built the church known as _San Lorenzo fuori le Mura_ on the spot. The
common people of Rome gave him the title of _Il cortese Spagnolo_—“the
courteous Spaniard”—because when they opened his sarcophagus two
hundred years after his death and lowered into it the body of St.
Stephen, St. Laurence moved on one side, giving the place of honour on
the right to St. Stephen.
St. Laurence is constantly represented in devotional pictures, and like
St. Stephen and St. Vincent he wears the rich dress of the deacon and
has the palm as martyr. He is unmistakable, when he bears his peculiar
attribute, the gridiron (_la graticola_), which varies in form. When
it is the common kitchen utensil, it is no longer an attribute, but
simply an emblem of the death he suffered. Sometimes a small gridiron
is suspended around his neck, or he holds it in his hand, or it is
embroidered on his robe. Occasionally it is omitted and he carries a
dish full of gold and silver, representing the treasures of the Church,
or he swings a censer, or carries a cross. He is always pictured young.
=St. Vincent.= _Lat._ S. Vincentius Levita. _Ital._ San Vincenzio
Diacono, San Vincenzino.
St. Vincent was born in Saragossa in the kingdom of Aragon. During
the persecution under Diocletian, the proconsul Dacian caused all
the Christians of Saragossa to be massacred. At this time lived St.
Vincent. He had been early taught in the Christian faith, and although
barely more than twenty, he was already a deacon. The dangers and
sufferings of the Christians only aroused his sympathy and zeal; and he
encouraged and sustained many of his brethren in the torments inflicted
upon them. When he and his aged bishop were brought before the tribunal
to answer the charge of being Christians, the latter spoke in so feeble
a voice that St. Vincent took the words from his lips, proclaiming his
faith loudly and defying his persecutors.
Upon him, for this, were inflicted the most inhuman and barbarous
tortures that cruelty could invent. The young saint endured them
unflinchingly. His body was lacerated with iron forks, and when left
torn and bleeding angels came to comfort him. The proconsul, after St.
Vincent’s death, ordered his body to be thrown to the wild beasts,
but God sent a raven to guard his sacred remains, and when a wolf
approached to devour them the raven obliged it to retire.
Furious at this, Dacian commanded his minions to sew up in an
ox-hide——as was done to parricides——the body of the holy martyr, and
to throw it into the sea. Placing it thus in a bark, they rowed far
out to sea, and flung it, attached to a millstone, overboard. But, to
their astonishment, upon returning immediately to land, they found that
the body of St. Vincent had preceded them and was lying on the sand.
They fled terrified, and the waves of the sea, by the command of God,
hollowed a tomb for him in the sands, where he lay protected from all
harm, hidden from all human knowledge, until after many years the spot
was miraculously revealed to certain Christians, who brought his body
to Valencia and buried it there.
The Christians of Valencia, obliged to flee from the Moors in the
eighth century, carried with them the remains of St. Vincent. Their
vessel was driven by the winds onto a promontory, ever since called
the Cape of St. Vincent. The body of St. Vincent remained there—again
guarded by ravens—until it was removed to Lisbon by Alonzo I., about
1147. On this journey two ravens piloted the ship, one at the prow
and the other at the stern. “Thus after many wanderings the blessed
St. Vincent rested in the Cathedral of Lisbon; and the crows which
accompanied him, having multiplied greatly, rents were assigned to the
chapter for their support.”
This renowned saint is very popular in Spain, the scene of his legend,
and has been since the sixth century one of the most venerated saints
in France.
[Illustration:
Photo. Alinari
ST. ANTHONY.—PALMA VECCHIO
(Church of S. Maria Formosa, Venice.)]
In art, it is sometimes hard to distinguish St. Vincent from St.
Stephen and St. Laurence. He, too, is young and beautiful, wears the
deacon’s robes, and carries the palm. His peculiar attribute, however,
is a crow or raven, sometimes perched upon a millstone. Occasionally
the iron fork—instrument of his martyrdom—is introduced. In Italian
pictures he rarely has any attribute except the palm, while St.
Laurence and St. Stephen are rarely without their respective symbols,
the gridiron and the stones.
St. Vincent is often pictured in art with St. Laurence.
=St. Anthony=, Hermit. _Ital._ Sant’ Antonio Abbate, or l’Erémita.
_Fr._ St. Antoine l’Abbé. _Ger._ Der Heilige Anton, or Antonius.
Anthony was born in Alexandria, Egypt. His parents died when he was
eighteen and left him a noble name, great riches, and an only sister.
He was imperfectly educated, knowing no language but his native
Egyptian, and was a constant attendant on Christian worship. He had
been of a melancholy disposition from childhood, and feared the
temptations of the world and the responsibilities of his possessions.
One day he heard the sentence, “Go, sell all thou hast, and give to
the poor ... and come and follow me.” He took this as a message from
heaven, and divided his wealth with his sister, gave his share to the
poor, and withdrew to the desert, where dwelt a company of hermits.
Here he lived a life of such sanctity and self-denial that he was the
admiration and wonder of all; and Satan, displeased at such amazing
virtue, sent his demons to tempt him.[9] They whispered to him of all
that he had sacrificed for this weary life of perpetual rigour and
self-denial, but the saint prayed till the demon ceased.
Then Satan had recourse to stronger weapons, and clothed his demons in
human forms: they plied him with delicious food, and hovered around
him as beautiful women trying to allure him to sin. But St. Anthony
resisted these temptations, and in anguish fled to a cave farther in
the desert, where he lived alone and fasted more rigorously than ever.
But Satan followed him even here and now tortured him with pain, and
tried to “affright him with all the terrors that can overwhelm the soul
of man,” but in the midst of all these appalling shapes and sounds,
suddenly there shone from heaven a great light which fell upon Anthony,
and all these terrors vanished at once, and he arose unharmed and
strong to endure. And he said, looking up, “O Lord Jesus Christ, where
wert thou in those moments of anguish?” And Christ answered, “Anthony,
I was here beside thee, and rejoiced to see thee contend and overcome.
Be of good heart; for I will make thy name famous through all the
world.”
When Anthony had lived in the desert seventy-five years, “his heart
was lifted up by the thought that no one had lived so long in solitude
and self-denial as he had done.” But in a vision a voice said to him,
that there was one holier than he, for Paul the hermit had served God
in solitude and penance for ninety years. Anthony resolved to seek
Paul, and on the third day he came to a cavern overhung with rocks,
with a palm tree, and a fountain flowing near, and there he found Paul.
And while they talked there came a raven carrying in his beak a small
loaf, which he let fall between them, and Paul blessed the goodness of
God, and said: “For sixty years, every day hath this raven brought me
half a loaf; but because thou art come, my brother, lo! the portion is
doubled, and we are fed as Elijah was fed in the wilderness.”
Then Paul told St. Anthony that God had sent him to receive his last
breath, and to bury him; and bade him return to his dwelling for
the cloak given him by the holy Bishop Athanasius, and to wrap him
in it and to lay him in the earth. Weeping, St. Anthony went to his
monastery, took down the cloak, and returned as fast as his aged limbs
would permit, and found Paul dead in his cave. Wrapping him in the
cloak, he thought how he might bury him, for he had no strength to dig
a grave and behold, two lions came, and by their roaring expressed
their sympathy, and began to dig in the sand with their paws, and in a
short time had dug the grave in which Anthony reverently laid the body
of Paul. After this, Anthony lived fourteen years, and died aged one
hundred and five.
Figures of St. Anthony occur frequently, and are easily recognised. He
wears the monk’s habit and cowl, usually black or brown, and in Greek
pictures the letter T, always blue, is on the left shoulder or on the
cope. Anthony and his monks bear the T from the Greek word _Theos_,
God, signifying, “These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he
goeth. These were redeemed from among men, and in their mouth was found
no guile, for they are without fault before the throne of God.”
The crutch given St. Anthony indicates his age and feebleness. The bell
is given him because he had the power to exorcise evil spirits. The
devil, according to Durandus, cannot endure the sound of a consecrated
bell. The asperges—the rod for sprinkling holy water—as an instrument
of exorcism, was also given St. Anthony. The hog represents the demon
of sensuality and gluttony which St. Anthony overcame. Flames of fire
placed near him, or a city or house burning in the background, signify
his spiritual aid as patron saint against fire in this world and in
the next. He is found with one or more of these attributes alone or in
Madonna pictures.
In historical pictures the _Temptation of St. Anthony_ is the most
common subject.
The legend of St. Paul the hermit is interwoven with that of St.
Anthony. He is represented in devotional pictures as extremely old
and wasted; his legs and arms bare; beard and hair white and very
long; garbed only in a mat of palm leaves. When a raven is introduced,
bringing him food, it is only by his dress of plaited leaves and his
attenuated and aged appearance that St. Paul can be distinguished from
Elijah in the wilderness. He does not often appear in Madonna pictures
or grouped with other saints, but is usually alone, seated upon a rock,
in deep meditation.
=St. Benedict.= _Ital._ San Benedetto. _Fr._ Saint Benoit. _Spa._ San
Benito.
St. Benedict was born about 480 in Norcia, a small town in the duchy
of Spoleto. He came of noble family and was sent to Rome to study. But
even as a boy, he became disgusted with the profligacy of the times,
and this, added to the religious enthusiasm of the age, drove him into
a hermitage at fifteen. His nurse, who had been with him from infancy,
followed him, and insisted upon waiting upon him and cooking for him.
Feeling that his penance was not severe enough while thus looked after,
St. Benedict secretly fled from his nurse and took refuge in a cave in
Subiaco, a wilderness about forty miles from Rome, where he lived three
years, supplied with bread and water by a hermit named Romano.
Here he experienced many temptations. Memories of a beautiful Roman
woman haunted his imagination, and the desire to rush from his solitude
and seek her was well nigh irresistible. But, believing that these
thoughts came from Satan to try him, he flung himself naked into a
thicket of briars and nettles, which so lacerated and stung the flesh
that the temptation vanished, never to return.
[Illustration:
Photo. Alinari
ST. BENEDICT.—HANS MEMLING
(Uffizi, Florence.)]
His fame spread, and people came from all over and begged for his
prayers and brought their sick to be healed. He yielded to persuasion
and became head of a monastery near by, but the strictness of his life
filled the monks, who had grown lax, with dismay, and one tried to
poison him in a cup of wine. But St. Benedict blessed it as usual and
made the sign of the cross, and the cup fell broken, with its contents
spilled. He then left them and returned to his cave in Subiaco.
There crowds gathered in huts and cells, attracted by the fame of his
sanctity and miracles. At length he had built twelve monasteries, in
each of which he placed twelve disciples with a superior over them.
Two Roman senators brought him their sons, Maurus and Placidus, to
be educated. St. Benedict devoted himself to their care and they
became his most famous disciples. (St. Maurus founded a monastery in
France, and St. Placidus was sent to Sicily, where he and his young
sister Flavia were martyred.) His community became celebrated for
brotherly love and charity, until jealousy crept in and one priest,
named Florentius, tried to blacken the name of St. Benedict. He also
tried to corrupt the monks by introducing seven young women into one
of the monasteries. He then attempted to kill St. Benedict by means of
a poisoned loaf, but Benedict suspected treachery and gave the loaf to
a tame raven, who carried it away. Then St. Benedict left Subiaco, but
had scarcely gone when a messenger came to him with word that his enemy
had been crushed to death by the falling of a gallery in his house.
Hearing of a temple on Monte Cassino, not far from Rome, where the
people performed pagan rites to Apollo, Benedict repaired thither, and
by his preaching converted the people and persuaded them to break the
statue and throw down the altar. He built two chapels here, and higher
up on the mountain established the first monastery of the Benedictine
Order. He here gave the famous Rule that became the general law for
monks in Western Europe, and consisted of the three vows of poverty,
chastity, and obedience, to which St. Benedict added that of manual
labour for seven hours a day, and vows perpetual after a novitiate of
one year.
His sister, St. Scholastica, followed her brother to Mt. Cassino with
a small company of pious women, and he was wont to visit her once a
year. On his last visit, refusing to listen to his sister’s pleadings
that he remain longer with her, she prayed that heaven might interfere,
and immediately there came a furious storm, which delayed his departure
several hours. St. Scholastica died two days later, and as St. Benedict
was praying in his cell, he beheld the soul of his sister ascending
to heaven in the form of a dove. This scene is often represented in
pictures for the Benedictine nuns.
St. Benedict died March 21, 543, and it would take volumes to relate
all the miracles attributed to him.
He is difficult to distinguish in art, because he is often represented
wearing the _white_ habit, whereas the habit of the order was _black_.
In white it is easy to confuse him with St. Bernard, St. Bruno, or St.
Romualdo, and in black, for St. Anthony, so one must look for more
characteristic attributes.
In pictures for Benedictine churches, which depend on Mt. Cassino and
Subiaco, and in single devotional pictures, he wears the black habit
with hood: as patriarch of the Reformed Benedictines of Clairvaux,
Citeaux, Camaldoli, or Vallombrosa, the _white_ habit. Sometimes
beardless, more often long white beard. As Abbot of Mt. Cassino he
sometimes carries the staff and mitre; frequently holds an open
book. Like other saints who have resisted temptation, he carries the
asperges—the rod for sprinkling holy water—here an emblem of purity or
holiness by which he conquered. The thorn bush is an attribute, showing
the means whereby he conquered. A pitcher of wine or broken cup on a
book expresses the attempt to poison him, also the raven with loaf
of bread with serpent creeping from it. When a nun in black habit is
introduced with St. Benedict, or stands alone with a lily in her hand
and a dove at her feet or pressed to her bosom, it is St. Scholastica.
When grouped with his two disciples, Maurus and Placidus, they all wear
the black habit, or St. Benedict appears as abbot and the others as
deacons, wearing the dalmatica over the black tunic. St. Maurus holds a
book or a censer, and St. Placidus carries the palm as martyr.
=St. Bernard of Clairvaux.= _Lat._ Sanctus Bernardus. _Ital._ San
Bernardo di Chiaravalle, Abbate. _Ger._ Der Heilige Bernhard.
Bernard was born at Fontaines, near Dijon, in 1091. Both parents were
of noble family, and his mother, a highly gifted woman, superintended
his early education. His personal beauty was very great, but his health
was always delicate and he practised extreme self-denial from an early
age. His thirst for knowledge was amazing, and after studying at the
University of Paris, he entered the Reformed Benedictine monastery of
Citeaux. The Abbot of Citeaux saw qualities in Bernard which convinced
him that he would be the proper head of a new foundation, and in the
year 1115 he sent him forth with twelve other monks to found another
Cistercian monastery. Bernard led them to a wilderness called the
“Valley of Wormwood,” and there built the famous abbey of Clairvaux.
[Illustration:
Photo. Alinari
THE MADONNA APPEARING TO ST. BERNARD.—FILIPPINO LIPPI
(Church of the Badia, Florence.)]
Bernard became known throughout the Christian world, and was appealed
to by feudal lords and ecclesiastics alike. He was an authority on
all subjects, and his decisions were received with perfect submission.
He was commissioned by Eugenius III. to preach a second crusade. Only
a remnant returned from the ill-starred expedition, and the people
turned on Bernard with sudden hatred. But he defended himself with such
eloquence that their rage vanished. He affirmed boldly that they had
been punished for their sins, and bade them go home and repent, which
they did.
His bitter religious controversies with Abelard will be recalled.
He died in his sixty-third year at Clairvaux, where he had been abbot
thirty-eight years, and was canonised twenty years later by Pope
Alexander III. No man of his age had greater renown nor fills a larger
place in the history of that age. His reputation rests on the integrity
of his character, his eloquence as a preacher, his remarkable executive
ability, and his skill as a writer.
In devotional pictures St. Bernard is represented as a monk in the
white habit of the Cistercian Order, with shaven crown, little or no
beard, carrying a large book under his arm, or presenting books to
the Madonna, or with writing implements before him. Other attributes
are the demon—signifying heresy—fettered behind him; sometimes three
mitres on his book or at his feet signifying the three bishoprics he
refused—those of Chartres, Spires, and Milan; also the beehive as
symbol of eloquence in common with Chrysostom and Ambrose.
[Illustration:
Photo. Alinari
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI.—SIMONE MARTINI
(Church of S. Francesco, Assisi.)]
_The Vision of St. Bernard_ has been charmingly rendered in art.
The subject is mystical and devotional. St. Bernard’s most celebrated
writings were devoted to the honour and glory of the Blessed Virgin
who, in consequence, regarded him with peculiar favour, and it is
related that once when he was writing his homilies he was so ill
he could hardly hold his pen, and behold! she appeared to him and
comforted and restored him by her gracious presence.
=St. Francis of Assisi.= _Lat._ Sanctus Franciscus, Pater Seraphicus.
_Fr._ Saint François d’Assise. _Ital._ San Francesco di Assisi.
St. Francis was the founder of the Franciscans, one of the three
Mendicant Orders of Friars. He was born in Assisi in 1182. His father,
Pietro Bernardone, was a wealthy merchant. The son was taught French,
and spoke it with such ease that his companions changed his baptismal
name of Giovanni to _Francesco_—the Frenchman—by which he was ever
afterwards known. In his youth he was remarkable for his extravagance
and excessive love of pleasure. But he was kind and generous, and
beloved by all. In a quarrel between the inhabitants of Perugia and
Assisi he was taken a prisoner, and detained for a year in the fortress
of Perugia.
After his return home, he was ill for many months, and his thoughts
constantly turned from this world to God. Upon his recovery, he met a
beggar in filthy rags, who asked him for alms. St. Francis recognised
him as a former noble, who had commanded the expedition against
Perugia, and exchanged his own rich apparel with him who was now a
mendicant, putting on the other’s tattered garments. Going into a
church that was falling into ruin, to pray, he heard in his soul a
voice saying, “Francis, repair my church, which falleth into ruin.”
Taking these words literally, he sold merchandise of his father’s,
and brought the money to the priests of the church. This put his
father in a rage, and thinking him mad, he first locked him up in his
chamber, but as he still persisted in his ideas, he took him before
the bishop. Here Francis tore off his garments and flung them to his
father, saying, “Henceforth I recognise no father but him who is in
heaven.” The bishop, touched and weeping with admiration, took a coarse
cloak from a beggar who stood by and gave it to him. Francis received
it gladly, as the first fruit of that poverty to which he had given
himself. He was now twenty-five years old, and from this time forth he
went about preaching charity, humility, and self-abnegation, existing
only on alms.
It was a period in the history of the world of great mental and moral
excitement. St. Francis was the living expression of an awakening
emotion in the minds and hearts of the people, and his example was
imitated with passionate enthusiasm by an immense number of followers.
He made the first condition of their joining him absolute poverty.
Hence the allusion to his marriage with the Lady Poverty.
He went to Rome to obtain the pope’s sanction for his order, and was
at first repulsed as a visionary enthusiast. But the pope in a dream
that night beheld the walls of the Lateran tottering and about to fall,
then he saw the weight of the whole Church borne and sustained on
the shoulders of him who had approached him in the morning. Greatly
impressed by this, he sent for Francis, confirmed the rule of his
order, and gave him power to preach. Returning then to his cell called
the _Porzioncula_, Francis gathered his followers about him, gave to
his order the name of _Frati Minori_, and established his Rule with its
three vows of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience.
Previous to this, at mass one day he heard the text from St. Luke (ix.,
3): “Take nothing for your journey, neither staves nor scrip, neither
bread, neither money, neither have two coats apiece”; and looking upon
this as an ordinance it became the rule of his life. He was already
barefoot and wretchedly clad, begging his food wherever he happened to
be. There was nothing he could do without, except his leathern girdle.
This he threw away, substituting one of hempen cord, which was adopted
by his followers. These have thence been called the _Cordeliers_.
St. Francis’s life was one of continual prayer and self-inflicted
penance. So gentle and tender and compassionate was he that “when he
found worms or insects in his road he was careful not to tread upon
them.” He loved all animals and was accustomed to call all living
things his brothers and sisters. He interpreted literally the text “Go
ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,” and
Giotto has painted St. Francis preaching to the birds.
[Illustration:
Photo. Alinari
ST. CLARA.—SIMONE MARTINI
(Church of S. Francesco, Assisi.)]
We are told that he suffered from sickness, pain, and weakness and wept
so much that he nearly became blind. It is also related that, having
fasted in his cell on Mt. Alverna for forty days, passing the time in
prayer and ecstatic contemplation, he beheld in a vision a seraph
with six shining wings, and between his wings he bore the form of a man
crucified. When the vision disappeared and he awoke, St. Francis found
that he had received the _stigmata_, and ever after it was seen that he
carried in his hands, his feet, and his side the wounds of our Saviour.
He died in 1226 and was canonised by Pope Gregory IX. in 1228.