_THE FATHERS._
ORIGEN, CHAMPION OF ORTHODOXY (A.D. 253).
When a persecution was raging against the Christians about 206, Leonidas
and his son Origen were among the suspected. Leonidas was beheaded.
Origen, then aged seventeen, was also eager to meet the same fate, and he
would have been beheaded also, but his mother privily in the night season
conveyed away his clothes and his shirt. Whereupon, more for shame to be
seen than for fear to die, he was constrained to remain at home. He was
zealous, however, and wrote to his father, telling him not to change for
his and his mother's sake. Then Origen, to assist his mother and six
brothers, kept a school, and afterwards was made a bishop. He was a great
worker, lived sparingly, and went barefoot. He wrote as much as seven
notaries and so many maids could pen every day. The number of his books
was six thousand volumes. He encouraged and comforted all the martyrs, and
was a redoubted champion of doctrines.
ST. AMBROSE, CHAMPION OF HIS ORDER (A.D. 397).
St. Ambrose, who died 397, was not only the great advocate and defender of
the order of virginity, but he displayed a high sense of dignity in
guarding the purity of his church. He refused to allow the Emperor
Marcellus to enter the church because he was stained with the blood of
Gratian. He also opposed the Empress Justina in her Arian tendencies. He
was also the champion who opposed the orator Symmachus, who pleaded for
retaining the old heathen idols in their old places of worship. When the
Emperor Theodosius, in the fourth century, had ordered what most people
considered a brutal massacre at Thessalonica of seven thousand persons as
they were sitting in a circus to witness a race, and this by way of
punishment for a previous riot in the city, all eyes were turned to the
Bishop of Milan to avenge this outrage. When the Emperor reached the city
some days later, the bishop avoided meeting him, but wrote a letter, in
which he said: "So bloody a scene as that at Thessalonica is unheard of in
the world's history. I had warned and entreated you against it. You
yourself recognised its atrocity. You endeavoured to recall your decree.
And now I call on you to repent." Soon after, when Ambrose came back to
Milan, the Emperor, as usual, presented himself at the hour of service.
Ambrose met him in the porch, and thus spoke: "It seems your majesty has
not repented of the heinousness of your murder. Your imperial power has
darkened your understanding, and stood between you and the recognition of
your sin. Consider the dust from which you spring. How can you uplift in
prayer the hands which still drip with innocent blood, or receive into
such hands the body of the Lord! Depart; add not sin to sin. Find in
repentance the means of mercy which can restore you to health of soul."
The Emperor humbled himself. For eight months as a penitent he abstained
from presenting himself at Divine service. During the penance Theodosius
bitterly complained that the Church of God was opened to slaves and
beggars, but to him was closed, and with it the gates of heaven. He tried
once to gain admittance, but Ambrose sternly refused until the Emperor
promised to show openly his repentance by taking his place in the church
among the penitents. The spirit displayed by Ambrose in this episode
raised his reputation, and has left an example to all future bishops when
contending against absolute power.
WHY ST. AMBROSE FELL ASLEEP AT MASS.
St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, died in 397, on the day which he himself had
predicted. On that day Severinus, Bishop of Cologne, asked his archdeacon
if he heard any sounds in the air. The latter stood erect and listened,
and then answered, "I hear voices as of those singing in heaven, but what
they may be I know not." And Severinus was then informed that these were
the songs of angels as they carried Martin up to heaven. At that same hour
also the blessed Ambrose was celebrating Mass at Milan, and the custom
was, that the reader should not begin to read till the bishop nodded to
him. And when he would have begun standing before the altar, the blessed
Ambrose fell asleep on the altar. Though many saw this, no man presumed to
wake him, till after two or three hours had elapsed, when they spoke to
him, saying, "The hour has passed by; let my lord the bishop command the
lector to read, for the people are waiting and already are very weary."
And Ambrose bade them not be disturbed, for that his brother Martin had
departed from the flesh, and he had just been attending his funeral. And
greatly astonished, and noting the day and hour, they afterwards
discovered that at that very time the blessed Martin had been buried at
Tours, where the whole city and neighbourhood had followed him with hymns
and tears to the grave.
SOME SAYINGS OF ST. AMBROSE.
It was related that an obstinate heretic who went to hear St. Ambrose
preach, only to confute and mock him, beheld an angel visible at his side
and prompting the words the saint uttered. On seeing this, the scoffer was
self-convicted and became a convert. One day St. Ambrose, calling at the
house of a Tuscan nobleman, was hospitably received, and began to inquire
into the condition of his host, who replied, "I have never known
adversity--every day has seen me increasing in fortune, in honours and
possessions; I have a numerous family of sons and daughters, who have
never caused me a moment of sorrow; I have a multitude of slaves, to whom
my word is law; and I have never suffered either sickness or pain." On
hearing this, Ambrose rose suddenly from the table and said, "Let us make
haste to quit this roof ere it fall upon us, for the Lord is not here!"
And he had scarcely left the house when an earthquake shook the ground and
swallowed up the palace and all its inhabitants. The church, the basilica
of St. Ambrogio Maggiore at Milan, is one of the oldest and most
interesting in Christendom, and was founded in 387. Though rebuilt and
restored at least twice, it still retains the form of the primitive
churches, with doors of cypress wood. On the front of the high altar,
which is all of plates of gold enamelled with precious stones, are
represented in relief scenes from the life of our Saviour.
ST. AMBROSE AND THE RELICS OF ST. GERVASIUS.
One of the points which stagger modern Christians about St. Ambrose and
St. Augustine is their enthusiastic and apparently genuine belief in
saints' relics. When St. Ambrose was asked to consecrate a new church, and
he consented on condition that he should have some new relics to place
therein, the relics were soon forthcoming. He professed that he was told
in a dream where the relics of Gervasius and another saint were buried.
The bodies were afterwards found in the spot indicated and placed in the
new church. Ambrose delivered impassioned and fanciful harangues during
the proceedings, claiming for these relics that they had expelled demons
and restored sight to a blind butcher named Severus, who merely touched
them. Mosheim, Gibbon, and Isaac Taylor treat all this as a mere trick or
imposture. But others are not prepared to come to any decision, as next to
nothing is known as to the circumstances under which all these events or
apparent events happened. The expelling of demons may be explained by some
hysterical excitement; and the blindness may have been something more or
less temporary. Ambrose, however, apparently had the most unfeigned belief
in the miracles, and he related the whole story to his sister Marcellina
in a letter which does not savour of knavery. St. Augustine, at a later
date, also related similar miracles worked by the same relics, which he
vouches to be true.
ST. JEROME'S LIFE OF PAUL, THE FIRST HERMIT (A.D. 400).
St. Jerome, in his Life of Paul, the first hermit, says that Paul, when a
boy, suspecting his life to be in danger, fled to the wilderness, and
found a convenient great cave in which to live. "In this beloved
dwelling," says Jerome, "offered him as it were by God, Paul spent all his
life in prayer and solitude, while the palm tree gave him food and
clothes; as to which, lest it should seem impossible to some, I call Jesus
and His holy angels to witness that I have seen monks, one of whom, shut
up for thirty years, lived on barley bread and muddy water; another, in an
old cistern, which in the country speech they call the Syrian's bed, was
kept alive on five figs each day. These things therefore will seem
incredible to those who do not believe, for to those who do believe all
things are possible." St. Paul the hermit, in his one hundred and
thirteenth year, was visited by Antony, who was ninety, Paul being in a
dying state in a sequestered cell. Antony was sent on a message, and on
his return Paul was found on his knees with hands uplifted as if in
prayer, but was quite dead. Antony, according to previous instructions,
wished to bury the saint, but had no spade, and sat down to consider how
he was to proceed. Forthwith, as Jerome relates, two lions came running
from the desert tossing their manes, fearless and innocent as doves. They
went straight to the corpse, crouched, wagged their tails and roared, and
then began to claw the ground and dig a deep place, large enough to hold a
man. When they had finished they came to Antony, dropped their necks, and
licked his hands and feet, as if praying for a blessing. Antony praised
God, who taught the dumb animals, and without whose word not a leaf drops
nor one sparrow falls to the ground; and then signing with his hand to the
lions, they went away peaceably to the desert from which they came.
ST. JEROME'S REFLECTIONS ON PAUL THE HERMIT.
St. Jerome, after narrating the life and death of Paul, the first hermit,
thus concludes: "I am inclined at the end of my treatise to ask those who
know not the extent of their patrimonies, who cover their houses with
marbles, who sew the price of whole farms into their garments with a
single thread, What was ever wanting to this naked old man? Ye drink from
a gem; he satisfied nature from the hollow of his hands. Ye weave gold
into your tunics, he had not even the vilest garment of your bondslave.
But, on the other hand, to that poor man Paradise is open; you, gilded as
you are, Gehenna will receive. He, though naked, kept the garment of
Christ; you, clothed in silk, have lost Christ's robe. Paul lies covered
with the meanest dust to rise in glory; you are crushed by wrought
sepulchres of stone, to burn with all your works. Spare, I beseech you,
yourselves; spare at least the riches which you love. Why do you wrap even
your dead in golden vestments? Why does not ambition stop amid grief and
tears? Cannot the corpses of the rich decay save in silk? I beseech thee,
whosoever thou art that readest this, to remember Jerome the sinner, who,
if the Lord gave him choice, would much sooner choose Paul's tunic with
his merits than the purple of kings with their punishments."
ST. JEROME WITH THE LION AND THE ASS.
A legend of St. Jerome, who died 420, relates that one evening as he sat
within the gates of his monastery at Bethlehem, a lion entered, limping as
in pain, and all the brethren when they saw the beast fled in terror. But
Jerome arose, and went forward to meet the lion as though it had been a
guest. And the lion lifted up his paw, and Jerome, on examining it, found
that it was wounded by a thorn, which he extracted; and he tended the lion
till it was healed. The grateful beast remained with his benefactor, and
Jerome confided to him the task of guarding the ass, which was employed in
bringing firewood from the forest. On one occasion, the lion having gone
to sleep while the ass was at pasture, some merchants passing by carried
away the ass, and the lion, after searching for him in vain, returned to
the monastery with drooping head as one ashamed. St. Jerome, believing
that it had devoured its companion, commanded that the daily task of the
ass should be laid upon the lion, and that the faggots should be bound on
its back, to which it magnanimously submitted, until the ass should be
recovered, which was in this wise. One day, the lion having finished its
task, ran hither and thither, still seeking its companion, and it saw a
caravan of merchants approaching, and a string of camels, which, according
to the Arabian custom, was led by an ass. And when the lion recognised its
friend it drove the camels into the convent, and so terrified the
merchants that they confessed the theft and received pardon from St.
Jerome. Hence the lion is often introduced into the pictures of St.
Jerome.
THE DEATHBED OF ST. JEROME.
The ancient biographer Peter de Natalibus thus describes the last hours of
Jerome: As Jerome's death drew near, he commanded that he should be laid
on the bare ground and covered with sackcloth, and calling the brethren
around him, he spoke sweetly to them, and exhorted them in many holy
words, and with tears received the blessed Eucharist. And sinking
backwards again on the earth, his hands crossed on his heart, he sang the
_Nunc Dimittis_, which being finished, suddenly a great light as of the
noonday sun shone round about him, within which light angels innumerable
were seen by the bystanders in shifting motion. And the voice of the
Saviour was heard inviting him to heaven, and the holy doctor answered
that he was ready. And after an hour that light departed, and Jerome's
spirit with it. And at that very hour Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, was
sitting in his cell meditating a treatise on the beatific vision, and had
begun an epistle to Jerome, consulting him on that mystery, when an
ineffable light with a fragrant odour filled his cell, and a voice came to
him therefrom, reproving him of presumption for deeming that, while yet in
the flesh, he could comprehend the eternal beatitude. And Augustine
demanding who spoke to him, the voice answered, "Jerome's soul, to whom
thou writest, for I am this very hour loosed from the flesh, and on my way
to heaven." And after Augustine had asked him many questions concerning
the joys of heaven, the angelic nature, and the Blessed Trinity, and
Jerome had answered thereto, the light and the voice departed.
ST. JEROME'S EPISTLES.
Mr. Roberts, in his "Church Memorials," speaks of St. Jerome as follows:
The various letters of Jerome to Helvidius, Jovinian Vigilantius, and even
to Augustine, leave the fact unquestionable that he was a man of great
infirmity of temper, disposed alike to depreciate the merits of others and
unduly exalt his own. To the exercise of his vituperative talents it must
be owned that we are indebted for some of his most vigorous productions.
Few of his corresponding friends were without some experience of the rough
discipline of his pen. Ruffinus says he spared none, neither monk nor
maiden. Ambrose and Didymus and Chrysostom himself shared his reproaches.
Those who submitted to the obligation of celibacy on the ostensible ground
of religious abstinence were among the rare objects of his eulogy. He
breaks out in his writings into gross and unwarrantable sallies against
the matrimonial estate, and exalting above all comparison with it the
felicity of virgins. His opinions on this subject appear to have arisen
out of the self-sufficiency of his own brain, which led him to consult his
own fervid impressions and prejudices rather than the teaching of Divine
wisdom. But after making all necessary deductions from the dignity and
deserts of Jerome on the score of prejudice and passion, our obligations
to him remain very great, not only for his admirable contributions to the
stores of sacred learning in all its departments, but for his strenuous
and efficacious advocacy of the truth as it is set forth in the oracles of
God. Lessons of practical piety and discriminating Christian prudence not
seldom flowed from his able pen.
ST. CHRYSOSTOM'S ELOQUENCE AS A PREACHER (A.D. 407).
St. Chrysostom became noted for the eloquence of his sermons soon after he
was ordained a presbyter in 386. One of his sermons at a time when the
people were given to riots ended thus: "When you return home, converse on
these subjects with all your house, as some, when returning from the
meadows, take home to their families garlands of roses or violets or some
such flowers; others branches laden with fruit from the gardens; or the
superfluous dainties from costly feasts in like manner. When you depart
home, carry admonitions to your wives, your children, your dependants. For
these counsels are more profitable to you than flowers, fruit, or feasts.
These roses never wither; these fruits never decay; these meats never
corrupt. The former impart a transitory pleasure; the latter insure a
lasting advantage, an enjoyment both present and to come. Let us thus
occupy ourselves instead of the accustomed anxiety with which we trouble
to ask each other, 'Has the Emperor heard of the things that have
happened? Is he incensed? What sentence has he pronounced? Has any one
appeased him? Can he persuade himself to utterly destroy so great and
populous a city?' Casting these and the like cares upon God, we shall do
well to heed only the observance of His commandments. Thus will all our
present sorrows pass away."
ST. CHRYSOSTOM ON THE WEAK POINT OF MONKERY.
Though St. Chrysostom was himself a hermit for six years, he thus, in the
height of the mania for monkery, exposed the weakness of that practice in
one of his sermons: "Those who forsake the city, the favour and society of
men, and cease to instruct others, are apt to excuse themselves by saying
that they must not become dead to godliness. How much better were it to
become more dead to godliness, and to profit others rather than remain on
the heights looking down on their perishing brethren! For how shall we
overcome our enemies if the greater part of us have no heed to godliness,
and those who have a heed to it withdraw from the order of battle? No deed
can be truly great unless it impart benefit to others. This is manifest
from the example of him who returned the talent, which he had received,
whole, because he had added naught to its value. Wherefore, my brethren,
though ye fast, though ye sleep upon the bare ground, though ye strew
yourselves with ashes, though ye mourn without ceasing, yet if ye do no
good to any one, ye shall have done no great thing, for this was the chief
care of those great and holy men who were in the beginning. Examine
closely their lives, and ye will see clearly that none of them ever looked
to his own interest, but to that of his neighbour. If ye seek not the
advantage of your neighbour, ye cannot attain unto salvation."
ST. CHRYSOSTOM ON PEOPLE SPEAKING IN CHURCH.
St. Chrysostom, who died 407, in his homily on the text, "Brethren, be not
children in understanding," thus rebuked the habits of his people in
church: "The church itself is a house, or rather worse than any house. For
in a house one may see much good order. But here great is the tumult,
great the confusion, and our assemblies differ in nothing from a vintner's
shop, so loud is the laughter, so great the disturbance: as in baths, as
in markets, the cry and tumult is universal. And these things occur here
only: since elsewhere it is not permitted even to address one's neighbour
in the church, not even if one have recognised a long-absent friend; but
these things are done without, and very properly. For the church is no
barber's or perfumer's shop, nor any other merchant's warehouse in the
market-place, but a place of angels, a place of archangels, a palace of
God, heaven itself. As therefore if one had rent the heaven and had
brought thee in thither, though thou shouldst see thy father or thy
brother, thou wouldst not venture to speak, so neither here ought one to
utter any other sound but those which are spiritual. For in truth the
things in this place are also a heaven. Here the buffoon who is moving
laughter or the giddy woman who collects vast crowds is listened to; but
when God is speaking from heaven on subjects so awful, we behave ourselves
more shamelessly than dogs."
ST. AUGUSTINE WITNESSING TWO MIRACLES.
St. Augustine in 426 relates two miracles which he himself witnessed. Two
persons, Paul and Palladia, brother and sister, natives of Cæsarea, were
afflicted with excessive trembling in their limbs. They had visited many
places in search of a cure, and at last were directed by a venerable
person, who appeared in a vision to Paul, to go to the church at Hippo,
where St. Stephen's relics had been deposited a year before. One Easter
Sunday Paul was praying before the relics, when he suddenly fell and lay
motionless, as if asleep, but without trembling. The spectators were
astonished, and uncertain whether to raise him up or leave him alone. He
rose up soon quite healed, whereon the congregation began to praise God
and shouted with joy. They ran to another part of the church to tell St.
Augustine, who was already beginning the service. He next day made Paul
and his sister sit in a raised part of the church, the one healed, the
other trembling, and after a general discourse thus concluded: "Now,
listen to what we have heard of this miracle. During the stoning of St.
Stephen a stone which had struck him on the elbow rebounded on a believer
who was present. He took it up and kept it. This man was a sailor, whom
chance at last brought to Ancona, and he knew by revelation that he was to
leave this stone there. A chapel was erected there to St. Stephen, and a
report was spread that one of his elbows was there. It was afterwards
understood that the sailor had been inspired to leave this stone in that
place because Ancona signifies 'the elbow' in Greek. But no miracles were
wrought there till after the body of Stephen had been discovered." St.
Augustine was going on with his discourse, recounting other miracles from
these relics, when a great shout arose, and the congregation interrupted
him, and some brought before him Palladia, who had just been suddenly
healed in the same way as her brother Paul when she went again to pray
before the relics. The people were overjoyed, and continued their shouts
till Augustine had to pause; and when they were a little silent, he
concluded with a thanksgiving.
THE VISION OF ST. AUGUSTINE.
St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, near Carthage, who died 430, and whose
magnificent tomb in the cathedral of Pavia is rich as a work of art, had
in the course of his studies, while writing discourses on the Trinity, a
dream or vision, which he thus related: "I was wandering along the
seashore lost in meditation. Suddenly I beheld a child, who, having dug a
hole in the sand, appeared to be bringing water from the sea to fill it. I
inquired of the child what was the object of this task, and it replied, 'I
intend to empty into this hole all the waters of the great deep.'
'Impossible!' I exclaimed. 'Not more impossible,' replied the child, 'than
for you, O Augustine, to explain the mystery on which you are now
meditating.'" This incident is also related of another great preacher (see
_ante_, p. 108). St. Augustine is often in mediæval pictures represented
as standing arrayed in his episcopal robes on the seashore, gazing with
astonishment on an infant Christ, who holds a bowl, a cup, and a ladle.
Murillo has a great picture on this subject. St. Augustine admitted with
shame that when a boy he had robbed an orchard, and that the
multiplication table was detestable to him.
ST. AUGUSTINE'S FAITH IN DREAMS.
St. Augustine's faith in dreams was illustrated by him in a letter to a
friend, who was speculating about future life. He said there was a beloved
physician at Carthage named Gennadius, who, though an earnest benefactor
of the poor, had doubts about the future life. One night Gennadius dreamt
that a noble-looking youth came to him and said, "Follow me." He followed,
and was led to a city in which he heard delicious music of hymns and
psalms, and the youth explained that this was the singing of the blessed
and the holy. When he awoke and found it was a dream, he attached no
importance to it. But on another night the same youth came again, and
asked, "Do you remember me?" "Yes," said Gennadius, "I saw you in my
dream, and you took me to hear the songs of the blessed." "Are you
dreaming now?" "Yes." "Where is your body at this moment?" "In my bed."
"Your eyes, then, are closed and bound in sleep?" "Yes." "How is it, then,
that you see me?" Gennadius could give no answer, and the angel said,
"Just as you see me without the eyes of the flesh, so it will be when all
your senses are removed by death. There shall still be life in you and a
faculty to perceive. Take care that henceforth you have no doubts about
the life to come." St. Austin adds: "You may say that this was a dream,
and any one may think what he likes about it. Nevertheless, there are some
dreams which have a Divine significance."
ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA (A.D. 444).
A famous champion of orthodoxy was St. Cyril of Alexandria, who flourished
in 444. He spent five years of his youth in the monasteries of Nitria, and
became an ardent student of theology, and his uncle, the Archbishop
Theophilus, recalled him to take office in the church. He soon became a
popular preacher, having a comely person and a sonorous voice, and his
friends stationed themselves in convenient places in the church to applaud
him and bring out all his merits. He soon succeeded to the patriarchate,
which gave him civil as well as ecclesiastical powers. He had no patience
with heretics, and not only interdicted the Moravians from performing
public worship, but confiscated their holy vessels. His virulent rage
against the Jews had no bounds, and without warning or authority he led a
fanatic mob early one morning and attacked their synagogues and demolished
them, rewarded his followers with the plunder, and expelled the ancient
people from the city. He insisted on paying the highest honours to a monk
who, like an assassin, had wounded the prefect. He also took umbrage at
Hypatia, a young and beautiful woman, who taught philosophy, and who was
said to take the part of the prefect against Cyril. One day it was said
Cyril's fanatical followers seized this lady, stripped and butchered her,
and burnt her body in the church, thereby leaving an indelible stain on
his character. He also was indefatigable in persecuting Nestorius, an
alleged heretic.
SOME NOTIONS OF THE FATHERS.
Some of the notions to which the Fathers clung were these: That Christ
would return and reign with the saints in Jerusalem in the flesh for a
thousand years; that the angels had bodies and appetites; that Christ's
body was not sensitive to the stripes and torments inflicted; that after
death all should pass a fiery trial before the final judgment day; that
God's Providence was confined only to men as rational creatures, but had
nothing to do with the beasts of the field, with bugs and flies and worms;
that marriage was in any circumstances a degrading institution, but a
second marriage was accursed; that infants which die before baptism cannot
be saved; that the baptism of heretics was invalid and null; that an oath
was utterly unlawful for Christians to take; that our Saviour lived fifty
years, and was not crucified at the age of thirty-three.