of Chal­
cedon, found it more convincing than the most conclusive
arguments of the orthodox bishops ; they accordingly added
their names to the signatures of the formula. But Eusebius

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GE.VERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

and Theognis made use of a fraud; in signing their names,
they inserted an iota in the word b/ιοούσιος, and wrote ΐφοιούσιοτ,
similar in substance, for of the same substance. This iota after­
wards renewed the whole discussion. Eusebius also distin­
guished between the profession of the faith and the affixed
anathema. He consented to sign the former, but obstinately
refused to subscribe to the latter; “ For I am convinced,” said
he, “that Arius is not such as the fathers believe him to be;
and my relations with him have made me better acquainted
with him.”
Theonas and Secundus, of Libya, alone remained in favor
of the heresiarch, and nothing could move them to abandon his
error. The council accordingly condemned them, together
with him. All the writings of Arius, and especially the
Thalia, were anathematized. The emperor confirmed these
decrees by his authority, and gave them the force of law in
the empire.
23. The council of Nice now took into consideration two
questions, of less moment than Arianism : that of the Quartodecimani, and of the Meletians. The difficulty concerning the
Paschal celebration had been discussed in the times of Popes
St. Anicetus and St. Polycarp, and later, under St. Victor,
but had never been conclusively settled. In spite of the deci­
sions of the two popes mentioned above, the churches of Syria
and Mesopotamia still followed the Jewish custom of celebra­
ting the feast on the fourteenth day of the first lunar month,
after the vernal equinox, without considering whether it fell
on a Sunday or not. They were hence called Quartodecimani.
The council decided that the festival of Easter should always
be celebrated on the Sunday immediately following the four­
teenth day of the first lunar month after the vernal equinox.
It was decreed that the day on which the feast was to be kept
in the Eastern churches should be announced, each year, by
the patriarch of Alexandria, because more attention was paid
in that city than in any other to the study of astronomy. To
decide more easily the first day of the lunar month, and thence

8T. SYLVESTER I. (Λ. D. 314-335).

385

the fourteenth, the fathers agreed to use the cycle of nineteen
years ; because the revolution of that period always brings
back the new moon to nearly the same day of the solar year.
This cycle, called in Greek
καητ'Μι had been dis­
covered about seven hundred and fifty years before, by an
Athenian named Meton. It has since been called the Golden
Number, because it was customary, in writing the calendars,
to designate the first day of the new moon by golden letters.
It is believed that this computation was intrusted to Eusebius
of Cæsarea ; it is, at all events, known that that prelate had
composed a Paschal canon of nineteen years, and explained
the origin and matter of the question, in a discourse dedicated
to the Emperor Constantine, who thanked him for it by letter.
The decision of Nice, relative to the Paschal celebration, was
put into immediate practice throughout the universal Church.
Λ few churches in Mesopotamia alone held to the ancient
custom. They were encouraged in their schism by a monk
named Audius, whom Constantine was forced to banish into
Scythia. After remaining some time here, he made his way
into the country of the Goths, where he founded several mon­
asteries, to which he bequeathed his obstinate perseverance
in celebrating Easter in the old style, contrary to the decree
of the Church. This explained the existence of the Quartodecimans or Audians amongst the Goths, and it was the work
of ages to root out the schismatical doctrine planted there.
24. The Meletian schism also ended in the council of Nice,
but in a manner which may, perhaps, seem strange to us,
accustomed as we are to look upon the first ages of the
Church as those in which she used measures of the greatest
rigor. We have already noticed the deposition of Meletius,
bishop of Lycopolis, by the patriarch of Alexandria, for having
sacrificed to idols during the persecution. Instead of submit­
ting, he had formed a schism, and ordained bishops, priests, and
deacons of his faction. When the Arians appeared, they were
joined by tho Meletians, not as adherents to the same doctrine,
but on the common ground of condemnation by the Church
25

38f.

general history of the church.

To put an end to this schism, offspring of apostasy and
abettor of heresy, the council, whilst it pronounced Meletius
strictly unworthy of pardon, still wished to use mildness; he
was therefore allowed to stay in his episcopal city, Lycopolis,
enjoying the title and honors of the episcopate, but deprived
of the right of choosing or ordaining bishops or priests, for
any church whatever. Those whom he had ordained were ad­
mitted to communion, and restored to the honor and functions
of their order, but they were to yield precedence of rank and
jurisdiction, in every diocese and church, to those who had
been before ordained by the bishop of Alexandria. They were
also forbidden to hold any election without the consent of the
patriarch. This measure was necessary to remove the possi­
bility of perpetuating the cabal. St. Alexander accordingly
asked of Meletius a correct list of the bishops, priests, and
deacons of his party, in Egypt and the territory of Alexandria.
In handing this list to the patriarch, Meletius presented to
him those who were named in it, and gave up the churches
which he had seized. At his death, which occurred a short
time afterwards, regardless of his solemn pledge, Meletius
appointed his disciple John, of Memphis, to succeed him.
This irregularity prolonged the schism, which, however,
passed away, half a century later, without any further meas­
ures being taken against it.
25. The Nicene fathers, after having settled these various
disputes, drew.up several canons, or rules of discipline, which
were afterwards included, together with those of the councils
of Arles, Ancyra, Neocæsarea (a. d. 314), and Gangres (a. d.
324), in the collection known as the Apostolic Canons. We
purpose giving a collective view of them, as they form a code
of discipline, and, comprehend the whole canonical jurispru­
dence of the fourth century. For the sake of order, we place
the matter of the canons under six principal heads : 1. The
primacy of the Roman Church ; 2. Hierarchical authority
of Patriarchs and Metropolitans ; 3. Election and consecra­
tion of bishops; 4. Celibacy of clerics; 5. Rules for public

HT. SYLVESTER 1. (A. D. 314-335).

387

penance, in reconciling heretics; 6. Ecclesiastical discipline
relative to marriage.
I. Primacy of the Boman Church. “ The primacy has
always resided in the Church of Rome (Canon of the Council
-of Nice). Let the ancient custom, then, be vigorously main­
tained in Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis, so that all pay the
homage of submission to the bishop of Alexandria ; for so the
Roman pontiff orders. Let the same be observed in respect
to the bishop of Antioch ; and so in all other provinces, let
the various churches keep their own privileges : if any bishop
is consecrated without the consent of the metropolitan, the
holy council decrees that he is not to be considered a bishop."
To form a correct estimate of this canon, we must remember
that St. Peter himself founded the Church of Antioch, the
capital of the East ; the Church of Alexandria, capital of
Egypt, by his disciple St. Mark; and lastly, by a residence
of twenty-five years, the Church of Rome, the capital of the
universe ; here, by his death, he fixed the seat of his power.
Thus these three great churches, Rome, Alexandria, and
Antioch, were three great streams, which flowed from a com­
mon fountain-head, towards the East and the West, to fertilize
the world. From this origin the fathers and councils estab­
lished the pre-eminence and patriarchal dignity of the three
churches. “ Though there were several Apostles,” says St.
Gregory the Great, “ yet only one of them, whose place is in
three different churches, could give to these a paramount influ­
ence over all other churches. St. Peter gave the first rank
to the see in which he deigned to fix his authority, and to
close his mortal career. It is he who illustrated the see to
which he sent his disciple, the evangelist; it is he again who
established the see of Antioch, in which he sat for seven years ;
so that they form but one and the same see.”* St. Leo adds :
“ The three patriarchs occupy one and the same apostolic
chair, because all three have succeeded to the see of Peter and
GniOOR., Mag. EpisL ad Eulog., Lib. xiit, «J». 4.

388

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

to his Church, founded by Jesus Christ, in unity, and to which
ho gave one single head to preside over three principal sees
in the three patriarchal cities, that the indissoluble union of
the three see might bind the other churches more closely to
the divinely constituted head.”* This apostolic constitution,
of the church is what is dwelt on in the canon quoted above.
A careful study of the words will show that the canon is
summed up in the following statement, which includes both the
decision of the council and the grounds of the decision : The
Roman Church holds the primacy over all the other churches.
But she has ordained that Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis shall
be subject to the bishop of Alexandria; therefore these prov­
inces cannot be withdrawn from his jurisdiction. The same
conclusion holds for the patriarch of Antioch. The canon
therefore declares, that any one consecrated without the
consent of the metropolitan, that is, of the patriarch, shall
not be considered a bishop. The Nicene Fathers also made
good certain prerogatives held by the bishop of Jerusalem,
but without prejudice to the metropolitan, that is, to the
patriarch of Antioch, who held jurisdiction over all the East,
or to the bishop of Cæsarea, metropolitan of the province of
Palestine.
26. II. The hierarchical authority of the patriarchs is even
more clearly laid down in the thirty-ninth of the Apostolic
Canons. It is entitled ; Of the solicitude and power of the patri­
arch over (he bishops and archbishops of his patriarchate, and
the primacy of the bishop of Rome, over all. “ The patriarch,"
says the canon, “ shall carefully watch the conduct of the
bishops and archbishops in their provinces ; and if he see
any thing blameworthy, he shall change and regulate it, as he
may deem best ; for he is the father of them all, and they are
hie sons. The archbishop is as an elder brother amongst the
bishops ; the patriarch is as the father. And as the patriarch
has power over those who are subordinate to him, so also the
• Epûtol.

S.

Leonis,

104,

ad Anatol.

8T. 8YLVE8TER Γ. (A. D. 314-355).

389

Roman pontiff has power over all the patriarchs. He is their
prince and chief, as St. Peter himself, to whom has been ?iven
power over Christian princes and their subjects, because he is
the vicar of our Lord Jesus Christ. Whoever opposes this
teaching is excommunicated by the council." Such is the
basis, the fundamental rule, on which all the Christian com­
munities of the East recognize their hierarchy and their
canon law, and which, from the earliest times, they have
attributed to the great council of Nice.
27. III. The ordination of bishops and priests was made the
subject of numerous canons in the councils of Aries and of
Nice. It is forbidden, in the first place, to consecrate two
bishops for the same see. The fourth canon of Nice runs
thus : “ The bishop should, if possible, be consecrated by all
those of his province. But if this be not feasible, either by
reason of distance or from some other legitimate hindrance,
there must be at least three bishops present for the consecra­
tion, with the written suffrage and consent of the absent. In
every province, the metropolitan’s confirmation is required.”
This measure had already been taken by the council of Arles,
against some bishops who assumed the right of consecrating
others, on their personal authority. The fifteenth canon of
Nice forbids translations from one see to another. The six­
teenth extends this prohibition to all clerics. “Clerics who
rashly, not having the fear of God before their eyes, and
regardless of the holy' canons, quit the Church to which they
belong, cannot be received into any other. They shall be
required to return to their own diocese, and in case of their
refusal, be excommunicated." The council of Ancyra decrees,
on the same subject: “If any, having received episcopal
consecration, and not being received by the flock to which
they were appointed, attempt to seize upon another diocese,
>r to excite seditions against, its lawful bishop, they shall be
•ut off from the communion of the Church. Should they wish
o take their former rank among the priests, this honor shall
oe granted them ; but if they still foment divisions, and seek

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

to impugn the authority of the bishops, they shall be deprived
of even the sacerdotal honor.” Regarding those who are to
be consecrated, the council of Nice, true to the teaching of
St. Paul, formally excludes neophytes, in these terms: “It
has sometimes happened, whether from scarcity of subjects,
or to satisfy the importunities of certain persons, that tho
Church’s law has been set aside, and the episcopal or priestly
dignity has been conferred upon men hardly free from the
errors of paganism, and baptized after a hasty preparation.
The council ordains that this mode of procedure be not
repeated. Time is necessary for the instruction of the cate­
chumen, and yet more for probation, after baptism. The
Apostle is explicit: ‘Not a neophyte, lest pride cause him to
fall into the snares of the devil.’ ”
The council of Nice also excludes from holy orders all who
have voluntarily mutilated themselves. It fixes the canonical
age for ordination at thirty years, whatever may be the merite
of the candidate in other respects, because our Lord Jesus
Christ only began to teach at that age. The council of Ancyra
forbids chorepiscopi to ordain priests or deacons, and the priests
of the cities to undertake any thing without the written
permission of the bishop. The chorepiscopi were often but
simple priests, to whom the bishop delegated nearly all his
authority in the country districts. The council of Nice excom­
municated all clerics guilty of usury.
28. IV. The · observance of clerical celibacy was so noted
at this period that Eusebius of Cæsarca wrote, in his Evan­
gelical Demonstration : “ The state of continence is the proper
state of those who are devoted to the priesthood and engaged
in the ministry of divine worship ; of the doctors and the
preachers of the divine word, whose care it is to raise a holy
and spiritual offspring, and to train to holiness, not a particular
family, but the countless multitude of the faithful.” The
council of Elvira (thirty-third) decrees that bishops, priests,
and deacons who were engaged in the married state before
ordination, shall separate entirely from their wives. The

8T. 8YLVE8TP.H I. (Λ. D. 314-335).

391

council of Neocmsarea orders that any priest who marries
after ordination shall be deposed. The Nicene inveighs
against an abuse, which had gained footing in many places,
relative to women living under the same roof with clerics,
under pretext of ministering to them; they were called, in
Greek, συνό^κασταί, in Latin, mibinlroductœ. “The oecumenical
council,” says the canon, “forbids all, whether bishops, priests,
deacons, or other clerics, to have under the same roof any
woman, save a mother, sister, aunt, or other whose relationship
precludes all just ground of suspicion.” “ It is usual,” says
the learned Father Thomassinus, “to allege against clerical
celibacy the story of the holy Bishop Paphnutius, who, accord­
ing to Socrates and Sozomen, obliged the fathers of Nice
to pass no decree subjecting bishops, priests, and deacons to
continence with the wife they had married before ordina­
tion, as the ancient traditions only forbade the contraction of
new marriages after receiving sacred orders. But the authority
of Socrates and Sozomen is by no means unquestionable. The
assertion may be grounded on fact, and Socrates have erred
only in what is his own in the account. But when he says
that the ancient tradition of the Church only forbade the contrac­
tion of marriage ties in the higher orders of the clergy, without
depriving them of the use of a preceding marriage, we cannot
help appealing to Eusebius, to St. Epiphanius, and to St
Jerome, who, besides being more ancient than Socrates, were
immeasurably more acquainted with the ancient customs of the
Church ; his assertion, therefore, is unworthy of any credence. ’
29. V. The custom of rebaptizing the heretics who came
back to the bosom of the Church still held ground in Africa, in
spite of the contrary decisions of the sovereign pontiffs and of
several councils. The council of Arles lays down this rule :
“ When a heretic returns to the Church, let him be required to
say the creed. If it be found that he has been baptized in the
namo of the Father, and of the Son, and uf the Holy Ghost, he
shall only undergo the imposition of hands, that ho may receive
the Holy Ghost. If he does not answer according to Catholic

392

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

teaching, when questioned on the mystery of the Trinity, let
him be baptized.” As the Donatist schism had been built
up on the ground that the Catholics were over-indulgent tn
traditors. the council also decreed that those who had given
up the sacred writings or vessels, should be deposed, provided
their convictions were founded on public documents, and noton
mere denunciations. The eighth canon of Nice speaks thus
of the Novatian schismatics : “If they return to the Catholic
Church, the oecumenical council ordains t hat, after receiving the
imposition of hands, they may remain in the ranks of the
clergy. But they shall be required to declare, in writing, that
they approve and are ready to follow every decision of the
Catholic Church. In all places, then, whether city or village,
where there are no other clerics, let them keep the rank to
which they were ordained. But if any one of them come to a
place where there is a Catholic bishop or priest, it is evident
that the Catholic bishop will retain his episcopal dignity, and
the Novatian bishop resume the rank of priest, unless the
Catholic bishop consent to yield the episcopal title and rank.
Otherwise the Novatian may receive the position of chore­
piscopus, that there may not be two bishops in the same city.’’
As the East was just emerging from the Licinian persecution,
the council felt called to pass several decrees concerning the
reconciliation of the lapsi. The penances imposed are generally
milder and of less duration than those decreed by the particular
council of Elvira—another proof that there was no fixed rule
in this respect. A great latitude is also left for the indulgence
of the bishops, according to the fervor of the penitents. Fleury
is fond of reiterating, on such occasions, that now the rigor of
early discipline was relaxing. The truth is, as F. Morini has
clearly proved, by historical facts, that during the first three
centuries the penitentiary system was much milder than in the
following ages. There are still two canons worthy of special
mention. The third of the council of Arles excommunicates
soldiers who, in time of war or on the field of battle, throw
down their arms and desert their standard. The twelfth of

RT. SYLVESTER ï. (A. D. 314-33»).

393

Nice condemns such as resume the military life after having
forsaken it to do public penance. This rule, forbidding a return
to secular warfare after the performance of public penance, has
since been interpreted and applied in that light by the holy
Popes Sericius, Innocent, and Leo, and has been brought for­
ward even since the twelfth century.
30. VI. The Roman law had heretofore allowed marriage
between brother-in-law and rister-in-law. The first prohibition
appears in the sixty-first canon of the council of Elvira, which
condemns the parties to five years of penance, after separation.
The council of Neocæsarea is even more rigorous. Its second
canon excommunicates till death any woman who has married
her brother-in-law; still she may be reconciled, at the hour of
death, if she promise to break off this connection in case of
her recovery. This law of the Church was transferred to the
civil codes by the Christian *emperors. The Roman laws also
countenanced divorce and an ensuing marriage. The tenth
canon of the council of Arles reminds husbands, who detect
their wives in the commission of adultery, that they are for­
bidden to marry again during the lifetime of the divorced wife.
In process of time this law of the Church also passed into
civil jurisprudence. The council of Arles further ordains that
Christian women, contracting a matrimonial alliance with
pagans, shall be cut off, for a time, from the communion of the
Church. The council of Neocæsarea prescribes a certain time
of public penance for those who marry a second time. Hence
the prohibition to priests from assisting at the rejoicings attend­
ing second weddings ; though tolerated, they were deemed a
weakness.
31. The council wished to close its sittings by a collective
letter addressed by all the bishops to the Church and faithful
of Alexandria, informing them of the anathema hurled against
Arius, and of the exile to which the emperor had just con­
demned him. “Rejoice,” wrote the fathers, “at the peace
• Cbdex Thtodofian., Lib. iii., t 12.

394

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

aud union restored to the Church ; at the extirpation of all
heresies. Receive with love and respect our pious colleague,
your Bishop Alexander, who has rejoiced us by his presence,
and whose declining years and strength have not deterred him
from meeting fatigue and toils to secure to you the sweets of
peace. Pray for us, also, that the rules which we have es­
tablished may remain firm and unchanged, through our Lord
Jesus Christ, and that they may all tend, as we hope and
desire, to the honor and greater glory of God the Father, in
the Holy Ghost, to whom be all praise, world without end.
Amen.”
With the close of the council opened the twentieth year of
Constantine’s reign. The emperors were in the habit of cel­
ebrating the fifth, the tenth, and the twentieth years of their
reign. It was therefore observed as a great solemnity through­
out the empire, and Eusebius of Caesarea addressed a eulogy to
the emperor on the occasion. All the bishops present at the
council were invited to a splendid banquet in the palace.
These holy confessors, on their way to the imperial residence,
received the military salutes of the same pretorian guards
whose arms had so long been turned against them. The em­
peror received them with respectful veneration, showing espe­
cial reverence to Saint Paphnutius, whose scars he kissed with
affectionate piety. Before taking final leave of them he as­
sembled them all, and, by way of reply to some Arian bishops,
who had begged him to intervene in the question decided by
the council, “ God,” said he, “ has made you His pontiffs, and
empowered you to judge our subjects and ourselves; it is
proper, therefore, that we submit to your decisions, aud do
not undertake to better them. God has constituted you as our
gods ; how, then, can gods be judged by men ? Lay your dis­
agreements, then, before Him who is the Judge and tho God of
gods—or rather let us lay aside all complaints. Let us imitate
the divine goodness, by forgiving one another, and abide in the
union of brotherly love, to apply, in peace and union of hearts,
the truths of the faith for the sake of which we had assembled

ST. SYLVESTER I. (A. D. 314-335).

395

here.” He then concluded by recommending himself to their
prayers, and finally, after having made them presents according
to their respective dignities, he handed them letters to the
governors of the various provinces, ordering the annual distri­
bution of a certain quantity of wheat to the Churches, for the
support of virgins, widows, and clerics; he then took final
leave of them, and dismissed them to their sees.
32. The bishops who had stood by Arianism to the last
found themselves in a somewhat awkward position. Eusebius
endeavored to explain his attitude, in a letter which he sent
before him to his flock, and in which he mentions his submis­
sion to the decree on the word consubstantial. He givesail the
credit of it to Constantine, more like a courtier than a bishop.
Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nice bribed the librarian
of the imperial archives to give them access to the documents
committed to his keeping, and erased their signatures from the
profession. They then began openly to teach that the Son is
not consubstantial with the Father. The emperor one day
reproached Eusebius of Nicomedia for his heresy: “If this
mantle were rent asunder,” replied the Arian, “ I should never
say that the two pieces are of the same substance, although
they were alike.” They openly welcomed the Arians, treated
them as victims of an unjust persecution, and received them into
communion. This scandalous conduct obliged St. Alexander
to call a council against them, at Alexandria. Eusebius and
Theognis were deposed, and the council appointed, as their suc­
cessors, Amphion for Nicomedia, and Chrestus for Nice ; three
months after the council of Nice, the emperor banished the two
heretical bishops to Gaul, where they remained three years.
33. It is more than probable that if Constantine had not
relaxed the firmness displayed on this occasion, all would have
been over with Arianism. How many trials would the Church
have thus been spared! But the many exalted qualities of
the emperor were marred by a lamentable incenstaucy of
character, which always spoiled the wisest measures, aud
threw a doubt upon the most clearly defined questions. We

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

ehall hut too soon be called upon to record some of thene end
traits. The two years immediately following the council of
Nice, a. D. 326 and 327, were years of blessing and pence to
the Church. Downfallen Arianism hung its head in shame.
The heathens flocked to the fold of Christ in great num­
bers ; some from a deep and sincere conviction of the vanity
of the idolatrous rites, or by the examples of virtue and holi­
ness presented in the monastic life ; many, it must be granted,
from less pure and disinterested motives, and lo fall in with
the master’s wish. Whole cities, entire districts, were seen to
embrace the faith of Jesus Christ, with one accord, and over­
throwing their temples and statues, build upon their ruins the
sanctuaries of the true God. The inhabitants of Majuma, the
ancient seaport of Gaza, in Palestine, all became Christians.
To reward this act of piety, the emperor raised the town to the
rank of a Roman city, and called it Constantia, after his
beloved sister, and his own son Constantius. For the same
reason he conferred a like honor on a Phoenician borough, to
which he gave the name of Constantina ; and he favored
Drepanum, in Bithynia, with an exemption from taxes, in
honor of the holy martyr Lucian of Antioch, whose relics
were kept in that city. He changed the old name of Dre­
panum into that of Helenopolis, from the name of the empress
Helena, his mother. But his imperial generosity was dis­
played in a special manner in the number of churches built at
his expense, and the rich endowments he lavished upon them.
The single city of Rome contained eight churches raised by
him, under the direction of the Pope St. Sylvester : 1. The
Basilica of Equiiius, now known as St. Stephano (lei Monti;
2. The Constantinian Basilica, or Church of the Saviour, in the
palace of the Empress Fausta, known as the Lateran palace, in
which the council against the Donatists had previously been
held. This Basilica was furnished with a baptistery, orna­
mented, according to the custom of the times, with a statue
of St. John the Baptist. This circumstance gave rise to tho
uncommon name by which the church is known, of St. John

ST. SYLVESTER I. (A. D. 314-336).

397

Laternn ; it is the principal church in Rome, and the popes
for many centuries made it their place of residence. ·». The
Basilica rf Saint Peter, at the Vatican, raised on the site of a
temple of Apollo, to honor the place of the martyrdom and
burial of the Prince of the Apostles. 4. The Basilica of St. Paid,
on the place of his martyrdom. 5. The Church of St. Aynes,
which was built at the request of tho two Constantias, the
sister and the daughter of Constantine, who were baptized in
it by St. Sylvester. 6. That of St. Lawrence, extra muro», on
the road to Tiber, over the place of the saint’s martyrdom.
7. That of the Martyrs St. Marcellinus and St. Peter, at the
place called Inter duas lauros, where the empress, St. Helena,
was buried. 8. In the house of Sessorius, the Church of the
Holy Cross, called The Holy Cross of Jerusalem, on account of a
portion of the true cross which Constantine placed in it. To
these eight churches in Rome the emperor gave an annual
income of twenty-seven thousand seven hundred anti twentynine gold ases, in houses, lands, and revenue, not only in
Italy, but in Sicily, Africa, Greece, Egypt and the East.
*
This statement does not include the gold and silver vessels
for the service and the, splendor of divine worship, which of
themselves make a long and curious list, drawn up by Anastasius the librarian. The most remarkable fact that we learn
from the old deeds, relative to these donations, is that the
emperor assigned the island of Sardinia, and two others of
the Tyrrhenian Sea, with all their appurtenances and revenues,
to the Church of St. Marcellinus and St. Peter in Rome. The
other cities of the empire were not forgotten. The church
built in Antioch was so rich that it was called the Golden
Church. To endow and erect these basilicas, Constantine
made use of the enormous revenues of the idolatrous temples
he had destroyed, and of the profane games he abolished.
34. The pious labors of Constantine were rewarded by a
discovery of inestimable price, that of the true cross, which
• According to the usual valuation, tho aa is equivalent to 20 francs and aoo» «οtimes; thia sum would, then, amount to 064,380 francs.

398

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

was made under the following circumstances. The empress
mother. St. Helena, though more than eighty years of age, had
undertaken a pilgrimage to (he holy places. On reaching
Jerusalem, she immediately caused the temple and statue of
Venus to be destroyed ; this idolatrous fane had, since the
days of Adrian, desecrated the place whereon was accom­
plished the august mystery of our redemption. All the earth
brought and heaped there was removed, and three crosses
were found buried at a considerable depth. There was no
mark by which to distinguish the Saviour’s. The Bishop of
Jerusalem, St. Macarius, after a fervent prayer to the Lord,
directed (hat they should be taken to the house of a woman
of the city, who had long been suffering from an incurable
disease. The three crosses were successively applied; at the
touch of the third, she was immediately and entirely healed.
This miraculous discovery filled the Christian world with joy.
The title fixed by the Jews to the cross, and the nails with
which they had pierced the Saviour’s hands and feet, were also
found with the crosses, but at a little distance from them. St.
Helena sent them to the emperor, with a considerable portion
of the cross, leaving the remainder' in Jerusalem, under the
bishop’s care. In the following century it was exposed to the
veneration of the faithful, once a year, on Good Friday ; this
is doubtless the origin of the pious ceremony which has since
extended to all the Catholic churches throughout the universe.
Constantine wore a portion of the nails in his helmet, and
attached another to the bridle of his horse, as a protection in
battle. The part of the cross sent him by his mother he placed
in the Basilica of the Holy Cross, at Rome, together with the
title, which was fixed upon an arcade, where it was found, in
a. D. 1492, inclosed in a leaden box ; the inscription is written
in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, in red letters, upon a board
painted white. St. Helena did not long survive her journey to
Palestine ; she died at Rome (a. d. 327), in the arms of her
son, who solemnized her obsequies in a manner worthy of her
rank. The Church honors her memory on the 17th of August

ST. SYLVESTER I. (Λ. D. 114-316).

399

35. The progress of Christianity was not confined to the limits
of the Roman empire. An embassy from Sapor, King of Per­
sia, to Constantine (a. d. 326), brought the consoling intelli­
gence that Persia, and the country of the Seres, or China, its
tributary, already counted many churches, and that the people
were flocking in thousands to the fold of Christ. The em­
peror’s heart, overflowed with joy at the news. He sent am­
bassadors to Sapor, loaded with presents of far greater worth
than he had received from the Persian monarch, “lhave
embraced,” writes the emperor, “ the faith and worship of the
Most High God. It is by His help that, setting out from the
far-off ocean. I have freed the earth from the tyrants that op­
pressed it. My army is consecrated to Him, and bears His
standard as a harbinger of victory. You may judge, then,
what joy we feel to learn that the chief cities of Persia are
blest with Christian churches. I recommend them to your
especial favor, for they will prove a blessing to your empire.
By protecting and fostering them, you will do yourself and us
a priceless service.” The Iberians, a barbarous people, en­
camped near the Black Sea, were about this time converted
by the example and miracles of a captive Christian girl, and
they sent to Constantine, begging for bishops to instruct them
in the true faith. The Christian religion had also conquered
Farther India, or Ethiopia, by means of Frumentius, a Chris­
tian boy, who had been cast upon their unfriendly shores.
He afterwards became their bishop, and raised many temples
to the honor of the true God.
36. But the year 327 also witnessed an event which was to
change the destinies of the world. Rome had become foreign
to its masters. Galerius had never seen the interior of its walls.
Diocletian preferred Nicomedia. Constantine, born in ancient
Mæsia, brought up in the court of Nicomedia, proclaimed em­
peror in Britain, had no sympathy with Rome. Julius Casar
had once wished to rebuild Troy, the fabled cradle of the
Roman race, and to make it the seat of empire. Constantine
took up the idea, with a modification, however, and fixed his

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

throne in Byzantium. Tho site was unsurpassed. Seated, like
Rome, on its seven hills, but under a mild and healthy sky,
and in a region of natural fertility, washed by two seas, the
Propontis and tho Black, Byzantium commanded the shores
both of Europe ami of Asia. The channel of the Bosphorus,
which separates the two continents, affords it a vast and safe
harbor, and the ships of both worlds lay at its feet the treas­
ures of the universe. Here the emperor laid the foundation
of the new city to which he gave his name—Constantinople.
He declared that “it was by the command of God he undertook
this herculean task.” The order was given him, he said, in
a vision ; whilst he was asleep, one day, under the walls of
Byzantium, he saw a woman, bowed down by age and infirmi­
ties, suddenly changed into a young girl, beaming with health
and grace, who then put on the imperial ornaments. Constan­
tine obeyed his interpretation of the dream, as a voice from
Heaven ; lance in hand, he led on the workmen who were
tracing out the limits of the city. It was remarked that the
space already taken in was immense. Constantine replied:
I follow the invisible guide who goes before me ; I shall stop
only when my leader halts.” The rising city was enriched
with the spoils of Greece and Asia ; they brought the idols of
the now unworshipped gods and the statues of great men.
The old metropolis also paid its tribute to the youthful rival
now growing up at its side ; this drew from St. Jerome the
expression that Constantinople had clothed itself by the naked­
ness of other cities. The families of senatorial and equestrian
rank were brought from the banks of the Tiber to those of the
Bosphorus, here to find palaces equal to those they had for­
saken. Constantine built the Church of the Apostles, which
disappeared twenty years after its dedication, to make way
for the Basilica of St. Sophia, dedicated by Constantius to the
eternal wisdom, but more celebrated for its name than for its
beauty. There are judgments which historians are accustomed
to pronounce without reflection. It has been often said that
Constantine hastened the fall of the Caesars’ power by destroy-

ST. SYLVESTER I. (A. D. 314-335).

401

ing the unity of its seat; but the foundation of Constantinople
was, on the contrary, the very means of preserving the Roman
power so far into modern times. Rome would have been no
better defended, even had it remained sole metropolis. The
empire would hav e fallen with it, when it yielded to AJaric,
had not the new capital stood as a second head to the empire,
which was only cut down, more than a thousand years later,
by the sword of Mahomet IL But the influences that favored
the temporal power, as constituted by Constantine, were fatal
to the spiritual power of the Church, which he claimed to
protect. The emperors, fixed in the West, under the influence
of Latin gravity and the sound sense of the German races, would
not have been entrapped by the subtleties of Greek policy;
fewer heresies would have distracted the world and the Church.
Constantinople was born Christian, and had not, like Rome, a
religion to deny; but she fouled the altar that Constantine had
given her.
*
The emperor left no want unsupplied in the churches
of his new city ; he directed Eusebius of Cæsarea to engage
the best copyists, and to furnish fifty copies of the Sacred
Scriptures, for distribution among the churches of Constanti­
nople ; they were to be legible and of portable size, clearly
and correctly written.
37. The preceding year (a.d. 326) had been marked by the
death of one of the most devoted champions of the true faith.
St. Alexander, patriarch of Alexandria, had closed his career
in peace, with the glory and consolation of having been the
principal instrument in settling the great Arian question, by
the oecumenical Council of Nice. He left the patriarchal throne
to St. Athanasius, who also inherited to the full the zeal, the
virtue, the energy, and the activity of his holy predecessor;
nor was it long before these qualities were all called into
action. The Princess Constantia, sister to Constantine, had
always entertained a secret attachment for Eusebius of Nico­
media and the doctrine which he professed. On her death• M. db CtUTiUUDRUND: Eludet Uiitorquet, p. 330.

20

402

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

bed she recommended to Constantine’s favor an Arian priest,
in whom she placed the greatest confidence. This priest suc­
ceeded in persuading the emperor that the Council of Nice had
condemned the heresiarch without knowing his real senti­
ments. Constantine accordingly recalled Arius, who showed
him a profession of faith couched in vague and ambiguous
terms, in which the word consùbstantial was omitted; and it
was stated that the Word was produced or created by the
Father, before all ages. The emperor was satisfied with this
insidious declaration, and the exile of Arius was at an end.
This lamentable inconsistency renewed all the discussions
which had been settled by the Council of Nice, and opened the
way to endless disputes. After recalling Arius, the emperor
could hardly refuse the same favor to Eusebius of Nicomedia
and Theognis of Nice, who returned in the year 328 to their
churches, and expelled those who had been consecrated in
their stead. The spirit of cabal necessarily came in with
them. Eusebius of Nicomedia was particularly incensed by
the firmness with which St. Eustathius, patriarch of Antioch,
constantly battled against the Arian heresy, in his profound and
eloquent writings. The heretic called a conventicle of Arian
bishops at Antioch, and deposed St. Eustathius. This con­
demnation was based on an infamous calumny. Eusebius of
Nicomedia brought the testimony of an abandoned creature,
who appeared before the bishops and accused the holy patri­
arch of an abominable crime. The wretch held a child in her
arms, which she declared to be the fruit of her connection with
Eustathius. She confirmed her statement with an oath. This
victim of Eusebius’s wickedness, when brought to her death­
bed, declared to the assembled bishops that Eusebius of Nico­
media had hired her to play her infamous part ; but that her
oath was not altogether false, since the child was the son of a
coppersmith with whom she had lived in a state of concubin­
age, and who bore the same name as the holy Patriarch
Eustathius. Such was the evidence on which Eustathius
was deposed, and Constantine had the weakness to send him

ST. SYLVESTER I. (A. D. 314-335).

403

into exile. Paulinos of Tyre, an Arian, was appointed to
succeed him, but he soon after died, and was followed in quick
successibn by Eulalias, Euphronius, and Flaccilfas, in the
usurped see. The Catholics, meanwhile, hold their meetings
apart, and refused to communicate with the hirelings who were
sent to them under the false title of pastors.
38. The Arians were yet to meet the steadiest opposition
from the see of Alexandria. Arius had made an attempt to
re-enter the city. St. Athanasius openly rejected all his
advances. Eusebius of Nicomedia wrote to the holy patriarch,
laying great stress on his credit with Constantine, and threat­
ening him with the imperial indignation if he refused to
receive Arias. Athanasius replied that no threats or other
human considerations could ever lead him to go against the
decisions of the council of Nice. The Eusehians despaired of
overcoming this energetic character; they joined the Meletians
in accusing Athanasius of fomenting divisions throughout
Africa, by his unjust refusal of communion. The emperor
then wrote to the holy patriarch, in language which it is pain­
ful to quote from the pen of Constantine: “Knowing my will
on the subject,” he wrote, “ give free entrance to all who wish
to come into the Church ; for if I hear of your refusing admit­
tance to any one, I shall give immediate orders to have you
deposed and sent into exile.” St. Athanasius answered, with
modest firmness, that it was impossible for him to obey; that a
heresy impugning the divinity of Jesus Christ could have
nothing in common with the Catholic Church. The Eusehians
now resorted to a calumny, which they thought must produce
an irresistible effect upon the emperor’s mind. They brought
a juridical accusation against the patriarch of having entered
into a conspiracy against the life of Constantine, and of having
sent a chest of gold to Philumenos, the chief of the conspira­
tors. Athanasius presented himself before Constantine, whom
he easily' convinced of his innocence, and returned loaded with
the gifts and praises of the inconstant emperor. The noise ot
the strife excited in Alexandria by the Arians had reached

404

general history of the church.

the ears of St. Anthony in his desert solitude ; this and the
persecution directed against his disciple and friend, St. Atha­
nasius, drew him down from his mountain cave to protest against
the impiety of the heretics, by the authority of his presence,
his words, and his miracles. His path was thronged by the
faithful. Some of his disciples wished to disperse tho crowd,
in order to free him from their importunity: “Let them alone,”
said the holy hermit; “they are not more numerous than the
demons we fight upon the mountain.” He taught the multi­
tude that stood about him that the Word is not a creature;
that He is eternal and unsubstantial with the Father. “Do
not communicate with the Arians,” he continued; “you are
Christians ; but they say that the Son of God is a creature.
They do not, therefore, differ from pagans, since they adore a
creature instead of the Creator.” Having fulfilled the mission
to which he had been urged by his zeal for the glory of God,
St. Anthony returned to his solitude, followed by the admira­
tion of all whom he had edified by the example of his virtue.
39. But the Arians had not exhausted their charges against
St. Athanasius. Those which they now brought against him
surpass all that we are prepared to look for, even from men
who have taken leave of the last vestige of principle. The
very enormity of the calumnies which they circulated through
their agents should have sufficed to excite mistrust. But the
Emperor Constantine was no longer the youthful hero who had
escaped the snares of Diocletian’s court and the manœuvres
of Galerius—whose bold and steady genius had triumphed
over Maxentius and Licinius. Nothing could be more at vari­
ance with the first part of his life than the second. A hundred
times he had seen the falsehood of the charges made by Euse­
bius of Nicomedia against St. Athanasius ; yet each new insin­
uation of that courtier prelate found him as credulous as the
one that went before it. He accordingly named a commission,
to meet at Antioch, composed of the Censor Dalmatius, his
uncle, of Eusebius of Nicomedia himself, Theognis of Nice,
with several other Arian bishops, whom he directed to inquie

ST. 8YLVE8TER I. (Λ. D. 314-338).

405

into the conduct of the holy patriarch. He wrote to St. Atha­
nasius, summoning him to appear before this tribunal, to clear
himself from the charges alleged against him. The patriarch
objected to the commission, on the ground that it was wholly
made up of his personal enemies. Constantine then appointed
a council to be held at Cæsarea, a. d. 331. This city was the
choice of the Arian bishops themselves, as they reckoned its
prelate, Eusebius, among their chief abettors. St. Athanasius
again refused to appear, and wrote to the emperor to state
his motives, which were perfectly justified by the care of the
two bishops Eusebius that no prelates but those of their
own party should be admitted to the council. This refusal
of the holy patriarch furnished Eusebius of Nicomedia with a
plausible pretext to accuse him, to the emperor, of obstinacy,
disobedience, and open revolt against the laws of the empire.
His constant refusal, alleged the heretic, only proved his guilt
the more. The irritated emperor changed the place of meet­
ing, and ordered that the council should meet at Tyre, in a. d.
335, and wrote to St. Athanasius that if he again refused to
appear, the imperial guards should seize his person, if neces­
sary, even upon the patriarchal throne. Solemn preparations
were ordered for this assembly. Count Flavius Dionysius,
late proconsul of Phoenicia, was sent with a body of troops,
for the ostensible purpose of maintaining order, but with the
real intention of supporting the party of Eusebius of Nicome­
dia, and to influence the decision of the Fathers. A great num­
ber of bishops were present from Egypt, Libya, Asia and
Bithynia, from all parts of the East, from Macedonia and
Pannonia. The Arians were in vast majority. The most cele­
brated were Eusebius of Cæsarea and Eusebius of Nicomedia,
Flaccillus, intruded bishop of Antiuch, Theognis of Nice,
Maris of Chalcedon, Narcissus of Neronias, Theodore of
Heraclea, Patrophilus of Seythopolis, Macedonius of Mopsuesta, George of Laodicea, Ursacius of Syngidon, and Valens
of. Mursa ; the two latter cities were in Pannonia. Amongst
the Catholic bishops, were St. Maximus of Jerusalem, who had

406

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

lost his right eye and had one of his tendons burnt during
the persecution of Maximin ; Marcellus of Ancyra, Alexander
of Thessalonica, Asclepas of Gaza, and the two illustrious
bishops of Upper Thebais, St. Potamon and St. Paphnutius.
When St. Athanasius, the illustrious and courageous patriarch
of Alexandria, entered the council, he was made to stand as
a criminal at the bar before his judges. This outrage moved
St. Potamon to tears. Turning to Eusebius of Cæsarea, with
that venerable bearing which compelled respect and gave a
superhuman eloquence to his words, he exclaimed : “ What,
Eusebius, are you seated on the bench to judge Athanasius,
who is virtue itself? Who can bear this? Answer me : were
you not in prison with me, during the persecution? For
my part, I lost an eye in it, but I see you are whole and
sound. How did you escape without violence to your
conscience ?” At this unexpected and powerful appeal, Euse­
bius, confounded, thunderstruck, rose and left the assembly.
Posterity has yet to learn the reply and vindication of
Eusebius. St. Paphnutius then turned to Maximus, bishop of
Jerusalem, passed through the whole assembly, approached and
took his hand, saying: “We have also suffered together for
the name of Jesus Christ; you bear the marks of it as well as
myself. Come, for I cannot see you seated in the assembly
of the wicked.” Then, taking him aside, he made him
acquainted with the plot against St. Athanasius, and fully
convinced him of the patriarch’s innocence. The Egyptian
bishops at the same time entered a protest, by which they
objected to seeing their archbishop judged by those who had
openly declared themselves his personal enemies; especially
the two Eusebiuses, Narcissus, Flaccillus, Theognis, Maris,
Theodore, Patrophilus, Macedonius, George, Ursacius, and
Valens. They reproached Eusebius of Cæsarea for his apos­
tasy, and George of Laodicea that he had been juridically
deposed by the Patriarch St. Alexander. No document could
have rested on better legal grounds than this protestation;
still, it was disregarded, and the council passed to the exam­

ST. SYLVESTER I. (A. D. 314-335).

407

ination of those terrible accusations against Athanasius, which,
for five years past, had been the talk of Arian circles. He
was accused : 1. Of having been clandestinely consecrated by
five or six bishops, against the wish and universal protestation
of the clergy and faithful of Alexandria; 2. Of having out­
raged a virgin consecrated to God; 3. Of having murdered
Arsenins, bishop of Hypsele, in Egypt, and of having kept his
withered hand for magical operations; 4. Of having, during an
episcopal visitation to a village in Mareotis, broken the chalice,
overturned the altar, and trodden the sacred mysteries under
foot. It is plain that weight, at least, was not wanting in the
charges brought against St. Athanasius by his enemies. The
first charge, respecting the pretended clandestine consecration,
the Egyptian prelates easily answered by a simple statement
of the facts, to which they had been eye-witnesses. At the
death of St. Alexander, patriarch of Alexandria (a. d. 326),
when the bishops met to give him a successor, the faithful
cried out, with one voice, that they wished Athanasius to be
their pastor. lie was vainly sought for in the assembly, as he
had fled into the desert to avoid the burden of the episcopate.
He was forcibly brought back on the 27th of December, a. d.
326, and consecrated patriarch of Alexandria, with the unani­
mous consent of the bishops, nearly all of whom were present
at the ceremony, which was performed in the sight of the
whole city and province. This historical explanation defeated
the first charge ; the second was then taken up. A young girl
was brought forward, bathed in tears, exclaiming that she was
forever miserable because the Bishop Athanasius, abusing the
hospitality she had given him, and regardless of her vow of
virginity, had brutally ravished her. The wretched creature
had never seen St. Athanasius, with whom she was utterly'
unacquainted. The patriarch had instructed one of his clergy,
named Timothy', who then rose, and turning to the woman, said
to her : “ What, you pretend that I lodged at your house, and
offered violence to you !" “ Yes,” answered she, “you are the
very person I accuse," adding at largo the details of time and

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

place. Most of those present could not forbear laughing at tho
discomfiture of a plot so poorly planned, and so skilfully thwarted.
St. Athanasius called for the arrest of the wretched woman,
that the calumny might be traced to its authors; but the
Eusebians quickly drove her out of the assembly, and would
not consent to prosecute a matter which it was so much in
their interest to hush. They broke out into tumultuous cries
that there were crimes of greater importance to examine, which
could not be removed by ingenious subtleties, and that it would
only bo necessary to see tho proofs, in order to be convinced
of the guilt of Athanasius. They then produced and opened
a carefully sealed box, and took from it a withered human
hand. “Athanasius,” they exclaimed, “ here is your accuser!
Behold the right hand of Arsenius, bishop of Ilypsele ! It
is for you to tell us how and why you cut it off!” A mur­
mur of indignation was heard in the assembly ; when silence
had been restored, Athanasius inquired if any of the bishops
present were personally acquainted with Arsenius. Several
arose and said that they had known him intimately. Then
Athanasius gave a sign to one of his priests, who soon
brought in a man whom the patriarch presented to the council.
“ Is this the Arsenius,” he asked, “ whom I put to death, and
whose right hand I cut olf?” It was indeed Arsenius, whom
the Eusebians had removed to a desert place ; on learning the
interpretation put upon his absence, and the consequent danger
of Athanasius, he had come, of his own accord, to the patriarch,
who showed him to his enemies at the very moment of what
they deemed their surest triumph. Arsenius stood with his
cloak wrapped about him. Athanasius, throwing it partly open,
uncovered first one hand, then the other ; and turning to the
Fathers, he said : “ Here is Arsenius with two hands. God
gave us no more. Let my accusers point out the place for the
third, and tell you whence they took the one they have shown
you.” Thus triumphantly refuted, tho rage of the Arians
knew no bounds. They threw themselves upon Athanasius,
crying out that he was a sorcerer, who charmed their eyes

ST. SYLVESTER I. (A. D. 314-335).

109

by his magic spells. The imperial officers were forced to
interpose, in order to save the holy patriarch from being torn to
pieces; and for further security, he was embarked, the same
night, on a vessel of the imperial fleet. The fonrth charge was
thus left pending, by which he was accused of breaking the
chalice of a priest who was celebrating the Holy Sacrifice, and
of having trampled upon the Sacred Species. This calumny
was grounded on the following facts. A certain Ischyras,
residing in the province of Mareotis, who had never received
any orders, had, on his own authority, arrogated to himself the
priestly office, in a little hamlet in which he dwelt. In the
course of his usual visitation of the province, St. Athanasius
had sent a priest named Macarius, who accompanied him with
orders to enjoin Ischyras to put a stop to the scandal and to
cease the sacrilegious intrusion. Macarius found Ischyras
dangerously ill ; he told the usurper’s father of the patriarch’s
express command, bidding him communicate it to his son, on
the latter’s recovery ; his duty thus peacefully discharged, he
returned to the patriarch. Such was the act which the Eusebians
had been able to color so highly, with their usual honesty and
good faith. From the Council of Tyre, they sent a commission
to examine the facts on the spot. With all the ill-will of the
deputies, they could make nothing of the case, further than
that Ischyras, at the time of the alleged crime, was sick in bed,
and that he was, consequently, not celebrating the Holy Mys­
teries; that the day of Macarius’s visit was not a Sunday, the
only day on which the Holy Sacrifice was offered in these little
hamlets ; in a word, that there had been no altar overthrown,
nor books burnt, nor chalice broken. On their return to Tyre,
the commissioners gave in their report to the Arians, who
made away with it, declared Athanasius guilty of all the
crimes imputed to him, and deposed him from the episcopacy,
forbidding him to reside in Alexandria, lest his stay should
cause fresh troubles. All the Catholic bishops refused to sign
the monstrous falsehood. The most abominable feature was
the signature of Arsenius, bishop of Hypsele, amongst the

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

subscribers to the sentence ; so that Arsenins appeared alive
to sign a sentence condemning Athanasius for causing hie
death. This reflection is made by the historian Socrates.
40. The reports which daily reached Constantino of the
proceedings of the Council of Tyre were all prepared by the
Arians, who omitted nothing to ruin St. Athanasius in the
opinion of the emperor. The holy patriarch sailed in the pub­
lic vessel on which he had embarked, to Constantinople, where
he hoped, by his presence and explanations, to dissipate the
false impressions made on the emperor’s mind respecting him.
At the moment when the emperor entered the city on horse­
back, St. Athanasius presented himself before him, in the
midst of the imperial escort, and requested an audience.
Constantine, surprised at this unexpected encounter, refused to
hear him, because he regarded him as being legally condemned
by a council. Athanasius exclaimed : “ The Lord will judge
between you and me, since you take the part of those who
calumniate me.” These words, pronounced with the accent
of innocence, and the air of sanctity which shone in the person
of the patriarch, struck Constantine. Apart from the official
messages of the Arian bishops, he had received information
from the Count Flavius Dionysius that the Council of Tyre
had often been the theatre of scenes of tumult and scandalous
disorder. The conscience of the weak emperor hesitated in
this conflict of men and things. He promised Athanasius to
do him justice, and wrote to the bishops assembled at Tyre to
come immediately to Constantinople and give an account of
their conduct. The two Eusebiuses, Theognis, Patropbilus,
Ursatius, and Valens only, obeyed this order. They relied on
their ascendency, their artifice and intrigues, again to deceive
the conscience of Constantine. When they were in his pres­
ence they said nothing of the clandestine ordination, nor of
the outraged virgin, nor of the murdered bishop, nor of the
chalice broken by Athanasius, but invented a new calumny.
The preceding year the holy patriarch had purchased, during
the winter, at his own expense, the wheat which he had dis­

ST. SILVESTER J, (Λ. I). 314-338).

411

tributed to the poor of Alexandria. Egypt was, as it is known,
the granary of Rome, and, since the foundation of the new capi­
tal, its wheat sent every year to the shores of the Bosphorus.
Eusebius of Nicomedia accused St. Athanasius of hindering the
convoys of wheat from reaching Constantinople. The emperor
had just then condemned to death Sopater, one of his favor­
ites, for the suspicion only of this crime. Constantine thought
that he used great forbearance in sparing the life of St. Atha­
nasius. He exiled him to Treves, then the capital of Gaul.
St. Maximin, of Poitiers, who was bishop of Treves, received
the illustrious proscribed with the highest honors. Constan­
tine the younger, who commanded the legions of that province
in the name of his father, treated him as a martyr to the
faith, and this unjust exile only served to enhance the glory
of him who suffered it, by making manifest his great merit
and virtues.
41. The bishops assembled at Tyre having closed their
council, as they called their factious assembly, went, by Con­
stantine’s order, to Jerusalem, to dedicate the new church
which had just been erected. A vast multitude had gathered
from all the provinces of the empire, to assist at this solem­
nity, of which Eusebius of Cæsarea has described all the
ceremonies. He distinguished himself personally by an elab­
orate panegyric of Constantine, for which he deemed this a
suitable occasion. The dedication took place September 14,
a. d. 335, on the festival of the Holy Cross. Arius profited by
the presence of the bishops at Jerusalem, to lay before them, in
concert with the priest Euzoius, his confidant, ami the most
zealous of his supporters, the profession of faith which he had
already submitted to Constantine. The Eusebians received
this communication with favor, admitted Arius and Euzoius
to the communion of the Church, and wrote a synodal letter
to all the bishops of Christendom, to give them information
thereof.
42. On the last day of December, a. d. 335, died Pope St.
Sylvester I., after a pontificate of twenty-one years and eleven

412

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

months. He was deposited in the cemetery of St. Priscilla, in
the Salariait way, and was removed by Paul I., in 762, to
the church of St. Sylvester, in Campo Marzo, vulgarly called
St. Sylvester in capite. In six ordinations, all in the month of
December, the pontiff had consecrated sixty-three bishops,
forty-two priests, and twenty-six deacons. Of all the popes,
St. Sylvester is the only one, St. Peter excepted, in whoso
honor has been celebrated the feast called of Precept, for the
twentieth year of a pontificate. Among other decisions, St.
Sylvester decreed that in baptism the baptized should be
anointed on the head with chrism. He also decided that the
days of the week, except Saturday and Sunday, should be
called Ferias, a name already in use with some ecclesiastical
authors, particularly Tertullian. Monday is termed the second
Fcria, Tuesday the third Feria, and so on until Friday, which
is termed the sixth Fcria. Neither the first Fcria nor the
seventh Fcria are mentioned. These two days preserve the
ordinary names of Sunday (Dominica Dies'), and of Saturday
(Sabbatum). It is not certain that it was St. Sylvester who
ordained that altars should be of stone; but this became a rule
of the Church from this epoch : it is still observed in the usage
of the consecrated stone which is always placed in the middle
of the altar, at the spot where repose the adorable body and
blood of Jesus Christ. Nearly at this time, also, commenced
the custom of consecrating the popes on a Sunday or other
festival. There has been no exception to this rule but for the
preconization of Paul III., Clement VII., and Leo X.

BT. MARK (A. D. 33G).

413

CHAPTER II.
§ I.

1.

Pontificate

of

St. Mark

(Jan. 18, a. d. 336—October 7, 338).

Election of St. Mark to the Sovereign Pontificate.—2. Arian Council of Con­
stantinople ; Deposition of Marcellus, Bishop of Ancyra; Restoration of
Arius ; His tragic Death.—3. Death of Pope St. Mark (October 7, a. d. 338).

§ II.

Pontificate

op

Pope St. Julius

I. (Feb. 0, a. d. 337—April 12, 352).

4. Election of Pope Julius I.—5. Letter of St. Anthony to the Emperor Con­
stantine. Exile of St. Paul, Patriarch of Constantinople. Death of Constan­
tine the Great.—6. Recall of St. Athanasius to Alexandria, and of St. Paul
to Constantinople. Second exile of Paul. Eusebius of Nicomedia takes
possession of the Patriarchal See of Constantinople.—7. First Arian Coun­
cil of Antioch.—8. St. ikthanasiiis is a second time driven from Alexandria.
Gregory of Cappadocia takes possession of bis See. Council of Rome,
convoked by Pope St. Julius I.—9. Recall of tho Patriarch St. Paul to Con­
stantinople. His third exile.—10. Second Arian Council of Antioch.—
11. Catholic Councils of Milan and Sardica.—12. Return of St. Athanasius to
Alexandria after his second exile. Return of St. Paul, Patriarch of Constan­
tinople.—13. Death of St. Paul, the first hermit.—14. Circumcellians; Coun­
cil of Carthage in regard to them.—15. Persecution of the Christians by
Sapor II., King of Persia.—16. Raising of the first siege of Nisibis by Sapor
II. Continuation of the Persecution in Persia.—17. Raising of the second
siege of Nisibis by Sapor II. St. Ephrem, disciple of St. James of Nwibia.
—18. Murder of Constans, Emperor of the West. Triple usurpation of the
Empire.—19. Council of Sirmium. Fourth and last exile of St. Paul,
Patriarch of Constantinople. His martyrdom.—20. Apparition of a mirac­
ulous cross at Jerusalem.—21. Death of Pope St. Julius I.

§ I. Pontificate of St. Mark (Jan. 18, a. d. 336—Oct 7, 336).

1. On the 18th of January, a. d. 336, St. Mark was elected
to succeed St. Sylvester. Some years before, he bad been
appointed as one of the judges of Donatus, which sufficiently

411

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

proves that he was at that time known for his piety, wisdom
and justice. It is believed that it was he who ordained the
recital at Maes, after (he Gospel, of that authentic and funda­
mental charter of faith, the Nicone Creed, Credo in unum Daim.
2. After the dedication of the church at Jerusalem, the
bishops who had presided went to Constantinople, where the
Eusebians desired to assemble a new council, ostensibly to
examine the doctrine of the Bishop Marcellus of Ancyra,
whom they accused of Sabellianism, because he sustained the
Nicone faith. Marcellus taught, with the Catholic Church,
that the distinction of persons in the Holy Trinity does not
imply division of substance. “ The Word,” said he, “proceeds
from the Father, and it is written ç>f the Holy Spirit, some­
times that He proceeds from the Father, sometimes that He
proceeds from the Word ; consequently, He proceeds at the
same time from both. Now it is impossible to conceive that
He proceeded from both, if the Father and the Son are sep­
arated by nature. Since, then, He proceeds from the Father
and the Son, they are one only God.” The two often named
bishops Eusebius condemned this doctrine and its author
without discussion, which proves either their flagrant bad faith,
or their absolute ignorance of Catholic theology. They excom­
municated Marcellus of Ancyra, and deposed him from his
see. They then occupied themselves with the restoration of
Arius, who, since the exile of St. Athanasius to Treves, had
vainly attempted to re-enter Alexandria. The people of this
city, faithful to their holy patriarch and to the Catholic faith,
had risen, on the approach of the heresiarch, and had driven
him from their walls. The attempt having thus failed at
Alexandria, the Eusebians undertook to make it succeed at
Constantinople, the imperial city, and in the view of the world.
Their first movement was addressed to the patriarch of Con­
stantinople, St. Alexander. They prayed him to have compas­
sion on a priest, so long, they said, and so unjustly persecuted.
The saintly old man, then more than ninety years of age, had
neither less firmness, nor less attachment to the faith, than

ST. MARK (A. D. 331).

415

his namesake, St. Alexander, Patriarch of Alexandria. “The
favor which I should extend to Arias,” he replied, “ would be
a real cruelty to the Catholics. The laws of the Church do
not permit me, by a false compassion, to contravene that which
I have myself decreed with all the holy Council of Nice.”
The emperor then, of his own authority, fixed on a Sunday,
when Arius should be solemnly received in the principal
church of Constantinople, and admitted to communion in pres­
ence of all the people. lie signified to St. Alexander to cease
his opposition on pain of exile. The patriarch had recourse
henceforth only to spiritual arms. By the advice of St. James,
bishop of Nisibis, who was then in Constantinople, he recom­
mended to the faithful a fast of seven days, to implore help
from heaven in this pressing danger of the Church. The eve
of the appointed day, the holy old man, prostrate before the
altar, his face to the ground, in the effusion of his soul, and
with many tears, offered this prayer : “ Lord, if Arius must be
received in this Church on the morrow, withdraw Thy servant
from this world. But if Thou hast yet pity on Thy Church,
suffer not Thy heritage to be profaned. Let Arius be stricken
with the weight of Thine anger, and let not heresy be longer
puffed up with its victory.”
Meanwhile Arius went about the city, surrounded by a
crowd of his partisans, who formed for him a sort of tri­
umphal escort. Having reached the great public place in view
of the Basilica where St. Alexander prayed, he was seized by
a nervous trembling, and asked leave to retire into a secret
place. As he remained an unusually long time, his friends
entered, aud found him lying dead, bathed in his blood and
his entrails gushing out. The horror of such a spectacle
made even his sectaries tremble. The scene of this tragic end
ceased to be frequented ; no one dared approach it, and it was
pointed out as a monument of divine vengeance.
3. These events occupied the whole of the short pontifi­
cate of St. Mark, who died October 7, a. d. 336. within the
year of his exaltation. He was interred in the Fw Anka-

416

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Una, in (he cemetery of St. Balbina, and thence transported fo
the Church of St. Mark, which he had dedicated. This
pontiff had imposed hands on twenty-five bishops, twenty­
seven priests, and six deacons. After his death the holy see
remained some time vacant.

§ II. Pontificate of St. Julius I. (Feb. 6,
12, 352).

a. d.

337—April

4. St. Julius I. was elected successor of St. Mark, after an
interregnum of three months. One of the first cares of the new
pontiff was to collect, in special archives, all that concerned the
history of the Church in Rome,its acts, donationsand testaments.
Cenni believes this was the origin of the pontifical library.
5. The death of Arius had made a deep impression on the
mind of Constantine. Eusebius of Nicomedia was himself in
consternation. An accident so unforeseen was too evidently
out of the line of ordinary facts, and disconcerted all calcula­
tions. The emperor felt it a duty, for the enlightenment of
his conscience, to ask the advice of the patriarch of the desert,
St. Anthony. When the officers of the palace arrived on the
mountain, bearers of the imperial message, the monks could
not conceal their joy at the honor conferred on their Father.
“ Be not surprised,” said the saint, “ that an emperor writes to
a mortal man ; be astonished, rather, that God designed to write
His law for men, and to speak to them by His own Son.” He
replied to Constantine by counsels full of wisdom, and reminded
him of the frivolity of the things of earth and the approach of
eternal judgment. He pressed the emperor to revise the trial
of St. Athanasius, and to put an end to his exile, which was
as unjust towards an innocent man, as it was injurious to the
reputation of the prince who had ordered it. At the moment
of the arrival of this letter at Constantinople, the emperor had
just consented to the exile of Paul, Catholic patriarch of Con­
stantinople, and successor of St. Alexander, at the solicitations
of Eusebius of Nicomedia, who wished to seat himself, by a

ST. JULIUS I. (A. D. 337-352).

417

third intrusion, in a see which did not belong to him. Con­
stantine, however, was approaching the term of his life, and the
counsels of St. Anthony acted upon a conscience which became
more clear-sighted as he approached the tomb. He formed the
resolution to recall St. Athanasius, but death left him no time.
He asked for baptism, which was administered by Eusebius of
Nicomedia, whose obsequious familiarity pursued the dying
emperor even on his bed of death. After he had received this
sacrament, the emperor quitted the people, and would wear only
the white dress of the neophytes, until his death, which happen­
ed on the day of Pentecost, May 20th, 337. A hero in the first
half of his life, wise in policy, and fortunate in war, the first
of the emperors who had understood the influence which Chris­
tianity must exercise on civilization, and who had seconded it
by merciful laws and institutions, Constantine would have been
a faultless prince, if the second part of his life had not been
given up to all the intrigues, all the artifices of the courtiers.
Yet his name has always been dear to the. Church : his memory
will ever be blessed, and the good which he effected can never
be effaced by the evil which he did not always prevent. Neither
of the sons of Constantine was present to close his eyes: his
body was laid in the great hall of the guards of the palace of
Nicomedia, elevated on a catafalque covered with purple, and
surrounded with lights which burned in golden candlesticks. He
was subsequently transported to Constantinople, and interred
in the Church of the Apostles, which he had chosen for bis
tomb. The empire was divided among his three sons : Con­
stantine the younger had Spain, Gaul, and in general all the
Roman provinces beyond the Alps; Constantius, Asia, the
East, and Egypt ; and Constans, Italy, Africa, Sicily, and
Illyria, a. d. 338. This division was soon modified by the
crime of Constans who caused his brother Constantine the
younger to be assassinated, and took possession of his domin­
ions (a. d. 340), so that the empire was resolved into two
grand divisions—the East where Constantius reigned, and the
West governed by Constans the fratricide.
27

•118

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

6. Constantine the younger had had time, during his ephem­
eral reign, to restore the orthodox bishops who had been
deprived of their sees by the Arians. St. Athanasius returned
to Alexandria (a. d. 338), where he was received with the
acclamations of all his people, and with a pomp worthy of an
emperor. Asclepas of Gaza, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Paul
of Constantinople, all regained possession of their churches.
These acts of justice in Constantine the younger inspire regret
for his premature end. Constantius, who assumed the govern­
ment of the East, agitated by the Arian dissensions, had all
the faults of his father, without his good qualities. Of a
character feeble and undecided, always wavering, his conduct
was without unity of purpose or consistency, and full of con­
tradictions ;, he reigned by his favorites. It was said of him :
“It must be admitted that the emperor has much influence
with Eusebius, chief of the eunuchs.” This eunuch Eusebius
had been at first gained over to Arianism by Eusebius
of Nicomedia. The empress participated in his views, and
the Arian priests whom Constantine 1. had admitted to bis
favor on the recommendation of his sister Constantia, and to
whom he had afterwards confided his last will, became ail
powerful at the new court of Constantius. It is not difficult
to foresee the part which Eusebius of Nicomedia would take
in circumstances so favorable to his views. Death had struck
down the heads most dear to him, and had taken from his side,
the same year, his namesake, Eusebius of Cæsarea, his other
self, more courtier than bishop, more erudite than profound,
more rhetorician than theologian, always more favorable to
error than to truth. This example made no impression on
Eusebius of Nicomedia; the ambitious, so long as there are
honors to be won, think themselves immortal. He procured
an assemblage of bishops at Constantinople ; on calumnious
accusations, they deposed the holy Patriarch St. Paul, who
again returned to exile, and this time Eusebius saw his
intrigues crowned with complete success. He seated himself
finally, by his own authority, in the see of Constantinople,

ST. JULIUS I. (A. D. 337-352),

419

which for so many years had been the subject of his
dreams.
7. His hatred of Athanasius only increased with the
means of satisfying it. An Arian priest, named Pistus, whose
life and morals were in ill repute, was consecrated bishop by
Secundus of Ptolemais, who had been himself deposed by the
Council of Nice. Pistus was sent, with the title of patriarch,
to Alexandria, while St. Athanasius, welcomed as a father by
all the Catholics, resumed the possession of his legitimate
authority. Eusebius of Nicomedia at the same time sent to
Rome a deputation to St. Julius I., charged with letters of
accusation against St. Athanasius, and of recommendations of
Pistus, the intruded patriarch. To answer these calumnies,
St. Athanasius assembled at Alexandria a council of nearly
a hundred bishops from Egypt, the Thebais, Libya, and the
Pentapolis. They read all the accusations hitherto brought
against the holy patriarch ; pointed out all the calumnies, the
nullities, the irregularities which marked them; and after­
wards addressed a synodal letter to Pope St. Julius, and to
all the churches of the world, to protest against all that the
enemies of St. Athanasius had said or done against him. The
deputies, bearers of this vindication, arrived at Rome at the
same time with those of Eusebius of Nicomedia. It was not
difficult to reduce the slanderers to silence ; but the Eusebians
did not consider themselves as beaten. An Arian council
assembled at Antioch, where Constantius held his court,
for the dedication of the Basilica of that city (a. d. 341).
After the compilation and rejection of three professions of
faith, they agreed on a fourth formula, where fhe word so
formidable to Arians, con substantial, was not found. They
then, without waiting the sentence from Rome, proceeded to
the deposition of St. Athanasius, and elected as his successor,
not Pistus, whom they abandoned because of his bad reputa­
tion, but Gregory of Cappadocia, who was consecrated as
patriarch of Alexandria, and sent with an escort of soldiers
furnished by Constantius, to take, by arms, possession of tho

420

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

see. The canons of discipline were made to conform to these
iniquitous acts.. “ If a bishop,” they decreed, “ has been once
condemned by a council, he can be no more judged by others:
and the sentence will take effect.” If he continue to trouble
the Church, he will be rebuked as seditious by the secular
power. This was to appeal, against St. Athanasius, to the
secular arm, which was then called Constantius, and to reject
the intervention of the pope. They then deposed Marcellus
of Ancyra, and Asclepas of Gaza, and tho Eusebians could
rejoice in their triumph.
8. Gregory of Cappadocia meantime arrived at Alexandria,
supported by the authority and the military force of the
apostate Philagrius, whom Constantius, at the solicitation of
the Eusebians, had just named, for the second time, prefect of
Egypt, with orders, at any cost, to force away St. Athanasius.
The Church was taken by assault, the virgins consecrated to
God were infamously outraged ; the religious, who continued
faithful to their legitimate patriarch, were maltreated, and
some were put to death : the sacred vessels were given up to
pillage, and Gregory after this manner took possession of the
see, to which he was elevated by the arms of Constantius, and
the abused power of the Eusebians. St. Athanasius was pro­
scribed, and a fine set on his head by order of the governor:
all who were devoted to him were cast into the public prisons,
and he took refuge in the monasteries near Alexandria. The
intruded patriarch, with an escort of soldiers, undertook a visi­
tation of the province. Most of the bishops refused to acknowl­
edge a metropolitan imposed by force, to whose election they
had not helm summoned. The only reply was made by load­
ing them with irons. Sarapammon, bishop of Upper Thebais,
was banished for his courageous resistance ; the illustrious and
aged St. Potamon, whose virtues the two Councils of Nice and
Tyre had admired, was beaten with rods, and died of his
wounds, with the glory of a double martyrdom. Against so
much violence, Athanasius opposed the calmness of an unas­
sailable right and an unyielding conscience. He addressed a

8T. JULIÜ8 I. (A. D. 337-3M).

421

circular letter to all the bishops in the world reciting the fact
*,
and beseeching them not to hold communion with the intrude.-.
This duty being fulfilled, to avoid compromising the monks
who had given him hospitality, by a longer sojourn, he de­
parted for Rome, where Pope Julius L received him as a here
of the faith. The sovereign pontiff announced his intention
to bring the judgment of this affair before hie own tribunal
To this effect, he appointed for the year a. d. 342, a council to
be held at Rome, and he sent two Roman priests, Elpidius
and Philoxenus, to the Eusebians, to require their attendance.
Tho Eusebians detained the legates several months under
different pretexts, and finished by sending them away with a
letter in w'hich they expressed, in equivocal terms, their
respect for the holy see, and declared that it was not possible
to be present at the Council of Rome, since the time remaining
was insufficient. The council was already assembled when
Elpidius and Philoxenus arrived. It was composed of fifty
bishops from Italy, Africa, and Gaul, who unanimously admit­
ted to the communion of the Church St. Athanasius, Marcel­
lus of Ancyra, and Asclepas of Gaza, and declared null the
nomination of the intruders who had robbed them of their
sees. St. Julius, in concert with the Fathers of the council,
wrote to the Eusebians, in reply to the letter which they bad
sent by Elpidius and Philoxenus. The pope declares that
the faith of the Council of Nice is the Catholic faith; that
whatever has been done against the decisions of that œcumenic
council is null and of no effect. He justifies St. Athanasius,
Marcellus of Ancyra, and Asclepas of Gaza, from all the
calumnies levelled against them, formally condemns the
intruders who had forced them from their churches, and
opposes the irregularity of all that had been done without the
approval of the see of Rome. “ Know you not," he says,
“ that the canonical rule was to recur first to our authority,
and that the decision must proceed from it? Such is the
tradition that we have received from the blessed Apostle
Peter, and I believe it to be so universally acknowledged, that

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

I should not recall it here, if these deplorable circumstances
did not constrain me to proclaim it.” This letter of Pope St.
Julius, admirable for its majesty, gentleness, and true elo­
quence, is one of the most precious monuments of the wisdom
and firmness of the Roman Pontiff.
9. When this letter reached Constantinople, Eusebius, tho
intruded bishop, the courtier-prelate, abettor of Arianism,
whose intrigues had created and perpetuated so many agita­
tions and troubles within the Church, had just expired in his
usurped see (a. d. 342). The Catholics of Constantinople,
freed from his tyrannical yoke, hastened to recall, before the
return of Constantius, who was at Antioch, their legitimate
patriarch, St. Paul, from his unjust exile. The public joy
broke forth in long acclamations when the venerable old man
landed on the shore of the Bosphorus ; and it might have
been thought for a moment, that the days of union and peace
for this desolated Church had returned. But the spirit of
Eusebius survived in his party. The Arian bishop Theognis
of Nice, and Theodore of Heraclea, protested against the
restoration of the true patriarch; to an intruder they resolved
to give an intruder for successor, and consecrated as Archbishop
of Constantinople, Mardonius, an unworthy priest, who after­
wards added his name to the list of heresiarchs. This sacri­
legious election was the signal of a civil war, and a frightful
sedition at Constantinople. The Emperor Constantius, warned
by the Arians, sent the prefect of his guards, Hermogenes,
with orders to remove St. Paul, and to reconduct him to exile.
The Catholics defended their bishop—the passions of all were
excited, and knew no bounds : the multitude seized Hermo­
genes, burnt his palace, murdered him, and dragged his muti­
lated body through the city (a. d. 342). Constantius, on
hearing of this, left Antioch, and in spite of the rains and
snows of winter, crossed Asia Minor on horseback, and reached
the gates of Constantinople, resolved to punish it with fire
and sword. The people in tears, the senate as suppliants,
all orders of the state in mourning, came to meet him : he

BT. JULIUS I. (A. D. 337-353).

423

yielded to their prayers, and pardoned all the rebels on con­
dition that St. Paul should be banished. The patriarch left
his church for the third time, and it fell again into the power
of tho usurper.
10. St. Julius meantime had sent legates to the Emperor
Constantius at Treves, to present the synodal letter from the
council at Rome, and to inform him of the banishment of the
patriarchs of Alexandria and Constantinople. Constantius, on
his side, sent to Treves four Ariatt bishops to explain to Con­
stans the whole matter treated of at Antioch. St. Maximin,
bishop of Treves, refused to communicate with them; he wel­
comed, on the contrary, the delegates of the sovereign pon­
tiff with public marks of his veneration, and declared that
he would never have any other faith than that of Rome.
Constans was of the same mind. The Arian prelates returned
to the East, and saw no other alternative than to call a new
council at Antioch. It was held the following year (a. d.
345). The entire Arian party was convoked. They rejected
absolutely the term consubstantial, and after stormy discussions
they agreed upon a long formula of faith, composed almost
entirely of words taken from Scripture, which was to be the
new creed of Arianism.
11. The Orientals sent it the following year (a. d. 346) to
the Council of Milan, which Pope St. Julius had just convoked.
It was unanimously rejected, and the angry Arians appealed
to a more numerous council, where the bishops of the East
and West should be united. The pope consented to this
demand. In concert with the Emperors Constans and Con­
stantius, a council was assembled at Sardica (a. d. 347).
Three hundred Catholic bishops, having at their head Osins
of Cordova, responded to the call of the Sovereign Pontiff.,
The Arians were fewer in number, but they were accompanied
by the Count Musonian, and Hesychius, general of the impe­
rial armies, and hoped that the weight of arms might incline
the decision in their favor. Osius of Cordova was designated
by St. Julius as his legate, and the council proceeded to its

324

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

deliberations, admitting neither the count nor the general, and
resolved to come to a decision entirely independent of politi­
cal influences or court intrigues. St. Athanasius presented
himself furnished with all the documents necessary to prove
his innocence, and the bad faith of his enemies. The bishops
who had been banished from their secs by Gregory, the in­
truded patriarch of Alexandria, appeared with the chains
which had been put upon them, and ocular witnesses came
to testify to the violence they had seen committed. Many
churches sent deputies who called on the Council of Sardica,
to restore their legitimate pastors, who had been banished,
outraged, or persecuted, by the Arians. They recounted the
frightful treatment endured by the consecrated virgins, by
venerable and holy pontiffs, by monks, and anchorets. The
original of the famous report of the inquest made on the
subject of the affair of Ischyras, in the province of Mareotis,
was laid by St. Athanasius before the Fathers; and the
innocence of the patriarch was confirmed by the testimony
of his enemies themselves. The bishops of the East could
not approve deliberations where so little regard was shown
to the material force at their disposal. They abruptly retired
from the council, and rejected the overtures made by the
Catholics for their return. Osius of Cordova went even so
far as to submit to them the following proposition: “If the
result of our proceedings establishes the guilt of Athanasius,
you may be assured of the rigor of his condemnation. And
if he succeed in proving his innocence, and you persist in
refusing to receive him to your communion, I engage to take
him with me to Spain.” St. Athanasius subscribed to these
conditions, but his enemies had so little confidence in the jus­
tice of their cause, that they refused to hear any thing, and
departed immediately for their churches, under the frivolous
pretence that the emperor had written to them to offer thanks­
givings to God on the occasion of his recent victory over the
Persians. The retreat of the Arians hindered in nothing the
progress of the council. Three subjects were submitted for

BT. JULIU3 ï. (A. D. 337-3S3).

425

its examination : 1. Λ declaration of the Catholic faith on the
question raised by Arianism; 2. The cause of the bishops
driven from their sees, and accused by the Arians; 3. The
complaints made against the Arians by their victims. On the
first point, it was decided by an immense majority to adhere
to the creed of Nice, as defining in an explicit and precise
manner the Catholic faith in the divinity of the Son of God.
They passed immediately to the appeal in the causes of St.
Athanasius, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Asclepas of Gaza, driven
from their sees by the Arians. All the accusations before
submitted to the Council of Tyre were brought up, exam­
ined anew, and unanimously rejected, as infamous calumnies.
Marcellus of Ancyra, and Asclepas of Gaza, were declared in­
nocent. As a consequence, the three prelates were solemnly
admitted to the communion of the Church ; their legitimate
authority over the sees from which they had been ejected
was confirmed, and the usurpers were anathematized. It now
remained to institute an inquiry into the conduct of the
bishops of the East, who had never ceased, in spite of the
decision of the œcumenic Council of Nice, to communicate with
the Arians, to sustain them with their credit at Constantinople,
and to intrude them by violence into the sees of the principal
churches. The chiefs of the faction, until then tolerated,
were by name deposed from the episcopate, and excommuni­
cated. They were eight in number, viz. : Theodore of Herac­
lea, Narcissus of Neroniad, Stephen of Antioch, Gregory of
Laodicea, Aeacius of Cæserea in Palestine, Men opban tee of
Ephesus, Ursatius of Singidon, and Valens of Mursa. The
two last had been anathematized by the Council of Nice. The
Fathers then entered upon the discussion of canons of disci­
pline, in which they acknowledge and categorically explain the
right of appeal to tlie pope, the jurisdiction of the See of
Home over ecclesiastical causes, and the obligation to submit
to its judgment, or to that of the legates commissioned by the
sovereign pontiff, to examine facts at the place where they
occurred. These delegates have been since named legates

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

a latere. Other canons forbid arbitrary translations from one
bishopric to another, and the nomination of bishops to sees
of which the titulars have appealed to the popes, in advance
of the definitive judgment of the sovereign pontiff. The acts
of the council were immediately sent to Pope St. Julius, and
to the two Emperors Constantius and Constans, at Antioch and
Treves. Thus terminated the peaceful session of the Council
of Sardica. It has not been placed in the rank of cecumenic
councils, although bishops were assembled from all the prov­
inces of the world. But it made no new formula of articles
of faith, and it confined its action to the recognition of the
creed of the Nicene Council, of which it may be regarded as a
consequence and corollary.
12. The decision of the Council of Sardica was received with
the applause of the Christian world. Vainly the Arian bishops
attempted to fix an odious calumny upon the two bishops, Vin­
cent of Capua, and Euphratas of Cologne, who were appointed
to bear’to the Emperor Constantius the synodal letter of the
council. On their arrival at Antioch, Stephen, the bishop of
that city, bribed a domestic of the two legates to introduce a
woman of bad life by night into their apartment. The wretched
creature, conscience stricken on seeing the two venerable men,
fled, divulging everywhere in the city the detestable treason
to which they had wished to make her an accomplice. This
incident served to open the eyes of the too feeble Constantius.
After a judicial inquiry, in which the Arian Stephen was con­
victed of having plotted this infamous machination, the emper­
or sent the judgment to the bishops then present at Antioch,
who deposed and excommunicated him. Constantius admitted
the envoys of the council to an audience, received favorably
their message, and decreed the recall of the exiled prelates.
He even manifested a desire to see St. Athanasius, and wrote
with his own hand three letters, to pray him to visit his court.
The patriarch was at this moment in Rome, with Pope St.
Julius I., to whom these tidings gave great joy. Before part­
ing with St. Athanasius, the sovereign pontiff wrote to the

ST. JULIUS I. (A. D. 337-353).

427

clergy and faithful of Alexandria a letter of congratulation.
“ Finally, well-beloved brethren," he said to them, “all your
desires are fulfilled. Athanasius, your bishop, is restored to
you. Welcome with all honor this illustrious witness of our
holy faith. You have been his consolation when among for­
eign nations ; your fidelity has sustained him in the midst of
perils and persecution. Our heart thrills with pleasure when
we represent to ourselves the return of our venerable brother
to your midst, the shouts of joy on his passage, the piety
of the people who go to meet him, the transport of the multi­
tude who are attracted from all quarters. What a day for
you ! The past will be ended. This so much desired return
will henceforth unite all minds and all hearts. We unite our­
selves so much the more in your joy, because God has given
us the grace to know personally so great a man.” Such were
the sentiments of universal charity which enkindled the soul
of the Roman pontiffs ; such also was the veneration inspired
by the virtues and genius of Athanasius the Great. St. Julius
allowed him to depart, loaded with benedictions, for Antioch,
where Constantius then held his court. The emperor received
the saintly patriarch with a benevolence to which neither of
them was accustomed. He ordered to be effaced from the
public acts in the archives of the empire all that had been
written against Athanasius, and swore to him solemnly never
to listen to his calumniators. He ordered letters to be sent to
the Egyptian churches to inform them “ that to be united in
communion with the venerable Athanasius would be a suffi­
cient proof of good dispositions." Finally, he commanded the
magistrates and people of Alexandria to receive the patri­
arch with the same honors as they would their sovereign.
Preceded by these eminent testimonials of the imperial favor,
St. Athanasius appeared at Alexandria (a. d. 347). All the
bishops of Egypt and the two Libyas were there to receive
him; tho magistrates and people awaited him in their holi­
day garb; the city was hung with tapestries and garlands of
flowers; a multitude bearing green boughs escorted the illus-

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

trions exile ; no trace of former discords troubled this day of
universal joy. Gregory of Cappadocia, the intruder, had per­
ished some months before, in a popular tumult. The joy
which the return of the legitimate patriarch spread through­
out Alexandria was manifested in good works; and by an
increase of fervor and Christian piety. The charity of tho
people was enkindled ; they fed and clothed the poor and tho
orphans, and each house seemed to have become a church
appropriated to prayer and the practice of virtue. They who
had been until then the most bitter persecutors of St. Atha­
nasius, hastened to ask to be restored to his communion.
Ursatius and Valens addressed to Pope St. Julius a formal
retractation of their conduct. “All that we have hitherto
written against Athanasius,” said they, “ all the accusations
produced against him, and sustained by us, we declare to be
atrocious calumnies, and we ask pardon of your holiness and
of him. And besides, we anathematize the heretic Arius and
his abettors, and supplicate you to receive us into the com­
munion of the Church.” The other exiled prelates were at
the same time restored to their sees : St. Paul at Constan­
tinople, Asclepas at Gaza, Marcellus at Ancyra ; and, for the
moment, it seemed that Arianism was forever vanquished.
13. Great was the joy in the solitudes of Nitria and the
Thebais, on the return of St. Athanasius to his patriarchal city
of Alexandria. But none of the religious felt it more sensibly
than St. Anthony, whose soul had participated in all the tribu­
lations of the illustrious proscribed. The preceding year, St.
Anthony, guided by the Divine Spirit, had, alone, leaning on
the cane which supported his feeble age, plunged into the
remote regions of the desert. A grotto, closed by a stone
which the hand of man must have brought there, caught his
eye. “Open," said the patriarch, knocking at this entrance;
“you know who I am, whence I came, and why. I am not
worthy to look upon your face, but for the love of Jesus
Christ, open for me, or I shall die at your door.” An aged
man, whose white hair fell upon a body emaciated by age and

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429

the austerities of penance, more like a skeleton than a man,
wearing a girdle of palm-leaves, came to open the door. It
was Paul, the first of the hermits, who had lived, since the
year 250, unknown to all men, fed by a· half loaf of bread
which a raven deposited every morning before his grotto. The
two saints saluted each other by name, though neither had
ever heard of the other. Seated on a rock by the fountain
which had given for nearly a century its limpid water to this
veteran of the solitudes, Paul said to his guest, “ What are
men doing now ? Do they still build new houses in their old
cities ? What master do they obey ? And do they always
persecute the Christians ?” Anthony replied to all these ques­
tions, and leaving the hermit, returned to his monastery for
the mantle which St. Athanasius had given him, in which
St. Paul desired to be buried. St. Anthony made the journey
with all the haste that his exhausted strength permitted ; but
on his return, he found only the inanimate remains of the
aged saint. He buried him with respect. A lion came to
dig, in the sand at his feet, a grave where the body of St.
Paul was deposited, to await his blessed resurrection. These
touching details, related by St. Athanasius himself, in his Life
of St. Anthony, which he wrote for the brethren of the Thebais,
went far to awaken in many souls the love of solitnde, and a
holy ardor for eremitic perfection. Captivated by the power­
ful attraction of this life, mysteriously flowing onwards in
contemplation and prayer, a crowd of young men and pious
virgins tore themselves away from the tumult of the world
to confide to the cloister the secret of their hopes and their
destinies. Rome beheld the formation, within her limits, of
monasteries which rivalled the zeal and fervor of the bloom­
ing deserts of Ni tria, and the religious life was thus inaugu­
rated in the Church, under the influence of illustrious and holy
examples.
14. While the great contest of Arianism had agitated all
the East, and virtue seemed to have retired to the desert, with
the Pauls, the Anthonys, the Hilarious, and their disciples,

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the Church of Cartilage had not censed to be rent by the
schism of the Donatists. Two of the name of Donatus had
succeeded to the famous Donatus de Casis Nigris, whose in­
trigues we have recounted ; one had made himself the schismatic
Bishop of Carthage, the other had usurped the Episcopal See
of Bagaia. Their partisans, spread over the country, and
around the cottages of the peasants, circum cellas, had taken
the name of circumccllians, and gave to the world the spec­
tacle of a new and strange fanaticism. They inspired the
multitude with the desire of death, in order the sooner to
reach heaven, and bands of desperate people claimed a selfinflicted martyrdom by casting themselves headlong into mount­
ain chasms—into the deep waters of rapid streams—or into
the flames of vast pyres lighted by their own hands. Some­
times, disdaining to take their own lives, they forced passers­
by to render them this service. Λ young man one day
encountered a troop of these frantic creatures, who oilcred him
a naked sword, with orders to kill them all, if he did not
wish to be immolated himself. The stranger feigned to lend
himself with a good grace to their fancy, but declared that
they must first be all bound, for fear of reprisals. The mad­
men consented ; when all were securely fastened, the young
man lashed them vigorously, and wishing them better luck,
continued on his way. The circumccllians, in their .ardor for
martyrdom, held it right to subject others to it. They pre­
tended it was a work of mercy to beat to death inoffensive
travellers, and thus send them to heaven by the shortest
road. Their disorders soon made the intervention of the im­
perial authority necessary. Constantius sent two considerable
personages of his court, Paul and Macarius, to Carthage, with
power to put an end to their excesses. The means of con­
ciliation which the two lieutenants of the emperor attempted
were powerless against madmen resolved to die. They were
obliged to resort to an armed force, which dispersed them
after an obstinate resistance. Donatus, the intruded Bishop
of Carthage, fled with all his clergy : liis namesake of Bagaia

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431

threw himself into a well ; Maculus, who had pnt himself at
the head of the rebels, threw himself headlong from the top
of a rock. The remainder of this frenzied sect hid them­
selves in the desert, and gradually disappeared ; with them
was extinguished the schism of the Donatists, who, since the
year 311, had troubled the Church of Carthage. Gratus, the
Catholic bishop of that city, assembled a council at the end of
the year 348, to complete the measures to be taken respecting
the schismatics in good faith, who in crowds entreated to be
restored to the communion of their legitimate pastor. The
fourteen canons which they decreed bear the impress of the
spirit of merciful charity which preserves discipline without
compromising union through excess of rigor. They forbid the
readministration of baptism to those who have received it
from heretics, or unworthy ministers, provided it has been
given in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost. It is known that the contrary practice was precisely
the error of the Donatists. They declare that the title and
honors of martyrdom cannot be awarded to those who in the
face of Heaven put themselves to death, after the manner of
the cireumcellians. Finally, they give rules of conduct to the
clergy and faithful.
15. The peace which the Catholic Church enjoyed after
the reunion of the East and West at the Council of Sardica,
and the dispersion of the cireumcellians, was troubled only by
the persecution which Sapor II., King of Persia, had waged
against the Christians in his states since the year 327. The
relations which this prince had at first entertained with the
Emperor Constantine the Great, were soon changed into open
hostilities. Sapor invented tortures for the faithful, still
numerous in the churches of Persia, which had escaped the
ingenious cruelty of the Roman proconsuls. All the churches
and altars were overturned, the monasteries burnt, and the
religious hunted like wild beasts. In the city of Lubaham,
two Christian brothers were seized, Jonas and Birch-Jesus,
who had brought to the Christians imprisoned for the faith

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the aid of fheir charity and devotion. Jonas was fastened to
a stake, half impaled, and beaten with rods, until his hones
were exposed. In this state he was plunged into a freezing
pond, where he passed tho night. The next day the martyr
was led before the tribunal, and summoned anew to adore
the sun and the fire, divinities of Persia. “ Life,” replied
Jonas, “is a seed which the Christian spreads over the earth:
if we have patience to await the time of harvest, it will
produce in the future age immortal glory.” The judges at
these words ordered the joints of his feet and hands to be
cut off, one by one, bone by bone, and spreading them over
the marble floor of the pretorium, said to him : “ Now thou
hast only to await the harvest; thou seest how we have
sown thy fingers; they will produce for thee feet and bands
by the hundred.” “ God who created them will know how to
restore them to me,” said the saint. Quickly they proceeded
to tear the skin from his head, and threw him into a caldron
of boiling pitch ; but, by the visible protection of Providence,
the pitch suddenly escaped from the vessel without hurting
the martyr. The judges then crushed his limbs under a
wooden press. They sawed his body in pieces, threw it into
a pit, and placed guards to prevent the Christians from taking
away his precious relics. His brother, Birch-Jesus, suffered
tortures not less horrible. They applied plates of red-hot
iron under his arms : “ If thou let one of these plates fall,"
said the judge, “we will affirm that thou hast renounced the
Christian faith.” “Minister of an impious king,” cried the
saint, “I fear not your fire; I will not move my arms, and will
keep all the heated irons you may please to place in them.”
Upon these words, the judges ordered melted lead to be poured
into his nostrils and eyes, and remanded him to prison, to pass
the night suspended by one of his feet. Ou the day follow­
ing, his tortures had in no way weakened the constancy of the
saint. The tormentors began by striking him with thorns, then
buried in his flesh sharp points of reeds, and when his whole
body was covered, they bound him with cords and rolled him

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433

on the ground, which was dyed with his blood. After this
horrible torture, they poured into hie mouth boiling pitch and
burning sulphur. During this last torment he expired. The
remains of these illustrious brothers, redeemed by Abtusciatas.
one of their friends, for six hundred drachmas, were buried
with honor by the Christians.
16. These cruelties, which were practised throughout Per­
sia, by the order of Sapor, were redoubled in consequence of
a check which the arms of this prince met with under the
walls of the city of Nisibis in Mesopotamia. The death of
Constantine the Great appeared to Sapor to offer a favorable
occasion for an irruption into the Roman Empire. He came,
therefore, in a. d. 338 to besiege Nisibis, where St. James was
bishop. The army of the Persians was immense, both in
cavalry and infantry. Entire regiments of elephants, carry­
ing high towers, accompanied it, with martial engines of every
description. But after sixty-three days of siege, Sapor was
obliged to retire ignominiously, and to return to his dominions.
His army, harassed by the Roman troops, exhausted by
fatigue, decimated by disease, pestilence, and famine, nearly
all perished. On his return he visited upon the Christians
the shame of his defeat. Horsemen were sent into all the
provinces, with orders to bring as prisoners to the capital all
adorers of Jesus Christ. It was feared that the aversion to
these executions would increase, by multiplying them in each
locality, and therefore the persecution was to be centralized,
so far as was practicable. History has preserved the names
of some of the most illustrious martyrs who at this time gave
their blood in testimony of their faith (a. d. 339). These
were Sapor, bishop of Beth-Nictor, Isaac, bishop of Seleucia,
Abraham, Mahanes, and Simeon. Mahanes was flayed alive;
Simeon was buried up to the breast, and pierced with arrows ;
Abraham had his eyes burned out with a red-hot iron, and died
two days afterwards ; Isaac was stoned; the bishop Sapor was
struck on the face with such violence as to break all his teeth,
and he was then beaten to death. Such cruelties only aug28

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

men ted the numbers of the faithful in Persia. We have
always seen persecutions produce this effect in the Church.
The next year (a. d. 340) King Sapor published a general
decree against the Christians, which condemned their persons
to slavery, and their property to confiscation. Simeon, bishop
of Seleucia, was a venerable old man, of whom Sapor himself
said : “I have travelled over distant lands, yet never have I
seen any thing comparable to the august majesty of his coun­
tenance.” He refused to give up the sacred vessels, and other
valuables of his church, and replied to the king, who urged
him to do it, “It is the patrimony of the poor ; I would rather
die than give away this sacred deposit.” On this reply they
led away the holy bishop to a dungeon. Among the crowd
assembled at the palace gate to sec his departure, was an aged
eunuch, named Guhsciatade, who had been the tutor of Sapor,
and who enjoyed high consideration at court. He had once
professed the Christian faith, but the fear of persecution had
made him an apostate. At the sight of the holy bishop, he
fell on his knees to beg his benediction. Simeon passed,
turning away his eyes, to mark the horror which his apostasy
inspired. Guhsciatade understood the mute eloquence of this
reproach. He went immediately to lay aside the splendid
garments which he wore in his office of grand chamberlain of
the king, covered himself with vestments of mourning, and
returned to the palace to present himself to Sapor. “ Send
me to execution,” he said ; “ I merit the heaviest punishment
for betraying my God, and violating the faith which I promised
him.” “ What,” cried the furious Sapor, “ is that the cause
of thy sorrow ? Cure thyself of this madness, or I shall force
thee to obey me.” “ Henceforth I will obey the true God
alone; I will no longer adore creatures.” “I, then, adore
creatures, caitiff!” “ Yes, and what is most deplorable, inani­
mate creatures.” “ Die, then,” said Sapor, and he ordered his
aged preceptor to execution. As a last favor, and in order to
repair, as far as he could, the scandal of his apostasy,
Guhsciatade requested the king to publish that he was put Io

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43a

death for his fidelity to the God of the Christians. The
tidings of this martyrdom consoled the holy bishop in his
prison. The next day he was again brought before Sapor,
whose threats found him inflexible; the king ordered a hundred
Christian prisoners to be executed in his presence, among
whom were bishops, priests, and deacons. Simeon encouraged
them to suffer death courageously for the name of Jesus
Christ. Last of this glorious phalanx of heroes—he was
himself beheaded. The two priests who accompanied him,
Abdaicla and Hananias, met the same fat·. While Hananias
laid aside his garments to prepare for the execution, he
was seized with an involuntary trembling. Phusikius, super­
intendent of public works of the king, who was present
at the execution, remarked to the confessor: Have confi­
dence, Hananias, close your eyes, and in a moment yon will
see the divine light of Christ.” These few words, reported to
Sapor, won for Phusikius the crown of martyrdom. Sapor
resolved that his punishment should be accompanied with
extraordinary cruelties. It was not easy to imagine new tor­
tures. The tormentors pierced his neck, and through the
opening tore out his tongue. He expired under this frightful
operation. These different executions took place April 16th
and 17th, a. d. 341. The exasperated Sapor published an
edict the same day, April 17th, which condemned to death all
Christians from whom the judges could not procure an explicit
renunciation of the name of Jesus Christ. In a short time
nothing was seen in all Persia but instruments of torture. The
Christians, far from betraying their faith, hastened generously
to death, and the executioners, wearied with slaughter, con­
fessed themselves, more than once, overcome by the patience
of their victims. “ The cross,” said St. Maruthas, bishop of
Mesopotamia, witness of this atrocious butchery, "germinated
in streams of blood.” The names of all those martyrs, glorious
before God, are for the most part unknown to men. That of
the virgin Tharba, who was taken with her sister and her
servant, has been preserved. The Magi caused their bodies to

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

be sawed in two. They then cut each half into six parts, and
throw them into as many baskets, which were suspended upon
shakes in two lines. The queen, who was then ill, and whose
ill health was attributed by the Magi to enchantments of the
Christians, passed between the bloody fragments in the hope
of recovering her strength by the sight of the mutilated
remains of these victims, May 5th, a. i>. 341. Some months
afterwards, the governor of the province of Chaldea, Hormisdas, and Narses, his brother, pierced with their poniards the
Bishop of Susa, St. Milles. Before he expired, the aged saint
prophesied that the day following they would kill each other.
The murderers laughed at the prediction. The next day, in
a great hunt, the two brothers pursued from opposite direc­
tions a stag which had escaped from the hounds. They dis­
charged their arrows at the same moment, and struck each
other at the same hour as tljat on which they murdered St.
Milles. Nearly at this time, Barsabias, abbot of a monastery
in Persia, was arrested, with ten of his monks. The judge
ordered the tormentors to crush their knees, to break their
legs, to cut off their arms, the flesh of their ribs, and their
ears. They then beat them in the eyes and face with thorny
reeds. Finally, the governor ordered them to be beheaded.
Barsabias was reserved for the last. During the execution,
one of the Magi, accompanied by his wife, his two children,
and several servants, happened to pass by the place. Touched
by grace, as he saw the joy that shone on the faoes of the
martyrs, he exchanged clothes with one of his servants,
threw himself at the feet of Barsabias, and implored to be
admitted into the number of his disciples, and to obtain the
glory of martyrdom. The abbot consented, and offered him to
the executioner, who beheaded him without knowing who he
was. Barsabias, the spiritual father of all these martyrs, was
the last to be decapitated (June 3d, a. d. 342). This year St.
Sadoth, successor to St. Simeon in the See of Seleucia, was put
to death with a hundred and twenty-eight other Christians, in
the city of Seleucia, where Sapor abode. Two years later, the

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437

priest Daniel and the virgin Verda [Rose in Persian) were
arrested by order of the governor of the province of the Razicheans. During three months they suffered the most cruel
torments. Among other tortures, their feet were pierced, and
kept five days successively in freezing water. Their con­
stancy remaining unshaken, the governor condemned them to
be beheaded (Feb. 21st, a. d. 344). This same year a hun­
dred and twenty Christians, arrested by Sapor in the province
of Adiabene, met a like fate. A pious widow collected their
bodies, which were interred five together, in the country near
Seleucia (April 21st, a. d. 344). Barbascemin had succeeded
St. Sadoth in the metropolitan See of Seleucia. Sapor or­
dered him to be confined in an infected prison, where the
dead bodies of animals in putrefaction had been thrown.
The holy martyr suffered there for eleven months the pains of
hunger and thirst. He was at length beheaded with his com­
panions, Jan. 14th, a. d. 346, at Ledan, in the province of the
Husites. A fearful apostasy afflicted this desolate Church al­
most at the same time. A priest, named Paul, who possessed
immense wealth, was denounced to the governor. He was
arrested with five virgins consecrated to God—Thecla, Mary,
Martha, another Mary, and Anna. The governor began by
confiscating the goods of Paul for his own profit. He sum­
moned him before his tribunal, and commanded him to
renounce Christ and adore the sun. “ Thus thou shalt recover
the money which has been taken from thee.” The wretched
man, who loved his wealth more than his soul, consented to ab­
jure. This weakness thwarted the views of the governor, who
desired to retain for himself the confiscated goods. He said
to the apostate : “ If thou wilt prove the sincerity of thy recan­
tation, thou must kill with thine own hand these five virgins
whom thou hast instructed in thy belief, and who have been
arrested with thee.” The apostate consented to this infamous
condition, and seizing a naked sword, advanced to the gen­
erous martyrs. “ What,” said they, “ treacherous pastor, is
it thus that you fall upon your own flock, and murder your

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

own sheep !” Paul paid no attention to these reproaches. In
the midst of a crowd, who looked on him as an execrable mur­
derer. he accomplished his horrible work, and beheaded these
five virgins (June 6th, a. d. 346). Even at this price he was
unable to regain possession of his property. The governor, to
secure for himself the money he had seized, had him strangled
the following night.
*
The persecution continued with the
same fury to the end of Sapor’s reign, who died a. d. 380,
after seventy years of barbarity and cruelty.
17. During his reign, one of the longest recorded in his­
tory. he constantly pursued the double policy of annihilating
Christianity in his dominions, and of extending his limits at
the expense of the neighboring provinces of the Roman Em­
pire. In 350, Constantius, who had advanced towards Persia
to defend his frontiers, was suddenly recalled by important
events to the West. Sapor II. profited by this unexpected
withdrawal to renew on the city of Nisibis the enterprise
in which he had had such ill success in 338. He returned,
therefore, the second time, with considerable force, and a
multitude of elephants and warlike engines. The kings of
India accompanied him with auxiliary troops. Sure of vic­
tory, he summoned the inhabitants to surrender, on pain of
having their city utterly destroyed. Encouraged by St. James,
their bishop, they prepared for a vigorous resistance. For sev­
enty days Sapor put forth every effort ; having filled a part
of the moat, he battered the walls with his engines—then
sought to undermine them, and finally turned the Mygdonius
from its course, to cut off the supply of water. The courage
of the citizens defeated all these expedients ; the wells and
springs furnished water in abundance. Sapor conceived a
design scarcely credible. He stopped the river above the
• Tho authentic acts of tho persecution by Sapor II. in Persia, were not known in Europe
until the pontificate of Clement XI. (λ. d. 1700-1721), who, at an enormous expense,
had copies made from the manuscripts preserved in the monasteries of Nitrin, mid which
the Egyptian monks would never part with, even nt their weight in gold. The importance
which this great pope attached to these records is tho best guarantee of their authemi·
city.
,a

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439

town by a dike between two mountains. Below the city he
raised a second dike, still higher. He then opened the npper
dike ; the waters rushed down with fury against the walls of
the besieged city, but these did not fall. Retained by the
lower dike, the water soon formed a sea, in the midst of which
was Nisibis, always invincible. The Persians availed them­
selves of this situation, which they had foreseen, and attacked
the besieged from a multitude of boats. The inhabitants were
not disconcerted ; they captured, with boat-hooks, the boats
that approached near enough to the walls, and broke or sunk
others, by hurling large stones upon them. In the midst of
this strange contest, the lower dike gives way, the pent-up
waters are precipitated through the breach, carry with them
the boats of the besiegers in spite of the rowers, and also
throw down a portion of the wall. Sapor thinks himself at
last master of the city. He commands his army to prepare
to mount the breach the next day. The assault was furious.
The Persians advance over moist and miry ground. They are
allowed to approach to the border of the ditch, which was very
broad, and deep with the miry deposit of the restrained
waters. Then, while the Persians seek for some means of
passing over it, they are assailed with a shower of stones, fire,
and darts. Some are thrown doAvn, others attempt to fly, but
those who come behind force them forward; men, horses,
machines, elephants, sink and perish in the mire. Sapor,
forced to sound a retreat, postponed the attack for a day, to
allow time for the earth to grow more firm. He returned to
the charge, and was greatly surprised to find behind the
breach a new wall, which the besieged had raised with incredi­
ble activity. In his fury he shot an arrow against heaven,
and put to death several satraps who had promised him a mag­
nificent triumph. This admirable defence was commanded by
the father-in-law of Jovian, who will at a later period assume
the imperial purple. Heaven crowned it with a mini· uh.-i·
success. The deacon St. Epbrem conducted the venerable
bishop of Nisibis, St. James, to the ramparts, that he might,

440

GÉNÉRAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

like Moses, mise his hands before the Lord, to obtain from
Him the victory. In view of the countless multitude of Hie
Persians, whose tents covered all the plain, St. James prayed
God to confound their pride. Suddenly a cloud of gnats,
such as arc sometimes seen in the East, fell upon the army
of Sapor. These insects penetrated the trunks of the ele­
phants, the nostrils and ears of the horses and beasts of bur­
den, which, becoming furious, threw their riders, broke the
ranks of the troops, and fled, taking with them their unseiz­
able enemy. Sapor, forced to acknowledge the power of God.
raised the siege, after three months of unavailing efforts, and
retired in shame. St. James died a few days afterwards,
leaving the memory of a holy life and an uncounted num­
ber of miracles wrought by his intercession. St. Ephrem,
his disciple and deacon, retired to a hermitage in the environs
of Edessa. Descended from a pagan family, grace had pre­
possessed his heart; he came to throw himself at the feet
of St. James of Nisibis, who received him as his son, or­
dained him deacon, and took him, notwithstanding his ex­
treme youth, to the Council of Nice. The humility of St.
Ephrem was so great, that, accused of a crime committed by
another, he submitted a long time to public contumely without
complaint, and consented to justify himself only to avoid giv­
ing occasion for scandal. In his solitude he lived in a grotto
formed naturally at the foot of a rock, and passed his days and
nights in meditation on the Holy Scriptures. An aged hermit,
under whom he had placed himself, found him one day conclu­
ding his commentary on Genesis. Having read it, he took it,
without speaking to the author, to the magistrates, professors,
and priests of Edessa, whose admiration it excited. The repu­
tation of Ephrem quickly spread over the East. The Gnostic
chants of Harmonicus, son of Bardesanes, had been preserved
by tradition in the memory of the people of Asia. Ephrem
composed Catholic verses in Syriac, in a measure full of mel­
ody. JIc taught the Christian virgins to sing them in the
assemblies of the faithful. The chants of the heretic were

ST. JULIUS [. (Λ. D. 337-352).

441

soon forgotten, and to this day the Christians of Syria repeat
these pious canticles. Ephrem had a particular talent for the
pulpit. Often, in the midst of his preaching, he was obliged
to pause to permit the sobs of his auditory to have free indul­
gence. The labor of the ministry and the instructions which
he composed for the monasteries occupied all his time. He
left his retreat but once to see St. Basil of Cæsarea, whose
reputation for eloquence and sanctity had reached even to
him. Returning to his grotto, Ephrem composed a panegyric
in praise of this great bishop. All his works were written in
Syriac, the mother tongue of the holy deacon, who ended his
peaceful and glorious career January 28, a. d. 379.
18. The unexpected event which had called the emperor
Constantius from the frontiers of Persia to the West, was a
triple usurpation. Constans, his brother, who reigned at
Treves, had raised from slavery to the grade of captain of the
guards, an officer named Magnentius. One day, in a mutiny,
the soldiers, discontented with the favorite, attempted to kill
him. Constans covered him with his mantle, and saved his
life. Magnentius found the burden of his gratitude too heavy.
On a hunting party, he murdered his benefactor, and seized his
crown. Gaul, Spain, Africa, and a part of Italy, declared for
the new emperor (a. d. 350); and on hearing of this murder,
Nepotian, nephew of Constantine the Great, by his mother
Entropia, put himself at the head of a troop of gladiators, sur­
prised Rome, seized it (June 3, a. d. 350), and shed torrents
of blood. Proclaimed emperor, he wore the purple only twentythree days. After this brief delay, Rome was retaken by a
general of Magnentius. The latter hastened to enjoy his tri­
umph in person, ordered the head of Nepotian. fixed on a
spear, to be carried about the streets, and massacred all who
were related, far or near, to the imperial family of Constantine
the Great. Meantime, as early as March 1. a. d. ·Ι50, the
legions of Illyria had proclaimed emperor their old general
Vetranion. This new Cæsar was unable to read, but he
instantly began to study the alphabet. Constantius inter­

412

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

rupted his literary ardor. Arrived in Dalmatia, he deposed
him. granted him his life, and sent, him to Prussa, in Bithynia,
to finish his days in an opulent, retreat. Vetranion lived there
six years in the practice of Christian piety. He succeeded in
learning to read and write, and sent word to Constantius : “Yon
are wrong not to renounce the empire yourself, and take your
share in the happiness which you procure for others.” Mag­
nentius was a more formidable rival; but two successive vic­
tories, the first at Mursa, in Pannonia (September 28, a. d.
351), where nearly fifty thousand men remained on the field
of battle, the second in Gaul (August 11, λ. d. 353), ended the
contest in favor of Constantius. Magnentius, threatened by
his soldiers, put to death all his relatives and friends, killed
his own mother, and finally himself. Decentius, his brother,
whom he had created Cæsar, strangled himself with his own
hands; and Constantius became master of the whole empire.
19. The death of Constans was deplored by the Catholics.
St. Athanasius, whom this prince had always loved, shed
bitter tears at the intelligence, even in presence of the emissary
of Magnentius, who brought it to him. Constantius, in restor­
ing peace to the Church, had done it chiefly at the solicitation
of his brother and colleague of the West. Free henceforth to
follow his own instincts, which inclined towards Arianism, he
recommenced his part as persecutor of the Orthodox Church.
The eunuch Eusebius was always his counsellor and favorite.
Ursacius and Valens, whose solemn recantation addressed to
Pope St. Julius had only been a hypocritical dissimulation,
were perpetual residents of his court. The Oriental bishops,
Narcissus of Neroniad, Theodore of Ileraclca, Basil of Ancyra,
Eudoxius of Germanicia, Demophilus of Berea, Cecropius of
Nicomedia, Sylvanus of Tarsis, Macedonius of Mopsuesta, and
Mark of Arethusa, most of them Arians, followed their example,
and manifested far more assiduity in the emperor’s tent, or in
the antechambers of the palace, than fidelity to their canonical
obligation of residence. All these prelates, and others, formed
themselves into a council at Sirmium, metropolis of Illyria,

8T. JULIUS I. (A. D. 337-352).

443

whither Constantius resorted after the battle of Mom. The
ostensible object of this council was the condemnation of Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, who taught the doctrines of Sahellius and Paul of Samosata, and maintained that Christ had
no existence anterior to Mary. Photinns had already been
deposed by the Catholic Council of Sardica, bnt he had main­
tained himself in his see by the popular favor, which he
knew how to win. The Council of Sirmium renewed against
him the anathema, and this was approved by all Catholics;
but the bishops present afterwards resolved to prepare a pro­
fession of faith. This was the sixth which the Arians at­
tempted without result. The word consubstantial was omitted
by design, and replaced by deceitful and equivocal expressions
capable of being interpreted in an orthodox sense without
precisely opposing the Arian error, which explains the dif­
ferent opinions that holy fathers have since expressed of
it. St. Hilary of Poitiers, who made a thorough examina­
tion of it, finds it satisfactory. Others have regarded it as
liable to strong suspicions. And in reality the deliberate omis­
sion of the word consubatanlial employed by the Council of
Nice, is of itself a legitimate subject for suspicion. The
extreme care which the Arian party employed at a later
period to have this formulary subscribed, will, moreover, not
without reasons, make us regard it as an insidious compromise
between error and truth. The Council of Sirmium thus opened
a way for the future persecutions of Constantius. This prince,
at the beginning of the year, a. d. 351, had secretly sent
orders to Philip, prætorian prefect at Constantinople, to arrest
the Patriarch Paul, and send him into exile. The virtue of
the venerable archbishop gave umbrage to the courtier pre­
lates, and the first use of the liberty to trouble the Church,
which the death of his brother had left to Constantius, was
against him. Philip inveigled the saintly patriarch into the
governor’s palace, under the pretence of an official commu­
nication, threw him into a vessel that was at anchor, and
sent him away, for his fourth and last exile from his church

444

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH,

at. Constantinople. The intruder, Macedonius, entered bv
force of arms over the corpses of three thousand of th
faithful, who had determined to resist his usurpation. Con­
ducted to the deserts of Mount Taurus, Paul was cast into a
dungeon, and left six days without any kind of food. As he
still breathed, the executioners strangled him, and Constantins
welcomed the news of his death with more joy than a victory
over Magnentius or the Persians would have given him.
20. Heaven spared not the most solemn warnings to this
unhappy prince. Almost at the same time he received from
St. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, the following letter: “Inthe
times of Constantine the Great, your father, of happy mem­
ory, the precious wood of the true cross was found at Jerusa­
lem. In your days, prince, miracles come not from the earth,
but from heaven. During the last festival of Pentecost, on the
nones of May (7th May), towards the hour of tierce (nine
o’clock in the morning), an immense luminous cross appeared in
the air above Mount Golgotha, extending even to the Mount
of Olives. It was not a passing phenomenon ; it remained
during many hours, visible to every eye, more brilliant than
the sun, whose light would have effaced it if its own had not
been the stronger. All the people in the city ran in crowds
to the church,with sentiments of fear mingled with joy. Young
and old, men and women, Christians of the country, and stran­
gers, even pagans, all, with one voice, praised our Lord Jesus
Christ, the only Son of God, who made his power to shine in
such wonders.” St. Cyril closes his letter by expressing his
hope that the emperor may forever glorify the holy and consul·
stanlial Trinity. This hope was not to be realized; and
Arianism, subdued for a moment, was soon to arise more
threatening and more terrible.
21. Pope St. Julius I. did not live to see the new storm
which was lowering over the Church that he had so coura­
geously defended. He died at Rome, April 2, a. d. 352, after
a pontificate of fifteen years. His remains were deposited in
the cemetery of Calepodius, in the Via Aurelia, and afterwards

ST. JULTOS ί. (A. D. 331-3111).

44-j

translated to the church of Santa Maria in Traatevere. It Kin
been said that Julius was the first to decree the celebration of
Christmas on the 26th of December. Pagi is of this opinion ,
but in the great collection of councils (tome ii., p. 12
* m·
the institution of this solemnity is placed after the time of
St. Julius. In three ordinations this pope, so eminent for
his piety, his resolute constancy and his truly apostolic elo­
quence, created nine or ten bishops, eighteen priests, and five
deacons.

GENERAL history of the church.

446

CHAPTER III.
SUMMARY.
§ 1.

Pontificate

of Tiberius (May 22, a. d. 352—September 24, 366).

1. Election of Pope Liberius.—2. The Arians bring new charges against St.

Athanasius.

Fall of Vincent of Capua.—3. Pope Liberius disavows the

conduct of Vincent of Capua, his Legate.—4. Council of Milan

(a. d. 355).

—5. St. Aihnnasius banished by Constantius (a. d. 355).—6. Letter of
Pope Liberius to the exiled Prelates.—7. Banishment of Pope Liberius to
Berea, in Thrace.—8. Fall of Osiua of Cordova.

Second Arian Council

of Sirmium.—9. The controverted fall of Liberius.—State of the Question.

—10. Semi-Arians.

Anoinœans.

Ætians.

Eunomians.

Eupsycliians.—

11. Arian Councils of Cæsarea, Antioch, Ancyra, and third of Sirmium.—
12. Council of Rimini

(a. d.

359).—13. Council of Scloucia

—14. Council of Constantinople

(a. d.

360).

(a. d.

359).

First Council of Paris.—

15. Council of Antioch (a. d. 361).—16. Death of the Emperor Constan­
tins.—17. First studies and intimacy of St. Gregory Nazianzen and St.
Basil of Cæsarea.—18. St. Cyril of Jerusalem.

His Catechetical Instruc­

tions.—19. St. Nerses, Patriarch of Armenia.—20. Doctors of the West

St. Hilary of Poitiers.

Paulinas of Treves.

St. Martin of Tours.

Lucifer of Cagliari.

St. Eusebius of Vercelli.

Birth of St. Ambrose.

St

Jerome

and Augustine.—21. Julian the Apostate, Emperor.—22. Nature and Causes

of the Persecution of Julian the Apostate.—23. Edict to recall the banishcc.
and to deprive the Clergy of their immunities, and the Churches of their
possessions.—24. Return of St. Athanasius to Alexandria, (a. d. 302).—
25. Council of Alexandria,—26. Edict of Julian the Apostate, forbidding the

study, of Belles Letties to the Christians.—27. Julian’s attempt to rebuild
the Temple of Jerusalem.

Death of Julian.—28. Macedonius.

Id is heresy.

—29. Death of Pope Liberius.

t, [. Pontificate

of

Liberius (May 22, a. d. 352—Sept. 24, 366).

1. On the 8th of May, a. d. 352, Liberius, a Roman
icacon, ordained by St. Sylvester, was raised to the chair of
Peter. He had discharged the duties of his station with a

LIBERIUS (A. D. 352-3<5β).

447

remarkable degree of virtue and humility, and made a long
resistance to the elevation thus pressed upon him. Had he 3
presentiment of the storms which were bearing down upon
the bark of Peter, or did. he
* obey an interior sentiment of
modesty natural to his soul ? History is silent on this point,
but she has, with scrupulous fidelity, recorded the honorable
resistance of Liberius, at a period when a pagan author
Ammianus-Marcellus, thus wrote regarding the sovereign
Pontificate : “ When I reflect upon the splendor attach»··! to
the See of Rome, I can understand any intrigue that might be
used to reach it. The bishops of that city receive the most
costly gifts from the Roman matrons; they appear in public,
seated in brilliant chariots, in sumptuous attire, and their table
surpasses those of kings in magnificence."
*
Making due
allowance for whatever exaggeration such a statement may
contain, corning, as it does, from the malevolent pen of a
pagan, it still proves the care of the fourth century to sur­
round the sovereign Pontiff with honor, and serves to enhance
the merit of the young deacon who could refuse such a dignity.
Though the name of Liberius has been a subject of dispute
among men, it has still this incontestable glory before God.
2. Since the exile and martyrdom of the patriarch St.
Paul of Constantinople, the Arian bishops incessantly urged
Constantins onward in the persecution of the Catholic faith.
St. Athanasius was ever the chief object of their hatred.
Ursatius and Valens began by publicly retracting their sub­
mission to the Council of Sardica, attested though it was by
an instrument they had themselves written, signed, and
delivered to St. Julius I. They then resumed their system
of recrimination and calumny against the holy patriarch of
Alexandria. They made it a crime in him to have won the
favor of the Emperor Constans. They charged him with hav­
ing embraced the cause of Magnentius, because, during the
ephemeral reign of that usurper, he had received into his
• Ammian.-Mabckllik

Lib. JT, Not 3.

448

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

palace at Alexandria, Maximinus, the holy bishop of Treves,
from whom ho had received the most generous hospitality dur­
ing his exile. They succeeded, at length, in ruining him in the
opinion of Constantius, by incriminating a very simple and
indifferent action. Λ new church had been built in Alexan­
dria, at the public expense ; the archbishop had inaugurated
it without the participation of the emperor. This was suffi­
cient to blot out from the remembrance of Constantius all his
former letters to the patriarch, and his solemn promise over to
turn a deaf ear to his accusers. He appealed to Pope Liberius,
to beg that Athanasius might be condemned (a. d. 352).
Liberius assembled a council in Rome, and laid before it the
emperor’s letter, together with those of the Egyptian bishops,
who unanimously proclaimed the innocence of their metropoli­
tan. ' The council decided that it would be contrary to all law,
human and divine, to anathematize a bishop whose faith was
that of the Church, and whose virtue was the admiration of
the whole world. The answer of Liberius was the expression
of this sentiment. Constantius gave vent to his irritation at
this result, in an edict of banishment against all who would
not subscribe to the condemnation of Athanasius. In the
hope of appeasing the emperor’s anger, Liberius sent to him
Vincent of Capua, who had presided, with Osius of Cordova,
in the Council of Nice, as legate of Pope Sylvester. The
prelate was charged to urge the emperor’s approval of a gen­
eral council to be convened, during the following year, at
Aquilcia, and thus to determine, by an irrevocable decision,
these endless disputes. Vincent met the emperor at Arles,
surrounded by the Arian bishops, who followed him in all his
journeys; they had met in council, and were proceeding to the
condemnation of St. Athanasius. The legate, seduced by the
intrigues of the courtiers, terrified by threats, forgot the
character with which he was vested, and in a moment of
shameful weakness, subscribed the anathema pronounced
against the patriarch of Alexandria. St. Paulinps, who had
lately succeeded St. Maximinus, in the see of Treves, gave a

LIBERIUS

IA.

D. 352-3«6).

449

noble example of courageous resistance. He was banished to
Phrygia, and died a glorious confessor, after five years of exil··
suffered for justice and truth.
3. The heart of Pope Liberius was filled with grief upon
the fall of Vincent of Capua. He immediately wrote to Osius :
“ I had placed great hope in his intervention. He was per­
sonally known to the emperor, to whom he had formerly
presented the acts of the Council of Sardica. Yet he has not
only failed to fulfil his mission, but has even been guilty of a
deplorable act of weakness. I am doubly grieved at it ; and
I beg of God that I may rather die than ever have a part in
the triumph of injustice." The afflicted pope wrote in the
same strain to Fortunatian, bishop of Aquileia, whom he held
in particular esteem, on account of his great virtue, and to
Eusebius of Vercelli. Eusebius had just been raised to the
episcopal throne, which he adorned by his eminent piety. He
was the first to show, in the West, how the monastic can be
joined to the clerical life. The holy prelate and his clergy
followed the exercises of the monks of the desert, dividing
the time between prayer, penitential practices, reading holy
books, and manual labor. Their community, thus regularlyestablished, even took the name of monastery, and became a
school which subsequently gave many illustrious bishops to the
Church. In this austere life, St. Eusebius of Vercelli found
the strength which afterwards enabled him to bear up under
the persecution of the Arians. Liberius not only availed him­
self of the counsels of these holy men, but also commissioned
Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari, metropolitan of Sardinia, with the
priest Paneratius, and the deacon Hilary, to deliver to the
emperor a letter full of respectful firmness, disavowing the
conduct of Vincent of Capua, and urging anew the necessity
"f calling a general council, for the careful examination of the
points at issue, “and to preserve,” writes the pope, “in its full
integrity, the belief unanimously expressed by the Catholic
Church, in the presence of Constantine the Great, your father
of holy and glorious memory" (a. d. 3Ô4). The emperor
29

450

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

readily agreed to the convocation of a council, and named
Milan as the place of meeting. Never did prince with more
satisfaction join in theological discussions, for which he had
a real passion ; or appear in the assemblies of bishops, which
he believed himself able to bring to his own opinion, cither
by cunning or violence. The Arian bishops, who honored
him with a title which they refused to the Son of God, Your
Eternity, were careful to keep alive their master’s mania, by
their frequent conventions, in which his opinion was received
as an oracle; and many prelates, bearing the name of Chris­
tian, did not hesitate, even in matters of faith, to follow the
teaching of a crowned theologian, unbaptized, and not even a
catechumen.
4. The Council of Milan, then, met in the beginning of the
year 355; the Western Church was represented by more
than three hundred bishops. The ranks of the Eastern hie­
rarchy were much thinner. Three legates presided in the name
of Pope Liberius ; they were the same whom the pope had
sent to Constantins the preceding year : Lucifer of Cagliari,
the priest Pancratius, and the deacon Hilary. At the very
opening of the session, Eusebius of Vercelli proposed that all
the Fathers should subscribe the Nicene profession, in order
that they might then proceed, in unity of faith, to the examina­
tion of the other questions. Dionysius, bishop of Milan,
immediately set about signing his name; but Valens, bishop
of Mursa, snatched the pen and paper from his hands, proteste
ing that they would accomplish nothing by such means. This
act of violence was followed by a scene of tumultuous confu­
sion ; the cry arose from the people assembled around the
church : “ The bishops have betrayed the faith ! ” Fearing
a sedition, Constantius ordered the Fathers to adjourn to a hall
in the palace. This was a death-blow to the freedom of the
council. The emperor sent in an instrument written by him­
self, in which he supported the Arian doctrine, and made
its recognition binding on all the churches in the empire.
The legate, Lucifer of Cagliari, replied with noble firmness:

LIBERIUS (A. D. 35Î-3C8).

451

“ Though Constantius should arra all his legions against ns,
he will never compel us to renounce the belief of Nice, or to
assent to the blasphemies of Arius." Threats were equally
fruitless to obtain the condemnation of St. Athanasius. The
emperor, provoked by this unexpected resistance, summoned
before him Lucifer of Cagliari, Eusebius of Vercelli,and Dionys­
ius of Milan, the three prelates who wielded the greatest
influence in the council. “I am the personal accuser of Atha­
nasius,” said Constantius; “you must believe the truth of my
assertion.” “This is not a question,” answered the bishops,
“of a temporal nature, in which the imperial authority would
be decisive ; but an ecclesiastical judgment, in which equal
impartiality must be shown both to the accuser and the accused.
Athanasius is absent, he cannot be condemned without a hear­
ing. The rule of the Church forbids it." “ But my will,"
replied Constantius, “ must be the rule. The Syrian bishops
recognize it. You have to choose between submission and
exile.” The prelates bowed and withdrew. It is said that
Constantius was so overcome by anger as to draw his sword
upon them. The morrow saw them led away, by military
tribunes, to their place of banishment, through dense crowds
of the faithful who thronged their path, shedding tears at the
thought of losing their legitimate pastors. The deacon Hilary,
whose firmness had been most offensive, was scourged in the
public square before starting for his place of exile. The
remaining bishops, even Fortunatian of Aquileia, had the
weakness to sign the condemnation of Athanasius.
5. In all the calmness and tranquillity of a good conscience,
Athanasius had been awaiting the storm at Alexandria. In
the year 353, the Arians had forged a letter, written in his
name, to the Emperor Constantius, in which the patriarch was
supposed to beg permission to appear at court. Constantius
immediately sent an officer of his guard with an answer grant
ing the request, and affording every facility for the journey
St. Athanasius, who had solicited nothing, saw the snare, and
remained with his flock. From that time the course of events

452

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

had been hurrying on ; each day brought with it some new
danger. The faithful of Alexandria were watching over their
pnstor. Immediately after the tragical close of the Council of
Milan, Syrianus, commander of the troops in Alexandria, had
received an imperial order to arrest the patriarch and send him
into exile. Syrianus was much perplexed at receiving such
an order, in a city perfectly devoted to its archbishop. lie
showed the imperial rescript, and pledged his oath not to put
it into execution before the return of a deputation he had sent
to Constantius, beseeching him to reconsider his decision. This
solemn promise, followed by twenty days of the deepest quiet,
soothed all anxiety and set every fear at rest. On the 7th
of February’, a. i>. 356, towards midnight, the church of St.
Theonas was crowded by the faithful, who had come together,
with St. Athanasius, to keep the vigil of a solemn feast (proba­
bly that'which opened the Lent of this year), when suddenly
the holy temple is surrounded by a band of five thousand
pagan soldiers under the command of Syrianus. The doors
are broken in; the armed troops rush into the basilica; the
solemn harmony of the psalms is interrupted by the loud notes
of the trumpets; the darts, flying about in the vast assemblage,
strike their victims at random ; swords and lances, drawn
against a defenceless multitude, spare neither sex, nor age,
nor priestly character, not even the virgins consecrated to
their Lord. The people press in confusion through every ave­
nue of escape ; the ruthless soldiery pursue and butcher still.
Athanasius alone did not leave the throne he occupied. His
clergy entreat him to look to his safety. “ The pastor’s post is
in the midst of his flock,” replied this great bishop. At length
his priests attempt to carry him forcibly away, and to pierce
the throng of soldiers and fugitives, but Athanasius, rudely
jostled on all sides, stifled by the crowd, fell in a swoon, and
was borne away as a corpse. By a kind of miracle, he escaped
the eager pursuit of his persecutors, and a few days after lu
was in the desert, amid his dear religious, who received him as
an angel from heaven. But he missed St. Anthony, who had

LIBERIUS (A. D. 35Î-MS).

453

gone, on the 17th of January, a. d. 3-56, at the age of one hun­
dred and five years, to receive the crown he had won by hi«
virtues. By his own order, two of his religious had buried
him in a place known only to themselves. Be had bequeathed
his tunic of sheepskin to St. Athanasius; and the illustrious
patriarch received, in exile, this legacy of the Father of the
Desert. The persecution went on in Alexandria, after the
departure of Athanasius. The pagans consigned to the
flames, at the doors of the churches, the books and sacred
vessels. Christian women and virgins were brutally out­
raged, and, to crown all their excesses, the Arians intruded
into the see a rude, uneducated bankrupt, George, or Gregory,
of Cappadocia. He was placed in possession of the see, by
force of arms, during the Lent of the year 3-56. The faithful
who lost their lives on this occasion are ranked, by the Church,
among her martyrs. The persecution extended to the bishops
of Egypt, most of whom had remained faithful to Athanasius.
Sixteen were banished, and thirty were driven from their sees
by intruders. At the solicitation of Macedonius, Arian bishop
of Constantinople, the emperor issued an edict declaring all
supporters of the Consubstantial guilty of high treason ; they
were to be driven from every city, and their churches
destroyed. This decree was put into execution with the
utmost severity ; and the acts of violence to which it gave
occasion conferred on many Catholics the crown of martyrdom.
6. In a circular letter to the exiled bishops, Pope Liberius
expresses the most tender and devoted sentiments. ·· What
praise can I bestow' on you,” he writes, “divided as I am
between grief for your absence and joy for your glory ? The
best consolation that I can offer you is, to beg that you will
believe me to be in exile with you. I could have wished,
dearly beloved brothers, to be the first victim offered for you
all, and to give the example of the glory you have acquired;
but your merit has won for you that high prerogative. 1
therefore entreat you, in your charity, to imagine me present
with you, and to believe that my greatest grief is the privation

454

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

of your society. Since your tribulation brings you nearer to
our Lord, offer your prayers to Him for me, that I may
patiently bear the violence with which I am daily threatened,
Entreat tho divine mercy that the faith may remain inviolate; *
(hat the Catholic Church may be preserved from division,
Send me an account of the combat you have sustained for tho
faith·, that your exhortations may restore my courage, and even
the wasted strength of my body, oppressed by complicated
diseases.”
7. The threats of which the pope writes very soon grew
into open persecution. The Arian eunuch, Eusebius, whose
unlimited power over the weak mind of Constantius had
reduced the Church to its present sad condition, was sent to
Rome by the emperor to deceive Liberius, and force him to
sign the condemnation of Athanasius. The eunuch found
presents and threats equally ineffectual ; he then procured a
rescript ordering Leontius, governor of Rome, to convey Libe­
rius to Milan, where Constantius held his court. The interview
between the pope and the emperor, as might have been fore­
seen, was full of passion, recrimination, and violence on the
part of Constantius ; dignified, reserved, and firm, on that of
Liberius. Two days later, the pope was seized and exiled to
Berea, in Thrace. The emperor sent him five hundred gold
pieces (about ten thousand francs), to defray his expenses.
Liberius sent them back, with these words : “Tell the emperor
to keep his money for the support of his army.” A like tender
from the empress met with a like reply. When the eunuch
Eusebius had the effrontery to make a similar proffer, the in­
dignant pontiff answered : “You have desolated the churches
throughout the world, and do you offer me an alms, as to a
criminal ! Go and begin by embracing the true faith.” Libe­
rius had hardly left the soil of Italy, when the emperor caused
the Arian faction to consecrate an antipope in Rome. The
bishop of Centumcellae was, on this occasion, the organ of
the imperial will. He caused the choice to fall upon Felix, an
archdeacon of the Roman Church. Three eunuchs represented

LIBERIUS A. D. 35Î-3W),

455

ihe assembly of the people ; three bishops, one of whom was
Acacius of Cœsarea, consecrated him in the palace of the em­
peror. The Roman people had no part in this irregular ordi­
nation ; they would hold no communion with the usurper, and
remained always faithful in their attachment to Liberius.
Antiquity, however, does Felix the justice to testify that he
always kept the belief of Nice, and that his conduct was irre­
proachable, save in the one particular of his relations with the
Arians.
8. The war so fiercely waged against the Catholic cause
was met with the most vigorous energy by the exiled prelates
From every quarter of the world to which the blind tyranny
of Constantius had consigned them, they raised their unani­
mous voice to proclaim the dogmas of the true faith. Eusebius
of Vercelli, Hilary of Poitiers, whose name and history we have
still to record, and St. Athanasius, redoubled the efforts of
their zeal. From the solitude of his retreat, the patriarch of
Alexandria addressed to the faithful of the Church, to the
bishops of Egypt and of the whole world, letters and treatises,
in which he set forth the Catholic doctrine, and opposed it to
the errors of Arianism. Osius of Cordova, who bad now
reached the venerable age of more than a hundred years, at
first shared the labors of these eloquent apologists. He
addressed to the Emperor Constantius an admirable letter, in
which he received the whole course of the /Irian intrigues, and
begged the prince to put an end to the persecution against the
Catholics. His courageous protest was followed by an order
of the emperor to bring the bishop of Cordova to Sirmium,
where the Arian prelates were a second time assembled to
draw up a seventh profession of faith. In this new creed they
reject not only the term consubstantial, but also that of similar
in substance, and substitute other expressions which suppose in
the Son a different nature from that of the Father. The
author of this new formula was Potamius, bishop of Lisbon,
who had found a sufficient inducement for embracing the
Arian heresy in the gift of a manor-land, made him by Con-

45G

general history of the church.

stantius. The unworthy prolate did not limit his courtly zeal
to this impious composition. He beset with his insidious toils
Osins of Cordova, whom a century of years rendered venera­
ble, and who had now been held in close confinement for a
year, at Sirmium. The fall of this illustrious patriarch, which
raised a cry of triumph in the Arian camp, threw a veil of
mourning over the whole Church. St. Phcbadius, bishop of
Agen, in a treatise which he wrote, at this time, against the
Arians, spoke as follows: “lam aware that our adversaries
hold up to us, as an incontestable authority, the name of Osius
of Cordova, the most ancient of all the bishops, and one whose
faith was always so firm. But we must choose one of two
alternatives : either that great man is now, or he always was,
in error; in either case, what can be the weight of his author­
ity? His sentiments, until his present advanced age, are
known to the entire world ; no one is ignorant of the firmness
with which he defended the Catholic faith at Sardica and at
Nice. If he now maintain what he before condemned, or if he
condemn what he always maintained, once more, his authority,
in matters of faith, is worthless. For, if he has lived in error
during a period of ninety years, how can I be persuaded that
what he believes when he has passed the period of ninety
years is the truth ? The precedent found in his authority has
therefore no force, since that authority destroys itself” (a. d.
357).
9. The course of events has brought us to the point where a
brief summary of the controversy touching the supposed fall
of Pope Liberius is necessary. We give, word for word, the
account of the historians who admit the fall as an indisputable
fact, and immediately follow it up with the relation of those
who treat it as a calumny invented by the Arians. Whatever
opinion we adopt, in this historical collision, we deem it proper
to preface the discussion with the words of Bossuet, survey­
ing the whole dispute. “ It is certain," says the illustrious
Bishop of Meaux, “ that Pope Liberius ended his long pontifi­
cate in communion with the holiest bishops of the Church :

LIBERIUS (A. D. 352-366).

457

with a St. Athanasius, a St. Basil, and others of equal merit
and reputation. We know that he is praised by St. Epiphanius, and by St. Ambrose, who twice mentions him as Pope
Liberius of holy memory; and in one of his works inserts
entire, together with these expressions of praise, a sermon of
this pope, which celebrates the eternity, the omnipotence, in
a word, the divinity of the Son of God, and His perfect
equality with His Father. But the fact is certain, that Libe­
rius yielded only to open violence (here Bossuet sides with the
historians who admit the fall of Liberius as a fact); and it is
equally certain, that he returned to his duty of his own accord.
These two important facts should not be overlooked, since they
remove the whole difficulty. It is well known, by the constant
testimony of St. Athanasius and of all cotemporary writers,
that Constantius shed torrents of blood, and that those who
opposed his will in the affair of Arianism had every thing to
dread from his anger, so obstinate was he in support of the
heresy. I do not say this to excuse Liberius ; but to call to
mind, that every act extorted by open violence is null by every tille,
and protests against itself.”*
Bossuet, whose words we have just quoted, evidently looks
upon the fall of Liberius as an historical fact. In his Apology
for the Declaration of the Gallican Clergy, he thus expresses him­
self upon the subject: “We have no intention of entering
upon a discussion of the profession of faith drawn up at Sir­
mium. The most learned men had their doubts in this contro­
versy, an ! would make no positive assertions. * For our part,
we incline to the opinion that Liberius signed the most inno­
cent of all those professions. Still, it is equally certain that
Liberius, who was so well acquainted with the intrigues and
• Œuvres complètes de Bossuet (Outhonin-Chalaodrek t. XII.. pp. J10 et HL AU
discussion on the infallibility of the Pope seems to us utterly idle, in cnnDeen'on with ti ?
conduct of Lilieriua, oven admitting tho fact of hi» full If it be umveruUy «nutted that
Liberius yielded only to open violence, and that «izry <itl fxtortt.’. !»j u
..<<*■■· u huU
tvtry fill·, it cannot reasonably
rainta η>·1 that 'b.· pop··. m the
of H»
authority, and teaching « caOudrd, hns erred; and this is the only ground on which a
serious controversy on tho subject could be based.

458

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

errors of the Arians, did very wrong in signing a profession
of faith which dissembled the doctrine that Christ is consultstantial with the Father, and of the same substance with
Him.”* Fleury, in his Ecclesiastical History, adopts the
same opinion, and says : “ Pope Liberius had suffered two
years of an exile which daily increased in severity, until ithad
taken from him his deacon Urbicus. Fortunatian, bishop of
Aquileia, was the first who urged him to submit to the will of
the emperor, and he gave him no peace until he had subscribed.
Demophilus, bishop of Berea, when Liberius was in exile,
laid before him the profession of Sirmium, that is, according
to the most probable opinion, the first one composed against
Photinus, in the council of the year 351, at which Demophilus
had assisted ; in this the terms consiibstantial and similar in sub­
stance were pliantly omitted, but it was still capable of being
defended, as it has been, by St. Hilary. Liberius approved
and signed it as Catholic, renounced the communion of St.
Athanasius, and embraced that of the Orientals, or in other
words, of the Arians.f
Rohrbacher, in his Universal History of the Catholic Church,
thus presents the facts relating to the return of Liberius to
Rome, and refutes the arguments of those who admit the fall
of the pope : “ The Emperor Constantius saw Rome for the
first time, as he entered it towards the end of April, a. d. 357,
in triumph for his victory won six years before over Magnon* We quote, verbatim, the note here inserted in the Œuvres complètes de Bossuet, from
which we have taken this passage (Defens. Cler. Gal)., Lib. IX., Cap. 33—Edit. Outhenin·
Chalandre, t. XVI., p. 475): ‘‘Eruditissimi inter Catholicos hodie stant pro omnimoda
innocentia Liberii, et quidem argumentis haudquaquam contemnendis. (Vido Dissert. Cri­
tique et historique sur le Pape Libère, dans laquelle on fait voir qu'il n’est jamais tombe; par
l'Abbé Corgne. Paris. 1’26 ;—et multo fusius, Commentar, crilico-histor. de sancto Liberia Pupa,
a P. Stiltingo, inter Acta Sanctorum Septembris, ad diem XXIII., t. VI., p. 573.) Illud interca
constat, multa hic adferri adjuncta, aut plano incerta, aut omnino supposita; ot plura taceri,
quæ minime omitti debuissent. Certo vix intelligo quomodo ea cohaereant cum iis quæ ipso
illustrissimus auctor dixit (2· Instruction sur les promesses de l'Egliso, Nos. 105 et 106).
Ceterum ex diario D. Ledieu (Bossuet’s Secretary), colligitur voluisse Bossuelium ou delero
quæ hic scripsit de Liberio, tanquam ad suum scopum non satis pertinentia. (Vido Bût. de
Bossuet; Pièces justificatives du liv. VI., p. 396. Edit. Versai!.)
f L'Abbé Fleury, Hint. Ecclés., liv. XIII., t. III. ; Edit, iu-12, p. 468.

LIBEïtttJS (Λ. D. 362-366).

459

tins. Liberius had now lingered ont two years of exile; the
Roman matrons urged their husbands to petition the emperor
for his restoration. They answered, that they feared the anger
of the emperor, who would not, perhaps, pardon the request if
made by men, and that the matrons themselves would be
more favorably received ; that, though their prayer should he
denied, still no harm could accrue to them from it. The ladies,
’therefore, presented their supplication to the emperor, entreat:ng him to pity so great a city deprived of its pastor. Con­
stantius replied, that Rome possessed a pastor capable of
governing it, without assistance from another; hemeant Felix.
The Roman ladies rejoined, that nobody entered the Church
whilst Felix was there; for though he kept the^Nicene faith,
he still held communion with those who corrupted it. The
emperor doubtless promised to attend to their request; for.
some time after, he wrote to Rome, announcing that Liberius
was to be recalled, and to govern the Church in conjunction
with Felix. But when the letter was read in the circus, the
people ironically exclaimed : ‘ That is just, indeed! A? there
are two factions in the circus, distinguished by their colors, each
one will have its bishop !' Having thus expressed their contempt
for the imperial letter, they cried out with one voice : ‘One
God, one Christ, one Bishop!' Matters were carried to yet
greater extremes. Seditions were excited in Rome, and its
streets were even stained with blood. It was on this account,
according to the historian Socrates, that the emperor reluc­
tantly consented to the return of Liberius to his pontifical
throne.” “ The admirable Liberius then,” says Theodoret.
“ returned to his beloved city.” Other ancient authors inform
us that he entered Rome in triumph; that the whole city, full
of joy, went out to meet him, aud expelled Felix.
“It may cause some surprise that we make no mention of
the fall of Pope Liberius, the famous fall which Bossuet has
endeavored at great length to prove. We are aware that, in
his Apology for the Declaration of the Gallican Clergy, Bossuet
spares no efforts to prove that Liberia; fell by subscribing the

(GO

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Arian profession of faith ; but we also know, from his secre­
tary. that in a later revision of the work, Bossuet erased the
whole passage concerning Pope Liberius, as not proving conclu­
sively enough what he wished al the moment to establish.
*
‘•What Bossuet thought it his duty to erase from his Treatise
on the Ecclesiastical Power, we deem it proper to erase from the
History of the Church ; what twenty years of meditation and
research have not enabled Bossuet to prove to his own satis­
faction, we deem simply indemonstrable. The reasons of this
are given in detail, in the dissertation of a doctor of Paris,
published a few years after the death of Bossuet ; in a more
recent treatise of the learned Zaccaria, in the profound Gallaud, of Venice, in the fifth volume of Library of the Ancient
Fathers; and especially in the Critical History of the Holy Pope
Liberius, inserted in the Acta Sanctorum, on the 23d of Septem­
ber.·)· We shall only remark here, from what we have just
seen, that the Roman people could not endure Felix, because,
whilst he professed the belief of Nice, he still communicated
with the Arians; that Pope Liberius entered Rome like a
conqueror; that the people gave him a triumphal reception,
and drove out Felix. In the face of this conduct of the
Roman people, how can it be supposed that this same Pope
Liberius had just disgraced himself before the Church, by con­
demning St. Athanasius, by subscribing to Arianism, and by
sending to the principal Arians letters of communion, as piti­
ful in style as they were abject in sentiment? We have seen
the scandal to which the fall of Osius gave rise, the advantage
taken of it by the Arians, and the striking reply of St. Phebadius of Agon. Now, if Liberius had likewise fallen, the
scandal would have been much more horrible, the Arians
would have proclaimed a greater triumph, St. Phebadius
would have, found a much more urgent call for a reply.
* Histoire do Bossuet, liv. VI., Pièces justifie., p. 396. Edit, de LebeL
f Jjiuerl. sufle Pape Libère, par l'Abbé Corgiio. Paris, 1726; in-12. Tr. Ant. Zacharie,
Disteri, de commentitio Liberii lupsu, in Thes. theol., Venet., 1762 ; in-4°, t. IL p. 580. Gel­
laud, Bibliolh. Veter. P. P. t. v.—Acta Sancton, t. VI., Septemb.

LTBERIÜ8 (Λ. D. 362-?.«β).

461

This utter silence, on all hands, conclusively proves the nullity
of the fact.
“ It may be objected that St. Athanasius refers to the fall of
Liberius, both in his Apology against the Ariane, and in his
History of the Arians, which latter work was addressed to the
hermits ; but it is universally granted that the Apology against
the Arians was written at the very latest in a. d. 350, two
years before Liberius became pope. The passage which speaks
of his fall is, then, evidently a subsequent addition, made by
a strange and unskilful hand ; for far, from giving any force to
the Apology, it only makes it pointless and ridiculous. The
History of the Arians was also written at a period prior to that
of the supposed fall of Pope Liberius. This unfavorable pas­
sage is, then, another interpolation, equally unconnected with
what precedes and what follows. But by whom could these
interpolations have been made ? We know that even during
the lifetime of St. Athanasius the Arians forged a letter, in
his name, to Constantius. What they could do whilst he was
still alive, was certainly easier of accomplishment after bis
death. Did not the Donatists invent a similar account of a
fall on the part of Pope St. Marcellinus, which was long
. received, but which all critics now acknowledge as false?
Besides, the Arians were not the only enemies of Liberius;
the Luciferian schismatics were quite as eager to defame him.
In the words of Rufmus, written about fifty years after this
period, we perhaps see the first dark spots on the horizon,
foreboding the storm of calumny which was soon to break upon
the head of Liberius. He says: “ Liberius, bishop of Rome,
had returned whilst Constantius was still alive; but I cannot
positively state whether it was that he had consented to sub­
scribe, or that the emperor would please the Roman people,
who, at his departure, had begged this favor.” Rufinas was a
priest of Aquileia ; in his youth he may have known Liberius;
he had certainly known Fortunatian, bishop of Aquileia, to
whom the fall of Liberius is imputed. And yet Rnfinus knows
nothing of it, undoubtedly because the calumny was only

462

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

beginning to spread abroad ; for if Liberius had actually signed
an Arian formula, had he actually penned the pitiful leticru
of defection ascribed to him, the Arians, who were all-power­
ful, would have left no one in ignorance of the fact. It would
have been impossible for Rufinus to retain any doubt upon the
*
subject
The Greek Menology relates the facts as we have
given them. It speaks as follows: “The Blessed Liberius,
defender of the faith, was Bishop of Rome, under the empire
of Constantius. Burning with zeal for the orthodox faith, he
protected the great Athanasius, persecuted by the heretics for
his bold defence of the truth, and driven from Alexandria.
Whilst Constantine and Constans lived, the Catholic faith was
supported; but when Constantius was left sole master, as he
was an Arian, the heretics prevailed. Liberius, for his vigor
in censuring their impiety, was banished to Berea, in Thrace.
But the Romans, who always remained true to him, went to the
emperor and besought his recall. He was therefore, on this
account, sent back to Rome, and there ended his life, after a
holy administration of his pastoral charge.”f
With this statement before us, giving the facts and sub­
stantiating arguments of both parties with equal impartiality,
it cannot be hard to form a conscientious opinion. We have
no wish either to solicit or to bias. It will suffice to end
this discussion with the solemn words of Bossuet, whose name
we quote the more readily, as its authority has been so often
invoked against the prerogatives of the holy sec. “ Though
one or two sovereign pontiffs,” says the illustrious prelate, “con­
trary to the custom of their predecessors, should, either from
violence or surprise, have failed in maintaining the faith with
sufficient constancy, or in explaining its doctrines with perfect
clearness, still, personal errors could make no impression on
the chair of Peter. Not more traceless are the waters which
a ship has cleaved in its passage.
* M. l’Abbé Rohrbacheb: Hint. Universelle da VE/jliso Catholique, 2’ Edit., t. ΣΙ.,ρρ. 430,
431, 432.
f Rohrbacheb: Hist. Universelle de PEglise Catholique, tom. xi, p. 374.
t Bossuei : Sermon on the Unity of the Church.

LIBERIUS (A. D. 352-3M).

462

10. The constant excitement caused by the Arian wrang­
ling on questions of dogma soon split the public mind into dif­
ferent hostile factions. Heresy cannot free itself from the
consequence of its fundamental law; it must, hy its very
nature, undergo continual change. Arianism, even thus early,
presented this spectacle of rapid transformation. It was
already divided into the Semi-Arian and the Anomoean *sect.
(άνόμοιος, dissimilar). The Semi-Ariann, who were in the ma­
jority, denied the consubstantiality of the Word, and rejected
the expression consubstantial, contained in the Nicene profes­
sion. Still, they attributed to the Son of God a resemblance,
in all things, to the Father. The great majority of the East­
ern bishops had embraced this opinion; and we can easily
understand how captious and amphibological their professions
of faith could be, since, like the first of Sirmium, they might
appear perfectly orthodox, with the single exception of the
omitted term consubstantial. The Anomœans, on the other hand,
not only denied the consubstantiality of the Word, but even
taught that God the Son is dissimilar (ανόμοιος) to His Father,
in essence and in all other points. These sectaries owned
the leadership of Ætius and Eunomius : hence their names
also of Ætians or Eunomians. Ætius was a Syrian adven­
turer, who had left his native city, Antioch, to follow the
fortunes of travelling merchants, and later, of strolling actors
(a. d. 347). Tired of this wandering life, he returned to his
home, and became remarkable for the ardor with which he
embraced the Arian tenets. His intimacy with Leontius,
afterwards Arian bishop of Antioch, and with Eusebius, Arian
bishop of Sebaste, inspired him with an ardent desire to per­
fect himself in dialectics, that he might be enabled more suc­
cessfully to defend his error. With this intention, he went to
Alexandria, where he soon acquired the pitiful facility of the
Sophists, in reducing every thing to an argument or a syllo­
gism. At his return, he began to discuss the nature of God
with so much boldness, that the terrified people gave him the
title of Atheist, which did not, however, hinder Leontius from

464

general history of the church.

ordaining him deacon, nor deter the pure Arians from acknowl­
edging him as their chief. Eunomius had been a disciple of
Ætius, until he was consecrated bishop of Cyzicus, in a. d. 360.
when, by the addition of some new tenets to those learned
from his master, he formed a new sect, of which he became
the leader. lie maintained that he knew God as well as
God knows Himself; that the Son of God was not truly God,
and had only been united to humanity by His virtue and opera­
tions; that faith alone is sufficient for salvation, in spite of the
greatest crimes, and even of impenitence. He denied that
Jesus had any knowledge of the day or the hour appointed for
the last judgment. He rebaptized all who had received the
baptism of the Church in the name of the Holy Trinity. He
rejected the triple immersion, then used in baptism, and the
honors given to martyrs and to the relics of the saints. His
followers, calling themselves Eunomians, soon formed a subdi­
vision, under the name of Eunomio-Eupsychians ; they taught
that the Saviour knew the day and the hour of the last judg­
ment, which truth the Eunomians refused to admit. The mas­
ter of this new school was named Eupsychias ; hence the name
Eunomio-Eupsychians, under which the sect appeared.
11. In the midst of this general conflagration of minds,
whilst most of the legitimate bishops were lingering out a life
ot exile, and intruded heretics held their sees ; when, to use
the energetic expression of St. Jerome, the whole world seemed
to have waked up Arian, Constantius gave his whole attention
to the multiplication of formulas of faith, to the assembling of
councils ; and spent his time in constructing Arian theology in
the midst of bis courtier bishops. God alone could now save
His Church from the peril into which it had been precipitated
by the emperor and the Greek bishops, who seemed to look to
the court of Constantinople for their dogmatic definitions.
This deliverance could not be long deferred ; still, the hour
was not yet. In the year 357, a council assembled at Cæsarea,
the metropolitan see of Palestine, by Acacius the Arian bishop,
had, in opposition to all canon-law, deposed St. Cyril, bishop

LIBERIUS (A. D. 3Μ-3«β).

465

of Jerusalem ; the saint set out for Tarsus, where he was hon­
orably received by the bishop, in spite of the repeated threats
of Acacius. In a. d. 358 another council, convoked by Eudoxius, Arian bishop of Antioch, was making every effort to exon­
erate Ætius from the charges so justly brought against him.
But the people who were true to the faith, whilst so many
bishops were betraying it, stoutly opposed the heresiarch, and
resisted his admission to the Catholic communion. The council,
therefore, failed in its object ; but the bishops who were present
condemned the terms unsubstantial and similar in substance, and
sent letters of congratulation to Ursatius and Valens, praising
their zeal for the propagation of Arianism. Meanwhile, the
SemirArians were assembling in council at Ancyra, under the
presidency of Basil, bishop of that city. They anathema­
tized Ætius and the Anomceans, who denied that the Son is
similar to the Father, and sent their profession of faith to all
the churches ; this formula would have been irreproachable
but for the studied omission of the term coiuubstantial. Basil
of Ancyra, Eustathius of Sebaste, and Eleusius of Cyzicus,
were deputed to present this new profession of faith to the
emperor, who was then at Sirmium. On their arrival, they
held another council at Sirmium, in which Basil of Ancyra pro­
cured the adoption of his profession, and the condemnation of
the second profession of Sirmium, which had been signed by
Osius of Cordova. Valens and Ursatius, the authors of the
anathematized formula, were the first to desert it, because
such was the desire of Constantius, who presided at all these
petty councils. Ætius and Eunomius were banished to Phry­
gia, with seventy of their followers. The emperor’s mania for
councils only increased with his years. He called a general
council, for the following year, at Nicomedia. But the total
destruction of that city, by an earthquake, on the 24th of
August, a. d. 358, obliged him to think of another place of
meeting. This afforded matter for long and serious delibera­
tions in what might be called the permanent council, which
held its sittings in the court of the emperor, at Sirmium On
30

466

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the 22(1 of May, a. d. 359, a tenth profession of faith was
signed here, “set forth," as the bishops announced, “in presence
of our lord, the very pious and. victorious Emperor C'bnstanlius,
august, eternal, venerable; in the consulship of Flavius Eusebius
and Uypalins, at Sirmium, the 117Λ of the Kalends of June'.'
The new creed, which rejected the word substance as unknown
to the people, and affording an occasion of scandal, was signed
by all the bishops present at Sirmium, and made binding for
the two approaching councils. In the versatile mind of Con­
stantius, the original idea of a general council to be assembled
in order to give additional effect to the condemnation of the
Anomœans, had been suddenly metamorphosed into that of
two simultaneous councils, for the East and the West; the
one to be held at Rimini, in Italy, for the West, the other at
Seleucia, in Isauria, for the East.
12. The Council of Rimini accordingly met, in the month
of June, a. d. 359, without any further convocation than that
of the emperor; Pope Liberius was neither consulted, nor even
invited—a somewhat remarkable circumstance ; for in the hy­
pothesis of a recent fall, it does not readily appear how the
emperor could have helped availing himself of this occasion
to show to the world the spectacle of a Roman pontiff in full
communion with Arianism. However this may be, Liberius
afterwards protested against the irregular convocation of the
Council of Rimini, in these words : “ The impious and sacrile­
gious Arians have succeeded in assembling the bishops of the
West at Rimini, with a view to deceive them by false dis­
courses, and to force them, by means of the imperial authority,
either to strike out or openly to condemn a term very wisely
inserted in the profession of faith. But the artifice has failed."
Four hundred bishops met at Rimini, from Illyria, Italy, Africa,
Spain, Gaul, and Great Britain, but only eighty of the whole
number were Arians. The Catholic prelates held their ses­
sions in the principal church in the city ; the Arians refused
to pray with them, and met in a small oratory in the neighbor­
hood. Ursacius and Valens at first appeared before the Catho-

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467

lie bishops, and read the last profession of faith idopted by
the emperor, at Sirmium. But all the Fathers indignantly
rejected it. “We have not come together,” said they, “to
learn what we are to believe; we hold onr faith from our
fathers, the confessors and martyrs, whose successors we are;
from the many saints assembled at Nice, some of whom are
still with us. What means your profession of yesterday ?
Were there no Christians before that date? And shall we
believe that so many saints who, before that day, fell asleep
in the Lord, or gave their blood for the faith, knew not what
they should profess ?” The council then went into an examina­
tion of the other professions of faith, drawn up by the Arians,
during the past twenty-five years, and amounting to the num­
ber of about fifty. They were all, in turn, rejected. The
Niccne Creed was then read, and adopted as the legitimate,
full, and complete expression of the Catholic faith. A decree
to this effect was drawn up, and signed by all the orthodox
bishops, without a single exception. Valens, Ursacins, Cains,
Germinius, and the other Arians were condemned and deposed
from their sees, by an act which is still extant. Thus far the
bearing of the Council of Rimini is irreproachable : this is
due to the fact that its deliberations had not been trammelled
by violence, and the true spirit of the Church was free to dis­
play itself. Still, Constantius had at the outset sent Taurus,
prefect of the pretorium, to Rimini, to watch the workings of
the council. But the imperial lieutenant lacked the nerve for
the execution of vigorous measures, in presence of so im­
posing an array of Catholic bishops. This state of affairs did
not last long. Ten Catholic deputies had set out from Rimini,
to lay before Constantius the decision of the council. The
Arians had also sent ten of their fiction, who, by dint of
expedition, reached the court at Adrianopolis before the Catho­
lics. They had no difficulty in prepossessing the mind of the
emperor in favor of their cause, and when the Catholic envoys
appeared, they were received with the utmost coldness and
disdain. They soon found themselves surrounded by the

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

intrigues of the Arian bishops ; and after many negotiations
in which promises and threats were successively brought
into action, they had the weakness to sign the Arian profes­
sion of faith drawn up at Sirmium, on the 22d of May, a. d.
359. Constantius at once instructed Taurus, his imperial lieu­
tenant, to oblige all the bishops of Rimini to sign the same
profession, and in order to intimidate the rest by a show of
great severity, to send fifteen of tho most obstinate into exile.
The necessity of such a measure was unhappily obviated:
discouraged by a long residence in a strange land, terrified by
the threats of the emperor, the greater number yielded, and
subscribed to whatever was proposed. Only twenty still held
out, amongst whom were St. Phebadius, bishop of Agen, and
St. Servasius, bishop of Mæstricht. Ursacius and Valens
then protested that the profession of Sirmium explicitly con­
demned the Arian heresy ; that the term consubstantial was
omitted only to put an end to such incessant disputes; but
that in other respects it was substantially a profession of the
Nicene doctrine. They repeated these assertions before a gen­
eral assembly of the clergy and faithful, and publicly read
the following anathemas :
“ If any one saith that Jesus Christ is not God, Son of God,
begotten of the Father before all ages, let him be anathema!
“ If any one saith that the Son of God is not co-eternal
with the Father, let him be anathema.
“ If any one saith there was a time when the Son of
God was not, let him be anathema.
“ If any one saith that the Son of God is a creature, like
to other creatures, let him be anathema.”
All applauded this last proposition, unheeding the hidden
venom it contained ; for the Catholics understood by it, that
the Son of God is not a creature, in any sense of the term,
whilst Valens meant that He is indeed a creature, but more
perfect than other creatures. This whole triumph of Arian­
ism thus rests upon a pitiful equivocation, not observed al
the moment; but they had gained every thing by the signing of

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46»

a profession in which the term unsubstantial
not contained ,
Pope Liberius therefore felt bound to annul the acts of the
Council of Rimini, and history must ever record, as a standing
reproach, the weakness of the bishops who could depart, how­
ever slightly, although perhaps in good faith, from the Nicene
Creed. The prelates now set out for their respective sees,
without molestation, whilst Ursacius and Valens hastened to
the imperial court, to reap the reward of their successful
intrigues.
13. On their arrival at the court, they found the envoys
of the Council of Seleucia, which had been sitting since the
month of September, a. d. 359. It was composed of about
one hundred and sixty Eastern bishops, divided in creed as
follows : nineteen Anomœans, or pure Arians ; one hundred
and five Semi-Arians, admitting the similar in substance; the
rest, all from Egypt, were zealous Catholics, supporting the
term consubstantial, and the faith of Nice. We give this
estimate on the authority of an eye-witness, St. Hilary of
Poitiers, who assisted at the council, during his exile in Phry­
gia. Two commissioners of the emperor were present, with
a body of troops at their disposal. It was not an easy matter
to present a profession of faith equally acceptable to the
three parties composing the council. Acacius, bishop of
Cæsarea, and leader of the Anomœans, proposed one which
was rejected. The Semi-Arians obtained the adoption of the
formula composed in the Council of Antioch held in a. d. 341,
and which sanctioned their doctrine. They restored St. Cyril,
who had been unjustly banished from Jerusalem, two years
previously, and formally deposed, as heretics. Acacius of
Cæsarea, George of Alexandria, Eudoxius of Antioch. Patrophilus of Scythopolis, and other leading members of the
Anomœaii faction. The acts of the council, and the profession
of faith which it had approved, were laid before Constantius,
together with those of Rimini. The emperor, on his own
authority, decided that the profession of Rimini should alone
be binding; exacted subscription to it from all the deputies, and

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

banished Ætius to Phrygia. With those proceedings closed
the year 359.
14. In this factious age, one council had seldom closed
before several others began to assemble. In the beginning
of the year 360, Constantius celebrated, with extraordi­
nary splendor, the dedication of the basilica of St. Sophia,
which had just been completed. He availed himself of the
presence of the Eastern bishops, whom he had summoned to
the dedication, to hold a council, in which he wished tosecure
the adoption of the profession of faith signed at Rimini, with
which he was now quite infatuated. He of course obtained
what he wished. Ætius was anathematized as the author of
the scandals and divisions then rending the Church, and this
by bishops who believed precisely what he had taught. St.
Cyril of Jerusalem was again deposed ; Eudoxius transferred
himself from Antioch to Constantinople, after causing the
deposition of its intruded bishop, Macedonius ; and this afflicted
church was freed from the rule of the first usurper, only to
fall under the power of a second. As soon as the Council of
Constantinople had issued its decrees to the satisfaction of the
emperor, he sent instant orders to all parts of the empire,
demanding the immediate assent of all prelates to the formula
of Rimini, with the alternative of exile for all who would
refuse. Fear drove many of the Eastern bishops into heresy.
Pope Liberius and Vincent of Capua met every solicitation
and threat with equal firmness: their courageous attitude con­
soled the Catholics, and supported them in their attachment to
the true faith. The bishops of Gaul held a council, called the
First Council of Paris, in which they annulled all that had
been wrongly done, with intention or through ignorance, con­
cerning the omission of the term substance. Many of the
Eastern bishops who had subscribed to the Arian formulas,
held to the sense of the term unsubstantial, as the expression
(if Catholic faith, only yielding the terra itself. Several among
them hastened to atone for their error, publicly declaring their
belief in the doctrine of the consubstantiality, asserting, at tho

LIBERIUS (A. D. 352-3C6).

471

same time, that they had always retained this belief in their
hearts. Notwithstanding, therefore, the favor given to Arian­
ism by their signature, their perseverance in teaching the
Catholic dogma shows them to have been, in reality, with the
faithful defenders of the truth, and that the Arian majority
was only apparent. The Church of Spain did not yield to
that of Gaul in sincere attachment to the faith. The fall of
Osius of Cordova was a source of deep grief, but led to no
second defection. Gregory, bishop of Elvira, in particular,
gave an example of invincible firmness, and remained ever
unshaken by the repeated solicitations of the Arian faction.
15. The year 361 opened with another council; but this
one was the last that Constantius was to assemble. The war
against the Persians had brought him to the East. Whilst
here he called together a considerable number of bishops,
through whom he wished to condemn both the Catholic doc­
trine of the consubstantial, and that of the Anomceans, or pure
Arianà, in favor of the Serai-Arians, whose cause he had made
his own. The council gave its whole attention to the choice
of a bishop for Antioch, to fill the vacancy left by Eudoxius.
who had, on his own responsibility, transferred himself, the
year before, to the imperial see of Constantinople. Catholics,
Arians, Semi-Arians, all contended for the election; each party
aimed at directing it to one of its own members. The good
cause triumphed, by the direction of Providence. The unani­
mous vote fell upon St. Meletius, bishop of Sebaste. The
new patriarch had been remarkable from early youth for
the regularity of his life, his mild disposition and austere
morals. He was just, sincere, simple, and feared God. The
Arians looked upon him as one of themselves, and the chief
movers of his promotion to the see of Antioch were Aeacius
of Cæsarea, and George of Laodicea, the foremost leaders of
the Anomcean faction. The decree of election, signed by all
the bishops present, was placed in the hands of Eusebius of
Samosata. The arrival of the patriarch at Antioch caused
the liveliest sensation. His inaugural address was awaited

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

with an almost feverish impatience, as it would rank St. Mele·
tins as an adherent of one of the throe parties contending for
the honor of possessing him. Constantius had ordered his
stenographers to note each word of the address as it fell from
the prelate’s lips; he had moreover required that the patriarch
should take for his text the celebrated passage from the Prov­
erbs, upon which the Arians chiefly rested their denial of the
eternity of the Word : Dominus possedit me in initio viarum
*
suarum.
The Greeks gave to these words the meaning that
the Lord had created the Word in the beginning of his ways.)
Perfectly unconcerned with all the intrigues by which he was
beset, St. Meletius began his discourse, in the presence of Con­
stantius, of the bishops, of all the dignitaries of the empire, and
of an immense concourse of people who had come to hear him.
We are indebted to St. Epiphanius for the text of this discourse,
enriched throughout by the very words of Holy Writ. The
patriarch clearly affirms that the Word is the Son of God, God
of God, One of One, similar to the Father, and His living
image. He explains the words of the Proverbs, in the Catho­
lic sense, by other analogous texts of Scripture, and ends by
denouncing the rash curiosity of heretics, who would sound the
depths of the divine nature, and reject the simplicity of faith.
So unexpected a train of reasoning threw Constantius into a
violent rage. But few days were allowed to pass, ere the
patriarch was thrown into one of the governor’s chariots, and
led away to exile. But in those few days the people of
Antioch had learned to love their holy bishop ; in their indig­
nation they would have massacred the governor, who was
seated in the car beside his prisoner. He owed his life to
St. Meletius himself, who covered him with his cloak. The
emperor, and the Arians whose tool he was, now repented of
having intrusted the certificate of the election of Meletius to
Eusebius of Samosata. Constantius sent an officer of his
* Lib. Proverb, cap. viii. 22.
f According to their interpretation, it foUowcd, from thin text, that tho Word was buta
creature.

LIBERIUS (A. D. 352-3M).

473

palace to demand the document, with an order to cut off the
bishop’s right hand in case of refusal. The intrepid bishop,
having read the imperial letter, held out both hands towards
the officer, and said : “ Cut off both, for I shall never give up
the decree, which so clearly proves the duplicity of the
Arians.” This noble answer disarmed the emperor, who
neither insisted any longer, nor could refuse the tribute of
his admiration to such greatness of soul. To come to some
final arrangement, however, for the occupation of the see of
Antioch, he sent for Euzoius, one of the first disciples of
Arius, who had been deposed from the deaconship, at Alex­
andria, by the holy bishop Alexander. In defiance of every
law of the Church, this deposed deacon, who had never been
restored to his office, was consecrated by the Arians, and pro­
claimed patriarch of /Yntioch.
1G. Whilst Constantius was engaged in holding councils,
in changing professions of faith, and receiving from his cour­
tiers the title of Eternal, his end had come. The Casar
Julian, his nephew, to whom he had committed the govern­
ment of Gaul, had just caused himself to be proclaimed emper­
or, at Lutetia (Paris). According to Libanius, Constantius
had neither the heart of a prince nor the head of a captain.
The news of this event found him without courage or fore­
sight. Aller yielding, at first, to a fit of fruitless rage, and
then to cowardly despair, he at last found resolution to lead
his troops against the rebel : but death met him on the way.
He died at Mopsucrene, in Cilicia, after having received bap­
tism at the hands of the same Euzoius whom he had just
intruded into a patriarchal see. The death of Constantius
was the salvation of the Church. She was, indeed, about to
suffer the contemptuous and ironical persecution of an apostate;
but the faith had nothing to fear, with paganism for its adver­
sary ; it had every thing to lose, when given up to the caprices
of a court of eunuchs and of a crowned theologian.
17. Before entering upon the details of the new struggles
into which the Church was plunged under an apostate emper­

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

or, during a season of pagan renaissance, we must retrace our
steps, to study the great historical figures that arose both in
the East and in the West, during the theological campaigns of
Constantius. Whilst borne along by the tide of Arian discus­
sions, already too complicated of themselves, we could not
pause to insert the personal biographies which we now pre­
sent. The two names which first meet us, in the order of
time, are those of two holy doctors and illustrious friends—
Gregory Nazianzen and Basil of Cæsarea. Drawn together
by proximity of birth-place, their hearts were more closely
knit by community of studies and of pious practices. Greg­
ory was born in a. d. 316, at Nazianzum ; his mother was St.
Nonna; his brother and sister rank in the Church’s calendar as
St. Cesarius and St. Gorgona. At the time of his birth, his
father, after whom he was called, was still a pagan, professing
the doctrines of the Hypsis tarians (adorers of the Most High
God, 'Ύψιατος). But the head of a family of saints could not
long remain in darkness. From the period of his conversion,
he showed so much fervor, and made such rapid progress in
every Christian virtue, that four years later, at the age of
fifty-five years, he was elected Bishop of Nazianzum, and in the
discharge of a holy and laborious pontificate reached a happy
old age, having lived nearly a hundred years, when he went
to his reward. Gregory, his son, was prevented, in tender
infancy, by heavenly graces and benedictions. At that period
of life when the germs of virtue or of vice begin to unfold in
the human heart, he was favored with a marvellous vision: he
saw by his side two virgins in white apparel, of more than
mortal majesty, with a look of angelic modesty, who leaned
towards him to kiss his forehead. Gregory asked their names.
They replied that they were Chastity and Temperance; that
they ministered before the throne of God, and took particular
delight in chaste souls. Then they urged him to give his
heart into their keeping, that they might one day present
him in the train of virgins that follow the Lamb. This vision
left the heart of the youthful Gregory inflamed with a pure

LIBERIUS (A. b. 353-368).

475

love for virtue. With a clean heart, he had received also a
noble and vast intellect. He advanced with equal pace in
piety and science. He had soon exhausted the course of
studies furnished to the youth of his day, and was then sent
to Cæsarea in Palestine, where he availed himself of the
advantages afforded in the school founded by Origen, and of
the famous library collected by his disciple, the martyr St.
Pamphilus, and increased by the learned Eusebius. St. Cæsarius, his brother, had repaired to Alexandria, to learn wisdom
and science at the feet of the blind sage, Didymus, who had
inherited both the chair and the learning of Origen. Didy­
mus had lost his sight at the age of five years. He had the
letters of the alphabet engraved on wood, and succeeded by
force of ingenuity in learning to read : he was thus enabled
to enjoy the teaching of the best masters, and at the age of
forty-five years his knowledge equalled that of the greatest
doctors of the age. The renown of his eloquence and exalted
science placed him at the head of the Alexandrian school.
But neither his glory, nor even his great virtue, was able fully
to compensate for the loss of sight. One day he candidly
admitted this fact to St. Anthony, who had come to visit him :
“ I am surprised,” said the holy patriarch, " to find a wise man
lamenting the loss of what we have in common with flies and
gnats, instead of rejoicing in the possession of what has been
left us by the saints and apostles. Far more precious is the
vision of the intelligence than that of the body, since a single
glance of the corporal eye may cause the eternal loss of the
soul.” Gregory Nazianzen joined his brother Casarius in
Alexandria, and for some time profited, with him, by the
teaching of the illustrious sufferer. They soon parted, how­
ever ; Cæsarius returned home, and Gregory set out for Athens,
which was always looked upon as the metropolis of science
and literature. Here he met a youth whom the hand of God
was also leading to great things : it was St. Basil. He was
born at Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, at the same time with St.
Gregory, towards the year 317. Holiness seemed to be an

476

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

heir-loom in his family also. His father Basil, his mother
Emily, with Macrina his sister, Gregory bishop of Nyssa,
and Peter bishop of Sebaste, his brothers, have all been
honored by the Church with a place in the ranks of her saints.
Young Basil was first sent to the public school of Cœsarea, in
Palestine, and then to Constantinople, always far outstripping
his fellows in rapid progress, quick intelligence, and especially
in the solid piety which gave life to his brilliant talents. In
the last-named city he studied elocution under the celebrated
Libanius, who was then at the full height of his reputation.
Though himself a heathen, Libanius could not refuse the
tribute of his unbounded admiration to the extraordinary
talents of his youthful disciple, which received additional
lustre from the surpassing modesty and virtue that accom­
panied them. He says in his Epistles, that to hear Basil speak
in public always transported him quite out of himself. He
ever afterwards kept up a continual correspondence with him,
and always took occasion to show the high esteem and deep
veneration he had conceived for his distinguished merit. Basil
at length left Constantinople for Athens, whither he had been
preceded by Gregory. These two noble souls, so worthy of
one another, were soon bound together by the ties of an undy­
ing friendship. Each opened to the other the inmost recessesof
his heart ; they mutually communicated their aspirations after
Christian perfection. They dwelt together in studious retreat,
shared the same table, and divided their hours between com­
mon labor and prayer. “ We had both the same end in view,”
writes St. Gregory himself : “ we were both in search of the
same treasure, virtue ; we sought to make our union unending,
by preparing ourselves for eternal happiness ; we were our
own masters and guardians, mutually exhorting one another
to piety ; we held no communication with those among our
companions whose morals were at all relaxed, and only sought
the society of those whose modesty, reserve, and wisdom could
urge us forward in the practice of virtue. We knew but two
streets in Athens : the one led to the Church, the other to the

LIBERIUS (A. D. 352-::<Μ).

477

public schools ; those which led to the places of worldly
amusement, to plays, and public assemblies, were altogether
unknown to us.” Foremost in the way of wisdom, the two
friends held the same rank in the paths of science and litera­
ture. Besides hi s’proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, philosophy,
and dialectics, Basil possessed a knowledge of geometry and
astronomy, which placed him on a level with the ablest men
of the day. In the maladies resulting from his austere and
mortified life, he found an occasion for adding to his other
acquirements a knowledge of medicine, at least of what is
most philosophical in that science. So much learning and virtue
caused a corresponding degree of admiration, and wherever
mention was made of Athens and its great masters, the names
of the marvellous pair, Gregory and Basil, were always heard.
Amid the student-throng that then frequented the Athenian
schools, was a youth of some twenty years, of medium height,
with thick-set neck, quick, ever-restless, wandering eyes, un­
combed beard and broad shoulders, which were always in a
state of uneasy, restless agitation : such was the Cæsar Julian,
nephew of the Emperor Constantius, and the only member
spared by the emperor, in the general massacre of his own
family. Julian sought to share in the intimate relations which
existed between Basil and Gregory; but God had given to the
holy paii·, even at that early age, the too uncommon gift of a
keen perception of human character. They rejected Julian's
advances, and Gregory, perceiving his affectation of austerity
and his deceitful piety, could not forbear exclaiming: "What
a viper does the Boman empire cherish in its bosom; but God
grant I prove a false prophet!” These sad forebodings were
but too correct; the youthful hypocrite at Athens was the
apostate emperor of later years. But the two friends had now
fully completed their course of studies. Basil and Gregorymust leave Athens, and separate. The whole city was affected
by the prospect of such a loss; professors and students press
around them and beg them to remain. But Basil at last tears
himself away from so much regret. Gregory was forced to

478

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

accept a chair of elocution ; but he soon succeeded in esca­
ping secretly from his disciples, and went to share his friend s
seclusion in Cappadocia. Here, in the quiet of a pious find
profitable retreat, they await tho hour of Providence, and pre­
pare themselves for the great work God has in store for them.
18. Another father of the Greek Church was meanwhile
gaining honor for his native city, Jerusalem. St. Cyril, whilst
but a simple priest, was commissioned by Maximus, bishop of
Jerusalem, to preach every Sunday in the assembly of the
faithful, and at the same time to instruct the catechumens. Of
his Catccheticals, or familiar oral instructions, twenty-three have
reached us, of which the first eighteen are devoted to the
explanation of the Creed, and the remaining five to the sacra­
ments of baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist, which the
neophytes received on the same day. This is a monument of
inestimable worth, on account of the clearness and order with
which the Christian doctrine is explained and defended
against the attacks of heathens and heretics. These cate­
chetical instructions, which generally lasted about an hour,
were given under the porticos of the churches, and not within
the sacred precincts, to which the unbaptized hearers were
not, as yet, admitted. St. Cyril here gives the name of faith­
ful to all who believe in heart, and profess by word, whatever
the Church believes and teaches, even though they have not
yet received the sacrament of regeneration. The talent and
eloquence displayed in this series of instructions naturally
pointed out Cyril as the fit object of the votes of both clergy
and people, when the death of Maximus left the patriarchal
throne of Jerusalem vacant. The illustrious priest, therefore,
was hailed with universal applause as bishop of his native city.
The apparition of the miraculous cross, in a. d. 351, splen­
didly confirmed the many marks of divine favor which God was
pleased to bestow upon the labor of the holy prelate. His
attachment to the Nicene faith soon drew upon him the perse­
cution of the Arians. Acacius of Caesarea brought about
his deposition, in a. d. 357, on the false pretence that St. Cyril

LIBERIUS (A. D, 3Μ-Μβ).

479

had squandered the treasures of the Church. It is true that
whilst the country about Jerusalem was suffering from famin'
*,
the starving flock applied to its bishop for food. As Cyril had
exhausted his funds, he sold some golden vases and precious
stuffs to feed the suffering members of Jesus Christ. On such
charges as this did the Council of Cæsarea condemn a Catholic
bishop ! St. Cyril was restored in a. d. 359, by the Council of
Seleucia, only to be again deposed by that of Constantinople
(a. d. 360), and he was only enabled to return to Jerusalem by
the death of Constantius, which gave back to their homes so
many suffering exiles. But new struggles awaited him here.
19. In the far East, Armenia lavished its admiration npon
a new apostle, the patriarch Nerses I., surname·! the Great. He
was of the royal race of the Arsacidæ,and had received his early
training at Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, and afterwards in Constan­
tinople,, where he had studied Greek literature. Here he had
contracted an alliance with the daughter of a distinguished per­
sonage. Three years later he was left a widower, returned to
his native country, and embraced a military life. Having passed
through several grades in the service, he was honored with the
dignity of chamberlain to KingArsaces. In all the freshness and
vigor of youth, his brilliant virtue and distinguished valor had
won him general esteem, whilst he inspired respect by his im­
posing figure and majestic bearing. In the year 340 the patri­
archal throne of Armenia became vacant. Since the time of St.
Gregory the Illuminator, there had been some scandalous patri­
archs ; religion had suffered much in consequence; two of their
successors, though, indeed, possessed of virtue, yet wanted en­
ergy equal to the deeply rooted evil ; the work called for a sec­
ond Gregory the Illuminator. This necessity had given occasion
to a great assembly, which was now in session. Many voices
begin to speak of a holy patriarch who had arisen, worthy heir
to the virtues of a great ancestor. The name of Nerses is
uttered ; the vote is unanimous, and, with one concert of
praise, the patriarchal sceptre is awarded to him. From every
quarter the cry is raised : “He alone shall be our pastor.'

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

No other shall sit upon the episcopal throne.” Unconscious of
this wonderful movement, taken by surprise, Nerses strives to
escape the honor thus forced upon him. He attempts to fly ;
but the king himself stops him, and ungirding the sword he
wore as a badge of his rank, orders him to be instantly vested
in the pontifical attire. The Armenian Catholics had no reason
to regret their choice. Under the culture of the new patri­
arch the faith soon flourished again in Armenia ; the ruined
churches and altars were restored ; new temples, dedicated to
the true God, arose over the ruins of idolatrous shrines; hos­
pitals and monasteries were founded ; public morals began to
assume a new tone; and the blessings of education were placed
within the reach of all. Towards the year 3-55, whilst the per­
secution of Constantius against the Catholic bishops was at
its height, the king of Armenia sent him an embassy, headed
by the patriarch Nerses. The emperor undertook to win him
to Arianism. Failing in the attempt, he became so enraged as
to violate, in the saint’s person, the sacred rights of an ambas­
sador, by banishing him to a desert island.
20. Whilst the Eastern Church was rejoicing in this rich
harvest of great men, the West also numbered illustrious de­
fenders of the faith. The name of Hilary of Poitiers was
the brightest ornament of the Church of Gaul. Sprung from
one of the noblest families of the land, Hilary had been
brought up a pagan. He cultivated the profane sciences with
distinguished success, and gave particular care to the study of
eloquence. Every gift had been lavished upon this chosen in­
tellect. The grace of God sought him out in the midst of his
literary engagements, and of his predilection for Quintilian,
whom he had chosen as master and model. He thus records
the particulars of his conversion : “ I deemed the most desirable
state, in a natural point of view, to be repose in the midst of
plenty ; but I saw that we possess this happiness in common
with irrational animals. I understood, then, that the happi­
ness of man must be of a higher order. As the present, life is
but a tissue of miseries and troubles, it seemed to me that it

LIBERIUS (A. D. 352-34«).

4SI

has been given us only to afford the occasion of practising the
virtues of patience, moderation, meekness, and that the God
of mercy could not have given it to make us more miserable
by taking it from us. I then felt in my soul an enthusiastic
desire to know this God, the author of all good; I plainly saw
the absurdity of the heathen doctrine touching the Divinity­
dividing it amongst many persons of both sexes, attributing it
to animals, plants, statues, and insensible objects. I saw that
there could be but one God, eternal, all-powerful, immutable.
Full of such sentiments, I read, with admiration, these words,
in the books of Moses : ‘ I am Who am.’ And in Isaiah :
‘ Heaven is My throne, and the earth My footstool. He weighs
the heavens with His palm ; He hath poised with three fingers
the bulk of the earth.’ And in the Psalms : ‘ Whither shall
I go from Thy Spirit ? or whither shall I flee from Thy face T
These words taught me that all things are subject to God ; that
He is beyond all, in all, and everywhere present ; that He is
the source of all beauty—infinite beauty. In a word, I under­
stood that I must believe Him incomprehensible. My desires
reached even beyond this, and I felt the need of an immortal­
ity, as the reward of a life devoted to good works ; but the
weakness of my understanding threw me into a strange per­
plexity, when the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists
opened a new world to my wondering mind. In reading the
opening passages of the Gospel of St. John, I learned that God
had a Son coeternal and consubstantial with His Father; that
the Son, the Word of God, had been made flesh, that man
might, in turn, become the Son of God.” From that moment,
his conversion was complete. His wife followed his example,
and embraced the true faith, and their daughter, St. Aprs. con­
secrated her virginity to the God who had thus revealed him­
self to her family. The new convert became the model of the
faithful of Poitiers, and when death removed their bishop,
Maxentius, brother to St. Maximus of Treves, Hilary was
unanimously elected to fill the vacancy (a. d. 353). He was a
pastor ever ready to defend the faith, even at the cost of bis life
31

484

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

era council convened at Seleucia (a. d. 360). At the close of
this council, the Bishop of Poitiers set out for Constantinople,
and presented a petition to the emperor, begging a twofold
favor: 1st, the privilege of being confronted with Satur­
ninus of Arles, Ursacius, and Valens, to give a public
refutation to their errors ; 2d, that of being admitted to the
imperial presence, in order to treat the question of faith in the
Catholic sense. “Your majesty seeks the truth,” said he;
“learn it, then, not from new formulas of yesterday, but from
the books of God. Remember that it is not a question of
philosophical demonstration, but the teaching of the Gospel.”
Constantius gave no heed to this private communication; he
continued to push his doctrinal despotism to the last excess.
St. Hilary now published a new appeal, addressed, not to the
emperor, but to the Catholic faithful. He opens with all the
vehemence of an apostle : “ Let us await Christ, since Anti­
christ now rules. Let the shepherds speak, because the hire­
lings have fled. Let us lay down our lives for the flock, for
the wolves have broken into the fold, and the raging lion seeks
to devour the sheep. Let us hasten to martyrdom, for the
angel of Satan has transformed himself into an angel of light.
Impious prince, you receive bishops with a kiss like that by
which Judas betrayed Christ ; whilst you bow your head to re­
ceive their blessing, your foot is raised to trample on their faith !”
The Eastern bishops, terrified by the holy audacity of his lan­
guage, urged Constantius to rid himself of Hilary, by sending
him back to Gaul. His return to Poitiers was a general tri­
umph. He soon became the centre, so to speak, of the bishops
of Gaul, who rallied about him as to the living rule of the faith.
We have seen St. Phebadius of Agen, with like intrepidity,
take his stand in the breach, to beat back the Arian heresy.
A second champion, worthy of St. Hilary, was the illustrions
disciple who one day came to him from a company of imperial
veterans, levied in the far-off region of Pannonia (the present
Hungary). Martin, son of a military tribune, a Christian in
spite of his parents, a soldier of Jesus Christ before enlisting

LIBERIUS (A. D. 353-34β).

48δ

under the standard of the empire, so alive to the call of charity
as to cut his cloak in two to share it with a half-naked beggar
at the gates of Amiens, sought his discharge on the day fol­
lowing a battle in which he had displayed the most heroic
courage, and hastened to throw himself at the feet of the
Bishop of Poitiers, to learn from him the virtues which were
one day to shine so brightly in the great St. Martin, bishop of
Tours. Meanwhile, Eusebius of Vercelli, and St. Paulinas of
Treves, by their courageous efforts and eloquent writings, nobly
labored in defence of the faith. From bis remote exile, Luci­
fer of Cagliari sent forth a series of works addressed to Con­
stantius. These works are remarkable for purity of faith, and
for the energy with which Lucifer reproaches Constantius for
his attachment to Arianism. They comprise the Defence of
St. Athanasius, the book of The Apostate Kings, the two trea­
tises, That we must not spare those who resist God; That we
must die for the Son of God. Thus the West was nobly repre­
sented in the great intellectual movement which animated the
Catholic Church in the fourth century. The line of its great
doctors by no means closes here ; for at this time St. Ambrose,
the future Bishop of Milan, was beginning his course of studies
in Rome ; St. Jerome first saw the light in Dalmatia (a. d. 351),
and St. Augustin at Tagaste (a. d. 354). What splendor were
these three names destined to reflect upon the Latin Church!
21. Constantius had ruined the imperial treasury by the
hire of public conveyances to bring the bishops to his councils.
Julian, his successor, completed the work of draining it, in
rebuilding the idolatrous temples destroyed by Constantine,
and in the purchase of the oxen needed for his hecatombs ;
such was his extravagance in this particular, that he actually
received a satirical note, in these terms : “ The white oxen
salute the Cæsar Julian. It is all over with us, if you
triumph.” The youth who sought the friendship and intimacy
of St. Gregory and St. Basil, in Athens ; who had gone so far
in his fervor, as to become lector in the Church of Nicomedia,
and whose youthful piety hud been pushed even to superati-

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

tion, once clothed in the imperial purple, thus shows himself
in the proclamations published throughout the world : “ We
serve the gods openly, and tho multitude of troops at our com­
mand is pious. We sacrifice oxen to the tutelary divinities
of the empire, and we have already offered them several heca­
tombs, in thanksgiving for our victory (a. d. 361).” The piety
of the troops, of which Julian boasts, was nothing else than
the very natural eagerness on the part of the Gallic and Ger­
man soldiers to secure their share of meat and wine, in these
imperial slaughters. Their devotion, in this respect, was so
fervent, that as Ammianus-Marcellinus testifies, “ the passers­
by were often obliged to carry them to their quarters.” An
edict forthwith appeared, for the restoration of idolatry, with
the dignities of sacrificers, aruspices and augurs, in all the
cities throughout the empire. All the temples destroyed by
Constantine were to be raised from their ruins, and endowed
with their original revenues; the Christians were bound to
restore, at their own expense, those which they had destroyed,
and to give up to them all the endowments bestowed by Con­
stantine upon the churches. So unexpected a revolution in
the titles of property set the whole empire in a blaze. In the
course of the few preceding years, Mark, bishop of Arethusa,
at the head of his flock, had destroyed an idolatrous temple.
Too poor to make restitution to the full value of the property
destroyed, the prelate was seized, by virtue of the Roman law
which gave up to the creditor the person of the debtor. After
undergoing a cruel scourging, his beard was plucked out, and
his body rubbed with honey ; and in this condition, the holy
old man was suspended naked in a net, and exposed, under a
burning sun, to the stings of flies and other insects. It was
Mark who had rescued the infant Julian from the rage of
Constantius, and the general massacre of his family : this was
the apostate’s return ! In this case, which had every claim
upon his generosity, Julian was cruel by exception, for it
formed no part of his plan to crush the Galileans, as he called
them, under the blows of a bloody persecution. He was too

LIBERIUS (A. D. 352-3G6).

487

well versed in the history of the religion he was persecuting,
to renew the attempt in which the emperors, from Nero to
Diocletian, had met with such signal failure. Ridicule, public
contempt, derision and satire, were the weapons he deemed
powerful against a Church which torrents of blood could not
overwhelm. The sword of sarcasm was shivered in the
hands of Julian, and the philosophers of the eighteenth cen­
tury, who so eagerly gathered up the scattered fragments,
have met with the same success as the apostate. They fondly
imagined themselves the inventors of a new system, and their
invention is reduced to a plagiarism from a persecutor of the
Lower Empire. Julian’s apostasy was not wanting in the natu­
ral accompaniment of hypocrisy. The Gallic soldiers who had
followed him from Lutetia, where he was proclaimed emperor,
to Rome, where the Senate recognized his accession, had
sworn, upon their swords, to die for him. Yet many of them
were Christians; but Julian had deceived them. A short
time before quitting Gaul, on the feast of the Epiphany, he had
gone into the Church, at Vienne, where he spent some time
in prayer. Ammianus-Marcellinus asserts that, at that very
moment, he secretly professed paganism ; this double dealing
of the deceitful Cæsar surely justified the indignation it
excited. As he was once offering sacrifice in the Temple of
Fortune, Maris, bishop of Chalcedon, sharply upbraided him
with his apostasy. Julian said to him: ‘Old man, the Gali­
lean will not restore you your sight.” Maris was blind. “ For
that I thank Him,” answered the bishop, “since it spares
me the pain of looking upon such an apostate.” “ The first
publication of Julian’s edict for the restoration of idolatry,”
says St. Chrysostom,
*
“brought together, from every quarter of
the world, numbers of magicians, sorcerers, soothsayers, augurs,
and all, in fact, who dealt in professional imposture and delu­
sion : and now the imperial palace was filled with vagabonds
and worthless characters. Many of them had long lived in
• Tiilemont’s translation.

488

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the last extreme of misery ; some had just come forth from the
dismal confinement of the prison or the mines, to which their
magic and evil-doings had condemned them ; others, again,
dragged out a miserable existence, in the most vile and disgrace­
ful employments; and these impostors now suddenly found
themselves invested with the pontifical dignity, and raised to
the highest distinction. The emperor, disregarding his generals
and magistrates, disdaining to grant them even the favor of a
word, went about through the city surrounded by his court of
dissolute youths ruined by debauchery, and of courtesans who
had just left their infamous dens. The emperor’s horse and
attendants followed him at a considerable distance, whilst
this vile multitude surrounded his person, appearing in the
public places, with every mark of rank and honor, indulging
in the words and actions that might be expected from such
characters.”
22. Apostasy led Julian to fanaticism ; from fanaticism he
passed on to persecution : when a man has committed a fault
which he deems irreparable, pride leads him to seek a defence
in the very fault itself. Julian tried two very difficult experi­
ments : to rekindle the zeal of the idolaters for an extinct
worship; td provoke defections amongst the Christians. He
offered gold and honors as the price of apostasy : he failed
with the fervent faith of the disciples of Jesus Christ, and
with the dead faith of the pagans. He complained, himself, that
he found so few persons disposed to offer sacrifice; he upbraids
the inhabitants of Alexandria with having forsaken the gods
of Alexander, for a Word, which neither they nor their fathers
had ever *seen. If now it be asked what intrinsic or extrinsic
causes could excite in Julian so deep an antipathy for a reli­
gion which he had himself professed with all the zeal of a
neophyte, it seems to us that they can be summed up in the
following view of his nature and disposition : Julian’s was one
of those lively imaginations better fitted for poetry than for
• Hunc vero quem neque vos, neque patres vestri vidêre, Josum Deum esso Verbum
creditis oportere. (Julian., Epist. 1L)

LIBERIUS (A. D. 352-3ββ).

489

the realities of the governmental and positive world. His
soul, fascinated by the fables of Greece, was allured by the
beauty of the pagan ceremonial. The gods of Homer were, to
him, the fairest creations of genius, and his unbounded admira­
tion of their poet led him to the conviction that he was called
to restore their worship. But deeper than this literary enthu­
siasm was the bitter hatred he bore Constantius, the murderer
of his father, who had handed over his brother to the execu­
tioner, and had long threatened his own life. He thought to
revenge his murdered kindred by proscribing the religion of
the prince who had been their executioner. Extrinsic influ­
ences also gave new force to his personal motives. Heathen­
ism, peremptorily outlawed by Constantine, had long been
awaiting the period of reaction. The Greek and Latin sophists,
the rhetoricians and philosophers of Athens, Alexandria, and
Rome, who had persistingly opposed the light of the Gospel,
were offering up all their vows for the restoration of the gods
of Homer and Virgil, of Aristotle and Plato. Moreover, the
manners, habits, and worship of a whole people are not
changed by a stroke of the pen ; all the interests, passions,
and self-love which had been wounded in the triumph of the
cross, clustered around Julian, at the period of his accession,
crying out : “ Without Julian Augustus, all power is lost, for
the provinces, the army, and the republic.”* It must be allowed
that the state of society, at the death of Constantins, was
such as to justify the most sanguine hopes of the pagans.
The heresy of Arius had produced divisions and subdivisions
without number: there was but one unceasing cross-fire of
anathemas; legitimate bishops were driven from their sees, by
force of arms, to make way for usurpers ; schism came to add
its portion to the disorders already produced by heresy. These
strifes, which resounded in every city, village, and hamlet,
weakened the empire without, paralyzed its interior strength,
and made its administration difficult and perilous. The sedi­
* Ammianus-Maroellinus. Lib. xx. Cap. ii-

190

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

tions excited by tho Arians occupied all the attention of the
judges and governors. Julian might then have believed that
he would at once repress every evil, by making all the sects
yield to the ancient worship ;* to effect this object, he applied
the ironical levity of a sophist, the fanaticism of an idolater,
the cold calculation of a sceptic ; and his fruitless attempt
only added another evidence of the divine immortality of the
Christian religion, “ that anvil,” said a celebrated orator, “ on
which all hammers have been shattered.”f
23. As early as the year 362, Julian published an edict
granting to every one the free exercise of religion, and recall­
ing all who had been banished for a religious cause. He
sought to foment the divisions between Catholics and Arians,
to weaken them by meq,ns of one another, and then to crush
both under the weight of public contempt. The religious
liberty which he ostensibly granted to the Christians was but
a hard slavery : he did not, indeed, condemn them to death, by
a public edict, but he still took the surest means to overwhelm
them. Every favor was lavished upon the heathens; the
Christians received from him but disdain, vexation, and dis­
grace. In order to lower the clergy, he abolished the privi­
leges of ecclesiastics ; he cut off the pension allowed for the
support of clerics and virgins consecrated to God. “ Their
admirable law,” he said, “ enjoins upon them to renounce the
goods of this world, in order to reach the kingdom of heaven;
with the gracious desire to make their journey the easier, we
order that they be relieved of the weight of all their goods."
When the Christians dared to complain, he. said : “ Is it not
the vocation of a Christian to suffer?” The bishops address­
ed to him an apology for Christianity, through Diodorus of
Tarsus ; he sent it back to them with these three Greek words:
'Α.νεγνων, εγνων, κατεγνων (I have read, I have understood, I
have condemned). All the churches were stripped, and their
costly ornaments transferred to the idolatrous temples, which
• Etude.' Hiitoriques de M. de Chateaubriand (passim).

f M. l’Abbé Combalot.

LIBERTUS (A. D. 353-399).

491

he was repairing at the expense of the Galilean
*.
Those who
were weak in the faith he tried to win over by promises. The
firmness of those who resisted his solicitations was made a State
offence ; but those who weakly yielded, and sacrificed their
conscience to a fortune, were loaded with honors and favors.
Apostasy was the avenue to every preferment ; it supplied the
want of talent and merit; it threw a veil over every past
crime, and purchased an unlimited right to the commission of
fresh ones.
24. By a glorious exception, Julian had especially exclu­
ded St. Athanasius from the privilege of returning to his episco­
pal see, which was granted to all other exiles. “ It would be
dangerous,” said the apostate, in a letter to the inhabitants of
Alexandria, “ to leave an intriguer at the head of the people ;
not a man, but a worthless little abortion, who esteems himself
the greater, in proportion to the dangers he invokes upon his
own head. Never, therefore, receive that wretch, Athanasius.
He has dared, in my reign, to confer baptism upon some Greek
women of illustrious rank.” But the course of events determined
matters otherwise. The Arian bishop, George, who had held
the See of Alexandria since the banishment, of St. Athanasius,
had incurred the odium of all parties : of the Catholics, by the
persecution he had brought upon them, under Constantius ; of
the Arians, by obliging them to subscribe the condemnation of
Ætius, one of their leaders; of the pagans, by pillaging their
temples, and by the vexations he indiscriminately indicted
upon all classes of people. The pagan reaction availed itself
of existing circumstances to throw George into prison. He
hardly had been consigned to custody, when the people assem­
bled in crowds, seized and dragged him through the city,
trampling him under foot, with every kind of indignity.
George expired in the midst of fearful agonies. His body was
placed upon a camel, and conveyed, amid the shouts of a mad­
dened people, to the sea-shore, where it was burned, and the
ashes scattered upon the waters, lest the Christians should
hunor them as those of a martyr ; this had lately happened in

492

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the ease of Artemius, governor of Egypt, hom Julian had
put to death on a charge of embezzlement, but in truth, to
punish the zeal he had shown in the destruction of idolatrous
temples. No like demonstration need have been feared in the
case of the intruded bishop. It was too notorious a fact, that
religion had no share in causing his death, and that his crimes
had rendered him odious to all. When Julian heard of the
sedition, he appeared displeased only with the form of the
execution. Indeed, it could not but be pleasing to him to see
religious resentments embittered, and to witness the mutual
destruction of sects so hateful to him. He contented himself
with writing to the Alexandrians in these terms : “ George
deserved the treatment he received. I will even add that he
deserved a yet more severe chastisement, but it did not belong
to you to inflict it. Even though you show no regard for
Alexander, your founder, or rather for the great god Serapis,
how could you forget the common duty you owe to humanity,
and what is due to me—to me, whom the gods, and especially
the great god Serapis, have invested with the empire of the
universe ?” By such addresses did this literary Cæsar hope
to appease popular tumults. Under the circumstances, St.
Athanasius seeing no obstacle to his return, notwithstanding
Julian’s antipathy to him, determined to go back to Alexandria,
after an exile of seven years. His entrance was a triumph
worthy of a disciple of Jesus Christ. The Saviour of the world
entered Jerusalem seated, in the words of the Holy Text, “upon
the foal of an ass.” It was in just the same manner that Athanasius appeared amid his beloved Alexandrians, surrounded by a
countless multitude who had gone forward, two days’journey, to
meet him. All Egypt seemed to have met around the illustrious
patriarch. Every height was crowded by multitudes eager to look
upon him ; they thronged around him to catch the least tone of
that revered voice; the mere passing of his shadow seemed a
pledge of blessing and sanctification. If it may be said that no
man ever suffered such a life-long persecution as did Athanasius
the Great, it must with equal truth be admitted, that never did a

LIBERIUS (A. D. 353-350).

493

people show themselves more devoted, more enthusiastic, more
true to their legitimate pastor, than did the faithful of Alex­
andria. The triumphant procession passed through an atmos­
phere fragrant with burning perfumes, a path strewn with
flowers ; the whole city was illuminated ; joyful feasts were
held in every square. Never did father meet a gladder wel­
come on his return to the domestic circle ; never did a beloved
monarch receive more general proofs of a people’s love. St.
Athanasius treated his most bitter persecutors with so much
mildness, that they had no cause to regret his return. He
made himself the visible providence of all the needy, the un­
fortunate, and the oppressed, without distinction of party ; all
minds, all hearts were irresistibly drawn to him by the charm
of his gentleness and of his virtue.
25. In his return from Thebais, whither he had been exiled
by Constantius, St. Eusebius of Vercelli tarried at Alexandria
to confer with St. Athanasius. The two prelates conjointly
called a Council, small in numbers, but composed almost wholly
of confessors of the faith—men such as St. Asterius, bishop of
Petra in Arabia, Caius, Ammonius, Dracontius, Adelphius,
Paphnutius. It was necessary to decide upon the line of
conduct to be adopted in regard to the bishops who had been
so weak as to sign the heretical professions of faith. The ma­
jority of those who had allowed themselves to be ensnared at
Rimini, had since given manifest proofs of their repentance.
The Council of Alexandria decided that they should not be
excluded from the ecclesiastical communion. It was also
decreed that the leaders of the Arian faction who would
renounce their errors should obtain pardon for the past, but not
their former rank among the clergy. Those who had yielded
only to violence, and were received back to the communion of
the Church, after due retractation, were not to lose their place
in the hierarchy. The question of dogma was then settled by
the condemnation of the new doctrine taught by .Macedonius,
intruded Bishop of Constantinople ; this doctrine, which was
beginning to gain ground, attacked the divinity of the Holy

494

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Ghost. The council fixed the catholic sense of the term hyp
*
stasis. which had been used with different acceptations in tin·
course of the controversy. Some, understanding this term ns
synonymous with substance, admitted but one hypostasis, in God.
Others, giving it the signification person, recognized three.
Having decided upon these points of theological language, they
proceeded to the solemn condemnation of Arius, Sabellius,
Paul of Samosata, Basilides, and Manes. The closing sessions
were devoted to the examination of a disputed point in the
doctrine of the Incarnation. It was recognized that the
Redeemer had not assumed a body without soul or thought, in
opposition to certain Greeks who believed that the soul of the
incarnate Word was the Divinity itself. St. Athanasius had
hardly closed the labors of the council, when the pagans, irri­
tated by the numerous conversions due to the zeal of the holy
patriarch, complained to Julian that there would soon not be
left a single worshipper of the gods in their city. The apos­
tate immediately wrote them : “ That bishop, banished by the
repeated orders of several emperors, should at least have
waited for a new one, to return. I did, indeed, grant to the
Galileans proscribed by Constantius, of happy memory, the
privilege of returning to their country, but not to their churches.
By what right, then, does this bold Athanasius, with his
wonted impudence, presume to hold what they call the episco­
pal see ? I hereby order him to leave the city, upon receipt
of this letter, under pain of the most severe punishments if he
dare to disobey. I swear by the great Serapis, that if the impi­
ous intruder be not driven from the city, or, rather, from the soil
of all Egypt, before the Kalends of December, I shall exact
from the company of Egyptian officers a fine of a hundred
pounds in gold.” It may easily be supposed that an order
backed by such threats was executed with the last degree of
severity. The principal church in Alexandria was once more
invaded by the soldiery, and defiled by profanation and mur­
der. Intending to seek again the secure solitude of The­
bais, Athanasius hastily fled in a boat which was sailing up

LIBERIUS (A. D.

495 .

the Nile ; but the rowers of the Governor of Alexandria, in the
eagerness of the pursuit, gained upon him. Suddenly the
patriarch directs the prow to be turned towards Alexandria ;
he meets his pursuers, and passes through the midst of them
without being recognized ; the rowers ask if Athanasius is far
in advance. “ Press on ; he is very near,” answered the
bishop. Λ few hours later, under cover of the darkness, the
illustrious fugitive was re-entering his episcopal city, where
he remained hidden until the death of Julian (a. d. 362).
26. The apostate emperor persisted in his blind and hypo­
critical persecution with a truly satanical stubbornness. By
a new decree, made binding in all the provinces of the empire,
Christian professors were forbidden to teach, and Christian chil­
dren to learn, the Greek and Latin literature. “Either cease to
explain the profane authors,” said the emperor, “if you con­
demn their doctrine ; or, if you will explain them, approve
their sentiments. You believe that Homer, Hesiod, and the
others of the same school, are wrong ; go and explain Matthew
and Luke in the churches of the Galileans." This decree was
carried out to the letter. The Christian teachers, thus de­
prived of the chairs of eloquence and literature, resorted to an
ingenious device to escape the circle in which Julian sought to
confine them. They composed hymns, idyls, elegies, odes, and
tragedies, on moral or theological themes, or on subjects drawn
from sacred history. St. Gregory Nazianzen alone wrote more
than thirty thousand lines. His poems are remarkable for
their sublime sentiments and beauty of expression. Julian
was unwilling to assume the odious character of persecutor,
but he freely allowed the pagans to harass the faithful without
stint. His reign, therefore, furnished several martyrs to the
calendar of the Church. At Dorostorum, in Thrace, Emilianus
was cast into the fire, for overturning the heathen altars; at
Myra, in Phrygia, Macedonius, Theodulus, and Tatian, for break­
ing the idols in a pagan temple, were roasted by a slow lire ;
at Ancyra, in Galatia, the priest, Basil, was torn with iron
hooks, and died under his torments. The inhabitants of Cæs·

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

area, in Cappadocia, had remained true to the Catholic faith;
Julian punished them by depriving their city of the name
given to it by Constantine, and restoring the former one of
Mazacca. At Ilierapolis, in Phoenicia, humanity was appalled
at a punishment unknown even to the torturers of Diocletian.
Virgins consecrated to God, after being exposed, naked, to the
gaze and outrages of tho mob, were cut open and stuffed with
barley, and then given up to be devoured by swine. These
horrors were renewed at Gaza, in Palestine, in the case of
priests and virgins. The Christian soldiers fared no better.
Bonosus and Maximilian were beheaded for refusing to remove
the cross from the Labarum. Such cruel outrages, such torrents
of blood, add another stigma to the memory of the apostate
emperor.
27. Julian was at this time planning two undertakings,
which were equally to turn to his confusion. With a view to
falsify the prophecy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who had fore­
told of the Temple of Jerusalem, that a stone should not be left
upon a stone, Julian gave orders to raise the temple from its
ruins. But balls of fire, bursting from the bowels of the earth,
scattered the workmen. Every new effort was met by the
same miraculous resistance. The formal testimony of the
pagan historian, Ammianus-Marcellinus, removes all possibility
of doubt from this historical fact. Julian’s second dream was
a war against the Persians, which would rank his name next to
that of Alexander. In the spring of the year 363, an immense
army, in three divisions, followed by a fleet which sailed up the
Tigris, entered Persia, under the command of Julian the Apos­
tate. The success of a preliminary engagement seemed to
presage the conquest of the whole of Asia. In his assurance
of success he burned his fleet, which retarded his progress. On
the next day he found himself in a country laid waste by the
enemy ; he now saw the extent of his error, and tried to re­
treat, but it was too late. On the 26th of June, his rear-guard
is suddenly attacked by Sapor. Julian flies to the scene of
action, without taking time to put on his breast-plate Whilst

LIBERIUS

\. D. Î52-3C6).

497

he traverses the field of battle, issuing his orders, a javelin,
thrown by an unknown hand, enters his side and pierces the
liver. Theodoret says that at that moment, Julian, filling his
hand with the blood that flowed from his wound, cast it towards
heaven, with the exclamation: “Thou hast conquered, Gali­
lean !” His death, which soon followed this action, ended the
struggle of heathenism against the Church of Jesus Christ.
28. The Roman army, half vanquished, entangled in the
mountainous regions of Persia, hemmed in on all sides, made
all haste to choose a leader capable of drawing it out of its
perilous position. Jovian was invested with the purple (a. d.
363). He was a Christian, and had suffered at the hands of
Julian, on account of his faith. He concluded a treaty with
Sapor, by which he was enabled to bring back the remains of
the army to Antioch. His first care was to reopen the churches,
and to restore the privileges and property of which Julian
had deprived the clergy. Athanasius accordingly appeared
openly in the midst of his flock of Alexandria. Jovian wished
to receive instructions from the holy patriarch in the truths of
the faith : he brought him to Antioch, and gave him his full
confldence, in spite of the remonstrances of the Arians, who
still pursued Athanasius with the most grievous accusations.
A council was held at Antioch, in the hope of reuniting the
various Arian factions to the orthodox faith. But the profes­
sion submitted was unanimously rejected by the Catholics, as
the term consubstantial had been omitted; and besides, it
did not establish with sufficient clearness the dogma of the
divinity of the Holy Ghost. A new heresy was now in the field
against this point of faith. During the whole period of Julian’s
reign, the heresiarch, Macedonius, intruded Bishop of Constan­
tinople, had been constantly dogmatizing in that direction. lie
held that the Holy Ghost is not a divine person, but only a
creature, more perfect than others ; against the divinity of the
Holy Ghost, he revived the Arian arguments against that of
the Word. His followers were found in Thrace, in the province
of the Hellespont, and in Bithynia, under the names of Mac,·
32

498

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

donians, Pncumatomachists, and Moralhonians ; this last appella­
tion derived from Marathonius, bishop of Nicomedia, one of
the best known members of the sect. We shall now find the
Catholic doctors, headed by Athanasius, engaged for the mo­
ment with these heretics. At about the same time, as though
each year of the fourth century was to be dedicated to some
separate heresy, the unreasonable severity of Lucifer of Cag­
liari refused to admit to his communion the bishops who had
fallen during the Arian persecutions, notwithstanding the in­
dulgence shown, in their regard, by the Church of Rome.
Such was the origin of the Luciferian schism. Meanwhile
Constantinople impatiently awaited its new emperor. Jovian
hurried on to take possession of his new capital ; he bore with
him the good wishes and prayers of the Catholics, who cen­
tred· their hopes in his person ; but death overtook him on
the 17th of February, a. d. 364. He was succeeded by Valentinian in the West, and Valens in the East; Milan became
the capital of the former, Constantinople of the latter. Vaientinian was gifted with sterling qualities, which he unfortu­
nately tarnished by several acts of weakness and atrocious
cruelty. At the very outset, he formally announced his inten­
tion of abstaining from the discussion of the doctrinal ques­
tions which were, at that time, so fruitful of bitter dissensions :
“ It does not’become me, a mere layman,” he said to Hypatian,
bishop of Heraclea, “ to interfere in these matters. Let the
bishops judge, since theirs is the mission and authority.” It
happened to him, notwithstanding, to swerve from the rule he
had laid down for himself, in the case of Auxentius, Arian
bishop of Milan, whom he supported against St. Hilary of
Poitiers, and Eusebius of Vercelli ; but in this circumstance
he acted in good faith, and for the maintenance of peace. Yet
this intervention of the civil authority in religious matters
was eloquently deprecated by St. Hilary. “ Did the Apos­
tles,” said he, “ ever call in the aid of some civil official to as­
sist them in preaching the Gospel ?” This was the last com­
bat of the great Bishop of Poitiers, whom St. Jerome styles

LIBERIUS (A. D. 35Ϊ-Μβ).

199

the Rhone of Latin eloquence. He died, in the midst of bis be­
loved flock, in the year 367, the same which witnessed the
death of his friend, St. Eusebius of Vercelli. These two illus­
trions champions of the Catholic faith, hand in hand, as they
had fought the good fight here, went to receive the reward of
their virtue and their combats. Valentinian showed his en­
lightened consideration by a succession of edicts favorable to
religion. He began by revoking Julian’s decree, forbidding
Christian professors to teach Greek and Latin literature. He
restored the observance of Sunday, as established by Constan­
tine the Great. To honor the miracle of the Resurrection in
a peculiar manner, he ordered that on the festival of Easter
all prisoners should be released, whose crimes were not of a
nature to endanger the public safety. He exempted the Chris­
tians from the fine imposed upon all the citizens to defray the
expenses of the gladiatorial combats. It was decreed that
comedians who might, during an illness, have received the
sacraments, should not be bound by any previous engagement
to reappear upon the stage. The immunity from every per­
sonal charge was extended to all ecclesiastics ; and, without
being exempted from the ordinary taxes, the Church property
was freed from all extraordinary contributions. Fourteen
physicians were appointed for the different sections of the city
of Rome, with the title of physicians of the poor, and a suffi­
cient sum assigned for their subsistence. Whilst Valentinian,
who had first reached the imperial throne, was thinking of
naming a colleague, he consulted one of his captains on the
choice he should make. “ Sire,” answered the officer, “ if you
love your family, you have a brother; if you love the State,
seek the most able man.” Valentinian was not offended by
the frankness of the reply, but he unfortunately failed to ap­
preciate the advice it contained. He named Valens. Con­
stantius seemed to have reascended the throne. Valens was
a man of weak, wavering, frivolous character, full of the same
theological pretensions, the same inanity as Constantius. In
the year 365, a council assembled at Lampsacus proclaimed

500

general history of the church.

the Catholic faith touching the divinity of the Word, with the
omission, however, of the term consubstantial, to save animosi­
ties, but replacing it by the term similar in substance.
The Fathers of Lampsacus decreed that the bishops who
had been deposed for their defence of this doctrine should be
restored to their secs, and announced to Eudoxius of Constan­
tinople, leader of the Anomœans, or pure Arians, that they were
prepared to receive him back to the communion of the Church,
on condition of his renouncing his errors. The Anomœans ap­
pealed to Valens, who publicly proclaimed himself their pro­
tector and the abettor of Arianism. lie began his part as
persecutor, by banishing the Fathers of Lampsacus, and placing
the Eudoxians in their vacant sees. In his zeal for proselytism,
he sent for Eleusius, orthodox bishop of Cyzicus, and urged him
to sign an Arian profession ; the resistance of the prelate was
at last overcome by the threats of the emperor, and he had the
weakness to subscribe. On his return to Cyzicus, Eleusius
deplored his fall, before his clergy and people ; declared himself
unworthy of the episcopal dignity, and wished to retire into
solitude. But the tears of the faithful moved him to retain the
government of his church. The orthodox bishops of the East,
now persecuted by Valens, instinctively turned to Rome, the
centre of unity, the guardian of the faith. Their envoys, ac­
cordingly, arrived in Italy (a. d. 366), bearing letters to Popo
Liberius, in which they begged to be admitted to communion
with him. Liberius, overjoyed at the return of the East to the
Catholic faith, required them to sign the Nicene profession.
They declared that the term consubstantial, contained in the
formula, fully expressed the faith of the Church against the
Arian heresy ; they especially condemned the heresiarch Arius,
and his adherents ; they anathematized the errors of the Sabellians, the Patropassians, the Marcionites, of Paul of Samosata ;
in a word, all the heresies contrary to the faith of Nice. The
original copy of this declaration, signed by them, in the name of
ill the Eastern bishops, was kept in Rome. The envoys re­
lumed to their sees, with a letter of communion from Pope

LIBERI ÜB (A. D. 352-3β6).

501

Liberius to the bishops who had sent them; the letter was
expressive of the most sincere joy and the most ardent charity.
On their arrival, they read it in the Council of Tyana (a. d. 367 (
It was joyfully welcomed by all the fathers, and the faith of
Nice was solemnly received as the faith of the universal Church.
29. In the midst of this triumph of truth over Arianism,
which he had followed up during the whole course of his pontifi­
cate, Liberius had passed away on the 24th of September, a. d.
366. In life, he had confirmed his brethren in the true faith,
and pacified the Church in the East and in the West. When
death had removed him from the scene of action, St. Basil, St.
Epiphanius, St. Ambrose, speak of him as a pontiff of blessed,
of holy, of venerable memory ; the ancient Latin, Greek, and
Coptic Martyrologies honored him as a saint. Still the Roman
Church, with wonted prudence, has not ranked his name amongst
the blessed whose feasts she celebrates. If we may trust the
most probable historical testimony, Liberius did not fall ; but
the single slight suspicion left, suffices to suspend the Church's
judgment. Liberius had worn the tiara fourteen years and
some months. Of the many monuments of Rome, he founded
and dedicated the basilica of St. Mary Major, sometimes called
the Liberian Basilica.

«GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

.502

CHAPTER IV.
§ I. Pontificate of St. Damasus (Sept, 24, a. d. 366—Dee. 11, 384).

1. Ursinus Antipopc.—2. Arianism in the East, under the Emperor Valens.—

3. Basil of Cæsarca and the Prefect Modestus.

Death of St. Athanasius

at Alexandria.—4. St. Martin, Bishop of Tours.

Election of St. Ambrose

to the Episcopacy.—5. St. Optatus, Bishop of Milevum.

St. Jerome.—

6. Gratian calls Theodosius the Great to the Government of the East. Death
of St. Basil the Great,—7. St. Gregory Nazianzen ia appointed to the See of

Schism of Maximus at Constantinople.—8. Council of

Constantinople.

Constantinople.

Death of St. Meletius.

ment of St. Gregory Nazianzen.

fl. Priscillian.

Troubles arising from it.

Retire­

Rights of the various Patriarchates.—

His Heresy condemned in the Council of Saragossa.

Death

of St. Damasus.

§ II. Pontificate of St. Sericius

(Jan. 1, a. d. 385—Nov. 25, 398).

10. Decretal of St. Sericius to Himerius, Bishop of Tarragona.—11. St. Am­
brose persecuted at Milan, by the Empress Justina.

Mission of St. Ambrose

to the Usurper Maximus.—12. Revolt of Antioch.
Chrysostom.

St. Flavian.

St.John

Clemency of Theodosius.—13. Massacre at Thessalonica.

Penance of Theodosius.

Massalians.

Death of Theodosius tho Great.

Death of St. Ambrose.—14. Conversion of St, Augustine.—15. St. Jerome

retires to Bethlehem.

St. Martin of Tours.

Delphin and St, Amandus of Bordeaux.

St. Paulinas of Nola.

St. Victrix at Rouen.

St

St. Sulpi-

tius Severus.—16. St. John Chrysostom elected to the See of Constantino­

ple.

Synesius.

Death of St. Sericius.

§ ΙΠ. Pontificate of St. Anastasius I. (Nov. 26, a. d. 308—April 27, 402).
17. Dismissory Letters.

First Council of Toledo.—18. Disgrace of Eutropius.

Discussion between St Jerome and the Priest Rufinus.—10. Death of St
Martin, Bishop of Tours.

§ I. Pontificate

of

Death of St. Anastasius I.

St. Damasus I. (Sept. 24,
December 11, 384).

a. d.

366—

1. Saint Damasus I., who succeeded Liberius (Sept. 24, a. d.
366), was born at Guimaraens, in Portugal, but had been

ST. DAMASUS (A. D. 386-384).

503

brought up and resided in Rome from his early childhood. The
talents and virtue which he showed in the discharge of the
successive inferior grades of the hierarchy attracted universal
attention. These eminent qualities were brought into greater
prominence by his promotion to the pontificate. As he was
himself deeply skilled in the knowledge of the Scriptures, and
the author of some excellent works, he was enabled to give a
powerful impulse to the study of the sacred science. The con­
fidence he bestowed upon St. Jerome is precious to the Church,
by the translation of the sacred writings known as the Vulgate.
Notwithstanding the attention he gave to encouraging the labors
of the doctors, he never slighted the least of his great pontifical
duties. He was the support, the prop, the centre of unity, for
the East, so lamentably divided, in the reign of Valens. God
had reserved for St. Damasus the consolation of seeing the long
triumphant heresy of Arius sink under the power of the
great Theodosius. The holy pontiff met with his share of
struggles. He had hardly taken his seat upon the chair of Peter,
when an antipope, Ursinus, a deacon of the Roman Church,
elected by some few intriguers, tried to contest the sovereign
power with liim. The people took part in this schism. The
quarrel became so warm that Ursinus wished to have recourse
to arms, to uphold an ordination held against every law of the
Church. But Damasus was backed by an overwhelming ma­
jority, and the usurper soon found himself alone. Though pro­
tected, at the outset, by Valens, he was banished, by Theo­
dosius, to Cologne ; yet he still held out in his schism during
the life-time of St. Damasus I. ; this powerless opposition, how­
ever, made not the smallest change in the unanimity with which
the Catholic world recognized the sovereign power vested in the
rightful pontiff.
2. The East, with one accord, turned its eyes towards the
supreme head of Catholicity. Valens had just received baptism
from Eudoxius, of Constantinople, leader of the Arians (a.d. 367).
Vetranion, bishop of Tomi, capital of Roman Scythia. and
situated at the mouth of the Danube, for refusing to deny the

504

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

true faith, had been banished. St. Evagrius, a Catholic bishop,
elected, a. d. 370, to succeed Eudoxius, had shared the same fate.
Eighty ecclesiastics, sent by the Catholic bishops of the East to
complain of these acts of violence, were drowned in the Gulf of
Nicomedia, by Modestus, Prefect of Constantinople, acting by
the order of Valens. In the year 367, the Prefect of Alexan­
dria, with the design of seizing the patriarch, had forcibly
entered the principal church, in which St. Athanasius generally
resided. But the bishop had foreseen the coming storm, and
took refuge in his father’s tomb, the only shelter now left for
his persecuted virtue. Here he remained concealed four months,
till the people of Alexandria called so earnestly for their pastor,
that Valens, to hinder even greater disorder, at last allowed
Athanasius to return to Alexandria. This prince had evidently
inherited all the hatred of Constantius for Catholicity. But the
spirit of the East was no longer the same. Arianism, now con­
fined to a small circle of obstinate followers, had lost its power
over public opinion. The majority of the Eastern bishops were
eager for the unity in faith, which brought such peaceful repose
to the West, under the rule of the Bishop of Rome. This ten­
dency towards the orthodox faith soon showed itself with new
energy, when it found an organ in an eloquent, skilful, per­
suasive leader, whose holiness was universally respected. This
leader was St. Basil, whom the bishops and the faithful had just
made Metropolitan of Cæsarea (a. d. 370). He no sooner found
himself installed, than he addressed a letter, in the name of all
the Eastern bishops, to Pope Damasus and the bishops of the
West, begging their intervention to bring back peace to the
Church. “ What lamentation,” said he, “ can equal our misery !
What fountains of tears can correspond to such great evils !
Hasten, then ; hasten you, our true brothers, whilst there is still
left a trace of what once was ; and before the churches become
•i complete wreck, hasten to help us. Stretch out a helping
hand to those whom you see kneeling before you !” The solici­
tude of St. Damasus did not need these earnest entreaties to
rouse it to action. During the preceding year (369), he had

ST. DAMASUS (A. D. 30ύ-3Μ).

005

called a council in Rome, which, after condemning the Antipnpe
Ursinus, had given its earnest attention to the state of the East­
ern churches. The leaders of the Arian faction were anathe­
matized. The term hypostasis was adopted to express the
Persons in the Trinity. Then passing over to a particular
question, the pope examined a notorious subject of dispute
existing in the Church of Antioch, on which all minds were
then held in suspense. The government of that metropolitan
see was held by three bishops, the Arian Euzoius, and two
Catholics, Paulinus and St. Meletius. Since the Arian had
long been excluded from the Catholic communion, his claim was
not to be considered ; but it was harder to settle the matter of the
two orthodox bishops, both elected under extraordinary circum­
stances, in the midst of persecution, and each exercising authority,
in perfectly good faith, over portions of the population, equally
devoted to their respective pastors. St. Basil and St. Athana­
sius seemed to lean towards St. Meletius ; whilst Pope Damasus
did not think the ordination of Paulinus unlawful. Seeing the
utter impossibility of choosing between two bishops equally
worthy, without exposing a part of the population of Antioch to
the danger of a schism, St. Damasus decided that Paulinus and
Meletius should together govern the Church of Antioch, with
this express condition, that on the death of either one of the
two, the other should remain sole bishop. This decision was
applauded throughout the East. Another discussion had arisen,
touching the orthodoxy of Marcellus of Ancyra. This prelate
was charged with impugning the eternity of the Son of God.
teaching that He did not exist before coining forth from the
Father, and that He ceased to be, after having returned to Him.
St. Basil had written to St. Athanasius on the subject, in order
to be made better acquainted, by him, with the real sentiments
of Marcellus. The accused bishop, on the other hand, sent a
deputation to the Patriarch of Alexandria, to represent his
attachment to the Nicene faith, in terras which leave no doubt
as to the orthodoxy of Marcellus, who died in the course of the
same year (370.)

506

GENERAL HISTORY ΟΓ THE CHURCH.

3. As soon as the pope’s directions reached the East, St.
Basil had them adopted in several particular councils, where the
Nicone Creed was proclaimed to be the faith of the Church. But
Valens, maddened by this marked return to the teachings of
Rome, came in person to Cæsarea, and ordered Modestus, his
prætorian præfect, to bring about the apostasy of St. Basil, al
any cost. Modestus ordered the holy bishop to appear before
him, and threatened to use the sternest measures against him—
the confiscation of his property, exile, torments, and even death—
ii' he dared to resist the imperial order. “ The confiscation of
my property !” answered St. Basil : “ I own notliing but these
poor clothes, and a few' books, which are my whole fife. You
cannot make me an exile; the whole world is the country of the
children of God. You may torment my body, it is my greatest
enemy. I do not fear death, it will only send me the sooner to
enjoy my God.” Astounded at this reply, Modestus exclaimed:
“Never have I heard such language before!” “Perhaps,” an­
swered St. Basil, “you have never yet had to deal with a bishop.”
Even V:dens was struck by this bold reply, and withheld, for a
season, his projects of revenge. He even expressed a wish to
assist publicly at the Holy Mysteries, celebrated by Büsil, on
the feast of the Epiphany (a. d. 372). But the Arians suc­
ceeded in removing from the emperor’s mind these favorable
impressions in regard to St. Basil, and brought an order of banish­
ment against the holy bishop, for his signature. The reed,
which was then used to write on the tablets, three times broke
in the hand of Valens, who then refused to have any share in so
unjust an action. The hatred of the Arians was not satisfied.
On some false charge, they had Basil dragged to the tribunal of
Eusebius, governor of the province, uncle of the Empress Dom­
nina, and, like her, an Arian. Eusebius ordered the saint to be
struck, and to be torn with iron hooks. St. Basil only replied :
“If you would but tear out my liver, you would be doing me a
great favor; you see how much it troubles me.” (The saint
suffered greatly from it.) Meanwhile the people of Cæsarea,
hearing that their bishop had been arrested, hastened to the

ST. DAMASÜS (A. D. MC-SM),

507

rescue ; a raging multitude were seeking the governor to tear
him to pieces ; St. Basil threw his cloak about the intended vic­
tim, and insured his safe-conduct to the palace. Valens still
persecuted the orthodox bishops. St. Meletius, one of the two
Catholic bishops of Antioch, was exiled to Armenia. The same
punishment was inflicted upon St. Eusebius of Samosata, and
St. Barseâ, bishop of Edessa. The utmost disorder and confu­
sion reigned in the churches thus desolated and bereaved of their
pastors. The religious were forced to tear themselves from their
peaceful retreats, to go and evangelize the orphaned flocks.
Valens, meeting the anchoret St. Aphraates at Antioch, re­
proached him with having left his retirement for the commerce
of the world.
“My lord,” answered the intrepid old man,
“were I a virgin, confined to my father’s house, and should I see
it set on fire, what would it be my duty to do? You have set
fire to the house of God, and we are hurrying out to extinguish
the flames.” St. Sabas, a celebrated hermit of Osrhoene, had
followed the same course, and was confirming the faithful of
Antioch, in then· devotion to the doctrine of’Nice, not less by
his miracles and the example of his virtue, than by his earnest
exhortations. But the most illustrious champion of the faith,
the dauntless athlete who had straggled through forty-five year
of episcopacy, ever persecuted, never conquered, who had fought
so many battles in its behalf, and supported it by his pen. his
example, and all the influence of his virtue, St. Athanasius,
dying in the midst of his faithful flock, at Alexandria, found at
last the peace which the world had been unable to give him (a. d.
373). His works, written under the ever uplifted sword of per­
secution, in exile, in the desert, in inaccessible retreats, and even
in his father’s tomb, form one of the most precious monuments
of the Greek Church. At the earnest request of the Alexan­
drians, he had pointed out his successor, in the person of Peter,
one of his priests. The new patriarch was hardly consecrated
by the bishops of his province, when an order from Valens con­
signed him to exile (a. d. 373). St. Basil alone was left to con­
sole the widowed Church of the East. But his energy was equal

60S

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CIIUIICH.

to the call. His letters went everywhere to renew the waning
fervor of the weak, to encourage the confessors, and everywhere
to keep alive the sacred fire. He took care that bishops should
be ordained for vacant sees ; settled all difficulties ; multiplied
himself to meet every necessity ; silenced the heretics ; and, in
spite of the calumnies heaped upon him by the Arians, compelled
the admiration and respect of Valens himself. Yet the weight
of so extensive an administration forced him to seek another
self, who might divide with him the vast responsibility. He
accordingly consecrated his friend, St. Gregory, Bishop of Sasima, a small town in the province of Cæsarea. St. Gregory
made a long resistance, but at last, in his own beautiful expres­
sion, bowed his head rather than his heart, and offered his sacrifice
on the altar of friendship, giving up a peaceful, studious seclu­
sion, in exchange for the heavy burden of the episcopacy. Now
the two friends together share the charge of the Eastern Church.
Basil, with unflinching firmness, holds his position against the
Arians. Gregory undertakes to keep a watchful eye upon the
Pneumaiomachists hr Macedonians, and, when necessary, to meet
their attacks. Providence sent them an illustrious assistant,
in the person of St. Epiphanius, who had been made, in a. d.
367, Archbishop) of Salamis, the metropolis of the island of Cy­
prus. This new doctor of the Greek Church was born in Pales­
tine, about the year 310, and now entered the lists, after a
youth of hard study and the austere practices of a monastic life.
He had been educated by St. Hilarion, a disciple of St. Anthony,
and was thoroughly acquainted with the Hebrew, Egyptian,
Syriac, Greek, and Latin languages. His first work was a com­
plete refutation of Arianism, which appeared under the name of
The Anchorage, because it was intended as a saving anchor, to fix
the minds unsettled by the subtlety, the doubts, and the objec­
tions raised, during the past century, against the true faith. He
soon followed it up with his great Treatise against all the Heresies;
he counts eighty up to his own time, and meets them all with
the unchangeableness and apostolic tradition of the faith.
4. The Latin Church vied with the Eastern in fruitfulness,

ST. DAMA8Ü8 (A. D.

509

and gave a rich harvest of great men. The episcopal throne of
Tours was filled by St. Martin, the disciple of Hilary of Poi­
tiers (λ. d. 372). The life of this great Gallic bishop was but a
constant succession of miracles. His holiness won for him th'·
admiration of the people, and the respect of the emperors them­
selves. He used every means in his power to blot out the last
traces of paganism from Gaid. The prodigy of the sacred pine,
cut by his orders, is well known. The pagans had tied the
saint to the lower side of the leaning tree; by a wonderful prod­
igy, at the moment of the fall, the tree threw itself back in the
opposite direction, nearly crushing the pagans, who thought
themselves in the safest position. In the midst of the labors
which filled his ever-active life, he built himself a monastery at
the foot of a rock, on the bank of the Loire, at some distance
from his episcopal city ; here he gathered about him eighty dis­
ciples, with whom he practised all the exercises of an ascetic
life. This was the origin of the Abbey of Marmontiers, so cele­
brated throughout all Gaul. At this time (a. d. 374), Ambrose,
governor of Milan, a simple catechumen, was elected bishop of
that city, in spite of his earnest opposition. The Fathers of the
Church, far from seeking the episcopal dignity, sometimes even
calumniated themselves to escape it: this was sometimes carried
to such a degree, that the Council of Valencia, in Gaul, which
was held in the course of the same year, thought it necessary
to draw up a special canon against those who falsely accused
themselves to escape ordination. When Valentinian heard of
the election of St. Ambrose, he said to those who had informed
him of it : “ It affords me unspeakable satisfaction to find that. I
have appointed a judge who is worthy to be sought as a bishop."
The name of Ambrose, his virtue. charity, disinterestedness and
eloquence, were soon known throughout the East as well as the
West. It was commonly said of him. that in his infancy a
swarm of bees had deposited its honey upon his lips, such was
the sweet and resistless eloquence which flowed from them.
The governor, once become a bishop, gave all his property to
the pom·, devoted himself to the study of the Sacred Writings,

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

and of the Fathers of (he Church, and entered into intimate re­
lations with St. Basil, for whom he expressed the most genuine
admiration. Ho made especial efforts to banish from his church
all traces of Arianism, left by his predecessor, Auxentius, whose
orthodoxy, justly suspected by St. Damasus, had led to his con­
demnation by a council held in Rome (λ. d. 371). Valentinian
placed unbounded confidence in St. Ambrose. The holy bishop
was one day asking redress for some grievance committed by
the magistrates, against the interests of the Church of Milan.
The emperor replied : “ I always knew your freedom of speech,
yet this did not deter me from approving your ordination. Go
on, then, fearlessly applying to our sins the remedies appointed
by the divine law.” Italy was, at the same time, illustrated by
two other great bishops, St. Valerian of Aquileia, and St. Philastrius of Brescia. Spain also gave her doctor, St. Pacian, bishop
of Barcelona, whose eloquent writings prove him a stanch de­
fender of Catholic faith and unity. The unity of the Church
was ably and boldly maintained in Africa by St. Optatus, bishop
of Milevum, who attacked the errors of the Donatists. This
Father thus lays down the marks of the true Church : to be one, to
be catholic, and to hold by unbroken tradition the primacy of the
Roman See, as a warrant of the integrity of the faith, and purity
of discipline. Finally, in the midst of this galaxy of great
names, that of St. Jerome shines with peculiar brightness. De
was born about the year 331, of a noble and wealthy family of
Stridonium, in Dalmatia. Endowed with an ardent, passionate
disposition, capable of the greatest actions, thirsting for knowl­
edge, Jerome spent a part of his youth in travelling through
Gaul and Asia. At Rome he made himself familiar with Aris­
totle and Plato; but his mind was particularly captivated by the
teachings of the Scriptures, which he had never studied. He
was baptized ; and from that moment, showing the same zeal in
the study of religion that he had devoted to the pursuit of
worldly knowledge, he visited Syria, Palestine, and Thebais, to
form himself to the religious life, by the example of the monks
and saintly hermits whom he there met.

ST. DAMASUS (A. D. 36O3M).

511

Above all these doctors of the Latin Church, seat- ■! upon
the chair of St. Peter, towered the great St. Damasus, who eontrolled them with all the authority of his apostolic power. The
Donatisls of Africa, and the Luciferians of Sardinia, vainly strug­
gled with united efforts to oppose their Antipope Ursinus, to
the legitimate successor of the prince of the Apostles. It is
Damasus who gives hospitality to the exiled successor of St.
Athanasius, Peter of Alexandria ; it is to Damasus alone that
all the contending factions of the East send their deputies ; it is
from him that St. Jerome, from the solitude of his Syrian des­
ert, would learn whether to follow in the communion of 8t.
Meletius or of Paulinus, in Antioeh. It is to him that St. Basil
makes the most earnest appeal to restore peace to the churches
of the East. It is St. Damasus, who. in a council held in Rome,
in a. d. 377, solemnly condemns the error of Apollinaris, bishop of
Laodicea. This heresiarch maintained that Jesus Christ had no
human understanding, but only a body and a sensitive soul, in
which the added divinity supplied the want of human under­
standing. He also taught that the body of Jesus Christ had
come down from heaven, and ceased to subsist after the ascen­
sion. His disciples, calling themselves Anfidicomarianitei (ad­
versaries of Mary), denied the virginity of the mother of God.
An opposite sect, known as the Collyridiana, from the Greek word
KoAÀvpideç (sacred cakes), exaggerated the honor due to Mary,
worshipped her as a divinity, and as such, made offerings to her.
St. Damasus established the Catholic teaching against these op­
posite heresies, and showed himself the living rule of the Church’s
faith.
5. Valentinian had just died, leaving the West equally
divided between his two sons : Valentinian the Younger ruled
over Italy, Illyria, and Africa; Gratian governed Gaul. Spain,
and Britain (a. d. 375). In this change Valens saw only a means
of satisfying more fully his hatred against Catholicity. Seeing
that the monks formed one of its strongest bulwarks, lie passed
a law, obliging them to bear arms (a. d. 3761. Tribunes were ·· nt
into the Egyptian deserts, and numbers of hermits perished by

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

(he violence of the brutal soldiery. Like scenes of blood were
enacted in the other provinces of the empire, especially in
Syria. The persecutors attacked the cells of the hermits,
burned their crops, and drove the solitaries themselves from
their desert home. St. Basil opened wide his doors to the per­
secuted monks, and wrote them affectionate and tender letters to
console them in their sufferings. But now the time was come
when the excesses of Valens were to meet with their final
check. Divine Providence chose, as its instrument for this end,
the barbarians who had long been hanging upon the frontiers of
the Roman Empire, ready to pounce upon it and divide it as
their prey. In a. d. 377, a deputation from the Goths appeared
before Valens, begging the privilege of settling, as allies, upon
the imperial territory. The embassy was headed by the Bishop
Ulphilas, author of the celebrated Gothic version of the Bible, so
highly praised by St. Jerome himself, for its scrupulous fidelity.
Valens granted all that they asked ; but when the Goths, trust­
ing to his plighted faith, unarmed and unprovided, set foot upon
the Roman territory, they met generals who took their wives
and daughters from them, and refused to furnish the promised
subsistence. Such a wrong could not go unpunished, and in the
following year, a. d. 378, the people, whose friendship had been
rejected, appeared in considerable force, and pushed their in­
roads to the very walls of Constantinople. A general conster­
nation reigned in all the cities. One universal cry of malediction
arose against Valens. The emperor, terrified at the approach
of so fearful an array of enemies, thought to win the favor of
Heaven by recalling all his decrees of proscription, and restoring
Peter of Alexandria, with the other exiled bishops. But this
too long delayed atonement was of no avail. As he was march­
ing out of Constantinople, at the head of his army, the hermit
Isaac, who was universally revered as a saint, called out to him :
“ Prince, whither are you going ? It is God who has sent the
barbarians against you. Cease your warfare against Him, or
you will not return alive from this expedition !” Valens, in a
rage, ordered the prophet of evil to be thrown into a dungeon,

ST. DAMA8D8 (A. D. 3AG-3WJ.

513

saying to him, as he went off: “ At my return you shall lose
your head.” But he never returned. On the 9th of August,
a. d. 375, the armies met under the walls of Adrianople. Never,
since the battle of Cannœ, under Hannibal, had the Roman
arms met a more disastrous defeat. Two-thirds of the imperial
army, with thirty-five generals, were left upon the field. The
emperor himself, wounded and unable to keep his saddle, was
lying in a neighboring hovel whilst his wound was dressed.
The Goths set fire to the hut, and Valens, with all his attend­
ants, perished in the flames. The prophecy of the hermit Isaac
was more than fulfilled.
6. The rout at Adrianople might have seemed, for a time, to
forebode the fall of the empire. “ The Roman Empire is falling
to pieces,” wrote St. Jerome, at this period. The borders of the
Tigris and the Euphrates were threatened by the Persians, the
Iberians, and the Armenians. Illyria and Thrace had been in­
vaded by the Goths ; Fritigern, their leader, who had just won
so brilliant a victory over Valens, had it in his power to strike
off, at a single blow, both heads of the empire—Constantinople
and Home. The Taiphake, the Huns, and Alani, nations un­
known to the first Caesars, were sweeping down from the great
plain of Tartary, driving the Goths before them: the country
bordering on the Rhine and the Danube was attacked by the
German tribes, the Alemanni, the Franks, and the Suevi. Where
should Rome find a hero able to cope with so many enemies at
once ! The champion appeared at the appointed hour, and his
promotion was due to a prince of nineteen years. Gratian, who
had ascended the throne of the West, at the age of fifteen, on
the death of his father, Valentinian I., had incurred the deep
guilt of unjustly beheading, at Carthage, Count Theodosius, a
skilful general, whose high endowments moved the envy of the
courtiers. This victim of imperial injustice left a son called
after himself, Theodosius, who was living in the retirement of a
studious solitude. It was this son, in whose person he wished
to repair the injustice done to the father, that Gratian suddenly
appointed to the throne of the East. The whole world applauded
33

516

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

hinder his securing an honorable peace with its external enemies.
The barbarous tribes, held in awe by the weight of his name and
of his arms, settled as allies in the provinces he assigned them.
The Visigoths found a home in Thrace, the Ostrogoths in
Phrygia and Lydia. The court of Theodosius was a refuge for
the oppressed of all nations. Athanaric, king of the Visigoths,
driven from his kingdom by Fritigern (a. d. 381), sought an
asylum there, and was received with all the honor due to a
great man in misfortune.
7. The Church of Constantinople had long been given up to
Arian bishops, and was accordingly the most desolated of the
East. The death of Valens and the accession of Theodosius
gave the Catholics a promise of brighter days. They called
upon St. Gregory Nazianzen to take upon him the government
of their church. It was now some years since he had retired
from the See of Sasima, and had been enjoying his loved solitude.
His body was prematurely bent; his bald head, his face dried
up by tears and austerities, even his language, which had
retained something rough and foreign, at first excited the ridicule
of the Arians. But his resistless eloquence, his virtues, his
miraculous life of abstinence and privations, soon drew such
throngs of listeners, that they broke through the railing of the
sanctuary where he was preaching. The private dwelling in
which he preached was no longer capable of holding the ever­
swelling crowd ; it was converted into a church, called the
Anastasia, because St. Gregory had there, in some sort, raised
to life the Catholic faith, so long dead in the city (a. d. 379).
Such was the reputation enjoyed by the holy patriarch, that St.
Jerome undertook the journey to Constantinople for the sole
purpose of hearing him. The Latin doctor one day asked him
the meaning of an obscure expression of the Gospel ; St. Gregory
answered, laughing: “I will tell you to-night, in the church,
where everybody applauds me. You must needs seem, at least,
to understand me there ; for if you alone do not applaud you
will be taken for a barbarian.” We see here what St. Gregory
thought of popular applause, “ which show's most admiration for

ST. DAMA8U8 (A. D. NMN).

517

what it least understands,” says St. Jerome. Bat Demophiliw,
Arian bishop of Constantinople, left nothing untried to destroy
the influence of Gregory. Theodosius, failing in all his efforts
to bring him to the true faith, determined to banish him (a. i>
380). This measure seemed to promise a return of quiet. But
an Egyptian, named Maximus, who had hitherto professed the
cynic philosophy of the Epicureans, came to Constantinople,
succeeded in gathering a party about him, and had himself con­
secrated bishop of the city (a. d. 380). This outrage filled the
Catholics with grief. St. Gregory, unwilling to be even the
innocent cause of a division, made known his intention of
quitting a see which he had only entered with so much violence
to every personal inclination. He was, however, led by the
entreaties of the faithful to stay with them until a council,
which was soon to meet in Constantinople, could choose a
Catholic bishop. The question was brought for decision to Pope
Damasus, who protested against the irregular election of Maxi­
mus. He wrote to St. Ascholus to avail himself of the ap­
proaching council to choose a bishop of Constantinople. St.
Gregory still continued to beg the permission to retire into his
solitude. As he was urging his claim upon Theodosius, the
emperor replied : “ God makes use of me to keep you in this
church. The city is in such a state of excitement on this sub­
ject, that it even seems ready to force me to its wishes; but it is
well known that very little violence is needed to win my consent.’
8. The Council of Constantinople met in the month of May,
a. d. 381. St. Damasus had been notified of its convocation,
and approved it. He had given his directions to St. Ascholus
regarding the chief question to be treated—the election oi a
successor to St. Gregory’. The questions of dogma had
already been settled by him in his letters to the Asiatic
bishops. The profession of faith which he sent them bad
been signed by more than a hundred and fifty of their uue
ber. All the orthodox bishops had received the additions
made to tho Nicene Creed, and confirmed by tho Fathers of
Constantinople, concerning the divinity of the Holy Ghost, the

518

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

marks of the Church, the unity of baptism, the resurrection
of the body, and the life of the world to come. We call atten­
tion to these particulars, because the Council of Constantino­
ple, which was the second ecumenical or general council, was
not presided over by papal legates ; which fact has been urged
to prove that a council could have ecumenical authority with­
out tho sanction of the sovereign pontiff. The Council of
Constantinople was, in fact, ecumenical only through the
sanction of the popes, who confirmed all its acts, approved of
its letter and spirit, and pronounced its doctrine to be that of
the Universal Church. The bishops present at the council
at first assembled under the presidency of St. Meletius,
bishop of Antioch. The first subject of discussion was the
election of Maximus the Cynic, which was unamiously pro­
nounced irregular. The fathers of the council declared that
he could not be considered a bishop; that those whom he
had ordained, of whatsoever clerical rank, were not to be
admitted to the discharge of its duties, and that all his episco­
pal acts were null and illegal. Having driven the usurper
from the See of Constantinople, it remained to find a worthy
incumbent. Theodosius, who was an ardent admirer of the
eloquence and virtue of Gregory Nazianzen, found none more
worthy to fill so important a station ; he made known his con­
viction to the whole council. St. Gregory resisted even to
tears; but he was at length overcome, and St. Meletius, presi­
dent of the council, solemnly installed him. This was the
last act of the holy Bishop of Antioch. Meletius went to his
reward, and St. Gregory was unanimously called to preside.
Troubles soon arose in the council, occasioned even by the
death of St. Meletius. According to the agreement made
between the parties, with the consent of St. Damasus, Paulinus was alone entitled, as the surviving bishop, to govern the
Church of Antioch. Still a faction of the bishops proposed to
appoint a successor to Meletius, and actually consecrated the
priest Flavian as such. This was a means of perpetuating
the division in the Church. Gregory had done all in bis

8T. DAMASÜ8 (A. D. 3*5β-384).

$19

power to oppose this mensore. The failure of his effort», his
declining health, and the infirmities of old age, at last brought
him to the determination of throwing off the burden of the
episcopacy. His farewell address to the assembly, which if
still extant, is a model of eloquence, of self-denial, and of
charity. “Farewell,” said the eloquent archbishop, “out
*
Anastasia,
name once so promising, and due to our pious con­
fidence ; farewell, memorial of our triumph, new Siloê, where we
first set down the holy ark, disturbed and wandering for forty
years, in the desert ; farewell, too, great and illustrious temple,
our new conquest, which owes your present greatness to theWord
of God ; town of Jebus, of which we have made a Jerusalem;
farewell, all ye sacred abodes of the faith, second in dignity,
which embrace the different sections of the city, and form a
bond of union among them ; farewell, holy apostles, heavenly
colony, who have been my model in all my struggles; fare­
well, pontifical throne, coveted and perilous honor, council of
pontiffs, adorned by the virtue and the years of priests ; you,
ministers of the Lord at the holy table, who are so near to
God, when He comes down to us ; farewell, choir of Nazarenes,
harmony of the psalms, holy vigils, sanctity of virgins,
modesty of women, assemblies of orphans and widows, looks
of the poor, turned towards God and to me ; farewell, hospi­
table dwellings, friends of Christ, and strength of my weakness;
farewell, you who loved my’ discourses; eager throng in which
I saw the rapid pencils that stole away my words ; farewell,
rails of the sacred enclosure, which so often yielded to the
throngs who pressed forward to hear my voice. Farewell, 0
princes of the earth, palaces of kings, servants and courtiers,
faithful, it may’ be, to your master, but certainly, for the most
part, unfaithful to your God. Applaud your new orator, raise
him to the skies ! The voice which displeased you shall now
soon be hushed. Farewell, sovereign city, friend of Christ
(for I bear this testimony of it, though its zeal be not always
• Resurrection.

520

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

according to science, but the moment of separation softens my
words) ; come to the truth, amend at least now, though it be
but late. Farewell, guardian angels of this Church, who
watched over my presence here, who will still protect my
exile. And Thou, Holy Trinity, my constant thought and
my glory, may they keep Thy faith, and do Thou save them
all—save my people ! ”*
Nectarine was chosen to succeed him, and St. Damasus
ratified the election. The questions of dogma were next
taken up. Thirty-six bishops, headed by Eleuzius of Cyzicus,
refused to subscribe to the term unsubstantial, and were
solemnly pronounced heretics. The profession of Nice, with
the traditional additions mentioned above, and in the form in
which it is now sung in the Mass, was declared to express the
belief of the Church. The seven canons of discipline, then
drawn up by the council, regulate the jurisdiction of bishops,
confining it to the limits of their diocese, always saving the
supremacy of the Roman See over the other Churches ; trans­
lation of bishops from one see to another; the form of juridical
accusation against bishops ; the manner in which heretics are
to be received, when they return to the orthodox communion.
The Arians, Macedonians, Novations, Quartodecimani, and Apollinarists are to be admitted, on delivering a written abjuration
of their errors. The heretics who had changed the form of
the sacrament of baptism, as the Eunomians, the Afontanists,
and the Sabellians, who baptized with a single immersion, or
without the Catholic invocation of the three persons of the
Blessed Trinity, could only be reconciled to the Church,
having received Catholic baptism. The most celebrated of
all these canons is the third, which ascribed to the Patri­
arch of Constantinople the precedence, after the Roman pon­
tiff, for the reason that Constantinople was the new Rome.
It was on this ground that the patriarchs of Constantinople
subsequently based their claim of jurisdiction over all the
• Tableau de ^Eloquence chrétienne au IV· siècle. Translation of M. VnxBiuur.

ST. DAMA8U8 (A. D.

521

churches of Asia, and took to themselves the pompons title of
ecumenical patriarchs of the East. This canon of the General
Council of Constantinople never received the approbation of
the See of Rome. Pope St. Leo the Great (a. d. 451), in his
letter to the Council of Chalcedon, declares that, by this want
of sanction, it had been, from the first, utterly nullified: and
he sums up the apostolic tradition touching- the rank of the
patriarchs in this invariable rule : “ The See of Alexandria
shall lose nothing of the dignity it derives from St. Mark, the
disciple of St. Peter ; the Church of Antioch, birth-place of
the name of Christian, by the preaching of the same apostle,
shall keep the rank assigned it by the regulation of our fathers ;
let it never lose its place as third in order/’ The second
ecumenical council closed with a great solemnity, attending the
translation of the relics of St. Paul, patriarch of Constantino­
ple, who had died for the faith, under Constantins. The acts
of the council were sent to the pope ; and Photius, who states
the fact, positively asserts that blessedDamasus, by his authority,
confirmed the second council.
9. Whilst the integrity of the faith was thus maintained in
the East, the Council of Saragossa (a. d. 380) had condemned
the Priscillianists, who had already infected the greater part of
Spain with their error. Priscillian, from whom the sect bor­
rowed its name, had been the disciple of an Egyptian Manichee,
named Mark. His doctrine was but a tissue of the errors of
Manes, with a mingling of Gnostic visions and astrological ab­
surdities : a few bishops, amongst whom were Instantius and
Salvian, had fallen into this heresy, which was condemned with
its authors. At the close of the year a. d. 381, St. Ambrose was
presiding, at Aquileia, in a provincial council ol Italy, for the
condemnation of Palladius and Secundianus, two Illyrian bishops,
and the only prelates in all the West who still held the Mian
doctrines. The ravages of Manicheism in Egypt. in the uorth
of Africa, and in the provinces of Syria, determined Theodosius
the Great to establish against these heretics a law enjoining
upon the prœtorian prœfect of the East the establishment of an

622

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

inquisition. to seek out and pursue them (a. d. 382). This is the
first appearance of the name inquisitor against the heretics, in
the history of the Church. In the course of the same year, the
pope assembled a numerous council in Rome ; amongst the at­
tending bishops were St. Epiphanius of Cyprus, St. Paulinas of
Antioch, St. Ambrose of Milan, and St. Ascholus of Thessalonica. The council annulled the election of Flavian, which was
a preparation of schism in the Church of Antioch. The condem­
nation of the heretic Apollinaris, and his disciple Timothy, was
confirmed. St. Damasus, writing on this subject to the East­
ern bishops, commended their submission to the Holy See.
“When your charity, dearly beloved sons,” wrote the pontiff,
“pays to the Apostolic See the respect due to it, the greatest
advantage comes back to yourselves.” This was the last solemn
act of the pontificate of this truly great pope. The East and
the West, bound together in a common faith, acknowledged the
legitimate authority of the successor of St. Peter. To preserve
for future times, and irrevocably to fix the text of the Sacred
Scriptures, the pope had just caused St. Jerome to furnish, un­
der his personal supervision, an exact translation from the
original Hebrew. This is the version which the Council of Trent
afterward declared authentic. In the course of this immense
labor, besides the encouragement of the pope, St. Jerome re­
ceived also that of the most illustrious Roman ladies, who made
the sacred text their only study. Sts. Melania, Marcella,
and her sister Asella, Paula and her daughter Paulina, Lea and
Fabiola, and the virgin Eustochium, members of tho most illus­
trious houses of the time, became the disciples of the austere
anchoret of Palestine, who has made their names and their vir­
tues immortal in his eloquent works. The pope lavished upon
St. Jerome the honors due to his talents, but painful to his mod­
esty. He made him his private secretary, and intrusted him
with the charge of his extensive correspondence. It was in the
midst of suoh engagements that death came to end the glorious
works of St. Damasus I. (December 11th, a. d. 384)., Time had
still been left him to recommend to Theodosius the deacon Arse-

8T. SERICIUS (A. D. 3« 5-399).

523

nius, as governor to his son, Arcadiae Cæsar; and by this choice,
even at his last hour, he rendered a most important service to
the world, as he would have been instrumental in giving it a
master trained, in the school of virtue, had Arcadius answered to
the care of Arsenius.

§ II. Pontificate

of

St. Sericius (January 1st, a.d. 385—Nov.
25th, a. d. 398).

10. St. Sericius, a Roman priest, was elected pope on the
1st of January,, a. d. 385. He inaugurated his pontificate by an
answer to a consultation on various points of discipline, ad­
dressed by Himerius, metropolitan of Tarragona, in Spain, to
St. Damasus, who had died in the interval. This is the first
decretal which has come down to us. Decisions of this na­
ture are so called, because they have the force of laws. This
decretal furnishes rides for the reconciliation of heretics; for
the period of conferring solemn baptism, which custom then
placed between Easter and Pentecost; for the infliction of public
penance, the age of candidates for ordination, and the intervals
to be observed between the reception of the different orders.
The pope required thirty years for subdeacons and acolytes.
Five years of deaconship were necessary to entitle the candidate
to receive priestly orders, and ten years of priesthood to make
him eligible to the episcopacy. Another important particular,
treated by St. Sericius, is the celibacy of clerics, which he lays
down as an apostolic tradition. Another decretal was soon after
addressed to Anysius, disciple of St. Ascholus, and his successor
in the See of Thessalonica. The pope urges him to look to the
episcopal ordinations in Illyria, and not to allow, in his capacity
as metropolitan, any bishop to be consecrated without his con­
sent. In the event of his inability to preside personally at the
election and consecration, he is to delegate the prerogative to
some bishop whose fitness he approves.
11. The bright and cheering promise of Gratian’s youth
was suddenly blasted by his assassination at Treves (a. d.

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

383). The murderer, Maximus, an officer of his army, had
clothed himself with the imperial purple, and usurped his vic­
tim’s throne. He was soon to turn his attention to Gratian’s
brother, Valentinian the Younger, who reigned at Milan. The
Empress Justina, mother of the youthful prince, was too entirely
given up to the Arians, to think of taking any precautions against
such au attack. Her attention was wholly devoted to the per­
secution of St. Ambrose, who refused to yield one of the Mi­
lanese churches to the Arians (a. d. 385). In the following
year, the influence of Justina obtained the publication of an
edict, which enabled these heretics to assemble, and publicly
profess the doctrine of Rimini (a. d. 386). Benevolus, chan­
cellor of the empire, who was a zealous Catholic, refused to
sign the decree. He threw down his insignia of office at the
empress’s feet, and was exiled to Brescia. The repeated soli­
citations of Justina drew from St. Ambrose but one reply :
“ Naboth would not give up the heritage of his fathers, and
shall I give up the heritage of Christ ?” He was several days
kept in astate of siege, in the basilica, surrounded by a troop
of soldiers ; the people, meanwhile, were watchful of their
bishop’s safety. In these delicate circumstances, obliged to
make a daily exhortation to the multitude that shared his im­
prisonment, St. Ambrose was able to avoid the least expression
that could have tended to arouse or imbitter the passions of
his audience. He availed himself of this turn of affairs, U
awaken feelings of piety and faith in every heart. The won­
derful discovery of the relics of Sts. Gervasius and Protasius,
and the miracles attending their translation, completed the work
begun by the eloquence of the holy bishop. The Arians and the
Empress Justina at length made an end of their persecution.
This unlooked-for change was not a little due to a fear of Max­
imus. The report was circulated, with great show of proba­
bility, that Maximus was marching upon Italy, to dispossess
Valentinian III. In the hour of peril, the empress instinctive­
ly turned to the holy bishop, whom she had so lately treated
as an enemy. The reputation of Ambrose was immense,

ST. SERICIUS (A. D. 3Β5-39«).

525

throughout all Gaul. Some Franks once asked kbo-nv
,
**
general of the imperial armies, if he knew the Bishop of Milan :
“ I know him,” replied Arbogastes, “and he honors me with
his friendship.” “ It is not strange, then,” returned the
Franks, “ that you win so many victories, since you are the
friend of a man whose only word would stop the sun in its
course.” Justina accordingly had recourse to Ambrose, to
check the hostile designs of Maximus. He was begged to go
as an ambassador to the usurper, with the ostensible object of
claiming possession of the remains of Gratian. The holy
bishop, forgetting all the outrages he had received, immediate­
ly set out for Treves. Maximus met all his requests by evasive
answers (a. d. 387). The court was crowded with Spanish
bishops, urging the most extreme measures against the Priscillianists. Ambrose represented to them that God wills not the
death of the sinner, but his conversion, and he sought to re­
call them to the true spirit of the Church, the spirit of sweet­
ness and charity. As these obstinate hearts remained hard­
ened, he refused to communicate with them in the holy
mysteries. Maximus finding his instincts of cruelty seconded
by these bishops, openly proclaimed himself their protector ;
he ordered that all Priscillianists should be put to death, and
required St. Ambrose to communicate with the Spanish bishops.
The Bishop of Milan refused to comply. His example was
followed by St. Martin of Tours, who was also then at Treves.
The enraged usurper hereupon sent an order to St. Ambrose to
return to Milan. The fruitless issue of this embassy furnished
a pretext to the enemies of St. Ambrose for renewing their
intrigues against him. They complained of his rigid inflexi­
bility. A diplomatist was sent to Maximus, who received him
with every mark of good-will. St. Ambrose warned the em­
press to be on her guard against an enemy who cloaked his
hostile designs with a hypocritical show of friendehip. He
was not believed : but the last favorable report had hardly
reached Milan, when Maximus marched a formidable army over
the Italian frontier. Valentinian and his mother had hardly

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

time to embark for Thessalonica, where they put themselves
under the protection of Theodosius. This protection did net
fail them in their necessity. The great prince hurries on to
Pannonia, defeats, in two pitched battles, the forces of Maxi­
mus, twice as numerous as his own, pursues the usurper, whom
he overtakes at Aquileia, where the murderer of his sovereign
meets a disgraceful death—just punishment of his crime (July
28th, a. d. 388). This victory left Theodosius master of all
the West. Valentinian III. had never held sway beyond Italy,
Illyria, and Africa ; Theodosius returned these countries to
him, and added all the jurisdiction of Gratian—that is, Spain,
Gaul, and Great Britain—only admonishing the young emperor
to honor the God from whom all power derives, and no longer
persecute the Catholics, who were his most faithful subjects.
12. This act of moderation increased the glory of Theodosius
throughout the world. In the course ofk the preceding year
(a. d. 387), this emperor had given to all time a shining exam­
ple of clemency. An extraordinary subsidy had excited a sedi­
tion in Antioch. The city had been, for a season, given up to
the last excesses of popular madness ; the statues of Theodosius,
torn down from their pedestals, were dragged through the mire,
and theft left to the insults of the children, who carried the frag­
ments through the streets, amid jeers and execrations. When
the hour of frenzy had passed, a dull stupor fell upon every
guilty heart. The city awaited, in consternation, the moment
of retribution. The inhabitants, in hurried flight, escaped across
the fields, and Antioch soon resembled a vast tomb. Every
thing gave occasion to forebode a terrible chastisement. At the
first tidings of the outbreak, Theodosius, doubly angered because
of his constant kindness to Antioch, gave instant and most severe
orders. His couriers come upon this desolate people ; all hope
seems lost ; but there still remains for the salvation of Antioch
the self-devotion of its Bishop Flavian, and the eloquence of St.
Chrysostom. The magistrates were persuaded to delay the
execution of the imperial decrees until the return of the holy
bishop, who, careless of the wintry severity of the weather, re­

ST. SERICIC8 (A. D. 385-398).

527

gardless of his age and infirmities, set out, at once, nor rested
day or night until he had entered the gates of Constantinople.
Meanwhile John Chrysostom, to whom he had left the care of
consoling the flock in his absence, from the eminence of the
Christian pulpit, whence his winning and tender accents went
forth to draw and fix every heart, shortened these days of un­
certainty and cruel agony. This priest, whose name has become
immortal, as the type of a superhuman eloquence, was only
thirty years of age. He had renounced the prospects of a bril­
liant youth, had torn himself from the tearful pleadings of a
mother’s fondness, to hide himself in solitude. Flavian had dis­
pensed, on justifiable motives, with the usual discipline, and had
ordained him priest before the canonical age. John more than
realized the most sanguine hopes entertained in his regard. In
the present sad crisis, he was able to dry the tears of the people
and to calm their worst terrors. The city so hopeless in its con­
sternation, owed to him the return of quiet. During this time of
trial, he delivered twenty discourses, which are still extant, and
are fully equal to the most brilliant specimens of eloquence ever
produced by Rome or Athens. They show a most marvellous skill.
In his uncertainty as to the course Theodosius will pursue, he com­
bines the hope of forgiveness with a contempt for death, thus
preparing his hearers to receive with submission and resignation
the orders of Providence. He always affectionately shares the
feelings of his fellow-citizens, but he cheers and strengthens
them at the same time. Never dwelling too long on the thought
of their evils, he soon bears them up from earth to heaven. To
free them from their present fear, he inspires them with one more
lively, bringing before them the remembrance of their vices,
encouraging them to amend, and then shows them the arm of
God, infinitely more powerful than that of earthly king, uplifted
to strike them for their sins. But Flavian had reached the court
of Theodosius, and stood before the emperors weeping suppliant.
The address of the holy bishop, which is supposed to have come
from the pen of St. John Chrysostom, is an unapproachable
model. When he ceased speaking, the emperor could hardly

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

contain his emotion. At length, giving free course to his sobs,
he replied : “ What marvel if a man forgive men, his brothers,
when Jesus Christ, tho Lord and Master of the universe, cruci­
fied by the Jews, asks his Heavenly Father to forgive his exe­
cutioners ? Go, my father, return to the bosom of your flock ;
restore peace to the city of Antioch ; after so fierce a storm, it
can feel sure only when it once more sees its pilot.” Flavian
hurried back on his way ; but lest he should withhold from his
people even a few moments of happiness, he sent couriers before
him, who brought the emperor’s letter to Antioch, with incredi­
ble speed. It was read in the public square, amid the deepest
silence, but when the words were uttered by which Theodosius
recalled the orders previously given for the punishment of the
city and its inhabitants, one universal cry of joy rent the air.
In an instant every street is decked with festoons and wreaths;
banquets are spread in the public places ; the following night is
bright as the clearest day ; the whole city is illuminated ; and a
few days later Flavian enters the city in triumph.
13. It is to be regretted that Theodosius was not himself on
a similar occasion. The city of Thessalonica, the capital of
Illyria, had revolted on account of the arrest of a rider in the
circus, for whom the people showed a most enthusiastic admira­
tion (a. d. 389). The city magistrates were butchered, and the
governor, Botheric, who had signed the order of imprisonment,
was stoned by the mob. This revolt was doubly blamable, for
simple justice exacted the arrest of the criminal, who had led a
notoriously infamous life. When informed of the sedition, Theo­
dosius, in the first impulse of his anger, spoke of annihilating
the guilty city, thereby to impress all minds by a terrible exam­
ple, and to prevent the recurrence of a like disorder. St. Ambrose
succeeded in allaying this first outbreak of passion, and the em­
peror promised to follow the rules of justice. The case was
brought before the imperial council, where it was determined to
punish Thessalonica by a general massacre. The order was kept
secret, not to arouse the solicitude of St. Ambrose. The whole
population of the devoted city was gathered together in the cir-

ST. SERICIUS (A. D. 38:5-398).

529

eus, for the supposed purpose of witnessing a chariot-rare ; but
instead of the expected signal for the opening of the games, an­
other was given to the troops who surrounded the circus, to
begin the massacre. The carnage lasted three hours; citizen
and stranger, the feebleness of infancy and the decrepitude of
age, the virgin and matron as well as the strong in manhood,
crime and innocence, in one indiscriminate slaughter, lay a bloody
sacrifice to imperial wrath ; seven thousand person? perished in
this massacre. The grief of St. Ambrose was unbounded. Theo­
dosius himself, appalled at his own deed, a prey to bitter and
continual remorse, dared not approach the church for a period of
full eight months. St. Ambrose forbade him entrance; and
when Theodosius urged the example of David, whose crime God
had forgiven, the bishop replied: “You have followed him in
guilt, follow him also in penance." At length, on the feast of
Christmas, Theodosius came to St. Ambrose, who caused him
first to sign a decree, that a sentence of death or of confiscation
should only take effect thirty days after being pronounced, that
reason might have time to regulate the first impulse of anger
then he gave him absolution. Theodosius entered the basilica
of Milan, and there, before the assembled multitude, putting aside
his imperial decorations, he prostrated himself upon the pave
ment, which he bathed with his tears, repeating the words of Da­
vid : Adhœsit pavimento anima mea: vivifica me secundum verbum
tuum. The remembrance of the massacre of Thessalonica haunted
Theodosius till the hour of his death. The desire of atoning for
this crime redoubled his zeal against paganism; the idols and
temples were destroyed by his order, at Alexandria, and through­
out the whole of Egypt. The statue and temple of Serapis were
overturned ; then were brought to light the mysteries ot iniquity
so long practised by the pagan priests, and the deceits they had
used to mislead their votaries (a. d. 391). In his watchful zeal
to put down all abuses, Theodosius made a law against the
vagrancy of the Afassalians, a body of heretical monks already
condemned by St. Flavian of Antioch (a. d. 390). They main­
tained that prayer alone is necessary for salvation, to the exclu34

530

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

sion even of the sacraments. On this principle of loose morality
they led an idle life, wandering through the provinces of Syria,
and given up to every disorder. Matters of a more serious
character however soon called for the intervention of Theodo­
sius. Count Arbogastes had caused Valentinian III. to be
strangled (May 15th, a. d. 392). Since the death of his mother,
the Empress Justina, the influence of St. Ambrose was gradu­
ally bringing out the good qualities of this youthful emperor.
The murderer then placed on the imperial throne a scholar
named Eugenius, a mere shadow of a monarch, through whom
he himself hoped to reign. St. Ambrose, true to the memory of
Valentinian, would hold no communion with the murderer, but
fled from Milan, at his approach. Eugenius and Arbogastes
swore, in their rage, that they would revenge themselves by
turning the basilica of Ambrose into a stable, and by obliging
the Milanese clergy to bear arms. Theodosius left them no time
to put their threats into execution. He hurried forward, and met
them in Italy ; and with the battle of Aquileia ended the ephem­
eral reign and the life of Eugenius and Arbogastes (September
6th, a. d. 394). Theodosius immediately sent tidings of his
victory to St. Ambrose, asking him to return thanks to heaven
for this signal favor. The holy bishop made use of his influence
with the emperor, to obtain the pardon of all who had shared in
the revolt of Arbogastes, which was readily granted. The em­
peror, who now began to feel the effects of shattered health,
made the necessary dispositions to secure a quiet succession, in
the event of his approaching death. He divided his states be­
tween Iiis two sons. Arcadius, the elder, received the East;
Honorius, the West. Neither of these two princes made an
effort to dispel the world’s regret at the loss of Theodosius the
Great, who died at Milan, on the 17th of January, a. d. 395 ; the
name of St. Ambrose was the last word that passed his bps.
Theodosius was the model of a Christian ruler. The spirit of
the Gospel seemed to inspire his administration, his laws and the
great actions of his reign. The massacre of Thessalonica gives
us a truer view of his greatness, in all the humiliation of penance,

ST. SERICIUS (A. D. 385-39»),

531

than the hour of his most glorious triumph. The fanerai oration
pronounced by St. Ambrose over this great emperor, moved the
assembled multitude, and even the soldiers, to tears. “ I loved
the hero,” said the saint, “ who wept over the sin into which the
intrigues of others had drawn him ; and wept for it during the
remainder of his life ! He had but lately returned victorious
from the most just of wars, and yet he forebore, for a time, to
approach the sacred mysteries, that he might not make an offer­
ing at the holy table with blood-stained hands. I loved the
merciful and clement hero ; therefore from my heart do I weep
for him. I loved him ; and my prayers and tears shall incessantly
plead before the Lord, that he may be admitted to the holy
mountain of God, in the true land of the living." The whole
Church shared the sorrow of St. Ambrose, and she still holds the
memory of Theodosius in veneration. The holy bishop did not
long survive the prince he had loved so well He had just re­
ceived an embassy from Fretigil, a queen of the Marcomanni,
asking to be instructed in the truths of the faith. His answer,
which was written in the form of a catechetical instruction, is a
master-piece. The queen, induced by the reputation of the vir­
tue of St. Ambrose, came to Milan, to receive baptism at his
hands. But she arrived only in time to learn that the saint had
gone to receive the reward of his labors, on the 4th of April, a. d.
397, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. The numerous works
of St. Ambrose, on the Sacred Scripture, and against heresies,
his books on morals and his letters, all abound in a wonderftd
unction and sweetness of style. In his writings we find the
first mention of the word mass, in relation to the Holy Sacri­
fice of the altar. The Church still sings several hymns of his
composition. They had become so celebrated that they were
long called by the general name, Ambrosianum, because St. Am­
brose had first brought their use into the Latin Church. Tradi­
tion attributes to St. Ambrose the Te Deum, the solemn anthem
of thanksgiving adopted by the whole Church. The chanting of
psalms, by alternate choirs in public worship, is also said to have
been introduced by him, when the faithful of Milan, imprisoned

532

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

in tho basilica, guarded their holy bishop against the persecution
of the Empress Justina. But this can only refer to the Western
Church, for the custom had long prevailed in the East.
14. The most glorious, the undying praise of St. Ambrose,
is to have been the father of St. Augustine in the life of grace.
Augustine was born in the year 354, in the little city of Tag·
aste, near Madaura and Hippo, in Numidia (the present
Algeria). His mother, St. Monica, brought him up in the
fear of God ; but the ardent disposition of the youth led him
into the path of pleasures which he joined to an unquench­
able thirst for knowledge. At the age of twenty-eight years,
Augustine had mastered the whole circle of human science then
taught, and gained the unbounded applause of all his masters.
He was then a celebrated professor of rhetoric at Carthage.
His morals were those of the wealthy youths of his time.
When an occasional ray of the light of grace found its way
into his heart, and gave him the passing desire of a life more
worthy of a man and of a Christian ;—when he was thus moved
by a wish to quit the ways of vice, he begged of God to give
him a pure heart; but quickly starting back affrighted at the
apparent austerity of virtue, he checked himself and added:
“Not yet! not yet!” Still St. Monica wished to bring forth
anew this well-beloved son, by opening to him the gates of
heaven, as she had ushered him into this terrestrial world.
Augustine showed no inclination to correspond to this mother’s
care, and as if to shut out every remaining hope of conver­
sion, he had lately taken up the heresy of the Manichees. St.
Monica told her grief to a pious bishop, and begged him to
labor for the salvation of this dear soul. “Go,” said the holy
bishop, “ it is impossible that the child of such tears should
be lost.” The prediction was to be soon accomplished. Augus­
tine went to Italy, and obtained the chair of rhetoric in the
city of Milan. It was at this time that the whole world was
resounding with the praises of St. Ambrose, as an orator.
Augustine must hear him. The mind of the youthful profes­
sor was powerfully affected by the sweetness of his gentle

ST. SERICIUS (Λ. D. 386-398).

533

and impressive language, by the elegance, the majestic flow and
gracefulness of his discourses, which gave to the language of
Virgil all the attic purity of that of Plato. Hie whole attention,
in the beginning, was fixed on the delivery; little by little, how­
ever, his mind was led insensibly along, by the train of thought,
and the matter outweighed the form. Without, however, giving
up the passions that were wearing away his life, he gave himself
to the serious study of St. Paul, whose sublimity pleased his
eager intellect. In the midst of his dissolute friends, whose
conduct often put him to the blush, though he still kept op an
illicit connection in which he prided himself on a certain dr
gree of fidelity, he was ever unwittingly followed by diviue
grace. It pursued him by means of the stings of remorse, of
momentary returns to self-knowledge, in which he felt his
weakness, and asked of God, with many sighs, the strength
necessary to overcome himself. In one of these moments of
extraordinary feeling, arising from an account which he had
just heard of the life and austerities of St. Anthony, he sud­
denly arose and left the room, saying to his friend Alypius :
“ What ! the ignorant take heaven by violence; and we senseless
wretches ! with all our miserable science, rise not above flesh and
blood !” With these words, he buried himself in the solitude
of a deserted walk in the garden, there to calm the storm that
troubled his heart. Now was the season of grace. Yielding
to a hitherto unknown emotion, he threw himself upon his
knees, exclaiming : “ How long, 0 Lord ! shall I always say :
to-morrow ! to-morrow ! Why not to-day ? Why not now, at
this very moment !” As he uttered these words he heard an
interior voice saying to him : Take, and read. A volume of
St. Paul lay at his feet ; he opened it at random and read this
passage : “ Sicut in die honeste ambulemus ; non in comissationi­
bus, et ebrietatibus ; non in cubilibus ei impudicitiis, non in conten­
tione et annulations, sed induimini Dominum Jesum Christum, et
carnis curam ne feceritis in desideriis."
*
All his past life, with
• Rom. xii. 13, 11

634

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

its many disorders, passions and ambitious aims, lay unfolded
before his mind, in all its hideous deformity. His understand­
ing was bathed in a supernatural and irresistible light, whilst
his heart had yielded to the charms of virtue. Augustine was
converted. The power of passion was nt an end ; the empire
of grace began. He quitted his chair of rhetoric, gave up the
hope of a wealthy alliance, and all the bright promise which
the world held out to his talents. He retired, with his mother,
his son Adeodatus, and a few friends, to a solitude in the neigh­
borhood of Milan. His treatises, against the Academicians, on
Happiness, on Order, the Soliloquies, and the work on Music,
were the fruits of these hours of retreat, out of which he only
came forth on Easter-day, in a. d. 387, to receive baptism from
the hands of St. Ambrose. Monica, the happy mother, wit­
nessed this ceremony, for which she had so long and so fervent­
ly prayed. She died in peace, at Ostia, towards the end of
the same year, admonishing; her son to remember her at the
altar of the Lord. The first duty to which St. Augustine
devoted himself, after his baptism, was the conversion of the
Manichees, whose errors he had just cast off. To this end he
wrote two books, called : The morality of the Catholic Church,
and The morality of the Manichees. These he followed up with a
yet more important work, entitled : On Free-will, where he most
thoroughly tests the question of the origin of evil, and answers
the most specious objections against the goodness and provi­
dence of God, by which it is embarrassed. In a. d. 388, he
left Italy, and returned to Africa, where he continued his life
of solitude and study, near Tagaste. At this very period,
Valerius, bishop of-Hippo, was beginning to sink under the
weight of years and infirmities. The holy old man, finding
himself unable longer to fulfil the duty of preaching to his
people, felt the want of a learned and able priest to whom he
could intrust that important ministry. Regardless, therefore,
of the convert’s repugnance for all public employments, Vale­
rius ordained him priest. So successfully did Augustine dis­
charge his sacred duties, that the bishop was encouraged to

ST. SERICIUS (A. D. 385-JMj.

535

ask a favor almost without precedent at the time, that of
having Augustine consecrated as his coadjutor. The Church
was opposed to this usage, as it might cause such schisms as
that of Antioch, which had so long kept the public mind in a
state of division. But the united suffrages of the bishops of
the province, who had met at Hippo, approved the choice, and
St. Augustine was consecrated (a. d. 395). Humility, love of
retirement, passion for study, regular and frugal habits, all
clung to Augustine even amid the honors of the episcopacy.
His priests lived with him, and together they led the regular,
uniform life of cloistered monks.
15. Whilst Augustine was thus ascending the scale of eccle­
siastical dignities, and was destined soon to take the lead in the
great religious movement of his time, another of the brightest
lights of the Latin Church sought to hide its lustre in the solitude of
a contemplative life, to escape the employments and the renown
by which it was encircled; this was St. Jerome. Since the
death of St. Damasus I., his friend and protector, St. Jerome
had felt the attacks of a thousand secret jealousies, a thousand
rivalries, which had been concealed during the season of favor.
The power of his words, his apostolic freedom in pointing out
and branding abuses, had created enemies. His great soul was
above these petty strifes, and he resolved to win peace by yield­
ing to envy ; he left Rome, returned to Palestine, and made his
abode in Bethlehem. St. Paula and her daughter, St. Eustochium, followed him and placed themselves under his direction.
The last days of St. Jerome’s life were devoted to the study of
Holy Writ, the guidance of souls, and the exercise of hospitality
towards strangers, and from the midst of these saintly labors, he
passed away to receive the reward of his long life of holy toil.
Gaul was not debarred from a share in the great movement
which made the fourth century the richest in great names, of
the Church’s History. By the side of St. Martin of Tours, in
the veneration and grateftd remembrance of posterity, a place
has been given to St. Paulinus, who was born at Bordeaux (a.
d. 353), of a senatorial family ; he was ordained priest at Barce-

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GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Iona, and wont to end his days at Nola, by the tomb of St. Felix,
whose glory he has immortalized in his charming and elegant
Latin poems. Among the other illustrious names of this period,
are found those of St. Delphin, bishop, and St. Amandus, a priest
of Bordeaux ; St. Aper, bishop of Toul ; St. Victricius, bishop
of Rouen, apostle of the regions inhabited by the Marini and
Nervii, now comprised in the provinces of Picardy, Hainaultand
Flanders ; and St. Sulpitius Severus, who was of a noble and
wealthy family of Aquitaine, lie had so perfectly mastered the
style of the authors of the Augustan age, that he might almost
be classed amongst them. He became a disciple of St. Martin
of Tours, and wrote his life. He also compiled a Sacred History,
or Ecclesiastical History, from the beginning of the world to the
year 400 of the Christian era. This work is a master-piece of
precision and elegance.
16. The East was not backward in sending its laborers into
the Lord’s vineyard. Whilst the weak emperors Arcadius and
Honorius let fall the sceptre from their nerveless grasp, Stilicho
and Rutinus, their ministers, were making profit of the employ­
ments and offices which they sold to barbarians ; and now the
Church of God was stretching out her empire, and was clothed
with greater splendor and power than ever. In the year 398, St.
Gregory Nazianzen had ended his long career of saint, doctor,
bishop and hermit. He died in the retreat of Arianzus, solacing
his last moments by the pious flights of Christian poetry. His
poems treat the loftiest themes of Christian spirituality. He
wrote on the Principle of Beings, on the Trinity, on Providence,
the Angels, the Soul, the Harmony of the two Testaments, the In­
carnation of the Word, the Miracles of Christ, Virginity, and the
Monastic Life. At the same period, death also removed St.
Gregory of Nyssa, brother of St. Basil, one whose holy life, pre­
cision of thought, powerful reasoning, and pure style in his
numerous writings, made worthy of such a relationship. His
writings were chiefly directed against the errors - taught in his
time, by the Arians, Sabcllians, and Pneumatomachists. But all
these great names were followed by one whose renown was given

ST. SERICKJ8 (A. D. 38&-39S).

537

back by every echo in the Greek Church. John of Antioch, who
was made patriarch of Constantinople in a. d. 398, and surname!
Chrysostom, or the Golden Mouth, achieved a reputation which
deservedly ranks amid the most illustrious and best merited
of antiquity. To avoid a popular sedition, it had been found
necessary to remove him secretly from Antioch. Thns tom
from the enthusiastic attachment of that Church, he was thrown
like a prisoner into a carriage, and carried, without a halt, to
Constantinople. There he was consecrated by a council called
for the purpose by the eunuch Eutropius, who had supplanted
Rufinus as the favorite of Arcadius. John of Antioch ascended
the episcopal throne, weeping over his lost repose and former
independence ; but he did not allow himself to be overcome by
useless regrets. His first care was the reformation of his clergy
and the entire extirpation of heresy. His charity, motherly in
its solicitude, reached every want, founded and endowed hospi­
tals, houses of refuge for virgins, and directed all the efforts of
his eloquence to induce the rich of the world to make conse­
crated temples of their abodes, by receiving in them Jesus Christ,
in the persons of His poor. The first year of St John Chrysos­
tom’s episcopate was marked by the arrival at Constantinople of
the Christian Pindar, Synesius, whom his native province Cyre­
naica had delegated to Arcadius, to beg for help against the in­
roads of the barbarians. Synesius, both philosopher and poet
traced back his lineage to the ancient kings of Sparta. He was
gifted with a most brilliant imagination, and with so flexible a
mind, that he could imitate, at will, all the authors he read, how­
ever different in style and varied in the turn ol their ideas. He
had been formed by the most celebrated masters ; in Alexan­
dria he had frequented the school of Hypatia, daughter of the
astronomer Theon, a prodigy of learning, who gave public lec­
tures on mathematics and on the philosophy of Plato. Athens had
opened to him its schools, in which studious youth was urged on
by so many noble memories and great examples. Re turned at
last towards the land of liis birth, richly laden with treasures of
imagination and intellect, gathered together in his many wan-

538

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

derings, and which he devoted, in the highest order of poetry, to
erect a monument to the faith. His hymns are so many poetic
aspirations, bearing him by degrees above every order of created
being, until he rests in the very bosom of God ; but the swelling
tide of his sentiments finds no expression in human language
capable of conveying it; he often complains of this poverty,
which obliges him to multiply figures, some of which may thus
be wanting in exactness ; for this he humbly asks pardon. This
poetical feature of Christianity, which had now attracted such
minds as St. Paulinus of Nola, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and Synesius, shows a new tendency. The struggle with paganism,
and the theological contests against the Arians, had given way
to the poetical development of Christian intellect. Eloquence,
literature, the fine arts, legislation, all became subservient to the
triumphal progress of religion. But this flight was not long : it
soon shared the fate of all the old world, in the barbarian in­
vasion.
17. St. Sericius had seen his pontificate successively illu­
mined by all these splendors of the church. His watchful
care reached every part of the world, and his authority was
everywhere acknowledged and blessed. He had repeatedly
condemned the excessive zeal of the Spanish Ithacians, who
urged on the magistrates and tribunals to extreme measures
against the Priscillianists. The whole church approved his de­
cision, which was founded on the law of charity. The particu­
lar provincial councils sought his concurrence. Those held
at Carthage (a. d. 393-398) consult him respecting baptism
conferred by the Donatists, and ask if it is allowed to ordain
those who have received it. A council of Gallic bishops, as­
sembled at Turin, refers to Pope Sericius the validity of the
election of Felix, bishop of Treves, who had been ordained
by the Ithacians (a. d. 397). He was also consulted by the
bishops of Gaul, who wished to know, on the authority of the
Apostolic See, what the canon laws required in regard to the
continence of clerics, ordinations, and monasteries for virgins.
Sericius answered by a decretal, in which he repeats the in-

8T. ANASTASIÜS I. (A. D. 39MOT).

539

strnctions sent, some time before, to Himerius, bishop of Tar­
ragona. In the most unaffected modesty and humility, the
pope lays down, with apostolic firmness and vigor, the teaching
of the ancient discipline. If the dignity of his tone and bear­
ing show him to be the ruler of the Church, the Vicegerent
of God; the Father of Christendom, the Pastor of pastors also
speaks in the meekness, gentleness and charity which eminent­
ly characterize his every word. 8t. Sericius died on the 25th
of November, a. d. 398, after a pontificate of nearly fourteen
years. Tradition attributes to him the introduction, into the
prayers of the mass, of the Communicantes, and the exclusive
application to the Sovereign Pontiff of the title of pope. The
name had been common to all priests. It expressed the spiri­
tual paternity of the pastor over his flock. It was subsequent­
ly limited to bishops. St. Sericius introduced the now universal
tradition of confining its application to the Roman Pontiff
alone.

§ III. Pontificate of St. Anastasiüs I. (Nov. 26th, a. d. 398—
April 27th, 402).

18. St. Anastasiüs I. was raised to the pontifical throne on
the 26th of November, a. d. 398. St. Jerome styles the new
pontiff “ a man of most rich poverty, and endowed with apostolic
zeal” Tradition ascribes to this pope, a decree, by which the
entrance to holy orders is closed against those who are affect­
ed with any bodily blemish. This measure was based on the
necessity uf securing respect for the priestly ministry, and b
save it from even the most unjust occasion of ridicule. 8
Ambrose, whose merciful charity yielded only to a stem sense
of duty or justice, strictly withheld holy orders from a young
cleric, who had one shoulder more prominent than the other.
The Catholic priesthood may not be treated less honorably
than that of the Old Law, which multiplied the precautions to
be observed in the choice of its ministers. Another regulation
aimed at the reform of an abuse which was creeping into the

540

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Churches. Foreign clerics or monks were ordained priests in
the Church where they happened to be at the time, without
the consent of their bishop. St. Anastasius forbade any such
ordination, unless authorized by a letter bearing the signature
of the bishop to whom the candidate was subject, and who
alone had authority over him. This is the real origin of
the dimissorial letters. St. Anastasius also decreed that, dur­
ing the reading of the gospel, the priests should stand, that
their attitude might express the respect due to the good tid­
ings which brought salvation to the world. This custom has
also become general in the Church.
The short pontificate of St. Anastasius carried on the work
begun by St. Sericius, of establishing a regular and uniform
discipline throughout all the Churches of the world. The fifth
Council of Carthage (a. d. 400) had just succeeded in quieting
the African Church, and was engaged with the error of the
Manicheans and of the Donatists, Avhich still survived in that
country. The first Council of Toledo (a. d. 400) brought to­
gether the bishops of all the Spanish provinces, who solemnly
recognized and professed the faith of Nice. It also made all
the necessary regulations for the clerical life, and for the dis­
positions relative to marriage, which it emphatically declared
to be one and indissoluble, which characters were unknown to
the Roman law. In virtue of the principle laid down by St.
Sericius, the Council of Toledo gives to the bishop of Rome
the name of pope, as a distinctive title. This is the first
monument of ecclesiastical history that furnishes this peculi­
arity.
19. The attention of the East was now fixed upon two facts
of a far different character. One belongs to the domain of
politics, and would claim no mention in ecclesiastical history but
for the part taken in it by St. John Chrysostom, patriarch of
Constantinople; we refer to the disgrace of Eutropius. The
other is the famous dispute between two friends of twenty
years’ standing, both renowned for their holiness, their labors,
and their ecclesiastical knowledge—St. Jerome and the priest

8T. ANA8TA8IDB 1. (A. D. 3M-4M).

Ml

Rufinus. We propose to analyze these two events, which alone
fill up the pontificate of St. Anastasius I. The eunuch Eutro­
pius, in the pride of his power and of the favor lavished upon
him by Arcadius, ruined whole provinces, solt^ positions of trust,
and squandered the public revenue, to supply the demands of
his luxurious prodigality. He bad statues raised in his own
honor, under the pompous titles of Father of his country, of
Third founder of Constantinople, of Invincible Warrior. His
boldness went so far as openly to resist an order of the empress
Eudoxia. It was his last excess, and filled the measure of his
outrages. The emperor Arcadius was weary of this tyranny of
an inferior, and ordered the arrest of Eutropins. The minister
who but yesterday held the whole world at his beck, now finds
not a single door that will open to shelter his disgrace. Dis­
mayed, terrified, distracted by a blow equally sudden and
crushing, he seeks refuge in the church, and places himself
under the protection of St. John Chrysostom. But the imperial
troops, who had long groaned under the hateful and humiliating
tyranny of the insolent eunuch, were eager to wreak a pitiless
revenge upon his person. They surround the church and call
for their victim. The holy patriarch resists their violence ; he
is himself seized and carried as a rebel to the palace. St. John
Chrysostom appears before the emperor and obtains the pardon
of Eutropius. But neither the people nor the soldiery seem
disposed to ratify this act of mercy ; the emperor’s voice is un­
heeded, and the night is disturbed by the cries and imprecations
of the bloodthirsty multitude. On the next day, St. John
Chrysostom, placing all his confidence in the power of Christian
eloquence, whose triumphs he had so often witnessed, appeared
in the pulpit, surrounded by a dense mass of the excited people.
All eyes were fixed upon Eutropius, the imperious minister, but
lately the idol of the court and the terror of the empire, now
forsaken, pale, trembling, cowering in the shadow of a pillar,
finding an asylum in the church which he had despised in the
hour of prosperity. This striking contrast was eloquently
brought out by the sacred orator; the storm of popular passion

542

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE OHURCH.

was lulled by the influence of those merciful accents, and angry
hatred found vent in tears of pity ; Eutropius was saved (a. d.
399). Whilst Constantinople witnessed this display of human
vicissitude, all Palestine was engaged with the dispute between
St. Jerome and Rufinus. Rufinus was a native of Friuli, but
had first embraced the monastic life at Aquileia, where he was
subsequently ordained priest; he then came to Bethlehem,
accompanied by St. Melania, who lived there under his direction.
He was bound to St. Jerome by the closest ties of friendship,
and shared his labors, studies, and ascetic life. For twenty
years the world was held in admiration of this union, so fruitful
in beneficial labors. Still it was not proof against a trifling cir­
cumstance which cast the seed of a lamentable division into the
souls of the two friends. A charge of teaching the errors of
Origen was brought against St. Jerome and Rufinus, by some
Anthropomorphites, a heretical sect, who ascribed to God a
human shape. Rufinus deigned them no reply ; St. Jerome, on
the contrary, felt bound to justify himself. This different fine
of conduct opened the dispute. It was embittered by a transla­
tion of the Περί άρχων, Origen’s work on Principles, undertaken by
Rufinus. St. Jerome wrote against his old friend with a certain
degree of sharpness ; Rufinus replied in the same strain. The
debate was carried to Rome (a. d. 400). The translation of
Origen’s work was condemned by St. Anastasius I., yet saving
the translator’s intentions, which might be free from reproach.
St. Epiphanius of Salamis, who had lately come to Palestine,
also took part with St. Jerome, against Rufinus, and publicly
preached against Origenism. St. Augustine, who had learned
of the dispute, from the pen of St. Jerome himself, replied:
“How sad to see two souls, once so closely united, whose
friendship was the admiration of nearly· all the Churches
of the world, now fallen into a state of discord 1 What
hearts shall hereafter dare to hold interchange of confi­
dence ? Where shall we find the friend into whose bosom we
may, with safety, pour our most secret thoughts and feelings,
without a fear that he may one day become an enemy, since we

8T. ANARTASIIJS I, (A. D. 39MOÏ).

543

see and deplore this misfortune in Jerome and Rufinus?”
Was the heart of St. Jerome moved by these touching words?
It may be easily believed. From that moment, he ceased to
write against Rufinus ; and the mediation of St. Melania soon
publicly reconciled the two old friends. Rufinus continued his
labors ; a Translation of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius,
an Explanation of the Creed, a great number of Lives of the
Fathers, engaged his attention until his death, in the year
410.
20. St. Martin of Tours had died in the second year of the
pontificate of St. Anastasias (a. d. 399), at the age of more
than eighty years. Moved by the tears of his disciples, who
stood around his death-bed, he exclaimed: “Lord, if I can
still be useful to Thy people, I refuse not to labor; but Thy
will be done.’’ A few moments later, he added: “My breth­
ren, let me look to heaven rather than to earth, that my soul
may wing its flight to God.” He had himself stretched out
upon a sackcloth covered with ashes, to end a life of austerity
and self-denial by an act of humility and mortification. His
countenance, after death, was lighted up by a look of heavenly
joy. The body of the holy bishop was buried in his episcopal
city, in the spot afterwards crowned by the church and monas­
tery of St. Martin of Tours. This sanctuary became a place
of frequent pilgrimage in the early days of the French mon­
archy. He was succeeded by St. Brice, one of his disciples.
At about the same period, St. Anastasias received a depu­
tation from the African bishops, asking leave to keep the
converted Donatists in the ranks of the clergy. This measure
had been approved by a council held at Carthage, on the 16th
of June, a. d. 401, both on account of the scarcity of clerics,
and to open to the Donatists an easy return to the Catholic
faith. The request met with a favorable reception from the
pope. The apostolic solicitude of St. Anastasius was about to
be called into action, on behalf of the Church of Constanti­
nople, and of its holy patriarch, against whom the empress
Eudoxia was just opening a persecution; but death came to

644

GENERAL· HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the relief of the holy pontiff, in the midst of his good works
(April 27th, a. d. 402). His pontificate had lasted but three
years, and in that brief space he won the tribute paid him
by Innocent I. : “ Anastasius,” said he, “ governed the Church
in the purity of an exemplary life, the fulness of an unim­
peachable doctrine, and the just firmness of ecclesiastical
authority.”

ST. INNOCENT I. μ. D. iOMH).

54Λ

CHAPTER V.
SUMMARY.

§ I.

Pontificate

of

St. Innocent

I. (April, a. ». 402—March, 417).

I. Letters of St Innocent I., to various bishops of France, Spain and Afriex—
2. First oxjle of St John Chrysostom.—3. Second exile and death · f St
John Chrysostom.—4. Invasion of Rome by Alaric.—5. City of God, by
St Augustine. Pelagianism.—6. Death of St Innocent L

§ II.

Pontificate

of

St. Zosimus

(August, a. d. 417—December, 419).

7. Labors and death of St. Zosimus.
§ III.

Pontificate

of

St. Boniface I.

(Dec. 30, a. d. 418—Oct 25, 422).

8. Election of St Boniface I. Antipope Eulalius. Question of the right of
appeal to the Holy See agitated by the Bishops of Africa.—9. Pretensions
of Atticus, Bishop of Constantinople, to jurisdiction over all the Asiatic
Churches.—10. Death of St Jerome and of St Boniface I.
§ IV.

Pontificate

of

St. Celestin

I. (Nov. 3, a. d. 422—April 0, 432).

II. Semi-Pelagianism.—12. Cassian. St Simeon Stylites. Invasion of Africa
by Genseric. Death of St. Augustine.—13. The Franks in Gaul St
Lupns of Troyes, St. Eucherius of Lyons, St Germanus of Auxerre. Ac.—
14. Nestorius. Third General Council, at Ephesus. Death of St Celestin L

§ V.
15.

Pontificate

of

St. Sixths

III. (April 26, a. d. 432—March 28, 439).

Election of St Sixtus ΠΙ.—16. Prudentius. Sedulius. Predestioarianiim.
St. Prosper.—17. Thcodosian Code. Barbarian invasion of the different
Provinces of the Empire. Death of St Sixtus III.

§ I. Pontificate of St. Innocent I. (April, a. d. 402—March. 417).
1. The fifth century opens with the pontificate of St
Innocent I., who ascended the chair of St. Peter in a. d. 402
35

546

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

The decline of the Roman Empire, in the West, dates from
this period. In the inscrutable designs of Providence, always
watchful over the Church’s destinies, all things were so dis­
posed that in the downfall of the old world, the power of the
pope and of the bishops should alone remain standing amid
the universal wreck. The barbarians, breaking in upon the
Roman Empire, at every point, every where meet, in the religion
of Jesus Christ, a moral power far higher, more imposing, more
commanding than that of arms. The authority of the Roman
Pontiff rises simultaneously'· with the fall of the Cæsars ; victor
and vanquished together kneel before the conquering cross,
and under the hand of the vicar of God on earth. Innocent I.,
who was to witness the first invasion of Rome, by the Goths,
ascended the pontifical chair, to find the Roman Empire in the
hands of two princes, equally incapable of ruling it, or of
freeing themselves from the sway of their own ministers.
Honorius, in the West, had placed all his power in the hands
of his favorite, Stilicho, a Vandal, whose daughter he had
married. In the East, Arcadius was the tool of his eunuchs,
and of the caprices of his empress, Eudoxia. The political
condition of the empire was most lamentable ; but the Church
seemed to gain in strength, union and harmony, what the
empire lost in greatness. The rule of Innocent I. was marked
by a singular prudence ; his enlightened views, correct judg­
ment, and deep penetration, drew from St. Augustine expres­
sions of the highest praise. The new pope retained all the
members of the preceding administration : “ New-comers,” said
he, “ only' embarrass matters, before they understand them."
His decretals went to all parts of the world, to confirm the
established discipline. In one of these letters, addressed to
St. Victricius, bishop of Rouen (a. d. 404), the pope recalls
the canons relating to the ordination of bishops and priests,
and to the exclusive cognizance of spiritual matters by the ec­
clesiastical tribunals. Another (a. d. 405) decides several par­
ticular cases referred to the Holy See, by St. Exuperius,
bishop of Toulouse. The law of clerical celibacy, the indisso-

ST. INNOCENT ϊ. (Λ. D. 40ΜΙΤ>.

547

lability of the marriage tie, and the rulee of penance. are
there laid down in accordance with the constant and invariable
tradition of the Church. Africa, still ravaged by the violence
of the Donatists, earnestly begged the help of the Roman
Pontiff. Three councils had met at Carthage, to consider the
means of obtaining peace (a. d. 402, 403, 404). In every
city, the Catholic prelates had proposed to the Donatists to
hold public conferences. The proposals had been everywhere
rejected. The council at length resolved to send a deputation
of bishops to the emperor, urging him to enforce against the
Donatists the laws of Theodosios the Great, relative to here­
tics. The embassy bore a letter of recommendation to the
pope, St. Innocent I. The emperor granted their request In
his answer to the fathers of the council, St. Innocent calls
their attention to the canonical obligation of bishops to resi­
dence, and admonishes them to guard against the absence of
prelates from their dioceses, unless for most weighty reasons.
At this period, the watchful energy of St. Innocent I stifled,
at its birth, a schism about to come to light in Spain. The
council of Toledo had consented to communicate with 8ymphosius, Dictinus, and several other bishops of Galicia, who
had abjured the heresy of the Priscillianists. These prelates
were allowed to retain their rank and authority. This decision
seemed too indulgent in the eyes of the bishops of Bœtica
and of the province of Carthagena, and they refused commu­
nion with those who received it. The matter was referred to the
pope, who approved the decision of the council of Toledo, and
commanded the Spanish bishops to communicate with all whom
the council had restored.
2. But the holy pontiff’s care was now chiefly called to the
religious state of the Eastern Church. Its most eloquent and
zealous bishop, St. John Chrysostom, found himself accused,
condemned, persecuted, exiled by his brethren in the episco­
pacy, and saw but one hand outstretched to save, and not to
strike, that of the successor of St. Peter. The holy patriarch
of Constantinople had made himself many enemies, by his zeal

548

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

for the reformation of his clergy, and the suppression of every
abuse. In a council called by him, at Ephesus, he caused
the deposition of six simoniacal bishops, convicted of having
bought their ordination from their met ropolitan (a. d. 403). He
also deposed the bishop of Nicomedia, Gcrontius, for procuring
his ordination by Helladius of Cæsarea, at the price of an im­
portant office at court, obtained for a relative of Helladius.
He was entangled in new difficulties, by a matter of a yet more
important nature, in which he acted with his usual uprightness.
Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, was exceedingly irritated
against the hermits of Scete, for receiving a priest he had
driven from his church. He accordingly called a council, in
which he had them convicted of Origenism, though they had
not been granted a hearing. Acting under an inconceiv­
able excess of rage, he even headed a troop of soldiers who
attacked the monasteries, committing to the flames the sacred
writings and the holy mysteries, and putting pious and harm­
less solitaries to the sword (a. d. 401). The monks thus ruth­
lessly driven from their holy retreats, first sought shelter in
Jerusalem, whence the influence of Theophilus succeeded in
banishing them. At every point, enemies were raised up against
them by the anger of the patriarch. St. Epiphanius was deceived
by his false account, and convened a council at Salamis, where
the condemnation of Origenism was renewed. St. Epiphanius
did not doubt that the monks of Egypt were ardent partisans
of the heresy. He followed them to Constantinople, whither
they bad gone to seek the protection of St. John Chrysostom,
and refused to communicate with the holy bishop whom he
looked upon as an abettor of heretics. St. John sent to offer
him the hospitality of his palace ; Epiphanius refused to ac­
cept it, and even ordained a deacon, without asking the consent
of the metropolitan. Meanwhile the Egyptian monks, who had
indeed found a protector in St. Chrysostom, presented them­
selves to St. Epiphanius, and said to him : “ We are the Egyp­
tian monks you persecute: we would ask whether you ever
saw our disciples and our writings.” St. Epiphanius.answered

8T. INNOCENT 'I. (A. D. 402-41 T).

MO

that he had never had the opportunity. “ How then.” they
replied, “ ean you condemn without knowing us?” The eaiwt
was moved by this consideration, and received them kindly
The interview doubtless hastened his departure. He left
Constantinople, without, however, coming to a reconciliation
with St. Chrysostom. He died daring the passage (a. d.
403), and the Island of Cyprus, which revered him as a lather,
received his mortal remains as precious relics. The dispute
between him and the illustrious patriarch of Constantinople,
was maintained with perfect good faith on both sides, and has
not hindered the popes from placing the name of St. Epipha­
nius in the calendar of saints. The Greek Church ranks him
among her doctors. He won this twofold title of honor, by
the purity of his life, the ardor of his zeal, and the learned
works he composed in defence of the truth. Theophilus
of Alexandria soon came himself to Constantinople, to carry
out his system of destruction against the monks. He gathered
a powerful party, composed of all the saint’s enemies. A ser­
mon of the patriarch’s, against the luxury and licentious­
ness of women, was represented to the empress Eudoxia as
aimed at herself and the ladies of the court. Wounded vanity
never forgives. The empress, seconding the efforts of The­
ophilus, urged the emperor to the most unjust measures. A
cabal, which mot in the village of the Oak, near Chalcedon,
deposed St. Chrysostom (a. d. 403). The only canonical ob­
jection that could be brought against him, was that he made
the faithful drink a little water after communion, lest they
should run the risk of throwingout with the saliva the least par­
ticle of the sacred species. But his accusers gave more prom­
inence to a comparison attributed to St. John, in which tho
courtiers discovered the guilt of high treason. St. Chrysostom
had drawn a parallel between the empress and Queen Jezabel.
The condemnation of the patriarch, by the false Council of the
Oak, was immediately followed by an order for his banish­
ment. On that very night, St. John Chrysostom was taken
on board a vessel, and carried to the coast of Asia, near

550

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Prœneste, in Bi thy nia. This exile lasted but a day. As soon as
the people had learned the banishment of their holy bishop, they
filled the churches and public places with their clamors. On tho
following night the city and vicinity felt the shock of an earth­
quake. To the terrified empress, this was a mark of the divine
wrath. The earliest dawn revealed the Bosphorus covered with
boats searching the coast for the retreat of St. Chrysostom,
which was yet unknown. He was found at last ; an officer of
the empress handed him a letter from that princess : “ I assure
your holiness,” she wrote, “ that all this was done without my
knowledge. I am innocent of this act of injustice. The plot
is the work of perverse and wicked men. God sees the tears
I offer in sacrifice. I cannot forget that my children received
baptism from your hand.” St. John reached his episcopal city
at night; on his approach he found himself surrounded by his
flock, who had come out to meet him, carrying lighted torches
in sign of rejoicing. Attended by more than thirty bishops,
he proceeded to the church of the Apostles, amid the enthusi­
astic shouts of the multitude, and there ascended the pulpit.
But for once his very eloquence was prejudicial to the orator,
for the assembled throng broke out into such energetic and
prolonged applause, that he was unable to end his discourse
(a. d. 403). All the holy patriarch’s enemies were reduced to
silence, and disappeared before this splendid display of the
Catholic sentiment. Even Theophilus of Alexandria ceased to
persecute the monks of Thebais. His war against the doctrines
of Origen had gradually given rise in him to a wish to read his
works. This study made him a most sincere admirer of the
great doctor; and when asked how he had thus suddenly been
changed from a persecutor into an admirer, he replied : “ His
works are like an enamelled field : I pluck the flowers with­
out touching the thorns.”
3. The quiet so unexpectedly restored to Constantinople,
lasted but two months. The still smouldering hate of Eudoxia
was again blown into a flame. A silver statue had been erect­
ed to the empress, in the squaro before the church of St

ST. INNOCENT I. (A. D. WM11).

551

Sophia. Tho (lances and shows to which the inauguration of
the statue gave occasion, disturbed the solemnity of th<' sv.red
mysteries. The patriarch, with apostolic freedom of speech,
complained of the abuse. This was the signal for a new perse­
cution. Eudoxia took offence, and revived her former intrigues
with the enemies of the orator. “ Herodias has become forions,"
exclaimed St. Chrysostom one day, “ she is again dancing, and
asking for the head of John.” This time she obtained it. A
cabal composed of the personal enemies of the saint, deposed
him without a hearing. Arcadius sent him an order to quit his
church. “I received it from God," answered the patriarch.
“ I shall leave it only when your soldiers take me from it.”
The basilica was soon surrounded by Thracian troops. It
was the holy Paschal time (a. d. 404), and according to the
custom of the period, St. John Chrysostom was just conferring
solemn baptism. Men and women were driven out at the
point of the sword, the faithful clerics and priests cast into
prison, the body and blood of Christ profaned. The patri­
arch withdrew into the episcopal residence, now surround­
ed and defended by the whole people, who had armed them­
selves for the purpose. The emperor dared not attack him.
At length, on the 10th of June, a. d. 404, he sent Pa­
tricius, his intendant, to warn the patriarch that if he would
not consent to leave the city of his own accord, the troops
would engage the armed multitude. St. Chrysostom turned to
the bishops who accompanied him, and said ; ·· Come, let us
pray together, and then take leave of the angel of this Church.
After a fervent prayer, he gave the kiss of peace to his bishops,
with abundant tears. Then tearing himself from his loved
flock, he left the church by a private door, and entered a
boat which carried him to Nice. This was the first stage ot
his exile. By an imperial order, received on the 5th of July,
a. d. 404, he was removed to Cucusus, a lonely town among
the ridges of Mount Taurus. The health of the patriarch was
completely shattered by so many shocks, to which was added
the long and painful journey performed at a season of parching

552

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

heat, in the burnings of a fever which lasted more than thirty
days. All the care and attention of Sabiniana, a deaconess of
Constantinople, whose devotion kept her near the holy bishop,
were fruitless to restore him to perfect health. Still Eudoxia
was not satisfied. She vented her hatred upon the clergy who
stood firm in the communion of their lawful pastor. One of
them, named Eutropius, died under the hands of his exectitioners, whilst they tore his face and body with iron hooks.
Arsacius, an intruded bishop, was placed upon the throne of
the rightful prelate. The Church of Constantinople, in its deso­
lation, appealed to the sovereign pontiff for help. St. Innocent
I. wrote a letter of consolation to St. Chrysostom, who received
it in his remote mountain exile of Armenia. The pope also
wrote to the clergy and faithful of Constantinople : “We are
not so far removed from you,” writes the pontiff, “ that we
cannot share your grief. Who can bear with such unjust
and criminal conduct on the part of those whose only care
should be to establish peace and quiet in the bosom of the
Church ? By a strange subversion of the most sacred laws,
guiltless bishops are dispossessed of the government of their
sees. Such is the unjust treatment inflicted upon your bishop,
John, who is bound to us by the closest ties. By an audacious
violation of all canonical law, a successor has been appointed
to his throne ; but such an election is a sacrilegious intrusion.”
The pope did not limit his zeal to this show of sympathy for
the afflicted Church, but urged Honorius to write to his brother
Arcadius, in behalf of St. John. Several bishops were sent
to bear the dispatch of Honorius to Constantinople ; but they
were stopped on the way by order of Eudoxia, and only al­
lowed to return home after undergoing the last degree of out­
rage and the sufferings of a long and painful imprisonment.
St. Chrysostom, in his exile, heard of the efforts made by the
pope in his behalf, and sent him several letters of thanks.
“ Upon you,” says the holy bishop, “ rests the burden of the
whole world ; for to you it belongs to do battle in the cause
of widowed churches,.of scattered flooksj of persecuted priests,

ST. INNOCENT I. (A. D. 102-417).

563

of exiled bishops, and for the prescriptions of onr father,
now so wantonly trampled under foot" (a. d. 406), The exiled
patriarch was even yet too near to allow his enemies to fcel
at rest. They drew from Arcadius an order to bave him re­
moved to Pityus, a deserted spot in the country of the Tzanians, on the coast of the Euxine Sea. The journey lasted
three months, during which the illustrious exiie was not al­
lowed the least repose, notwithstanding the desperate state of
his health. He never reached the place of banishment des­
tined for him. At Comano he became so ill that the soldiers
dared not move him further. They laid him in a church dedi­
cated to St. Basiliscus. He had himself clothed in white, in
token of deliverance, distributed the little that he had to
those about him, received the Holy Eucharist, and breathed
his last whilst pronouncing these words of thanksgiving:
“ Glory be to God for all things !” (a. d. 407). Thus, in a
strange land, far from his beloved people, that splendid light
of the Eastern Church was extinguished ; the eloquent voire,
which had won him the title of Golden-mouth, was hushed for­
ever. Several popes have styled him the Augustine. of the Greek
Church. Literary men, struck by his splendid eloquence, rich
at once in the fire of Demosthenes and the flowing elegance
of Cicero, have said of him that he was the Homer of Christian
orators. We have from this father several dogmatic treatises,
commentaries on various parts of the Bible, some letters, and
a number of discourses, homilies, and panegyrics of the saints.
His most valued works are the Treatises on the Priesthood, on
Providence, and on Virginity. The pope was careful of his
memory after death, and refused to communicate with the
Eastern bishops until they had made solemn reparation and
recalled all who had been banished on bis account. The per­
secutor did not long survive his victim. In the following year
(a. d. 408), the death of Arcadius, that weak emperor who
had nothing of the sovereign but the name, left the throne of
the East to his son, Theodosius the Younger, then but a child.
His mother, the Empress Eudoxia, had been dead two years.

654

GENERAL HISTORY OF ΤΠΕ CHURCH.

This loss, which to most other children would prove an irre­
trievable misfortune, was a special blessing of Providence in
the case of the infant emperor. His first years were passed
under the tender care of Pulcheria. Anthemius, præfect ol
the praetorium, held the regency. At any other period, Theo­
dosius, with his gentle, humane, and sympathetic disposition,
would have made an accomplished prince ; but now that hordes
of armed barbarians surrounded the empire, the strong arm of
a warrior was needed to meet them. The Huns and Scirri
profited by the weakness of the court at Constantinople, to in­
vade Thrace.
4. These partial inroads in the East hardly deserve mention
by the side of the deluge of barbarians that now poured over
the boundaries of the Western Empire. As early as the year
405, a detachment of the great nation of the Goths, to the
number of two hundred thousand men, had crossed the Alps,
under Radagasius. Stilicho, the minister of Honorius, aided
by an army of Huns, crushed this formidable invasion, in the
mountains of Northern Italy ; this time, Rome owed her safety
to the barbarians themselves. The torrent of invasion had but
surged back for a moment to return with redoubled fury. In
a. d. 407, Gaul was overrun by a swarm of Vandals, Suevi,
Alani, Alemanni, and Burgundians. Mentz was taken and
sacked; several thousands of Christians, with their bishop,
Aureus, were murdered; Worms, Spires and Strasburg were
burned. Tournay, Terouanne, Arras, St. Quentin, were power­
less to stem the torrent. The barbarians, half Arians, half
pagans, added many names to the martyrology of Gaul. St.
Nicasius, bishop of Rheims, and St. Didier, bishop of Langres,
were beheaded; Besançon witnessed the massacre of its bishop,
Antidius. Marseilles was destroyed. Toulouse, vainly besieged
by the invaders, owed its safety to the prayers of its holy
prelate, Exuperius. For three years did these ravages deluge
the country with blood, without calling from Stilicho a single
effort to check them. Though father-in-law of the emperor,
he was accused of a design to dispossess his son-in-law, with

ST. INNOCENT I. (Λ. D. 40Î-Î1T).

555

a view to bestowing the crown on his own eon, Enchérit»
He was at this time in constant communication with Alan·,
king of the Visigoths. Alaric was one of those destroyers of
nations called by Providence to parcel out the ruins of the
Roman world. From his home on the banks of the Danube,
an unknown power urged him irresistibly on in his path of
destruction. “ A voice,” said he, “ ever cries within me, ‘ Go,
and destroy Rome!’” Two victories won by Stilicho over
Alaric’s Visigoths (a. d. 402-403), checked the invader’s prog­
ress. In a. d. 408, Alaric once more stood on the frontier of
Italy. Was it for the safety of Rome, or to further his own am­
bitious views, that Stilicho now opened negotiations with him .'
History gives no answer; but Honorius leaned to the latter
opinion. An imperial decree declated the general an enemy
to his country, and Stilicho met his death upon the scaffold
(a. d. 408). Alaric, whom nothing could now withstand, sat
down before the very gates of Rome; he had turned the
course of the Tiber and cut off all communications, and the
city soon became a prey to all the horrors of famine and- pesti­
lence. An enormous ransom bought the withdrawal of the
Visigoths. Honorius, shut up in Ravenna and unable to fulfil
the conditions of the treaty, saw his title to the empire dis­
posed of by Alaric, in favor of Attalus, prefect of Rome I a. d.
409). The following year (410) was marked as the period
for the destruction of the Eternal City. On the 24th of August,
Alaric, with his Visigoths, entered the city of the Cæsar'.
The troops were licensed to pillage ; but the very barbarians
stood in awe before the majesty of the Christian religion. The
churches of St. Peter and St. Paul were named by the con­
queror as places of refuge. All the sacred vessels brought to
Alaric from the church of St. Peter were sent back by him to
the priests, as holy article··, and the soldiers ihemaeb seen guiding consecrated virgins to the appointed asylum.', to
save them from outrage. The pope, St. Innocent I., did not
quit Rome in the hour of peril; nor was his presence unrecog­
nized in the marks of respect paid by .Uaric to Christianity

556

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

The pope had already been honorably Teceived and treated by
him, when he came ns bearer of the propositions of Honorius
(a. d. 408). Mon were becoming accustomed to see the majesty
of the Sovereign Pontiff rise superior to the din of arms, and
the Church came forth triumphant from this first invasion,
which was to last from Alaric to Odoacer.
5. But the colossal fabric of the Roman Empire could not
crumble into ruins without awakening an echo that shook the
world. The heathens attributed these unequalled disasters to
the anger of the gods, and held the religion of Jesus Christ
answerable for the humiliation of the Capitol. The Christiandoctors undertook to answer these bitter complaints. Whilst St.
Jerome, like another Jeremias, wept over the Roman ruins,
and showed by his writings that the decline of the empire
was due to the corrupt state of pagan morality, and to the de­
grading influence produced upon character and courage by cen­
turies of unbridled licentiousness and luxury, Paid Orosius, a
Spanish priest of Tarragona, in his Epitome of Universal History,
undertaken at the request of St. Augustine, was establishing
the same conclusion, by a statement of facts. St. Augustine
himself was writing his immortal work, the City of God; here,
in a parallel embracing the whole field of history, he shows
the kingdom of truth rising upon the ruin of empires, and dis­
plays the plan of Providence in the institution of the Church,
and in its development throughout all time. This great work.,
which would have taken up an ordinary lifetime, was but an
incident in that of St. Augustine. The Donatist controversy
found the indefatigable champion ever in the gap. At Car­
thage, he held, with the leading spirits of the faction, a public
conference, over which Honorius had directed the tribune,
Marcellinus, to preside (a. d. 411). St. Augustine spoke for
the Catholic bishops. The conference lasted three days. The
eloquent orator conclusively proved that there can be no just
cause for leaving the Church ; that the true1 Church could not
have been confined till now to a single spot in Africa, and
that the Donatists, by their very nanui. by the very fact of

ST. INNOCENT I. (A. D. 40T-417).

ft?

their breaking with the rest of the Catholic world, were aln-idy
condemned. The discourse made a deep impression ; hut the
words of the holy doctor were confirmed by an unparalleled
example of disinterestedness, more powerful than all human
eloquence. At his desire, the two hundred and eighty-six
Catholic bishops present offered to give up their *ees to the
Donatists, if they would agree to return to the communion of
the Church. This splendid self-denial, enhanced by the evi­
dent obstinacy of the Donatist prelates, brought back a num­
ber of heretics to the faith. From this time, the inveterate
schism which had desolated Africa since the days of Cecilian,
was consigned to oblivion by public contempt. The few re­
maining members of the lost faction made an effort to appeal
from the decision of Marcellinus to Honorius. The emperor’s
only answer was an order to the Governor of Carthage to treat
the refractory Donatists as open rebels. This schism had
hardly been crushed, when a new heresy was planted in the
soil of Africa, by two natives of Great Britain, Pelagius and
Celestius. The subject of dispute was the fundamental dogma
of grace, the basis of man's spiritual regeneration. This
equally arduous and important question had in Pelagius a
formidable antagonist, and in St. Augustine an intrepid cham­
pion. Now that Jansenism has in our own time once more
called attention to this question, we can understand the diffi­
culty of treating it with theological precision, rigor, and
completeness. In the year 405, Pelagius, who gave his name
to the new heresy, left the monastery of Bangor, in Wales,
and went to Rome. His subtle, captivating mind, skilled in
the art of dissimulation and deceit, had long been fostering the
germs of his system of the omnipotence of the human will.
He began openly to unfold it in a journey to Carthage with
his disciple and friend, Constantins. In his book of Confessions,
begun in a. d. 397, St. Augustine had said : " Domine, da nobis
quodjubes, et jube quod vis Pelagius attacked this proposition,
in an assembly of bishops. The Bishop of Hippo took up the
gauntlet thus thrown, and never again laid it down. The mon
*

558

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

he owed to grace, the more he felt bound to restore to it.
Twenty years he followed up Pelagianism ; and was able to
console his last hour with the assurance that the heresy
pierced by so many darts could not long survive him. The
errors of Pelagius are summed up under three principal
heads : original sin, free-will, the necessity and gratuitousness
of grace. I. The fundamental error of Pelagius was the
denial that the sin of Adam and Eve has been transmitted to
their posterity. In his system, the sin of our first parents
could hurt no one but themselves, and if it had been prejudi­
cial to their descendants, it was not as an hereditary fault, but,
at most, as a bad example ; baptism is therefore given to
children not to wash away an original stain, but to stamp them
with the character, the seal of adoption. II. On the subject of
free-will, Pelagius taught : 1, that it is as entire, as strong in
us, as it was in Adam, before the fall ; 2, that the power of
free-will is sufficient, in man, to enable him, without any super­
natural help, to fulfil all the divine precepts, to overcome
every temptation, to rise to the highest degree of perfection,
and to win everlasting life ; 3, in such a system grace was,
in fact, destroyed. But since it would have been impossible
to do away with its name, Pelagius placed this gratuitous gift
in the very free-will which God, without owing it, gives us.
St. Augustine objected that Jesus Christ has brought us a
more plentiful grace, without any apparent increase of the
amount of free-will in the New Law over the Old. Pelagius
replied that this grace of the New Testament consists in the
good example of the Redeemer. St. Augustine retorted:
“ Why, then, does this good example act so efficaciously upon
some, and leave others in indifference ?” Thus driven back to
his last intrenchments, Pelagius agreed to admit an interior
illuminative grace in the understanding, which facilitates the
operation of the will. This useful grace is not, however, in­
dispensable ; nor is it preventive or gratuitous, and God is
not free to refuse it to whoever deserves it by a good use of
his natural powers.

8T. INNOCENT I. (Λ. D. 402-417).

559

These preliminary remarks will suffice to give a view of
the nature and bearing of Pelagianism. The first condemna­
tion of this new heresy was pronounced by a council held io
Carthage (a. d. 412), at which Augustine was unable to be
present. The anathema was directed against Celestins, as
Pelagius was no longer in Africa ; he had gone to visit the
cities of the Syrian coast. The errors of Celestins had been
reduced to seven leading propositions : 1. Adam was created
subject to death ; 2. His sin was a personal offence, and was
not communicated to his posterity ; 3. Children are. at the mo­
ment of their birth, in the same state of innocence as that
of Adam before his fall; 4. The sin of Adam is not the cause
of death to the whole human race ; the resurrection of Jesus
Christ is not the cause of the resurrection of man ; 5. The law
of Moses leads to heaven as well as the law of Jesus Christ ;
6. Before the coming of Jesus Christ, there were impeccable
men ; 7. Children who die without baptism have a right to
eternal happiness. After his condemnation, Celestius appealed
to the Sovereign Pontiff, but without waiting to urge the appeal,
left for Asia, where he continued to dogmatize. Pelagius had
in the mean time been denounced by the Gallic bishops, and
especially by Heros of Arles and Lazarus of Aix, as a heretic ;
he was now striving to clear himself in the eyes of the bishops
of Palestine, by a public conference held at Jerusalem, and in
a council of fourteen bishops, held at Diospolis. His chief
opponents were Orosius of Spain and St. Jerome. The fathers
of Diospolis, misled by the false representations of Pelagius,
cleared him from the charge of heresy, without awaiting the
reply of Innocent I., to whom the matter had been referred
after the conference at Jerusalem (a. d. 415). St. Augustine
was at the same time bringing out a series of works against
the principal errors of Pelagianism : the Treatise on Mature and
Grace ; Merit and the Remission of Sins ; The Grace oj the 3 <·«·
Testament ; the Perfection of Righteousness; Free-icill. St.
Jerome followed in his footsteps, and published his Dialogue
between a Catholic and a Pelagian. The intricacies of the ques­

560

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

tion were mostly removed by the light which these two great
writers threw upon it. The Councils of Carthage and Mile
*
vum decided, conformably to the Catholic belief, that the sin
of Adam has been transmitted to his descendants, and that,
without an interior grace inspiring good-will, we can do no
supernatural good, nor any thing useful for salvation. The
Fathers of these councils wrote to Pope St. Innocent I., beg­
ging him to confirm the decision by the. authority of the apos­
tolic see. To the synodal letters of the African bishops, the
Sovereign Pontiff replied : “ You have followed, as becomes
the episcopate, the institutions of our fathers, who indeed
held by divine tradition, that nothing can be regulated in the
most distant countries without the cognizance of the Holy
See. From this fountain-head the pure and running waters
of truth flow out, to water and fertilize all the regions of the
universe.” The pope then ratifies the decisions .of the two
councils, and solemnly condemns Pelagius, Celestins, and their
followers : he declares them to be cut off from the communion
of the Church, unless they forsake their errors. After this
decree of the pope, St. Augustine exclaimed : “ Rome has
spoken, the cause is finished. God grant the error be so too !"
6. Filled with grief at the sad state to which the barbarian
inroads had reduced Gaul, Spain, and Italy, Innocent I. en­
larged his charity to take in the full extent of his children’s
desolation : he made collections to relieve the suffering and
want which such a revolution had multiplied to a fearful ex­
tent. Alaric had survived the sack of Rome but two years ;
but the Visigoths had given his place to his brother-in-law,
Adolphus. The pope kept his laborers in the vineyard, and
these barbarians were gradually taught to bend under the
yoke of the Gospel. His zeal was urged, on to renewed ac­
tivity by the earnest λνίβΐι to see unity of discipline estab­
lished in the bosom of the Church. We have still a precious
monument of it, in a decretal addressed to Decentius, bishop
of Eugubio, in Umbria, who had consulted him on several
points of liturgy and discipline. “ If the bishops of the Lord,”

st.

zoranr» (a, d.

w-uîj.

561

said the pope, il would hut follow, in their full extent, the
ecclesiastical institutes as they have been left ot by the bk-^ed
Apostles, there would be neither diversity nor variety in what
regards consecrations and the celebration of the sacred myste­
ries.” Like decisions are found in other letters of St. Inno­
cent, to bishops in Italy and Macedonia The death of
the holy pontiff took place in a. d. 417. St. Innocent I. is
the first pope who absented himself from Rome, to serve the
general· interests of the Church. In the year 400 he had gone
to Ravenna, to urge Honorius to greater punctuality in fulfill­
ing his contract with Alario. Had the advice of the pope been
taken, the Eternal City would have been spared the horrors of
the invasion of a. d. 410.

§ II. Pontificate

of

St. Zosimüs (August, a. d. 417—
Dec. 26, 418).

7. St. Zosimus was called to succeed St. Innocent I. on
the 19th of August, a. d. 417. His pontificate, which lasted
but a year, was almost entirely taken up with the question of
Pelagianism, which, under the mask of a hypocritical submis­
sion to the authority of the Church, had been steadily spread­
ing its poison. Celestins came to Rome (a. d. 417), protested
the purity of his intentions, solemnly declared that he coademned all that St. Innocent I. had condemned, and was received
by St. Zosimus into communion with the Church. Pelagius
wrote to the pope in the same strain, and the merciful pontiff
absolved him also from the censures pronounced against him.
Still the two sectaries continued to preach their errors, and
more boldly than ever, as they now declared themselves in
communion with the See of Rome. The bishops of Africa
assembled to the number of two hundred and fourteen, in a
council at Carthage, and represented to the pope that notwith­
standing their seeming submission, Pelagius and Celestins still
continued to dogmatize. The Sovereign Pontiff called the
case once more before his tribunal, and after mature delibera­
36

562

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

tion, ratified the sentence of the African bishops, renewed the
sentence pronounced by his predecessor, and declared that if
the two heresiarchs would abjure their error, they should be
received to public penance, otherwise they were to remain
excommunicated. The doctrinal letter of the pope was sent
to the bishops of Egypt and of the East, and to the patriarchs
of the great sees, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Con­
stantinople. This ecclesiastical judgment was followed by an
imperial rescript of Honorius, condemning the two heresiarchs
and their followers to exile (a. d. 418). At the same time St.
Augustine had the Catholic doctrine acknowledged by a new
council held at Carthage (May 1st, a. d. 418). The decision
of the Holy See was received by all the churches throughout
the world. Only one bishop, Julian of Eclanum in Campania,
refused to subscribe. In conjunction with several Pelagian
bishops, he drew up an heretical profession of faith, and appealed
from the decision of the pope to a general council. St. Zosimus expressly condemned Julian and his accomplices. They
were deposed, and their sees given to Catholic bishops. In
tho midst of the cares attending the examination of these
important questions, St. Zosimus had found time to settle a
dispute concerning the metropolitan jurisdiction of the second
Narbonese, claimed, at once, by the churches of Vienna and
Marseilles, to the detriment of Arles, which had always
enjoyed it. The pope confirmed the claim of the latter
church, “ founded upon the apostolate of St. Trophimus,” and
condemned any thing opposed to this decision. He wrote to
the clergy and faithful of Marseilles, that if their bishop per­
sisted in usurping the canonical prerogative of his metropolitan
of Arles, he should feel bound to depose him, and to place in
his stead a pastor more worthy to govern them (March, a. d.
418). The holy pontiff showed the same apostolic vigor in
every thing else relating to ecclesiastical discipline. He also
addressed a decretal to Hesychius, bishop of Salona, the
metropolitan See of Dalmatia, in which he inveighs against
the ambition of laymen and monks, who seek to reach, at one

ST. BONIFACE I. (A, B. IIMM),

563

step, the highest degree of the priesthood, without regard to
tho intermediate grades established by the canons. This vigi­
lant and zealous pastor was snatched from the Church by a
premature death (December a. d. 418).

§ III. Pontificate

of

St. Boniface I. (Dec. 30, a. b. 418—
Oct. 25, 422).

8. The election of St. Boniface I. presents the first instance
in the Church’s history of a secular power interfering in the
choice of a Roman pontiff. The clergy and people of Rome
had met to proceed to a canonical election, when the Deacon
Eulalius forcibly seized upon the Lateran Basilica and obliged
the Bishop of Ostia to consecrate him. On the next day, the
regular assembly hailed the legitimate pastor in the person of
Boniface I., a Roman priest. Symmachus, prefect of Rome,
had in the mean time sent to the Emperor Honorius a state­
ment favorable to the antipope. The emperor called the
case before his own tribunal, summoned Boniface and Eulalius
to appear at Ravenna, where he was then holding his court,
and caused them to sign an agreement not to return to Rome
until he had pronounced sentence. In spite of this solemn
promise, Eulalius returned to Rome with the intention of cele­
brating the Easter solemnity (a. d. 419). But the people, true
to their lawful pastor, expelled the usurper, and, two days
later, Boniface was received in triumph and recognized by the
emperor, the senate, and the whole city. Hardly bad the au­
thority of the sovereign pontificate been secured in his person,
when St. Boniface was called to defend it against the sixth Coun­
cil of Carthage (May 25, a. d. 419), which sought to abolish
appeals to the pope. The discussion originated in the c&»e of
Apiarius, a priest of Sicca, in Mauritania, who had been ex­
communicated by his bishop, Urban, and appealed to the See
of Rome. St. Boniface sent three legates to Carthage, to
examine the matter ; they were Faustinas, bishop of Potentina, in Italy, with Philip and Asellus, priests of the Roman

564

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Church. When, in the heat of the discussion, the right of the
Sovereign Pontiff was questioned to judge the cases brought
to him by appeal, the legates quoted the canons of the Council
of Sardica, to which the pope referred in the written instruc­
tions given them. But, strange to say ! the Council of
Sardica held in a. d. 347, though Carthage was represented
there by its bishop, Gratus, was altogether unknown to the
African bishops of the year 419.
The fathers of the
Council of Carthage then asked for time to examine the origi­
nal acts of the Council of Sardica. The difficulty was thus
held in permanence, and was only finally settled in the pontifi­
cate of Celestin I., in a. d. 427. Apiarius, the first cause of
the whole discussion, made his peace with his bishop, and was
received into the commünion of the Church.
9. The solicitude of St. Boniface I. extended equally to
all the churches in the world. On the 13th of June, a. d. 419,
he referred to the judgment of the Gallic bishops the case of
Maximus, bishop of Valence, who was charged with Maniche­
ism, and the commission of abominable crimes. The pontiff
directed the bishops of Gaul to meet in council on the 1st of
November, in order to look into the matter, on condition that
their judgment should be subject to the revision of the pope.
St. Boniface at the same time authorized the translation of
Perigenes, bishop of Patras in Achaia, to the metropolitan See
of Corinth (a. d. 419). Atticus, patriarch of Constantinople,
protested against this decision of the Roman court. He as­
serted that no bishop could be ordained in the Hellespont and
other provinces of Asia without the consent of the Patriarch
of Constantinople. He enjoyed sufficient credit at court to
obtain from Theodosius the Younger the passage of a law to
this effect (a. d. 421), and assembled a council at Corinth to
discuss the translation of Perigenes, in spite of its solemn con­
firmation by the authority of the Holy See. By this constitu­
tion the emperor also claimed to take from the bishops of
Thessalonica their canonical jurisdiction over Illyria, and to
bestow it on the bishops of Constantinople, “ who enjoy,” he

ST. BONIFACE I. (A. D. 41M3Î).

565

said, “ the prerogatives of ancient Rome." In a juncture when
the primacy of the chair of St. Peter was called in question,
St. Boniface I. showed himself worthy to guard and defend it.
He sent deputies to the Emperor Honorius, begging him to use
his influence with Theodosius the Younger to obtain the revo­
cation of the decree. He had in the mean time written to
Rufus, bishop of Thessalonica, a most energetic letter. “The
attempts recently made,” he writes, “to lessen your authority
neither can nor will succeed. Strong in your undeniable right,
arm yourself as a soldier of God. Fear not these new storms;
the blessed Apostle St. Peter will be witfi you, and will not
allow the rights of his see to be touched.” Other pontifical
letters to the bishops of Thessaly were equally explicit. “It
is certain,” says the pope, “ that the Church of Rome is, to all
the churches throughout the universe, what the head is to the
other members of the body. Whoever, then, withdraws from
it, becomes an alien from the Christian religion, since he is no
longer in unity. The same principles are laid down with equal
energy in a circular letter to all the bishops of Macedonia, Achaia,
Epirus, and Dacia (March 11, a. d. 422). The pope cited facts
of history clearly sustaining the rights of the Roman See. “The
great Athanasius, Flavian ofAntioch, and Chrysostom of Constan­
tinople, always sought counsel from the successor of St. Peter,
and their example fully proves the tradition in thegreat Churches
of the East.” The zeal of St. Boniface was crowned with suc­
cess ; Theodosius the Younger withdrew the offensive decree,
and Perigenes governed the Church of Corinth until his death.
10. Whilst the attention of the East was taken up by this
discussion, a great h’ght of the Church bad gone out in Pales­
tine ; St. Jerome had died on the 30th of September, a. d. 420,
at the age of eighty years. St. Jerome brought to the service
of the truth more learning than any other Father of the Latin
Church. His immense labors on the Scriptures are equalled
only by his incredible mortification, his love of retreat and
poverty, and his burning charity, which moved the great St.
Augustine to compare him to St. Paul. His style is energetic,

566

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

rich in figures and in lofty and concise thoughts, sometimes
reaching the highest standard of pure Latinity. The reproach
made to him in a vision is well known. Our Lord Jesus
Christ asked him if he was a Christian. “Yes, Lord,”
answered the saint. “No, you are still a Ciceronian.” His
predilection for profane authors from that moment gave place
to an unbounded love for the Sacred Writings, which led him,
at the age of sixty years, to undertake and to pursue with
distinguished success the study of Hebrew. His solitary life
did not keep him out of the lists, when heresy was to be met;
this is clearly shown in the Pelagian difficulty. He was at
the same time engaged in a no less arduous contest with
Vigilantius, an heretical priest of Comminges, in Gaul. The
heretic, whose errors are known to us only through the wri­
tings of St. Jerome himself, condemned the veneration cf saints
and of relics, as well as clerical celibacy. A few clerics of
lax morality had adopted a doctrine which favored their disor­
ders, and formed the nucleus of a party. St. Jerome pursued
the new sectaries with his usual energy ; and there is every
reason to believe that Vigilantius yielded to the influence of
grace and subsequently retracted, for he died at Barcelona, in
the communion of the Church.
In the hour of his triumph over the proud pretensions of
the Patriarch of Constantinople, St. Boniface had been called
away to enjoy a more lasting triumph in heaven (Oct. 25th,
a. d. 422). He had renewed St. Fabian’s ordinance, fixing the
canonical age for the priesthood at thirty years. He also
abolished the vigils of saints, that is, the assemblages held at a
saint’s tomb, on the night before his feast. These meetings were
by degrees falling away from primitive gravity and decency ;
but he still held to the precept for the liturgy and fast of vigils
§ IV. Pontificate of St. Celestin I. (Nov. 3, a. d. 422—
April 6, 432).

11. St. Boniface was succeeded by the deacon St. Celestin,
a very near relative of the Emperor Valentinian. The new

ST. CELESTIN I. (A. D. 421-432).

567

pope ascended the throne on the 3d of November, a. :·. 422,
and opened his pontificate by the condemnation of a heresy
sprung from the errors of Pelagius. Pelagianism, crushed
the decisions of Rome and the eloquence of St. Augustine,
was gradually dying out ; but from its ashes arose another
sect, which smoothed over all the most revolting features of
its archetype, and held a middle course between the doctrine
of Pelagius and the orthodox faith. This mitigated form of
Pelagianism was started by some priests at Marseilles, who
were called SemirPelagians. They attributed to free-will
the beginning of faith, and the first steps of the human will
towards good. According to their teaching, God, in conse­
quence of man’s first efforts, gives increase of faith and the grace
of good works. Thus the Semi-Pelagiansagreed with the Catho­
lics in admitting the existence of original sin and the necessity
of an interior grace to do good ; but they held that man may
deserve this grace by a beginning of faith, by a first impulse of
virtue, of which, however, God is not the anthor. St. Augustine
brought all his energies to bear upon this baneful error. The
case was summoned before the tribunal of St. Celestin. The
pontiff condemned the priests of Marseilles, and defined, against
them, that God so operates in the human heart, that every
holy thought, pious intention, and, in a word, every right
impulse of the will to the end of salvation comes from Him.
and that if we can do any good work, it is by Him. without
Whom wc can do nothing. This sentence was received with
respect throughout the Christian world, and disunion was at
an end.
12. The attention of St. Celestin was next called to the
case of Apiarius, begun in a. d. 419, under the pontificate of
his predecessor. The Afrioan bishops still refused to admit rhe
validity of appeals to the Holy See. Apiarius, (hough read­
mitted to the communion of the Church, again drew upon him­
self the censure of his bishop, and appealed to the pope. St
Celestin sent Faustinas, the same legate already employed by
St. Boniface, to examine on the spot the charges brought

5G8

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE OHUHCH.

against this priest. They were found to be well grounded.
Apiarius himself showed a deep repentance, confessed all his
crimes, and was removed from the sacred ministry. The
African bishops seized this occasion to beg the pope that he
would show less readiness in granting his protection to the
foreign clerics who might apply for it. Whatever importance
may be attached to this document, it cannot, in the least
degree, impair the so often admitted rights exercised by the
popes long before this controversy, and still maintained at
every period, in spite of these protestations (a. d. 426).
Whilst the Church was suffering from this internal agita­
tion; whilst the world was distracted by political revolutions,
in the midst of which Castinus, commander of the militia,
placed upon the throne, at the death of Honorius (a. d. 423),
a mere shadow of an emperor, who perished miserably within
two years, leaving the purple to Valentinian III. (a. d. 42-5),
the religious life was spreading with renewed fervor in Gaul.
St. Romanus founded the monastery of Condate, in FrancheComté (now the episcopal See of St. Claude) ; the celebrated
abbey of St. Victor was established at Marseilles (a. d. 427),
by John Cassian, a Scythian by birth, known as the author
of the Monastic Institutions, and of the Conferences, and by the
journeys he made into Egypt to visit the solitaries of Thebais.
The same period witnessed the erection by Honoratus of the
famous monastery at Lerins, an island in the Mediterranean,
on the coast of Provence. Syria, meanwhile, held the living
miracle of anchorites, in the person of St. Simeon Stylites,
*
who spent thirty years on the top of a lofty pillar, whither he
Lad retired, to give himself more uninterruptedly to medita­
tion and prayer. But now the world was thrown into a state
of consternation, by the report of a Vandal invasion into
Africa, headed by King Genseric. The whole province, which
was looked upon as the granary of the universe, on account
of its wealth, fertility, and numerous cities, was wasted by
♦ From the Greek word στνλοΓ, a column.

,

ST. CELESTIN I. (A. D. 41MÎÎ).

fire, the sword and famine. The invaders were mostly Arians,
and turned their rage principally against the Catholics. All
the churches were destroyed. Bishops, priests, monks, virgins
consecrated to God, were led into captivity or ruthlessly mur­
dered by their conquerors (a. d. 430). The Church, hitherto
so flourishing, was thus extinguished in the blood of her chil­
dren, only to revive at some period far in the future, known
and marked out by Divine Providence. As if to add to the
calamity, the same year closed the career of the great St.
Augustine ; he died as the flames kindled by the barbarians
devoured his episcopal city of Hippo (28th of August, a. d.
430). With him died Christian and civilized Africa. He has
left ever-enduring monuments of his zeal and learning in his
works, which Possidius, a contemporary author, computes at
one thousand and thirty, including sermons and letters. St.
Augustine has sometimes been charged with a want of exact­
ness in his theological discussions on grace. We have already
had occasion to answer this objection, in speaking of the
works of other doctors. We must remember that the language
of theology was not till afterwards, by the decisions of the
councils, brought to its present state of perfection. These slight
blemishes are more than redeemed by a lively faith and fervid
eloquence, rich in figures,—and they have not been deemed
sufficient to rob him of the title of Doctor of Grace. The
most glorious monument has been raised to his memory by
the Roman Church: the statue of St. Augustine, with those
of Sts. Ambrose, Athanasius, and Chrysostom, support the
chair of St. Peter, in the Vatican. A wonderful coincidence
gave to the same century the glory of producing the two most
illustrious Fathers both of the Greek and of the Latin Churches.
13. The religious life, lately extinguished in Africa, was
advancing with marvellous fruitfulness in Gaul; it seems to
be the destiny of the Church never to lose a jewel from her
crown without seeing it replaced by a brighter one. The prov­
inces of Gaul had till this period been divided between the
different tribes of barbarians who had settled there alter the

670

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

former invasion : the Goths held Aquitaine; the Burgundians
had founded an empire, (o which they gave their name, Bur­
gundy; theAlani had received from the Roman general Ætius
the territory of Valence, on the Rhone ; whilst the Romans held
very little more of their original possessions than the two
Narboneses and Provence. During the period between the
years 430 and 438, the northern part of Gaul began to be
visited by the nation that was to conquer and settle it per­
manently, and to found, under the name of France, a kingdom
which still endures. The Franks had for some centuries lived
along the banks of the Rhine, in the country which has kept
the name of Franconia ; under their chief, Clodion, they made
themselves masters of the cities of Cambray, of Tournay, and
of Amiens. At the time when this yet pagan people first set
foot upon Gallic soil, the episcopal sees of the province were
filled by a generation of illustrious and holy bishops. St.
Germanus had just succeeded St. Amator in the government
of the Church of Auxerre. His friend, St. Lupus, illustrated
the See of Troyes by his virtue, his eloquence, and his mira­
cles. St. Hilary, a school-fellow of these two great men,
had torn himself from the holy solitude of Lerins, to fill the
metropolitan See of Arles. At Lyons, the virtue, piety, and
learning of St. Irenæus were revived in the person of St.
Eucherius. In St. Oriens, bishop of Auch, the most eminent
degree of virtue was allied to the gift of a soft and flowing
style. But these were not the only lights that shone in Gaul ;
St. Prosper was engaged in his Chronicles, and his Poem against
the enemies of Grace. Salvian, called the Jeremias of the fifth
century, was composing his work On Providence, and his Trea­
tise on the Church; and St. Vincent of Lerins was preparing to
publish his admirable Memorial. This exuberance of holiness
and faith, overflowing the limits of the Church of Gaul, reached
the shores of Great Britain, then infected by the Pelagian
heresy. St. Germanus of Auxerre and St. Lupus of Troyes
landed on this island in a. d. 429, where the influence of their
preaching, their miracles, and the holiness of their lives.

8T. CEIÆ8TTN I. (A. D. 43MJÎ).

571

restored the first fervor of the faith. It wae in this journey
that the two saints, on their way through Nanterre, conse­
crated to God the holy virgin 8t. Genevieve, whose name and
memory have become so wide-spread in later times. The pope,
St. Celestin, had just ordained 8t. Patrick bishop of Ireland ;
the saint became the apostle of the island, till then steeped in
idolatry. Crowds of pagans were won by his words. He
founded the monastery of Sabhal, near Down, and made his
disciple, St. Dunnius, its abbot; he also established the metro­
politan See of Armagh (a. d. 431).
14. The East seemed to be marked ont as the common
birthplace of the great heresiarcbs of the fourth and fifth cen­
turies ; its great see, Constantinople, was now filled by a
bishop soon to give his name to a new error against the Cath­
olic faith. This was Nestorius, who had been made bishop in
a. d. 427. The heresiarch was proud, superficial with great
pretensions to depth, and bombastic rather than eloquent.
He divided Jesus Christ into two persons: one, the person
of the man, Jesus Christ; the other, the person of God, the
Word. Whence it followed that Jesus was not God. but a man
united to God in a more special and intimate manner than any
other. Then, by logical consequence, the Blessed Virgin was
not the mother of God, but only the mother of a man called
the Christ, to whom the Word had united Himself. This doc­
trine thus destroyed the mystery of the Incarnation, the divin­
ity of Jesus Christ, and the’divine maternity of the Blessed
Virgin. The heresy made its first appearance in a sermon
preached on Christmas-day (a. d. 428), in which Nestorius said,
“ that to call the Virgin the matter of God,
would jus­
tify the pagan folly of giving mothers to their gods.” These
blasphemies shocked the Catholic mind of Constantinople ; but
the patriarch gave no heed to the public feeling, and entour·
aged his priests to spread the doctrine. Dorotheas, bishop of
Marcianopolis, who had taken up his error, preaching one day
before Nestorius, in the church of St. Sophia, pushed his blas­
phemous impiety so far as to utter the words. " If any one

572

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

saith that Mary is the mother of God, let him be anathema!"
At these words the people, with a loud cry of indignation,
rushed from the church. All the East was moved at the
report of this scandal. When it camo to the ears of St.
Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria, he at once wrote to the
solitaries a letter, which forms a complete treatise against
Nestorianism. The matter was brought before St. Celestin
by St. Cyril, and even by Nestorius himself. The Sovereign
Pontiff was alarmed at the spread of the impious doc­
trine, and called upon Cassian to meet it ; the acquittance of
the charge was the Treatise on the Incarnation, in which the Cath­
olic faith is nobly vindicated. Still, Nestorius never ceased to
preach his error under the favor and protection of the court
of Constantinople. St. Cyril of Alexandria, worthy successor
of the great St. Athanasius, redoubled his zeal and energy in
defence of the truth. He wrote to the emperor and his sisters
in the most eloquent strain, showing the doctrine of the
Church on the Incarnation, and upholding it by Scripture and
tradition ; he meanwhile sent to the pope a general view of
the state of the question. St. Celestin at once called a coun­
cil at Rome, in which Nestorius was anathematized. The pope
communicated this decision to St. Cyril, and directed him to
excommunicate the heresiarch if he refused to submit. The
words of the pontiff on this occasion are worthy of note : “By
the authority of the Holy See, and acting in our stead with the
power granted to us, you will execute the sentence with ex­
emplar)' severity.” In obedience to the pope’s instructions, St.
Cyril called a council of the Egyptian bishops, and drew up
twelve anathemas against each point of Nestorius’s errors;
these he sent to the heresiarch, with the injunction, according to
St. Celestin’s letter, to sign them (a.d. 430). Nestorius refused,
and proposed to change the word Θεοτόκος (mother of God)
to Χρίστοτόκος (mother of Christ). The discussion grew in bitter­
ness. Andrew of Samosata and Theodoret of Cyrrhus wrote a
tract against the twelve anathemas, whilst Marius Mercator de­
fended them in a very spirited and learned work. Meanwhile, St.

8T. CELESTIN I. (λ. D. 41Î-43Î).

573

Cyril himself was not idle; he successively published hb ftyty
to Andrew of Kamoeala, the Apology againet Theodore!, Mid » /<’*/«■
talion of the Sermons of Nestorius. Nestorius adopted the artifice
common to heretics of all times—he appealed from the pope to
an ecumenical council. His patron, Theodosius the lounger,
wished to grant him this satisfaction. The third general council
was therefore appointed for the month of June, a. d. 431, to meet
at Ephesus. St. Cyril presided as Papal Legate. The session
was opened with great solemnity. Two hundred bishops were
present in the great church of Ephesus ; on a golden throne
in their midst they had placed the book of the Gospels, to
represent the assistance of Jesus Christ, Who has promised
to be with the pastors gathered together in His name. Nesto­
rius had come to Ephesus escorted by an armed troop ; but
he refused to appear in the council. The Fathers thrice sum­
moned him to attend the meetings; their messengers were
always turned away by the guard about the house in which the
heresiarch kept himself shut up. The council was thus forced
to proceed, in the absence of the Patriarch of Constantinople, to
the examination of his writings. They had no sooner been
read than the assembled bishops with one voice exclaimed:
“Anathema to such impious teaching! anathema to whoever
holds such opinions ! they are contrary to Sacred Scripture
and to the tradition of the Fathers !” Pope St. Celestin’s letter
was then read, and inserted in full in the acts of the council.
Finally, solemn sentence was pronounced in these words:
“ Nestorius having refused to answer our summons ami to
receive the bishops sent to him, we have been obliged to enter
upon an examination of his impieties. He is convicted, on the
evidence of his letters, his writings and his discourses, of hold­
ing and spreading scandalous and heretical opinions. Bound
by the holy canons, and by the letter of our Holy Father Celes­
tin, bishop of Rome, we are reduced, not without teitrs of heart­
felt sorrow, to the cruel necessity of pronouncing this sentence
against him : Our Lord Jesus Christ, whom he has blasphemed,
decides, through this most holy council, that he is deprived of

574

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the episcopal dignity, and cut off from every ecclesiastical
body.” This sentence, one of the most solemn ever uttered
by the Church, gives Bossuet occasion to note that the Fathers
recognize, in the pope's letter, the force of a juridical sentence, to
which they feel bound to subscribe. The people of Ephesus had
besieged the church doors during the whole day, in anx­
ious expectation of the decision. As soon as it was publicly
announced, the multitude broke out into enthusiastic trans­
ports of joy. The bishops were escorted to their dwellings
with lighted torches ; they wore covered with flowers, carried
in triumph ; the whole city was illuminated ; and the smoke
of precious incense going up from before the statues of Mary,
filled the atmosphere with a rich fragrance.
The popular indignation had been particularly aroused by
the injury done to the honor of the Blessed Virgin in the Nes­
torian doctrine. In a discourse delivered at the second session
of the council, St. Cyril expresses this sentiment with a rare
happiness of eloquence and faith. “Hail, 0 Mother of God!”
he exclaims: “0 Mary! rich treasure of the universe, ever­
burning lamp, fight of the Church, crown of virginity, sceptre
of orthodoxy, imperishable temple, Mother and Virgin, through
whom He is, that cometh Blessed in the name of the Lord !
We hail thee who didst, in thy virginal womb, contain Him Who
is immense, incomprehensible ! Thee, through whom the Holy
Trinity is adored and glorified, the cross honored and venerated
throughout the universe ·, in whom heaven triumphs, the angels
and archangels rejoice, the demons are put to flight; thee,
through whom the fallen creature is raised up to heaven ; thee,
through whom the whole world, when crushed under the yoke
of idolatry, was brought to the light of truth; through thee,
holy baptism and the unction of spiritual joy are imparted to
the faithful ; through thee, all the churches of the world were
founded, and nations brought to penance. Through thee, in
fine, the only Son of God, the Orient from on high hath visited
us, to enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of
death ; by thee the Prophets foretold, and the Apostles preached

ST. CELESTIN I. (A. D. 422-432).

W)

salvation to the nations ; through thee the dead rise again, and
kings reign in the name of the Blessed Trinity!’’ This apos­
trophe of the holy Patriarch of Alexandria, given back by every
popular echo, drowned the discordant voices of a few bisbops,
met in a cabal, to uphold the errors of Nestorius. Truth pre­
vailed, and its light reached Theodosius himself, in spite of the
efforts of Count Candidian, who commanded the soldiery, and
was devoted to the cause of the heretics. The prelates had
written to make the emperor acquainted with their decision, as
soon as it was pronounced ; but Candidian intercepted their let­
ters, and joined Nestorius in prejudicing the emperor against
them by a false account. The emperor was carefully guarded
against the letters and the envoys of the council. Vessels and
highways were watched; every approach was closed to them,
and truth must have fallen, had not God given it strength to
overcome all obstacles and to thwart all intrigues. At last an
envoy of the council, disguised as a beggar, gained access to the
palace, bearing the true account in a hollow staff. When the
emperor was informed of what had really taken place in the
Council of Ephesus, he banished Nestorius to a monastery at
Antioch ; but as the heresiarch continued to preach his errors,
he was exiled to Oasis, in Upper Egypt, where he shortly after
perished miserably. He was succeeded in the See of Constanti­
nople by Maximian. The pope wrote to the Eastern bishops,
approving the promotion, and congratulating them upon their
choice.
This letter, and that which he wrote at the same time to
the bishops of Gaul in defence of St. Augustine’s teaching,
then assailed by the Semi-Pelagians in that province, were the
last public acts of St. Celestin's pontificate. He died on the
6th of April, a. d. 432. Tradition attributes to this pontiff,
the addition wade by the Church to the Angelical Salutation :
« Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobia” which he com­
posed on receiving, at Rome, the decree of the Council of
Ephesus.

576

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

§ V. Pontificate of St. Sixtus III. (April 26, a. d. 432—March
28, 439).

15. St. Sixtus III. was a priest of the Roman Church,
long distinguished by tho depth and purity of his faith. St.
Augustine addressed to him a celebrated letter on the dogma of
grace. He was elected pope, by a unanimous vote, on the 26th
of April, a. d. 432. The first care of the newly-elected pontiff
was to write to the Eastern bishops, confirming by his apostolic
authority all that had been done at the Council of Ephesus.
Upto this period the Patriarch John of Antioch had held to
Nestorius and refused communion with St. Cyril; but this
schism was at length ended by the care of the pope and the good
oflices of Paul, bishop of Emesa. John of Antioch now acceded
to the condemnation of Nestorius and his adherents (a. d. 433).
He was followed by Theodoret of Cyrrhus, who anathematized
the heresy, but withheld judgment on the person of the heresiarch. The paternal heart of the holy pontiff’ gave vent to its joy at
this pacification, in the affectionate letters he wrote to the patri­
archs of Antioch and Alexandria on the occasion. The threaten­
ing growth of the Nestorian heresy was thus checked by the
energy with which it was met at the very start ; but it still
maintained its position as a sect, and yet counts a few adherents
in some parts of the East.
16. The West had not been disturbed by this controversy.
Its doctors brought, as before, the inspirations of faith, eloquence,
and poetry to the service of the truth. Whilst St. Vincent of
Lerins, illustrious brother of Lupus of Troyes, was engaged in
his Admonitory against Heretics (a. d. 434), Prudentius, a
Christian poet of Saragossa, had ended his days by a holy death,
leaving the most elegant compositions as a monument of his
faith. He made a rich display of spirit and elegance in his work
entitled Περί στεφάνών, or, The Crowns, in which he scatters the
flowers of poetry upon the tombs of the martyrs. Amongst the
other productions of this gifted writer, we have a work On (he
Deity, against the errors of the Jews and Pagans ; one on The

ST. SIXTOS HI. (Λ. D. tij-ϋβ).

W7

Origin of Sin, in which he opposes the Marcmnib - ; 0»
Combat of the Soul against Vice; two Trenti/w waiiui Sym­
machus, refuting his discourse in the Roman Senate, for the
reconstruction of the altar to victory; the Cathemcrinon, or book
of hymns for every day, and every hour of the day; and die
Enchiridion, or .Manual, an abridgment of Sacred History, in
verse.
The Priest Sedulius was at the same time bringing out his
Paschal Poem, and the Life of Christ, in verse, from which the
Church borrows the hymns appointed for the festival
*
of Christ­
mas and the Epiphany. A false rendering of St. Angu-tine’e
writings had, in the beginning of the fifth century, given rise to
the error of the Prcdestinarians, who taught that God sincerely
wishes to save only the predestined, and that Jesus died only
for them. By the efficacious graces granted them, they are
necessitated to do good and to persevere in it, since man never
resists interior grace. The reprobate are, by a parallel train of
reasoning, placed in the impossibility of doing good, as they are
either positively determined to evil, by the will of God, or de­
prived of the grace necessary to abstain from it. This system
of fatalism, which utterly destroys human liberty, was destined
to be revived in the ninth century by a monk named Gotescalc;
in the twelfth, by the Albigenses; in the fourteenth and fif­
teenth, by the Wickliffites and Hussites; in the sixteenth, by
Luther and Calvin; and in the seventeenth, by Jansenius. The
Prcdestinarians were refuted at their very first appearance in
the world, by Gennadius, a priest of Marseilles ; by the younger
Arnobius, in his Commentaries on the Psalms, and in the Prtedestinatus, an anonymous work attributed to him ; by St. Pros­
per, in his Abridged Chronicle of Ecclesiastical History; and
especially by the unknown author of the celebrated work called
Vocation of all Nations, attributed by some critics to St. Pros­
per. Whilst the doctors of the West learnedly discussed the
question of grace, its prodigies in the hearts of the humble and
lowly held the East in admiration, in the very midst of its Nes­
torian troubles. St. Mary ofÆgypt became an inhabitant of
07

578

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the desert-solitude for forty-seven years of unremitting penance,
to expiate her youthful irregularities ; St. Maro spent his days
under a tent, in continual contemplation of the mysteries of
religion; his disciple, St. James the Syrian, lived exposed to
the inclemency of the weather ; parched in summer by the heat
of the sun, buried beneath the winter’s snows; always loaded
with iron chains, and living on undressed herbs. St. Barada t
remained for several years a self-imprisoned captive of the
Lord, enclosed in a kind of wooden cage, so low and so illfastened, that he was completely cramped in it, and exposed to
rain and heat.
17. Constantinople was at length freed from Nestorianism.
Maximian had died in the odor of sanctity, leaving the see
to Proclus. Since their condemnation by the Council of
Ephesus, the Nestorians had been vainly trying to restore
their error, by connecting it to the writings of certain ancient
authors, and especially of Theodore of Mopsueeta. But this
new manœuvre proved as fruitless as the preceding ones.
Theodore, who had now been dead several years, had used
some rather inexact terms, in trying to explain the separation
of the two natures in Jesus Christ. As his real attachment to
the orthodox faith had not been deeply shaken by this, and as
he had moreover died in the communion of the Church, the at­
tempt to restore the Nestorian doctrine on the foundation of
his writings proved a complete failure. The internal union
of the Church of Constantinople was completed by a solemnity
demanded by the voice of the whole people ; it was the trans­
lation of the relics of St. John Chrysostom, which were
brought by order of the Emperor Theodosius, at the request
of Proclus, from the scene of his holy death at Comana. The
faithful met the relics with the same marks of loving enthusi­
asm they would have shown the eloquent patriarch had he
come back to them alive. The venerated remains were taken
to the Church of the Apostles, on the 27th of January, a. d.
438, on which day the Latin Church celebrates the saint’s
festival. The Emperor Theodosius reverently kissed the

ST. HIXTÜ0 III. (A. D. 4ÎÎ-4M).

579

shrine in which the relics were contained, and in the name
of his father and mother begged the saint to forgive their
unjust sentence against him. This prince, though he shared
the weakness common to those who successively occnpied the
throne in that degenerate age, seems to have possessed some
sterling qualities. In the course of the year 438, he published
the Theodosian Code., a systematic collection, in sixteen hooks,
of the imperial laws and ordinances made since the time of
Constantine, for civil, military, and ecclesiastical administra­
tion. Such a work was a public benefit. Since legislation
had followed the emperors into the sphere of Christianity,
and numerous laws made under the influence of paganism had
never been revoked, there was a loose and contradictory
medley of decrees, widely different in spirit and origin. The
Theodosian Code, inspired by the spirit of Christianity, brought
back legislation to the unity which constitutes its power, con­
secrated the fundamental principles of all society by proclaim­
ing the holiness and indissolubility of the marriage-tie, pro­
tecting the innocence of childhood and the honor of woman, and,
in some sort, restoring to humanity its lost dignity. The code
was intended for the East, where it did not survive eighty
years. Justinian abrogated it to make way for a new one;
but in the West it outlived the fall of the empire, and forms
the basis of modern public law. The West especially suffered
from the repeated inroads of the barbarians. Africa, which
was now in the hands of Genseric, on the 19th of October.
a. d. 439, saw Carthage forever blotted out from the list of cities.
The Vandals plundered it, and banished its chief inhabitants.
Spain and Gaul were invaded by the Suevi, the Goths, Alani,
Burgundians, and Franks. But the most destructive of all
these scourges came down from the interior of Tartar?, send­
ing terror before him, and leaving general devastation and
ruin behind. Attila, with his hordes of savage Huns, having
wasted Illyria, Pannonia, and Thrace with fire and sword, and
pushed his victorious arms to the very walls of Constantinople,
suddenly turned back upon the provinces of the West (a. d.

680

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

439). St. Sixtus III. was spared the miseries of this for­
midable invasion; he died on the 28th of March, a. d. 439
having held the pontifical power eight years. The last days
of his reign were also devoted to the support of the ecclesias­
tical jurisdiction against the attempted encroachments of the
Patriarch of Constantinople. He wrote to Proclus, in a. d.
437, admonishing him not to infringe upon the rights of the
Metropolitan of Thessalonica, and to admit no Illyrian bishop
to the communion of tho Church without a letter in form
from the See of Thessalonica. He gave the same instructions
to Perigenes of Corinth, and reminded him that he also de­
pended upon the same metropolitan. Thus the watchful care
of the Roman pontiffs ever -kept up a uniformity of govern­
ment in the Church. They exercised their power only to pro­
tect the rights of all, to check usurpation, to crush schisms, to
destroy growing errors, to extend the truth, and subject the
world to the yoke of Jesus Christ.

8T. LEO I. (A. D. 439-461).

581

CHAPTER VI.
§ I. Pontificate of 8t. Leo I. the Great (September 1, a. d. 439—

April 11,461).
1. Works of St. Loo the Great against different Heresies.—2. Entjwbw.

Latrocinale of Ephesus.—3. Mercian, Emperor of the Eart.—4. Conned of
Chalcedon, fhe Fourth of the General Councils.—Â Attila. He inva-lesGaul
and Italy.

Retires before the Majesty of St. Leo the Great.—6. .Ve» Trouble»

raised in the East by Eutychianism.—7. Invasion nf Rome by Genserie.—
8. Timothy Ælurus at Alexandria.

Death of St Leo the Great

§ II. Pontificate of St. Hilary (Nov. 12, a. d. 461—Sept. 10,467).

9. Election of St. Hilary.—10. Efforts of St Hilary to uphold the laws of the
Ecclesiastical Hierarchy.—11. Councils of Arles, of Tours, and of Vanne,
in Gaul.—12. Earthquake at Antioch.

Burning of Constantinople. Death

of St. Simeon Stylites.
§ ΠΙ. Pontificate of St. Simplicius (Sept 27, a. d. 467—To the fall of

the Western Empire, August 23, a. d. 476).

13. Election of St. Simplicius.—14. St Epiphanias of Pavia. St Patiens of
Lyons.

St Sidonius Apollinaria.—15. Odoacer, King of the Heruli, over
*

throws the Western Empire.

§ I. Pontificate of St. Leo l, the Great (Sept. 1, a. d. 439
—April 11, 461).

1. The Church, and indeed the world at large, called for a
Sovereign Pontiff endowed with an energy of character, with a
moral power and dignity equal to the importance ol coming
events. Divine Providence, ever watchful of the welfare of
His Church, had prepared for the appointed hour the man of
His own choice. Leo, a Roman archdeacon, was then absent
in Gaul, whither he had been sent on a mission to the General

682

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Ætius. The esteem in which lie was generally held is suffi­
ciently clear from the fact that, though absent, the vote in his
favor was unanimous. A deputation was sent to lay at his
feet the homage of the whole city of Rome ; and when tho
newly-elected pastor appeared in the midst of his flock, he was
received in triumph by the people to whom he was about to
devote his life. Every quality of the great man was united in
St. Leo, with the deep humility and eminent virtues which
adorn the saints. His flowing eloquence charmed the people ;
we have still the homilies and sermons delivered by him on
the different solemnities. When the great pontiff-, from the
commanding height of his apostolic throne, cast a glance over
the world, he found matter enough to awaken all his care and
zeal. The Arian Vandals were pillaging the churches of Africa
and Sicily ; the Manichean fugitives from Carthage were pour­
ing into Italy, and threatening to infect Rome ; the Priscillianists were arousing themselves in Spain, the Pelagians in Venetia;
the provinces of Gaul were shaken by internal commotions ;
whilst Nestorianism was still alive in the East. St. Leo
proved equal to his task. He restored the churches ravaged
by the Vandals, and consoled the flocks ; he severely punished
the abominations committed by the Manichces in their myste­
rious meetings (a. d. 443). An authentic account of this in­
vestigation was drawn up ; and it were impossible to peruse,
without a thrill of horror, the record of the fearful crimes
committed by this sect of darkness. The pope wrote to all
the Italian bishops, to warn them against the heretics, and to
guard them against their errors (λ. d. 444). St. Turribius, bishop
of Astorga, sent him the report of his inquisition against the
Priseillianists in Spain. St. Leo replied (a. d. 447) by a long
letter, in which he meets all the errors of Priscillian, bringing
them into conjunction with Manicheism, and includes them all
in one condemnation. Septimius, bishop of Altinum, in Ve­
netia, made known to the pontiff’ that, in his province, priests,
deacons and clerics of other orders had been admitted to the
communion of the Church, from the Pelagian ranks, without

ST. LEO I. (A. D. 439-IB1 .

583

being previously required to make a full abjuration. Th'· pope
immediately directed the Bishop of Aqnileia, metro^liun
of the province, to call a council, in which all persons inspected
of Pelagianism should be required to give in an open and
written abjuration of the heresy. In the Gallic provinces 8t,
Hilary of Arles was the life of the councils, and led the reli­
gious movement now manifested in that country. In λ. d.
439 he presided over a council at Reez, in Provence, to put
an end to a schism in the Church of Embrun, by giving it a
lawful bishop. In a. d. 441 he held the first Council of Orange,
celebrated by a series of thirty canons, the most noteworthy
of which forbids, for the future, the ordination of deaconesses.
During the same year he directed the Council of Vairon, where
provision was made for the care of children abandoned in the
public streets ; for this barbarous custom had been retained,
notwithstanding the imperial edicts which, since the days of
Constantine, had continually opposed the unnatural crime.
Another council, held at Besançon, drew St. Hilary into more
serious difficulties. Chelidonius, bishop of Besançon, was
accused of having been ordained in opposition to the canons,
and of having been twice married before his promotion to the
episcopacy. St. Hilary deposed him, whereupon he appealed to
the pope, and set out for Rome in person. St. Hilary followed.
The case was brought before a council assembled in Rome, by
St. Leo (a. d. 445). Chehdonius cleared himself of every charge
brought against him, and was restored to his see. The settle­
ment of this question brought the Bishop of Arles into disfavor;
and the Sovereign Pontiff deprived him of his metropolitan juris­
diction over the province of Vienne. This last decision was
strengthened by a rescript of Valentinian III. (8 th oi July. a. n.
445), by which it was forbidden to undertake any thing in eccle­
siastical government without the authority oi the Apostolic See.
Such was the public law of the fifth century: the supremacy
of the Roman Pontiff was universally recognized as a fundamen­
tal principle of religious society. St. Hilary of Arles was the
first to give an example of the most respectful submission ; he

584

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

left no means untried to effect a reconciliation will) St. Leo the
Great, who was not slow to appreciate the zeal, virtue, and humil­
ity of the Bishop of Arles. The death of St. Hilary soon after
threw a gloom over the whole Gallic province, and, indeed, over
all the Catholic world (a. d. 447). At the moment when this
holy pastor was just quitting the'field of his struggles and
labors, St. Germanus of Auxerre, accompanied hy St. Severus,
bishop of Treves, was setting out on a second mission to Great
Britain. The preaching and miracles of tho two holy mission­
aries proved too powerful for Pelagianism, which they had come
to combat. They were granted the consolation of seeing the
whole nation folded in the true Church before their departure
from the island. St. Germanus had not had time to rest from
the fatigue of the voyage, when his zealous charity urged him
on to Ravenna to obtain from Valentinian III. the pardon of the
rebellious Armoricans. All Italy was in wondering admiration
of the prodigies which marked his journey ; but death awaited
him at Ravenna, the term of his pilgrimage. On the last day
of July, in the year 448, he closed a holy and laborious episco­
pate of thirty years.
2. Four years earlier the East had been called upon to
weep the loss of the Athanasius of Nestorianism. St. Cyril
of Alexandria left to posterity a monument of bis piety and
learning, in a series of works comprising no less than seven
folio volumes. He was succeeded by a bishop unworthy of
the name. Dioscorus, by his slavish compliance with the im­
perial will, and by his bearing in regard to Eutychianism,
seemed determined to blot out the noble precedents of his ante­
cessors, St. Athanasius the Great and St. Cyril. In a. d. 448,
Eutyches, the superior of a monastery near Constantinople, in
combating the error of Nestorius, which divides the persons
in Jesus Christ, fell into an error no less repugnant to the
doctrine of the Incarnation. He asserted that there was but
one nature in Jesus Christ—the divinity—which had absorbed
the humanity in the process of uniting with it. The obstinacy
shown by Eutyches in upholding his error, in spite of the

HT. LEO t. (A. D.

7»«5

admonitions of his friend Eusebius of Dorylaeum, and th
* wiw
counsels of Flavian, who had recently been promoted to the 8^e
of Constantinople, clearly showed his ignorance and bad faith
The true explanation of his conduct was, that he had long cov­
eted tho metropolitan dignity, which he hoped to reach by the
influence of the eunuch Chrysaphius, a favorite of Theodosius,
who, in his early days, had been his pupil. A disappointed
ambition thus acted as the motive power of that covetous
heart : how often has the Church been tom by heresies spring­
ing from the same source ! Eusebius of Dorylæum made to
the cause of truth the sacrifice of a life-long friendship, and
became the accuser of him who had been the companion of his
childhood. He arraigned him before a council assembled by
Flavian at Constantinople, in a. d. 448. Eutyches at first
refused to appear, but finally presented himself in the last ses­
sion (November 28th) ; as he persisted in his error, he was con­
demned, deposed from the priesthood and from the govern­
ment of his monastery, and excommunicated. The sentence
was signed by all the bishops of the council, and by twentythree abbots who were present.
Eutyches, after the manner of all heresiarchs, refused to
submit ; for the character of heresy is, after all, not so much
the error of the human mind, which is but too prone to fail,
as perseverance and obstinacy in clinging to the wrong opin­
ion. Flavian sent to the pope the acts of the Council of Con­
stantinople. Eutyches also wrote to complain of injustice in
his condemnation. St. Leo foresaw at a glance all the damage
that such a doctrine was calculated to inflict, if thrown into
the East at a moment when all minds were turned, by the
Nestorian controversy, to an inquiry into the dogma of the
Incarnation. His answer to Flavian was a confirmation of
every act of the council, and an encouragement to follow up
the new sectary. Eutyches had also written to St. Peter
Chrysologus, bishop of Ravenna, to win him over to his cause,
but received, in reply, only the following eloquent appeal to
forsake his error: ‘‘When Jesus Christ uttered his infant wail

Ô86

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

in the manger, the heavenly host was chanting Glory to God
in the highest! and now, when nt the name of Jesus every
knee is bent in heaven, on earth and in hell, a question is
raised concerning His origin ! We exhort you above all things,
beloved brother, to submit to what has been written by the
holy Roman Pontiff; for St. Peter lives and presides in his
See, and gives the truth of faith to all who sincerely seek it."
Even the words of Chrysologus were powerless to move his
obstinate heart. By means of Chrysaphius, Eutyches found a
protector‘in Dioscorus of Alexandria. Through the joint
influence of these two friends he obtained from the weak
Theodosius the convocation of a council, which was to be
ecumenical, and where the question should be once more
debated. St. Leo was consulted on this subject by the court
of Constantinople. He sent, as legatos, Julius, bishop of
Pozzuoli, in Campania ; René, priest of the title of St. Clem­
ent, who died on the journey ; the deacon Hilary, and Dulcitius, a notary. They bore written instructions, in which the
pope establishes, beyond contradiction, the Catholic dogma
concerning the two natures in Jesus Christ. One hundred
and thirty bishops were assembled from the provinces of
Egypt, of Asia, Pontus and Thrace ; but this assembly was
now to form a mere cabal, branded by history with the name
of the Latrocinale of Ephesus (August 8th, A. d. 449). The
eunuch assumed the authority of appointing the presiding
officer, who was Dioscorus. The Papal Legates were given the
second place, contrary to all precedent and canonical law.
Some authors even assert that Dioscorus shut them out from
all share in the deliberations of the council. Two counts, sent
by Theodosius, with an armed escort, undertook to dictate the
sentence and to carry out the orders of their master. More­
over, from the very opening of the first session, Dioscorus
refused to read the instructions given by St. Leo to his Legate ;
but he caused the letters of convocation sent to him by the
emperor to be publicly read. The council insisted upon being
made acquainted with the rescript of the Roman Pontiff.

RT. LEO I. (A. D. αα-Ιΐί).

»T

Seven times Dioscorus made the promise, but a? often did he
find means to put off' the reading of the much-dreaded letter
*.
He then summoned Eutyches to appear before the council.
The Fathers, with St. Flavian at their head, demanded that
Eusebius of Doryheum should likewise be summoned as bis
accuser. The merest notion of justice would have made this
a law; but Count Elpidius, the emperor’s agent, objected,
on the ground that Eusebius of Doryheum, in his character of
accuser, had forfeited his right to a place among the judges.
Eutyches thus enjoyed the privilege of speaking alone, and
without opponents. lie was merely made to sign the Nicene
profession, without any mention of the capital point of his’
error. Dioscorus pronounced him solemnly absolved from all
censure previously uttered against him, and restored to the com­
munion of the Church, to the dignity of the priesthood, and to
the government of his monastery. The head of this false
council then read an act of deposition against Eusebius of
Dorylæum and St. Flavian of Constantinople, mho hailpublicly,
in the words of Dioscorus, calumniated thefaith of Euiychu. A
unanimous cry of indignation broke from the assembly. The
bishops whoj through weakness, had signed the absolution of
Eutyches, were staggered by such arbitrary despotism. To
terrify them into submission, Dioscorus called upon the com­
missioners, who surrounded the church with armed troops.
The majority of the bishops yielded to violence; but the
Papal Legates openly resisted, and their protestation had to be
inserted in the acts. From all sides arose theory: "Tear in
pieces all who divide the natures! Drive them out! Kill
them !” From threats the soldiers came to blows and wounds.
The bishops were confined amid this tumult till a late hour of
the night ; not even those who were oppressed by the suffoca­
ting atmosphere were allowed to go out and breathe the Iresh
air. At this price did Dioscorus buy one hundred and thirty
signatures. To crown such a triumph, he caused a sentence ot
deposition to be passed against Theodoret, bishop et Cyrrhus,
Ibas of Edessa, Sabinian of Perrha, and Domnus of Antioch

Ô88

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

nil remarkable for holiness and a strong attachment to the
Catholic faith. He even dared to pronounce sentence of
excommunication against St. Leo himself. With this excess
of madness closed the Latrocinale of Ephesus. Eusebius of
Dorylaeum was thrown into prison. St. Flavian of Constanti­
nople died in exile of the wounds he had received on this
occasion. Dioscorus ordained, to’ fill his see, Anatolius, a
deacon of his church of Alexandria, and thought to have thus
planted heresy in the imperial city.
3. Theodosius immediately issued a decree, confirming, by
the imperial authority, all that had been done at the Latro­
cinale of Ephesus. Meanwhile, St. Leo, informed by his
Legates of the deplorable issue of affairs there, had called a
council at Rome, where all the acts of the false council were
rejected, all those unjustly condemned by it were restored, and
all its sentences declared null. This circumstance showed the
tireless activity of the pontiff. He simultaneously wrote letters
full of burning zeal and apostolic energy to the Emperor Theodo­
sius, to the Empress Pulcheria, to the clergy and people of
Constantinople, to the superiors of the monasteries in that city,
to Anastasius of Thessalonica, and to St. Flavian, -whose death
had not yet been communicated to him. His letter to Theodo­
sius is full of a calm majesty which the storm cannot disturb,
of feeling charity for the fallen, and of the most delicate con­
sideration for a weak and deluded prince : “ Let the bishops,”
says the pontiff, “ enjoy the liberty of defending the true faith,
which no human power can ever destroy. In supporting the
cause of the Church, we uphold the cause of your empire and
your own welfare. Protect the constitutions of the Church
against heretics, that Christ may also protect your empire.”
The remedy wdiich suggested itself to the mind of the Sovereign
Pontiff in the existing crisis, was the convocation of a truly
ecumenical council ; and to this end he directed all his energies.
To effect his object, he made use of the influence of the court
of Ravenna with the Emperor Theodosius (a. d. 450). Valen­
tinian III., and his mother, Placidia, wrote to Constantinople, to

ST. LEO I. (A. D. 439-481).

MO

urge the request. But Providence had reserved to i'-df th
*
task of removing the obstacle presented by the wcakm-M of
Theodosius, and that in quite an unlooked-for manner. On the
28th of July, λ. d. 450, the emperor died, at the age of fifty
years, by a fall from his horse ; the Empress Pulcheria gave the
succession to Marcian, an officer whose talents and virtue railed
forth the admiration of the world, and made him an emperor
truly worthy of the name (August 24th, a. D. 456). The new
Cæsar gave his first thoughts to the pacification of the Church.
When the Papal Legates reached Constantinople, with their
letters for Theodosius, they found a council assembled under
the auspices of Marcian, and presided over by Anatolius, St.
Flavian’s successor. Dioscorus's deacon, once in the patri­
archal chair, showed himself, to his patron's great astonishment,
a true follower of Catholic doctrine. In presence of the Papal
Legates, at the head of his council, he solemnly anathematized
Eutyches, his doctrine and his followers. The remains of St.
Flavian were brought to Constantinople, and placed near the
relics of St. John Chrysostom. All the bishops banished by
the Latrocinale of Ephesus, for their devotion to the faith, were
recalled : those who had been so weak as to subscribe the
measures imposed by Dioscorus were left at the head of their
dioceses, but not admitted to the communion of the Catholic
Church, until an ecumenical council should have pronounced
upon their case. St. Leo approved all these acts, and sent
letters of communion to Anatolius, which he had hitherto retained
from doing, to give himself time to learn the true sentiments of
a prelate whose election, by the favor of Dioscorus, made him
an object of justifiable suspicion (a. d. 450).
4. The Pope St. Leo I., and the Emperor Marcian, were
equally desirous to see peace restored to the Church, by the
meeting of a general council. Nice was first named as the place
of meeting, but a threatened inroad of the Huns made Illyria too
unsafe. The city of Chalcedon, situated on the coast of Asia
Minor, near Constantinople, was then chosen. Five hundred
bishops, from all the provinces of the East, met on the 8th

590

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

of October, a. d.451, under tho presidency of the Papal Legates,
PaecasimiSj bishop of Lilybæum, in Sicily; Lucentius, bishop
of Ascoli ; Basil and Boniface, priests of the Roman Church.
The first session of the fourth ecumenical council was taken up
by an inquisition into the acts of the Latrocinale of Ephesus;
Dioscorus now appeared as the accused party. All the irregu­
larities of the false council were brought forward ;—the inferior
rank assigned to the Papal Legates ;—the refusal to read the
pope's letters ;—the protest of St. Flavian, and of Eusebius of
Dorylæum, set at naught ;—the violent measures adopted to force
the bishops to sign an unjust sentence. At this particular point
the Eastern bishops cried out: “We wTere struck; the soldiers
loaded us with insults and blows. We have all erred, we beg
pardon and mercy.” In the second session, the doctrinal letters
sent with the legates by St. Leo were publicly read. The
pontiff, with an authority becoming the successor of St. Peter,
here lays down the Catholic doctrine in opposition to the error
of Eutyches. So exact and so pure was the statement of the
doctrine, that the bishops, with one voice, exclaimed : “ It is
the faith of our fathers ! it is the faith of the apostles ! Peter
has spoken by the mouth of Leo ! This is the faith we
all hold !” The dogmatic difficulty being thus settled, the
council, in its third session, proceeded to the explicit condem­
nation of Dioscorus, who was unanimously anathematized.
The sentence condemning him as guilty of heresy, of crime,
and violation of the ecclesiastical canons, was announced to
him and to the faithful of Alexandria by deputies from the
council. Anatolius, Patriarch of Constantinople, signed it
with the other Fathers. The Emperor Marcian banished Dios­
corus to Gangres, in Paphlagonia, where he died in the year
454. The fourth session was spent in considering the various
petitions sent in by Egyptian monks, whom Dioscorus had led
to beg from the Fathers a recall of the sentence of deposition.
But it was maintained in all its rigor. “ Dioscorus has been
juridically deposed!” said the Fathers. “It is God Himself Who
has condemned Dioscorus !” Finally, in the fifth session, a

ST. LEO î. (A. D. 439-4«)).

Wi

profession of faith was drawn up in opposition to Entydmnism : “ We unanimously declare,” said the bishops, "that all
must confess one and the same Jeans Christ, onr Lord ; perfect
in divinity and perfect in humanity, true God and true man:
possessing a reasonable soul and a body; consubstantiel with
the Father in divinity, and consubstantial with tw in human­
ity; like to us in every thing save sin; begotten of the Father
before all ages, as to His divinity; in these last time
* bom of
the Virgin Mary, as to His humanity, for os and for our salva­
tion ; one and the same Jesus Christ, only 8on, Lord, in two
natures, without confusion, without change, without division,
without separation; in whom this union hinder not the dif­
ference of natures : on the contrary, preserved to each what is
its own, they meet in one single person, in one hypostasis;
so that Jesus Christ is not divided into two persons, hut is one
and the same Lord, the Word, the only Son of God.” This
clear, explicit, categorical expression of the dogma of the In­
carnation, was received with acclamations by all the Fathers,
and unanimously subscribed. To add solemnity to the reading
of the profession of faith, the Emperor Mercian was present in
person at the sixth session, where it was published. He
announced that after the example of Constantine, he had come
into the holy'· assemblage only to lend the imperial authority to
the decisions of the council, and not to interfere with the free­
dom of suffrage. This noble expression of sentiment drew
from all the bishops the exclamation; “ Long live the new
Constantine ! Long live the pious and orthodox emperor and
empress ! Λ long and happy reign to Marciani" The emperor
called for the reading of the profession of faith, and asked it
all agreed upon what they had just heard. They all repbed :
“ We have but one faith and one doctrine. Thi' is the belief
of the holy doctors ; it is that of the Apostles. This faith has
saved the world !” Marcian published a decree confirmatory
of the profession of faith drawn up by the council, and con­
demning Eutyches, who soon afterwards died, at the age of
seventy-five years. In the remaining sessions, the lathers

592

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

gave their attention to some matters of discipline : forbidding
tho erection of a monastery without the consent of the bishop
and of the owners of the place ; the submission of monks to
diocesan authority; forbidding clerics and religious to take
upon themselves any tutorage or administration, and to pass
from one Church to another, without permission of the Ordi­
nary. So far all the acts of the council had been perfectly
regular. The only dissonance which affected the harmony
existing between the Papal Legates and the Fathers of the
Council of Chalcedon, arose from an attempt of Anatolius.
The besetting ambition of the patriarchs of Constantinople had
ever been to raise their see to the second place in the Church,
and to make it first after that of Rome. Anatolius thought
this a favorable moment to renew the attempt; the service he
had done the Catholic cause, the zeal displayed by him against
the Eutychian heresy, the letters of communion, so lately
received from the Sovereign Pontiff, all inspired the most san­
guine hope of success. The twenty-eighth canon of the Council
of Chalcedon was then drawn up to that effect; but the legates
loudly protested against the innovation. “ The holy and Apos­
tolic Pontiff,” said they, “ gave us these amongst his other
instructions : Should any prelate, looking too much to the
splendor of his city, wish to arrogate to himself any preroga­
tive whatever, oppose the attempt with all becoming firm­
ness.” The legates supported this noble sentiment, by reading
the sixth canon of the Nicene Council, where the question had,
as we have seen, already been decided. The close of the
council was not delayed by the debate thus left pending. Tho
bishops separated (November, a. d. 451), with the hope that
their harmony and pious efforts had secured long years of
peace to the Church. They had sent the acts of the council,
with a synodal letter, to the pope. They begged him espe­
cially to confirm, “by his Apostolic authority,” the privilege they
had deemed it right to grant to the See of Constantinople. Ana­
tolius urged the same petition in private letters. St. Leo stood
out firmly against this claim. His reply to Anatolius, and h:s

ST. LEO I. (A. D. 439-P51).

5W

letters to the Emperor Marcian and the Empre« Pukhi-rin'.i.n.
452), show a pontiff most watchful to guard the prescription
*
of
the hierarchical canons, even at the risk of displeasing the pow­
ers of earth. The pope’s refusal to confirm the twenty-eighth
canon, relative to the pre-eminence of the See of Concmtinople
over the apostolic patriarchates, gave occasion to the partisans
of Eutyches to assert that St. Leo had not ratified the acts of
the Council of Chalcedon. The Sovereign Pontiff accordingly
found it necessary to make a public statement of what he had
already written to the emperor and to Anatolius. He confirmed
all that had been decided in questions of dogma; but -rill
protested against the ambitious attempt of the Patriarch of
Constantinople.
5. Whilst this great pontiff thus brought back peace and
unity of faith to the Church in the East, he had in the West
checked the onward course of the fierce king of the Hons, who
was pushing on his victorious hordes over the ruins of the Roman
world. Attila, the most formidable mower of men who had yet
led on the barbarian invaders, seemed born for the tenor of the
world. He had come originally from the forests of Tartary,
and his destiny appeared to be attended by something inexpli­
cably terrific, which made a fearful impression upon the gene­
rality of men. His gait and carriage were full of pride and
haughtiness ; the movements of his body and the rolling of his
eyes spoke his conscious power. His short stature, broad chest,
and still larger head, thin beard, and swarthy features, plainly
told his origin. His capital was a campin die fields by the
Danube. The kings he had conquered kept guard by turns at
the door of his tent. His own table was set with wooden plat­
ters and coarse food, whilst his soldiers sported with gold and
silver vases. Enthroned upon a low stool, the Tartar chief
received the ambassadors of Valeutinian III. and Theodosius
the Younger, whose credulity he deceived in a maimer that
would have done credit to the must practised courtier of Con­
stantinople or of Rome. He said of himself, with savage en­
ergy: “The star falls, the earth trembles; I am the hammer
38

694

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

of the universe. The grass never grows again where Attila’s
horse has once trod.” He claimed the official title of Scourge
of God. The two emperors of Ravenna and of Constantinople
thought to stop the barbarian at their gates, by allowing him
the title of General of the Empire, and allowing him a tribute
which they regarded as his pay. The Hun remarked on this
subject: “The generals of emperors arc servants; Attila’s
servants are emperors.” He one day sent two Goths, one to
Theodosius IL, the other to Valcntinian III., with this mes­
sage : “Attila, my master and yours, orders you to prepare him
a palace.” This meant an invasion.
*
Dragging along with
him a train of tributary princes and five hundred thousand
barbarians, he crossed the Rhine and pushed on through the
provinces of Gaul (a. d. 451). This was the precise period at
which the fourth general council was to have met at Nice, in
Illyria ; the terror inspired by the arms of Attila had caused
it to be transferred to Chalcedon. Maestricht, Rheims, Arras,
Cambray, Besançon, Langres, and Auxerre were given up to
pillage and to the violence of an unbridled soldiery. Metz had
provoked a redder vengeance by a longer resistance, and saw
its streets flowing with the blood of the greater part of its in­
habitants. The survivors, with their bishop, were led away
captives, and the city, given up to the flames, was soon but a
heap of ashes. Troyes was threatened with the same fate.
Its holy bishop, Lupus, importuned tho mercy of God by his
ceaseless prayers, tears, fasts, and good works. At length, in­
spired with a supernatural confidence, he goes forth in full pon­
tifical attire, to meet the barbarian, and asks him : “ Who art
thou that dost overcome so many kings and nations, ruin so
many cities, and subdue the world ?” Attila replied : “ I am
King of the Huns, the Scourge of God !" “If thou art the scourge
of my God,” returned the bishop, “remember to do only what
is allowed thee by the hand that moves and governs thee.’’
Attila, astonished at the boldness of this address, and awed by
M. DE

Chateaubriand: Etudes Historiques.

ST. LEO I. (A. T>. Γ.ΜίΙ).

the majesty of the holy prelate, promised to spare the city, <nd
passed through it without doing it any harm. In Paris, and)
was the dismay that the inhabitants were preparing to leave th?
city, with their wives and children, to seek the protection of
some more strongly fortified place. St. Genevieve, the hnmhle
virgin of Nanterre, consecrated to God by Sts. Germanos and
Lupus, became the patroness and mother of the city. She
restored the failing courage, provided for every want, procured
means of subsistence for the affrighted multitude, and promised,
in the name of Heaven, that Attila should not approach the
walls of Paris. In effect, Attila, suddenly changing the direc­
tion of his march, fell, with his savage hordes, upon the city of
Orleans. This city, which seemed marked out for miraculous
deliverances, was then governed by the holy Bishop St. Aignan.
to whom it owed its safety. He had been able to go to Arles
and solicit help from Ætius, the Roman general. Just ad
Orleans was on the point of opening its gates to the besiegers,
the combined armies of Ætius and Theodoric, king of the Visi­
goths, came within sight of its walls. Attila, foaming with rage,
raised the siege, and in the plain of Chalons sought a field in
which he could display his forces and meet his opponente. The
confederates counted a body of Franks commanded by their
Prince Meroveus. The two armies, now encamped face to face,
numbered about a million warriors. They met ; and then en­
sued one of the bloodiest battles that crimson the pages of
history. Three hundred thousand slain encumbered the field:
a little neighboring stream was swelled like a torrent by the
quantity of blood that flowed into its channel. Theodoric fell,
but his valor had won the victory for the allies. Attila was
utterly defeated, and recrossed the Rhine in hasty flight. In
the following year (a. d. 452) he reappeared, more formidable
than ever, on the borders of Italy, leaving Pannonia and Nori­
cum wasted by fire and sword. Valentinian III. made a precipi­
tate retreat from Ravenna, and hastened to seek shelter within
the walls of Rome. Attila besieged and destoyed the cities of
Aquileia, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, and Bergamo; Milan

696

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

and Pavia were given up to pillage. The Hun pushed on amid
the smoking ruins of the conquered cities, and halted near Man­
tua, on the banks of the Mincio; the terrified inhabitants fled
at his approach, and sought, in the marshes where Venice now
stands, a refuge from the violence of the victorious barbarians.
The last hour of the Roman Empire seemed at hand ; St. Leo suc­
ceeded in warding off the threatened ruin. He appeared before
Attila as the ambassador of Heaven, as a herald of peace. The
two great sovereignties of the Word and the Sword stood face to
face; and the Sword bowed before the majesty of the Gospel.
Attila was awed by the bearing of the great pontiff whose fame
had reached the remote borders of Tarfary, and he lent a favor­
able ear to his propositions ; quitting the soil of Italy, he
withdrew across the Danube, where death suddenly snatched
him from the midst of his plans of destruction (a. d. 453). On
his return from the successful embassy, the pope was received
in triumph, and the enthusiastic people bestowed upon him the
title of Great.
6. The bright halo of genius shed around the person of
the holy pontiff, wonderfully enhanced the splendor and majes­
ty of the Apostolic See. His letters were received in all the
Churches of the world with marks of the deepest veneration
and filial submission. The bishops of Gaul wrote to him to
express the universal admiration they excited among them.
“ It is just,” wrote the bishops, “ that the primacy of St.
Peter’s See should be established there, where the tradition of
the oracles of the Apostolic spirit is maintained.” They met
in council, to receive the condemnation of Eutyches, and
thanked the holy pontiff for his care in warding off the errors
which had not yet taken root among them. The same peace
and harmony did not, however, reign in the Eastern Churches.
The deposition of Dioscorus, by the Fathers of Chalcedon, gave
rise to serious disorders in Alexandria. The inhabitants were
divided between Protenus,snewly elected, and Dioscorus, in
exile. The partisans of Dioscorus insulted the magistrates
and stoned the soldiers sent to put down the sedition. The

ST. LEO I. (Λ. P. 439-461).

5OT

troops took refuge in the Temple of Serapis, where they wpt? be­
sieged by the enraged mob. This furions popnlace. madden·"!
by resistance, set fire to the temple, and burned the prisoner
*
alive. The Emperor Marcian took severe measures to repress
the outbreak. Proterius, the new patriarch, bad, meanwhile,
written to Pope St. Leo, to have his election confirmed by the
authority of the Apostolic See; having given satisfactory evi­
dence of the purity of his faith, he received letters of com­
munion from the pope (a. d. 454). Palestine was at this time
in the hands of a Eutychian faction, who refused to submit to
the Council of Chalcedon. Theodosius, an intruded bishop,
had seized upon the patriarchal throne of Jerusalem, and was
supported by the intrigues of some monks attached to Eutychianism, and especially by the favor of Eudoxia, widow of Theo­
dosius II., who was now residing in Palestine. St. Leo,
anxious to withdraw this princess from the path of error, wrote
her an admirable letter, which forms a complete treatise on the
dogma of the Incarnation. The controversy between the two
parties had taken the form of a grammatical logomachy, and
turned upon the difference between the particles of and in. The
schismatics held that Jesus Christ, God and man, is of two
natures ; the Catholics maintained that Christ, being true God
and true man, is not only of two natures, but also in two nature.'.
To make the latter expression more clear, it must be understood
that Eutyches and Dioscorus, by the expression, of two natures,
implied before the Incarnation; teaching that they had afterwards
been blended in a single nature in the Man-God. Hence the
earnestness with which the Catholics insisted upon the expres­
sion : in two natures. To the monks who bad fomented these di­
visions the pope wrote the most eloquent letters: “Towhat
would you have been brought by bloixly persecution, iron hooks,
tortures and executioners, when the weak efforts of wretched
heretics have sufficed to rob you of the purity of your faith
You think yourselves arrayed in defence of the truth, whilst you
dare to wage war against the truth ! You take up arms in the
name of the Church, but in reality you rend the bosom of the

598

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Church ! Is this what you have learned from the Prophets, the
Evangelists and Apostles ?" These exhortations, seconded by
the watchful energy of the Emperor Marcian, produced their
effect. The intruded bishop was driven from his usurped
throne, and the lawful patriarch, Juvenal, restored to the full
enjoyment of his rights (a. d. 454). Not one of the many
questions then troubling the harmony of the Eastern Churches
was excluded from the solicitude of Leo the Great. On learning
the restoration of Juvenal to the See of Jerusalem, he imme­
diately wrote to the Patriarch of Antioch, encouraging him to
a steady defence of his rights as metropolitan, which the bishops
of Jerusalem had attempted to dispute. “ No individual ambi­
tion,” wrote the pontiff, “ shall ever lessen the privileges of the
Church of Antioch ; I hold the Nicene canons in too great
esteem ever to allow their infringement by any innovation.”
With a view to establish unity of government on a firmer basis,
he constituted Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, his legate for the
provinces of the Euphrates and Armenia. Julian of Cos held
the same powers at Constantinople ; he acquainted St. Leo with
the suspicious conduct of Anatolius, patriarch of the city, in
regard to the few remaining Eutychians who still kept up their
cabals. Ætius, a Catholic archdeacon, had been unjustly de­
prived of his position which was given to a Eutychian. The
pope required the patriarch to restore Ætius to his dignity.
Marcian also used his influence to the same end, and Anatolius
complied. He still, however, claimed the privileges granted him
by the surreptitious canon of the Council of Chalcedon. The
pope reproved him severely for this, and the patriarch, without
urging the matter again, replied by acknowledging the necessity
of the pontifical sanction in the case. “ As to the decision in
favor of the See of Constantinople,” says the patriarch, “ rest
assured that I have had no part in it. Besides, it has been
left to the authority of your Holiness to confirm every thing that
was done in the council.” These exterior occupations did not
suffice to absorb the tireless energy of St. Leo ; he now set
about regulating the time of the Paschal celebration. By his

ST. LEO 1. (A. D. 43M01).

5W

direction Victorius of Aquitaine undertook to draw up a Pw.^i
canon, more exact, extensive,and scientific than any yet adopted
In this work the learned Gaul traced up the whole succession of
lunations and days to the beginning of the world, according to
the chronology of Eusebius. He carried out his system to the
year 559 of the Christian Era. The cycle of Victorius, published
in a. d. 457, became the standard of the Latin Church, and
served as a basis for all future undertakings of a like nature.
7. Political events of fearful import were thickening in the
West. Valentinian III., wholly given up to pleasure and to his
eunuchs, was unable to govern himself. Ætius, who had won
imperishable glory on the field of Chalons, soon became hateful
to the weak emperor. One day Valentinian III. summoned
him to the palace, and in the heat of the discussion ran him
through with his sword. Among the courtiers there was one
Roman worthy of the name, who had the courage to say to the
emperor : “ You have just cut off your right hand with your
left.” But a few days later Valentinian himself fell under the
daggers of assassins paid by the Senator Maximus, who aspired
to. the throne (a. d. 455). The murderer immediately assumed
the purple, purchased at the price of crime, and obliged the
Empress Eudoxia, widow of his victim, to receive his hand,
still red with her husband's blood. Eudoxia thought to avenge
her honor and her husband's death, by sacrificing to resentment
her country’s sacred interests. She invited Genseric, king of
the Vandals, to Rome, promising her help to put him in possession
of the city. The barbarian king sailed from Africa with a for­
midable fleet. The tidings of his approach went before him.
and spread terror throughout the whole of Italy; the crowned
assassin, Maximus, was preparing to fly from Rome, and showed
a dastardliness which excited the contempt ot his own cour­
tiers. Some of his attendants murdered him, cut him in pieces,
and threw the mangled members into the Tiber (June 12th,
a. d. 455). Genseric was now three days’ march from Rome.
But one power remained unshaken in the threatened capital ;
one man alone, in the general consternation, had kept all his

600

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

courage, all his energy. This power was the papacy ; this man
was St Leo the Great. Once before ho had saved Rome from
the invasion of Attila ; now again ho shielded it from the fury
of Genseric. The pontiff went forth to moot the Vandal king,
without the walls of the city, and exacted from him a promise
to respect the lives and honor of the unfortunate Romans, and
to spare the public monuments. More than this could not be
expected from a royal barbarian, leading on his savage hordes
to the sack of Rome, as to a long-looked-for reward. The
pillage lasted fourteen days. Amongst the richest treasures
seized by the barbarians were the sacred vessels brought from
Jerusalem by Titus. The Vandals led away several thousand
captives ; the Empress Eudoxia, who had brought on the inva­
sion, was forced, with her two daughters, to follow in captivity;
bitter mockery of a pitiless barbarian ! The band of wretched
exiles found, upon the shores of a strange land, a consoler and
father, in the holy.Bishop of Carthage, called Deogratias. To
redeem the captives, he sold all the gold and silver vessels used
in the service of the altar. lie provided a shelter for them by
making hospitals of two large churches in Carthage, which he
furnished with beds and straw, and here he spent whole nights,
with his own hands attending those whom fatigue and grief had
prostrated. When death snatched away the pious pontiff from
the midst of these charitable cares, the Roman captives felt as
though they had again fallen into slavery. Their sad condition
was aggravated by the cruelty of Genseric towards the Catho­
lics. The Vandal closed the Church of Carthage, and scattered
its priests and ministers in different directions to the shores of
Spain and Italy, to Sardinia, Sicily, Greece, Epirus and Dalma­
tia, and even
*
into Venetia. As he was sailing out of the port
of Carthage, on one of his errands of rapine, his pilot asked
him to what country he should shape his course : “ To that one
on which God’s anger rests !” answered Genseric. The Roman
Empire thus became in some sort the domain of the barba­
rians. Emperors succeeded each other at the will of Count
Ricinier, who, with the title of general of the empire, really

ST. LEO I. (A. D.

Ml

wielded the sovereign power through these ephemeral mon­
archs. From the year 456 to 461, Avitus, Majorian, Seven»,
successively sat upon the imperial throne, displaying different
qualities, hut all equally powerless to shake off the rule ofRicimer. Whilst the West was thus beginning to feel the throes
of its last agony, the Eastern Empire mourned an accomplished
prince, its Emperor Marcian (a. d. 457). Burning with all the
zeal of Constantine for religion, he was free from that empe­
ror’s deplorable inconsistency, which overthrew heresy at the
outset, only to restore it to a life of many centuries. He pos­
sessed all the good and generous qualities of Theodosius the
Great, without his violent fits of anger. Though of an obscure
origin, he raised the fallen majesty of the empire; and when
Attila imperiously claimed his pawent of an annual tribute, he
answered with true Roman dignity: “I have gold for my
friends, but steel for my enemies.” Pope St. Leo. his friend
and admirer, pronounced his memory holy and venerable: the
Greek Church honors him together with his empress. St.
Pulcheria, on the 17th of February. The Eastern sceptre
passed into the hands of Leo the Thracian, governor of Selymbria, who was raised to the imperial throne by the influence of
a barbarian, the patrician Aspar. Aspar hoped to find in him
a pliant tool ; but his hopes were cruelly disappointed. When
the patrician required the new emperor to confer the title
of Cæsar upon one of his sons, according to a previous under­
standing, with the remark that “it does not become oue who
wears the purple to break lus word,"—“ Does it become him
better,” answered Leo, “ to be treated as a slave?"
8. Still, Leo the Thracian, with all his instincts of sover­
eignty, was far from being a great prince, and though he professed
Catholicity, he yet by no means showed the same zeal as
Marcian in its support. In the beginning of his reign the
Eutychian party revived in Egypt. Timothy Ælurus? a
* Ælurur, from the Greek word i^ov>x(cat); which onme h» obtained br running· du·
ring the night to the cells of the monks, calling them by name, md speikimt w th··»
through a hcdlow reed. He told them he was an angel seat from heart.··, to warn them

602

GENERAI. HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

monk interdicted on account of his attachment to heresy,
gathered, by means of bribery, a band of seditious char­
acters in the neighborhood of Alexandria. With these fol­
lowers he entered the city, and proceeded to the church, and
even there murdered the holy patriarch, Proterius, whose body
was dragged through the streets, amid the jeers of the mob.
Timothy then publicly assumed episcopal jurisdiction in Alex­
andria. He pronounced an anathema against the Council of
Chalcedon and all who received it, including, of course, St.
Leo, Anatolius of Constantinople, and Basil of Antioch. All
the Catholic bishops of the province were driven from their sees,
and creatures of the intruded metropolitan substituted in their
place. Julian of Cos, the pope’s Legate at Constantinople, in­
formed St. Leo of the lamentable state of the Church of Alex­
andria. Timothy Ælurus and his partisans had petitioned the
emperor, Leo the Thracian, to call a council for the purpose of
revising that of Chalcedon. The pope strenuously opposed the
measure, which was likewise rejected by all the Eastern metro­
politans. “ The troubles' of the Church would never cease,”
wrote the pope to the emperor, “ if discussions were renewed at
the will of the heretics” (a.d.457). To give his views more weight
at the Court of Constantinople, St. Leo sent two legates, Domitian
and Geminian (a. d.458), bearing ample instructions for the empe­
ror. At their request, Leo the Thracian determined to send posi­
tive orders to Styla, imperial governor of Alexandria, for the ex­
pulsion of Timothy Ælurus. The usurper was sent in exile to
Chersonesus, under a strong guard, and replaced at Alexandria
by a lawfully elected patriarch, Timothy Solofaciohis, who imme­
diately begged the confirmation of his election by the Sovereign
Pontiff. The decisions of the great pope were sought for by all
the bishops of the world, at a time when the torrent of invasion,
pouring over every point of the Roman frontier, added daily in­
creasing difficulties to the administration. St. Leo’s correspond­
ence is an immense collection of solutions of every sort—of
to fly the communion of Proterius, and to elect in hie stead Timothy, that is to say,
himself.

ST. LEO I. (A. D. 439-WI).

603

theological discussions ; of cases of conscience cleared up by the
canonical rules. In the hundred and seventy-three letters
which we have of him, pastors will ever find a finished model
of spiritual government. Death at last relieved him from m
much care and labor (April 11, a. d. 461). He has left us an
imperishable monument of his apostolic eloquence in sixty-nine
discourses, in which he exposes, with admirable clearness, the
highest mysteries of Christian philosophy. Though the writ­
ings of St. Leo the Great are not entirely free from some slight
blemishes, due to the bad taste of the age in which he lived,
they arc yet very remarkable for loftiness and elegance of
style, precision and clearness of thought, powerful reasoning,
and the moving bursts of a brilliant eloquence, which captivates
the mind and pierces the heart. To these labors of the closet
we must join the great deeds of his glorious pontificate : the
ignominy attached to the Catholic faith by the latrocinale of
Ephesus, redeemed by the Fourth General Council of Chalcedon;
Rome saved, once from the invasion of Attila, and again from
murder and flames threatened by Genseric; the East rescued
from the pollution of Eutychianism, placing itself under the
shadow of Peter’s Chair, to walk hand in hand with the West,
under the guidance of the great Roman unity ; and then we
shall understand how time has but confirmed the title of Great
given by a loving people to a pontiff who worked so many
wonders amid the din of ceaseless revolutions and crumbling
thrones, of murdered emperors and a ruined world. St. Leo is
supposed to be the first pope who accredited apostolic nuncios
to foreign courts. We have seen that Julian of Cos resided in
that capacity at the Court of Constantinople, under the Emperor
Marcian. That nuncio’s credentials are worthy of note. “I
beg,” writes St. Leo to Marcian, " that you will receive with
affection and kindness our venerable brother, the Bishop Julian;
in his respect and attention you will find a living image of my
presence. I trust in the sincerity of his faith, and have dele­
gated to him all my powers against the heretics of our time ; I
have moreover required him, for the better maintenance of peace

604

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

throughout the Eastern Churches, to remain close to your per­
son.” Such is the first trace we find in ecclesiastical history
of apostolic nunciatures, now established in every Christian
court, to represent the authority of the Holy See, and to guard
the great interests of religion, with sovereigns and nationalities.
Shortly before his death St. Leo had abolished the custom then
creeping into some churches, of reading aloud the sins of those
who were subjected to canonical penance. The pope decreed
that they should not pass beyond private confession, made to
an approved priest, which was all that was needed.

§ 2. Pontificate of St. Hilary (Sept. 10,
467).

a. d.

461—Nov. 17,

9. St. Leo the Great was succeeded by the Archdeacon
Hilary, one of the legates of the Holy See to the Latrocinale
of Ephesus, where he had shown equal nobleness of soul and
courage (Sept. 10, a. d. 461). The first act of St. Hilary, in
his new dignity, was to write a decretal to all the Eastern
Churches, confirming the Councils of Nice, of Ephesus, and of
Chalcedon ; he also renewed the condemnation of Nestorius
and Eutyches, with their adherents, and recalled the great prin­
ciple of authority and of the primacy of the Apostolic See, as
the centre and basis of the government of the Church. He at
the same time addressed a circular to the Western bishops, to
inform them of his election to the Sovereign Pontificate. “ As
the Roman Church is the mother of all the others,” wrote
Leontius of Arles, in reply, “ we are rejoiced to learn that in
the midst of the general consternation, in this great infirmity
of the age, you have been promoted to judge the people, to
direct the nations in their way upon earth.”
10. The trouble of the times to which Leontius alludes
was complicated by political events, and by the daily increasing
imminence of a barbarian invasion. The din of arms resounded
through the whole empire, and directions were no longer re­
ceived from the emperors of the West, who succeeded each

ST. HILARY (A. D. 441-WÎ).

VA

other on the throne according to the caprice of the Goth,
Ricimer. But in the midst of this general decline, St. Hilary
held the reins of ecclesiastical power with a firm hand. The
acts of his short pontificate all tend to draw closer the hie­
rarchical bond, to keep in the episcopal sees zealous and able
prelates, and to check the ravages of heresy. In a. ». 460,
Rusticus, Bishop of Narbonne, had begged St. Leo’s consent
to retire from his see and lead a life of solitude and quiet.
The holy pontiff had refused his permission, at the same time
urging the pious bishop to place the general good of the Church
before his personal inclination. Rusticus submitted. In a. ».
451 he consecrated his archdeacon, Hermes, Bishop of Beziers.
The inhabitants of Beziers refused to receive Hermes: pend­
ing the difficulty Rusticus died, and Hermes procured his own
election to the See of Narbonne. This translation was de­
nounced to the pope as contrary to canonical rule. Two
bishops, Faustus of Reez, and Auxianus of Aix, appointed to
examine into the matter, came to Rome and assisted at a
council which was then sitting there (November 19, a. d. 462).
The case of Hermes was discussed, and the pope communi­
cated the result of the council to the bishops of the provinces
of Vienne, Lyons, Narbonne, and the Alps. It was determined
that, for the sake of peace and to be indulgent towards Hermes,
he should remain in the See of Narbonne. But lest this case
should be urged as a precedent, it was further decided that
Hermes should not be empowered to ordain the bishops of
his province ; this power was transferred to the Bishop of
Uzes, the most ancient in the province. At the death of
Hermes, the right of ordaining was to revert to the Bishop of
Narbonne, as metropolitan. The maintenance of hierarchical
subordination between bishops was all-important at a period
when multiplied revolutions worked continual changes in the
temporal rulers of the provinces. The popes, therefore, kept
an ever-watchful eye to this matter; St. Hilary showed this
in the case of Mammertus, Bishop of Vienne, whose name now
appears in the catalogue of saints, and who had just instituted

606

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the feast of the Rogation^ or annual processions to invoke the
blessing of God upon the fruits of the earth. In his quality
of metropolitan, Mammertus claimed jurisdiction over the
Church of Dia,
*
where he consecrated a bishop against the
wish of the people. Leontius of Arles, to whom this preroga­
tive rightfully belonged, appealed to the pope, who censured the
conduct of St. Mammertus, and directed that the election of
the Bishop of Dia, to be valid, should be confirmed by Leontius
of Arles.
11. The same principle was established at the same time
against Sylvanos, Bishop of Calahorra, in Castile, lie had
also consecrated a bishop without the consent of his metropoli­
tan of Tarragona. The case was examined by a council assem­
bled in Rome, and a decision rendered similar to that against
St. Mammertus; and the new bishop was sent to his metropoli­
tan to receive the confirmation of his authority. The attention
of the Council of Rome was called to another violation of the
canons, in the Church of Barcelona. The Bishop Nundinarius,
had, on his death-bed, expressed a desire to leave the see to
Irenæus, already bishop of another city; in accordance with
the wish of the deceased prelate, the translation took place.
Some examples of similar proceedings gave a color of regular­
ity to the translation. To guard against any such abuses for
the future, the pope declared the translation of Irenæus null,
and ordered the see to be filled by the regular process of elec­
tion. lie earnestly inveighed against the tendency to make
the episcopacy hereditary, thus lowering to the level of a
bequest, a dignity which can be conferred only by the grace of
Jesus Christ. With a view to enforce the canonical rules and
the observance of these decrees in Spain, the pope sent the
sub-deacon Trajan to that court, as his Legate. He recom­
mended the holding of provincial councils, as one of the best
means for keeping up a true spirit of discipline in the various
churches.
• Dia, Dca Vocontiorum. This city was until the thirteenth century the see of a suf
trojan of Valence. Il ia now included in the department of the Drôme.

ST. HILARY (A. D. 4β1-ΜΪ).

Wi

It is a remarkable fact in the history of the Charr-h. that
the regular development of its institutes, discipline,and liturgy
is always in exact proportion to the freedom enjoyed by the
bishops to meet in council and discuss matters of general
interest. As the interference of the temporal power in the
councils held under such princes as Constantins and Valens was
productive of the most afflicting evils, so the councils freely
assembled, and unrestrained by exterior influence, bore the
happiest fruits of prosperity to the Church, of uniform direc­
tion in government, and of spiritual good in the hearts of th·1
faithful. The Gallic bishops entered fully into the views of 8t.
Hilary. The Councils of Arles, Tours, and Vannes were held
at this time, and gave proof of their zeal in carrying on the work
begun by the Holy See, ns well as of the apostolic vigor with
which they had determined to maintain the rules of canonical
discipline. The Council of Arles was called upon to settle a
question of episcopal jurisdiction over monasteries, in the case
of the famous Abbey of Lerins. It was decided that the Bishop
of Arles should alone be entitled to ordain clerics to the ditferent orders ; but all the lay-religious were to remain subject
to the abbot, whose election nnd administration were to be free
from episcopal jurisdiction. The Council of Tours renewed the
ordinances relating to the continence of clerics, and ordained
that they should not quit their diocese without the bishop's
cognizance : the degrees of the hierarchy and the rights of the
various jurisdictions were also established by the same council.
The Fathers of Vannes confirmed most of the ordinances
passed at Tours, and extended to monks the prohibition to
travel without letters of recommendation from their bishop. A
particular ordinance was passed by the council concerning
divination, or the lot of the taints,woA the most severe punishment»
were decreed against it. It is not unworthy of remark, that
this superstitious practice began to prevail in the West at a lime
when actual occurrences full of trouble and suffering naturally
led the mind to peer into the mysterious darkness of the future
And besides, the total disorder into which the barbarian inroads

COS

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

had thrown the political world, necessarily produced its coun­
terpart in the moral and intellectual world, which thus sunk to
a somewhat lower level.
12. During the short pontificate of St. Hilary the East pre­
sents the unwonted sight of an interval of peace, in which the
heretical spirit of discord seems for a season to slumber. The
barbarians, in the magnitude of their preparations for the great
Roman invasion, seemed to disregard the Greek Empire. This
period of religious quiet is marred by only t wo disastrous
events : the almost total ruin of the wealthy and prosperous
city of Antioch by a violent earthquake, which destroyed most
of its monuments ; and a conflagration which lasted seven days,
and laid in ashes eight of the twelve districts composing the
opulent city of Constantinople. These two terrible disasters
gave occasion to a proportionable marvel of charity. St. Simeon
Stylites lived near Antioch. After the destruction of the city,
a countless multitude of the inhabitants came to the miraculous
pillar of Stylites to seek protection from the wrath of Heaven.
“ I do not think,” says an eye-witness, “ that the desert ever
saw such a multitude within the memory of living man. God
seemed to have drawn all the nations of the world from their
homes, to gather them together under the care of His servant.”
St. Simeon directed his disciples to satisfy the wants of the
immense throng, whilst he restored their courage by his words,
his fervent prayers, and boundless charity in their behalf. The
concourse of people lasted fifty days, when he again addressed
the crowd, exhorting them to keep the commandments of God
and the practices of a Christian life ; then he added : “ Return
now to your homes; go without fear to your various duties;
God will have mercy upon you.” One month later St. Simeon
Stylites received the final summons ; he turned his eyes towards
the four quarters of the world, gave them his blessing for the
last time, and leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his
disciples, expired. Constantinople saw an imitator of this
virtue, and of the same extraordinary manner of life, in Daniel
the Stylite. When the flames had destroyed two-thirds of the

ST. SIMPLICIUS (A. D. 467-47'·,).

609

city of Constantine, the inhabitants also hastened to place
themselves under the protection of the Stylite, who wined
placed between heaven and earth to offer up the prayers and
tears of men in atonement to divine justice. The Emperor
Leo the Thracian came himself, with the empress, to beg his
intercession on behalf of his people; the prayer of the holy
hermit became a sort of buckler to the empire (a. i». 465).
Ricimer had, in the mean time, seated upon the Roman
throne another shadow of an emperor; Anthemius, a son-in-law
of Marcian, had come from Constantinople to assume his short­
lived honors. He was accompanied by a Macedonian heretic
called Philotheus, who sought by means of his position at
court to introduce his errors at Rome. St. Hilary met the
attempt with his wonted energy. As the emperor was present
one day at a solemnity in the basilica of St. Peter, the pope
addressed him publicly, and made him promise to oppose the
efforts of the Macedonians. With this act of apostolic energy
the career of the holy pontiff fitly ends ; he died on the 10th
of September, a. d. 467. St. Hilary had ordered the establish­
ment of two libraries in the Lateran basilica. Thus papal vig­
ilance opened a repository for the treasures of intellect, during
a period when their existence was threatened for centuries by
barbarian invasions.

§ III. Pontificate of St. Simplicius, Pint Part (Sept. 27,
a. d. 467, to the extinction of the Western Empire, Aug. 23.
a.d. 476).

13. When St. Simplicius ascended the chair of St. Peter
(Sept. 27, a. d. 467), the Roman Empire was already tottering
to decay. Tho internal revolutions by which it was torn awaked
no echo amongst the indifferent people. They saw Anthemius
murdered by Ricimer and succeeded by Olybrius. who was
soon in turn displaced by Glycerins, commander of the impe­
rial guard. The vital power of this society, with its barbarian
element, accustomed to political strife, careless of its ceaseless
39

GIO

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

change of masters, was wholly centred in tho Catholic Church,
the only government which presented the spectacle of an intel­
lectual and moral unity. Following the tradition of his prede­
cessors, and with a view to draw the various nations closer to
the Holy See, St. Simplicius named a Vicar-Apostolic to Spain.
It is probable that the same custom was then established in re­
gard to all the other kingdoms. We have already seen it car­
ried out in Constantinople, as also in Illyria and Armenia.
14. The lowered standard of moral character, that unfailing
forerunner of the fall of empires, was strikingly visible in the
political world. But the Church escaped the universal degen­
eracy. Miracles of holiness illustrated the principal Western
Sees. Pavia was in a transport of love and admiration for its
bishop, St. Epiphanius, then only thirty years of age. No
character, however passionate or fierce, had yet been found to
resist the heavenly influence of the young and pious prelate.
His contemporaries said of him : “ Epiphanius would persuade
the most savage beast. When he comes to ask a favor, it is of­
fered before it is known. His countenance is like the very ra­
diance of life.” St. Epiphanius sometimes interposed in the
strifes occasioned by Ricimer’s ambition, between himself and
his sceptred victims, and always with the success that attended
his every act. He was especially triumphant in an embassy on
which he was sent by the haughty minister to the Emperor
Anthemius. War appeared unavoidable, and Italy seemed
fated to sec the crowning of her miseries by an intestine strife,
in which her children should meet to shod each other’s blood.
The universal voice of the people called for St. Epiphanius as
the only possible mediator. The Ligurian nobles came to Milan,
and throwing themselves air the feet of Ricimer, with tears in
their eyes, begged him to put an end to such fatal dissensions
by choosing the holy Bishop of Pavia for his ambassador. Epi­
phanius was accordingly sent to Rome, with propositions of
peace to Anthemius. Shouts of enthusiasm met him in all parts
of the city ; he received public marks of veneration; and when
he appeared before the emperor, it was in the midst of a proces-

ST. SIMPLICIUS (Λ. D. ίύΐ-4'5),

Sil

sion of Romans, who bore him on in triumph. Hiaidoqnmnnd
persuasive words softened the harsh and resentful feelmp
awakened in the emperor’s breast by the conduct of Ricinwr.
* « Through your mediation," said the emperor, “ I now first ten­
der the favor which I had determined to refuse an arrogant min­
ister. If he has deceived you, he will hut injure himself. For
myself, I place my person and the empire in your keeping.”
This splendid homage had been won by the eminent virtue of
St. Epiphanius—his patience, mortification, burning charity,
zeal for study and love for the sacred writings, recalled th·1 life
and the la bors of the most illustrious doctors. Whilst this light
shone in Italy, Gaul was not without its holy bishops, to guide
the flocks in safety through the ruin and desolation that filled
the land. St. Patiens, metropolitan of Lyons, had made him­
self the living providence of all his suffragan churches. A gen­
eral famine, a relic of the barbarian inroads, ravaged the south­
ern portion of Gaul. St. Patiens multiplied the resources 01
his charity to meet so many wants. Great cargoes of wheat,
shipped by his care on the Saône and Rhone, carried plenty and
life to Arles, Riom, Avignon, Orange, Viviers, and Valence.
“ Thus,” says Sidonius Apollinaris, to whom we owe these de­
tails, “ when the storm of barbarian invasion has ruined the
harvests, a bishop supplies the wants of a whole people; the
universal misery finds relief in him alone." The bishops now
began to be viewed by the people in a light which explains the
political attitude they were soon, by force of circumstances,
obliged to assume before the world. It has not been carefully
enough remarked that the movement which led the Church to
take the direction of temporal matters, and which shows its everincreasing activity in great political events, was a spontaneous
and natural impulse of the people, who gathered of necessity
about the only centre of power and life. The Papacy and the
Episcopate were no usurping powers ; the very instinct of pres­
ervation brought the conquered to seek their protection; a
recognized moral superiority compelled the homo;'·1 of the con­
quering tribes : thus every force which sunk the empire ot

612

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Pagan Rome, only gave a new elevation to the power of Chris­
tian Rome. St. Sidonius Apollinaris, the poet, historian, and
polished writer, whose works give us the best account of this
period of transition, was Bishop of Clermont. Nephew of the
Emperor Avitus, whom the fleeting favor of the Goth, Ricimer,
had raised to an hour of imperial dignity, Sidonius made his
first publie appearance in the conduct of political affairs, and
discharged his high and important duties, with all the qualities
of a great man. He possessed every gift that could have made
him an ornament in worldly circles—wit, learning, goodness,
prudence, and a winning and fervid eloquence ; but his piety
was above them all, and led his mind into the channel of a
higher and holier vocation. In a. d. 472, Eparcus, bishop of
Clermont, his native city, died, and Sidonius, though a layman,
was elected his successor. This promotion was hailed with
joy by all the Gallic churches, whose most illustrious bishops
were already on friendly terms with Sidonius. St. Lupus of
Troyes wrote to him in these terms : “ Your noble connec­
tions have placed you on the dizzy steeps of imperial eminence ;
you have won honor and applause in the discharge of the high­
est offices of state, and reached the point to which the anxious
flight of human desire tends, as the most glorious gift the world
can offer. But now the order is changed ; you have reached
the highest dignity in the house of the Lord. If I loved you
when you trod the barren paths of worldly honor, what can
you think of my feelings towards you now that you follow the
fertile ways that lead to Heaven ?
The same period was illustrated by St. Euphronius of
Autun, St. Valerius of Antibes, St. Gratian of Toulon, St. Deme­
trius of Nice, and St. Leontius of Frejus. Most of these holy
prelates became glorious martyrs in the invasion of the Visi­
goths ; their virtue, however, was equalled by a holy Pannonian
monk named Severinus. Dis birth and country were unknown.
When questioned on this point, he only answered : “ If you
believe that I sincerely seek my heavenly country, what need
to know my home on earth ?” lie practised the austerities of

ST. 8IMPLICW8 (A. D. 4Μ-4ϊβ).

6H

the hermits of Thebais, eating only after sunset, and but once a

week in Lent.

At night he slept, with a sackcloth about him,

on the hard ground of his oratory.

The territory of Pannonia

and Noricum—now comprised within the limits of Bavaria and
Austria—had become for the barbarians the great highway to

Italy.

The

Roman military posts, once stretched along the

banks of the Danube, were never garrisoned in the decline of
the empire, and the way was left open by their gradual disap­

pearance

for the advance of the barbarians.

The Rugi, who

then inhabited the soil, considered themselves the allies of the
Romans ; but they were themselves attacked by new tribes, the

Heruli, Turei, and Allemani. A universal war was now raging, to

which no end could be foreseen ; cities were taken and ruined, the
population of whole districts led away into bondage. Severinus
was their only refuge in these disastrous times.

put the barbarians to flight, and saved Comagena.

His presence
Vienna, in

the horrors of a general famine, found relief from his prudent

charity and care.

The kings of the Rugi, Flacci teas and his

successor, Fava, entered upon no undertaking without first con­

sulting the man of God.

Severinus used his influence with them

to redeem the numerous captives reduced by the continual war

to a state of slavery.

He became the central point of all the

active charity of the times, and established the tithe tor the poor
and captives, which was spontaneously contributed by the neigh­

boring people.

Thus it was that the religious element, under all

its various aspects, rose above barbarism, and became the conser­
vative principle amid the revolutions bf the age.

Severinus had

retired one day to his solitary cell, a few leagues from Vienna,
when his quiet was interrupted by a passing body of barbari­

ans, on their way to Italy; they stopped to ask his blessing.

Among them was a youth so tall that he could not stand erect
in the hermit's cave.

He was poorly clad ; his low extraction

gave him no ground for ambitious hopes.

The holy hermit

looked upon him as he stood thus bent before him, and said ;

“Enter, my son, upon this soil of Italy, now open before you.

You are now covered with the spoil of beasts ; soon you shall

614

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

divide among your comrades the spoils of the world.” The
young barbarian was Odoacer.
15. Three years later, Odoacer had passed through many
changes and adventures, and found himself invested with an
important charge in the Italian Guards. Julius Nepos, who had
removed Glycerins from the imperial throne to the See of
Salona, was, in turn, disposessed by Orestes, who placed the
imperial purple upon the person of his son, Romulus Augustulus.
Odoacer, backed by the Alani, the Scirri, the Rugi, the Heruli,
and the Turei, demanded of the emperor that a third part of
the lands of Italy should be divided among them. Orestes,
who governed under his son, thought himself strong enough to
resist. Odoacer besieged him in Pavia, stormed the city, took
and murdered him. On the 23d of August a. d. 476, this Goth,
an Arian in creed, was proclaimed by his soldiers King of Italy.
Romulus Augustulus, surprised in Ravenna, was degraded from
the purple. Odoacer fixed the annual allowance of the last
Roman emperor at six thousand pieces of gold, and assigned the
ancient villa of Lucullus for the place of his exile or retirement.
The empire of the West was fallen. The Church, against which
it had struggled for three centuries, now stood erect amid the
ruins, to console the conquered and to civilize the conquerors

REVIEW OF TOF. SECOSD PERIOD (A, D.

B1Ô

CHAPTER VII.

8UMUABT.
§ Review

of the

Second Period op tub History of τπε Ciiürch (à. d.
312—476).

1. Advance of the Gospel in the East—2. Advance of the Clrareh in the
West.—3. PagM Polemice. *tApol<
g«i
of the S . .nd P> π-i.—(.Here­
sies, Doctors, and Councils.—5. Growth of Monastic Institutions.—θ. Gov
eminent, Discipline, and Worship.
1. The second period witnessed the spread of the Church’s
conquests beyond the limits of the Roman world.

In the East.

Armenia had received the light of the Gospel from St. Gregory

the

Illuminator, a lineal descendant of the royal race of the

Arsacidæ (a. d. 3S6).

The Iberians, who inhabited what is now

Georgia, lying· to the north of Armenia, separated from the
Caspian Sea by the Albani and from the Black Sea by Colchis,

also received the faith, about the year 326.

A Christian captive

became the apostle of that nation, which was converted through

the miracles worked by God at her intercession.

Persia at

this period also counted many churches. whose martyndoey
was swelled by the bloody persecution of Sapor.

The province

of Adiabene, from its contact with Armenia and Osrhoene. was

already nearly Christiam’zcd.

The new faith found the best so·'

in the western provinces, which enjoyed a closer intercourse
with the Syrians; thus we find the long list of Persian hishops

almost entirely made up of Syrian names.

Nestorianism sub­

sequently found an entrance among this Christian people, and
<-ommitted disastrous ravages.

Fostered by the favor of the

reigning monarchs, error took root in this soil, and was per­
petuated until the invasion of Mahometanism.

Abvssinia had

61(3

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

been brought to tho faith, about the year 32G, by two young
Svrians, Fruincntins and Edesius; and successfully resisted the
attempts of the Emperor Constantius to plant the Arian heresy
in its soil. The Abyssinians remained strongly attached to the
Catholic faith. The Patriarchs of Alexandria have kept the
prerogative of appointing and consecrating the metropolitan of
that country, with the title of Bishop of Ethiopia, in memory of
Frumentius, consecrated by St. Athanasius the Great. Chris­
tianity was also making rapid progress in Arabia : this is
evidenced by the efforts of Constantius to introduce Arianism
into the country. Even India, according to Philostorgius, did
not resist the mighty influence-which was drawing on the world
towards the truth of the Gospel. It possessed, in the fourth
century, a church already ancient.
2. The progress of Christianity was not less rapid and steady
in the West. The German tribes were bent to the yoke of the
faith, without much resistance, excepting the Saxons, who per­
sisted in the worship of idols and in hostility to the Christian
religion, with an obstinacy which tried even the genius of
Charlemagne two hundred years later. But those tribes which
emigrated to the western provinces of the empire, with the ex­
ception of the Franks and Anglo-Saxons, received a mutilated
form of Christianity, disfigured by the errors of Arius. This
is the true cause of the momentary preponderance won by
Arianism in the fourth century, under Constantius and Valens.
The obstinacy with which all these nations, except the Visi­
goths and a portion of the Lombards, supported this heresy,
even in the midst of Catholic communities, seems to find its
explanation in the natural connection between Polytheism and
Arianism. Having been originally converted by Arians, they
never rose to the thought of one Church, the same for all nations;
they had been accustomed, from the beginning, to regard the
different religions as expressions of nationality, and they looked
upon Arianism as the genius of their race. The Goths were
the first Germans baptized. Setting out from their home in
remote Scandinavia, beyond the North Sea, they had made

REVIEW OF THE SECOND PERIOD (A. D. ÎU-411).

fill

their appearance, in the year 215, on the left hank of tho
Danube. Once settled on the banks of that river and on th
*
northern and western shores of the Black Sea, they proved
themselves formidable enemies to the empire. They formed'
two great tribes under two dynasties : the Ostrogoths stretched
from the Dniester to the Don; the Visigoths, from the Dniester
to the Theiss. The Gospel found entrance amongst them towards
the middle of the third century, by means of some captives
whom they had brought back from their expeditions into Greece
and Asia Minor. There was even a Gothic hishop. Theopbihtf.
present in the Council of Nice. The Catholic faith prevailed
amongst them until the reign of the Emperor Valens who made
use of their bishop, Ulphilas, to infect them with the Arian
heresy. It is a known fact that this prelate, won by the prom­
ises of the imperial court, in the course of an embassy with
which he was charged by King Athanaric. agreed to betray the
faith and to spread the Arian heresy among the Virigolhs.
This treacherous work was much facilitated by the influence he
had acquired in his country, by giving it an alphabet modelled
on that of the Greeks, and a translation of the sacred writings,
from which, however, according to Philostorgius. he curtailed
the book of Kings, lest that reading should encourage the
taste of the Goths for warlike undertakings. Though Arian­
ism predominated among the Christian Goths since the lime of
Ulphilas, there were still some who retained the faith, and
indeed their number was sufficient to induce St. John Chrysos­
tom to build a special church in Constantinople, for the use of
the Gothic soldiers who served in the Roman armies: thedivine
service was here conducted in their own language by priests of
their nation. The respect shown by the Goths to churches and
those who took refuge in them, in the sack of Rome by Alaric.
their king, in a. d. 410, was probably due to their regard for the
Christian religion. St. Jerome tells us that these lair-haired
barbarians had portable churches among their touts, where they
assembled to pray. From the Visigoths, Christianity. with ila
mixture of Arian error, passed to their allies. the Ostruguths,

618

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

the Gepidm, and thence to the Vandals, the Alani and Suevi.
The Vandals already numbered many Christians in their ranks
when they crossed the Rhine and invaded Gaul ; and if Iducius’s
account be true, that their king, Genseric, who began to reign
in a. n. 428, passed from Catholicity to the Arian heresy, it is
certain that they did not receive their first religious instructions
from the Goths alone.
The Burgundians came from the northeastern part of
Germany, settled the country as far as Helvetia and Savoy,
and overcame the Gauls on both sides of the Rhone and of
the Saône. They treated the natives in their territory not
as conquered enemies, but as brothers in religion ; such is the
testimony of Orosius towards the year 417, at which time
that people were already converted. Another and a less im­
portant branch of the same nation received baptism, accord­
ing to the testimony of Socrates, as late as a. d. 430. The
Burgundians persevered in the faith under their kings, Gondikar, Gondioch, and Chilperic, who fixed his capital at Geneva ;
but after the year 430, under King Gundebald, who put to
death his brother, Chilperic, with all his family, they became
Arians at the monarch’s instigation. Catholicity was re-estab­
lished on the death of Gundebald, in a. d. 517, by his son and
successor, Sigismund. The Vandals, the Alani and King Iler­
meric, with his Suevi, crossed the Pyrenees in a. d. 409, and
divided among them the Spanish peninsula. Galicia and the
western portion of Spain fell to the lot of the Suevi and Van­
dals; but the latter people, in the year 420, passed over into
Africa, and the Suevi were left at liberty to overspread the
country more freely, and, under the leadership of Rechila, sub­
dued the whole northwestern portion of the peninsula. The
Visigoths, led by Alarie, in a. d. 410, to the conquest of Rome
and of Italy, and those whom Adolphus had, two years later,
brought into Gaul, were pushed by the Romans, in a. d. 414,
into the Spanish peninsula. Here they seized upon the greater
part of the country, leaving but a small share of Galicia and
Lusitania to the Suevi ; and under their kings, Wallia, Theod-

TIEVIEW OF THE 8F.C05D PERIOD (Λ. D. 31MKJ.

619

oric, and Euric, they gradually gained footing in the southern
provinces of Gaul, as far as the Loire. Toulouse then became
the capital of the great empire of the Visigoths. The pagan
king of the Suevi, Rechila, was succeeded by a Catholic; hut
Remismund, who had married the daughter of the Visigoth
Theodoric, introduced Arianism among his people, in the year
469, by means of a Galatian priest named Ajax, who had. like
himself, gone over to the heresy. It was not till ninety years
later, about the year 560, that Galicia returned to the true
faith under King Theodomir. In the southern provinces of
France, under the Arian rule of Visigoth princes. Catholicity
was subjected to many vicissitudes. Driven by motives of
political distrust and by an incredible Arian fury, the Visigoth
King Euric carried on so bloody a persecution against the
Catholics, that, to use the expression of Sidonius Apollinaris,
“ It was doubtful whether he was as solicitous for the extension
of his own power as for the extirpation of Catholicity." He
ordered the doorways of the churches to be filled with packs
of briers, and then set fire to the buildings; he imprisoned the
priests, of whom some were banished, others put to death.
The bishops were the particular objects of his hatred, and he
insisted upon their sees remaining vacant Thus Bordeaux,
Périgueux, Rhodez, Limoges, Gévaudan, Cause, Bazas, Com­
minges, and Auch were long deprived of pastors. The final
triumph of Catholicity, in the struggle, was only secured
ninety years later, when the throne of Toulouse was held by
Clovis. We have already had occasion to speak of the perse­
cution suffered by the Catholics from the Arian Vandals in
Africa. This desolate Church was not destined to rise again
from its ruins. The oppression of the Vandals was followed
by that of the Mahometan Moors, and the long lethargy ol the
Catholic worship in that country was to be interrupted only in
our own day, when the arms of the most Christian king have
given Africa, as a crowning trophy of victory, to France and
to religion. But the progress of the Gospel in the British
Isles presents a consoling ofl'set to the gloomy picture we have

620

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

just, traced. The labors of St. Patrick had, in the beginning
of the fifth century, brought about the conversion of the Scoti
in Ireland.
*
Patrick was born in a. d. 387, as he tells us him­
self, at Bonaven Taberniœfi that is, at Boulogne, in Picardy,
on the coast which was then called Armorica. At the age of
sixteen years he was seized by a sea-rover from Ireland, who was
cruising along the Gallic shore, and in his captivity was set to
keep his master’s flocks. The youth then felt a rising wish for
piety and a holy life. After a thraldom of six years he at
length found means to escape, and on reaching Gaul repaired
to the monastery of Tours, where St. Martin had founded a
celebrated school, in which he spent four years in the study
of the sciences and of Christian morality. After his return to
his parents, he felt himself called in a vision by night to the
conversion of Ireland. Either mistrusting this first call, or to
make preparation for obeying it, he attached himself, in a. d.
418, to St. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, who sent him to Lerins,
to finish his course of studies. These completed, he returned
to St. Germanus, and then went to Rome, where Pope Celestin
charged him with the task of preaching the Gospel in Ireland.
He was consecrated bishop at Eboria (probably Evreux), and
took with him several companions, amongst whom are men­
tioned Auxillius and Isserninus, with whom he landed among
the Scoti, in the year 432.J He found the pagans here given
up to the worship of the stars and of springs.§
The usual places for religious rites were the hills and
mountains. Patrick preached the Gospel in the presence of the
king and an assembly of the principal chiefs.|| His word was
fruitful, and in a short time three bishoprics were established
in Ireland. A church which he built in the district of Macha
♦ See Noto (1), p. C29.
f Bonaven is nothing more than tho Latin Bononia (Boulogne), and Ibbemta, or Tarvemia, designates tho Country of Tarrabanna, or Tarvenna (Térounnne), in which Boulogne
is situated.
I It was eighty or ninety years from this date before tho name Scoti became common to
all tho Irish, and then their island began to be as well known by tho name of Scotia as by that
of Hibernia. The Scotland of to-day only received its name of Scotia in the oloventh century.
g See Note (2), p. C29.
| Soo Noto (3), p. G29.

REVIEW OF THE SECOND PERIOD (A. D. 313-VO.

f,2]

became the centre of a city, which grew, by degree
*,
nnderthe
name of Ardmacha or Armagh ; here the apostle fixed his ?ee,
which afterwards became the metropolis of the Irish Church.
Together with Auxillius and Issernimis, he held a -ynod, in
which he published a series of canto» constituting the new
Church of Ireland
*
He died in his retreat at S.tbhal, in the
year 465, leaving the whole island as a rich legacy to the true
faith, which it has ever preserved, in the midst of political
storms, with such unshaken constancy and devoted lov< The
north of Britain, now Scotland, was then held by th·· Picts or
Caledonians, a people who had immigrated hither from Scan­
dinavia. The Southern Picts, who held the country between
the Forth and the Grampian Hills, were converted about the
year 412, by Ninyas, first Bishop of Witherue, in Gilway.
One hundred and fifty years elapsed before the Northern Picts
received the faith, from their apostle, St. Columban.
3. The barbarian inroads into all parts of the Roman Empire
brought the Church face to face with new nations, who were
successively to yield to her resistless influence. Christianity
had, at the very outset, found itself opposed to an entire and
regularly constituted heathen community, and it conquered.
But it cannot escape the notice of the historian that civilization
was a greater stumbling-block than barbarism to the advance of
the Church. Roman paganism, subdued by Constantine, who
strove to remove its least traces from the laws and manners,
from institutions, education and literature.produced a powerful
reaction under .Julian. The sophists who beset the imperial
apostate might well have exulted for a moment in the pros­
pect of the downfall of Christianity, under the accumulation of
measures contrived with such system against it. The philoso­
pher Maximus, and the rhetorician Libanius, endeavored to
restore the worship and the poetry oi the Homeric gods. Ju­
lian himself, laying aside the sceptre and sacrificial knife, found
time, amid his imperial duties, to write polemical works, which
• Sw Note (Λ P· S30-

622

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

assumed to prove that Theognis, Orpheus, Phocilides, and Isoc­
rates were far superior, as politicians, legislators, and moralists,
to Moses and Solomon. St. Cyril of Alexandria undertook
to refute these imperial lucubrations ; and performed his task
with a spirit, a logical precision and force of eloquence that
left no room for reply. Arnobius had already taken his place
among the apologists of this period. His works have been
mentioned in their place. Lactantius, his polished disciple,
also consecrated the seven books of his Divine Institutions to
the refutation of the pagan objections against Christianity.
Eusebius of Cæsarea was in the mean time writing his fifteen
books of Evangelical Preparation. In A. d. 345, Firmicus Ma­
ternus presented to the Emperors Constantius and Constans his
book on the Falsehood of Profane Religions, a spirited work, in
which the author aims at exhibiting the most shameful and im­
moral features of the pagan superstition. St. Athanasius also
published two treatises or discourses : Against the Pagans, and
On the Incarnation of the Word. The plan is equally correct, noble,
and simple. Athanasius proves the first fall to have been the
principle of heathenism and estrangement from the true God ;
and then proceeds, gradually refuting the pagan objections, to
establish the possibility, the necessity, and the reality of the
incarnation of Jesus Christ. But the noblest and most perfect
apology for the Church are the twenty-two books of the City oj
God, opposed, by St. Augustine, to the City of the World—to
paganism. The first ten books are devoted to an analysis of
the three classes of polytheistic mythology mentioned by
Varro and by the Pontiff Scœvola—the poetical, the political,
and the natural or philosophical. The illustrious author partic­
ularly attacks the neo-Platonist school, of which he seems to
make Porphyry the chief representative ; he upbraids this
school with its bold idolatry, its apotheosis of demons, the ab­
surdity of its liturgy, and of its doctrine of the transmigration
of souls. Then laying down, as a foundation, the principle
that the knowledge of God is possible only in and through
Jesus Christ, he builds, so to speak, in the last twelve books,

REVIEW OF THE SECOND PERIOD (A. D. 3W-4W),

«23

tli'· City of </ -/ h, inning with the creation md th»· I’.dl of <he
angels, and following up the progress of this divine kingdom
through the old dispensation until the last judgment. to lhe
eternal felicity of the just. The most popular pagan objection
against the Christians was drawn from the rapid decline and
daily-increasing weakness of the empire. The heathens com­
pared its present situation with its early glory, with the
boundless grandeur and magnificence it once enjoyed under the
protection of the gods. Then Rome was strong and powerful
within, ever victorious, ever invincible without, spreading far
and wide over nations and tribes the terror of its name. Now
that the gods were despised, the sacrifices abolished, and that
the honor due to them was given to the God of the Christians,
misery, disunion, impotence were hurrying on the empire to
destruction. “ Now,” bitterly exclaimed Libanins. "in place
of the immortal gods, they are honored who bring all these evils
upon us.” The Christians answered that-their present misery
and disgrace was but the necessary fruit of the seed sown by
polytheism in past ages; that a Christian posterity was aton­
ing for the faults of its heathen ancestors; and that the ap­
proaching fall and dissolution of the empire were already visible
whilst the worship of the gods still prevailed. “And after
all,” exclaims St. Augustine, “ what do they regret, they who
wish to make us Christians answerable for the crumbling
empire ? They can regret but external splendor, wealth, im­
punity for their enjoyments, the freedom with which the
wealthy and powerfid could satisfy every passion. They
would bring back a state of things in which license, disorder,
and corruption ruled without stint. They then regret precisely
what has caused the internal ruin and decay of the Roman
Empire, and what has, in consequence, brought about its out­
ward decline.” In spite of the red iminations of the people
and of the rhetoricians, in spite of the boundless credit en­
joyed by the sophists at Athens and Alexandria in the lbu;.h
century, notwithstanding the restoration attempted by Julian
the Apostate, paganism ran its downward course until its tat

624

GI.NERAL I1IST0IIY OF THE CHURCH.

vestige had disappeared, with the rest of ruined social order,
under the blows of the barbarians.
4. From the conversion of Constantine, the Christian religion
showed itself fearlessly, and gained by publicity; the sublime
promises it held out, the weight and beauty of its laws, its
pure morality, magnificent ceremonial and high festivals, soon
won all hearts. Men were astonished and confounded to see
how wide they had wandered in following superstition, and
hastened to pay atoning homage to the true Church, by pour­
ing into its fold in throngs; whole cities joined in destroying
their temples, and raising churches on their ruins. This uni­
versal current, which carried the whole world into the bosom
of Christianity, doubtless caught up a considerable number of
weak and timid souls, drawn into the Church rather by the
influence of general example, the official protection given to
Christianity, or whatever other extrinsic motive, than by a solid
conviction or the working of grace. St. Augustine, St. Jerome,
and Salvian mention in their writings the relaxation introduced,
in the beginning of the fifth century, by this accession of so
many neophytes, still wearing their heathen habits and morals ;
so that in its very triumph the faith met a new source of
danger. The Church seems gifted with the faculty of drawing
new power from the very storms let loose against her. Al­
though the fourth and fifth centuries brought no general perse­
cution, still they were not wanting in those trials which temper
courage, quicken faith, and give new prominence to great minds.
In the West, the Donatist schism, the Pelagian and Semi­
Pelagian heresies, the local persecutions of the Vandals in
Africa, and those of the Visigoths in the south of Gaul ; in
the East, the Arian, Macedonian, Nestorian, and Eutychian
heresies, gave more trouble to the Church, and made almost as
many victims, as the most cruel persecution could have done.
But what a consoling oilset to this growing generation of errors
is presented by the array of Catholic doctors raised up by
Providence to meet them ! In these two centuries genius
would seem to have become an heir-loom, to be perpetuated in

REVIEW OF ΤΠΚ SKCOSD ΠΜ0Β (Λ. I>. MM:·

ffia

the bosom of the Church, in the illustrious names of Ambrose.
Augustine, Jerome, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Naziaitzen,ttd
Chrysostom. This bright array of great names, any one of
which would have sufficed to fill a period of history, were
not the only adornments of the fertile field of the fourth and
fifth centuries. We mentioned those of Sts. Epbrem, Epi·
phanius of Salamis, Epiphanias of Pavia, Cyril, Gregory of
Nyssa, Hilary, Optatus, Lupus, Sidonius Appollinari-. and a
host of other doctors, both in the East and the West, who
were ever ready, ever armed to defend the Catholic faith
and unity. Such a galaxy of great lights gave a peculiar
splendor and glory to the general councils assembled at this
period. The conversion of Constantine had opened to the
Christian bishops the way to every portion of the empire. If
Arius, Macedonius, Nestorius, or Eutyches dare to attack a
fundamental dogma of the faith, the great Councils of Nice,
of Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon, presided over by
legates of the pope, inspired by the Holy Ghost, blast the
heresy and schism. Some particular events of the fourth and
fifth centuries are alleged, as facts, to support its cause, by a
school of theology ever busy for the benefit of local opinions,
in turning over the pages of history to seek arguments weaken­
ing the authority of the Holy See. The question whether the
pope is superior to the general council, or the general council to the
pope, is agitated with a vehemence bordering on passion. The
very statement of the question presents an inadmissible hy­
pothesis. To discuss the question on an acceptable ground, it
would be necessary to find a general council acting without the
pope, or a pope standing apart from the general council. But
the two ideas are impossible.
*
No council can he ecumenical
without the pope ; no argument can, therefore, be founded on
the hostile attitude of the two powers, when, by the very tact
of their separation, one must cease to exist. He have also
considered the debate—arising from the disputed fall of Pope

* Γιϋ> AL Db Mxisnm : O< tAt Aÿ*
40

626

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

Liberius—concerning the infallibility of the pope in mailers of
faith. One expression uttered by our Lord Jesus Christ
settles the whole question : Ego rogavi pro te, ui non deficiat
fides tna ; ct tu aliquando conversus, confirma fratres tuos.
5. The general advance of the Church at this period was
followed by the development of monastic institutions. Monks
were at first divided into three classes : the Cénobites, who
lived in communities under a superior ; the Anchorets, who
lived alone in the desert solitudes; the Sabaraites, who lived,
two or three together, in cells ; the latter class had but little
duration. Cassian has drawn a graphic picture of the edify­
ing life led by the solitaries of his day. They were wholly
occupied in prayer and manual labor ; their daily food was
bread and water, their bed a rush mat, their pillow a handful
of leaves. Egypt was the birth-place of the monastic life ;
from thence it passed into Syria, Pontus, Asia Minor, and the
West. Then the Gauls had also their celebrated monasteries,
and we have had occasion to mention the foundation of those
of Tours and of Lerins. The name of St. Augustine is also
associated with a code of monastic rules destined to lead gen­
erations of religious to the height of sanctity. Most of the
monks were laymen, and Cassian tells us that those of St.
Pacomius’s monastery depended upon the priests of the neigh­
boring villages for the celebration of the Holy Mysteries. The
monastic life debarred them from the priestly state. The
manual labor to which they assiduously devoted themselves
furnished them not only the means of procuring their coarse
and slender fare, but even of giving plentiful alms. The
Alexandrian poor were relieved by boat-loads of wheat which
had been raised from the burning sands of the desert by the
patient toil of the monks of Arsinoe. St. Augustine notices
the same practical charity in the monks of Northern Africa.
Yet some of these solitaries were occasionally torn from their
desert-homes to be incorporated among the clergy of the neigh­
boring episcopal city ; but they then became seculars, as was
the case with those who were raised to the episcopate. In his

REVIEW OF THE SECOND PERIOD lA. D. ilMUj.

627

letter to Dracontiua, written about the year 353, 8t. Athntm.
sius reckons seven monks who had already been made bishops.
Such was the increase of solitaries at the end of this century,
that the single city of Oxyrinchue, in Lower Thebais, numbered
ten thousand monks and twenty thousand virgins.
6. The government of the Church developed itself without
restraint upon the basis already established at the end of the
first century. To the authority of the Holy See were referred
all the important questions raised in every quarter of the
Christian world. The central power of Rome radiated to
every European court through the Apostolic Legates sent to
all the Christian princes. Ambitious pretensions were checked
by the decisions of the Nicene Council concerning the patri­
archal jurisdiction. We have seen how the efforts of the
Bishops of Constantinople to raise their see above all the
Churches of the East, though backed by the favor of the
Greek emperors, yet failed before the firm and steady resist­
ance of the Sovereign Pontiffs. Canonical discipline was also
upheld by a wise and prudent rigor. The great example of
Theodosius, humbly bowed upon the pavement of the Cathe­
dral of Milan, at the feet of St. Ambrose, was a firing picture
of public penance. Although the customs of the various
churches were regulated in the essential prescriptions, a cer­
tain variation is still perceptible in particular observances. Thus
St. Augustine informs us that the fast of Saturday, which was
observed in some places, was not of universal obligation. In
some churches the Holy Sacrifice was offered up daily, in
others only on Saturday and Sunday; the faithful received
the Holy Eucharist every day or only once a week. St. Augus­
tine says that the faithful are free to follow either practice, and
that the best rule in such cases is to conform to the tradition
of the Church in which they find themselves at the time. It
is plain that these differences only reach particular and optional
cases of discipline or ritual. The great law of unity, in more
weighty points, stood firm and unshaken. At a period when
the political world, undermined by barbarian inroads, presented

628

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

λ spectacle of universal license, despotism and disorder, unity
of government, even were it. not the fundamental and divine
law of the Church, became an imperious necessity ; and we
shall again have occasion to record the steadiness with which
it preserved, in the midst of an agitated world, that principle
of authority which outlives the wildest storms, profits by all
revolutions, and repairs every ruin.

NOTES.
(1.) Even before the minion of Palladios, who preceded St Patrick, to
Ireland (a. d. 431), it is probable that Christian communities had been founded
on the island ; for between Ireland and Gaol there existed a considerable cour
merce, and we know, from Tacitos, that the porta of Ireland were better known
and more frequented by merchants than those of Britain. We may suppose,
also, that the Irish may have become acquainted with the doctrines of the
Christian religion by mean» of the many captives wh^m. in th. ir expedition»
of plunder, they bore away from the British and Gallic shores. Gelertius, the
companion of the heretic Pelagius, was, as we learn from St. Jerome, an Irish­
man (Scotua). This beginning of Christianity in Ireland attracted the attention
of Pope Celestine, who consecrated the Roman deacon, Palladius, and sent him
from Rome, in 431, as first bishop of the Irish.—(Prosperi Chron. ad annum
431.) So great was the success of the new bishop, that Prosper could tenture
to say that, by the care of Celestine, Ireland had become a Christian country.—
(Prosper, de Gratia Christi, Ch. 41.) Intimidated, however, by the threats of
the infidels, Palladius left the island, and died in Britain. The entire conversion
of Ireland was reserved for St Patrick, for, according to the ancient Irish
proverb: “Not to Palladio», bnt to Patrick, did God give the Irish."—(Dos
linger, Hist, of the Church. London edition, vol. ii. p. 10.)
(2). As they honored water as a beneficent deity, they considered fire as a
principle of evil. The use of idols of their gods was not general; they are.
indeed, sometimes mentioned, but they were no more than rade figures of
stone. The chiefs of the religion, who, in the history of St. Patrick, are called
Magi, appear to have practised magic and soothsaying. They were as distinct
from the Druids as the religion of Ireland was different from the religion of
Britain and of Gaul The people formed two separate classes—the ancient
aborigines, who, according to the traditions of the country, were Milesians that
had come from Galicia, and the more recently arrived Scot
*
—(Ibid., p. 32.)
(3.) St. Patrick preached before the chief king of the island, Leogaire, and
the princes who were assembled around him. The first-fruit of his preaching
was the conversion of a famed poet, named Dubtach. Die most powerful
princes of the land soon listened to his words, and Comil, a brother of the
chief king, was amongst the earliest of his disciples. Many sons of chieftains,
whose good-will he had won by presents, followed him, and shared in bis

630

NOTES.

apostoliçal labors; virgins, whom he had converted, embraced an ascetic state
of life, and tho number of these nuns seemed to increase in proportion as they

were persecuted by their parents.
But the most celebrated and tho most numerous conversion was in Con­
naught, where St. Patrick arrived when the seven sons of a king, and a large
body of people, had met there in assembly.

He baptized the young princes and

one hundred and twenty thousand of the people in the fountain of Euardhac.—
(Ibid., p. 23.

Usher's Antiq., Dublin edition, p. 865.)

(4.) The only one of the letters of St Patrick which has been preserved

appears to have been written in the earlier part of his labors; it is a circular
epistle against Coroticus, a British chief, and his followers, who had made a

predatory descent upon the Irish coast, and had violently borne away, as cap­

tives, many of the natives whom St Patrick had baptized.

In this letter he

pronounces excommunication against the chief and his companions, and requests
the faithful into whose hands the letter may fall, to read it in the presence of

the people, and even of Coroticus himself. He remarks that tho Roman and
pallie Christians sent large sums of money to redeem Christian captives from the
power of the Franks, whilst he, Coroticus, carried on a detestable commerce with

the members of Christ, that he might sell them to the heathens.
By the prudent ordinances of St. Patrick, ecclesiastical schools and semi­

naries, which were named cloisters, and were under the guidance of the bishops,
were established in Ireland.

Some of these were founded during his life, and

many more after his death.

One of these institutions was the school of the

Bishop Fliech of Sletty ; others were formed by Bishop Ailbe, by Ibar of Beg-

Erin, and by Olean at Dercan.
Armagh.

St. Patrick had previously erected one at

Abodes of piety were provided by St. Bridget, who, towards the

close of the fifth century, introduced into Ireland rules for nuns, and established

several nunneries in different parts of the island.

Of these, the largest and most

celebrated was that founded a. d. 490, at Kildare.

At the instance of St.

Bridget, an episcopal see was also erected at the same place.

END OF VOL. I.