Chapter VIII (2)

It is useful, not only to study different countries with respect to their salubrity, but also to observe the different situations in the same locality, and the different quarters of the same city. M. Junod presented to the Academy of Sciences, some years since, an essay on this subject, which is full of interest. In considering the distribution of the population in large cities, we are struck by the tendency of the wealthy class to move toward the western portions, abandoning the opposite side to the industrial pursuits, It seems to have divined, by a kind of intuition, the locality which would have the greatest immunity in the time of sore public calamities. {79} For example, let us speak first of Paris. From the foundation of the city, the opulent class has constantly directed its course toward the west. It is the same in London, and generally, in all the cities of England. At Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and, indeed, in all the capitals of Europe, this same fact is repeated; there is the same movement of the rich toward the west, where are assembled the palaces of the kings, and the dwellings for which only pleasant and healthy sites are desired.

In visiting the ruins of Pompeii and other ancient cities, I have observed, as well as M. Junod, that this custom dates from the highest antiquity. In those cities, as is seen at Paris in our day, the largest cemeteries are found in the eastern parts, and generally none in the western. M. Junod, examining the reason of so general a fact, thinks it is connected with _atmospheric pressure_. When the mercury in the barometer rises, the smoke and injurious emanations are quickly dispelled in the air. When the mercury lowers, we see the smoke and noxious vapors remain in the apartments and near the surface of the earth. Now every one knows that, of all winds, that from the east causes the mercury in the barometer to rise the highest, and that which lowers it most is from the west. When the latter blows, it carries with it all the deleterious gases it meets in its course from the west. The result is, that the inhabitants of the eastern parts of a city not only have their own smoke and miasmas, but also those of the western parts, brought by the west wind. When, on the contrary, the east wind blows, it purifies the air by causing the injurious emanations to rise, so that they cannot be thrown back upon the west. It is evident, then, that the inhabitants of the western parts receive pure air from whatever quarter of the horizon it comes. We will add, that the west wind is most prevalent, and the west end receives it all fresh from the country.

From the foregoing facts, M. Junod lays down the following directions: First, persons who are free to choose, especially those of delicate health, should reside in the western part of a city. Secondly, for the same reason, all the establishments that send forth vapors or injurious gases should be in the eastern part. Thirdly and finally, in erecting a house in the city, and even in the country, the kitchen should be on the eastern side, as well as all the out-houses from which unhealthy emanations might spread into the apartments.

M. Elie de Beaumont has since mentioned some facts which tend to prove the constancy and generality of the rule laid down by M. Junod. He noticed in most of the large cities this tendency of the wealthy class to move to the same side--generally, the western--unless hindered by certain local obstacles. Turin, Liége, and Caen are examples of this. M. Moquin-Tandon has observed the same thing at Montpellier and at Toulouse. Paris and London also present analogous facts, although the rivers which traverse those two great centres flow in a diametrically different direction. Paris increased in a north-easterly direction at the time when the Bastille, the Palais des Tournelles, the Hotel St. Paul, etc., were built; but the inhabitants were then influenced by fear of the aggressive Normans, whose fleets ascended the Seine as far as Paris, and were only arrested by the Pont-au-Change. At that time, and as long as this fear lasted, they must have felt unwilling to live in Auteuil or Grenelle, But since the foundation of the Louvre, and especially since the reign of Henri Quatre, the current has resumed its normal direction. {80} M. Elie de Beaumont is inclined to believe that, among the causes of this phenomenon, we should reckon the temperature and the hygrometrical state of the air, which is generally warmer and more moist during the winds from the west and south-west than during the east and north-east winds.

What most contributes to prolong existence is a certain uniformity in heat and cold, and in the density and rarity of the atmosphere. This is why the countries in which the barometer and thermometer are subject to sudden and considerable changes are never favorable to the duration of life. They may be healthy, and man may live a long time there; but he will never attain a very advanced age, because the variations of the atmosphere produce many interior changes which consume, to a surprising degree, both the strength and the organs of life.

Too much dryness or too much humidity are equally injurious to the duration of life; yet the air most favorable to longevity is that which contains a certain quantity of water in dissolution. Moist air being already partly saturated, absorbs less from the body, and does not consume it as soon as a dry atmosphere; it keeps the organs a longer time in a state of suppleness and vigor; while a dry atmosphere dries up the fibres and hastens the approach of old age. It is for this reason, doubtless, that islands and peninsulas have always been favorable to old age. Man lives longer there than in the same latitude upon continents. Islands and peninsulas, especially in warm climates, generally offer everything that contributes to a long life: purity of air, a moist atmosphere, a temperature often at one's choice, wholesome fruit, clear water, and a climate almost unvariable. I had an opportunity, long desired, of traversing the ocean as far the Tristan Islands, and of returning to the Indian Ocean by doubling the Cape of Good Hope with a captain who wished to observe the different islands on the way. I was thus able, in going as well as returning, to visit these numerous islands, and I can speak of them from reasonable observation. But it is sufficient to mention, from a hygienic point of view, the Isle of Bourbon, (where I lived for many years,) to give an idea of the sanitary condition of islands in general. Like most isles, the Isle of Bourbon has a form more or less pyramidal. The shore, almost on a level with the sea, is the part principally inhabited. There are few villages in the interior of the island, but many private residences. The temperature on the shore, though very high, is less intense than is supposed: the medium temperature being between 40° and 50°. The sea and land breezes, which succeed each other morning and evening, refresh the atmosphere and maintain a healthy moisture. It hardly ever rains except during the winter, Besides, it is very easy to choose the temperature one prefers. As the mountains are very lofty, they afford every season at once. On the summit are seen snow and ice, while at the foot the heat is tropical; so that it is sufficient to ascend for ten or fifteen minutes to find a marked change of temperature, And the colonists of but little wealth are careful to profit by this precious favor of nature. They select two or three habitations at different heights, in order to enjoy a continual spring, During the cool season, they reside on the sea-shore. Then they go to their dwelling a little above, where the temperature is mild. And in the hot season, they ascend to still higher regions.

It is impossible to express the pleasure of thus having several dwellings at one's choice, in some one of which desirable temperature can be enjoyed in any season. {81} I had three: one at St. Denis, capital of the colony, one at La Rivière-des-Pluies, and another at La Ressource. La Rivière-des-Pluies, belonging to M. Desbassayns, a venerable old man and president of the general council, is the finest situation on the island. It was formerly called the Versailles of Bourbon. I inhabited a summer-house above which the surrounding trees crossed their tufted branches, forming a dome of verdure in which the birds came to warble. Regular alleys, extending as far as the eye could reach, formed by superb mango-trees, were enclosed by parterres, groves, gardens, woods, and all the surroundings of a small village. Each large habitation in the colony had every resource within itself, and was the faithful copy of the old feudal castles.

La Ressource, a dwelling for the hottest season, belonging also to M. Desbassayns, presented another kind of beauty. There was less artistic luxury about it, but nature had lavished on it all her splendor. After dinner, admiring the panorama which was spread out as far as the horizon, I remarked to M. Desbassayns that I did not believe it possible for the entire world of nature to furnish a more beautiful perspective. "I have travelled a great deal," said he, "and in truth I have never seen anything like it, not even from the most magnificent points of view in America." The venerable old man then took me by the arm and invited me to visit his estate. He made me first look at his woods, with their tufted foliage; the cane-fields; the deep ravines; the streams, with their windings rising one above the other in such a manner that the lower ones were perfectly visible, and extending in successive circuits more or less varied to the shore of the sea, which gleamed like a mirror as far as the eye could reach, and upon the azure surface of which stood clearly out, like silver clouds, the white sails from all parts of the world which had given each other _rendezvous_ here, and were constantly approaching this isle of lava, flowers, shadows, and light, which they had taken as the centre of _réunion_.

He made me afterward notice the verdant fields which had formerly belonged to the parents of Virginia, the heroine of the romance of Bernardin de St. Pierre. He related to me the true history of Virginia, who was his cousin. Her death happened nearly as described by the celebrated romancer. He made me notice, upon his genealogical tree, the branch that bore upon one of its leaves the name of Virginia!

M. Desbassayns had promised me some reliable notes respecting her, and I was glad to offer them to my illustrious friend, Count Alfred de Vigny, who, in giving me a farewell embrace, had commissioned me to bear his most tender expressions of love to the region which had inspired the touching narrative of St. Pierre. But alas! remorseless death warns us to remember the uncertainty of life, even when everything disposes us to forget it.

He took me to one after another of the most interesting trees, particularly to the _arbre du voyageur_, a kind of banana, the leaves of which are inserted within one another like those of the iris, so as to form, at the height of eight or nine feet, a vast fan. Rain-water, and particularly dew, accumulates at the bottom of these leaves, as in a natural cup, and is kept very fresh; and if the base is pierced with a narrow blade, the liquid will flow out in a thread-like stream, which it is easy to receive in the mouth. The venerable old man opened one of their vegetable veins by way of example, and I soon lanced a great number of these providential trees, and refreshed myself with their limpid streams.

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Finally, he conducted me by a narrow path to the edge of a deep ravine in which flowed an abundant torrent, forming capricious cascades as it wound its way. After passing over a rustic bridge, an admirable spectacle was presented to our view. An alley was formed through a wilderness of bamboos, so sombre, so narrow, and high, that it would be difficult to give an idea of it. It was as if pierced through a forest of gigantic pipes; and when they were agitated by a storm, they produced a harmony so plaintive, so languid, and at the same time so terrible and full of poetry, that I often passed the entire night in listening to it. I am not astonished by what is related of these tall and sonorous _culms_.

In those fortunate countries that are shaded by the bamboo, it is said that happy lovers and suffering souls make holes in these long pipes and combine them in such a way that, when the wind blows, they give out a faithful expression of their joy or their grief. Nothing is sweeter than the tones that are thus produced by the evening breeze which attunes these harmonious reeds, rendering them at once aeolian harps and flutes. As soon as I found out this magical pathway, I betook myself there every day at the dawn, to read, to meditate, and to take notes till the hour of dinner. The next day after this visit, I had the curiosity to destroy one of the _arbre du voyageur_. It inundated me with its fresh stream, but I came near being punished for this profanation of nature, at the moment I expected it the least. A most formidable centipede escaped from the splinters which I made fly, and only lacked a little of falling directly on my face. M. Desbassayns was greatly astonished to see it; for it is generally believed, he said, that these venomous insects avoid this beneficent tree.

The enchanting heavens of that privileged region are always serene, and the air is so pure that no gray tint ever appears on the horizon; the mountains, hills, meadows, every remote object indeed, instead of fading away in a dim atmosphere, beam out against a sky of cloudless azure. This is what renders the equatorial nights so resplendent. The astonished eye thinks it beholds a new heavens and new stars. How charming is the moonlight that comes in showers of light through a thousand quivering leaves which murmur in the breath of the perfumed breeze! and when to that is joined the far-off moan of the sea, and the sounds that escape from the ivory keys or resounding chords, which accompany the sweet accents of a Creole voice, we feel as if in one of those islands of bliss which surpass the imagination of the poets.

One of the things that travellers have not sufficiently noticed, and which gives us a kind of homesickness for that beautiful region, is the enchanting harmony which results from the noise of the sea and the murmur of the breeze in the different kinds of foliage, a harmony which calms the agitation of the soul as well as the fever of the body. As there is every variety of temperature, so there is a great variety of trees. There is one especially remarkable, namely, the _pandanus_, which resembles both the pine and the weeping willow, Its summit is lost in the blue sky, and its numerous branches, borne by a pliant and elegant stem, support large tassels of leaves, long, cylindrical, and fine as hair; and when the breeze makes them tremble in its breath, they murmur in plaintive melancholy notes that, when once heard, we long to hear again and again.

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The cocoanut or palm-trees, with their leaves long, hard, and shining like steel, give out a sound like the clash of arms. The gigantic leaves of the banana are the echo of the voice of an overflowing torrent, piercing the air like the vast pipes of an organ. The bamboos, with their tall reeds which moan and grind as they bend, uttering long groans which, mingling with the tones, the wailing, and the murmurs of a thousand other kinds of foliage, with the deep roar of the agitated sea afar off, and the sound of the waves breaking on the shore, form an immense natural orchestra, the varied sounds of which, rising toward heaven, seem to bear with them, in accents without number, all the joys and all the griefs of the world.

These trees with their tall, slender stems, and thick foliage, are continually bending in the incessant breeze, In the brilliant light of that climate their shadow looks black; and, as it is continually moving, you would think everything animate, and that sylphs and fairies were issuing forth on all sides.

There is a constant succession of flowers with the strongest perfume; and when those of the wood are in bloom, you would think that every blade of grass, every leaf and every drop of dew gave out an essence which the wind, in passing, absorbed in order to perfume with it the happy dwellers in this Eden.

Those enchanted regions have inhabitants worthy of their abode. The hospitality of the Creoles is proverbial. Every family is glad to receive the stranger and soon considers him as a friend and brother. The Creole women have the elegance of their palm-trees. They are as fresh and blooming as the corolla that expands at the dawn. Their kind courtesy envelops you like the penetrating odors which come from the wonderful vegetation that surrounds them. A Frenchman who meets another Frenchman in these far-off countries regards him as a part of France which has come to smile an him, and the intimacy, which is formed, is indissoluble.

The traveller can never forget the touching scenes of the _varangue_, the enchanting evenings passed there, and the joyous cup of friendship there interchanged; sweet emotions contributing to longevity more than is commonly believed.

One finds one's self in that fortunate land surrounded by hygienical influences which are most favorable to a long life. Let us add that the alimentary productions are of the first quality. The water in the stony basins is limpid, and the succulent fruits are varied enough to almost suffice for the nourishment of the inhabitants. How can one be a favorite of fortune and a prey to spleen without going to visit these places, which exhale a sovereign balm?

Nevertheless, under that sky brilliant with pure light, in that atmosphere of freshness of perfume and of harmony, it seemed to me that a tint of infinite melancholy was everywhere diffused. I regarded the glorious sky, I listened to the trembling foliage, I breathed the penetrating odors, but something was everywhere wanting. When I sought what it was that I missed, I found it was the trees of my native land, which do not grow in every zone, and where they do grow are not so fine as here. I instinctively sought the wide-spreading oak, the lofty walnut, the chestnut with its tender verdure, the tall slender poplar, the modest willow, and the birch with its light shadow. I recalled the odor of their foliage, associated with my dearest remembrances, but in vain. I felt then an immense and inexpressible void that nothing could fill, and tears naturally sprang from these vague and profound impressions. {84} I hungered, I thirsted for the odor of the trees that had overshadowed my infancy--an insatiable hunger, a thirst nothing could satisfy. On returning from that remote voyage, especially during the first weeks, I went to the nursery of the Luxembourg, (alas! poor nursery!) I sought the fresh shades of the Bois de Boulogne, and there, during long rambles, I crushed the leaves in my hands and inhaled the perfume they gave out. I felt my lungs expand, as if a new life was infused into them with the odor I breathed. This invisible aliment which we derive from the exhalations of the plants to which we have been accustomed from infancy, had become for me an absolute necessity, a condition of health.

A climate, a country may not at all times be favorable to longevity, or at all times unhealthy. The predominance of one industrial pursuit over another, the choice of one material instead of another for building houses, or a sudden change in the general habits, necessarily modifies, in a great degree, the conditions of longevity. This is what has happened in the Isle of Bourbon. Till within a few years, no epidemic or contagious malady was known in that fortunate island; no fever, no cholera, no throat complaints, no small-pox, etc. But all these diseases have attacked its inhabitants since our manures, our materials for building, and our products in general, have been used by them in large quantities.

The drying up of a marsh, the cutting down of a forest, the substitution of one crop for another, may effect atmospheric changes through an extended radius, which will strengthen or weaken the vitality of the people. Some years since, there was a marsh behind the city of Cairo, which was separated from the desert by a hill. It was always noticed that the pestilential epidemics appeared to spring from that unhealthy spot and finally to spread throughout the east. The Pacha of Egypt, without thinking of this coincidence, noticed, on the other hand, that the hill behind the marsh entirely concealed the fine view which he would have from his palace, if it were removed. He gave orders to cut the hill down and to fill up the marsh with its _débris_, so that the winds which were formerly checked, had free circulation and purified the atmosphere, while the soil, thoroughly modified, ceased to emit the pestilential effluvia, Since that event the plague has not reappeared. A caprice of the Pacha effected more than all the quarantines and all the efforts of science, He has freed the world, perhaps for ever, from the most terrible of scourges.

It is known that the cholera comes from India. It is engendered in the immense triangular space formed by two rivers: the Ganges and the Brahmapootra. It is the East India Company according to M. le Comte de Waren, that should be accused of treason to humanity. It is that power which has destroyed the canals and the derivations of the two finest rivers in the world. During the last twenty-five years of English occupation the number of pools in a single district, that of _Nort Arcoth_, which burst or were destroyed, amounted to eleven hundred. In the time of the Mogul conquerors, a fine canal, the Doab, extending from Delhi, fertilized two hundred leagues in its course. This canal is destroyed, and the lands, once so fertile and healthy, are now the infectious lair of wild beasts, having been depopulated by disease and death.

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The hygienic condition of different countries, then, may be modified in various ways. In 1698, Bigot de Molville, president _à mortier_ of the Parliament of Normandy, found, after careful research, that, of all the cities of France, Rouen possessed the greatest number of octogenarians and centenarians. Toward the middle of the last century this superiority was claimed by Boulogne-sur-mer, which retained it for nearly fifty years, and was then called the _patrie des vieillards_.

In a recent communication to the Academy, M. de Garogna remarked that, in the printed or manuscript accounts we possess respecting the former eruptions of Santorin, many very interesting details are found concerning the different maladies occasioned by these eruptions, and observed at that epoch in the island, which support what we have said of the variable hygienic state of different places. According to these reports, the pathological result of the different eruptions included especially alarming complications, serious cerebral difficulties, suffocation, and derangement in the alimentary canal. He proved that morbid influences were only manifest when the direction of the wind brought the volcanic emanations. The parts of the island out of the course of the wind showed no trace of the maladies in question. Moreover, the sanitary condition of the places within reach of the wind became worse or improved according to the rise and fall of the wind. It should also be noticed that the morbid influence of the volcanic emanations extended to islands more or less remote from Santorin.

From this report the following conclusions are to be drawn:

1. The eruption in the Bay of Santorin, while in action, had a
manifest influence on the health of the people in that
island.

2. It especially occasioned complicated diseases, throat
distempers, bronchitis, and derangement of the digestive
organs.

3. The acidiferous ashes were the direct cause of the
complications, while the other morbid complaints should be
attributed to sulphuric acid.

4. Vegetation was likewise affected by the eruption while
active, and particularly plants of the order _Siliaceae_.

5. The changes in the vegetation were probably produced by
hydrochloric acid, at the beginning of the eruption.

6. The hydro-sulphuric emanations appear, on the contrary, to
have had a beneficial effect on the diseases of the grape-vine.
It perhaps destroyed the _oidium_.

It is evident that the question of local influences upon the duration of life is a most comprehensive and fruitful one. Nature gives us some formal indications, in dividing the maladies of the human race; and the study of places and climates in a hygienic point of view, although in its infancy, has already brought to our notice many valuable facts. This study is full of interest. We shall doubtless arrive at a knowledge of the exact relation between such a malady, such an epidemic, and such a place, or site, or position with respect to the points of the compass, as well as of the beneficial and special influence exercised upon our principal organs by the exhalations from different places, which might well be called the genii of those regions.

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The Bishops of Rome. [Footnote 42]

[Footnote 42: _Harper's New Monthly Magazine. The Bishops
of Rome._ New York: Harper and Brothers, January, 1869.]

_Harper's Magazine_, we are told, has a wide circulation, and some merit as a magazine of light literature; but it does not appear to have much aptitude for the scholarly discussion of serious questions, whatever the matter to which they relate, and it is guilty of great rashness in attempting to treat a subject of such grave and important relations to religion and civilization, society and the church, as the history of the bishops of Rome. The subject is not within its competence, and the historical value of its essay to those who know something of the history of the popes and of mediaeval Europe is less than null.

Of course, _Harper's Magazine_ throws no new light on any disputed passage in the history of the bishops of Rome, and brings out no fact not well known, or at least often repeated before; it does nothing more than compress within a brief magazine article the principal inventions, calumnies, and slanders vented for centuries against the Roman pontiffs by personal or national antipathy, disappointed ambition, political and partisan animosity, and heretical and sectarian wrath and bitterness, so adroitly arranged and mixed with facts and probabilities as to gain easy credence with persons predisposed to believe them, and to produce on ignorant and prejudiced readers a totally false impression. The magazine, judging from this article, has not a single qualification for studying and appreciating the history of the popes. It has no key to the meaning of the facts it encounters, and is utterly unable or indisposed to place itself at the point of view from which the truth is discernible. Its _animus_, at least in this article, is decidedly anti-Christian, and proves that it has no Christian conscience, no Christian sympathy, no faith in the supernatural, no reverence for our Lord and his apostles, and no respect even for the authority of the Holy Scriptures.

The magazine, under pretence of writing history, simply appeals to anti-Catholic prejudice, and repeats what Dr. Newman calls "the Protestant tradition." Its aim is not historical truth, or a sound historical judgment on the character of the Roman pontiffs, but to confirm the unfounded prejudices of its readers against them. It proceeds as if the presumption were that every pope is antichrist or a horribly wicked man, and therefore every doubtful fact must be interpreted against him, till he is proved innocent. Everything that has been said against a pope, no matter by whom or on what authority, is presumptively true; everything said in favor of a Roman pontiff must be presumed to be false or unworthy of consideration. It supposes the popes to have had the temper and disposition of non-Catholics, and from what it believes, perhaps very justly, a Protestant would do--if, _per impossibile_, he were elevated to the papal chair, and clothed with papal authority--concludes what the popes have actually done. It forgets the rule of logic, _Argumentum a genere ad genus, non valet_. The pope and the Protestant are not of the same genus. We have never encountered in history a single pope that did not sincerely believe in his mission from Christ, and take it seriously. {87} We have encountered weakness; too great complaisance to the civil power, even slowness in crushing out, in its very inception, an insurgent error; sometimes also too great a regard to the temporal, to the real or apparent neglect of the spiritual, and two or three instances in which the personal conduct of a pope was not much better than that of the average of secular princes; but never a pope who did not recognize the important trusts confided to his care, and the weighty responsibilities of his high office.

We have studied the history of the Roman pontiffs with probably more care and diligence than the flippant writer in _Harper's Magazine_ has done, and studied it, too, both as an anti-papist and as a papist, with an earnest desire to find facts against the popes, and with an equally earnest desire to ascertain the exact historical truth; and we reject as unworthy of the most fanatic sectarian the absurd rule of judging them which the magazine adopts, if it does not avow and hold that the presumption is the other way, and that everything that reflects injuriously on the character of a bishop of Rome is presumptively false, and to be accepted only on the most indubitable evidence. We can judge in this matter more impartially and disinterestedly than the anti-catholic. The impeccability of the pontiff, or even his infallibility in matters of mere human prudence, is no article of Catholic faith. The personal conduct of a pontiff may be objectionable; but unless he officially teaches error in doctrine, or enjoins an immoral practice on the faithful, it cannot disturb us. There are no instances in which a pope has done this. No pope has ever taught or enjoined vice for virtue, error for truth, or officially sanctioned a false principle or a false motive of action. With one exception, we might, then, concede all the magazine alleges, and ask, What then? What can you conclude? But, in fact, we concede nothing. What it alleges against the bishops of Rome is either historically false, or if not, is, when rightly understood, nothing against them in their official capacity.

The exception mentioned is that of St. Liberius. The magazine repeats, with some variations, the exploded fable that this Holy Pope, won by favors or terrified by threats, consented to a condemnation of the _doctrine_ of Athanasius, that is, signed an Arian formula of faith. It has not invented the slander, but it has, after what historical criticism has established on the subject, no right to repeat it as if it were not denied. We have no space now to treat the question at length; but we assert, after a very full investigation, that St. Liberius never signed an Arian formula, never in any shape or manner condemned the _doctrine_ defended by St. Athanasius, and consequently never recanted, for he had nothing to recant. The most, if so much, that can be maintained is, that he approved a sentence condemning the special error of the Eunomians, in which was not inserted the word "consubstantial," because it was not necessary to the condemnation of their special error, and the error they held in common with all Arians had already been condemned by the council of Nicaea. Not a word can be truly alleged against the persistent orthodoxy of this great and holy pontiff, who deserves, as he has always received, the veneration of the church.

The magazine repeats the slander of an anonymous writer, a bitter enemy of the popes, against St. Victor, St. Zethyrinus, and St. Callistus, three popes whom the Church of Rome has held, and still holds, in high esteem and veneration for their virtues and saintly character. {88} It refers to the _Philosophoumena_, a work published a few years ago by M. E. Miller, of Paris, variously attributed to Origen, to St. Hippolytus, bishop of Porto, near Rome, to Caius, a Roman Presbyter, and to Tertullian. The late Abbé Cruice--an Irishman by birth, we believe, but brought up and naturalized in France, where he was, shortly before his death, promoted to the episcopate--a profoundly learned man and an acute critic, has unanswerably proved that these are all unsustainable hypotheses, and that historical science is in no condition to say who was its author. Who wrote it, or where it was written, is absolutely unknown, but from internal evidence the writer was a contemporary of the three popes named, and was probably some Oriental schismatic, of unsound faith, and a bitter enemy of the popes. The work is not of the slightest authority against the bishops of Rome, but is of very great value as proving, by an enemy, that the papacy was fully developed--if that is the word--claiming and exercising in the universal church the same supreme authority that it claims and exercises now, and was as regular in its action in the last half of the second century, or within fifty or sixty years of the death of the apostle St. John, as it is under Pope Pius IX. now gloriously reigning. [Footnote 43]

[Footnote 43: _Vide Histoire de l'Eglise de Rome sous les
Pontificats de St. Victor, de St. Zephirin, et St.
Calliste_. Par L'Abbé M. P. Cruice. Paris: Didot Frères.
1856.]

When the magazine has nothing else to allege against the popes, it accuses them of "a fierce, ungovernable pride."

"The fourth century brought important changes in the condition
of the bishops of Rome. It is a singular trait of the corrupt
Christianity of this period that the chief characteristic of
the eminent prelates was a fierce and ungovernable pride.
Humility had long ceased to be numbered among the Christian
virtues. The four great rulers of the Church, Bishop of Rome,
and the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria,
were engaged in a constant struggle for supremacy. Even the
inferior bishops assumed a princely state, and surrounded
themselves with their sacred courts. The vices of pride and
arrogance descended to the lower orders of clergy; the emperor
himself was declared to be inferior in dignity to the simple
presbyter, and in all public entertainments and ceremonious
assemblies the proudest layman was expected to take his place
below the haughty churchman, As learning declined and the world
sank into a new barbarism, the clergy elevated themselves into
a ruling caste, and were looked upon as half divine by the rude
Goths and the degraded Romans. It is even said that the pagan
nations of the west transferred to the priest and monk the same
awestruck reverence which they had been accustomed to pay to
their Druid teachers. The Pope took the place of their Chief
Druid, and was worshipped with idolatrous devotion; the meanest
presbyter, however vicious and degraded, seemed, to the
ignorant savages, a true messenger from the skies."

There was no patriarch of Constantinople in the fourth century, and it was only in 330 that the city of Constantinople absorbed Byzantium. The bishop of Byzantium was not a patriarch, or even a metropolitan, but was a suffragan of the bishop of Heraclea. It was not till long after the fourth century that the bishop of Constantinople was recognized as patriarch, not, in fact, till the eighth general council. There was no struggle in the fourth nor in any subsequent century, for the supremacy, between Rome and Antioch, or Rome and Alexandria; neither the patriarch of Antioch nor the patriarch of Alexandria ever claimed the primacy; but both acknowledged that it belonged to the bishop of Rome, as do the schismatic churches of the East even now, though they take the liberty of disobeying their lawful superior. In the fifth Century, when St. Leo the Great was pope, the bishop of Constantinople claimed the _second_ rank, or the first _after_ the bishop of Rome, on the ground that Constantinople was the new Rome, the second capital of the empire. {89} St. Leo repulsed his claim, not in defence of his own rights, for it did not interfere with his supremacy, or primacy, as they said then, but in defence of the rights of the churches of Antioch and Alexandria. He also did it because the claim was urged on a false principle--that the authority of a bishop is derived from the civil importance of the city in which his see is established.

It is not strange that the magazine should complain that the pontifical dignity was placed above the imperial, and that the simple presbyter took the step of the proudest layman; yet whoever believes in the spiritual order at all, believes it superior to the secular order, and therefore that they who represent the spiritual are in dignity above those who represent only the secular. When the writer of this was a Protestant minister, he took, and was expected to take, precedence of the laity. The common sense of mankind gives the precedence to those held to be invested with the sacred functions of religion, or clothed with spiritual authority.

That St. Jerome, from his monastic cell near Jerusalem, inveighs against the vices and corruptions of the Roman clergy, as alleged in the paragraph following the one we have quoted, is very true; but his declamations must be taken with some grains of allowance. St. Jerome was not accustomed to measure his words when denouncing wrong, and saints generally are not. St. Peter Damian reported, after his official visit to Spain, that there was but one worthy priest in the whole kingdom, which really meant no more than that he found only one who came, in all respects, up to his lofty ideal of what a priest should be. Yet there might have been, and probably were, large numbers of others who, though not faultless, were very worthy men, and upon the whole, faithful priests. We must never take the exaggerations of saintly reformers, burning with zeal for the faith and the salvation of souls, as literal historical facts. St. Jerome, in his ardent love of the church and his high ideal of sacerdotal purity, vigilance, fidelity, and zeal, no doubt exaggerated.

There can be nothing more offensive to every right and honorable feeling than the exultation of the magazine over the abuse, cruelties, and outrages inflicted on a bishop of Rome by civil tyrants. The writer, had he lived under the persecuting pagan emperors, would have joined his voice to that of those who exclaimed, _Christianos ad leones;_ or had he been present when our Lord was arrested and brought as a malefactor before Pontius Pilate, none louder than he would have cried out, _Crucifige eum! crucifige eum!_ His sympathies are uniformly with the oppressor, never, as we can discover, with the oppressed; with the tyrant, never with his innocent victim, especially if that victim be a bishop of Rome. He feels only gratification in recording the wrongs and sufferings of Pope St. Silverus. This pope was raised to the papacy by the tyranny of the Arian king Theodotus, and ordained by force, without the necessary subscription of the clergy. But after his consecration, the clergy, by their subscription, healed the irregularity of his election, as Anastasius the Librarian tells us, so as to preserve the unity of the church and religion. He appears to have been a holy man and a worthy pope; but he was not acceptable to Vigilius, who expected, by favor of the imperial court, to be made pope himself, nor to those two profligate women, the Empress Theodora and her friend Antonina, the wife of the patrician Belisarius. {90} Vigilius and these two infamous women compelled Belisarius to depose him, strip him of his pontifical robes, clothe him with the habit of a monk, and send him into exile; where, as some say, he was assassinated, and, as others say, perished of hunger. The magazine relates this to show how low and unworthy the bishops of Rome had become! Vigilius succeeded St. Silverus, and it continues:

"Stained with crime, a false witness and a murderer, Vigilius
had obtained his holy office through the power of two
profligate women who now ruled the Roman world. Theodora, the
dissolute wife of Justinian, and Antonina, her devoted servant,
assumed to determine the faith and the destinies of the
Christian Church. Vigilius failed to satisfy the exacting
demands of his casuistical mistresses; he even ventured to
differ from them upon some obscure points of doctrine. His
punishment soon followed, and the bishop of Rome is said to
have been dragged through the streets of Constantinople with a
rope around his neck, to have been imprisoned in a common
dungeon and fed on bread and water. The papal chair, filled by
such unworthy occupants, must have sunk low in the popular
esteem, had not Gregory the Great, toward the close of sixth
century, revived the dignity of the office."

We know of nothing that can be said in defence of the conduct of Vigilius prior to his accession to the papal throne. His intrigues with Theodora to be made pope, and his promises to her to restore, when he should be pope, Anthemus, deposed from the see of Constantinople by St. Agapitus for heresy, and to set aside the council of Chalcedon, were most scandalous; and his treatment of St. Silverus, whether he actually exiled him and had a hand in his death or not, admits, as far as we are informed, of no palliation; but his conduct thus far was not the conduct of the pope; and after he became bishop of Rome, at least after the death of his deposed predecessor, his conduct was, upon the whole, irreproachable. He conceded much for the sake of peace, and was much blamed; but he conceded nothing of the faith; he refused to fulfill the improper promises he had made, before becoming pope, to the empress, confessed that he had made them, said he was wrong in making them, retracted them, and resisted with rare firmness and persistence the emperor Justinian in the matter of the three chapters, and fully expiated the offences committed prior to his elevation, by enduring for seven long years the brutal outrages an indignities offered him by the half-savage Justinian, the imperial courtiers, and intriguing and unscrupulous prelates of the court party--outrages and sufferings of which he died after his liberation on his journey back from Constantinople to Rome.

We have touched on these details for the purpose of showing that the principal offenders in the transactions related were not the bishops of Rome, but the civil authorities and their adherents, that deprived the Roman clergy and the popes of their proper freedom. If the papal chair was filled with unworthy occupants, and had sunk low in the public esteem, it was because the emperor or empress at Constantinople and the Arian and barbarian kings in Italy sought to raise to it creatures of their own. They deprived the Roman clergy, the senate, and people of the free exercise of their right to elect the pope; and the pope, after his election, of his freedom of action, if he refused to conform to their wishes, usually criminal, and always base. Yet _Harper's Magazine_ lays all the blame to the popes themselves, and seems to hold them responsible for the crimes and tyranny, the profligacy and lawless will of which they were the victims. If the wolf devoured the lamb, was it not the lamb's fault?

{91}

St. Gregory the Great was of a wealthy and illustrious family, and therefore finds some favor with the magazine; yet it calls him "a half-maddened enthusiast," and accuses him of "unsparing severity," and "excessive cruelty" in the treatment of his monks before his elevation to the papal chair. But his complaisance to the usurper Phocas, which we find it hard to excuse, and especially his disclaiming the title of "Universal Bishop," redeem him in its estimation.

"A faint trace of modesty and humility still characterized the
Roman bishops, and they expressly disclaimed any right to the
supremacy of the Christian world. The patriarch of
Constantinople, who seems to have looked with a polished
contempt upon his western brother, the tenant of fallen Rome
and the bishop of the barbarians, now declared himself the
Universal Bishop and the head of the subject Church. But
Gregory repelled his usurpation with vigor. Whoever calls
himself Universal Bishop is Antichrist,' he exclaimed; and he
compares the patriarch to Satan, who in his pride had aspired
to be higher than the angels."

John Jejunator, bishop of Constantinople, did not claim the primacy, which belonged to the bishop of Rome, nor did Gregory disclaim it; but called himself "oecumenical patriarch." The title he assumed derogated not from the rights and privileges of the apostolic see, but from those of the sees of Antioch and Alexandria. It was unauthorized, and showed culpable ambition and an encroaching disposition. St. Gregory, therefore, rebuked the bishop of Constantinople, and alleged the example of his predecessor, St. Leo the Great, who refused the title of "oecumenical bishop" when it was offered him by the Fathers of Chalcedon. It is a title never assumed or borne by a bishop of Rome, who, in his capacity as bishop, is the equal, and only the equal, of his brother bishops. All bishops are equal, as St. John Chrysostom tells us. The authority which the pope exercises over the bishops of the Catholic Church is not the episcopal, but the apostolical authority which he inherits from Peter, the prince of the apostles. St. Gregory disclaimed and condemned the title of "universal bishop," which was appropriate neither to him nor to any other bishop; but he did not disclaim the apostolic authority held as the successor of Peter. He actually claimed and exercised it in the very letter in which he rebukes the bishop of Constantinople. The magazine is wholly mistaken in asserting that Gregory disclaimed the papal supremacy. He did no such thing; he both claimed and exercised it, and few popes have exercised it more extensively or more vigorously.

The magazine is also mistaken in asserting that St. Leo III. crowned Charlemagne "Emperor of the West." Charlemagne was already hereditary patrician of Rome, and bound by his office to maintain order in the city and territories of Rome, and to defend the Holy See, or the Roman Church, against its enemies. All the pope did was to raise the patrician to the imperial dignity, without any territorial title. Charles never assumed or bore the title of Emperor of the West. His official title was "Rex Francorum et Longobardorum Imperator." The title of "Emperor of the West," or "Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire," which his German successors assumed, was never conferred by the pope, but only acquiesced in after it had been usurped. The pope conferred on Charlemagne no authority out of the papal states.

We have no space to discuss the origin of the temporal sovereignty of the bishops of Rome, nor the ground of that arbitratorship which the popes, during several ages, unquestionably exercised with regard to the sovereign princes bound by their profession and the constitution of their states to profess and protect the Catholic religion. {92} We have already done the latter in an article on _Church and State_ in our magazine for April, 1867. But we can tell _Harper's Magazine_ that it entirely misapprehends the character of St. Gregory VII., and the nature and motive of the struggle between him and Henry III., or Henry IV., as some reckon, king of the Germans, for emperor he never was. Gregory was no innovator; he introduced, and attempted to introduce, no change in the doctrine or discipline of the church, nor in the relations of church and state. He only sought to correct abuses, to restore the ancient discipline which had, through various causes, become relaxed, and to assert and maintain the freedom and independence of the church in the government of her own spiritual subjects in all matters spiritual.

"His elevation was the signal for the most wonderful change in
the character and purposes of the church. The pope aspired to
rule mankind. He claimed an absolute power over the conduct of
kings, priests, and nations, and he enforced his decrees by the
terrible weapons of anathema and excommunication. He denounced
the marriages of the clergy as impious, and at once there arose
all over Europe a fearful struggle between the ties of natural
affection and the iron will of Gregory. Heretofore the secular
priests and bishops had married, raised families, and lived
blamelessly as husbands or fathers, in the enjoyment of marital
and filial love. But suddenly all this was changed. The married
priests were declared polluted and degraded, and were branded
with ignominy and shame. Wives were torn from their devoted
husbands, children were declared bastards, and the ruthless
monk, in the face of the fiercest opposition, made celibacy the
rule of the church. The most painful consequences followed. The
wretched women, thus degraded and accursed, were often driven
to suicide in their despair. Some threw themselves into the
flames; others were found dead in there beds, the victims of
grief or of their own resolution not to survive their shame,
while the monkish chroniclers exult over their misfortunes, and
triumphantly consign them to eternal woe.

"Thus the clergy under Gregory's guidance became a monastic
order, wholly separated from all temporal interests; and bound
in a perfect obedience to the church. He next forebade all lay
investitures or appointments to bishoprics or other clerical
offices, and declared himself the supreme ruler of the
ecclesiastical affairs of nations. No temporal sovereign could
fill the great European sees, or claim any dominion over the
extensive territories held by eminent churchmen in right of
their spiritual power. It was against this claim that the
Emperor of Germany, Henry IV., rebelled. The great bishoprics
of his empire, Cologne, Bremen, Treves, and many others, were
his most important feudatories, and should he suffer the
imperious pope to govern them at will, his own dominion would
be reduced to a shadow. And now began the famous contest
between Hildebrand and Henry, between the carpenter's son and
the successor of Charlemagne, between the Emperor of Germany
and the Head of the Church."

This heart-rending picture is, to a great extent, a fancy piece. The celibacy of the clergy was the law of the church and of the German empire; and every priest knew it before taking orders. These pretended marriages were, in both the ecclesiastical courts and the civil courts, no marriages at all; and these dispairing wives of priests were simply concubines. What did Gregory do, but his best to enforce the law which the emperors had suffered to fall into desuetude? The right of investiture was always in the pope, and it was only by his authority that the emperors had ever exercised it. {93} The pope had authorized them to give investiture of bishops at a time of disorder, and when it was for the good of the church that they should be so authorized. But when they abused the trust, and used it only to fill the sees with creatures of their own, or sold the investiture for money to the unworthy and the profligate, and intruded them into sees, in violation of the canons, and sheltered them from the discipline of the church--causing, thus, gross corruption of morals and manners, the neglect of religious instruction, and dangers to souls--it was the right and the duty of the pontiff to revoke the authorization given, to dismiss his unworthy agents, and to forbid the emperors henceforth to give investiture.