Vol. V., No. 29.--August, 1867.
Original.
Guettée's Papacy Schismatic. [Footnote 176]
[Footnote 176: See The Catholic World, July, 1867.]
M. Guettée, it will be remembered, undertakes to establish two propositions
--first, "The bishop of Rome did not for eight centuries possess the
authority of divine right which he has since sought to exercise; and
second, The pretension of the bishop of Rome to the sovereignty of divine
right over the whole church was the real cause of the division," or schism
between the East and the West. To the first proposition, we have replied,
the bishop of Rome is in possession, and it is for the author to prove that
he is not rightfully in possession. This he can do only by proving either,
first, that no such title by divine right was ever issued; or, second, that
it vests in an adverse claimant. He sets up no adverse claimant, but
attempts to make it appear that no such title as is claimed was ever
issued. This he attempts to do by showing that the proofs of title usually
relied on by Catholic writers are negatived by the Holy Scriptures and the
testimony of the fathers and councils of the first eight centuries. We have
seen that he has signally failed so far as the Holy Scriptures and the
fathers of the first three centuries are concerned; nay, that instead of
proving his proposition, he has by his own witnesses refuted it, and proved
that the title did issue, and did vest in St. Peter, and consequently now
vests in the bishop of Rome as Peter's successor.
This alone is enough for us, and renders any further discussion of the
first proposition unnecessary. After the testimony of St. Cyprian, who is
his own witness, the author really has nothing more to say. He has lost his
case. But, ignorant of this, he proceeds in the fourth division of his work
to interrogate the fathers and councils of the fourth and fifth centuries,
but even less successfully, as we now proceed to show. We only beg the
reader to bear in mind that we are not adducing our proofs of the papacy by
divine right, but are simply examining the proofs the author adduces
against it. We do not put forth the strength of our cause, which is not
necessary in the present argument; we are only showing the weakness of the
case the author makes against us.
The author attempts to devise an argument against the papal authority from
the sixth canon of the council of Nicaea. This canon, as he cites it,
reads: "Let the ancient custom be preserved that exists in Egypt, Lybia,
and Pentapolis, that the bishop of Alexandria have authority in all these
countries, since that has also passed into a custom for the bishop of Rome.
{578}
Let the churches at Antioch and in the other provinces preserve also their
privileges." It must not be supposed that the author cites the canon with
any degree of exactness, or faithfully renders it; but let that pass. From
this canon two consequences, he contends, necessarily follow: first, That
"the council declared that the authority of the bishop of Rome extended
over a limited district, like that of the bishop of Alexandria; and second,
That this authority was only based on usage," (p. 95.)
But the authority of the bishop of Rome was not in question before the
council, for that nobody disputed. "The object of the canon," the author
himself says, pp. 93, 94, "was to defend the authority of the bishop of
Alexandria against the partisans of Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis, who
refused to recognize it in episcopal ordinations; .... therefore was merely
to confirm the ancient customs respecting these ordinations, and, in
general, the privileges consecrated by ancient usages. Now, according to an
ancient custom Rome enjoyed certain prerogatives that no one contested. The
council makes use of this fact in order to confirm the similar prerogatives
of Alexandria, Antioch, and other churches."
The question before the council, and which it met by this canon, evidently
was not the primacy of the see of Rome--although it would seem from the
form in which the papal legate, Paschasinus, quoted it, without
contradiction, in the council of Chalcedon, that the council of Nicaea took
care to reserve that primacy--but certain customary rights, privileges, and
dignities which the bishops of Alexandria, Antioch, and some other churches
held in common with the bishop of Rome. As the ancient custom was preserved
in the Roman Church, the council says, so let it be in Alexandria, Antioch,
and other churches. The council refers to the custom in Rome as a reason
for confirming the similar custom which had obtained elsewhere, and which
had been violated by Meletius of Lycopolis in Egypt, and by his partisans.
To understand this, we must recollect that prior to the fall of the great
patriarchates of Alexandria and the East, the administration of
ecclesiastical affairs was less centralized than at present. Now nearly
all, if not all bishops depend immediately on the Holy See, but in the
early ages they depended on it only mediately. The bishops of a province or
of a patriarchate depended immediately on their exarch, metropolitan, or
patriarch, and only mediately through him on the bishop of Rome. The
appointment or election of the patriarch, and of the exarch or metropolitan
of a church independent of any patriarch, as were the churches of Asia
Minor, Pontus, and Thrace, needed the papal confirmation, but not their
suffragans, or the bishops subject to their immediate jurisdiction. The
patriarch or metropolitan confirmed their election, ordained or deposed
them by his own authority, subject of course to appeal to Rome. Lycopolis,
by ancient custom or canons of the fathers, depended on the bishop of
Alexandria, who was its bishop's immediate superior. For some reason,
Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis, had been deposed by the bishop of
Alexandria, and deprived of his functions; but he refused to submit,
ordained bishops by his own authority, contrary to the ancient custom, and
created a schism, was to meet this case, and others like it, that the
council decreed the sixth canon.
The authority confirmed by that canon was the authority of patriarchs, as
they were subsequently called, and of metropolitans by usage independent of
any patriarchal jurisdiction, and therefore the authority of the bishop of
Rome which it recognized as derived from usage, could have been only his
authority as metropolitan of the Suburbicarian churches, called the Roman
territory, or as patriarch of the West.
{579}
That this authority was limited, and dependent on ancient usage or custom,
nobody disputes; but this is distinct from his authority as supreme pontiff
or governor of the whole church. There are instances enough on record of
metropolitan churches, like Aquileia, and those of Illyrium and Bulgaria,
disputing their immediate dependence on the bishop of Rome, that never
dreamed of calling in question his authority as supreme pontiff, or
governor of the whole church. The schismatic Armenians do not deny and
never have denied the supreme authority in the whole church of the bishop
of Rome; they only assert that the pope gave to their apostle, Gregory the
Illuminator, and to his successors, the independent government of the
church in Armenia. St. Cyprian depended on the bishop of Rome, and
acknowledged the papal authority, but it is questionable if he depended on
him as patriarch of the West. We suspect Carthage was independent of
patriarchal jurisdiction, and that St. Cyprian had no superior but the
pope. However this may have been, the fact that churches did not depend
immediately on the bishop of Rome did not in any sense deny or impair his
universal authority as supreme pontiff. So the argument against the papacy
from the sixth canon of the council of Nicaea, like the author's other
arguments, proves nothing to his purpose.
M. Guettée, in his blind hatred of Rome, after having alleged the authority
of the council of Nicaea in his own favor, undertakes to prove that it was
no council of the church at all, but merely a council of the empire. He
labors hard to prove that it was convoked by the Emperor Constantine by
virtue of his imperial authority alone, that the emperor presided in its
sessions, and confirmed and promulgated its acts. Does he not see that if
it was so, the council had no ecclesiastical authority, and therefore that
its acts have no bearing on the question before us? If anything is certain,
it is that the church, as a polity, is independent of the state, and that
civil rulers or magistrates, as such, have no authority in her government.
Civil rulers have often usurped authority over the church and oppressed
her: they did so at Constantinople, as Gregory III. complains; they
attempted to do so all through the middle ages in the West, and they do so
now to a most fearful extent in the Russian empire, as in all European
Protestant states; but the authority they exercise is usurped, and is
repugnant to the very nature and constitution of the church. Our Lord said,
"My kingdom is not of this world." The Non-united Greeks as well as
Catholics hold that there is and can be no oecumenical council without the
bishop of Rome to convoke it, preside over it, and to confirm and
promulgate its acts; and hence they confess their inability to hold an
oecumenical council, and therefore really acknowledge that they are not the
Catholic Church in its integrity though they claim to hold the orthodox
faith. They admit the Roman Church is the primatial see, and that the
presidency of a general council belongs to the bishop of Rome by the right
and dignity of his see. If he did not preside in the council of Nicaea in
person or by his legates or representatives, and approve formally or
virtually its acts, it could not, by their own doctrine, have the authority
of a general council. The confirmation and promulgation of its canons by
the emperor might make them laws or edicts of the empire, but could not
make them canons of the church.
It would be no difficult matter to prove that the author is as much out in
his facts as in his inferences. The universal church has recognized the
council of Nicaea as a legitimate council, and there are ample authorities
to prove that its convocation and indiction were at the request or with the
assent of the Roman pontiff, that he presided over it by his legates,
Osius, bishop of Cordova, and Vitus and Vincentius, two Roman presbyters;
that he virtually, if not formally, confirmed and published its acts; and
that whatever the emperor did was merely executory; but the question is
foreign to our present argument, and we have no space to indulge in
extraneous or irrelevant discussions.
{580}
If we were endeavoring to prove the papacy, we should adduce the proofs;
but our line of argument requires us only to refute the reasons the author
alleges for asserting that the papacy is schismatic. If the council of
Nicaea was simply an imperial council, we have nothing to do with it; if it
was a true general council of the church, it makes nothing for the author,
for the sixth canon, the only one relied on, has, as the author cites it,
no reference to the jurisdiction of the Holy Apostolic See of Rome.
M. Guettée pretends that the third canon of the second general council, the
first of Constantinople, contains a denial of the papal authority by divine
right. The canon, as he cites it, which is only the concluding part of it,
says: "Let the bishop of Constantinople have the primacy of honor
(_priores honoris partes_) after the bishop of Rome, _because
Constantinople is the new Rome._" Hence he concludes that as the primacy
conferred on the bishop of Constantinople was only a primacy of honor, the
bishop of Rome had only a primacy of honor; and as the primacy of honor was
conferred on the bishop of Constantinople because that city was the new
Rome, so the primacy of the bishop of Rome was conferred because he was the
bishop of old Rome, or the capital of the empire. The reasoning, which is
Guettéean, if we may coin a word, is admirable, and we shall soon see what
St. Leo the Great thinks of it. But the canon does not affect the
authority, rank, or dignity of the bishop of Rome; it simply gives the
bishop of Constantinople the precedence of the bishop of Alexandria, who
had hitherto held the first rank after the bishop of Rome. It conferred on
him no power, and took nothing from the authority of any one else. It was
simply a matter of politeness. Besides, the canon remained without effect.
From the second general council the author rushes, pp. 96, 97, to the
fourth, the council of Chalcedon, held under the pontificate of St. Leo
Magnus, in 451, and lights upon the twenty-eighth canon of that council,
which, as he gives it, reads: "In all things following the decrees of the
holy fathers, and recognizing the canon just read (the third of the second
council) by the one hundred and fifty bishops well beloved of God, we
decree and establish the same thing touching the most holy church of
Constantinople, the new Rome. Most justly did the fathers grant privileges
to the see of ancient Rome, because she was the reigning (capital) city.
Moved by the same motive the one hundred and fifty bishops well beloved of
God grant equal privileges to the most holy see of the new Rome, thinking,
very properly, that the city that has the honor to be the seat of the
empire and the senate should enjoy in ecclesiastical things the same
privileges as Rome, the ancient queen city, since the former, although of
later origin, has been raised and honored as much as the former. In
consequence of this decree the council subjected the dioceses of Pontus,
Asia, (Asia Minor,) and Thrace to the jurisdiction of Constantinople."
Of course the author cites the canon with his usual inexactness, and makes
it appear even more illogical and absurd than it really was. The alleged
canon professes to decree and establish the same thing decreed and
established by the one hundred and fifty bishops who composed the second
council, in their third canon, which as we have seen, was simply that the
bishop of Constantinople should have the primacy of honor after the bishop
of Rome, that is the second rank in the church. The canon, therefore, does
not deprive the Roman pontiff of his rank, dignity, and authority as
primate of the whole church, and therefore did not, as it could not, raise
the see of Constantinople to an equal rank and dignity with the see of
Rome. This was never pretended, and is not pretended by the author himself.
{581}
The council never could, without stultifying itself, have intended anything
of the sort, for it gave to the bishop of Rome the title of "universal
bishop," and it says expressly: "We consider the primacy of all and the
chief honor, according to the canons, should be preserved to the most
beloved of God, the archbishop of Rome." [Footnote 177] The Non-united
Greeks and the author himself concede that the Church of Rome was and is
the first church in rank and dignity.
[Footnote 177: Act, xvi. col. 637. _Apud_ Kenrick.]
Whatever value, then, is to be attached to this twenty-eighth canon it did
not and was not designed to affect in any respect the rank, dignity, or
authority of the Roman pontiff. What was attempted by it was to erect the
non-apostolic see of Constantinople or Byzantium into a patriarchal see,
with jurisdiction over the metropolitans of Pontus, Asia Minor, Thrace, and
such as should be ordained in barbarous countries, that is, in countries
lying beyond the limits of the empire, and to give its bishop the first
rank after the patriarch of the West. It sought to reduce the bishop of
Alexandria from the second to the third, and the bishop of Antioch from the
third to the fourth rank, but it did not touch the power or authority of
either. It violated the rights and privileges of the metropolitans of
Pontus, Asia Minor, and Thrace, by subjecting them to a patriarchal
jurisdiction from which, by ancient usage, confirmed by the sixth canon of
the council of Nicaea, they were exempt.
The author relies on this canon because it asserts that the privileges of
the see of Rome were granted by the fathers, and granted _because_
Rome was the capital city of the empire. This sustains his position, that
the importance the fathers attached to the see of Rome was not because it
was the see of Peter, but because it was the see of the capital--a position
we showed, in our previous article, to be untenable and also that the
authority exercised by the Roman pontiff over the whole church, which he
cannot deny, was not by divine right, but by ecclesiastical right. But even
if this last were so, since there is confessedly no act of the universal
church revoking the grant, the power would be legitimate, and the author
and his friends the Non-united Greeks would be bound by a law of the church
to obey the Roman pontiff, and clearly schismatics in refusing to obey him.
But we have seen from St. Cyprian, the author's own witness, that the
primacy was conferred by our Lord himself on the Roman pontiff as the
successor of Peter to constitute him the visible centre and source of unity
and authority. Besides, a canon, beyond what it decrees or defines, is not
authoritative, and it is lawful to dispute the logic of a general council,
and even the historical facts it alleges, at least so far as they can be
separated from the definition or decree itself. The purpose of the canon of
Chalcedon was not to define or decree that the privileges of the see of
Rome were granted by the fathers, and because it was the see of the capital
of the empire, but to elevate the see of Constantinople to the rank and
authority of a patriarchal see, immediately after the see of Rome, and
simply assigns this as a reason for doing so; and a very poor reason it
was, too, at least in the judgment of St. Leo the Great, as we shall soon
see.
But there is something more to be said in regard to this twenty-eighth
canon of the council of Chalcedon. The council is generally accepted as the
fourth general council, but only by virtue of the papal confirmation, and
only so far as the pope confirmed its acts. In many respects the council
was a scandalous assembly, almost wholly controlled by the emperor and the
Byzantine lawyers or magistrates, who have no authority in the church of
God. The part taken by the emperor and civil magistrates wholly vitiated it
as a council of the church, and all the authority its acts had or could
have for the church was derived from their confirmation by St. Leo the
Great. But bad as the council was, the twenty-eighth canon never received
its sanction.
{582}
It was introduced by the civil magistrates, and when only one hundred and
fifty bishops, all orientals, out of the six hundred composing the council,
were present, and no more subscribed it. It was resisted by the legates of
the Roman pontiff and protested against; the patriarchal churches of
Alexandria and Antioch were unrepresented. Dioscurus, bishop of the former,
was excluded for his crimes, and Macarius of Antioch had just been deposed
by the emperor and council for heresy and expelled; a large number of
prelates had withdrawn, and only the rump of the council remained. It is
idle to pretend that the canon in question was the act even of the council,
far less of the universal church.
Now, either Leo the Roman pontiff had authority to confirm the acts of the
council of Chalcedon, and by his authority as supreme pastor of the church
to heal their defects and make them binding on the universal church, or he
had not. If he had, the controversy is ended, for that is precisely what
Mr. Guettée denies; if he had not, as Mr. Guettée contends, then the acts
of Chalcedon have in themselves no authority for the church, since through
the tyranny of the emperor Marcian and the civil magistrates it was not a
free council, and, though legally convoked and presided over, was not
capable of binding the church. The author may take which horn of the
dilemma he chooses, for the pope refused to confirm the twenty-eighth
canon, and declared it null and void from the beginning.
The fathers of the council, or a portion of them, in the name of the
council, addressed a letter to the Roman pontiff in which they recognize
him as the constituted interpreter of the words and faith of Peter for all,
explain what they have done, the motives from which they have acted, and
pray him "to honor their judgment by his _decrees_"--that is, confirm
their acts. St. Leo confirmed those of their acts that pertained to the
definition of faith, but refused to confirm the twenty-eighth canon, which
he annulled and declared void, as enacted without authority, and against
the canons.
Mr. Guettée says, pp. 97, 98, that the council did not ask the Roman
pontiff to confirm the canon in question, "but by his own decrees to honor
the judgment which had been rendered. If the confirmation of the bishop of
Rome had been necessary, would the decree of Chalcedon have been a
judgment, a promulgated decision, before that confirmation?" An
authoritatively "promulgated decision" certainly not; but the author
forgets that the canon had not been promulgated, and never became "a
promulgated decision." As to its being a judgment, a final or complete
judgment it was not, and the council, by calling it _nostrum
judicium_, do not pretend that it was. They present it to the Roman
pontiff only as an inchoate judgment, to be completed by his confirmation.
They tell the pope that his legates have protested against it, probably
because they wished to preserve to him its initiation, and that in adopting
it they "had deferred to the emperor, to the senate, and the whole imperial
city, thinking only to finish the work which his holiness, who always
delights to diffuse his favors, had begun." The plain English of which is,
We have enacted the canon out of deference to the civil authority and the
wishes of the imperial city, subject to your approval. "Rogamus igitur,
honora et tuis sententiis nostrum judicium. We pray you, therefore, to
honor our judgment by your decrees." [Footnote 178] If this does not mean
asking the pope to confirm their act or judgment, we know not what would so
mean. It is certain that St. Leo himself, who is one of the author's
anti-papal authorities, so understood it, as is evident from his replies to
the emperor, the empress, and Anatolius, Bishop of Constantinople, the
assertion of M. Guettée to the contrary notwithstanding.
[Footnote 178: Opp. S. Leo, tom. i. col. 960-962. Migne's edition.]
{583}
The Emperor Marcian wrote expressly to St. Leo, begging him to confirm by
his apostolic authority the acts of the council, and especially the
twenty-eighth canon, because without his confirmation they would have no
authority. The Empress Pulcheria wrote him to the same effect, and finally
Anatolius did the same. To the emperor the Roman pontiff replied, and set
forth the reasons why he could not confirm the canon in question. He makes
short work with M. Guettée's doctrine, broached in the second council, and
extended in the twenty eighth canon of Chalcedon, that the rank and
authority of the see derive from the rank, authority, or importance of the
city in which it is established. He denies that the fact that
Constantinople was the second capital of the empire, or the new Rome, was
any reason for elevating its bishop to the patriarchal rank and authority.
"Let, as we desire, the city of Constantinople have its glory, and,
protected by the right hand of God, may it long enjoy the reign of your
clemency; but different is the reason of secular things from the reason of
divine things, and no edifice will be stable unless it is built on that
rock (St. Matthew xvi. 18) which the Lord has laid for a foundation. Who
covets what is not his due shall lose what is his own. Let it suffice this
man, (Anatolius,) that by the aid of your piety and my assent and favor, he
has obtained the episcopate of so great a city. Let him not disdain the
imperial city because he cannot make it an apostolic see; and let him by no
means hope to enlarge his power at the expense of others."
It is very clear from this that St. Leo did by no means concede that the
bishop of Constantinople was entitled to be clothed with patriarchal power
and take precedence of the patriarch of Alexandria, because he had his see
in what had become the second capital of the empire. "Alia ratio est rerum
secularium, alia divinarum; nec prater illam petram quam Dominus in
fundamento posuit, stabilis erit nulla constructio;" that is, only what is
built on Peter, the rock, will stand, and in vain do you build on the
greatness, splendor, and dignity of earthly cities. [Footnote 179] If M.
Guettée had remembered this, he would never have turned from the chair of
Peter, or allowed himself to be seduced by the nationalism of the Greek
sophists, and the misguided ambition of the bishop of Constantinople. Alas!
he left his father's house, and, famished in the far country to which he
has wandered, he is forced to feed on husks with the swine he tends. What
can that man think of the church of God who holds that the dignity and
authority of its prelates have only a secular origin?
[Footnote 179: Ibidem, ad Marcianum Augustum, epist. civ.]
St. Leo unequivocally refuses, in his reply to the solicitations of the
emperor, to confirm the twenty-eighth canon. "And why," asks the author, p.
98, "did he refuse his assent? Because the decree of Chalcedon took from
the bishop of Alexandria the second rank, and the third from the bishop of
Antioch, and was in so far forth contrary to the sixth canon of Nicaea, and
because the same decree prejudiced the rights of several primates or
metropolitans," that is, of Pontus, Asia Minor, and Thrace. This we think
was reason enough, and proves that the Roman pontiff was not only the chief
custodian of the faith, but also of the canons. "The bishop of
Constantinople," says St. Leo, as cited by the author, "in spite of the
glory of his church, cannot make it apostolic; he has no right to
aggrandize it at the expense of churches whose privileges, established by
the canons of the holy fathers, and settled by the decrees of the venerable
council of Nicaea, cannot be unsettled by perversity nor violated by
innovation." St. Leo in the whole controversy appears as the defender of
the canons against innovation, and of the catholicity of the church against
Greek nationalism.
{584}
The author continues, same page, "In his letter to the Empress Pulcheria,
St. Leo declares that he has 'annulled the decree of Chalcedon by the
authority of St. Peter.' These words seem at first sight to mean that he
claimed for himself a sovereign [supreme] authority in the church in the
name of St. Peter." Undoubtedly, not only at first sight, but at every
sight. The Pope uses the strongest terms to be found in the Latin language,
and terms which can be used only by one having the supreme authority,
_irritus_ and _cassare_. He refuses to ratify it, declares it
null, and says, "per auctoritatem Beati Petri apostoli," he makes it void.
He could make no greater assumption of authority. "But," adds the author,
upon a more careful and unbiased examination of his letter and other
writings, "we are convinced that St. Leo only spoke as the bishop of an
apostolic see, and that in this character he claimed the right, in the name
of the apostles who founded his church, and of the Western countries which
he represented, to resist any attempt of the Eastern Church to decide alone
matters of general interest to the whole church," pp. 98, 99. If he is
convinced, we are not. If such was St. Leo's meaning, why did he not say
so? Why did he annul when he only meant that the canon was null, because
decreed by Orientals alone; or why did he not assign that reason for
annulling it, and not the reason that it was repugnant to the canons of the
holy fathers and the decrees of the Council of Nicaea?
"The proof that he regarded matters in this light," (p. 99,) "is that he
does not claim for himself any personal authority of divine origin,
descended to him from St. Peter, but that, on the contrary, he presents
himself as the defender of the canons, and looks upon the rights and
reciprocal duties of the churches as having been established by the fathers
and fixed by the council of Nicaea. He does not pretend that his church has
any exceptional rights, emanating from another source." This proof is
inconclusive. St. Leo had no occasion to claim personal authority for
himself, for whatever authority he had was official, not personal, and
inhered in him as the successor of Peter in the apostolic see of Rome, and
in this capacity he most assuredly did claim to have authority, when he
declared to the Empress Pulcheria, as we have seen, that, "by authority of
Peter, he annulled and made void and of none effect," the decree of
Chalcedon. What the author says he did not do, is precisely what he did do.
He does not annul and make void the decree by authority vested in him by
the canons, or which he holds by ecclesiastical right, but "by the
authority of Peter." He, moreover, was not defending the rights and
prerogatives of his own see, nor his authority as metropolitan, patriarch,
or supreme pontiff, for this was not called in question; the council most
fully recognized it, and in his letter defining the faith against Eutyches,
it professed to hear the voice of Peter. He was defending the canons, not
for himself, nor for churches subjected to him as patriarch of the West,
but for Alexandria, Antioch, and the metropolitans of Pontus, Asia Minor,
and Thrace, which the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon sought to subject to
the bishop of Constantinople; and he therefore had no occasion to dwell on
the exceptional rights, or rights not derived from the canons, but from God
through Peter, of the Roman Church. It sufficed him to exercise them, which
he did do effectually.
"By ecclesiastical right he is the first bishop of the church," the author
continues; "besides, he occupies the apostolic see of the West; in these
characters he _must_ interfere and prevent the ambition of one
particular church from impairing rights that the canons have accorded to
other bishops too feeble to resist." Wherefore must he do so? In these
characters he might offer his advice, he might even refuse his assent to
acts he disapproved; but he could not authoritatively interfere in any
matters outside of his own particular diocese, or his own patriarchate, far
less to annul and make void acts which did not concern him in either of
these characters.
{585}
He had no right to interfere in the way he did, except as supreme pontiff
and head of the whole church, and Roman theologians have never claimed for
the Roman pontiff greater power than St. Leo exercised in the case of the
council of Chalcedon.
"After reading all that St. Leo has written against the canon of the
council of Chalcedon, it cannot be doubtful what he meant." We agree to
that, nor is it doubtful what he did. He annulled and made void by
authority of Peter an act of a general council, and null and void it
remained.
"He does not claim for himself the autocracy which Roman theologians make
the groundwork of the papal authority." Very likely not, for nobody claims
it for the Roman pontiff, as we showed in our former article. He is the
supreme pastor, not the autocrat, of the church. "In his letter to the
fathers of the council of Chalcedon he only styles himself 'guardian of the
Catholic faith and of the constitutions of the fathers,' and not chief and
master of the church by divine right." Does he deny that he is chief and
master by divine right? Certainly not, and no one can read his letters
without feeling that in every word and syllable he speaks as a superior, in
the language and tone of supreme authority. His reply to Anatolius is such
as could be written only by a superior not only in rank, but in authority,
and while replete with the affection of a father, it is marked by the
majestic severity of supreme power.
The refusal of St. Leo to confirm the twenty-eighth canon gave rise to the
report that he had refused to confirm the acts of the council, and the
Eutychians, against whom its definitions of faith were directed, began to
raise their heads and boldly assert that they were not condemned, that the
definitions of the council against them counted for nothing, since the
Roman pontiff had refused to confirm them, as he refused to confirm the
doings of the Ephesian Latrocinium. The imperial court became alarmed, and
the emperor wrote to St. Leo for an explicit statement of what he had done.
St. Leo answers that he has confirmed all the decrees of Chalcedon defining
the faith, but that he has not confirmed the decree erecting the church of
Constantinople into a patriarchal church. This fact does not seem to favor
the author's theory that the Roman pontiff was held to have only a primacy
of honor, nor that St. Leo did not claim universal jurisdiction.
It will have been observed that the council of Chalcedon undertakes to
support, very illogically indeed, the twenty-eighth canon on the authority
of the third canon of the first council of Constantinople, which gave the
bishop of Constantinople simply the primacy of honor after the bishop of
Rome. But St. Leo, in the letter to the empress just cited, denies the
authority of that canon, on the ground that it had never been communicated
to Rome, and therefore could have no effect.
We have dwelt at great length on the sixth canon of Nicaea, the third canon
of Constantinople, and twenty-eighth of Chalcedon, because they are the
author's three strongholds, and we have wished to show that they do not in
the least aid him--do in no sense contradict the papal authority, but, as
far as they go, tend to confirm it. The author claims St. Leo as a witness
against the Catholic doctrine of the papal supremacy, and we have thought
it well to show that he has in him about such a witness as he had in St.
Cyprian, or as he would have in our holy father, Pius IX., now gloriously
reigning. Leo Magnus is our ideal of a pope, or visible head of the
universal church, and we cannot sufficiently admire the hardihood or the
stupidity that would claim him as a witness against the primacy he adorned,
and the papal authority which he so gracefully and so majestically wielded,
and with such grand effects for the church and the empire.
{586}
No nobler man, no truer saint, no greater pontiff ever sat in the chair of
Peter, and no higher or more magnificent character is to be found in all
history. _Sancte Leo Magne, ora pro nobis_.
The author says, p. 102: "The canons of the first oecumenical councils
throw incontestably a strong light upon the prerogatives of the bishop of
Rome. They are the complement to each other. The twenty-eighth canon
contains nothing less than the doctrine we defend, even though the
opposition of the West in the person of the bishop of Rome should strip it
of its oecumenical character, as certain theologians maintain." M. Guettée
finds but two canons that in any respect favor his doctrine, the third of
the second general council, and the twenty-eighth of the fourth, neither of
which was ever accepted by the universal church, and both of which have
remained from the first without Catholic authority. A doctrine sustained or
favored only by irregularity and violent innovation needs no refutation.
"St. Leo," the author continues, "did not protest against it, (the
twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon,) as opposed to the divine and universal
authority of the see of Rome, _for which he claimed only an
ecclesiastical primacy_, but simply because it infringed upon the sixth
canon of the council of Nicaea." That he claimed only an ecclesiastical
primacy for his see is not true, for he claimed to annul the canon _by
authority of Peter_. Nor did he object to it only because it infringed
the sixth canon of Nicaea, but because it contained a grave innovation in
the constitution of the church, and attempted to found the authority of
bishops on a temporal instead of a spiritual and apostolic basis. It
proposed to change entirely the basis of the pontifical authority, which
had hitherto rested on Peter, and to make it rest on the empire. The church
of Constantinople was not an apostolic see, and only the bishop of an
apostolic see could be clothed with patriarchal authority. This seems to us
to be the great objection of St. Leo. Therefore, he writes to the emperor,
as already cited: "Let not the bishop of Constantinople disdain the
imperial city, which he cannot make an apostolic see." Hitherto only
apostolic sees, and indeed only sees founded by Peter, had been clothed
with the authority of patriarchal sees; and to give to a non-apostolic and
non-Petrine church authority over other metropolitan churches was to strike
at apostolic authority itself, and especially at that of Peter. The whole
organization of the church was from the first based on Peter as the
immediate representative of Christ and prince of the apostles. The
twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon was therefore aimed at Peter, and in the
name and by the authority of Peter, whom he fully represented, St. Leo
annulled it, and declared it void, and the author, without knowing well
what he concedes, says: "St. Leo was right."
"One fact is certain, that they (the Roman pontiffs) did not convoke the
first four oecumenical councils, that they did not preside over them, and
that they did not confirm them." This is certain only of the second general
council, or first of Constantinople. But suppose it, what follows? Simply
that they were not councils of the church at all--which will be very
pleasant news to Unitarians and Rationalists, who wish a Christianity
without Christ--and can have the authority of general councils only by the
_ex-post facto_ sanction of the universal church; but, as the two
canons on which the author bases his anti-papal theory have never received
that sanction, they have no authority, and never have had any. Hence, the
author's theory, on any ground he chooses, has nothing in the church to
sustain it. We shall, therefore, pass over what he adduces to prove the
part taken by the civil authority in the councils, with the simple remark
that the acts of several of them depend entirely on the confirmation of the
Roman pontiff and the _ex-post facto_ sanction of the church for their
authority.
{587}
M. Guettée's proofs are not seldom proofs of the contrary of what he
alleges. "It is undeniable fact," he says, p. 118, "that the dogmatic
letter addressed by St. Leo to the fathers of the council was there
examined, and approved for this reason: that it agreed with the doctrine of
Celestine [his predecessor] and Cyril, confirmed by the council of
Ephesus." That the letter was read in the council, and that the council
adopted its definitions of faith, is true; but that it was approved for the
reason alleged does not appear from the proofs the author adduces. He
continues, pp. 118, 119: "At the close of the reading, the bishops
exclaimed: 'Such is the faith of the fathers; this is the faith of the
apostles. We all believe thus. Anathema to those who do not thus believe.
Peter has spoken by Leo. Thus taught the apostles. Leo teaches according to
piety and truth, and thus has Cyril taught.'" Any one not bent on proving
the papacy schismatic would gather from this that the bishops approved of
the letter because they recognized in it the doctrine of the apostles and
the tradition of the fathers.
The author imagines that he gets an argument against the papacy from St.
Leo's refusal to accept the title of _universal bishop_ offered him by
the council of Chalcedon, as we learn from Pope St. Gregory the Great. He
also thinks the argument is strengthened by the fact that St. Gregory
himself disclaimed it; and he therefore claims both of these great pontiffs
and great saints as witnesses against the pretensions of the bishops of
Rome. If they had believed in their jurisdiction by divine right over the
whole church, would they have refused the title of universal bishop?
John the Faster, Bishop of Constantinople, on some occasion summoned a
particular council, and signed its acts, which he transmitted to Pope
Pelagius II. as universal patriarch, for which, as St. Gregory says,
Pelagius, "in virtue of the authority of the apostle St. Peter, nullified
the acts of the synod." Gregory succeeded Pelagius, and immediately on his
accession to the pontificate wrote to the patriarchs of Alexandria,
Antioch, and Jerusalem, condemning the title, and warning them and the
whole church of the danger it threatened; and also he wrote to John the
Faster himself, admonishing him of the impropriety of the title, not only
as savoring of pride and vanity, but as involving a most serious error
against faith, and beseeching him to lay it aside, lest he be obliged to
cut him off from the communion of the church, and depose him from his
bishopric. He does not at all disclaim his own authority as supreme pastor
and governor of the universal church, but quietly assumes it. Thus, he
writes to the emperor Maurice, as cited by the author: "All who know the
gospel know that the care of the whole church was confided by our Lord
himself to Peter, the first (St. Gregory says _prince_) of all the
apostles. Indeed, he said to him, 'Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep.'
Again he said to him: 'Satan has desired to sift thee as wheat; but I have
prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and when thou art converted,
strengthen thy brethren.' It was also said to him: 'Thou art Peter, and
upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it; and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,
and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' He thus
received the keys of the celestial kingdom; the power to bind and loose was
given him; the care of all the church and the primacy
[_principatus_--principality, or primacy of jurisdiction] were
committed to him, and yet he did not call himself _universal apostle_.
But that holy man John, (bishop of Constantinople,) my brother in the
priesthood, [cosacerdos,] would fain assume the title of _universal
bishop_! O tempora! O mores!" (Pp. 212, 213.)
"It is certain," St. Gregory continues, "that this title was offered to the
Roman pontiff by the venerable council of Chalcedon, to honor Blessed
Peter, prince of the apostles.
{588}
But none of us has consented to use this particular title, [title of
singularity,] lest by conferring a special matter on one alone, all priests
would be deprived of the honor which is their due. How, then, while we are
not ambitious of the glory of a title which has been offered us, does
another, to whom no one has offered it, have the presumption to take it?"
(Pp. 214, 215.)
In his letter to Eulogius of Alexandria and Anastatius of Antioch, St.
Gregory is more explicit still, "As your holiness, whom I particularly
venerate, well knows, this title of _universal_, was offered by the
council of Chalcedon to the bishop [pontiff] of the apostolic see, which by
God's grace I serve. But none of my predecessors would use this impious
word, because in reality, if a patriarch be called _universal_, it
takes from all others the title of patriarch." The author, after quoting a
passage from another letter to Eulogius, adds: "Thus did Pope Gregory
condemn even in the person of the bishops of Rome the title of pope and
universal." But in this he is mistaken, as his own quotation shows.
Eulogius answers that he will not give the title of universal patriarch to
the bishop of Constantinople, but that he gives that of universal pope to
the Roman pontiff. "No," says St. Gregory, "if your holiness calls me
universal pope, you deny yourself what I should then be altogether." The
author interpolates in his quotation the copulative _and_, which is
not in St. Gregory's text. It is not to the title of pope that St. Gregory
objects, which was and is applied to simple presbyters, but the title
_universal_, which he will not permit to be applied to any man,
because it excludes others from all participation in the hierarchy, or even
the priesthood. If you call a man a universal presbyter, you deny that any
others are presbyters; if you call any one universal bishop, you exclude
all others from the episcopate; if you call any one universal patriarch,
you deny the patriarchate to all others; and if you call the bishop of Rome
universal pope, since as such he possesses the priesthood, and both the
apostolate and the episcopate in their plenitude, you exclude all others
from sharing the priesthood, the episcopate, or the apostolate, even the
pope himself from the church, and deny the solidarity of apostles, bishops,
and presbyters, asserted, as we have seen, by St. Cyprian.
Eulogius was priest, bishop, and patriarch, and as such was the brother of
the Roman pontiff. This brotherhood remained all the same, whether the
Roman pontiff had or not supreme jurisdiction over the whole church. When
Eulogius called St. Gregory, not, as the author says, pope _and_
universal, but universal pope, he denied this brotherhood, and deprived
himself of his own priestly, episcopal, and apostolic character. Hence, St.
Gregory, after saying to him and other bishops. "I know what I am, and what
you are; by your place or office, you are my brothers, by your virtues, my
fathers," he adds, in reference to the title of universal which Eulogius
had given him, "I beseech your holiness to do so no more in future, for you
take from yourself what you give in excess to another. I do not ask to
increase in dignities, but in virtues. I do not esteem that an honor by
which my brethren are deprived of theirs. For my honor is the honor of the
universal church, my honor is the unshaken firmness of my brethren. Then am
I truly honored when to no one is denied the honor that is his due. For, if
your holiness calls me universal pope, you deny that you are yourself what
I should be confessed to be universally. Sed absit hoc, Recedant verba quae
vanitatem inflant, et charitatem vulnerant." [Footnote 180]
[Footnote 180: Opp. S. Gregorii Magni, lib. viii. epist. xxx. Migne's
edition, tom, iii. col. 953.]
We may call the bishop of Rome pope of the universal church, but not
universal pope, nor universal bishop, because he only possesses in its
plenitude what is possessed in a degree by every member of the hierarchy,
and even now, as always, the pope addresses the bishops in communion with
him as "Venerable Brethren."
{589}
The argument against the claim of the bishop of Rome to jurisdiction in the
universal church, which the author attempts to build on the refusal of the
title of universal bishop by St. Leo, and that of universal pope, _papa
universalis_, by St. Gregory, is refuted by St. Gregory himself, as
cited in the volume before us, pp. 212, 213. The holy pontiff and doctor,
after asserting that our Lord had given to Peter the primacy of
jurisdiction, and confided to him the care of the universal church, adds
that Peter "did not call himself _universal apostle_." Peter was not
the only apostle, and the others could not be excluded from the
apostleship. He was prince of the apostles, their chief, the centre of
apostolic unity and authority, as St. Cyprian explains, and had the care
and jurisdiction (_principatus_) of the universal church, as Gregory
asserts, but inclusive, not exclusive of the other apostles. Peter held in
relation to the other apostles and the whole church all the supremacy
claimed by Catholics for the bishop of Rome. If, then, the refusal of the
title of universal apostle by St. Peter did not negative his supreme
authority, why should the refusal of the title of universal bishop or
universal pope by the bishops of Rome negative their supremacy, or their
primacy of jurisdiction in the whole church? Peter held that primacy, and
yet was not universal apostle, and why not, then, the bishop of Rome,
without being universal bishop or universal pope?
The author is unhappy in his witnesses, and they are all too decidedly
Roman to testify otherwise than against him. He cites other eminent fathers
of the fourth and fifth centuries, but he raises no new questions, and
makes no points in his favor not already met and disposed of; and we may,
therefore, pass over what he adduces, since, as we continue to remind our
readers, we are not adducing our proofs of the papal authority, but
refuting his arguments or pretended arguments against it.
In his fifth division, chapter, or section, the author examines "the
authority of the bishop of Rome in the sixth, seventh, and eighth
centuries." We have anticipated him in regard to St. Gregory the Great, the
most prominent papal figure in these centuries, and shown that this great
pontiff and doctor, who justly ranks along with St. Leo, offers no
testimony in support of the author's vain attempt to prove the papacy
schismatic. We have read this section of his book with care, but we find
that, while he shows very clearly that the Roman pontiff, to save the faith
and the constitution and canons of the church from the attacks of the
heretics and schismatics of the East, was obliged to intervene with his
supreme authority in the affairs of the Eastern churches more frequently
than in earlier ages, he brings forward nothing different from what has
already been refuted to prove that they did not possess the authority which
they exercised by divine right. We may say, then, that the author has
totally failed to establish his first conclusion, that "the bishop of Rome
did not for eight centuries possess the sovereignty of divine right which
he has since sought to exercise." The facts he adduces prove that during
those centuries the popes did exercise all the authority they have as
supreme pontiffs since exercised, and that they professed to exercise it by
divine right, and without any contradiction by the universal church. No
doubt the author has adduced instances in which general councils have
recognized it, and made it the basis of their action; but this does not
prove that the papal authority was conferred by the church, and was held
only by ecclesiastical right. No doubt the civil authority on more than one
occasion recognized it and made it the law of the empire, but this does not
prove that it was held as a grant of the emperor, but the reverse rather.
{590}
The author, then, has not refuted the argument from possession, turned the
presumption against the papacy, or proved that he and his friends the
Non-united Greeks are not decidedly schismatics in resisting the council of
Florence, in which both the East and West were represented and united.
The author, having failed to establish his first conclusion,
notwithstanding his misquotations, mistranslations, and misrepresentations
of facts, which are numerous and barefaced enough to excite the envy of his
editor, the Protestant Episcopal bishop of Western New-York, cannot prove
his second conclusion, namely: The pretension of the bishops of Rome to the
sovereignty of divine right over the whole church was the cause of the
division. This depends on the first, and falls with it; for it is necessary
to deny the divine authority of the pope to govern the whole church before
his assumption and exercise of that authority can be held to be a
usurpation, and the cause of the divisions which result from resistance to
it. Resistance otherwise is illegal, unauthorized, and conclusive evidence
of schism, or, rather, is undeniably itself schism. The resistance on the
part of the Eastern bishops and prelates to the Roman pontiff in the
exercise of his legitimate authority was schism, as much so as an armed
insurrection against the political sovereign is rebellion, and the rebels
cannot allege that the sovereign in the exercise of his legitimate
authority is the cause of their rebellion, and hold him responsible for it.
The author, forgetting that the pope is in possession, and that throughout
the presumption is in favor of his authority, argues as if the presumption
was on the other side, and the _onus probandi_ was on us. He,
therefore, concludes that every exercise of papal jurisdiction beyond the
patriarchate of the West is a usurpation, and resistance to it justifiable,
unless we are able to prove the contrary. We deny it, and maintain that it
is for him to prove that jurisdiction is usurped, and not held by divine
right. The laboring oar is in his hands. It is always for those who resist
authority to justify their resistance. The author can justify his
resistance to papal authority only by producing some law of God or some
canon of the universal church that restricts the jurisdiction of the Roman
pontiff to the Western patriarchate, and forbids him to exercise
jurisdiction over the whole church. A law or edict to that effect of the
empire or canon of the Eastern churches alone, could it be produced, would
not avail him; it must be a decision of the universal church, even
according to his own doctrine. He alleges no such act or canon, and can
allege none, for all the acts or canons of the universal church bearing on
the question, unhappily for him, are the other way.
The author adduces the third canon of the second general council, and the
twenty-eighth of the fourth, but these canons, having never been assented
to by the West, are without the authority of the universal church. And,
besides they do not distinctly deny the supreme authority of the bishop of
Rome, and only profess to confer the first rank and authority after the
Roman pontiff on the bishop of Constantinople. It is a strong presumption
against the author that he does not even allege any law or canon of the
universal church which the popes have violated, and his charge against them
is that of presenting themselves as defenders of the canons against
innovation, as in the refusal of St. Leo to accept the twenty-eighth canon
of Chalcedon.
But the author, with his usual facility, refutes himself, and shows that it
was not the pretension of the bishops of Rome, but the pretensions of the
bishop of Constantinople and of the secular government that caused the
division. We have seen that the third canon of the second general council,
and the twenty-eighth of the fourth, which was annulled by St. Leo, were in
violation of the canons, but were prompted by the ambition of the bishop of
Constantinople and the secular authority.
{591}
"We can perceive," says the author, p. 100. "in the struggles between the
bishops of Rome and Constantinople, respecting the twenty-eighth canon of
the council of Chalcedon, the origin of the dissensions which afterward led
to an entire rupture." And why did these dissensions lead to an entire
rupture? Certainly because the same parties continued to maintain the same
claims in relation to each other. The ground of the dissension remained
always the same. The question, then, is, which party in the beginning was
in the right, and which was in the wrong? "In principle," says the author
on the same page, "St. Leo was right;" that is, right in defending the
canons of the holy fathers and the decrees of the venerable council of
Nicaea against their violation and subversion by the innovations of
Constantinople and Chalcedon. St. Leo, the author himself says, presented
himself as the defender of antiquity and the canons of Nicaea; he must,
then, have been right not only in principle, but in fact. The real cause of
the division was not the pretension of the bishops of Rome to an authority
which they did not possess, but their refusal to assent to the violent and
shameless usurpations of Constantinople. The attitude of the popes and the
ground on which they resisted from first to last, were distinctly taken by
St. Leo in his letter to the emperor, Marcian, already cited: "Privilegia
ecclesiarum, sanctorum Patrum canonibus instituta et venerabilis Nicaenae
synodi fixa decretis, nulla possunt improbitate convelli, nulla mutari
novitate." [Footnote 181]
[Footnote 181: Ad Marcianum Augustum, epist. 105, edit. Migne.]
But St. Leo "could not deny," says the author, "that one general council
had the same rights as another that had preceded it." But, even if so, none
of the innovations proposed by the East and opposed by the bishops of Rome
have ever had the authority of a general council. There is and can be, even
according to the author and his schismatic Greek friends, no general
council without the bishop of Rome; and the canons on which the author
relies were from the first resisted by the Roman pontiff, and, therefore,
could not override or abrogate the decrees of the council of Nicaea.
The whole controversy originated in the attempt to raise the see of
Constantinople, which was not an apostolic, a patriarchal or even a
metropolitan see, to the rank and authority of the first see in the church
after that of the see of Rome, contrary to the sixth canon of Nicaea, to
the constitution of the church, to ancient usage, and to the prejudice of
the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, and the metropolitans of Pontus,
Asia, (Minor.) and Thrace. On what ground does the author seek to defend
this attempt, always resisted by the Roman pontiffs and the whole West?
Simply on the ground that the rank and authority of a see are derived from
the splendor and importance of the city in the empire. He assigns and
pretends to assign no other ground. "The Nicaean council," he says, "in
consecrating the usage by which the bishop of Rome was regarded as the
first in honor in the church, had in view not as much the apostolic origin
of his see as the splendor which he acquired from the importance of the
city of Rome. ... Why, then, should not the bishop of Constantinople have
been received as second in rank, Constantinople having become the second
capital of the empire; since the bishop of Rome was first in rank, only
because of its position as the first capital?" (Pp. 100, 101.)
The argument is worthless, because its premises are false. In the first
place, the question is one of authority as well as of rank. In the second
place, the council of Nicaea did not consecrate the usage by which the
primacy, whether of honor or jurisdiction, was ascribed to the bishop of
Rome, but confirmed the usage by which the bishop of Alexandria, the bishop
of Antioch, and other metropolitans held a certain rank, and enjoyed
certain privileges, and gave as their reason that a like usage or custom
obtained with the bishop of Rome.
{592}
In the third place, the council says not one word about the splendor
acquired by the Roman pontiff from the importance of the city of Rome; and
we have proved that, whatever his rank and authority, he derived it from
the fact that his see was held to be the see of Peter, and he the successor
of Peter, the prince of the apostles. Finally, the author has no ground for
his assertion, except the third canon of the second general council and the
twenty-eighth of the fourth, the latter authoritatively annulled and the
former declared to be without effect by St. Leo, and neither ever receiving
the sanction or assent of the universal church. The ground on which the
bishop of Constantinople based his ambitious pretensions, that of being
bishop of the second capital of the empire, is wholly untenable. "Alia
ratio est rerum secularium, alia divinarum," says St. Leo. "We laughed,"
says Pope St. Gelasius as cited by the author, p. 198, "at what they (the
Eastern bishops) claim for Acacius (bishop of Constantinople) because he
was bishop of the imperial city. ... The power of the secular empire is one
thing, the distribution of ecclesiastical dignities is quite a different
thing. However small a city may be, it does not diminish the greatness of
the prince who dwells there; but it is quite as true that the presence of
the emperor does not change the order of religion; and such a city should
rather profit by its advantages to preserve the freedom of religion, by
keeping peaceably within its proper limits."
From first to last, one is struck, in reading the history of the
controversy, not only with the superior calmness and dignity of the Roman
pontiffs, but with their profound wisdom and catholic sense. They defend
throughout the catholicity of the church against Greek nationalism, and the
independence of the kingdom of Christ on earth against its subjection to
the secular empire, which was attempted and finally succeeded at
Constantinople, and is the case in Russia, Great Britain, and all modern
schismatical and heretical states and empires. The author sees and
appreciates nothing of this; he comprehends nothing of the church as the
mystic body of Christ, the continuous representation of the Incarnation;
his ideas are external, political, unspiritual, and, as far as appears from
his book, pagan rather than Christian. The church he recognizes, as far as
he recognizes any, is national, not catholic, and holds from the imperial
authority, not from Christ, and has no completeness in itself.
It was precisely in nationalism, in regarding the church as organized for
the Roman empire, not for the whole world, and in recognizing the authority
of the civil power in theological and ecclesiastical matters, as the author
himself unwittingly shows, that the Greek schism originated. The bishop of
Constantinople, having in the hierarchy no apostolic, patriarchal, or
metropolitan rank or authority beyond that which is held by every suffragan
bishop, was obliged, in order to defend his ambitious aspirations to the
second rank in the church, to give the hierarchy a secular origin, and to
fall back on the imperial authority to support him. The idea was pagan, not
Christian, and was but too acceptable to the Byzantine Caesars. In pagan
Rome the emperor was at once imperator and pontifex maximus, and held in
his own person the supreme authority in both civil and religious matters.
He preserved the tradition of this in Christian Rome, and continually
struggled to be under Christianity what he had been under paganism. In the
West the imperial pretensions were in the main successfully resisted,
though not without long and bitter struggles, which have not even yet
completely ended; but in the East, owing to the ambition and frequent
heresy of the bishop of Constantinople, rarely faithful to the church after
Constantinople became an imperial capital, and the great patriarchates of
Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, weakened by the Arian, Nestorian,
monophysite, and monothelite heresies, and betrayed by the heretics, had
fallen, through the pride, treachery, and imbecility of the Byzantine
court, under the power of the Mohammedans, those bitter enemies of the
cross, the emperor was enabled to grasp the pontifical power, to bring the
administration of religion under his despotic control, to make and unmake,
murder or exile bishops at his will or the caprices of the ladies of his
court. Hence the Greek schism.
{593}
And this is what M. Guettée defends; and because the Roman pontiffs did all
in their power to resist such open profanation and secularizing of the
church, he has the impudence to contend that it was the usurpations of Rome
that caused the schism, and he has found a Protestant Episcopal bishop in
Western New-York ignorant enough or shameless enough to endorse him, and to
assure us that he is a Catholic in the true sense of the word!
Notwithstanding the author defends the usurpations of the imperial
authority and the ambitious pretensions of the courtly bishops of
Constantinople, and maintains that all the general councils held in the
East were convoked and presided over by the emperors, he does not blush to
object to the council of Florence on the ground that the reunion effected
in that council was brought about by the ambition of a few Eastern prelates
and the undue pressure of the emperor of Constantinople. If the
intervention of the emperor did not in his judgment vitiate the third canon
of the first council of Constantinople, or the twenty-eighth canon of
Chalcedon, or the fifth or sixth general council, what right has he to
pretend that a far less intervention on the emperor's part vitiated the
canons of the council of Florence? On the principles he has defended
throughout, the emperor may convoke, preside over a council, dictate and
confirm its acts, without detriment to its authority as a general council.
He is by his own principles, then, bound to accept the canons of Florence
as the voice of the universal church, for they were adopted by the East and
West united, and are and have been constantly adhered to by the West and
the Eastern churches proper, and resisted only by heretics and schismatics,
who have no voice in the church.
We need proceed no further. We have said enough to refute the author in
principle, and are tired of him, as must be our readers. We said in the
beginning that he had told us nothing in his book that we did not know
before; but we are obliged to confess that the examination of authorities
into which it has forced us has made us feel as we never felt before how
truly the church is founded on Peter, brought home to us the deep debt of
gratitude the world owes to the Roman pontiffs, and enabled us to see more
clearly than we ever had done the utter groundlessness, the glaring
iniquity, and the open paganism of the Greek schism. The author has made
us, we almost fear, an ultra-papist, and certainly has strengthened our
attachment, already strong, to the Holy Apostolic See. He has served to us
the office of the drunken Helotae to the Spartan youth. It is in relation
to its purpose the weakest and absurdest book we have ever read, and has
not, so far as the author is concerned, a Christian thought from beginning
to end. If this book fairly represents the Christian intelligence and
sentiments of the Non-united Greeks, it is hard to see wherein they are to
be preferred to the Turks, or why Christendom should seek their deliverance
from the Mohammedan yoke.
If M. Guettée's readers will weigh well the arguments for the papacy he
reproduces for the sake of refuting them, and his quotations from the
fathers and the Roman pontiffs for the sake of blunting their force, they
will find that, in spite of misquotations, mistranslations, and
misrepresentations, the book carries with it its own antidote. It can do
real harm only to those who cannot weigh testimony, who never think, and
are utterly unable to reason.
------
{594}
Impressions of Spain.
By Lady Herbert.
Excursions Near Seville.
The excursions in the neighborhood of Seville are full of beauty and
interest of various kinds. One of the first undertaken by our travellers
was to the ruins of Italica, the ancient Seville, formerly an important
Roman city, and the birthplace of Trajan and of Adrian. In the church, half
convent and half fortress, are two very fine statues of St. Isidore and St.
Jerome, by Montanés. Here St. Isidore began his studies. He was hopelessly
dull and slow, and was tempted to give up the whole thing in despair, when
one day, being in a brown study, his eye fell on an old well, the marble
sides of which were worn into grooves by the continual friction of the cord
which let down the bucket. "If a cord can thus indent marble," he said to
himself, "why should not constant study and perseverance make an impression
on my mind?" His resolution was taken, and he became the light of his age
and country. The well which gave him this useful lesson is still shown near
the south door of the church. Here also is the monument of Doña Uraca
Osorio, a lady who was burnt to death by order of King Pedro the Cruel, for
having resisted his addresses. The flames having consumed the lower part of
her dress, her faithful maid rushed into the fire, and died in endeavoring
to conceal her mistress. In the sacristy is a very curious Byzantine
picture of the Virgin. Leaving the church our party went on to the
amphitheatre, which has recently been excavated, and must have contained
ten or twelve thousand people. A fine mosaic has lately been discovered,
which evidently formed part of the ancient pavement. The custode was a
character, and lived in a primitive little cabin at the entrance of the
circus: a moss bed and a big cat seemed the only furniture. He was very
proud of his tiny garden, poor old man! and of his wall-flowers, of which
he gave the ladies a large bunch, together with a few silver coins which
had been dug up in the excavations.
On their way home they passed by a cemetery in which was a very beautiful
though simple marble cross. On it were engraved these three lines:
Creo en Dios.
Espero en Dies.
Amo á Dios.
It was the grave of a poor boy, the only son of a widow. He was not exactly
an idiot, but what people call a "natural." Good, simple, humble every one
loved him; but no one could teach him anything. His intelligence was in
some way at fault. He could remember nothing. In vain the poor mother put
him first to school, and then to a trade; he could not learn. At last, in
despair, she took him to a neighboring monastery, and implored the abbot,
who was a most charitable holy man, to take him in and keep him as a lay
brother. Touched by her grief, the abbot consented, and the boy entered the
convent. There, all possible pains were taken with him by the good monks to
give him at least some ideas of religion; but he could remember nothing but
these three sentences. Still, he was so patient, so laborious, and so good,
that the community decided to keep him. When he had finished his hard
out-of-door work, instead of coming in to rest, he would go straight to the
church, and there remain on his knees for hours. "But what does he do?"
exclaimed one of the novices.
{595}
"He does not know how to pray. He neither understands the office, nor the
sacraments, nor the ceremonies of the church." They therefore hid
themselves in a side chapel, close to where he always knelt, and watched
him when he came in. Devoutly kneeling, with his hands clasped, his eyes
fastened on the tabernacle, he did nothing but repeat over and over again:
"Creo en Dios; espero en Dios; amo á Dios." One day he was missing: they
went to his cell, and found him dead on the straw, with his hands joined
and an expression of the same ineffable peace and joy they had remarked on
his face when in church. They buried him in this quiet cemetery, and the
abbot caused these words to be graven on his cross. Soon, a lily was seen
flowering by the grave, where no one had sown it; the grave was opened, and
the root of the flower was found in the heart of the orphan boy. [Footnote
182]
[Footnote 182: This anecdote is from the lips of Fernan Caballero.]
Another morning our party visited the Cartucha, the once magnificent
Carthusian convent, with its glorious ruined church and beautiful and
extensive orange-gardens. Now all is deserted. The only thing remaining of
the church is a fine west wall and rose-window, with a chapel which the
proprietor has preserved for the use of his workpeople, and in the choir of
which are some finely carved wooden stalls; the rest have been removed to
Cadiz, where they form the great ornament of the cathedral. Here and there
are some fine "azulejos," and a magnificently carved doorway, speaking of
glories long since departed. This convent, once the very centre of all that
was most cultivated and literary in Spain, a museum of painting,
architecture, and sculpture, is now converted into a porcelain manufactory,
where a good-natured Englishman has run up a tall chimney, and makes ugly
cheap pots and pans to suit the taste and pockets of the Sevillians. O for
this age of "progress"! It is fair to say that the proprietor, who kindly
accompanied the party over the building, and into the beautiful gardens,
and to the ruined pagoda or summer house, lamented that no encouragement
was given by the Spanish nobles of the present day to any species of taste
or beauty in design, and that his attempts to introduce a higher class of
china, in imitation of Minton's, had met with decided failure; no one would
buy anything so dear. They had imported English workmen and modellers in
the first instance; but he said, that the Spaniards were apt scholars, and
had quickly learned the trade, so that his workmen are now almost
exclusively from the country itself. The only pretty thing our travellers
could find, and which was kindly presented to one of the party, was one of
the cool picturesque-shaped bottles made, like the "goolehs" of Egypt, of
porous clay, which maintains the coldness and freshness of any liquid
poured into it.
Among the many charming expeditions from Seville, is one to Castilleja,
(the village before alluded to as the scene of the death of Fernan Cortes)
through the fertile plains and vine yards of Aljarafa. Here begins the
region which the Romans call the gardens of Hercules. It produces one of
the best and rarest wines in Spain: the plants having been originally
brought from Flanders by a poor soldier named Pedro Ximenes, who discovered
that the Rhine vines, when transplanted to the sunny climate of Andalusia,
lose their acidity, and yield the luscious fruit which still bears his
name. In the centre of this fertile plain stands a small house and garden,
to which is attached one of those tales of crime, divine vengeance, and
godlike forgiveness, which are so characteristic of the people and country.
About twenty years ago it was inhabited by a family consisting of a man
named Juan Pedro Alfaro, with his wife and a son of nineteen or twenty.
Their quiet and peaceable lives were spent in cultivating their vineyard
and selling its produce in the neighboring town.
{596}
They were good and respectable people, living in peace with their
neighbors, and perfectly contented with their occupation and position. One
thing only was felt as a grievance. A lawyer, of the character of the
"Attorney Case" in our childhood's story, had lately started an obnoxious
new tax on every cargo of wine brought into the city; and this tax, being
both unjust and illegal, they resolved to dispute. One day, therefore, when
the good man and his son were driving their mules to market with their
fruity burden, they were stopped by the attorney, who demanded the usual
payment. The younger man firmly but respectfully refused, stating his
reasons. The attorney tried first fair words, and then foul, without
effect, upon which he vowed to be revenged. The son, pointing to his
Albacetan poniard, on which was the inscription, "I know how to defend my
master." defied his vengeance; and so they parted. But never again was the
poor wife and mother's heart gladdened by the sight of their returning
faces. In vain she waited, hour after hour, that first terrible evening.
The mules returned, but masterless. Then, beside herself with fear, the
poor woman rushed off to the town to make inquiries as to their fate. No
one knew anything further than that they had been at Seville the day
before, had sold their wine for a good price, and been seen, as usual,
returning cheerfully home. She then went to the Audiencia, or legal supreme
court of the city, where the magistrates, touched by her tale, and alarmed
also at the disappearance of the men, who were known throughout the country
for their high character and respectability, caused a rigorous search to be
made in the whole neighborhood; but in vain. No trace of them could be
discovered. By degrees, the excitement in the town on the subject passed
away, and the poor muleteers were forgotten; but in the heart of the
widowed mother there could be no rest and no peace. The mystery in which
their fate was involved was so inexplicable that, the hope of their return,
however faint, would not die out; and for twenty years she spent her life
and her substance in seeking for her lost ones. At last, reduced to utter
misery, and worn out both in mind and body, she was forced to beg her daily
bread of the charity of the peasants: the "bolsa de Dios," as the people
poetically call it, a "bolsa" which, to do the Spaniards justice, is never
empty. The little children would bring her eggs and pennies; the fathers
and husbands would give her a corner by the "brasero" in winter, or under
the vine-covered trellis in summer; the wives and mothers knew what had
brought her to such misery, and had ever an extra loaf or a dish of
"garbanzos" set aside for the "Madre Ana," as she was called by the
villagers. She, humble, prayerful, hopeful, ever grateful for the least
kindness, and willing in any way to oblige others, at last fell dangerously
ill. The curé, who had been striving to calm and soothe that sorely tried
soul, was one day leaving her cottage, when his attention was attracted by
a crowd of people, with the mayor at their head, who were hurrying toward
an olive wood near the village. He followed, and, to his horror, found that
the cause of the sensation was the discovery of two human skeletons under
an olive-tree, the finger of one of which was pointing through the earth to
heaven, as if for vengeance. The mayor ordered the earth to be removed: the
surgeon examined the bodies, and gave it as his opinion that they must have
been dead many years. But on examining the clothes, a paper was found which
a waterproof pocket had preserved from decay. The attorney, who was
likewise present, seized it; but no sooner had his eyes lighted on the
words than he fell backward in a swoon. "What is the matter? what has he
read?" exclaimed the bystanders as with one voice. "It is a certificate
such as used to be carried by our muleteers," exclaimed the mayor, taking
the paper from the lawyer's hand; and opening it, he read out loud the
following words: "_Pass for Juan Pedro Alfaro._"
{597}
Here, then, was the unravelling of the terrible mystery: the men had
evidently been murdered on their way home. The attorney recovered from his
fainting fit, but fever followed, and in his delirium he did nothing but
exclaim: "It is not I!--my hands are free from blood. It is Juan Caño and
Joseph Salas." These words, repeated by the people, caused the arrest of
the two men named, who no sooner found themselves in the hands of justice
than they confessed their crime, and described how, having been excited to
do so by the attorney, they had shot both Juan Alfaro and his son, from
behind some olive-trees, on their way home from market, had robbed, and
afterward buried them in the place where the bodies had been found.
Sentence of death was passed upon the murderers, while the attorney was
condemned to hard labor for life, and to witness, with a rope round his
neck, the execution of his accomplices in the fatal deed. The poor "Madre
Ana" had hardly recovered from her severe illness when these terrible
events transpired. The indignation of the peasantry, and their compassion
for her, knew no bounds: they would have torn the attorney in pieces if
they could. The widow herself, overwhelmed with grief at this confirmation
of her worst fears, remained silent as the grave. At last, when those
around her were breathing nothing but maledictions on the heads of the
murderers, and counting the days to the one fixed for the execution of
their sentence, she suddenly spoke, and asked that the curé should be sent
for. He at once obeyed the summons. She raised herself in the bed with some
effort, and then said: "My father, is it not true that, if pardon be
implored for a crime by the one most nearly related to the victims, the
judges generally mitigate the severity of the punishment?" He replied in
the affirmative. "Then to-morrow," she replied, "I will go to Seville."
"God bless you! my daughter," replied the old priest, much moved; "the
pardon you have so freely given in your heart will be more acceptable to
God than the deaths of these men." A murmur of surprise and admiration, and
yet of hearty approval, passed through the lips of the bystanders. The next
day, mounted carefully by the peasants on their best mule, the poor widow
arrived at the Audiencia. Her entrance caused a stir and an emotion in the
whole court. Bent with age, and worn with sickness and misery, she advanced
in front of the judges, who, seeing her extreme weakness, instantly ordered
a comfortable chair to be brought for her. But the effort had been too
much; she could not speak. The judge, then addressing her, said: "Senora,
is it true that you are come to plead for the pardon of Juan Caño and
Joseph Salas, convicted of the assassination of your husband and son? and
also for the pardon of the lawyer, who, by his instigation, led them to
commit the crime?" She bowed her head in token of assent. A murmur of
admiration and pity spread through the court; and a relation of the
lawyer's, who saw his family thus rescued from the last stage of
degradation, eagerly bent forward, exclaiming: "Senora, do not fear for
your future. I swear that every want of yours shall henceforth be provided
for."
The momentary feebleness of the woman now passed away. She rose to her full
height, and, casting on the speaker a look of mingled indignation and
scorn, exclaimed: "You offer me payment for my pardon? I do not _sell_
the blood of my son!"
No account of "life in Seville" would be complete without a bull-fight,
"corrida de toros;" and so one afternoon saw our travellers in a tolerably
spacious loggia on the shady side of the circus, preparing, though with
some qualms of conscience, to see, for the first time, this, the great
national sport of Spain. The roof of the cathedral towered above the arena,
and the sound of the bells just ringing for vespers made at least one of
the party regret the decision which had led her to so uncongenial a place.
{598}
But it was too late to recede. No one could escape from the mass of human
beings tightly wedged on every side, all eager for the fight. Partly,
perhaps, owing to the mourning and consequent absence of the court, there
were very few ladies; which, it is to be hoped, is also a sign that the
"corrida" has no longer such attractions for them. Presently the trumpets
sounded. One of the barriers which enclosed the arena was thrown open, and
in came a procession of "toreros," "banderilleros," and "chulos," all
attired in gay and glittering costumes, chiefly blue and silver, the hair
of each tied in a net, with a great bow behind, and with tight pink silk
stockings and buckled shoes. With them came the "picadores," dressed in
yellow, with large broad-brimmed hats and iron-cased legs, riding the most
miserable horses that could be seen, but which, being generally
thoroughbred, arched their necks and endeavored, poor beasts! to show what
once they had been. They were blindfolded, without which they could not
have been induced to face the bull. The procession stopped opposite the
president's box when the principal "torero" knelt and received in his hat
the key of the bull's den, which was forthwith opened; and now the sport
began. A magnificent brownish red animal dashed out into the centre of the
arena, shaking his crest and looking round him as if to defy his
adversaries, pawing the ground the while. The men were all watching him
with intense eagerness. Suddenly the bull singled out one as his adversary,
and made a dash at a "banderillero" who was agitating a scarlet cloak to
the left. The man vaulted over the wooden fence into the pit. The bull,
foiled, and knocking his horns against the wooden palings with a force
which seemed as if it would bring the whole thing down, now rushed at a
"picador" to the right, from whose lance he received a wound in the
shoulder. But the bull, lowering his head, drove his horns right into the
wretched horse's entrails, and, with almost miraculous strength, galloped
with both horse and rider on his neck round the whole arena, finally
dropping both, when the "picador" was saved by the "chulos," but the horse
was left to be still further gored by the bull, and then to die in agony on
the sand. This kind of thing was repeated with one after the other, till
the bull, exhausted and covered with lance-wounds, paused as if to take
breath. The "banderilleros" chose this moment, and with great skill and
address advanced in front of him, with their hands and arms raised, and
threw forward arrows, ornamented with fringed paper, which they fixed into
his neck. This again made him furious, and, in eager pursuit of one of his
enemies, the poor beast leapt out of the arena over the six-feet high
barrier into the very middle of the crowded pit. The "sauve qui peut" may
be imagined; but no one was hurt, and the din raised by the multitude
seemed to have alarmed the bull, who trotted back quietly into the circus
by a side-door which had been opened for the purpose. Now came the exciting
moment. The judge gave the signal, and one of the most famous "matadores,"
Cuchares by name, beautifully dressed in blue and silver, and armed with a
short sharp sword, advanced to give the _coup de grâce_. This requires
both immense skill and great agility; and at this very moment, when our
party were wound up to the highest pitch of interest and excitement, a
similar scene had ended fatally for the "matador"' at Cadiz. But Cuchares
seemed to play with his danger; and though the bull, mad with rage, pursued
him with the greatest fury, tearing his scarlet scarf into ribbons, and
nearly throwing down the wooden screens placed at the sides of the arena as
places of refuge for the men when too closely pressed to escape in other
ways, he chose a favorable moment, and, leaping forward, dug his short
sword right into the fatal spot above the shoulder.
{599}
With scarcely a struggle, the noble beast fell, first on his knees, and
then rolled over dead. The people cheered vociferously, the trumpets
sounded. Four mules, gayly caparisoned, were driven furiously into the
arena; the huge carcass, fastened to them by ropes, was dragged out,
together with those of such of the horses as death had mercifully released,
and then the whole thing began over again. Twenty horses and six bulls were
killed in two hours and a half, and the more horrible the disembowelled
state of the animals, the greater seemed the delight of the spectators. It
is impossible, without disgusting our readers, to give a truthful
description of the horrible state of the horses. One, especially, caused a
sensation even among the "habitués" of the ring. He belonged to one of the
richest gentlemen in Seville, had been his favorite hack, and was as well
known in the Prado as his master. Yet this gentleman had the brutality,
when the poor beast's work was ended, to condemn him to this terrible fate!
The gallant horse, disembowelled as he was, _would not die_: he
survived one bull after the other, though his entrails were hanging in
festoons on their horns, and finally, when the gates were opened to drag
out the carcasses of the rest, he managed to crawl away also and to drag
himself where? To the very door of his master's house, which he reached,
and where he finally lay down and died. His instinct, unhappily wrong in
this case, had evidently made him fancy that _there_, at any rate, he
would have pity and relief from his agony: for the wounds inflicted by the
horns of the bull are, it is said, horrible in their burning, smarting
pain. Fernan Caballero was with the wife of a famous "matador," whose chest
was transfixed by the bull at the moment when, thinking the beast's
strength was spent, he had leant forward to deal the fatal stroke, He
lingered for some hours, but in an agony which she said must have been seen
to be believed. Generally speaking, however, such accidents to the men are
very rare. Carlo Puerto, one of the "picadores," was killed last year by a
very wary bull, who turned suddenly, and, catching him on his horns in the
stomach, ran with him in that way three times round the arena!--but that
was the fault of the president, who had insisted on his attacking the bull
in the centre of the ring, the "picadores" always remaining close to the
screen, so that their escape may be more easily managed. If the sport could
be conducted, as it is said to be in Salamanca and in Portugal, without
injury to the horses, the intense interest caused by a combat where the
skill, intelligence, and agility of the man are pitted against the
instinct, quickness, and force of the bull, would make it perhaps a
legitimate as well as a most exciting amusement; but, as it is at present
conducted, it is simply horrible, and inexcusably cruel and revolting. It
is difficult to understand how any woman can go to it a second time. The
effect on the people must be brutalizing to a frightful extent, and
accounts in a great measure for their utter absence of feeling for animals,
especially horses and mules, which they ill use in a manner perfectly
shocking to an Englishman, and apparently without the slightest sense of
shame. But there is no indication of this sport becoming less popular in
Spain. Combats with "novillos," or young bulls, whose horns are tipped to
avoid accidents, are a common amusement among the young aristocracy, who
are said to bet frightfully on their respective favorites; and thus the
taste is fostered from their cradles.
{600}
The Charitable Institutions and Convents of Seville.
A few days after the holy week, our travellers decided on visiting some of
the far-famed charitable institutions of Seville; and, taking the kind and
benevolent Padre B---- as their interpreter, they went first to the
Hospital del Sangre, or of the "Five Wounds," a magnificent building of the
sixteenth century, with a Doric façade 600 feet long, a beautiful portal,
and a "patio," in the centre of which is the church, a fine building, built
in the shape of a Latin cross, and containing one or two good Zurbarans.
There are between 300 and 400 patients; and in addition to the large wards,
there are--what is so much needed in our great London hospitals, and which
we have before alluded to at Madrid--a number of nicely-furnished little
separate rooms for a higher class of patients, who pay about two shillings
a day, and have both the skill of the doctors and the tender care of the
sisters of charity, instead of being neglected in their own homes. There
was a poor priest in one of these apartments, in another a painter, and in
a third a naval captain, a Swede, and so on. The hospital is abundantly
supplied with everything ordered by the doctors, including wine, brandy,
chickens, or the like; and in this respect is a great contrast to that at
Malaga, where the patients literally die for want of the necessary extra
diets and stimulants which the parsimony of the administration denies them.
In each quadrangle is a nice garden, with seats and fountains, and full of
sweet flowers, where the patients, when well enough, can sit out and enjoy
the sunshine. There is not the slightest _hospital smell_ in any one
of the wards. The whole is under the administration of the Spanish sisters
of charity of St. Vincent de Paul; and knowing that, no surprise was felt
at the perfection of the "lingerie," or the admirable arrangement and order
of the hospital. They have a touching custom when one of the patients is
dying, and has received the viaticum, to place above his head a special
cross, so that he may be left undisturbed by casual visitors. The sisters
have a little oratory up-stairs, near the woman's ward, beautifully fitted
up. An air of refinement, of comfort, and of _home_ pervades the whole
establishment.
Close to this hospital is the old tower where St. Hermengilde was put to
death, on Easter eve, by order of his unnatural father, because he would
not join the Arian heresy, or receive his paschal communion from the hands
of an Arian bishop. This was in the sixth century; and is not the same
persecution, and for the same cause, going on in Poland in the nineteenth?
[Footnote 183] The old Gothic tower still remains, and in it his close
dungeon. A church has been built adjoining, but the actual prison remains
intact. There are some good pictures in the church, especially a Madonna,
by Murillo; and a clever picture of St. Ignatius in his room, meditating on
his conversion. There is also a fine statue of St. Hermengilde himself, by
Montanés, over the high altar. The good old priest who had the care of this
church lived in a little room adjoining, like a hermit in his cell,
entirely devoted to painting and to the "culte" of his patron saint. St.
Gregory the Great attributes to the merits of this martyr the conversion of
his brother, afterward King Recared, the penitence of his father, and the
christianizing of the whole kingdom of the Visigoths in Spain.
[Footnote 183: The manner in which, during this very last Easter, the
poor Polish Catholics have been treated and forced to receive
schismatical communions through a system of treachery unparalleled in
the annals of the church, is unfortunately not sufficiently known in
England, where alone public opinion could be brought to bear on the
instigators of such tyranny. The strife between Russia and Poland has
ceased to be anything but a religious struggle: Russia is determined to
quench Catholicism out of the land. But the cry of hundreds of exiled
pastors of the flock is rising to heaven from the forests and mines of
Siberia; in the holy sacrifice (offered in earthenware cups on common
stones) they still plead for their people before the throne of the
great Intercessor. And that cry and those prayers will be answered in
God's own time and way.]
From thence our travellers went on to the orphanage managed by the
"Trinitarian sisters." The house was built in the last century, by a
charitable lady, who richly endowed it, and placed 200 children there; now,
the government, without a shadow of right has taken the whole of the funds
of the institution, and allows them barely enough to purchase bread. The
superior is in despair, and has scarcely heart to go on with the work.
{601}
She has diminished the number of the child and has been obliged to curtail
their food, giving them neither milk nor meat except on great festivals.
But for the intervention of the Duc de Montpensier, and other charitable
persons, the whole establishment must long since have been given up. There
are twenty four sisters. The children work and embroider beautifully, and
are trained to every kind of industrial occupation. From this orphanage our
party went to the Hospital for Women, managed by the sisters of the third
order of St. Francis. It is one of the best hospitals in Seville. There are
about 100 women, admirably kept and cared for, and a ward of old and
incurable patients besides. The superior, a most motherly, loving soul, to
whom every one seemed much attached, took them over every part of the
building. She has a passion for cats, and beautiful "Angoras" were seen
basking in the sun in every window-sill.
This hospital, like the orphanage, is a private foundation; but the
government has given notice that they mean to appropriate its funds, and
the poor sisters are in terror lest their supplies should cease for their
sick. It is a positive satisfaction to think that the government which has
dealt in this wholesale robbery of the widow and orphan is not a bit the
better for it. One feels inclined to exclaim twenty times a day: "Thy money
perish with thee!"
But of all the charitable institutions of Seville, the finest is the
Caridad, a magnificent hospital, or rather "asilo," for poor and incurable
patients, nursed and tended by the Spanish sisters of St. Vincent de Paul.
It was founded in the seventeenth century, by Don Miguel de Mañara, a man
eminent for his high birth and large fortune, and one of the knights of
Calatrava, an order only given to people whose quarterings showed nobility
for several generations. He was in his youth the Don Juan of Seville,
abandoning himself to every kind of luxury and excess, although many
strange warnings were sent to him from time to time, to arrest him in his
headlong, downward course. On one occasion especially, he had followed a
young and apparently beautiful figure through the streets and into the
cathedral, where, regardless of the sanctity of the place, he insisted on
her listening to his addresses. What was his horror, on turning round, in
answer to his repeated solicitations, when the face behind the mask proved
to be that of a skeleton! So strongly was this circumstance impressed on
his mind, that he caused it afterward to be painted by Valdés, and hung in
the council-room of the hospital. Another time, when returning from one of
his nocturnal orgies, he lost his way, and, passing by the church of
Santiago, saw, to his surprise, that the doors were open, the church lit,
and a number of priests were kneeling with lighted tapers round a bier in
perfect silence. He went in and asked "whose was the funeral?" The answer
of one after the other was: "Don Miguel de Mañara." Thinking this a bad
joke, he approached the coffin, and hastily lifted up the black pall which
covered the features of the dead. To his horror he recognized himself. This
event produced a complete change in his life. He resolved to abandon his
vicious courses, and marry, choosing the only daughter of a noble house, as
much noted for her piety as for her beauty. But God had higher designs in
store for him, and, after a few years spent in the enjoyment of the purest
happiness, his young wife died suddenly. In the first violence of his
grief, Don Miguel thought but of escaping from the world altogether, and
burying himself in a monastery. But God willed it otherwise. There was at
that time, on the right bank of the Guadalquivir, a little hermitage
dedicated to St. George, which was the resort of a confraternity of young
men who had formed themselves into brothers of charity, and devoted
themselves to the care of the sick and dying poor.
{602}
Don Diego Mirafuentes was their "hermano mayor," or chief brother, and,
being an old friend of Don Miguel's, invited him to stay with him, and by
degrees enlisted all his sympathies in their labors of love. He desired to
be enrolled in their confraternity, but his reputation was so bad that the
brotherhood hesitated to admit him; and, when at last they yielded,
determined to put his sincerity and humility to the test by ordering him to
go out at once from door to door throughout Seville (where he was so well
known) with the bodies of certain paupers, and to crave alms for their
interment. Grace triumphed over all natural repugnance to such a task; and
with his penitence had come that natural thirst for penance which made all
things appear easy and light to bear, so that very soon he became the
leader in all noble and charitable works.
Finding that an asylum or home was sadly needed in winter for the reception
of the houseless poor, he purchased a large warehouse, which he converted
into rooms for this purpose; and, by dint of begging, got together a few
beds and necessaries, so that by the Christmas following more than two
hundred sick or destitute persons were here boarded and lodged. From this
humble beginning arose one of the most magnificent charitable institutions
in Spain. The example of Don Miguel, his burning charity, his austere
self-denial, his simple faith won all hearts. Money poured in on every
side; every day fresh candidates from the highest classes pleaded for
admission into the confraternity. It was necessary to draw up certain rules
for their guidance, and this work was entrusted to Don Miguel, who had been
unanimously elected as their superior. Nowhere did his wisdom, prudence,
and zeal appear more strongly than in these regulations, which still form
the constitutions of this noble foundation. Defining, first, the nature of
their work the seeking out and succoring the miserable, nursing the sick,
burying the dead, and attending criminals to their execution--he goes on to
insist on the value of personal service, both private and public; on the
humility and self-abnegation required of each brother; that each, on
entering the hospital, should forget his rank, and style himself simply
"servant of the poor," kissing the hand of the oldest among the sufferers,
and serving them as seeing Jesus Christ in the persons of each. The notices
of certain monthly meetings and church services which formed part of the
rule of the community were couched in the following terms: "This notice is
sent you lest you should neglect these holy exercises, which may be the
last at which God will allow you to assist." Sermons and meditations on the
passion of our Lord, and on the nearness of death and of eternity, formed
the principal religious exercises of the confraternity; in fact, the
Passion is the abiding devotion of the order.
His hospital built, and his poor comfortably housed and cared for, Miguel
turned his attention to the church, which was in ruins. A letter of his,
still extant, will show the difficulties which he had to overcome in this
undertaking. "We had hoped," he writes, "that one of our brothers, who was
rich and childless, would have given us something to begin the restoration;
but he died without thinking of the church, and so vanished our golden
hopes, as they always will when we put our trust in human means to
accomplish God's ends. I was inclined to despond about it; when, the next
morning, at eight o'clock, a poor beggar named Luis asked to speak to me.
'My wife is just dead,' he said. 'She sold chestnuts on the Plaza, and
realized a little sum of eighty ducats. To bury her I have spent thirty:
fifty remain; they are all I have; but I bring them to you, that you may
lay the first stone of the new church. I want nothing for myself but a bit
of bread, which I can always beg from door to door.'"
Don Miguel refused, the beggar insisted; and so the church was begun: and
the story spread, and half a million of ducats were poured into the laps of
the brothers; but, as Mañara added, "the first stone was laid by God
himself in the 'little all' of the poor beggar." [Footnote 184]
[Footnote 184: How often, when buying chestnuts of one of the old women
in the Plaza of the Caridad, did the recollection of this story come
into the mind of our traveller!]
{603}
This church was filled in 1680 with the chefs-d'oeuvre of Murillo and of
Valdés Leal: an autograph letter from the great religious painter is still
shown in the Sala Capitular of the hospital, asking to be admitted as a
member of the confraternity. "Our Saviour as a child;" "St. John and the
lamb;" "San Juan de Dios with an angel;" the "Miracle of the Loaves and
Fishes;" but, above all, "Moses striking the Rock," called "La Sed," (so
admirably is _thirst_ represented in the multitudes crowding round the
prophet in the wilderness,) were the magnificent offerings of the new
"brother" toward the decoration of God's house and the cause of charity.
Equally striking, but more painful in their choice of subjects, are the
productions of Valdés, especially a "Dead Bishop," awful in its contrast of
gorgeous robes with the visible work of the worms beneath, and of which
Murillo said "that he could not look at it without holding his nose." Other
pictures by Murillo formerly decorated these walls; but they were stolen by
the French, and afterward sold to English collectors, the Duke of
Sutherland and Mr. Tomline being among the purchasers. After the church,
the most remarkable thing in the Caridad is the "patio," divided into two
by a double marble colonnade. Here the poor patients sit out half the day,
enjoying the sunshine and the flowers. On the wall is the following
inscription, from the pen of Mañara himself, but which loses in the
translation: "This house will last as long as God shall be feared in it,
and Jesus Christ be served in the persons of his poor. Whoever enters here
must leave at the door both avarice and pride."
The cloisters and passages are full of texts and pious thoughts, but all
associated with the two ideas ever prominent in the founders mind--charity
and death. Over what was his own cell is the following, in Spanish: "What
is it that we mean when we speak of death? It is being free from the body
of sin, and from the yoke of our passions: therefore, to live is a bitter
death, and to die is a sweet life."
The wards are charmingly large and airy, and lined with gay "azulejos." The
kitchen is large and spacious, with a curious roof, supported by a single
pillar in the middle. Over the president's chair, in the Sala Capitular, is
the original portrait of Don Miguel Mañara, by his friend Valdés Leal, and,
at the side, a cast taken of his face after death, presented to the
confraternity by Vicentelo de Leca. Both have the same expression of
dignity and austerity, mingled with tenderness, especially about the mouth;
and the features have a strong resemblance to those of the great Condé. He
died on May 19th, 1679, amidst the tears of the whole city, being only
fifty-three years of age: but a nature such as his could not last long. A
very interesting collection of his letters is still shown in the hospital,
and his life has been lately admirably translated into French by M. Antoine
de Latour.
The "Sacré Coeur" have established themselves lately in Seville, through
the kindness of the Marquesa de V----, and are about to open a ladies'
school--which is very much needed--on the site of a disused Franciscan
convent. The archbishop has given them the large church adjoining the
convent; and it was almost comical to see the three or four charming
sisters, who are beginning this most useful and charitable work, singing
their benediction _alone_ in the vast chancel, until the building can
be got ready for the reception of their pupils.
{604}
Another convent visited by the ladies of the party was that of Sta. Ines,
which stands in a narrow street near the church of St. Felipe Neri. The
great treasure of this convent is the body of _Sta. Maria Coronel_,
which remains as fresh and as life-like as if she had died but yesterday.
Her history is a tragical one. Pedro the Cruel, falling madly in love with
her great beauty, condemned her husband, who was governor of the Balearic
Islands, to an ignominious death; but then, with a refinement of cruelty,
promised his pardon to his wife on condition that she would yield to his
passion. Maria Coronel, preferring death to dishonor, permitted the
execution of her husband, and fled for refuge to this convent, where the
king, violating all rights, human and divine, pursued her. One night he
penetrated into her cell. Maria, seeing no other mode of escape, seized the
lamp which burnt on the table before her, and poured the boiling oil over
her face, thus destroying her beauty for ever. The king, enraged and
disappointed, relinquished his suit; and the poor lady lived and died in
the convent. In the library of the university is an ancient MS. describing
Pedro the Cruel as "tall, fair, good-looking, and full of spirit, valor,
and talent!" but his execrable deeds speak for themselves. The curious
thing is, that the marks of the boiling oil are as clearly seen on Maria
Coronel's face now as on the day when the heroic deed was committed. The
sisters of this convent are dressed in blue, with a long black veil, and
their cloisters contain some very curious pictures and relics.
The most interesting visit, however, paid by one of the party in Seville,
was to the strictly enclosed convent of Sta. Teresa, to enter which the
English lady had obtained special papal permission. Of the sorrows and
perils which St. Theresa experienced in founding this house, she herself
speaks in writing to her niece, Mary of Ocampo: "I assure you that of all
the persecutions we have had to endure, none can bear the least comparison
with what we have suffered at Seville." [Footnote 185]
[Footnote 185: For both this and other quotations regarding St.
Theresa's foundations, the writer is indebted to the charming life of
the saint published by Hurst & Blackett in 1865, and which, from its
wonderful truth and accuracy, is a perfect handbook to anyone visiting
the Carmelite convents of Spain. She trusts that its author will
forgive her for having, often unintentionally, used her actual
expressions in speaking of places and of things, from the impossibility
of their being described by an eye-witness in any other manner.]
Suffering from violent fever, calumniated by one of her own postulants,
denounced to the inquisition, persecuted incessantly by the fathers of the
mitigated rule, with no prospect of buying a house, and no money for the
purchase, the saint could yet find courage to add; "Notwithstanding all
these evils, my heart is filled with joy. What blessed things are peace of
conscience and liberty of soul!" It reminds one of another occasion, when
it was necessary to begin a foundation which was to cost a great, deal of
money, and the saint had but twopence-halfpenny. "Never mind," she replied
courageously, "twopence halfpenny and Theresa are nothing; but
twopence-halfpenny and God are everything!" And the work was accomplished.
In the case of the Seville house her patience and faith met with a like
reward. On the Feast of the Ascension, 1576, the blessed sacrament was
placed in the chapel of the new convent by the archbishop himself,
accompanied by all his clergy, who wished to make public amends to St.
Theresa and her nuns for the persecutions they had endured; and when
Theresa knelt to ask for his pastoral benediction, the archbishop, in the
presence of all the people, knelt to ask for hers in return, thus
testifying to the high estimation in which he held both her and her work.
It was this convent, untouched since those days of trial, which our
visitors now entered. There are twenty two sisters, of whom three are
novices, and their rule is maintained in all its primitive severity. They
keep a perpetual fast, living chiefly on the dried "cabala," or stockfish,
of the country, and only on festivals and at Easter tide allowing
themselves eggs and milk.
{605}
They have no beds, only a hard mattress, stuffed with straw; this, with an
iron lamp, a pitcher of water, a crucifix, and a discipline, constitutes
the only furniture of each cell, all of which are alike. One or two common
prints were pasted on the walls, and over the doors hung various little
ejaculations: "Jesu, superabundo gaudio;" "O crux! ave, spes unica!"
"Domine, quid me vis facere?" or else a little card in Spanish, like the
following, which the English lady carried off with her as a memorial:
Aplaca, mi Dios, tu ira,
Tu justicia y tu rigor.
Por los ruegos de Maria,
Misericordia, Señor!
Santo Dios, Santo fuerte, Santo inmortal,
Liberanos, Senor, de todo mal.
At the refectory, each sister has an earthenware plate and jug, with a
wooden cover, an earthenware salt-cellar, and a wooden spoon. Opposite the
place of the superior is a skull, the only distinction. They are allowed no
linen except in sickness, and wear only a brown mantle and white serge
scapular, with a black veil, which covers them from head to foot. They are
rarely allowed to walk in the garden, or to go out in the corridor in the
sun to warm themselves. Their house is like a cellar, cold and damp; and
they have no fires. Even at recreation they are not allowed to sit, except
on the floor; and silence is rigidly observed, except for two hours during
the day. They have only five hours sleep, not going to bed till half-past
eleven, on account of the office. At eleven, one of the novices seizes the
wooden clapper, (or crecella,) which she strikes three times, pronouncing
the words: "Praise be to our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the Blessed Virgin
Mary, his Mother; my sisters, let us go to matins to glorify our Lord."
Then they go to the choir, singing the Miserere. They are called again in
the same manner at half-past four by a sister who chaunts a verse in the
Psalms. At night a sentence is pronounced aloud, to serve as meditation. It
is generally this:
My sisters, think of this:
a little suffering,
and then an eternal recompense.
They see absolutely _no one_, receiving the holy communion through a
slit in the wall. The English lady was the first person they had seen face
to face, or with lifted veils, for twelve years. They play the organ of the
chapel, which is a public one, though they themselves are entirely
invisible; and they are not even allowed to see the altar, which is
concealed by a heavy black curtain drawn across the grating looking into
the church. They have an image of their great foundress, the size of life,
dressed in the habit of the order, and to her they go night and morning and
salute her, as to a mother. Their convent is rich in relics, beautiful
pictures, and crucifixes, brought in by different religious, especially the
Duchesse de Bega, who became a Carmelite about fifty years ago. But their
chief treasure is an original picture of St. Theresa, for which she sat by
command of the archbishop, and which has lately been photographed for the
Duc de Montpensier. It is a very striking and beautiful face, but quite
different from the conventional representations of the saint. When it was
finished, she looked at it, and exclaimed naively: "I did not know I was
grown so old or so ugly!" There is also in this sacristy a very beautiful
Morales of the "Virgin and a Dead Christ," and a curious portrait of Padre
Garcia, the saint's confessor. Up-stairs, in her own cell, they have her
cloak and shoes, and the glass out of which she drank in her last illness.
The stranger was courteously made to drink out of it also, and then to put
on the saint's cloak, in which she was told "to kneel and pray for her
heart's desire, and it would be granted to her."
{606}
But the most interesting thing in the convent is the collection of MSS.
They have the whole of the "Interior Mansion," written in her own firm and
beautiful handwriting, with scarcely an erasure; besides quantities of her
letters and answers from St. John of the Cross, from St. John of Avila,
from Padre Garcia, and a multitude of others. The superior is elected every
three years, and the same one cannot be reelected till three years have
elapsed. They require a "dot" of 8000 reals, or about a hundred pounds; but
their number is full, and several candidates are now waiting their turn for
admission. The government has taken what little property they once had and
gives them at the rate of a peseta (two reals) a day, so that, poor as
their food is, they are often on the verge of starvation.
It was with a feeling almost of relief that the English lady found herself
once more in the sunshine outside these gloomy walls; yet those who lived
within them seemed cheerful and happy, and able to realize in the fullest
degree, without any external aid, those mysteries of divine love and that
beauty of holiness which, to our weaker faith, would seem impossible when
deprived of all sight of our Lord in his tabernacle or in his glorious
creations. We are tempted to ask, why it is that convents of this nature
are so repugnant to English taste? Every one is ready to appreciate those
of the sisters of charity. People talk of their good deeds, of the blessing
they are in the hospitals, of the advantages of united work, etc. etc.; but
as for the enclosed orders, "They wish they were all abolished." "What is
the good of a set of women shutting themselves up and _doing
nothing_?" Reader, _do_ they "do nothing"? We will not speak of the
schools; of the evening classes for working women; of the preparations for
first communions and confirmations; of the retreats within their sheltering
walls for those of us who, wearied with this world's toil and bustle, wish
to pause now and then and gain breath for the daily fight, and take stock,
as it were, of our state before God. These and other works like these, form
almost invariably a very important portion of the daily occupation of the
cloistered orders. But we will dismiss the thoughts of any external work,
and come to the highest and noblest part of their vocation. What is it that
is to "move mountains"? What is it that, over and over again in Holy
Scripture, has saved individuals, and cities, and nations? Is it not united
intercessory prayer? Is it nothing to us, in the whirl and turmoil of this
work-a-day life, that holy hands should ever be lifted up for us to the
Great Intercessor? Is there no _reparation_ needed for the sins, and
the follies, and the insults to the majesty of God, and to his sacraments,
and to his Mother, which are ever going on in this our native country? Does
it not touch the most indifferent among us to think of our self-indulgence
being, as it were, atoned for by their self-denial?--our pampered appetites
by their fasts and vigils? It is true that our present habits of life and
thought lead to an obvious want of sympathy with such an existence. It has
no public results on which we can look complacently, or which can be
paraded boastfully. Everything seems waste which is not visible; and all is
disappointment which is not obvious success. It is supernatural principles
especially which are at a discount in modern days! Surely the time will
come when we shall judge these things very differently; when our eyes will
be opened like the eyes of the prophet's servant; and we shall see from
what miseries, from what sorrows we and our country have been preserved by
lives like these, which save our Sodom, and avert God's righteous anger
from his people. [Footnote 186]
[Footnote 186: In a simple but touching French biography of a young
English lady who lately died in the convent of the "Poor Clares" at
Amiens, the writer's idea is far more beautifully expressed: "A cette
heure de la nuit, peut-ètre qu'une jenne fille du monde, martyre (sans
couronne) de ses lois et de ses exigences, rentre chez elle, épulsée
d'emotions et de fatigues. En longeant le mur du monastère et en
entendant le son de la cloche qui appelle les recluses volontaires à la
prière elle se sera adressée cette question: 'A quoi servent done les
religieuses?' Je vais vous le dire: à _expier_. Après cette nuit
de plaisir que vous venez de passer au théatre ou au bal, viendra une
autre nuit--nuit d'angoisses et de supréme douleur. Vous étes la
étendue sur votre couche de mort en face de l'éternité ou vous allez
entrer seule, et sans appui. Peut-étre vous n'osez, ou vous ne pouvez
prier; mals quelqu'un a prié pour vous, et faisant violence au ciel, a
obtenu ce que vous n'etiez pas digne d'espérer. _Voila d quoi servent
les religieuses._"]
{607}
One more curious establishment was visited by our party at Seville before
their departure, and that was the cigar manufactory, an enormous government
establishment, occupying an immense yellow building, which looks like a
palace, and employing 1,000 men and 5,000 women. The rapidity with which
cigars are turned out by those women's fingers is not the least astonishing
part. The workers are almost all young, and some very beautiful. They take
off their gowns and their crinolines as soon as they come in, hanging them
up in a long gallery, and take the flowers out of their hair and put them
in water, so that they may be fresh when they come out; and then work away
in their petticoats with wonderful zeal and good humor the whole day long.
The government makes 90,000,000 reals a year from the profits of this
establishment, though the dearest cigar made costs but twopence!
And now the sad time came for our travellers to leave Seville. In fact, the
exorbitant prices of everything at the hotel made a longer stay impossible,
though it was difficult to say what it was that they paid for: certainly
_not food_; for, excepting the chocolate and bread, which are
invariably good throughout Spain, the dinners were uneatable, the oil
rancid, the eggs stale; even "el cocido," the popular dish, was composed of
indescribable articles, and of kids which seemed to have died a natural
death. One of the party, a Belgian, exclaimed when her first dish of this
so-called meat was given her at Easter: "Vraiment, je crois que nous autres
nous n'avons pas tant perdu pendant le Carême!" An establishment has lately
been started by an enterprising peasant to sell milk fresh from the cow, a
great luxury in Spain, where goat's milk is the universal substitute; and
four very pretty Alderneys are kept, stall-fed, in a nice little dairy, "à
l'Anglaise," at one corner of the principal square, which is both clean and
tempting to strangers. At every corner of the streets, water, in cool,
porous jars, is offered to the passers by, mixed with a sugary substance
looking like what is used by confectioners for "meringues," but which melts
in the water and leaves no trace. This is the universal beverage of every
class in Spain.
There is little to tempt foreigners in the shops of Seville, and, with the
exception of photographs and fans, there is nothing to buy which has any
particular character or "chique" about it. The fans are beautiful, and
form, in fact, one of the staple trades of the place; there is also a sweet
kind of incense manufactured of flowers, mixed with resinous gums, which
resembles that made at Damascus. But the ordinary contents of the shops
look like the sweepings-out of all the "quincaillerie" of the Faubourg St.
Denis.
It was on a more lovely evening than usual that our travellers went, for
the last time, to that glorious cathedral. The sorrow was even greater than
what they had felt the year before in leaving St. Peter's: for Rome one
lives in hopes of seeing again; Seville, in all human probability, never!
The services were over, but the usual proportion of veiled figures knelt on
the marble pavement, on which the light from those beautiful painted
windows threw gorgeous colors. Never had that magnificent temple appeared
more solemn or more worthy of its purpose; one realized as one had never
done before one's own littleness and God's ineffable greatness, mercy, and
love. Still they lingered, when the inexorable courier came to remind them
that the train was on the point of starting, and with a last prayer, which
was more like a sob, our travellers left the sacred building. At the
station all their kind Seville friends had assembled to bid them once more
good-by, and to re-echo kind hopes of a speedy return; and then the train
started, and the last gleam of sunshine died out on the tower of the
Giralda.
------
{608}
Original.
Il Duomo
A Vision.
IL DUOMO, being interpreted, signifies "The Cathedral," and the subject
of the following poem is the picturesque and beautiful cathedral of
Milan. This splendid building is adorned externally by nearly five
thousand white marble statues, life size, of knights, martyrs, monks,
etc. etc., the roof being ornamented also externally with sculptured
buds and flowers in great profusion. Upward of fifty massive pillars
support the roof internally, and over the grand altar is suspended a
casket containing a nail from the true cross, and other relics. On the
topmost pinnacle of the cathedral stands, serene and splendid, a
glittering, gilded statue of the Madonna, who, with her eighteen feet
of stature, towers nobly above her magnificent body-guard of saints,
knights, and martyrs.
Faint with the sunny splendors of the king of light,
Nature disrobes, and from her wearied shoulders casts
The oppressive mantle of the burning day;
Flings to the glowing west her regal diadem of fire;
Upon her drooping brow all gladly binds
The calm and holy moon;
And with a zone of stars loops round her languid form
The cool sweet robe of night:
The placid moonbeams, o'er that stately fane,
Pour the rich affluence of their silvery light,
And with a chaste soft lustre, tint
The graceful slender spires,
The marble phalanx of the white-robed saints,
The silent knights, the multitudinous flowers,
The mother of our Lord,
And all the wonders of that wondrous roof!
With hushed and reverent step, through the wide doors I passed!
Passed from the outer splendors to the inner mystic gloom
Of the majestic pile;
Through the emblazoned windows streams the tempered light,
Showing dimly forth the shrines of holy men,
The sacred emblems, and the fifty marvellous pillars,
Dumb stony giants, who, with patient strength,
Bear up the ponderous roof;
Upon the altar steps I bend me down, and, awe-struck, rest.
Suddenly, through the deep stillness
Breathed a solemn sound, as sweet as mournful;
A hand unseen ran o'er the organ's keys,
And o'er the broad, dark air the harmonious waves
Rolled grandly on!
Entranced I heard, and soon the subtle strains
Distilled within my soul a deep oblivion
Of things terrestrial.
{609}
A vision came upon me, and I saw
The darkness melt, the shades opaque dissolve,
And the dull, sombre midnight change
To day bright lustre!
With soft and lambent flame the fifty columns glowed
From base to branching head,
And with supernal light pierced the thick denseness
Of the arched roof:
And I saw the innumerable leaves,
The sculptured garlands of fair buds and flowers--
Strewn with such lavish hand o'er all that broad parterre--
With life-renewing tints endowed:
The sacred vessels on the altar ranged,
The pious gifts of ages passed away,
And all the saintly relics of that holy place
Glittered with new effulgence!
Mine unused eyes drank in amazed the dazzling scene,
And now upon mine ears arose the clang of music,
And the sound of men rejoicing!
From their huge stanchions 'scaped the massy doors,
And through the enfranchised portal paced
A wondrous train!
A thousand mailèd knights, the Duomo's guards,
Strode proudly in!
As when in life they marched, so came they now;
No marble corslets still their lofty hearts,
Rich suits of Milan steel enclasp them round,
Through the gold helmets' bars their dark eyes flash,
Bright banners wave above them, and their hands
Clasp as of old the trenchant blade!
A stately white-robed troop, the Duomo's priests,
The pageant swells.
No rigid garb of stone impedes their solemn steps;
Girt round with high, ecclesial pomp,
The sacred aisles they pace,
The jewelled crosiers grasp, the censers swing,
And, as of yore, the glad "Hosannas" raise!
Again the clash of steel, the armed tread,
The banners' silken folds--
And twice five hundred warriors
Pass the gaping doors!
Hark! in the air, a choir angelic sings:
Wake, jubilant harps! peal, ye clarions of silver!
Swell, ye loud organs! for mighty's the theme!
Bend lowly the knee, ye saints, knights, and martyrs,
With offerings of gold let the high altar gleam!
Fill the gemmed censers with myrrh and with amber,
Deck the rich shrines with a splendor ne'er seen,
Raise high the song, the loud hymn of devotion,
Give homage to Mary, our lady, our queen!
{610}
Loud glorias peal, and with reverberant blast,
Throughout the illumined space,
The silver trumpets clang!
Doffed is the casque, the mitred head bent low,
The song subsides, and on that marvellous crowd
An awful silence dwells!
A Presence is among them--
A Being gracious as resplendent.
And the resuscitate host is filled with holy terror!
She smiles benignly on the kneeling throng,
And melts with heavenly look the still, deep fear!
Again the hymn breaks forth,
With heavenly, earthly voices join,
Monks, warriors, martyrs swell the raptured strain!
Lo! where she comes, all meek, yet all noble,
The glory celestial encircling her brows.
Fall prostrate, ye thousands, all lowly adore her;
Bare your swords, valiant knights, yet once make your vows;
Chant paeans, ye priests; let the harmonies roll
Till the gorgeous temple resounds to its veil.
Through our midst she is moving, the chosen, the holy:
Hail, Mary, Madonna, blest Virgin, all hail!
The voices ceased, the echoes died away,
The mighty pillars throbbed no more with flame;
The roof closed in, the pageant vanished,
And the darkness swathed once more
The sombre nave.
Still on the air the organ's notes float sad and wailing,
Still through the storied windows streams the moon's soft light,
Still rest the things of earth;
The mute Colossi yet bear up
The vaulted roof;
The shrines still glimmer in the dim night air,
The mystic glories of my vision
Gone!
Arthur Matthison.
------
{611}
Translated from Revue des Questions Historiques.
Americus Vespucius and Christopher Columbus.
The True Origin of the Name of America.
I.