CHAPTER XI.

The letter was sent, and in the course of the forenoon the

_tabellarius_, or letter-carrier of the inn, returned from Formiæ.

Crispina brought him to Paulus, who was in an avenue of the garden

watching some players as they contested a game of quoits or _discus_.

This avenue connected the garden proper with the open country

westward, terminating in a cross-hedge of myrtle, through which a

little wicket or trellis gate opened. "The man has brought no letter

back," the hostess said, signing at the same time to the messenger to

deliver the particulars of his errand.

He had found the tribune, he said, and had given him the letter and

asked for an answer. The tribune was at the moment inspecting a

body of troops. He read the note, however, and immediately took out

of his belt both his _stylus_ and _pugillaria_, or hand-tablets;

when the prætorian prefect Sejanus, happening to pass, entered into

conversation with him, and the messenger then saw Velleius Paterculus

hand to Sejanus Paulus's letter. After reading it, the general

gave it back, said something in Greek, and went away. The tribune

thereupon told the bearer that he would send an answer during the day

by a messenger of his own. Paulus thanked the man, who then withdrew.

Our hero, who had prepared his fishing-tackle, a portion of which he

had in his hand, remarked that it was vexatious to lose so fine and

favorable a day. "Moreover, why should I be a prisoner?" he suddenly

exclaimed. "I have a triple right to my personal liberty, as Roman

citizen, knight, and noble. And what have I done to forfeit it? What

have I done except parry the blow of an assassin whom I neither

injured nor provoked?"

"Hush!" murmured Crispina; and just then Cneius Piso, having a

bandage round his head, and leaning on the arm of Plancina, was seen

passing into the inn before them from another part of the garden.

The landlady stood still a moment, till the two figures had

disappeared, when she said, with a slight motion of the thumb in the

direction of Piso, "He reports himself quite well now except for a

headache. He and his lady leave us in an hour for Rome, and I hope I

may say both _vale_ and _salve_. You ask what you have done. Have you

not come to Italy to claim rights which are indisputable?"

"Is that reason?"

"It is a thousand reasons, and another thousand, too. Alas! do

not deceive yourself, as your namesake and cousin did, about the

character of the world."

At the door of the inn they separated, she to attend to the

multifarious business of her household, and he to loiter

purposelessly. After a little reflection, he went quite through the

house by the _impluvium_, and the central corridor beyond it, and

looked into the public room, or _atrium_. At one table a couple of

centurions sat playing dice with the _tesseræ_, and shouting the

names of half a dozen gods and goddesses, as their luck fluctuated.

At another table a powerfully built, dark, middle-aged man, having

a long, ruddy beard streaked with gray, upon whom Asiatic slaves

waited, was taking a traveller's repast; his slaves helping him

to costly wine, which he drank with a grimace of dissatisfaction,

but in formidable quantities. Other groups were dotted round the

large apartment. In order not to draw needless notice, for all eyes

turned to him for a moment, except those of the two dice-throwing

and bellowing centurions, Paulus seated himself behind an unoccupied

table near the door. While idly watching the scenes around him, he

thought he heard his name pronounced in the passage outside. He

listened, but the noise in the room made him uncertain, and the voice

outside was already less audible, as of one who had passed the door

while speaking.

Presently he heard, in a much louder tone, the words, "Why, it is

not our carriage, after all. Let us return and wait where we can sit

down." And the speaker again passed the public room, coming back,

apparently, from the porch.

Paulus happened to be sitting close to the door, which was open; a

curtain, as was common, hanging over the entrance. This time, in

spite of the noise in the dieta, a word or two, and a name, though

not his own, struck him. He fancied some one said, "No harm to her;

but still, not the brother--the sister, my trusty Claudius."

Where had Paulus heard those tones before? In itself, what he had

overheard was a sufficiently harmless fragment of a sentence.

Nevertheless, Paulus rose, left his table, lifted aside the

door-curtain, and went into the corridor, where he saw Cneius Piso

and Plancina, with their backs to him, walking toward the end of the

passage opposite the porch, but he nearly stumbled against a young

man going the other way. This person, who was good-looking, in both

senses of the word, wore the sober-colored _exomis_, or tunic, the

long hair, and the slippers of a slave. He had in his right hand a

stylus; in his left, tablets of citron-wood, open and covered with

blue wax, on which he was reading, with his head bent, some note

which he had made there.

"It is my fault, noble sir," said he; "I was stooping over these and

did not observe you; I beg you to pardon my awkwardness." And he

bowed with an air of humility.

"It is I, rather, who am to blame," said Paulus, scanning steadily

the features of the slave, who had made his apology with a look of

alarm, and in exaggerated accents of deprecation.

Shortly after this incident, while Paulus, who had not returned to

the _atrium_, was leaning dreamily over the balustrade of the inn's

central court, and watching the fountain in the impluvium there,

he was struck heavily on the shoulder from behind by an open hand.

Turning round slowly, he beheld a man in the very prime of life, who

was entirely a stranger to him.

"I was told I should find you here, excellent sir," said the stranger.

Paulus took in, at a glance, his dress and general appearance. He

had a thick brown beard, neatly trimmed, and open, daring, large

blue eyes, in which there was nothing whatever sullen or morose; yet

a sort of wildness and fierceness, with a slight but constant gleam

of vigilance, if not subtlety. On the whole, his face was handsome;

it was conspicuously manful, and, perhaps, somewhat obdurate and

pitiless.

His stature was good without being very lofty. He had broad

shoulders, rather long, sinewy arms, a deep chest, and, altogether,

a figure and person not lacking any token of agility, but more

indicative of huge strength.

He wore sandals, the laces of which crossed each other up his mighty

legs, which were otherwise bare, and a white woollen _diphera_

covered his shoulders, and was belted round his waist.

"And who told you that you would find me here?" asked Paulus; "for a

few minutes ago I did not know I should find myself here."

"There goes the youth who told me," answered the other pointing, and

at the same moment Paulus saw the slave, against whom he had walked

in the passage, cross on tiptoe an angle of the court-yard, and

vanish through a door on the opposite side.

"Claudius," continued the stranger, "is an acquaintance of mine, and

chancing to meet him as I entered the hostelry, I asked for you."

"And pray who are you, and what do you want with me?" asked Paulus,

after the slave, who must, he now felt sure, be the Claudius to whom

Benigna was betrothed, had disappeared.

"Who am I?" returned the stranger; "a good many people know my name,

and my person, too. But that matters not for the present. Your second

question is more immediately important. 'What do I want with you?'

To deliver to you a letter; nothing more. Understanding that I meant

to stroll out in this direction, the distinguished tribune, Velleius

Paterculus, requested me to hand you this."

And he produced from a fold in the breast of his white woollen tunic

a letter, having a written address on one side, and a thread round

its four ends, which thread was knotted on the side opposite to that

bearing the superscription. The knot was secured by a waxen seal,

upon which the scholarly writer had, in imitation of the deceased

minister Mæcenas, impressed the engraving of a frog.

Paulus opened it and read what follows:

"To the noble Paulus Æmilius Lepidus, the younger, Velleius

Paterculus sends greeting:

"Go where you like, amuse yourself as you like, do as you like--fish,

ride, walk, read, play, sing--provided you sleep each night at the

Post House of the Hundredth Milestone, under the excellent Crispina's

roof. Be careful of your health and welfare."

"So far so good," said Paulus; "I am a prisoner, indeed, but with

a tolerable long tether, at least. I am much obliged to you for

bringing me the letter."

"Imprisonment!" observed the other. "I have heard a knot of

centurions, and also soldiers unnumbered, talk of your imprisonment,

and of the blow with which it seems to be connected. You are a

favorite, without knowing it, among the troops at Formiæ. One fierce

fellow swore, by quite a crowd of gods, that your blow deserved to

have freed a slave, instead of enslaving a knight; that is, to have

freed you had you been a slave, instead of enslaving you, who are

already a knight."

"I feel grateful to the soldiers," said Paulus. "You are doubtless an

officer--a centurion, perhaps?"

"Well, they do speak freely," replied the stranger, "and so do I;

therefore you have made a fair guess; but you are wrong."

"Ah! well," said Paulus; "thanks for your trouble, and farewell. I

must go."

"One word," persisted the other. "I am a famous man, though you do

not seem to know it. The conqueror in thirty-nine single combats at

Rome, all of them mortal, and all against the best gladiators that

ever fought in circus or in forum, stands before you. At present I

am no longer obliged to fight in person. I keep the most invincible

_familia_ of gladiators that Rome has hitherto known. You are aware

of the change of morals and fashions; you are aware that even a

senator has been seen in the arena. Some day an emperor will descend

into our lists." (This, as the reader knows, really happened in

the course of time.) "Join my family, my school; I am Thellus, the

lanista."

"What!" cried Paulus, his nostrils dilated, and his eyes flashing.

"In Greece, where I have been bred, gladiatorial shows are not so

much as allowed by law, even though the gladiators should be all

slaves; and because some senator has forgotten the respect due to

the senate and to himself, and has no sense either of decency or

humanity, you dare to propose to me, the nephew of a triumvir, the

son of an honorable and a famous soldier--to me, the last of the

Æmilians, to descend as a gladiator into the arena, and to join

your school, _mehercle!_ of uneducated, base-born, and mercenary

cut-throats!"

The lanista was so astounded by this unexpected burst of lofty

indignation, and felt himself thrust morally to such a sudden

distance from the stripling, at least in the appearance of things,

that he uttered not one word for several instants. He glared in

speechless fury at the speaker, and when at length he found voice and

ideas he said,

"Do you know that I could take you in these unarmed hands, and tear

you limb from limb where you stand, as you would rend a chicken--do

you know that?"

"I do not," said Paulus, in slow and significant accents, facing

round at the same time upon the lanista with deliberate steadiness,

and looking him fixedly in the face; "but if you even could, it would

suit my humor better to be murdered where I am by a gladiator than to

be one."

"By the Capitoline Jove!" cried Thellus, after another rather long,

doubtful pause, laughing vehemently, "when I place your skill of

fence, about which I have heard a particular account, by the side of

your high spirit, you really do make my mouth water to number you

among my pupils. I have not a man in my _familia_ whom you would

not, when a little addition to your years shall have perfected your

bodily vigor, stretch upon the sand in ten minutes. But what mean

you, after all? You do not wish to hurt my feelings, because I make

you a friendly offer in the best shape that my unlucky destiny and

state of life afford me the means of doing? Do you, then, so utterly

despise the gladiator? Have you reflected on it so deeply? Who,

nevertheless, displays in a greater degree many of the severest and

highest virtues? Do you despise the man who despises life itself,

when compared with honor in the only form in which honor is for him

accessible? Answer that. Do you despise abstemiousness, fortitude,

self-control, self-sacrifice, chastity, courage, endurance? Answer

that. Who is more dauntless in the combat, more sublimely unruffled

when defeated, more invincibly silent under the agony of a violent

death, accompanied by the hootings of pitiless derision, and _whose_

derision, whose mockery, is the last sound in his ears? _Let that

pass._

"But who pays a dearer price for the applause of his fellow-men when

it is his? Who serves them more desperately in the way in which they

desire to be, and will needs be, served? Who gives them the safe and

cruel pleasures they demand more ungrudgingly, or under such awful

conditions? Who comes forward to be mangled and destroyed with a

more smiling face, or a more indifferent mien? Who spurns ease, and

sloth, and pleasure, and pain, and the sweet things of life, and

the bitter things of death, in order to show what manhood can dare

and what manfulness can do, and in order to be thoroughly the man

to the last, with the same constant and unconquerable mind, as the

very gladiator whom you thus insult? Women can often show _heroism_

in pain while shrinking from danger; and, on the other hand, amidst

the general excitement and the contagious enthusiasm of an army in

battle, to fight pretty well, and then to howl without restraint in

the surgeon's hands, is the property of nearly all men. Some who face

danger badly endure anguish well; and many, again, who cannot support

pain will confront danger. But if you wish to name him who does both

in perfection, and who practises that perfection habitually, you will

name the gladiator. Nor is it pain of body alone, nor loss of life

alone, which his calling trains him to undergo with alacrity. Are you

sure that our motives are simply and solely that grovelling lust of

gain which you imply? _Mercenary_ you dare to term us? Mercenary! The

gambler is mercenary. Is the gladiator like your high-born voluntary

gambler? Is the gladiator deaf to praise? Indifferent to admiration?

Reckless of your sympathy? Is he without other men's human ties and

affections, as the gambler is? Has the gladiator no parents whom he

feeds with that blood which flows from his gashes? No wife whom he is

all the time protecting with that lacerated and fearless breast? No

children whom his toils, efforts, and sufferings are keeping out of

degradation, out of want, and out of that very arena which he treads

with a spirit that nothing can subdue, in order that those whom he

loves may never enter it?"

While Thellus thus thundered with increasing and increasing

vehemence, the clear-faced youth whom he addressed, and who had

confronted his words of menace without any emotion except that of

instinctive and settled defiance, was and appeared to be quite

overwhelmed. Had Paulus been struck bodily, he could not have felt

any thing like the pain he suffered. The words of the gladiator smote

the lad full to the heart, like stones shot from a catapult.

Thellus gazed thoughtfully at him during the pause which ensued, and

then resumed by exclaiming,

"Mercenary! that is, he takes pay. Does the author take pay? answer

that. Do the lawyer and soldier take pay? Does the magistrate take

pay? Does, or does not, the emperor take pay? Does the vestal virgin

herself take pay? If the gladiator did, and suffered, and was all

he does, all he suffers, all he is, in mere sport, and at his own

personal expense, I suppose you would respect him. But I, Thellus--I,

the gladiator--I, the lanista--would scorn him, and spurn him, and

spit upon him. Blame the community who go to these sports, and sit

in shameless safety; blame the hundreds of thousands who succeed

other hundreds of thousands to applaud us when we kill our beloved

comrades, and, at the same time, to howl and hoot over those same

brave friends whom we kill; blame those who, having cheered us when

we slew our faithful companions, yell at us in our own turn when we

are slain; blame men for taking us when we are little children, and

rearing us expressly to be fit for nothing else; blame men for taking

the little ones of captured warriors who have in vain defended their

native lands against the discipline and skill of Rome; blame men for

mingling these poor infants in one college with the foundlings and

the slaves to whom law and positive necessity bequeath but one lot in

this life; blame those who thus provide for the deadly arena. Blame

your customs, blame your laws, blame your tyrannous institutions,

against which the simplicity and trustfulness of boyish years can

neither physically nor mentally struggle; blame, above all, your fine

dames, more degraded--ay, far more degraded and more abased than the

famishing prostitutes who must perish of starvation, or be what they

are; blame your fine dames, I say, who when, like the august Julia,

they import the thick silks of India, are not satisfied till they

pick them _thin_ and transparent before wearing them, lest their

garments should conceal their shame; and thus attired, pampered with

delicacies, gorged with food, heated with wine, surfeited with every

luxury, reeking and horrible, know not what else to do to beguile the

languid intervals of systematic wickedness, than to come to the arena

and indulge in sweet emotions over the valiant and virtuous fathers

of homes and hopes of families, who perish there in torture and in

ignominy for their pleasure."

"O God!" cried young Paulus.

"Well may you," cried Thellus, "be filled with horror. Ah! then,

when will a god descend from heaven, and give us a new world? I

have one child in my home, a sweet, peaceful, natural-hearted,

conscience-governed, loving little daughter. Her mother has gone

away from me for ever to some world beyond death where more justice

and more mercy prevail. The day when I lost her I had to fight in

the arena. _Eheu!_ She was anxious for me, she could not control

her suspense; she saw the execrable Tiberius. Bah! do you think I'm

afraid to speak? Of what should I be afraid? Thellus has been at the

funeral of fear; yes, this many a day," continued Thellus, raising

his voice; "she came to the Statilian amphitheatre against my express

command; she saw the execrable Tiberius, contrary to every custom,

after I had been victor in four fatal encounters, when I was worn

out with fatigue, order me to meet a fresh antagonist; and looking

up among the hundred thousand spectators, I beheld the sweet, loving

face. I beheld the clasped and convulsive fingers. But, lo, who came

forth to fight against me? Whom had the accursed man provided as

my next antagonist? Her only brother, poor Statius, whom Tiberius

knew to be a gladiator, and whom he had thus selected for the more

refined excitement of the spectators to fight against Thellus; but,

above all, for his own more refined enjoyment, for the monster had

tried and found my poor Alba incorruptible; and this was his revenge

against a wretched gladiator and his faithful wife. Statius was no

match for me; I tried to disarm him; after a while I succeeded,

wounding him at the same time slightly. He fell, and his blood

colored the sand. I looked to the people; they looked to Tiberius,

waiting for the sign of mercy or execution. I was resolved in any

case not to be the slayer of Statius.

"The prince turned up his thumb, to intimate that I was to kill my

wounded opponent. The amphitheatre then rang with a woman's scream,

and the people, with one impulse, turned _down_ their hands. I bore

Statius in my own arms out of the arena; but when I reached home, I

found my wife was near childbirth, delirious, and raving _against me_

as the murderer of her brother. She died so, in my arms and in her

brother's. She left me my poor little Prudentia, who is dearer to me

than all this globe."

After taking breath, he added, quoting Paulus's words,

"But we are a gang of base-born, uneducated, and mercenary

cut-throats."

"Oh! forgive, forgive, forgive my words," exclaimed Paulus,

stretching out both hands toward the gladiator.

Thellus took those hands and said,

"Why, I love you, lad. I love you like a son. I am not high-born

enough to be father to the like of you; but it is not forbidden me to

love a noble youth who hates baseness and is ignorant of fear. I'll

tell you more; but first answer me--are you of opinion, from what has

passed between us, that Thellus is an uneducated man?"

"I am afraid that you are better educated than I am."

"In any case," replied Thellus, "I am ready to confess that the

qualities and virtues exercised by gladiators are exercised for a

wrong purpose, and in a wrong way. But tell me, why is bread made?

You will not say because bakers bake it. That would be a girl's

answer; it would be saying that a thing is because it is, or is made

because it is made. Why is it made? Because it is wanted. Would

bakers bake it if nobody ate it? If nobody wanted to live in a house,

would masons build any? or would there even be any masons? You could

not, I grant, have music if there were no musicians, if none wanted

music. It is the gladiator, unquestionably, who does the fighting

in the arena; but if none wanted the fighting, you would have no

gladiators. I have told you how we are trepanned in helpless infancy;

and not only reared, prepared, and fitted for this calling, but

hopelessly unfitted for every other. We supply the spectacle--but who

desires the spectacle? It is not we; we are the only sufferers by it;

we detest it. But whatever in so dreadful and wicked a pastime can be

noble, courageous, unselfish, heroic, we the same, we the victims,

give and exhibit; and all the selfishness of it, all that is cowardly

in it, all that is cruel, base, despicable, execrable, and accursed,

sits on the benches, and applauds or yells in the wedges;[61] this

you, _you_, who go thither, and bring thither us, your victims, this

you produce, this is your contribution to it. Ours is honor, valor,

skill, and dauntless death; yours, inhumanity, cowardice, baseness,

luxurious ease, and a safe, lazy, and besotted life."

"It is true," said Paulus. "Hideous are the pleasures, detestable

the glories of this gigantic empire; but _unless, as you say, a God

himself were to come down from heaven_, how will it ever be reformed?"

"How, indeed?" answered Thellus.

Little did they dream who a certain Child in Syria was, who had then

entered his eleventh year!

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[60] Greek, we may observe, was to the Romans of that age about as

familiar as, and far more necessary than, French is to us. It was the

vehicle of all philosophy, and the condition of all higher education.

The fashionable Romans used Greek phrases in conversation through

vanity.

[61] Juvenal, vi. 61.

THE POPE AND THE COUNCIL, BY JANUS.

Since the apostolic bull convoking the General Council of the

Vatican, now in session, has been issued by Pius IX., an immense

literary activity has manifested itself in most countries about

the great and important questions which are supposed to claim the

attention of that august assembly of the Catholic Church. Not only

Catholic, but also Protestant reviews have engaged in various ways

in the discussion of matters relating to the council. Very numerous,

indeed, are the pamphlets--nay, books and volumes of greater

import--that have been published within the last ten months in Italy,

Belgium, France, England, and Germany. It is particularly in this

latter country that publications concerning more or less the present

council have been most numerous, and prominent reviews have given

able and elaborate notices of most of them. Several publications,

of this character have been rendered accessible to Italian, French,

and English readers, thus exhibiting the importance attached to them

outside of Germany.

It is our present purpose to enter upon a closer examination of a

work which we have already briefly noticed in a former number, we

mean the book, _The Pope and the Council, by Janus_, of which an

authorized translation appeared both in England and in this country.

We adduce this fact as a very peculiar one, which will cause still

greater surprise to the reader when he is informed that an authorized

French translation appeared but a short time after the original

itself.

The reader has already been told what he is to think of the

orthodoxy of _Janus_, when his doctrines are judged by the criterion

established by the church. But let us state here at once that we

have a right to apply the Catholic test to the doctrine set forth by

_Janus_. For they, namely, the authors (p. 14,) expressly profess

to be in communion with the Catholic Church, though "inwardly

separated by a great gulf from those whose ideal of the church is an

universal empire." The translator, too, presents _Janus_ as "a work

of _Catholic authorship_," and declares "_the authors members of a

school, morally if not numerically strong, who yield to none in their

loyal devotion to Catholic truth_!"

In view of such declarations, we may proceed to inquire, What is the

aim of _Janus_? The authors can best answer this question; for, in

their opinion, since the forgery of the Isidorian Decretals, about

the year 845, the primacy has been distorted and transformed.

"The papacy, such as it has become, presents the appearance

of a disfiguring, sickly, and choking excrescence on the

organization of the church, hindering and decomposing the

action of its vital powers, and bringing manifold diseases in

its train."

Moreover, _Janus_ boldly asserts _à priori_ that the approaching

council will not enjoy that freedom of deliberation necessary to

make it truly œcumenical.

"The recently proclaimed council is to be held not only in

Italy, but in Rome itself; and already it has been announced

that, as the sixth Lateran Council, it will adhere faithfully

to the fifth. That is quite enough; it means this: that

whatever course the synod may take, one quality can never

be predicated of it, namely, that it has been a really free

council." (Pp. 345, 346.)

These extracts would be quite sufficient to show the aim of _Janus_,

and his view of the "pope and the council." How such harsh and

preposterous language may be reconciled with _loyal devotion to

Catholic truth_, and that _commendable piety_ which the authors of

_Janus_ profess, we ask candid and impartial readers to decide.

_Janus_ considers it to be true piety "to expose the weak points

of the papacy, denounce its faults, and purposely exhibit their

mischievous results;" appealing to a saying of St. Bernard, _Melius

est ut scandalum oriatur, quam ut veritas relinquatur_. It is this

intense love of truth which prompts _Janus_ "to oppose, frankly

and decisively, every disfigurement" (p. 20) which the church has

undergone for nearly a thousand years. "_To ward off so fatal a

catastrophe_," with which the church is now threatened by the

council, the authors have attempted in this work to contribute to the

awakening and direction of public opinion, (p. 27,) and have entered

this "protest, based on history," and appeal to the "thinkers among

believing Christians," and are modest enough to hope that their

"labors will attract attention in scientific circles, and serve as a

contribution to ecclesiastical history." (Preface.)

We cannot, therefore, be surprised that a work with such a

_scientific_ programme should have caused some sensation, even among

Catholic theologians, many of whom were not slow to unmask the

_historical representations_, and "direct reference to original

authorities," of which _Janus_ makes such great parade. That

_Janus_ was hailed with great delight, not only abroad but also in

this country, by an anti-Catholic press, and nearly all reviews or

periodicals, cannot be a matter of wonder, when we know that such

allies as _Janus_ within our own pale are welcome to the enemies of

the church.

In England, _Janus_ was heralded by a grand preliminary and

concomitant flourish of trumpets. Every thing was done by a certain

very small but very zealous clique to give this book as great a

publicity as possible.[62] The _North British Review_, the _Saturday

Review_, and the _Academy_, have joined in one chorus of eulogy,

exulting over the victory which they think _Janus_ has achieved.

Among the many admirers of _Janus_ in our country, suffice it to say

that one writer has been so fascinated by this "_work, so entirely

made up of facts_," that he triumphantly exclaims, "No one can help

feeling convinced of its veracity." Nay, more than this, the same

reviewer pays a compliment to _Janus_ which, considering the source

it comes from, involves a strange contradiction. It runs thus,

"The author (_Janus_) shows himself throughout a _thorough_

Catholic, but an _earnest_ and liberal Christian, a learned

canonist, a faithful and discriminating historian."

Without further comments, we propose to meet _Janus_ and his admirers

upon equal grounds, since it is their earnest wish

"that the reader's attention should be exclusively concentrated

on the matter itself, and that, in the event of its evoking

controversy, no opportunity should be given for transferring

the dispute from the sphere of objective and scientific

investigation of the weighty questions under review." (P. 28.)

We have no reason to dread _that facts and "original authorities"

must and can speak for themselves_, and we too shall hope to see

where the saying of Pope Innocent III. is verified, "_Falsitas sub

velamine sanctitatis tolerari non debet_."

In presence of such a vast amount of matter as _Janus_ gives to his

readers, and we might say _en passant_ with such little semblance of

order and system, it becomes necessary to confine our examination to

three leading points: 1. To the manner in which the investigation

is conducted, or the scientific character of the work; 2. To the

orthodoxy which the authors profess; 3. To the historical and

critical parts of the book.

1. As is correctly stated in the "Translator's Notice," the substance

of the volume already appeared in a series of articles in the

_Allgemeine Zeitung_, or Gazette of Augsburg, in March, 1869, under

the heading of "The Council and the _Civilta_." In these articles,

"historical facts" were brought forward, which called forth prompt

and sharp answers from the Catholic reviews of Germany, where several

falsehoods were exposed and denounced as gross misrepresentations.

When these articles were issued in their present form, the authors

of _Janus_ took no notice of the exposure, but quietly dropped from

their book these three mendacious statements. Not a word of apology

or retractation was offered. An able theologian[63] has pointed out

these tactics of _Janus_; but, to our knowledge, no reply was given.

"Our _Janus_," says the same critic, "may feel quite at ease;

he will not be brought to the stake either for his historical

criticism, or even for his heresies; but he has branded himself

as a forger by the very act of spiriting away these lies, only

to come forward with a look of perfect innocence and palm off

upon the world others more numerous."

Indeed, the new name of _Janus_, assumed by the authors, has also a

figurative meaning, inasmuch as a different face may be exhibited,

just as the case may demand. _Janus_ declares his love and attachment

to the church and the primacy, and regards it as a _complete

misapplication_ of the term _piety_ "to conceal or color historical

facts and faulty institutions." (P. 20.)

Hence the inference will be legitimate to stigmatize as impious a

mode of investigation which misstates and distorts historical facts,

shaking at the very foundation both the church and the primacy. And

this is precisely what _Janus_ would accomplish, even contrary to

his own avowed intention. For, according to him, "The primacy rests

on divine appointment;" and still it has been transformed, and has

become destructive to the church, rending asunder _that unity_ which

to uphold and represent it had been instituted. (Pp. 18, 21.)

"Since the ninth century, a transformation of the primacy,

artificial and sickly, the consequences of which have been the

splitting up of the previously united church into three great

ecclesiastical bodies, divided and at enmity with each other."

If such is the case, where, may we ask, is that primacy of _divine

institution_ to be found?--that primacy ever-living and indefectible

as the church herself. And yet, we have the word of _Janus_ for

it, the primacy, divinely instituted as the centre of unity, has

virtually become extinct, and has failed to be the source and centre

of unity. Did _Janus_ himself dare to face this inevitable and

logical conclusion?

"The Roman bishops not only believed themselves to be in

possession of a divine right, and acted accordingly, but this

right was actually recognized by others." (P. 22.)

How is this profession to be reconciled with the following one, "that

the form which this primacy took depended on the concessions of the

particular local churches"?

What the privileges were which Christ himself bestowed on the

primacy, _Janus nowhere_ attempts to state. Where, then, is his

reason for asserting that the form which the primacy took depended on

concessions? Wherein consist the privileges inherent in the primacy

by divine right, and which are those conceded by the local churches?

Until _Janus_ has distinctly defined these respective limits, with

what show of logic and scientific process can he pronounce that for

eight centuries the primacy was _legitimately developed_, and since

the ninth century so fatally transformed and totally disfigured?

Truly, if he had committed himself to any _precise_ theory,[64] he

would have exposed himself to an inglorious refutation; as it is now,

he has taken refuge in silence. And yet, in justice to himself, and

in order to save his scientific reputation, _Janus_ was obliged to

define these divine rights of the primacy before he could venture

to say that they had been _fatally_ transformed; thus he is able

to bring forward "a very dark side of the history of the papacy."

Superficial minds may be ensnared by this deceitful procedure, but

fair and scientific thinkers will rise indignantly and enter their

solemn protest against such an abuse of logic and history. Moreover,

it is obvious that a primacy whose form, that is, rights inherent

to it, are made dependent upon the consent of those over whom it

is to be exercised, is illusory, and is a mere shadow. It is very

difficult to understand how such a novel mode of reasoning should

have escaped our authors, who have "written under a deep sense of

anxiety," and we fear that, by pledging their faith to such dogmas as

the infallibility of the church, and the divinely appointed primacy

of St. Peter and his successors, in the person of the bishops of

Rome, they have either deluded themselves or hoped to delude others

by hollow professions of faith and a hypocritical show of piety.

The authors, having thus left a wide and open field in which to lead

astray and bewilder the minds of their readers, do not hesitate

to assert, "No one acquainted with church history will choose to

affirm that the popes ever exercised a fixed primatial right in

the same way" over the churches in different countries. Quite a

captious and vague affirmation in each and every particular. Are

we to understand that, because the same primatial rights were not

everywhere and uniformly exercised, there were no acknowledged rights

of the primacy? And yet to this conclusion, however illogical,

such a proposition would lead. If the Roman bishops have not at

all times exercised the same rights over the churches in Egypt as

over those of Africa or Gaul, it is simply owing to the different

condition of the various churches, where the exercise of such rights

was not necessary, and by the very nature of things varied to meet

the exigencies of the churches. What opinion would we form of a

writer--we may be permitted to use a familiar illustration--who, from

the fact that Congress did not at one time enforce the same article

of our constitution in the State of Ohio as it did in Virginia,

concluded that this legislative body possessed not, or was not

conscious of possessing, the same rights and power granted by the

constitution in Ohio as in Virginia? This is precisely what _Janus_

would induce his readers to believe regarding the rights of the

primacy. That the popes throughout the first centuries of the church

exercised primatial rights, _Janus_ readily grants, and must grant

from the position he assumes. Now, if the exercise of such rights

over the various churches at different periods of the _ancient_

church, taken _collectively_, _involve all those prerogatives_ which

the papacy has since claimed and enjoyed, we must of necessity infer

that the rights of the primacy, as understood and exercised at the

present period, are identical with those of the first eight centuries.

This we could prove by a "work entirely made up of facts, and

supporting all statements by reference to the original authorities."

Yes, this has already been done by able and judicious historians;

among the more modern ones we may appropriately challenge a careful

perusal of the history of Dr. Döllinger,[65] in which a complete

enumeration of the prerogatives exercised by the bishops of Rome

over the whole church, both in the east and in the west, may be

found, together with a direct reference to many and unexceptionable

historical facts. Under the present head we merely refer to the

action of Pope St. Victor, in the second century, against the

churches of Asia Minor concerning the question of paschal celebration

against the Quartodecimans; St. Stephen, against the Anabaptists

in Africa; St. Cornelius, against Novatus and Felicissimus; St.

Dionysius, in the case of Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch,

when the Emperor Aurelian himself would not sustain him, and

referred to the Bishop of Rome for a final decision; all these

statements attested by such writers as Eusebius,[66] Socrates,[67]

and Theodoret.[68] How about the appeal of the Montanists to the

Bishop of Rome, mentioned by Tertullian[69] himself? Did not Marcion

repair to Rome to obtain a reversal of the sentence passed against

him?[70] Did not that illustrious champion of faith, St. Athanasius

of Alexandria, appeal to Pope Julius I. against the Arians, when

the Council of Sardica was convoked at the request of the pope

in the year 343, and the supremacy of the Roman bishop solemnly

acknowledged, to whom all must appeal for final sentence?[71]

_Janus_, however, with this most conspicuous incident of history

before him, says,

"There is no mention of papal rights, or any reference to a

legally defined action of the Bishop of Rome in other churches,

with the single exception of the canon of Sardica, which never

obtained universally even in the west." (P. 23.)

Having produced one most remarkable instance of the application of

this canon of Sardica, we now must inform our readers that this same

_canon_ of the Synod of Sardica was inserted in a Latin version of

a collection of canons known by the name of "Prisca Collectio,"[72]

as early as the fifth century, and regarded as a code of laws

attesting the tradition of the _ancient_ church, according to the

maxim of St. Vincent of Lerins, _Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab

omnibus creditum est_. In like manner did St. John Chrysostom, that

great doctor of the eastern church, appeal to Pope Innocent I.,

although his adversary, the usurper Theophilus, had sent delegates

to Rome to gain the pontiff, who annulled all the acts of Theophilus

and his party against the illustrious patriarch. The letter which

St. Chrysostom[73] wrote to the pope adds great strength to our

argument. St. Cyprian, too, by whose authority our adversaries would

fain triumph, sent the acts of synods held by himself to the Bishop

of Rome for confirmation, and also asked St. Stephen to _depose_

Marcion, Bishop of Arles, as being a partisan of Novatian, and to

appoint another in his place. But we must ask pardon of the reader

for having already been too long in these references--though as yet

we have said nothing of the many acts and letters of Pope St. Leo

the Great--all of which demonstrate beyond the shadow of doubt that

the most ample exercise of _all primatial_ prerogatives was made

in nearly all the churches of the Christian world. A rapid glance

over the discourses and letters of the distinguished pontiff, in the

voluminous work of Ballerini, will corroborate our assertion in its

whole extent. What are we to think of these words of _Janus_, "No one

acquainted with church history will choose to affirm that the popes

ever exercised a fixed primatial right"? To us, it would seem nothing

less than an appeal to the ignorance of his readers. A similar

proceeding we notice in the following paragraph:

"The well-known fact speaks clearly enough for itself, that

throughout the whole ancient canon law, whether in the

collections preserved in the eastern or the western church,

there is no mention made of papal rights."

We do not attribute such a confused and inaccurate knowledge to

_Janus_, that he is not fully aware what all these collections

comprise. These collections or codes of law are pretty numerous,[74]

both in the Greek and in the Latin churches, and some of them contain

besides the "Canones Apostolorum," not only many decrees of the

councils, both particular and œcumenical, that were held during

the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, but also the decretals of

the early popes. Thus, for instance, the collection made by the monk

Dionysius[75] comprises, in a chronological order, the decretals or

decrees of all the popes from St. Siricius, in the year 395, to

St. Anastasius II. in 486. Another Spanish collection of canons,

called the _Liber Canonum_, is very comprehensive,[76] embracing the

decrees of all the synods that were held in the eastern and western

churches, together with the decretal letters of twenty popes from

St. Damasus to Gregory the Great. A similar collection of canons in

Africa was approved by the Synod of Carthage in 419. Now, according

to our authors, in _all these collections_ "no mention is made of

papal rights, or any reference to a legally defined action of the

Bishop of Rome in other churches." Truly! we need but challenge an

examination of many decrees of synods, and of the official letters

of the popes contained in these collections, and we shall find all

primatial rights fully exercised and universally acknowledged.

Who does not know the splendid testimonies of the fathers in the

councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, both of which acknowledged in

their acts the supremacy of the see of Rome! As to the many decretal

letters of the popes, there are no more celebrated documents in

early history than the professions of faith given by Pope Celestine

I. to the bishops of Gaul against Semipelagianism,[77] St. Boniface

to the bishops of Illyria, St. Gelasius in a decree on _canonical_

Scripture and the well-known formula of Pope St. Hormisdas,[78]

subscribed to by the eastern bishops. By far the greater number of

these pontifical letters constituting those _collections_ imply one

or another prerogative exercised by the bishops of Rome, who were

ever conscious, even in _those early ages_, of being the supreme

teachers and guardians of faith appointed by Christ himself. With

what mien of self-sufficiency and confidence _Janus_ can style

a "well-known fact," something of which just the very opposite

results from an inspection of historical records, is more than

unintelligible in authors who make such ado about their scientific

fairness. With a desire to save _Janus's_ reputation as a _learned

canonist_ and _faithful historian_, we must presume such a grave

misstatement wilful, and naturally enough he must have reckoned on

readers who have little or no knowledge of the "ancient collections

of the canons." Yet we must not fail to enter an energetic protest

against these self-proclaimed "scientific labors and contributions to

ecclesiastical history." Is it by such unblushing assertions, without

proof to sustain them, that the authors show their "love and honor

for an institution" which forms an essential part of the constitution

of the church?

The whole introduction of this work, covering nearly thirty pages,

exhibits a programme with summary indications, whence _Janus_

infers that with the present council the system of absolutism

is to be crowned, and the church to come within the grasp of a

"powerful coalition." This great danger to the church the anonymous

authors feel in duty bound to avert, and to oppose this "advancing

flood-tide," in which we may discover another characteristic mode

of warfare, since _Janus_ deems it necessary to "assail a powerful

party, with clearly ascertained objects, which has gained a firm

footing through the wide ramifications of the Jesuit order." And this

party he can only attack by "bringing forward a very dark side of the

history of the papacy." Indeed, a singular mode of warfare, but one

which presents no feature of novelty. Have not the Reformers of the

sixteenth century, like most of their forerunners, concealed their

true aim by attacking ostensibly the Curia, or some religious body,

as Luther did the Dominicans, and in the seventeenth century did not

the Jansenists resort to a similar stratagem? Now, with such a clear

profession before us, why these assaults on the hierarchy and the

church in general for the last thousand years? Why make the whole

church accountable for the misdeeds and _menacing coalition_ of a

party? Why, as _faithful Catholics_, appeal, not to the council nor

to the hierarchy, but "to the thinkers among believing Christians"?

_Reformers_ before _Janus_ usually appealed from the popes to

general councils, but he surpasses them all by appealing neither to

the one nor to the other, but to the laity, who may even pronounce

on the "reception or rejection of the council or its decisions."

Assuredly no further arguments need be brought forward to satisfy

candid and discriminating minds that _Janus_ has ill succeeded in

masking his true purpose; nor can his professions of loving truth and

justice stand the test of criticism, or the dignity of scientific

investigation tolerate the insolent treatment it has suffered at the

hands of _Janus_ and his school. For those among our readers who must

be shocked at seeing names of men distinguished for their learning

and piety at a very critical period in Germany, quoted in support of

the opinions of this school of traitors, (pp. 16, 17,) we can say

that _Janus_, by attributing to such men a similarity of views with

himself, makes a gratuitous and bold assertion, corroborated by no

reliable authority; only one name, that of the eccentric Baader,

lends any probability to this impudent statement. But such names

as Walter, Philipps, Hefele, Hagemann, Gfrörer, and even Döllinger

up to a certain time, renowned for their profound researches and

contributions to ecclesiastical history and jurisprudence, are

studiously omitted by _Janus_; nor would it have served his purpose,

since the eminent theologians just mentioned have undermined and

exploded whatever scientific or historical basis Febronianism and

Gallicanism could boast of, and which _Janus_ would reëstablish. In

summing up our considerations on this point, we fully concur in the

remarks of an able writer, that _Janus_

"does his utmost to overthrow what is at present by far man's

strongest barrier against the rapid and violent inflowing

atheistic tide, without attempting to substitute another in its

place. If his book could exercise any real power, that power

would be put forth in favor of those whom the author agrees

with us in regarding as the most dangerous enemies of every

highest human interest."

This serious apprehension has been fully verified by the many

admirers _Janus_ has found in the hostile camp; nay, the apostate

Froschhamer has even complimented _Janus_ publicly,[79] with only one

restriction, namely, that he has only gone half-way, and finds fault

with this inconsistency.

2. We did not propose to content ourselves with the gratuitous

assertion that _Janus_ is not "throughout a thorough Catholic and

earnest Christian;" but we shall make it clear that he has already

seceded from well-established points of doctrine, and even rendered

his scheme of reforming the church an impossible hypothesis. As

we have already stated, _Janus_ directs his attacks against a

"party"--ultramontanism--which, he says, is "essentially papalism."

(P. 34.) But while professing to oppose an "ultramontane scheme,"

he finally arrives, by a very promiscuous array of _historical

facts_ and _scientific investigations_, at the conclusion that the

entire church, led by the popes during the last thousand years, has

been dragged into this gross error and devastating _torrent_ of

ultramontanism. By means of a _huge forgery_ the "whole constitution

and government of the church has been changed"--that is, has become

a human institution, and lost its divine character. What, then, is

the result the writers of _Janus_ arrive at as to their own position?

"Inwardly a great gulf separates" them from such a church and its

chief pastor--that is, from Pius IX. and the episcopacy. For in

another place (p. 3) he affirms that the doctrines he attacks are

"identical with those of the chief head." Does it not follow from

these premises that _Janus_ excludes himself from this "centre of

unity," as the see of Rome has been called by St. Cyprian, Bishop

of Carthage? Likewise St. Jerome, in his book against Rufinus, asks

the latter, "Is your faith the faith of the Church of Rome? If so,"

he adds, "we are both Catholics." During the pontificate of St.

Hormisdas, from the year 514 to 523, two hundred and fifty bishops

signed a formulary sent them by the pope, in which they declared that

they who were not in all things in union with the apostolic see were

cut off from communion with the Catholic Church.[80]

"Sequentes in omnibus," says the text so forcibly, "Apostolicam

Sedem et prædicantes ejus omnia constituta, spero ut in una

communione vobiscum, quam Sedes Apostolica prædicat, esse

merear, in qua est integra et verax Christianæ religionis

soliditas. Etiam sequestratos a communione Ecclesiæ Catholicæ,

id est, non consentientes Sedi Apostolicæ."[81]

By what right, then, or by what interpretation, we demand, can

_Janus_ be called a "thorough Catholic"?

The unity and indefectibility of the church of Christ are essential

doctrines, most clearly and distinctly embodied in the sacred

Scriptures. But _Janus_ no longer admits them, as the following

passages will show:

"The previously united church has been split up into three

great ecclesiastical bodies, divided and at enmity with each

other.... When the presidency in the church became an empire,

... then the _unity_ of _the church_, so firmly secured before,

was _broken_ up." (P. 21.)

According to _Janus_, a "great and searching reformation of the

church is necessary;" and, let it be understood, not in matters of

discipline, which can vary, but in matters of faith--yes! in the most

important points touching the divine constitution of the church.

"The popes possessed none of the three powers which are the

proper attributes of sovereignty; neither the legislative, the

administrative, nor the judicial."

"For a long time nothing was known in Rome of definite rights

bequeathed by Peter to his successors."

"The bishops of Rome could neither exclude individuals nor

churches from the church universal." (Pp. 64, 66.)

Confront these assertions with the few but remarkable facts already

given from history, and what becomes of them?

"There are many national churches which were never under Rome,

and never even had any intercourse with Rome." (P. 68.)

_Janus_ then proceeds to give examples of such autonomous churches,

and we confess that it has seldom been our lot to see any thing more

vague and evasive.

In the first place, we refer to the letter of the Syrian bishops,

which was read in the fifth session of the synod held in

Constantinople in the year 536, by the Patriarch Mennas; moreover,

the profession which the Archimandrites and other Syrian monks sent

to Pope Hormisdas, in which they plainly acknowledge and invoke the

Bishop of Rome as supreme guardian of the entire flock of Christ.

If the churches in Persia, in Armenia, and in Abyssinia, before they

were commingled and entangled with the different Gnostic sects

and Monophysites, or Jacobites, were in union with the churches of

Alexandria, of Antioch, and Constantinople, who, in their turn,

recognized the supremacy of the see of Rome, in what possible sense

can they be called _autonomous_? Frumentius had been ordained Bishop

of Axuma, in Abyssinia, by St. Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria,

toward the year 326.[82] Will _Janus_ claim St. Athanasius as

his partisan respecting this autonomy? His attempt to claim the

same autonomy for the early Irish and British churches is no less

hazardous, and we refer to Dr. Döllinger's history[83] for a

refutation of such claims. In this connection, however, it was only

our purpose to prove from _Janus's_ own admission that the "unity of

the church was broken up." Quite natural, too, since the "centre of

unity" no longer preserved its divine mission and character!

We hasten to another grave charge against the orthodoxy of _Janus_,

namely, that he denies the primacy both in its divine institution

and in its rights. The true primacy he reviles as "papalism," and

would substitute a mere primacy of honor or "presidency." For it

was only during a few centuries that the primacy had a _sound_

and _natural_ development; since then it has become disfigured by

human "fabrications," and consequently exists no longer. Such being

the case, we are unable to discover even a supremacy of honor,

lawfully exercised by the pope. We solicit a careful examination

of the primacy as it appears in the _Ancient Constitution of the

Church_, and in the _Teachings of the Fathers_, (pp. 63-75,) and

the inevitable conclusion derived from those assumptions, sounding

like oracles of Delphi, will be this, the plenitude of power assumed

and exercised by the Bishop of Rome over the whole church has no

foundation whatsoever, neither in the Scriptures, as interpreted

by the fathers, nor in ancient tradition, but has been and still

is an encroachment on the privileges of the particular churches, a

usurpation exercised by force and oppression--in fine, an innovation

on the divine constitution given to the church by Christ. Every thing

that is advanced by _Janus_ purporting to trace historically the

origin and causes of papal power and its "unnatural development,"

even with that illustrious pontiff St. Leo the Great, (p. 67,)

taking up nearly two thirds of the volume, proves, if any thing,

that no special prerogative was given to St. Peter by Christ, and

hence could not, of course, be "hereditary in the line of Roman

bishops." (P. 74.) The great _nightmare_ of _Janus_ is, indeed, the

pope's infallibility, or the supremacy of the Roman see in doctrinal

decisions; but while assaulting the former in a _pêle-mêle_ warfare,

he utterly destroys the primacy itself; though it would seem that

infallibility properly understood is but a corollary of the primacy

itself. While professing to reject the doctrine of the "papacy,"

_Janus_ discards a truly apostolic doctrine of the Catholic Church,

and we cannot but suspect him of well-calculated dissimulation when

he says that the "authors of the book profess their adherence to the

conviction that the primacy rests on divine appointment." Contrast

this with the statements quoted, and we can hardly refrain from

sentiments of abhorrence and indignation at such duplicity, as, on

the one hand, we find it stated that "the ancient church found the

need of a bishop possessed of primatial authority," and, on the other

hand, "nothing was known of definite rights," and the "same powers

were exercised by the bishop of Antioch, Jerusalem, or Alexandria."

The orthodoxy of _Janus_ and his abettors is impeachable in another

no less serious point. The church has ever been conscious of her

own infallibility, whereby she is protected from all error in

teaching "all truth to the nations;" in other words, it has ever

been firmly believed among Catholics that the _ecclesia docens_,

or teaching church, succeeded to the divinely bestowed privilege

of apostolic infallibility, and, whether congregated in council or

dispersed throughout the world, is a true exponent of "unity in faith

and grace" with her divine Founder. If this were not so, in what

possible sense could the church be called "a pillar and ground of

truth"? Where would the assistance and guidance of the Holy Spirit

have any visible action or influence, if it be not to preserve her

"immaculate, holy, and pure"? Hence, those beautiful images employed

by the Apostle St. Paul, of the "union of the body with the head," of

this truly _spiritual alliance of Christ with his spouse_, that is,

the church, through whose ministry the life of Christ descends from

the head to the members, Christ's life being nothing else but truth

and grace.

But if we adopt _Janus's_ idea of the church, she has become as the

"harlot of Babylon," a depositary of falsehood and iniquity. For

he denies the unerring authority of œcumenical councils under

the conditions in which it has always been received as a dogma by

Catholic theologians. The oath of the bishops toward the apostolic

see, prescribed for many past centuries, is pronounced by _Janus_ as

incompatible with "that freedom of deliberation and voting" which

are essential to such an assembly. But, we may ask, does this oath

interfere in the least with the strict obligation of keeping the

faith intact and inviolable? Does this oath imply any violation

of Catholic conscience? You might as well assert that the oath

taken by a member of Congress, or of a particular legislature, to

support and abide by the constitution, interferes with his liberty

of speaking and voting. In keeping with this hypothesis of _Janus_,

all the councils that were held in the west, and universally

acknowledged as œcumenical, "were perverted, and mere tools of

papal domination--shadows of the councils of the ancient church." (P.

154.) But the councils held in the east were truly œcumenical,

because the popes had _nothing_ to do with them, (pp. 63, 64;) but

the emperors, on the contrary, exercised all those prerogatives which

the popes afterward usurped; hence the councils in the west were but

a "sham and mockery" when compared to the _genuine_ œcumenical

councils held by the emperors, "who sometimes trenched too closely

on this freedom." (P. 354.) Yet the weight of imperial power and

domination does not do away with that essential condition of an

œcumenical council. But with the popes the case is quite the

reverse! Truly admirable logic of our _Janus_! He is not content with

unprincipled expositions and illogical hypotheses, but resorts to

positive _falsification_ of history when he says,

"Neither the dogmatic nor the disciplinary decisions of these

councils (held in the east) required papal confirmation; for

their force and authority depended on the consent of the

church, as expressed in the synod, and afterward in the fact of

its being generally received."

And again,

"The popes took no part in convoking councils. All great

councils were convoked by the emperors; nor were the popes ever

consulted about it beforehand." (Pp. 63, 64.)

What is the verdict of history on these points? That very

_Latrocinium_ of Ephesus, in 449, which _Janus_ so adroitly would

put among those councils that were regarded as œcumenical, called

forth a protest not only from Pope Leo the Great, but also from the

eastern bishops, because the ambitious Dioscorus assumed to himself

the right of presiding, and, as Prosper and Victor remark in their

chronicles, "usurped the prerogative of the supremacy." The most

ancient historians, Socrates, Sozomenus, and Theodoret, who continued

the church history of Eusebius, attest unanimously those prerogatives

of the Roman bishop, which our authors would so boldly deny. Thus,

Sozomenus, in the third book of his history, chapter 10, says,

"It is a pontifical law (νὁμος Ιερατικὁς) that whatever has

been done without the judgment of the Roman bishop, be null and

void."

Socrates, alluding to the Arian Synod of Antioch in "Encæniis," in

431, by the adherents of Eusebius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and

which pronounced the deposition of St. Athanasius, observes,

"Neither Julius, the Bishop of Rome, was present, nor did he

send any one thither to take his place; though it is prohibited

by ecclesiastical law that any thing be decreed in the church

without the consent of the Roman pontiff."[84]

When, therefore, St. Athanasius, together with Paul of

Constantinople, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Asclepas of Gaza, sought

the protection of Pope Julius, the latter had their cause examined

in a council held at Rome in 343, at which a great number of eastern

bishops were present. Whereupon the pope declared the accused bishops

innocent, restored them to their sees, and severely censured those

who had concurred in the sentence of deposition against Athanasius

and the other bishops. Let it be understood that the Arian bishops,

too, on their part, had appealed to the same pope. The action taken

by the Pontiff Julius in this grave affair is designated by the

historian Socrates[85] as a "prerogative of the Roman Church." In

like manner, Pelagius appealed to Pope Innocent I.; Nestorius, to

Pope Celestine, to whom St. Cyril of Alexandria had already reported.

Cælestius, a disciple of Pelagius, already condemned by the Synod

of Carthage, invoked the arbitration of Pope Zosimus;[86] Eutyches,

having been excluded from the communion of the church by Flavian,

Patriarch of Constantinople, appeals to Pope St. Leo, who in his turn

calls upon Flavian to give an account, which the latter does without

delay. The correspondence between Leo and Flavian on this point shows

the falsehood of _Janus's_ assertion, that the "fathers had given the

see of Rome the privilege of final decision in appeals," (p. 66,)

and that the "bishops of Rome could exclude neither individuals nor

churches from the communion of the church universal." Who does not

know the remarkable words of St. Augustine, when Pelagius had been

condemned by the synods of Milevis and Carthage in 416, and still

persisted to hold communion with the church? Pope Innocent ratified

the decrees of the synods, and the illustrious champion against

Pelagianism exclaims,

"Two councils have already been sent to the apostolic see;

thence answer has been received; the case is terminated; may

the error too be ended."[87]

Vain, too, is the attempt of our authors to give dark colors to

the transactions between the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon

and Pope St. Leo I. (P. 67.) Let us see what the fathers of this

council say to the pope, when they request him to sanction that

_famous_ twenty-eighth canon, which the legates of Leo had refused

to sanction. They say, "Knowing that your holiness hearing (what has

been decreed) will approve and confirm this synod and close their

petition thus,

"We therefore pray that by thy decrees thou wilt honor our

judgment, and we having in all things meet manifested our

accordance with the head, so also may thy highness fulfil what

is just. (ουτω καὶ ἣ κορυφἣ τοις παισὶν ἀναπληρὡσαι τὸ

πρἑπον.)"[88]

Leo I. did not sanction this twenty-eighth canon, for the very reason

that it implied, though in equivocal terms, that Rome obtained the

primacy on account of its political dignity.

Nor is it true that the fathers by this canon claimed "equal rights"

for the see of Constantinople; but merely _patriarchal_ rights and

exemption from subordination to Alexandria and Antioch, as the

sixth Nicene canon had ordained. Pope Leo I. in his letter[89] to

the Emperor Marcian affirmed that Constantinople was indeed an

"imperial," but no "apostolic city." Compare this with the words of

_Janus_, "But when Leo had to deal with Byzantium and the east, he

no longer dared to plead this argument." Anatolius, Patriarch of

Constantinople at that period, previous to the Council of Chalcedon

was obliged to hold a synod in the presence of the papal legates,

in which Leo's letter to Flavian was read and signed, and Eutyches

sentenced and deposed. Even at the Council of Ephesus, in 431, St.

Cyril presided as plenipotentiary of Pope Celestine, who, upon a

report sent him by St. Cyril, had condemned the Nestorian errors

in a synod held at Rome in 430, and summoned Nestorius to retract

within ten days under pain of excommunication. How trivial, then, and

calculated to confuse the reader, must this remark of _Janus_ seem,

"At the two councils of Ephesus others presided." It is a well-known

fact that the papal legates at the Council of Chalcedon declared that

it was a high misdemeanor of the second assembly of Ephesus, in 449,

and a crime in Dioscorus of Alexandria, that it was presumed to hold

a general council without the authority of the apostolic see; and

Dioscorus was accordingly deposed.

The Council of Chalcedon was not convoked before Pulcheria and

Marcian had requested and obtained the consent of Pope Leo I., and at

its termination the fathers said in their letter to the pope that he

had presided over them by his legates as the "head over the members;"

and that the emperor had been present for the maintenance of decorum.

Why, then, allege such examples as the despotic actions of

Constantius, against whom such great and distinguished bishops as

St. Athanasius, St. Hilary of Poitiers, and Lucifer, raised their

pastoral voice, when this same emperor so harassed the bishops at

Rimini and Seleucia in 359, aided by the cunning of Ursacius and

Valens, that they subscribed to an ambiguous but not heretical

formulary. Wherefore, St. Jerome exclaims, "Ingemuit totus orbis

et Arianum se esse miratus est." The purpose of _Janus_ in placing

these assemblies among other councils universally regarded as

œcumenical, appears, to say the least, suspicious! (P. 354, and

Translator's Notice.)

We might yet quote many examples to exhibit what must be styled

_gross misrepresentation_ and _falsification_ of history on the part

of _Janus_, when he thus plainly states that the popes were never

_consulted_ when councils were convoked, nor _allowed_ to preside,

_personally_ or by _deputy_--and "it is clear that the popes did

not claim this as their exclusive right," (p. 63.) If any thing

were wanting to corroborate our argument, we need but allude to the

declaration of the Patriarch Mennas of Constantinople, and many

other eastern bishops. When the Emperor Justinian would continue the

council which was convoked with the express consent of Pope Vigilius,

who withdrew his permission after the emperor issued an edict on

the _three articles, (tria capitula,)_ the pope fled to Chalcedon,

whence he directed a letter to the whole church,[90] giving an

account of the deplorable state of things, adding that he had deposed

the haughty bishop, Theodorus of Cæsarea, and suspended Mennas of

Constantinople, with the bishops who took his part. The declaration

made by Mennas and other bishops, professing their entire submission,

affords a most striking example of the supreme authority of the

apostolic see in the midst of such turmoil and religious disputes,

the pope being an exile and the bishops enjoying the protection of

the emperor; and hence not a vestige of coercion in their unqualified

declaration, which we may be pardoned for subjoining here. It is as

follows,

"Following the apostolic doctrine, and anxious to maintain

ecclesiastical unity, we are about to frame the present

declaration,[91] We receive and acknowledge the four holy

synods, ... and all other things that were decreed and written

in these same synods by common consent with the legates and

representatives of the apostolic see, not only in matters of

faith, but every thing that was so defined and enacted in all

other causes, judgments, constitutions, and ordinances we

promise hereby faithfully and inviolably to observe."[92]

A circumstance which gives greater weight to this whole exposition

is, that these councils were chiefly attended by eastern bishops,

among them the patriarchs of Constantinople; and that the

Roman pontiffs, though not personally present, still by their

representatives, who were not all bishops, exercised such high

prerogatives. The emperors themselves recognized these rights of the

see of Rome both by their laws and public acts.[93]

We have been rather prolix, and have carried our examination further

than we intended; but it seemed necessary to sustain our charges

against _Janus_ and his admirers by various and most unexceptionable

authorities from history, and the canons of the early councils. The

supremacy of the Bishop of Rome in _teaching_ and _governing_ the

universal church, could not be exhibited in a more resplendent light

than in connection with general councils, those grand assemblies

of the hierarchy of the church. Nothing, therefore, was better

calculated than the futile essays of the anonymous authors of _Janus_

to depreciate and obliterate, if possible, these prerogatives of the

Roman pontiffs in connection with œcumenical councils, in order

to lay the foundation of their hypothesis, that since the ninth

century papal usurpation and ambition held high sway in the church,

"hindering and decomposing the action of its vital powers." How far

_Janus_ has succeeded in finding such a _basis_ for _his edifice_ in

history and in ancient canonical collections, how far his statements

are supported by "_reference_ to _original authorities_," the candid

and judicious reader of church history will have been able to

decide. If _Janus_ asks the verdict of history for _his_ "Ancient

Constitution of the Church," that verdict cries aloud against such a

miserable caricature, and his appeal to past tradition is an appeal

to ignorance or wilful prejudice. We have impeached his orthodoxy on

points of the very first importance, and in vain do we look for those

"original authorities" which should verify his hypothesis of the

"ancient church."

Before summing up our arguments on this head, we will be allowed to

point out another serious and most pernicious error of _Janus_. He

says,

"The force and authority of the decisions of councils depended

on the consent of the church, and on the fact of being

generally received." (Pp. 63, 64.)

Yet we must examine what is meant by this consent of the church; here

is his theory:

"When a council passes sentence on doctrine, it thereby gives

testimony to its truth. The bishops attest, each for his own

portion of the church, that a certain defined doctrine has

hitherto been taught and believed there; or they bear witness

that the doctrines hitherto believed, involve, as their

necessary consequence, some truth which may not yet have been

expressly formalized. As to whether this testimony has been

rightly given, whether freedom and unbiassed truthfulness

have prevailed among the assembled bishops--on that point the

church herself is the ultimate judge, by her _acceptance_ or

_rejection_ of the council or its decisions." (P. 334.)

What a precious theory indeed of our authors! The teaching body

in the church, or the hierarchy, are _mere_ witnesses in giving

testimony to the truth. But this testimony may ultimately be

rejected; for whether such a testimony has been rightly rendered

or not, is left to the decision of the church--consisting of the

clergy and _laity_. Whence by a rigid conclusion it follows that the

_highest tribunal_ of "acceptance or rejection" of the decisions of a

general council, is with the great mass of the faithful or "thinkers

among believing Christians." In view of such plain propositions,

we should like to be informed how inerrancy or infallibility can

be attributed to an œcumenical council? We may then select any

council and doubt, as _thinking Christians_, "whether freedom and

unbiassed truthfulness have prevailed among the assembled bishops."

All certainty is excluded by such a theory, where the decisions of a

general council are only binding when accepted by the church outside

of the council. This is nothing less than a complete negation of

traditional and sound Catholic doctrine--it is simply proclaiming

the broad Protestant dogma which grants the widest scope to the

private judgment of the individual. In one direction have the authors

of _Janus_ been consistent; for they purpose by their labors "to

contribute to the awakening and direction of public opinion," which

is the tribunal charged by _Janus_ to reject in advance the decrees

of this council. (P. 345.) He himself makes an extensive use of this

great privilege; for, according to him, since the ninth century

there were no truly œcumenical councils; the whole church has

been forced and cajoled into giving a wrong testimony. All councils

since the period just named have proclaimed the views and tenets of

a party as the constant belief of all Catholic Christendom. Such an

issue _Janus_ would fain declare impossible. Alas! for his beautiful

theory, destroying with one hand what he would build up with the

other.

"The church in its totality is secured against false doctrine."

There is precisely the dilemma in which _Janus_ has involved himself.

The whole work from beginning to end is intended to show that the

church has sunk into a labyrinth of errors, that she has radically

changed her ancient and divine constitution, that her centre of unity

has become disfigured and sickly, that her vital powers are in a

state of decomposition. Does all this not imply false doctrine? Has

the church not thereby fallen away from Christ and the apostles?

Perhaps _Janus_ will say that it is only the _hierarchy_ that

_erred_, not the "thinkers among believing Christians," himself, of

course, among the latter.

Well may we inquire of _Janus_ and his _admirers_, What has become of

the promises made to the church by her divine Founder? Where is that

spirit of truth to guide her through her pastors, the bishops united

with the supreme Head? Where is that firm rock against which the

gates of hell shall not prevail?

These questions are so intimately connected with the whole divinely

reared edifice of the church of Christ, that to deny what the

authors of _Janus_ have done is heresy in its worst form, as much as

Arianism, Pelagianism, or Nestorianism. We cannot withhold from our

readers the appreciation of a candid and thoughtful outsider on the

position _Janus_ has followed throughout his work:

"If the liberal Catholicism of _Janus_ and his friends is

an infallible system, it is an infallible system which has

succumbed at once to a false pretence of infallibility on

one side and an openly-admitted fallibility on the other.

Now, infallibility which is beaten for centuries, _both_ by

a sham infallibility _and_ by admitted incapacity for true

infallibility, is infallibility of a very novel kind, very

difficult to imagine. It looks, at first glance, very like a

rather specially fallible kind of fallibility with a taste

for calling itself grand names. If _Janus_ and his friends

are right, no paradox of the Christian faith is half as great

as theirs, which maintains that the true infallibility of the

church has not only lain _perdu_ for centuries, but has been

impersonated by a growth of falsehood without any interposition

on the part of the divine source of infallibility. That, we

confess--with all our respect for the wish of _Janus_ to

enter a protest on behalf of liberty and civilization--we do

find a hypothesis somewhat hard even to listen to. A dumb

infallibility that cannot find its voice for centuries, even

to contradict the potent and ostentatious error that takes its

name in vain--is that the sort of divine authority to which

human reason will willingly go into captivity? But we might

sympathize with the authors of _Janus_, in spite of their

utterly untenable intellectual position, if they seemed to us

to have any clear advantage in moral earnestness and simplicity

over their opponents. But, while there is a certain school

of ultramontanes that simply and profoundly believes in the

infallibility of the pope, in spite of all the critical and

historical difficulties which the liberals ably parade and

sometimes even overstate, we find it hard to believe that the

latter believe cordially in any church infallibility at all."

(Quoted by the _Dublin Review_, January, from the _Spectator_,

November 6, 1869.)

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] See _Dublin Review_ for January.

[63] Rev. Dr. Scheeben in his pamphlet. Part iii.

[64] The _negative account_ given in pp. 63-69 as the "ancient

constitution of the church" takes nothing from our argument.

[65] London edition, 1840, vol. ii. pp. 204, 220.

[66] H. E. v. 24, 25.

[67] H. E. v. 22.

[68] Hæret. fab., ii. 8, edit. Mansi, tom. i. p. 1003 sqq.

[69] Adv. Prax. i.

[70] Epiph. Hæres. 42.

[71] Socrat. H. E. ii. 15.

[72] See Philipps's _Compend. of Can. Law_, vol. i. p. 45.

[73] Galland, Bibl. t. viii. p. 569 sq.

[74] See Ballerini, De Antiq. Collect. and Biblioth. Juris-Can. tom.

ii.

[75] Died 536 A.D.

[76] Migne, Patrol. tom. 84, gives this collection.

[77] Denziger's Enchiridion, p. 29.

[78] See Denziger, p. 47.

[79] In the _Augsburg Gazette_, and in a separate pamphlet since

issued.

[80] See Döllinger's _History of the Church_, vol. ii. sect. iii. p.

221.

[81] Denzig. Enchir. p. 48.

[82] Athanas. Apol. ad Constant. n. 31. Le Quien, Oriens Christian.

tom. ii. p. 642.

[83] Vol. ii. pp. 29, 35 sq.

[84] H. E. 8. edit. Vales. tom. ii. p. 70, ch. 415.

[85] H. E. ii. 15.

[86] Cæl. Symbol. ad Zosim. Mansi, tom. iv. pp. 325, 370.

[87] August. Serm. 132, n. 10.

[88] Ep. ad. Leon. 98, c. i. iv. Ball. edit. Harduin, tom. ii. pp.

655-660.

[89] Ep. 104, ad. Marc. c. iii.

[90] (Vigil. Epist. ad Univ. Eccles. apud Mansi, tom. ix. pp. 50-61.)

[91] Or petition, _libellus_.

[92] Mansi, tom. ix. p. 62.

[93] See Dölling. Ch. H. vol. ii. pp. 204, 205.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF THE REVUE DU MONDE CATHOLIQUE.

THE LITTLE WOODEN SHOE.

Jacques was a fisherman--a lucky one too. He had a little house,

all his own, and, in it Jeanne who had been for seven years his

wife, and Ange, the jolliest little scamp that ever romped about a

fisherman's cottage. But these are not all his treasures. He has,

besides, a store of nets and a boat called the Fine-Anguille. The sea

was never yet too rough for either. For it never stormed until the

Fine-Anguille had come with her crew, snug and dry, to her mooring.

The captain of this frigate was Jacques; the mate--and what a mate he

was!--was Fanor, a Newfoundland, peer and prince of all dogs. Every

body knew the Fine-Anguille. Every body knew Fanor. And well it was

for many of them that they did. They had made his acquaintance under

memorable circumstances. For, when Fanor looked from his kennel at

night along the dark coast, he could see the glow of many a fireside

which would have long been dark and cheerless if he had not rescued

from the waves the strong arms that earned its fuel. Many a mother

felt something queer in her throat and in the corners of her eyes

when she saw the great shaggy brute, and thought of a certain little

head that might long ago have been pillowed in the sea-weeds.

But when the feast of our Lady of Larmor came, ah! then Fanor was in

his glory. Did he walk in the procession? Of course he did! Did he

not know what was the proper thing for a respectable dog to do and

where his right place was, after the banners? "Ah!" said Jacques,

"he's a Christian. He's no dog; he is almost a man."

After Jacques, and Fine-Anguille, and the sea, Ange was the dearest

friend of this dog. Fanor paid the most delicate attentions to this

little fellow. He kept back his strength and refrained from those

boisterous leaps; he gave Ange a thousand tender caresses with his

great cold nose and with his paw; and, when he licked his hands,

he scarcely moistened them. It was plain that he was in love with

this baby. And as for Jeanne, she loved nothing in the world besides

Jacques and Ange and the dog.

For you and me, and the thoughtless or busy world, what a grand sight

to watch the sea in September! so deep, so dark, it falls and rises

with ever-increasing majesty. There is a menace in its ceaseless

roll, its beauty is terribly grand, and from the shore we admire

its strength and its immensity. But how differently it appears to

the poor fisher's wife! For her there is nothing to admire in the

ocean. For her it is only a source of anxiety and dread. How gloomy

to her is the evening as it settles over this ever-tossing plain;

how her heart starts at the vague threats of the wind! This blue and

white-crested mass is perhaps a shroud. Is there no moaning save that

which the listless water makes? And, when the horizon lowers, is the

wild call of the sea-bird the only strange cry that can be heard?

And, as the wind sweeps from the stormy offing, we perhaps think it

beautiful. But to the fisher's wife it is dreadful. She fears for him

who toils in the abyss. What can a little shell like Fine-Anguille

and a man and a dog do against the ocean?

We may say, "How beautiful!" But she cries, "Holy Virgin! the sea is

too high! Sweet Jesus! it blows too, too hard."

One day Jeanne was with Ange on the beach and Jacques was preparing

Fine-Anguille for fishing. Jeanne sat, knitting, by the water's side.

Ange had kicked off one of his little wooden shoes, and with his

rosy little foot was playing in the water. He laughed, he shouted,

he splashed the little waves that ran softly upon the sand. Ah! what

grand fun he was having.

It was evening. The setting sun bathed the entire coast in purple,

and the water, still and peaceful, reflected this scene of splendor.

Ange had tied a string to his little shoe and had thrown it out on

the water.

"Mamma," said he, "look! see my Fine-Anguille! In a minute I am going

to make a storm."

And he splashed away with his bare foot.

The little shoe tossed from one side to another; finally it filled

with water. Jeanne looked up and said. "Naughty boy! put on your

shoe. Quick!"

Just then, somebody touched her shoulder. It was a stranger, from

Paris, perhaps. This seemed probable from the haughty air, which

people from the city always have, and also from his cold, harsh look

and his pale countenance.

Jeanne was frightened.

"I want a boat," said this strange person, "to go out into the

offing." Jacques approached. "If you like, sir, I am ready. Here,

Fanor!"

"What! take that brute along with us? Horrid cur! He is filthy and

smells of old fish. I can't bear him for a companion."

"I will not go without my dog," said Jacques.

"Come!" said the stranger, "this beast is of no use. I will give you

a louis to leave the dog." Jacque looked at his wife hesitatingly.

Jeanne was pale. The stranger tossed the louis in his hand.

Just then Ange cried, "My shoe has gone to the bottom!" And Jeanne

said, "Don't go without the dog."

Soon the Fine-Anguille left the shore, and, breaking through the rosy

water, disappeared in the distance, like a faint cloud.

Jeanne turned again toward the house, carrying her child, whose

little foot hung bare over her dress.

When she reached the heights, she turned to scan the horizon. She saw

a thick gray band stretched along it. Seized with anxious foreboding,

she paused.

"Will it be fair?" she asked of Father Lucas, the cow-herd. "What

sort of a night will they have over by the Thunder Rocks and the

White Mare, and in the offing?"

Father Lucas, in turn, scanned the horizon. "Fine-Anguille is a good

sea boat!" said he; and passed on with his cows.

"It is the wind!" thought Jeanne, as Ange by an unconscious movement

covered his foot with her apron. "It is the wind! God be merciful to

us!" Then she entered the house.

At ten o'clock gusts began to blow. The waves moaned piteously.

Jeanne could not sleep. But neither the moaning of wind nor wave

could disturb Ange as he lay wrapped snugly in his cradle. His mother

struck a light. One is not so much frightened when one can see

clearly. Then it seems as if one could do any thing; but what can one

do against the wind?

"The wind! O my God! the wind," cried Jeanne. "But, at any rate,

Fanor is with him!"

Then, as every thing creaked and moaned around her, she fell into a

light slumber. She saw the great sea with its frightful gulfs, its

white yawning mouth and threatening rocks, and its deceitful shoals.

She saw her child on the beach, splashing the water with his naked

foot. She saw the little wooden shoe which had been ship-wrecked.

Then she heard the voice of Ange murmuring, "I'll make a storm!"

Jeanne trembled.

Then, as the roof of the cottage moved and creaked, she remembered

how the waves had entered the little shoe.

All at once she rose up and took Ange, fast asleep, in her arms. She

threw her cape over her shoulders. It was raining hard and the wind

blew strongly. She lit a lantern; a sudden gust put it out, and she

was left in the black darkness. But the surf made so much noise that

it served as a guide. She reached the beach in safety.

"Ange! O Ange! if Fine-Anguille has perished!"

The belfry of Larmor stood black in the sombre night, and the sea

dashed its white foam at the very steps of the church.

Jeanne seated herself on the damp sill, and, wrapping Ange in her

cloak, waited with longing eyes, counting every wave.

Slowly the day broke, and the storm abated as the sun rose. It

shone first on the fortress of Port-Louis, then along the rest of

the coast; and Jeanne saw the little wooden shoe broken among the

pebbles--"Broken! and yet so light! It ought to have floated!"

Then Jeanne saw the Fine-Anguille. Her sail was rent and tattered.

Her broken mast hung half in the water. All that could be hoped was

that she might come in with the tide, and that Jacques would be able

to avoid the rocks. Perhaps they still preserved their oars! As she

listened, she thought she heard them striking on the row-locks;

but no, it was the wind. The broken mast might still serve to hold

them off the rocks. Already she could hear Fanor's voice. But on

the heaving plain her glance could barely follow the little craft.

Finally, as a sudden gust blew afresh, it disappeared altogether.

Jeanne closed her eyes. And, when they reopened, Jacques and Fanor

were beside her. Jacques was pale; Fanor with red, distended

nostrils, and panting, shook the water from his shaggy coat.

"Wife," said Jacques, "we have been very unlucky! We beat all

night against the wind. I wished to come in last evening after we

had doubled the citadel; I knew it would blow. But that fool of a

Parisian would see the offing! He is dead now. God have mercy on

him! I have never worked so hard in all my life! To lighten the boat

he wanted to drown Fanor. And when he saw the breakers, he would

jump overboard to swim. Fanor went after him and brought him to the

gunwale; and, while I was lending him a hand, puff! we were all in

the water together. Holy Mother! how I did lay about me. I caught a

plank. 'Hold on, Fanor!' said I. But Fanor had left the stranger and

had seized me by the collar. And so I made the shore. O the brave

beast! he's no dog; he is almost a man!"

"And Fine-Anguille?" said Jeanne.

"She will come in with the tide. She is as light as a wooden shoe."

CARDINAL POLE.

Cardinal Pole was a representative man. As Archbishop of Canterbury

he stands in direct contrast to Cranmer. Each of these primates

was at the head of a host during a period of mortal conflict. They

led respectively the forces of the old and of the new faith. Pole

represented the Catholics of England, especially the wiser and better

part of them. Cranmer was one of the feeblest and worst specimens of

the reformers. He had not even the unenviable merit of being true

to his own principles. He could not stand the shock of battle, and

though a standard-bearer, he surrendered his colors in the hope of

saving his life. Pole, on the contrary, suffered persecution for

righteousness' sake, and the cruel fate of his mother and his near

relatives warned him but too plainly of the end that awaited him

if he should ever come within reach of the tyrant. Let us trace

his history, though but in outline; for we shall find it full of

interesting matter, food for reflection, and lessons of piety.

There are many men of less importance and less merit whose lives

are better known than his. One who enjoyed his friendship during

many years--Ludovico Beccatelli, Archbishop of Ragusa--has left us a

record of his acts, and painted his character with a faithful hand.

To him principally, and to Cardinal Pole's own writings, we are

indebted for what we have learned respecting him; for though much is

to be found on the subject of his career in the pages of Lingard,

Strype, Flanagan, Hume, Strickland, and Froude, it is to those higher

sources especially, together with the state papers of the time, that

every one must remount who would obtain reliable information.

It was when Henry VII. had passed the middle of his reign, and

Alexander VI. filled the papal chair, that Reginald Pole was born

at Stowerton Castle in Staffordshire. His father was Sir Richard

Pole, (afterward Lord Montacute, or Montague,) a Welsh knight, and

his mother was Mary, Countess of Salisbury, daughter of that Duke of

Clarence whom Edward IV. drowned in a butt of Malmsey. He was the

cousin also of Elizabeth, Queen of Henry VII. and mother of Henry

VIII. He had thus all the advantages which people attach to high

descent, and no pains were spared to give him an education suited to

his rank and prospects. The monasteries were then schools for the

instruction of boys of good family, and to one of these Reginald was

sent when a child. It was the Carthusian monastery at Shene, from

whence he was removed in time to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he

laid the foundation of his future learning, and was taught by the

celebrated Linacre, the preceptor of Prince Arthur, and physician to

Henry VIII. and the Princess Mary.[94] His education was carried on

at the cost of Henry; for which reason he often in after life spoke

of the king with gratitude. He was but a boy when he obtained his

degree of B.A., and might (like Wolsey, who graduated at Oxford when

fourteen years old) have been called the "Boy Bachelor." He was also

admitted very early into deacons' orders; at seventeen he was made

Prebendary of Salisbury; and at nineteen Dean of Wimborne and Exeter.

The reformation had not yet broken out. England was ruled without a

parliament by the all-powerful minister Cardinal Wolsey; and Henry

VIII., who had in 1513, when Pole was at Oxford, won the battle of

the Spurs and taken Tournay, appeared for a moment as a competitor

for the imperial crown on the death of Maximilian. It was part of

his good pleasure that Reginald Pole should be highly educated, and

accordingly about the year 1520, when the youth was twenty years old,

he caused him to repair to the University of Padua to complete his

studies. Reginald resided in that seat of learning in great splendor.

A numerous retinue attended him, and he enjoyed the society and

esteem of many eminent persons, such as Bembo[95] and Sadolet.[96]

His morals were pure, his manners graceful, and his amiability made

him much beloved.

After five years of university life, he returned to England, and was

received by Henry with many marks of royal favor. But he shunned

the splendors and seductions of the court, and retired to a house

that had belonged to Dean Colet within the Carthusian monastery

at Shene. Henry's erratic career had begun; and he was seeking to

obtain a divorce from his faithful and virtuous wife, Catharine of

Aragon. Reginald earnestly desired to escape the complications that

were likely to ensue. He knew that a storm was gathering; and after

two years of retirement at Shene, he obtained Henry's permission to

pursue his studies at the University of Paris.[97] He was not yet

priests' orders, neither had he taken monastic vows. For this a

curious reason was assigned.

All the contemporaries of Queen Catharine affirm that she earnestly

desired a union in marriage between her daughter, the Princess Mary

and Reginald Pole. His mother, the Countess of Salisbury, had always

resided with Mary, and the biographers of Pole with one voice declare

that Mary had regarded him with favor from earliest childhood. We

ought not, however, to lay too much stress on this fact, since the

disparity of their ages was too great to admit of their being lovers

at an early period of life. Reginald was sixteen years older than

Mary, yet it is not surprising that, when her proposed marriage with

the Emperor of Germany was broken off, and Reginald, having returned

to England, appeared at court in his twenty-fifth year conspicuous

for the culture of his mind and the beauty of his person, the queen

should wish to see him become the husband of her child. He was of

royal blood, and very nearly resembled his ancestor Edward III. and

his great-uncle Edward IV. His portrait was taken by Michael Angelo

for that of the Saviour of men in the grand painting of the Raising

of Lazarus. He revived, therefore, in his carriage and features the

memory of the heroic Plantagenets from whom he descended. Already

renowned for learning, and with a mind enriched with travel and

residence in foreign lands, he had frequent opportunities of seeing

the lovely Mary who would probably one day be Queen of England.

Lady Salisbury still lived with her, and she was both her relative

and friend. The princess showed great partiality for the noble and

accomplished Reginald; and at a much later period a marriage was

proposed between them as a matter of state convenience, but without

its being very long or seriously entertained.[98]

Reginald was not suffered to remain long in peace at the University

of Paris. An order arrived requiring him to procure opinions

favorable to the divorce, in concert with Langet, the brother of the

Bishop of Bayonne. The task was ungrateful to him, full of danger,

and hardly to be executed with a clear conscience. He resigned it

to his colleague, and was soon recalled. He might have succeeded

Wolsey in the see of York, and possibly Warham in that of Canterbury,

had he been willing to pander to the vicious inclinations of his

royal master. He wavered, indeed, for a moment, and fancied he had

found an expedient by which he might satisfy Henry without wounding

his own conscience. He repaired to Whitehall Palace, and there, in

the stately gallery, he stood before the anti-christian king. He

loved that king in spite of his wickedness; for he owed to him his

education, together with many dignities and splendors. He loved

him too well to deceive him. The truth could not be suppressed.

It wrought within him like a pent-up fire. His feelings overcame

him, and he burst into tears. It was enough to stir the king's

displeasure. It revealed the secret workings of Reginald's mind. The

divorce would be a crime--a horrible crime. The reasons assigned in

its favor were flimsy deceits. The helpless queen and her daughter

would be victims moving all hearts to pity. Henry frowned, and his

hand often sought the dagger's hilt; but though Reginald wept,

it was not likely a Plantagenet should fear. Upon quitting the

gallery, Reginald was loaded with the bitterest reproaches by his

brothers, and especially by Lord Montague. He was induced to write

to the king. He explained his motives in language equally firm

and temperate; and Henry, into whom the demons had not yet fully

entered, took the letter, or professed to take it, in good part. He

declared that he loved Pole in spite of his obstinacy, and that, if

his opinion were only favorable to the divorce, he should love him

more than any man in the kingdom. History has taught us how much

his love was worth; for his embraces were sure pledges of ruin and

destruction. He did not, however, withdraw Reginald's pension of five

hundred crowns, but allowed him to leave England again.

Having emphatically declared his dissent from the resolutions of

parliament and convocation, Pole found his position more and more

uneasy. He turned his face again to the south, and in 1532 took up

his residence for a time at Avignon. During his absence the fatal

divorce was completed, and the doom of England as a Catholic country

was sealed. The thought of returning to it became distasteful; and

he retired to the monastery of Carpentras, and subsequently to his

old quarters at Padua. His leave of absence was extended. He was

enabled to visit Venice. His pension was duly paid; he received the

revenues of the deanery of Exeter, and was specially exempted from

the obligation of swearing allegiance to the children of Anne Boleyn.

So far forbearance was shown toward him, and he was not insensible to

the indulgence. He always in after life retained the same feelings,

and even his bitterest invectives were softened with notes of love.

In the year 1535, when he was in his thirty-fifth year, (for, being

born in 1500, his years run with the century,) Pole was requested to

send in his opinion on the authority claimed in England by the see

of Rome. A similar request was made to all other English noblemen and

gentlemen; for Henry in his worst deeds endeavored to fortify himself

by public opinion; and when doctors at the universities resisted his

will, he overcame their scruples by the help of menacing letters.[99]

Mr. Starkey, a personal acquaintance, was commissioned to correspond

with Pole, and he advised him to avoid his previous errors. He was

to say distinctly and honestly whether he approved the divorce and

the separation from Rome--whether they were, in his opinion, right

or wrong in the abstract, and not whether they might be defended on

grounds of expediency. He insisted the more on this distinction,

because, as we have seen, when Pole was first consulted by Henry

about the separation from Catharine, he had hesitated, requested time

for consideration, and tried to discover reasons for complying with

his sovereign's wishes.

But years had passed since that trying occasion. The germs of evils

had rapidly developed. Henry's character had unfolded; Pole's had

matured. Their divergence had become antagonism; and Pole was in no

way disposed to let the opportunity now afforded him escape. It was

the time to write what contemporaries widely scattered, and even

posterity, might read. Brief answers to brief questions would do

for the king; but a volume would do better for Rome, the courts of

Europe, the people of England, and the angry glances of the lawless

prince himself. He intended it, no doubt, for Henry's perusal in the

first instance; but he could hardly doubt that what he might speak in

secret chambers would be proclaimed from the house-tops. He showed

the manuscript in parts to Cardinal Contarini. The language was

impassioned and almost violent. The cardinal advised discretion, and

ended by protesting against what he considered fruitless invective.

To this Reginald replied that he knew the king's character well. He

had been too much flattered. No one had durst tell him the truth.

He could not be moved by gentleness. His eyes ought to be opened by

the plainest speaking, and the censures of the church ought long

ago to have fallen upon him. It was not for his sake only that Pole

wrote; he had the welfare of the flock of Christ in his heart. He was

determined to expose the matter fully, that king and people might be

thoroughly warned.

In the mean time the emperor's designs on England were abandoned; and

the quarrel between him and Henry seemed likely to be brought to a

peaceful issue. Thus one hope which Pole entertained of seeing divine

judgments fall on the king of England was blighted. Yet his book must

be completed. The king must have the first reading of it. He would

not even submit it to Pope Paul III. through Cardinal Contarini.

Perhaps he feared that his holiness would think it ill-timed or

intemperate. We certainly find him lamenting that the pope did not

convince the emperor how much more blessed it would be to fight with

Henry than with the Turks--to be the champion of the Christian faith

in Europe, and drive back the fearful encroachments of heresy.[100]

At length, in May, 1536, Pole's _De Unitate Ecclesiæ_, was completed.

His ardent disposition and his indignant piety found vent in this

composition, and it rolled along like a river swollen by rains. The

very passages in it which Mr. Froude holds up to reprobation and

scorn are those which Catholics in general will regard with the most

pleasure; they will strike upon their ears as the voice of one crying

in the wilderness, and denouncing in just and measured terms the

crimes of a royal heresiarch. It will appear to them instinct with

affection rather than hatred. "I will cry in your ears," he says,

"as in the ears of a dead man--dead in your sins. I love you--wicked

as you are, I love you. I hope for you, and may God hear my prayer.

I should be a traitor did I conceal from you the truth. I owe my

learning to your care." He draws a hideous picture of Henry's guilt

and presumption, and then proceeds to dissect a book which Henry

had sent him on the supremacy by Dr. Sampson, Bishop of Chichester.

He inveighs against the abuse which Henry made of his regal power,

maintaining that the king exists for the people, not the people for

the king. He makes the people the source of kingly power; and his

words, _populus regem procreat_, "the people make the king," involve

a distinct denial of

"The right divine of kings to govern wrong."

He subordinates the regal office to that of the priest, and

in language singularly modern, he asserts that sovereigns are

responsible to their people, and that Henry, by breaking his

coronation oath, has forfeited his right to the crown, and justified

the rebellion of his subjects.

The third and most important section follows. It is addressed to

Henry VIII., to England, to the emperor, and to the Spanish army. He

accuses the king of intriguing with Mary Boleyn before his marriage

with Anne, and brands the "supreme head of the church" as the "vilest

of plunderers, a thief, and a robber." He relates in forcible

language the story of the martyrdom of Sir Thomas More, Bishop

Fisher, and the Charterhouse monks. He calls on England loudly to

rebel.

"O my country!" he says, "if any memory remains to you of your

ancient liberties, remember--remember the time when kings who

ruled over you unjustly were called to account by the authority

of your laws. They tell you that all is the king's. I tell you

that all is the commonwealth's. You my country, are all. The

king is but your servant and minister."

No trumpet of revolt could blow louder, yet Pole did not stop even

here. He proclaimed his intention of exciting the Emperor Charles to

invade England, and to assemble under his banner all those English

who remained true to God and his holy church. This part of the

treatise, when printed, was circulated as a pamphlet in the German

States. It protested that Pole acted in the love of his country, and

"in that love of the church which was given him by the Son of God."

The Spaniards above all men were bound in his view to vindicate the

honor of the noble daughter of Isabella of Castile, whom Henry had

divorced. The king of France, he believed, would make peace with the

emperor, and at the pope's bidding undertake the chastisement of the

towering enemy of God and man.

But the address is not all rebuke and menace; the tones of wrath

melt into tenderness at the last, and die away in exhortation to

repentance and promises of mercy. It effected little. Catharine

of Aragon died in Kimbolton Castle in the same year in which it

came to hand, and Anne Boleyn, four months later, passed from the

bridal-chamber to the scaffold. Henry had broken for ever with the

holy see, and England, torn from the centre of unity, sank and

wandered in an abyss. The book was sent to England from Venice on

the 27th of May, 1536. It was accompanied by two letters, one to

the king, the other to Tunstall, Bishop of Durham. The bishop was to

read for the king what was intended for his majesty only. By which

we must understand that, if the treatise produced the desired effect

on Henry's mind, it would be considered as a secret communication;

but if it failed, the author would then be at liberty to publish

it to the world. It is not certain that Henry ever read it. He

heard reports of it, however, from Tunstall and Starkey, and made

no mystery of his displeasure to those around him. To Pole himself

he wrote briefly, requiring him to return to England and explain

his ideas more fully. Starkey and Tunstall wrote also, pointing out

Reginald's presumption, which, they said, if persevered in would

become a crime, and urging him to return to England, and seek the

king's pardon. Pole was far too astute to obey this summons. Other

letters were addressed to him, and finding that he would not venture

on the English shore, Henry's agents tried to persuade him not to

publish the work, and to give up or burn any copies of it which he

might have retained. But this request was as fruitless as the former.

Pole continued for a time to receive his pension, and his book,

the effects of which were likely to be formidable, was reserved in

manuscript till a fitting occasion for publishing it should arise.

Being an English subject, in the enjoyment of certain emoluments and

dignities, Reginald Pole was not altogether free in his movements

abroad. He could not accept an invitation from the pope to visit him

at Rome without first obtaining Henry's permission, or without, at

least, expressing a hope that his majesty would not be offended if

he repaired to the eternal city. Henry did not deign to reply, but

he induced Reginald's mother and brothers, Cromwell, and his friends

at home, together with some members of both houses of parliament,

to endeavor to deter him from the journey and from accepting any

office that might be offered him in Rome. For a time, therefore, he

resisted the importunities of his friend Contarini, and declined

the purple held out to him by Pope Paul III.; for he knew that in

accepting it he should make the king his implacable enemy and expose

his family to cruel persecution. But other circumstances arose,

which made the cardinalate appear desirable; and he accepted it

about Christmas, 1536,[101] and trusted that it might in the issue

aid him in accomplishing the main purpose of his life. That purpose

was the recovery of England, in part at least, if not entirely, to

the Catholic faith. The rising in England which he had predicted

had taken place. The suppression of the monasteries had filled the

faithful in the north with indignation, and from the Wash to the

borders of Scotland the people in general flew to arms. They bore

on their standards the emblems of faith, and the image of Christ

crucified was carried in their front. The revolt was styled the

"Pilgrimage of Grace," and its object was not the overthrow of

the throne or the sovereign, but the removal from him of all evil

counsellors and "villein's blood." It is deeply to the disgrace of

Englishmen that they did not rise to a man and support the cause of

freedom and religion against the worst of tyrants. Pole was anxious

to afford the insurgents all the assistance in his power, and to

remove from them and from the English in general any pretext for

acquiescence in the changes forced upon them. A legate's commission

was granted him, and he was instructed to land in England, or to

hover over its coasts in France or Flanders as circumstances might

require.[102] He knew not whether the insurrection were crushed, or

whether Henry, on the contrary, were in the power of the rebels. He

therefore manœuvred with the English government till things should

take a decisive turn, and executed his commission with delicacy and

dexterity. His professed object was to receive in Flanders such

commissioners from the king as he might think proper to send for the

purpose of discussing the points at issue between the government

and the pope. He brought with him as credentials five letters; one

to the Catholic people of England; a second to James of Scotland;

a third to Francis King of France; a fourth to the Regent of the

Netherlands; and a fifth to the Prince Bishop of Liege. He was ready

to treat with Henry on any reasonable terms, and hopes were still

entertained at Rome of England's being reconciled to the holy see. He

was instructed to exhort the emperor and the King of France to cease

hostilities against each other, and to turn their arms against the

Turks. By this means they would forward the supreme pastor's design

of convening a general council for the reformation of manners and the

reconcilement of nations which had fallen from the faith to the unity

of Christendom.

No sooner had Pole entered France than the English ambassador there

required that he should be delivered up, and sent as a prisoner

to England. The lengths to which Henry VIII. had gone altered the

position of his Catholic subjects, and to be faithful to God and

the holy see was to be nothing less than a traitor. Reginald Pole

especially had incurred this charge, and as soon as it suited Henry's

purpose, he preferred it against him without scruple. The king of

France refused to deliver him up, but he requested Pole not to

ask for an audience, and to prosecute his journey as speedily as

possible. A treaty with England obliged the French government to

give no shelter to political offenders, and Pole was compelled to

turn aside from Paris and repair to Cambray. His welcome there was

no warmer than in France. The Regent of the Netherlands had been

terrified by Henry, and Pole was conveyed under an escort to Liege.

A price of fifty thousand crowns was put on his head by the king of

England, and four thousand auxiliaries were offered to the emperor

to aid him in his campaign against France, provided he would deliver

up the person of the cardinal into Henry's hands. The hatred of the

king became implacable, and he pursued Pole ever after with the most

murderous intentions.

From his watch-tower at Liege, Reginald beheld with bitter regret the

failure of every attempt at insurrection in England. Alternate hopes

and fears preyed on his mind. Conspiracy against the king seemed to

offer the only chance of averting the triumph of Protestantism in

England. Rebellion assumed in his eyes a sacred character, and every

insurgent who fell wore the glory of martyrdom. He would willingly

have seen his relations plotting against the author of untold evils

to mankind. But a rumor was spread abroad of his life being in

danger; that assassins were employed by Henry to murder him; and the

holy father, anxious to preserve so valuable a life, recalled him to

Italy. He was bent on publishing his book in defence of the church's

unity, and desired to do so under the pope's auspices. In a letter to

his secretary, Michael Throgmorton, Cromwell, who was then Henry's

chief adviser, heaped reproaches upon Pole for his treason, dared

him to publish his book if he thought fit, defended his master's

resistance of papal authority, and intimated that Henry could find

means to avenge himself on Cardinal Pole, even though he should

be "tied to the pope's girdle." The times, it must be confessed,

were most painful and trying; wickedness in high places forced many

persons from their allegiance against their will who would have

been, under happier circumstances, the most loyal and devoted of

subjects. The mind of Cardinal Pole was deeply imbued with a love of

the Catholic religion, and wherever he might be, whatever he might be

doing, his unique object was its reëstablishment in his beloved and

native land.

In June, 1538, we catch a glimpse of Cardinal Pole among the

orange-groves that skirt the water's edge on the beautiful bay of

Nice. Hither he came as attendant on the pope in a congress which

resulted in a truce between France and Spain. But the name of Henry

VIII. was not mentioned in the treaty on which the sovereigns agreed.

The pope and the princes were left free to act toward him or against

him as they might think fit.

In the beginning of the year 1539 Pole's book was printed, and sown

broadcast over Europe. Many additions had been made to it, and the

excesses into which King Henry had rushed increased the vehement

indignation of the author. The pope, also, at the same time, issued

his bull of deposition against the apostate prince. His crimes could

no longer be endured; the putrid member must be lopped off from the

body of the church. Cardinal Pole himself was despatched on another

mission, the object of which was to arouse the Emperor Charles V.

to an invasion of England. He addressed an apology to the emperor

explaining his conduct, lest his majesty should fail to see how

fealty to the King of kings may sometimes oblige a subject to disown

allegiance to an earthly sovereign.

Meanwhile, another rising was meditated in England. The Pilgrimage of

Grace had failed, but the moment was propitious for another attempt.

The Catholic forces of the empire would be stirred against Henry by

the pope and Cardinal Pole, and the pacification of Nice had brought

Europe into the condition most adverse to the schismatic king. The

plot was discovered by the government, and suspicions fell on the

relatives of Pole. He was believed to have been in correspondence

with them, and to have excited them to conspire and rebel. His

brother, Sir Geoffrey Pole, turned king's evidence, and his

accusations were accepted as truthful; though the word of a traitor

to his own party is as much to be despised as himself. Knowing, as

we do, that the heart of Cardinal Pole was burning with a desire of

Henry's overthrow, it will be to us a question of small interest

whether he really instigated his friends to revolt or not. Neither

shall we be very careful to inquire into the validity or invalidity

of the charges against his kinsfolk. If faithful to the king, they

were unfaithful to God; if rebels against his authority, they were

valiant for the truth. The evidence obtained in their disfavor was

presumptive only; it proved, indeed, something as to their general

tendencies; but it was not sufficient for their just condemnation.

They had one crime which could not be pardoned; they were near

relations of Reginald Pole. The king had not a more dangerous enemy

than he beyond the seas; and the accused persons were all of them

more or less of royal blood; all capable, on occasion, of setting

up a rival claim to the throne, and making their descent, titles,

property, and influence means of supplanting the reigning prince.

The Marquis of Exeter, Lord Montague, and Sir Edward Neville were

beheaded on Tower Hill, December 9th, 1538.[103] Lady Salisbury

was made to endure a cruel imprisonment, and deprived of all her

property; nor could she even purchase a warm garment to protect her

aged limbs.[104] When more than seventy years of age, she was brought

to the block. "Blessed are they that suffer for righteousness' sake,"

were her last words. The effect of these judicial murders on Cardinal

Pole's mind may easily be conceived. Other injuries may be forgotten

or forgiven, but this shedding of the blood of innocent and beloved

relatives is a crime that never ceases to cry to heaven for vengeance.

Pole's mission to Charles V. produced little effect. Some warlike

demonstrations were made against Henry, but the emperor soon assured

the legate that it was impossible for him at that time to proceed

further. Reginald Pole was bitterly disappointed. Again his hope of

the church's triumph and Henry's discomfiture was blasted. He saw the

wicked in great prosperity and flourishing like a green bay tree.

But his strength and consolation was in the inner life. "For me," he

wrote, "the heavier the load of my affliction for God and the church,

the higher do I mount upon the ladder of felicity."[105] There were

those who accused him of nourishing a hope that he should one day be

king of England; but perhaps they have ascribed to him what was only

the foolish dream of some fond admirers.

This legation was a mockery and a cross. He was bandied about from

Toledo to Avignon; from Charles V. to Francis. Neither sovereign

could be induced to unite against the king of England. Francis

refused to receive the legate unless he brought with him some written

pledge of the emperor's sincerity, and Charles refused to give that

pledge unless the cardinal had first been received by Francis. Pole

saw that he was cajoled by both.