THE TWO TYPES OF RELIGION IN ROME.
[Sidenote: The Cappuccini Cemetery.]
Only three or four blocks from our hotel stands the Church of the
Cappuccini, which contains one of the most gruesome sights in Rome,
the celebrated cemetery of the Cappuccini monks, the soil of which was
brought from Jerusalem. All Roman Catholic cemeteries have a peculiarly
melancholy aspect. They have none of that gentle beauty which is so
characteristic of our cemeteries, where the grass grows green under the
open sky or great trees cast their peaceful shade over "God's acre."
But this is the most weird and ghastly of them all. There are four
recesses or chapels underneath the church, the pillars and pilasters
of which are made of thigh-bones and skulls, the architectural
ornaments being represented by the joints of the spine, and the more
delicate tracery by the smaller bones of the human frame. "The summits
of the arches are adorned with entire skeletons, looking as if they
were wrought most skillfully in bas-relief. There is no possibility
of describing how ugly and grotesque is the effect.... On some of
the skulls there are inscriptions, purporting that such a monk, who
formerly made use of that particular head-piece, died on such a day
and year; but vastly the greater number are piled up undistinguishably
into the architectural design.... In the side walls of the vaults are
niches where skeleton monks sit or stand, clad in the brown habits that
they wore in life.... Yet let us give the cemetery the praise that it
deserves. There is no disagreeable scent, such as might have been
expected from the decay of so many holy persons, in whatever odor of
sanctity they may have taken their departure. The same number of living
monks would not smell half so unexceptionably." So Hawthorne says, and
I have spared my readers the most disagreeable parts of his description.
The allusion in his last sentence is one which is justified by the
olfactory organs of every visitor to Rome. The vices which were
encouraged in the magnificent baths of the emperors, and which
have given the word _bagnio_ an evil signification the world over,
"found their reaction in the impression of the early Christians that
uncleanliness was a virtue, an impression which is retained by several
of the monastic orders to the present day." We sometimes weary of
the superabundant advertisements of the different kinds of soap in
the advertising pages of our monthly magazines. But what a wholesome
sign it is! And what a difference it marks between us and the average
Italian! And what a field for their business would be opened to
Mr. Pears and the rest if only the monks would adopt the view that
"cleanliness is next to godliness," and that, therefore, soap might be
regarded as a sort of means of grace!
[Sidenote: Some Differences between America and Italy.]
Mark Twain once described what he would say, if he were a native of
Italy, and had been on a visit to the United States, and had come back
to the Campagna for the purpose of telling his Italian countrymen
what he had seen in America: "One hardly ever sees a minister of the
gospel going around there in his bare feet, with a basket, begging for
subsistence. In that country the preachers are not like our mendicant
orders of friars--they have two or three suits of clothing, _and they
wash sometimes_."... "I saw common men and common women who could
read; I even saw small children of common country people reading
from books; if I dared think you would believe it, I would say they
could write, also.... I saw real glass windows in the houses of even
the commonest people. Some of the houses are not of stone, nor yet
of bricks; I solemnly swear they are made of wood. Houses there will
take fire and burn, sometimes--actually burn entirely down, and not
leave a single vestige behind. I could state that for a truth upon my
death-bed. And, as a proof that the circumstance is not rare, I aver
that they have a thing which they call a fire-engine, which vomits
forth great streams of water, and is kept always in readiness, by night
and by day, to rush to houses that are burning. You would think one
engine would be sufficient, but some great cities have a hundred; they
keep men hired, and pay them by the month to do nothing but put out
fires.[20]... In that singular country if a rich man dies a sinner,
he is damned; he cannot buy salvation with money for masses. There is
really not much use in being rich there. Not much use as far as the
other world is concerned, but much, very much, use as concerns this;
because there, if a man be rich, he is very greatly honored, and can
become a legislator, a governor, a general, a senator, no matter how
ignorant an ass he is--just as in our beloved Italy the nobles hold all
the great places, even though sometimes they are born noble idiots.
There, if a man be rich, they give him costly presents, they ask him
to feasts, they invite him to drink complicated beverages; but if he
be poor and in debt, they require him to do that which they term to
'settle.'... In that country you might fall from a third-story window
three several times and not mash either a soldier or a priest.... Jews
there are treated just like human beings, instead of dogs.... They
never have had to run races naked through the public streets against
jackasses to please the people in carnival time; there they never have
been driven by the soldiers into a church every Sunday for hundreds of
years to hear themselves and their religion especially and particularly
cursed."[21]
[Sidenote: The Playful Inquisition.]
While I have Mark Twain in hand, I will make two more quotations from
him, and then dismiss him for good. Looking from the dome of St.
Peter's upon the building which was once the Inquisition, he says: "How
times are changed, between the older ages and the new! Some seventeen
or eighteen centuries ago, the ignorant men of Rome were wont to put
Christians in the arena of the Coliseum yonder, and turn the wild
beasts in upon them for a show. It was for a lesson as well. It was
to teach the people to abhor and fear the new doctrine the followers
of Christ were teaching. The beasts tore the victims limb from limb,
and made poor mangled corpses of them in the twinkling of an eye. But
when the Christians came into power, when the holy Mother Church became
mistress of the barbarians, she taught them the error of their ways
by no such means. No, she put them in this pleasant Inquisition, and
pointed to the blessed Redeemer, who was so gentle and so merciful
toward all men, and they urged the barbarians to love him; and they
did all they could to persuade them to love and honor him--first by
twisting their thumbs out of joint with a screw; then by nipping their
flesh with pincers--red-hot ones, because they are the most comfortable
in cold weather; then by skinning them alive a little, and finally by
roasting them in public. They always convinced those barbarians. The
true religion, properly administered, as the good Mother Church used to
administer it, is very, very soothing. It is wonderfully persuasive,
also. There is a great difference between feeding parties to wild
beasts and stirring up their finer feelings in an Inquisition. One is
the system of degraded barbarians, the other of enlightened, civilized
people. It is a great pity the playful Inquisition is no more."
[Sidenote: The Relative Rank of the Deities Worshipped in Rome.]
Speaking of a mosaic group at the side of the Scala Santa which
represents the Saviour, St. Peter, Pope Leo, St. Silvester, Constantine
and Charlemagne, he says: "Peter is giving the _pallium_ to the Pope,
and a standard to Charlemagne. The Saviour is giving the keys to St.
Silvester, and a standard to Constantine. No prayer is offered to the
Saviour, who seems to be of little importance anywhere in Rome; but
an inscription below says, '_Blessed Peter, give life to Pope Leo
and victory to King Charles_.' It does not say, '_Intercede for us_,
through the Saviour, with the Father, for this boon,' but 'Blessed
Peter, _give it_ us.'
"In all seriousness--without meaning to be frivolous, without
meaning to be irreverent, and, more than all, without meaning to be
blasphemous--I state, as my simple deduction from the things I have
seen and the things I have heard, that the Holy Personages rank thus in
Rome:
"_First._ 'The Mother of God'--otherwise the Virgin Mary.
"_Second._ The Deity.
"_Third._ Peter.
"_Fourth._ Some twelve or fifteen canonized popes and martyrs.
"_Fifth._ Jesus Christ the Saviour (but always an infant in arms).
"I may be wrong in this--my judgment errs often, just as is the case
with other men's--but it _is_ my judgment, be it good or bad.
"Just here I will mention something that seems curious to me. There are
no 'Christ's Churches' in Rome, and no 'Churches of the Holy Ghost,'
that I can discover. There are some four hundred churches, but about a
fourth of them seem to be named for the Madonna and St. Peter. There
are so many named for Mary that they have to be distinguished by all
sorts of affixes, if I understand the matter rightly. Then we have
churches of St. Louis, St. Augustine, St. Agnes, St. Calixtus, St.
Lorenzo in Lucina, St. Lorenzo in Damaso, St. Cecilia, St. Athanasius,
St. Philip Neri, St. Catherine, St. Dominico, and a multitude of lesser
saints whose names are not familiar in the world--and away down, clear
out of the list of the churches, comes a couple of hospitals; one of
them is named for the Saviour and the other for the Holy Ghost!"
[Sidenote: The Fee of the Visitor more Important than the Soul of the
Worshipper.]
But we have allowed this clean, shrewd, racy American with his biting
satire and his outspoken common sense, to lead us far away from our
subject. Let us come back to the Church of the Cappuccini. For, besides
its horrible cemetery, it contains another object of great interest,
though of a very different character, viz., Guido's great picture of
the Archangel Michael trampling upon the devil. The devil's face is
said to be a portrait of Pope Innocent X., against whom the painter had
a spite. It is not for the purpose of describing the picture that I
refer to it, for I am not competent to do that, but for the purpose of
quoting the animadversions of another American writer upon the custom
of concealing this picture and others of special interest in Romish
churches with closely drawn curtains, requiring the presence of an
attendant to unveil them and the bestowment of a fee by the visitor.
"The churchmen of Italy make no scruple of sacrificing the very purpose
for which a work of sacred art has been created, that of opening
the way for religious sentiment through the quick medium of sight,
by bringing angels, saints and martyrs down visibly upon earth--of
sacrificing this high purpose, and, for aught they know, the welfare of
many souls along with it, to the hope of a paltry fee. Every work by
an artist of celebrity is hidden behind a veil, and seldom revealed,
except to Protestants, who scorn it as an object of devotion, and value
it only for its artistic merit."
[Sidenote: Sensuality versus Spirituality in Art.]
The same author (Hawthorne), speaking of the terrible lack of variety
in the subjects of the great Italian masters, says a quarter part,
probably, of any large collection of pictures consists of Virgins and
infant Christs.... Half of the other pictures are Magdalens, Flights
into Egypt, Crucifixions, etc. "The remainder of the gallery comprises
mythological subjects, such as nude Venuses, Ledas, Graces, and, in
short, a general apotheosis of nudity.... These impure pictures are
from the same illustrious and impious hands that adventured to call
before us the august forms of apostles and saints, the Blessed Mother
of the Redeemer, and her Son, at his death, and in his glory, and even
the awfulness of him to whom the martyrs, dead a thousand years ago,
have not dared to raise their eyes. They seem to take up one task or
the other--the disrobed woman whom they call Venus, or the type of
highest and tenderest womanhood in the mother of the Saviour--with
equal readiness, but to achieve the former with far more satisfactory
success. If an artist sometimes produced a picture of the Virgin
possessing warmth enough to excite devotional feelings, it was probably
the object of his earthly love, to whom he thus paid the stupendous
and fearful homage of setting up her portrait to be worshipped, not
figuratively as a mortal, but by religious souls in their earnest
aspirations towards divinity. And who can trust the religious sentiment
of Raphael, or receive any of his Virgins as heaven-descended
likenesses, after seeing, for example, the "Fornarina" of the Barberini
Palace, and feeling how sensual the artist must have been to paint
such a brazen trollop of his own accord, and lovingly? Would the
Blessed Mary reveal herself to his spiritual vision, and favor him
with sittings alternately with that type of glowing earthliness, the
Fornarina?"
[Sidenote: The Kind of Character Produced.]
True, Hawthorne proceeds at once to weaken the force of this criticism
somewhat by referring to the throng of spiritual faces, innocent
cherubs, serene angels, pure-eyed madonnas, and "that divinest
countenance in the Transfiguration"--all of which we owe to Raphael's
marvellous brush. But the criticism above quoted is sound. And that
Hawthorne himself saw how little such "sacred art" had availed to lift
the representatives of this kind of worship out of gross sensualism,
let the following passage witness: "Here was a priesthood, pampered,
sensual, with red and bloated cheeks, and carnal eyes. With apparently
a grosser development of animal life than most men, they were placed
in an unnatural relation with woman, and thereby lost the healthy,
human conscience that pertains to other human beings, who own the sweet
household ties connecting them with wife and daughter. And here was an
indolent nobility, with no high aims or opportunities, but cultivating
a vicious way of life, as if it were an art, and the only one which
they cared to learn. Here was a population, high and low, that had no
genuine belief in virtue; and if they recognized any act as criminal,
they might throw off all care, remorse and memory of it, by kneeling
a little while at the confessional, and rising unburdened, active,
elastic and incited by fresh appetite for the next ensuing sin."
Of course all the priests are not such as above described, as Eugene
Sue has endeavored to show in the character of Gabriel in _The
Wandering Jew_, and Victor Hugo in the character of the good bishop
in _Les Miserables_, and Marie Corelli in the character of the good
Cardinal Bonpre in _The Master Christian_. Hawthorne simply describes
the prevailing type. Let it be observed, too, that he is speaking of
the priests in Italy, not of those in America, among whom we are glad
to believe there is a much larger proportion of good men. Moreover, it
should not be forgotten that the present Premier of Italy has himself
stated publicly, in a passage which I have quoted in Chapter XXIX.,
that there has been some improvement, at least in the outward conduct
of the clergy, since the overthrow of the papal government, and that
the immorality of the priests and cardinals is not so shamelessly
flaunted in Rome as it used to be under the popes.
[Sidenote: The Other Type.]
On the 20th of September, 1870, the Italian army entered Rome,
after a slight resistance. This event, which marked the downfall of
the temporal power of the papacy, the unification of Italy, and
the establishment of religious liberty under the enlightened and
progressive government of Victor Emmanuel, is properly commemorated
in the name of a handsome street, Via Venti Settembre, which extends
from the Porta Pia, where the army entered, to the Quirinal Palace,
where the King resides. Appropriately placed on a street which thus
commemorates the establishment of civil and religious freedom in Italy,
are several of the Protestant churches, which for the last thirty years
have caused a pure river of water of life to flow once more through
Rome as in the days when the great Apostle of the Gentiles preached
there the kingdom of God, and taught the things concerning the Lord
Jesus Christ with all boldness, none forbidding him.
At No. 7 on this high and pleasant street we find a tall, clean,
handsome building, standing well back from the street, with a spacious,
green yard in front, the whole occupying a portion of what were once
the gardens of the Barberini Palace. A neat notice-board on the high
iron picket fence informs us that this attractive building is the
Presbyterian Church, and that the pastor is the Rev. J. Gordon Gray, D.
D.
[Sidenote: An Apostolic Preacher in Rome.]
When you enter the church on Sunday morning, a few minutes before
eleven o'clock, you find it filled with a congregation of exceptionally
intelligent people, mostly English-speaking residents in Rome and
English-speaking visitors from every part of the world, including
many Christians of other denominations besides our own--for it does
not take visitors in Rome long to find out how strong and wholesome
is the spiritual nourishment here furnished, how broad-minded and
large-hearted the minister is, and how surely he declares the whole
counsel of God, without ever a syllable that can offend any of those
who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. If you return in the
afternoon, as you will do if you are wise, and as everybody does, in
fact, after hearing him once, you will find the house full again,
and, while you will see no splendid pageant, no rows of bishops and
archbishops in purple and lace and furs, no robing and disrobing, no
intoned service in Latin, no choral responses from high and gilded
choir loft, no clouds of incense filling the air--you will hear the
old sweet gospel in all its pristine purity--you will see the great
apostle and his friends before you, instinct with life and love and
zeal, as the minister lectures, with astonishing fullness and accuracy
of information and sympathetic understanding, on Roman Sites which
can be identified with St. Paul's Sojourn Here, The Saints of Cæsar's
Household in the light of the Columbaria, The Site and probable
incidents of Paul's Roman Trial, The First Martyrdoms and the probable
Site of Nero's Circus, Paul's Two Years in his Hired House, Paul's
Travels and Labors between his First and Second Roman Imprisonments,
The Closing Years of Paul's Ministry, The Jews in Rome in Paul's
Time--and you will hear things that make for the peace of your soul and
for your upbuilding on your most holy faith as he expounds The Chief
Elements of Paul's Teaching; Christ in Early Christian Art as found
in the Roman Catacombs; The State after Death, Prayers to the Dead,
and Prayers for the Dead, in the light of the testimony of the Roman
Catacombs; The Place and Efficacy of the Sacraments in the light of the
testimony of the Roman Catacombs; and The Ministry in the Early Church
of the Catacombs.
[Sidenote: A Wise and Loving Pastor.]
Surely never was Christian workman better adapted to his work than Dr.
Gray. The sturdy frame, the massive head, the clear eye, the kindly
voice, the genial manner, the transparent sincerity, and the ready
sympathy of the man, invite one's confidence from the first, and the
longer you know him the more you value him for his rare combination of
strength and tenderness, and for his wisdom, piety and learning. We
had the good fortune to hear his sermon on the eighteenth anniversary
of the formation of his pastorate in Rome, in which he reviewed the
history of his church during those eighteen years, and the years
immediately preceding, and the growth of Protestantism in Rome since
the downfall of the papacy--and a deeply interesting discourse it was.
It lifted one's hopes for the future of Italy. Undoubtedly the day is
breaking over the darkness which has so long lain like a pall over this
lovely land.
A good man is known by his prayers. There is a fullness, propriety
and fervor about Dr. Gray's public prayers that are seldom equalled.
The homesick stranger, with the wide ocean between him and his native
land--the professional man wavering in health and doubtful as to the
future--the stricken widow, who has lost her husband by the sudden
stroke of death--as well as those who bear the usual burdens of the
human heart, find themselves strangely comforted and cheered, strangely
relieved of their toils and cares and anxieties and fears, strangely
upborne and strengthened, as this man of God pours from a sympathetic
heart the needs of his people into the ear of him who careth for us.
Among the usual petitions on Sunday morning there is invariably one
for the King of England and the royal family, the President of the
United States, and the King and Queen of Italy. We had two reminders
on the 22nd of February that it was Washington's birthday: one was the
flags hanging out at the American Embassy, and the other was Dr. Gray's
prayer of thanksgiving for the character and services of Washington. He
never forgets anything.
Yet his activities are multifarious. His resourcefulness, adequacy
and strength have long since made him the real dean of the fine force
of Protestant ministers in Rome. His advice is sought by them, and
by all manner of visitors to Rome, on all manner of subjects. He is
deeply interested in the matter of excavating the house of Priscilla
and Aquila, the Apostle Paul's friends, on the Aventine, and hopes
to raise the necessary funds and have that done--a valuable service
to archæological and biblical learning. He ought by all means to
be allowed to find time to publish a volume on The Apostle Paul in
Rome. Dr. Gray is another of the many good gifts of Scotland to the
world, and, like Dr. Alexander Whyte, of Edinburgh, and other eminent
Scotchmen, is an Aberdeen man. They are some of the Aberdonians who
almost tempt us at times to agree with the Aberdeen man of whom our
good Scotch physician in Rome told me the other day, who said, "Tak'
awa' Aberdeen and sax miles around it, and what would you have left?"
FOOTNOTES:
[20] Few things struck our boys so much as the non-occurrence of fires
in Rome, and the absence of all apparatus for extinguishing them, and
on our return to America few things seemed so strange to us at first
as the frame houses in the New Jersey towns along the Pennsylvania
railroad.
[21] This custom of compelling Jews to listen to Christian sermons
was only abolished in 1848, under Pius IX., through influence of
Michelangelo Caëtani, Duke of Sermoneta.