to the warlike saints as did Italy and Spain to St. George and St.
James, but she seems to have held in highest esteem the _healing_
saints, as we may term them, such as St. Martin of Tours, St. Roch,
St. Christopher, St. Blaze, St. Lazarus, &c., whose venerated relics
have been the object of so many celebrated pilgrimages (Fig. 297). She
has also rendered touching homage to certain specially holy women, the
worship of whom has become almost national, such as St. Mary Magdalene
and St. Martha, St. Barbara, St. Geneviève, &c. But in no country has
the worship of the Virgin Mary been more general or more sublime than
in France, where the mother of God had so many venerable sanctuaries;
such as that of Our Lady of Puy, Our Lady of Liesse, Our Lady of
Chartres, Our Lady of Rocamadour, Our Lady of the Thorn, Our Lady of
Auray, and Our Lady of Victory, amongst others.
[Illustration: Fig. 297.--Thanksgivings made in a Chapel of
Pilgrimage by a family carrying out a vow.--It is believed that
this is the chapel in which were preserved the relics of the
saint in the Abbey of Mont St. Claude (Franche-Comté).--French
Picture of the Fifteenth Century, belonging to M. P. Lacroix.]
One of the first altars erected in France to the Virgin Mary was that
upon the summit of Mount Anicium, a volcanic rock near Velay, called
Le Puy (from the Italian _poggio_, high mountain). St. George,
bishop of the diocese, came to baptize a lady of the district, who
became seriously ill, upon which an unknown voice bid her repair to
Mount Anicium. Having obeyed this command, she fell into a quiet sleep,
during which she saw a celestial female figure, wearing a crown of
precious stones. “Who is this queen, so beautiful, so noble, and so
gracious?” she inquired, addressing herself to one of the angelic host
that surrounded her. The answer came: “This is the mother of the Son
of God. She has selected this mountain for you to come and make your
invocation; she bids you acquaint her faithful servant, Bishop George,
of what has taken place. And now awake; you are cured of your illness.”
The lady, filled with gratitude and faith, went to the bishop, who,
when he had heard her story, prostrated himself to the ground, as if
it were the Virgin herself who was speaking. Followed by his clergy,
he then repaired to the miraculous rock. It was in the month of July;
the sun was very hot, but the snow lay deep upon the table-land of the
mountain. Suddenly a stag bounded forward and traced with his feet
the plan of the sanctuary which was to be built upon that very spot,
and then disappeared. The bishop at once saw that a fresh miracle had
been wrought in confirmation of the first; he had the spot enclosed,
and made a vow to erect a church there. This vow was executed by St.
Evodius, seventh Bishop of Puy, in 223.
The statue of Our Lady of Puy, in cedar wood, blackened with age, was
the work of the first Christians of Libanus, who executed it after the
image of the Egyptian goddess Isis, sitting upright upon a stool, and
holding upon her knee the Infant Jesus, swathed in fine linen as if he
were a little mummy. This image was brought from the East by St. Louis
in 1254.
The origin of the statue of Our Lady of Liesse also dates from the
Crusades, which inundated France and the rest of Europe with so many
images of the Holy Virgin. Thus, in 1131, Foulques d’Anjou, King of
Jerusalem, entrusted the guard of the city of Beersheba to the Knights
Hospitallers of St. John, amongst the most distinguished of whom were
the three brothers of the house of Eppes, near Laon. These knights
having been taken prisoners, the Sultan determined to make them become
Mahometans, and imprudently selected his daughter Ismeria to effect
the work of conversion. But she forgot the object of her mission, and
allowed herself to be converted to Christianity by the arguments of the
three knights. She asked them to carve for her an image of the Holy
Virgin, and though they were utterly ignorant of the art, they began
an image which angels came down from heaven to complete. The Virgin
appeared to the Sultan’s daughter, encouraged her in her project to
set the three captives at liberty, and advised her to follow them in
her flight. At about midnight she went to the prison, the doors of
which opened before her, as did those of the city. Ismeria bore in
her arms the image of the Virgin, and the sovereign virtue of this
talisman overcame all obstacles. The fugitives, who had gone to sleep
upon Egyptian soil, woke up to find themselves in front of the Château
d’Eppes, and the statuette, sparkling with light, selected the place
which it wished to occupy in the middle of a wood. Ismeria caused to
be erected upon this very spot a plain chapel, whilst in the town of
Laon a cathedral was built, dedicated to Our Lady of Liesse. Since
that period the great basilica and the tiny chapel have shared between
them the worship of the crowd of pilgrims which the startling miracles
have attracted thither. Both structures suffered from the fury of the
Huguenots in the sixteenth century, but the miraculous image of the
Virgin has always escaped from sacrilegious outrage.
[Illustration: Fig. 298.--Ancient Banner of the City of
Strasburg, on which is represented the Image of Our Lady, to
whom the city was dedicated about the middle of the Thirteenth
Century; the lilies running round it are the emblem of the
Virgin’s purity. A Memorial of the Thirteenth Century, burnt
during the bombardment of Strasburg in 1870.--From a copy
published in the “Dictionnaire du Haut et du Bas-Rhin,” by M.
Ristelhuber.]
[Illustration: Fig. 299.--Removal, by St. Bodillon and the
Chevalier Gérard de Roussillon, of the Body of Mary Magdalene
to the Church of Vézelay (Yonne).--After a Miniature in the
“Chroniques de Hainaut,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century,
in the Burgundian Library, Brussels.]
There is much analogy between the worship of the patronal Virgin of
the country round Chartres and that of the Virgin of the Pillar at
Saragossa. The two statues are alike in regard to posture, costume,
and general character, and moreover they date back to the same
epoch--namely, the fourth or fifth century. The Chartres cathedral,
though ancient--for it was in existence during the seventh century--was
nevertheless posterior to the first pilgrimages established in honour
of “the Virgin who has borne a child,” according to the denomination
given to this Notre-Dame by the first apostles who preached
Christianity in this district, which was the centre of the Druidical
religion. During the whole of the Middle Ages, and down even to our
own day, there have been daily arrivals of pilgrims at Chartres, and
their number always increases upon the fête days of the Virgin.
[Illustration: Fig. 300.--Charles VI. fulfilling his vow to Our
Lady of Hope (1389).--The king, who was at that time but twenty
years of age, having lost his way one night in a forest near
Toulouse, made a vow that if he recovered his road he would offer
the value of his horse to Our Lady of Hope. In the painting he is
represented in the act of carrying out his vow, bareheaded and on
horseback, accompanied by his brother, the Constable of Clisson,
and other nobles. Above are seen angels with streamers, on which
are written the word “Hope.”--After an ancient Fresco in the
Cloister of the Carmelite Monastery at Toulon.]
The worship of Our Lady of Rocamadour is very possibly contemporaneous
with that of Our Lady of Chartres--dating back to the first age of
Christianity in Gaul. Nothing is known as to the origin of this
devotion, which is supposed to have replaced that of some local
divinity. The Virgin of Rocamadour was famous as early as the eighth
century, for, if tradition is to be believed, Charlemagne and his brave
followers came to pay it homage on their return from an expedition
against the Gascons; and the sword of Roland, deposited as an offering
upon the altar of the chapel of St. Michael, is still to be seen.
Around this sanctuary, dedicated to the Virgin, were seventeen chapels
hewn in the rock; they were dedicated to Jesus Christ, to the Twelve
Apostles, to St. John the Baptist, to St. Anne, to St. Michael, and to
St. Amadour, whose hermitage was here, and who had no doubt brought
from the East the black Virgin who has been venerated there for twelve
or fifteen centuries.
[Illustration: Fig. 301.--Miraculous Image of Our Lady of
Grace, at Cambrai, brought to that city by Canon Furcy de
Bruille in 1450: this is one of the painted images attributed
by a pious tradition to St. Luke.--The inhabitants of Cambrai,
having fervently prayed for protection to their patroness when
the English besieged their city, attributed the impotence of
the enemy’s attack to her interposition. Hence is derived
the poetical representation of the Virgin gathering up the
cannon-balls in a lace veil. To the right is the ancient
metropolitan church of Cambrai, a remarkable monument of
Gothic architecture, destroyed at the beginning of the present
century.--Reduced Fac-simile of a Drawing of the Seventeenth
Century, lent by M. Delattre, of Cambrai.]
The pilgrimage of St. Baume, near Maximin, in Provence, was not in
honour of the Virgin Mary, but of the saintly women Mary Magdalene
(Fig. 299) and her sister Martha, Mary the mother of James, and Salome,
who were witnesses of our Saviour’s life, of his miracles, and of his
resurrection. Whatever may be the truth of the alleged mission of St.
Lazarus and his two sisters Mary Magdalene and Martha, in southern
Gaul, the devotion paid to them amongst a people who believed in the
legend was almost as marked as the worship which was rendered to the
Virgin. The pilgrims never left St. Baume without making a pilgrimage
to the tomb of St. Lazarus at Autun, after having visited the relics
of the Marys in the Island of Camargue, at St. Maximin, Arles, and
at Tarascon. The grotto of St. Baume, in which Mary Magdalene lived
for thirty years in fellowship with the angels who raised her into the
air during her periods of ecstasy, who brought her food and took every
care of her, was, from the fifth or sixth century, a rendezvous for the
faithful who came to visit the dread abode which had been sanctified
by the long penitence of the Magdalene. Popes, emperors, kings, and
the most illustrious personages considered it an honour to be numbered
amongst these pilgrims, and those whose age or infirmities prevented
them from being personally present deputed others to bear thither their
vows and their offerings.
[Illustration: Fig. 302.--Our Lady of Boulogne.--“One day,”
so the legend goes, “the Virgin appeared to the burghers and
inhabitants of the town of Boulogne in a hull floating upon
the sea, without mast, sail, rigging, or oars, having on board
neither seaman nor any other living man, only a young virgin,
full of grace and modesty, eloquent of speech, reserved in her
manner, gracious of carriage, and more beautiful than all earthly
women.”--After a Miniature in a Manuscript of the Fifteenth
Century, in the Library of the Arsenal, Paris.]
[Illustration: Fig. 303.--“Au juste poids véritable
balance.”--Picture by Antoine Picquet, Master-Painter in the
Brotherhood of Our Lady of Amiens, presented to the church of
that city on the 25th of December, 1518. This painting, now in
the Cluny Museum, is but the symbolic development of the above
motto. The Virgin is in a standing posture beneath a canopy;
the Infant Jesus is drawing towards him one of the scales of
the balance in which God the Father, surrounded by his angels,
is about to weigh the crowns of earthly sovereigns. In the
background, amidst beautiful scenery, on one side peasants are
gathering in the harvest and the vintage, and on the other is
seen Queen Claude, mounted, and followed by a brilliant suite.
In the foreground are two groups: to the right Francis I., with
Triboulet his jester, and knights; to the left, the emperor, the
pope, a cardinal, the Bishop of Amiens, and several abbots.--From
an Engraving in the “Arts au Moyen Age,” by Dusommerard.]
The mere list of the pilgrimages of Our Lady in France, in that kingdom
of the lilies which has always been under the immediate protection of
the Virgin Mary, would fill several pages, and it would take whole
volumes to relate their origin and history. We will therefore only
mention the most famous and the most ancient: Our Lady of Alet, near
Toulouse (Fig. 300); Our Lady of the Fountain of the Ardilliers, near
Saumur; Our Lady of the Virtues, at Aubervilliers, near Paris; Our Lady
of the Haven, at Clermont, in Auvergne; Our Lady of Fourvières, at
Lyons; Our Lady of the Osier, near Grenoble; Our Lady of Bonne-Garde,
at Longpont; Our Lady of Bethlehem, at Ferrières, Gâtinais; Our Lady
of Good Hope, at Valenciennes; Our Lady of Grace, at Cambrai (Fig.
301); Our Lady of Boulogne-sur-Mer (Fig. 302), &c. Most of these are
represented by painted images--some brought from the East at the time
of the Crusades; others, the origin of which is only spoken to by the
miracles which marked them out for the veneration of the faithful.
There are also statuettes in wood and stone, nearly all of which belong
to the Coptic group of black Virgins, which throughout Europe are
associated with miracles of an early age.
[Illustration: Fig. 304.--Sufferers from St. Vitus’ Dance going
on a Pilgrimage to the Church of St. Willibrod, Epternacht, near
Luxemburg.--After a Drawing by P. Breughel (Sixteenth Century),
in the Gallery of Archduke Albert, at Vienna.]
It would take volumes also to describe the numerous pilgrimages in
Germany, Poland, Russia, and, above all, in Belgium (Fig. 304).
There, as everywhere else, the mother of our Lord always attracted to
herself the most profound homage, and bestowed the greatest amount of
favours upon the zealous host of her worshippers. But it is worthy of
remark that these acts of devotion, so renowned and venerated in the
country itself, scarcely ever extended into neighbouring countries.
Belgians alone went to worship the image of the Virgin known as
Notre-Dame-sous-la-Tour, in the Church of St. Peter, at Louvain,
the image of Our Lady of Alzemberg, and the statue of Our Lady of
Verviers; and yet the crowd of pilgrims was none the less to Our Lady
of Affighem, Our Lady of Chèvremont, Our Lady of Faith, near Dinan, Our
Lady of Wavre, Our Lady of Belle-Fontaine, &c.
But for the most frequented pilgrimages we must look to Hungary, where
a statue of the Virgin, in limewood, found during the twelfth century
on the trunk of an oak, became the famous Our Lady of Maria-Zell,
which worked so many miracles throughout the Middle Ages; to Cologne,
where the three Magi, beatified by the Church, were venerated; and
to Trèves, where, since the fourth century, the jubilee of the Holy
Robe of our Lord has been celebrated--a jubilee in which as many as
a hundred thousand pilgrims a day formerly took part; and, lastly,
we must mention the most renowned of those sanctuaries of Notre-Dame
des Neiges (Our Lady of the Snow) which are to be met with on many
mountains whose summits are covered with snow--namely, the magnificent
Monastery of Einsiedeln, in Switzerland (Canton of Schwitz), which was
only an unpretending oratory when Meinrad, prince of the great house of
Hohenzollern, founded there the worship of Our Lady of the Hermits.
[Illustration: Fig. 305.--The Crown of Thorns worn by Jesus
Christ, preserved at Notre-Dame, Paris.--It is composed of a
ring of small reeds tied into a bundle (diameter, 21 centimetres
inside); the thorns are no longer visible; it is enshrined
in gold, and held together by three acanthus leaves, also in
gold.--Drawn from the original by M. Rohault de Fleury.]
HERESIES.
The real meaning of the word _Heresy_.--The Heretics of
the Apostolic Days.--Simon the Magician.--Cerinthus.--The
Nicolaitans.--The Gnostics.--The Schools of Philosophy of
Byzantium, Antioch, and Alexandria.--Julian the Apostate.--The
Pelagians and the semi-Pelagians.--Nestorius.--Eutyches.--The
Iconoclasts.--Amaury.--Gilbert de la Porrée.--Abelard.--Arnold
of Brescia.--The Albigenses.--The Waldenses.--The
Flagellants.--Wickliff.--John Huss.--Jerome of
Prague.--Luther.--Henry VIII. and the Anglican Church.--Calvin.
Probably few persons are aware that the real meaning of the word
_heresy_, after its Greek origin (_hairesis_), means only
_opinion_. Heresy consists in the pretensions to explain Holy
Scripture after one’s own private judgment or personal opinion instead
of receiving the interpretation given to the sacred text by the
authority of the Church. Heretics have existed from the time of the
apostles. St. Paul, speaking in reference to them, recommends a course
which, unfortunately, has not always been followed. “If,” he says, “any
man obey not our word, ... have no company with him; ... nevertheless,
count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.” St. Peter,
with his zealous ardour, exhorts the faithful, in language full of
imagery, to be on their guard against the errors of the Gnostics (that
is, the _savants_ or the _érudits_): he calls them “wells
without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest.” He then sums up
the foundation of their doctrine in a few energetic sentences:--“For
when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through
the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were
clean escaped from them who live in error.” We know that the Gnostics
believed perfection to consist in science; they held that faith and
virtuous living were only meant for the common people. Infatuated by
their own learning, they even rejected the authority of Christ, whom
they refused to recognise as their Lord and their God; for the doctrine
concerning the angels they substituted a theory of divine emanations,
and they recognised the ancient doctrine of the eternal antagonism
between the good and the evil principle.
The Acts of the Apostles, in speaking of the success which attended the
preaching of Philip the deacon to the inhabitants of Samaria, relate
that there was in that city a magician named Simon, who exercised so
great an influence over the people that they all took heed of what he
said and called him “the great power of God.” But the miracles worked
by Philip had greater influence than the sorceries of Simon, and the
people came in crowds to be baptized, Simon himself becoming a disciple
of Philip.
The remainder of the story told us in the Acts of the Apostles
reveals the origin of a word which appears too often in the religious
history of the Middle Ages for us to let slip the opportunity of here
explaining it by a fact which, moreover, helps to show how it happened
that Simon fell from sincere Christianity into heresy. The apostles
at that time residing in Jerusalem, having heard of the conversion
of Samaria, they came to lay hands upon--that is to say confirm--the
newly baptized; and the latter, when they received the Holy Ghost,
were visible partakers of His marvellous gifts, which were general in
the primitive Church. The Scripture says, “And when Simon saw that
through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he
offered them money, saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever
I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him,
Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift
of God may be purchased with money.... Repent, therefore, of this thy
wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may
be forgiven thee.... Then answered Simon, and said, Pray ye to the
Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon
me.” It is because _Simon_ was the first who attempted to buy for
money a spiritual power that his crime was called _simony_, and
that the epithet of _simonist_ was applied to all who purchased
ecclesiastical cures.
[Illustration: Fig. 306.--Babylon the Great (_mulier super
bestiam_), represented as a woman holding a cup, and riding
the beast spoken of in the Apocalypse.--Miniature from a
“Commentaire sur quelques Livres de l’Ecriture,” a Manuscript of
the Eleventh Century, in the National Library, Paris. From Count
Bastard’s great work.]
The repentance of Simon the heretic did not last long, for an author
of the third century, whose account is confirmed by a passage in
Suetonius, tells us that this neophyte having returned to his practice
of magic, and being jealous of the influence which the apostles had
acquired by their miracles, boasted that he would raise himself into
the air in the presence of the emperor and the people. In order to
humiliate St. Peter, who was in Rome at that time, he insisted that the
apostle should be present to witness this triumph of his magical art.
At first his endeavours seemed as if about to succeed--he was lifted
high into the air amidst the applause of the crowd; but Peter invoked
the aid of his Divine Master to confound the spirit of evil, and at
his prayer the magician, suddenly abandoned by the demon who had been
lending him his aid, fell to the ground and broke his leg so near to
the spot where Nero was sitting, that, to quote Suetonius, the blood
spurted on to the emperor’s mantle.
Amongst the heresiarchs of the first century must also be mentioned
Cerinthus the Jew, who had become a Christian, but who was looked upon
by the apostles as the corrupter of the religion of Jesus Christ. He
taught, in fact, that Jesus was not the Son of God, and that Christ,
coming down from heaven in the form of a dove, was only incorporated
in him after his baptism in the waters of Jordan. Ebion, a disciple
of Cerinthus, also denied the divinity of Christ, and was the founder
of the sect of the Ebionites. Nicholas the deacon, in his attempt to
make the law of the Gospel fit in with heathen customs, gave birth
to the heresy of the Nicolaitans, who were afterwards merged in the
Gnostics. This latter sect, to which we have already alluded, developed
enormously in the second century; and its doctrine, as well as that
of Manichæus, the originator of Manichæism--that redoubtable heresy
which sprung from the admixture of the ancient religions of India with
Christianity--constituted the basis of nearly all the heresies of the
Middle Ages.
[Illustration: Fig. 307.--Orthodoxy surrounded by the Snares of
Heresy.--Boniface Simoneta (1470 to 1500), Abbot of San Stefano
del Corno (diocese of Cremona), “calling God to his aid in order
that his work may be more efficaciously wrought, ... and desiring
above all things to speak reason and equity.”--Fac-simile of a
Wood-Engraving in the “Livre des Persécutions des Crestiens:”
Paris, Antoine Verard, gothic 4to (no date).]