Chapter XI (1)

The letter was sent, and in the course of the forenoon the _tabellarius_, or letter-carrier of the inn, returned from Formiæ. Crispina brought him to Paulus, who was in an avenue of the garden watching some players as they contested a game of quoits or _discus_. This avenue connected the garden proper with the open country westward, terminating in a cross-hedge of myrtle, through which a little wicket or trellis gate opened. "The man has brought no letter back," the hostess said, signing at the same time to the messenger to deliver the particulars of his errand.

He had found the tribune, he said, and had given him the letter and asked for an answer. The tribune was at the moment inspecting a body of troops. He read the note, however, and immediately took out of his belt both his _stylus_ and _pugillaria_, or hand-tablets; when the prætorian prefect Sejanus, happening to pass, entered into conversation with him, and the messenger then saw Velleius Paterculus hand to Sejanus Paulus's letter. After reading it, the general gave it back, said something in Greek, and went away. The tribune thereupon told the bearer that he would send an answer during the day by a messenger of his own. Paulus thanked the man, who then withdrew.

Our hero, who had prepared his fishing-tackle, a portion of which he had in his hand, remarked that it was vexatious to lose so fine and favorable a day. "Moreover, why should I be a prisoner?" he suddenly exclaimed. "I have a triple right to my personal liberty, as Roman citizen, knight, and noble. And what have I done to forfeit it? What have I done except parry the blow of an assassin whom I neither injured nor provoked?"

"Hush!" murmured Crispina; and just then Cneius Piso, having a bandage round his head, and leaning on the arm of Plancina, was seen passing into the inn before them from another part of the garden.

The landlady stood still a moment, till the two figures had disappeared, when she said, with a slight motion of the thumb in the direction of Piso, "He reports himself quite well now except for a headache. He and his lady leave us in an hour for Rome, and I hope I may say both _vale_ and _salve_. You ask what you have done. Have you not come to Italy to claim rights which are indisputable?"

"Is that reason?"

"It is a thousand reasons, and another thousand, too. Alas! do not deceive yourself, as your namesake and cousin did, about the character of the world."

At the door of the inn they separated, she to attend to the multifarious business of her household, and he to loiter purposelessly. After a little reflection, he went quite through the house by the _impluvium_, and the central corridor beyond it, and looked into the public room, or _atrium_. At one table a couple of centurions sat playing dice with the _tesseræ_, and shouting the names of half a dozen gods and goddesses, as their luck fluctuated. At another table a powerfully built, dark, middle-aged man, having a long, ruddy beard streaked with gray, upon whom Asiatic slaves waited, was taking a traveller's repast; his slaves helping him to costly wine, which he drank with a grimace of dissatisfaction, but in formidable quantities. Other groups were dotted round the large apartment. In order not to draw needless notice, for all eyes turned to him for a moment, except those of the two dice-throwing and bellowing centurions, Paulus seated himself behind an unoccupied table near the door. While idly watching the scenes around him, he thought he heard his name pronounced in the passage outside. He listened, but the noise in the room made him uncertain, and the voice outside was already less audible, as of one who had passed the door while speaking.

Presently he heard, in a much louder tone, the words, "Why, it is not our carriage, after all. Let us return and wait where we can sit down." And the speaker again passed the public room, coming back, apparently, from the porch.

Paulus happened to be sitting close to the door, which was open; a curtain, as was common, hanging over the entrance. This time, in spite of the noise in the dieta, a word or two, and a name, though not his own, struck him. He fancied some one said, "No harm to her; but still, not the brother--the sister, my trusty Claudius."

Where had Paulus heard those tones before? In itself, what he had overheard was a sufficiently harmless fragment of a sentence. Nevertheless, Paulus rose, left his table, lifted aside the door-curtain, and went into the corridor, where he saw Cneius Piso and Plancina, with their backs to him, walking toward the end of the passage opposite the porch, but he nearly stumbled against a young man going the other way. This person, who was good-looking, in both senses of the word, wore the sober-colored _exomis_, or tunic, the long hair, and the slippers of a slave. He had in his right hand a stylus; in his left, tablets of citron-wood, open and covered with blue wax, on which he was reading, with his head bent, some note which he had made there.

"It is my fault, noble sir," said he; "I was stooping over these and did not observe you; I beg you to pardon my awkwardness." And he bowed with an air of humility.

"It is I, rather, who am to blame," said Paulus, scanning steadily the features of the slave, who had made his apology with a look of alarm, and in exaggerated accents of deprecation.

Shortly after this incident, while Paulus, who had not returned to the _atrium_, was leaning dreamily over the balustrade of the inn's central court, and watching the fountain in the impluvium there, he was struck heavily on the shoulder from behind by an open hand. Turning round slowly, he beheld a man in the very prime of life, who was entirely a stranger to him.

"I was told I should find you here, excellent sir," said the stranger.

Paulus took in, at a glance, his dress and general appearance. He had a thick brown beard, neatly trimmed, and open, daring, large blue eyes, in which there was nothing whatever sullen or morose; yet a sort of wildness and fierceness, with a slight but constant gleam of vigilance, if not subtlety. On the whole, his face was handsome; it was conspicuously manful, and, perhaps, somewhat obdurate and pitiless.

His stature was good without being very lofty. He had broad shoulders, rather long, sinewy arms, a deep chest, and, altogether, a figure and person not lacking any token of agility, but more indicative of huge strength.

He wore sandals, the laces of which crossed each other up his mighty legs, which were otherwise bare, and a white woollen _diphera_ covered his shoulders, and was belted round his waist.

"And who told you that you would find me here?" asked Paulus; "for a few minutes ago I did not know I should find myself here."

"There goes the youth who told me," answered the other pointing, and at the same moment Paulus saw the slave, against whom he had walked in the passage, cross on tiptoe an angle of the court-yard, and vanish through a door on the opposite side.

"Claudius," continued the stranger, "is an acquaintance of mine, and chancing to meet him as I entered the hostelry, I asked for you."

"And pray who are you, and what do you want with me?" asked Paulus, after the slave, who must, he now felt sure, be the Claudius to whom Benigna was betrothed, had disappeared.

"Who am I?" returned the stranger; "a good many people know my name, and my person, too. But that matters not for the present. Your second question is more immediately important. 'What do I want with you?' To deliver to you a letter; nothing more. Understanding that I meant to stroll out in this direction, the distinguished tribune, Velleius Paterculus, requested me to hand you this."

And he produced from a fold in the breast of his white woollen tunic a letter, having a written address on one side, and a thread round its four ends, which thread was knotted on the side opposite to that bearing the superscription. The knot was secured by a waxen seal, upon which the scholarly writer had, in imitation of the deceased minister Mæcenas, impressed the engraving of a frog.

Paulus opened it and read what follows:

"To the noble Paulus Æmilius Lepidus, the younger, Velleius Paterculus sends greeting:

"Go where you like, amuse yourself as you like, do as you like--fish, ride, walk, read, play, sing--provided you sleep each night at the Post House of the Hundredth Milestone, under the excellent Crispina's roof. Be careful of your health and welfare."

"So far so good," said Paulus; "I am a prisoner, indeed, but with a tolerable long tether, at least. I am much obliged to you for bringing me the letter."

"Imprisonment!" observed the other. "I have heard a knot of centurions, and also soldiers unnumbered, talk of your imprisonment, and of the blow with which it seems to be connected. You are a favorite, without knowing it, among the troops at Formiæ. One fierce fellow swore, by quite a crowd of gods, that your blow deserved to have freed a slave, instead of enslaving a knight; that is, to have freed you had you been a slave, instead of enslaving you, who are already a knight."

"I feel grateful to the soldiers," said Paulus. "You are doubtless an officer--a centurion, perhaps?"

"Well, they do speak freely," replied the stranger, "and so do I; therefore you have made a fair guess; but you are wrong."

"Ah! well," said Paulus; "thanks for your trouble, and farewell. I must go."

"One word," persisted the other. "I am a famous man, though you do not seem to know it. The conqueror in thirty-nine single combats at Rome, all of them mortal, and all against the best gladiators that ever fought in circus or in forum, stands before you. At present I am no longer obliged to fight in person. I keep the most invincible _familia_ of gladiators that Rome has hitherto known. You are aware of the change of morals and fashions; you are aware that even a senator has been seen in the arena. Some day an emperor will descend into our lists." (This, as the reader knows, really happened in the course of time.) "Join my family, my school; I am Thellus, the lanista."

"What!" cried Paulus, his nostrils dilated, and his eyes flashing. "In Greece, where I have been bred, gladiatorial shows are not so much as allowed by law, even though the gladiators should be all slaves; and because some senator has forgotten the respect due to the senate and to himself, and has no sense either of decency or humanity, you dare to propose to me, the nephew of a triumvir, the son of an honorable and a famous soldier--to me, the last of the Æmilians, to descend as a gladiator into the arena, and to join your school, _mehercle!_ of uneducated, base-born, and mercenary cut-throats!"

The lanista was so astounded by this unexpected burst of lofty indignation, and felt himself thrust morally to such a sudden distance from the stripling, at least in the appearance of things, that he uttered not one word for several instants. He glared in speechless fury at the speaker, and when at length he found voice and ideas he said,

"Do you know that I could take you in these unarmed hands, and tear you limb from limb where you stand, as you would rend a chicken--do you know that?"

"I do not," said Paulus, in slow and significant accents, facing round at the same time upon the lanista with deliberate steadiness, and looking him fixedly in the face; "but if you even could, it would suit my humor better to be murdered where I am by a gladiator than to be one."

"By the Capitoline Jove!" cried Thellus, after another rather long, doubtful pause, laughing vehemently, "when I place your skill of fence, about which I have heard a particular account, by the side of your high spirit, you really do make my mouth water to number you among my pupils. I have not a man in my _familia_ whom you would not, when a little addition to your years shall have perfected your bodily vigor, stretch upon the sand in ten minutes. But what mean you, after all? You do not wish to hurt my feelings, because I make you a friendly offer in the best shape that my unlucky destiny and state of life afford me the means of doing? Do you, then, so utterly despise the gladiator? Have you reflected on it so deeply? Who, nevertheless, displays in a greater degree many of the severest and highest virtues? Do you despise the man who despises life itself, when compared with honor in the only form in which honor is for him accessible? Answer that. Do you despise abstemiousness, fortitude, self-control, self-sacrifice, chastity, courage, endurance? Answer that. Who is more dauntless in the combat, more sublimely unruffled when defeated, more invincibly silent under the agony of a violent death, accompanied by the hootings of pitiless derision, and _whose_ derision, whose mockery, is the last sound in his ears? _Let that pass._

"But who pays a dearer price for the applause of his fellow-men when it is his? Who serves them more desperately in the way in which they desire to be, and will needs be, served? Who gives them the safe and cruel pleasures they demand more ungrudgingly, or under such awful conditions? Who comes forward to be mangled and destroyed with a more smiling face, or a more indifferent mien? Who spurns ease, and sloth, and pleasure, and pain, and the sweet things of life, and the bitter things of death, in order to show what manhood can dare and what manfulness can do, and in order to be thoroughly the man to the last, with the same constant and unconquerable mind, as the very gladiator whom you thus insult? Women can often show _heroism_ in pain while shrinking from danger; and, on the other hand, amidst the general excitement and the contagious enthusiasm of an army in battle, to fight pretty well, and then to howl without restraint in the surgeon's hands, is the property of nearly all men. Some who face danger badly endure anguish well; and many, again, who cannot support pain will confront danger. But if you wish to name him who does both in perfection, and who practises that perfection habitually, you will name the gladiator. Nor is it pain of body alone, nor loss of life alone, which his calling trains him to undergo with alacrity. Are you sure that our motives are simply and solely that grovelling lust of gain which you imply? _Mercenary_ you dare to term us? Mercenary! The gambler is mercenary. Is the gladiator like your high-born voluntary gambler? Is the gladiator deaf to praise? Indifferent to admiration? Reckless of your sympathy? Is he without other men's human ties and affections, as the gambler is? Has the gladiator no parents whom he feeds with that blood which flows from his gashes? No wife whom he is all the time protecting with that lacerated and fearless breast? No children whom his toils, efforts, and sufferings are keeping out of degradation, out of want, and out of that very arena which he treads with a spirit that nothing can subdue, in order that those whom he loves may never enter it?"

While Thellus thus thundered with increasing and increasing vehemence, the clear-faced youth whom he addressed, and who had confronted his words of menace without any emotion except that of instinctive and settled defiance, was and appeared to be quite overwhelmed. Had Paulus been struck bodily, he could not have felt any thing like the pain he suffered. The words of the gladiator smote the lad full to the heart, like stones shot from a catapult.

Thellus gazed thoughtfully at him during the pause which ensued, and then resumed by exclaiming,

"Mercenary! that is, he takes pay. Does the author take pay? answer that. Do the lawyer and soldier take pay? Does the magistrate take pay? Does, or does not, the emperor take pay? Does the vestal virgin herself take pay? If the gladiator did, and suffered, and was all he does, all he suffers, all he is, in mere sport, and at his own personal expense, I suppose you would respect him. But I, Thellus--I, the gladiator--I, the lanista--would scorn him, and spurn him, and spit upon him. Blame the community who go to these sports, and sit in shameless safety; blame the hundreds of thousands who succeed other hundreds of thousands to applaud us when we kill our beloved comrades, and, at the same time, to howl and hoot over those same brave friends whom we kill; blame those who, having cheered us when we slew our faithful companions, yell at us in our own turn when we are slain; blame men for taking us when we are little children, and rearing us expressly to be fit for nothing else; blame men for taking the little ones of captured warriors who have in vain defended their native lands against the discipline and skill of Rome; blame men for mingling these poor infants in one college with the foundlings and the slaves to whom law and positive necessity bequeath but one lot in this life; blame those who thus provide for the deadly arena. Blame your customs, blame your laws, blame your tyrannous institutions, against which the simplicity and trustfulness of boyish years can neither physically nor mentally struggle; blame, above all, your fine dames, more degraded--ay, far more degraded and more abased than the famishing prostitutes who must perish of starvation, or be what they are; blame your fine dames, I say, who when, like the august Julia, they import the thick silks of India, are not satisfied till they pick them _thin_ and transparent before wearing them, lest their garments should conceal their shame; and thus attired, pampered with delicacies, gorged with food, heated with wine, surfeited with every luxury, reeking and horrible, know not what else to do to beguile the languid intervals of systematic wickedness, than to come to the arena and indulge in sweet emotions over the valiant and virtuous fathers of homes and hopes of families, who perish there in torture and in ignominy for their pleasure."

"O God!" cried young Paulus.

"Well may you," cried Thellus, "be filled with horror. Ah! then, when will a god descend from heaven, and give us a new world? I have one child in my home, a sweet, peaceful, natural-hearted, conscience-governed, loving little daughter. Her mother has gone away from me for ever to some world beyond death where more justice and more mercy prevail. The day when I lost her I had to fight in the arena. _Eheu!_ She was anxious for me, she could not control her suspense; she saw the execrable Tiberius. Bah! do you think I'm afraid to speak? Of what should I be afraid? Thellus has been at the funeral of fear; yes, this many a day," continued Thellus, raising his voice; "she came to the Statilian amphitheatre against my express command; she saw the execrable Tiberius, contrary to every custom, after I had been victor in four fatal encounters, when I was worn out with fatigue, order me to meet a fresh antagonist; and looking up among the hundred thousand spectators, I beheld the sweet, loving face. I beheld the clasped and convulsive fingers. But, lo, who came forth to fight against me? Whom had the accursed man provided as my next antagonist? Her only brother, poor Statius, whom Tiberius knew to be a gladiator, and whom he had thus selected for the more refined excitement of the spectators to fight against Thellus; but, above all, for his own more refined enjoyment, for the monster had tried and found my poor Alba incorruptible; and this was his revenge against a wretched gladiator and his faithful wife. Statius was no match for me; I tried to disarm him; after a while I succeeded, wounding him at the same time slightly. He fell, and his blood colored the sand. I looked to the people; they looked to Tiberius, waiting for the sign of mercy or execution. I was resolved in any case not to be the slayer of Statius.

"The prince turned up his thumb, to intimate that I was to kill my wounded opponent. The amphitheatre then rang with a woman's scream, and the people, with one impulse, turned _down_ their hands. I bore Statius in my own arms out of the arena; but when I reached home, I found my wife was near childbirth, delirious, and raving _against me_ as the murderer of her brother. She died so, in my arms and in her brother's. She left me my poor little Prudentia, who is dearer to me than all this globe."

After taking breath, he added, quoting Paulus's words,

"But we are a gang of base-born, uneducated, and mercenary cut-throats."

"Oh! forgive, forgive, forgive my words," exclaimed Paulus, stretching out both hands toward the gladiator.

Thellus took those hands and said,

"Why, I love you, lad. I love you like a son. I am not high-born enough to be father to the like of you; but it is not forbidden me to love a noble youth who hates baseness and is ignorant of fear. I'll tell you more; but first answer me--are you of opinion, from what has passed between us, that Thellus is an uneducated man?"

"I am afraid that you are better educated than I am."

"In any case," replied Thellus, "I am ready to confess that the qualities and virtues exercised by gladiators are exercised for a wrong purpose, and in a wrong way. But tell me, why is bread made? You will not say because bakers bake it. That would be a girl's answer; it would be saying that a thing is because it is, or is made because it is made. Why is it made? Because it is wanted. Would bakers bake it if nobody ate it? If nobody wanted to live in a house, would masons build any? or would there even be any masons? You could not, I grant, have music if there were no musicians, if none wanted music. It is the gladiator, unquestionably, who does the fighting in the arena; but if none wanted the fighting, you would have no gladiators. I have told you how we are trepanned in helpless infancy; and not only reared, prepared, and fitted for this calling, but hopelessly unfitted for every other. We supply the spectacle--but who desires the spectacle? It is not we; we are the only sufferers by it; we detest it. But whatever in so dreadful and wicked a pastime can be noble, courageous, unselfish, heroic, we the same, we the victims, give and exhibit; and all the selfishness of it, all that is cowardly in it, all that is cruel, base, despicable, execrable, and accursed, sits on the benches, and applauds or yells in the wedges;[61] this you, _you_, who go thither, and bring thither us, your victims, this you produce, this is your contribution to it. Ours is honor, valor, skill, and dauntless death; yours, inhumanity, cowardice, baseness, luxurious ease, and a safe, lazy, and besotted life."

"It is true," said Paulus. "Hideous are the pleasures, detestable the glories of this gigantic empire; but _unless, as you say, a God himself were to come down from heaven_, how will it ever be reformed?"

"How, indeed?" answered Thellus.

Little did they dream who a certain Child in Syria was, who had then entered his eleventh year!

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[60] Greek, we may observe, was to the Romans of that age about as familiar as, and far more necessary than, French is to us. It was the vehicle of all philosophy, and the condition of all higher education. The fashionable Romans used Greek phrases in conversation through vanity.

[61] Juvenal, vi. 61.

THE POPE AND THE COUNCIL, BY JANUS.

Since the apostolic bull convoking the General Council of the Vatican, now in session, has been issued by Pius IX., an immense literary activity has manifested itself in most countries about the great and important questions which are supposed to claim the attention of that august assembly of the Catholic Church. Not only Catholic, but also Protestant reviews have engaged in various ways in the discussion of matters relating to the council. Very numerous, indeed, are the pamphlets--nay, books and volumes of greater import--that have been published within the last ten months in Italy, Belgium, France, England, and Germany. It is particularly in this latter country that publications concerning more or less the present council have been most numerous, and prominent reviews have given able and elaborate notices of most of them. Several publications, of this character have been rendered accessible to Italian, French, and English readers, thus exhibiting the importance attached to them outside of Germany.

It is our present purpose to enter upon a closer examination of a work which we have already briefly noticed in a former number, we mean the book, _The Pope and the Council, by Janus_, of which an authorized translation appeared both in England and in this country.

We adduce this fact as a very peculiar one, which will cause still greater surprise to the reader when he is informed that an authorized French translation appeared but a short time after the original itself.

The reader has already been told what he is to think of the orthodoxy of _Janus_, when his doctrines are judged by the criterion established by the church. But let us state here at once that we have a right to apply the Catholic test to the doctrine set forth by _Janus_. For they, namely, the authors (p. 14,) expressly profess to be in communion with the Catholic Church, though "inwardly separated by a great gulf from those whose ideal of the church is an universal empire." The translator, too, presents _Janus_ as "a work of _Catholic authorship_," and declares "_the authors members of a school, morally if not numerically strong, who yield to none in their loyal devotion to Catholic truth_!"

In view of such declarations, we may proceed to inquire, What is the aim of _Janus_? The authors can best answer this question; for, in their opinion, since the forgery of the Isidorian Decretals, about the year 845, the primacy has been distorted and transformed.

"The papacy, such as it has become, presents the appearance
of a disfiguring, sickly, and choking excrescence on the
organization of the church, hindering and decomposing the
action of its vital powers, and bringing manifold diseases in
its train."

Moreover, _Janus_ boldly asserts _à priori_ that the approaching council will not enjoy that freedom of deliberation necessary to make it truly œcumenical.

"The recently proclaimed council is to be held not only in
Italy, but in Rome itself; and already it has been announced
that, as the sixth Lateran Council, it will adhere faithfully
to the fifth. That is quite enough; it means this: that
whatever course the synod may take, one quality can never
be predicated of it, namely, that it has been a really free
council." (Pp. 345, 346.)

These extracts would be quite sufficient to show the aim of _Janus_, and his view of the "pope and the council." How such harsh and preposterous language may be reconciled with _loyal devotion to Catholic truth_, and that _commendable piety_ which the authors of _Janus_ profess, we ask candid and impartial readers to decide.

_Janus_ considers it to be true piety "to expose the weak points of the papacy, denounce its faults, and purposely exhibit their mischievous results;" appealing to a saying of St. Bernard, _Melius est ut scandalum oriatur, quam ut veritas relinquatur_. It is this intense love of truth which prompts _Janus_ "to oppose, frankly and decisively, every disfigurement" (p. 20) which the church has undergone for nearly a thousand years. "_To ward off so fatal a catastrophe_," with which the church is now threatened by the council, the authors have attempted in this work to contribute to the awakening and direction of public opinion, (p. 27,) and have entered this "protest, based on history," and appeal to the "thinkers among believing Christians," and are modest enough to hope that their "labors will attract attention in scientific circles, and serve as a contribution to ecclesiastical history." (Preface.)

We cannot, therefore, be surprised that a work with such a _scientific_ programme should have caused some sensation, even among Catholic theologians, many of whom were not slow to unmask the _historical representations_, and "direct reference to original authorities," of which _Janus_ makes such great parade. That _Janus_ was hailed with great delight, not only abroad but also in this country, by an anti-Catholic press, and nearly all reviews or periodicals, cannot be a matter of wonder, when we know that such allies as _Janus_ within our own pale are welcome to the enemies of the church.

In England, _Janus_ was heralded by a grand preliminary and concomitant flourish of trumpets. Every thing was done by a certain very small but very zealous clique to give this book as great a publicity as possible.[62] The _North British Review_, the _Saturday Review_, and the _Academy_, have joined in one chorus of eulogy, exulting over the victory which they think _Janus_ has achieved. Among the many admirers of _Janus_ in our country, suffice it to say that one writer has been so fascinated by this "_work, so entirely made up of facts_," that he triumphantly exclaims, "No one can help feeling convinced of its veracity." Nay, more than this, the same reviewer pays a compliment to _Janus_ which, considering the source it comes from, involves a strange contradiction. It runs thus,

"The author (_Janus_) shows himself throughout a _thorough_
Catholic, but an _earnest_ and liberal Christian, a learned
canonist, a faithful and discriminating historian."

Without further comments, we propose to meet _Janus_ and his admirers upon equal grounds, since it is their earnest wish

"that the reader's attention should be exclusively concentrated
on the matter itself, and that, in the event of its evoking
controversy, no opportunity should be given for transferring
the dispute from the sphere of objective and scientific
investigation of the weighty questions under review." (P. 28.)

We have no reason to dread _that facts and "original authorities" must and can speak for themselves_, and we too shall hope to see where the saying of Pope Innocent III. is verified, "_Falsitas sub velamine sanctitatis tolerari non debet_."

In presence of such a vast amount of matter as _Janus_ gives to his readers, and we might say _en passant_ with such little semblance of order and system, it becomes necessary to confine our examination to three leading points: 1. To the manner in which the investigation is conducted, or the scientific character of the work; 2. To the orthodoxy which the authors profess; 3. To the historical and critical parts of the book.

1. As is correctly stated in the "Translator's Notice," the substance of the volume already appeared in a series of articles in the _Allgemeine Zeitung_, or Gazette of Augsburg, in March, 1869, under the heading of "The Council and the _Civilta_." In these articles, "historical facts" were brought forward, which called forth prompt and sharp answers from the Catholic reviews of Germany, where several falsehoods were exposed and denounced as gross misrepresentations. When these articles were issued in their present form, the authors of _Janus_ took no notice of the exposure, but quietly dropped from their book these three mendacious statements. Not a word of apology or retractation was offered. An able theologian[63] has pointed out these tactics of _Janus_; but, to our knowledge, no reply was given.

"Our _Janus_," says the same critic, "may feel quite at ease;
he will not be brought to the stake either for his historical
criticism, or even for his heresies; but he has branded himself
as a forger by the very act of spiriting away these lies, only
to come forward with a look of perfect innocence and palm off
upon the world others more numerous."

Indeed, the new name of _Janus_, assumed by the authors, has also a figurative meaning, inasmuch as a different face may be exhibited, just as the case may demand. _Janus_ declares his love and attachment to the church and the primacy, and regards it as a _complete misapplication_ of the term _piety_ "to conceal or color historical facts and faulty institutions." (P. 20.)

Hence the inference will be legitimate to stigmatize as impious a mode of investigation which misstates and distorts historical facts, shaking at the very foundation both the church and the primacy. And this is precisely what _Janus_ would accomplish, even contrary to his own avowed intention. For, according to him, "The primacy rests on divine appointment;" and still it has been transformed, and has become destructive to the church, rending asunder _that unity_ which to uphold and represent it had been instituted. (Pp. 18, 21.)

"Since the ninth century, a transformation of the primacy,
artificial and sickly, the consequences of which have been the
splitting up of the previously united church into three great
ecclesiastical bodies, divided and at enmity with each other."

If such is the case, where, may we ask, is that primacy of _divine institution_ to be found?--that primacy ever-living and indefectible as the church herself. And yet, we have the word of _Janus_ for it, the primacy, divinely instituted as the centre of unity, has virtually become extinct, and has failed to be the source and centre of unity. Did _Janus_ himself dare to face this inevitable and logical conclusion?

"The Roman bishops not only believed themselves to be in
possession of a divine right, and acted accordingly, but this
right was actually recognized by others." (P. 22.)

How is this profession to be reconciled with the following one, "that the form which this primacy took depended on the concessions of the particular local churches"?

What the privileges were which Christ himself bestowed on the primacy, _Janus nowhere_ attempts to state. Where, then, is his reason for asserting that the form which the primacy took depended on concessions? Wherein consist the privileges inherent in the primacy by divine right, and which are those conceded by the local churches? Until _Janus_ has distinctly defined these respective limits, with what show of logic and scientific process can he pronounce that for eight centuries the primacy was _legitimately developed_, and since the ninth century so fatally transformed and totally disfigured? Truly, if he had committed himself to any _precise_ theory,[64] he would have exposed himself to an inglorious refutation; as it is now, he has taken refuge in silence. And yet, in justice to himself, and in order to save his scientific reputation, _Janus_ was obliged to define these divine rights of the primacy before he could venture to say that they had been _fatally_ transformed; thus he is able to bring forward "a very dark side of the history of the papacy." Superficial minds may be ensnared by this deceitful procedure, but fair and scientific thinkers will rise indignantly and enter their solemn protest against such an abuse of logic and history. Moreover, it is obvious that a primacy whose form, that is, rights inherent to it, are made dependent upon the consent of those over whom it is to be exercised, is illusory, and is a mere shadow. It is very difficult to understand how such a novel mode of reasoning should have escaped our authors, who have "written under a deep sense of anxiety," and we fear that, by pledging their faith to such dogmas as the infallibility of the church, and the divinely appointed primacy of St. Peter and his successors, in the person of the bishops of Rome, they have either deluded themselves or hoped to delude others by hollow professions of faith and a hypocritical show of piety.

The authors, having thus left a wide and open field in which to lead astray and bewilder the minds of their readers, do not hesitate to assert, "No one acquainted with church history will choose to affirm that the popes ever exercised a fixed primatial right in the same way" over the churches in different countries. Quite a captious and vague affirmation in each and every particular. Are we to understand that, because the same primatial rights were not everywhere and uniformly exercised, there were no acknowledged rights of the primacy? And yet to this conclusion, however illogical, such a proposition would lead. If the Roman bishops have not at all times exercised the same rights over the churches in Egypt as over those of Africa or Gaul, it is simply owing to the different condition of the various churches, where the exercise of such rights was not necessary, and by the very nature of things varied to meet the exigencies of the churches. What opinion would we form of a writer--we may be permitted to use a familiar illustration--who, from the fact that Congress did not at one time enforce the same article of our constitution in the State of Ohio as it did in Virginia, concluded that this legislative body possessed not, or was not conscious of possessing, the same rights and power granted by the constitution in Ohio as in Virginia? This is precisely what _Janus_ would induce his readers to believe regarding the rights of the primacy. That the popes throughout the first centuries of the church exercised primatial rights, _Janus_ readily grants, and must grant from the position he assumes. Now, if the exercise of such rights over the various churches at different periods of the _ancient_ church, taken _collectively_, _involve all those prerogatives_ which the papacy has since claimed and enjoyed, we must of necessity infer that the rights of the primacy, as understood and exercised at the present period, are identical with those of the first eight centuries.

This we could prove by a "work entirely made up of facts, and supporting all statements by reference to the original authorities." Yes, this has already been done by able and judicious historians; among the more modern ones we may appropriately challenge a careful perusal of the history of Dr. Döllinger,[65] in which a complete enumeration of the prerogatives exercised by the bishops of Rome over the whole church, both in the east and in the west, may be found, together with a direct reference to many and unexceptionable historical facts. Under the present head we merely refer to the action of Pope St. Victor, in the second century, against the churches of Asia Minor concerning the question of paschal celebration against the Quartodecimans; St. Stephen, against the Anabaptists in Africa; St. Cornelius, against Novatus and Felicissimus; St. Dionysius, in the case of Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch, when the Emperor Aurelian himself would not sustain him, and referred to the Bishop of Rome for a final decision; all these statements attested by such writers as Eusebius,[66] Socrates,[67] and Theodoret.[68] How about the appeal of the Montanists to the Bishop of Rome, mentioned by Tertullian[69] himself? Did not Marcion repair to Rome to obtain a reversal of the sentence passed against him?[70] Did not that illustrious champion of faith, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, appeal to Pope Julius I. against the Arians, when the Council of Sardica was convoked at the request of the pope in the year 343, and the supremacy of the Roman bishop solemnly acknowledged, to whom all must appeal for final sentence?[71]

_Janus_, however, with this most conspicuous incident of history before him, says,

"There is no mention of papal rights, or any reference to a
legally defined action of the Bishop of Rome in other churches,
with the single exception of the canon of Sardica, which never
obtained universally even in the west." (P. 23.)

Having produced one most remarkable instance of the application of this canon of Sardica, we now must inform our readers that this same _canon_ of the Synod of Sardica was inserted in a Latin version of a collection of canons known by the name of "Prisca Collectio,"[72] as early as the fifth century, and regarded as a code of laws attesting the tradition of the _ancient_ church, according to the maxim of St. Vincent of Lerins, _Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est_. In like manner did St. John Chrysostom, that great doctor of the eastern church, appeal to Pope Innocent I., although his adversary, the usurper Theophilus, had sent delegates to Rome to gain the pontiff, who annulled all the acts of Theophilus and his party against the illustrious patriarch. The letter which St. Chrysostom[73] wrote to the pope adds great strength to our argument. St. Cyprian, too, by whose authority our adversaries would fain triumph, sent the acts of synods held by himself to the Bishop of Rome for confirmation, and also asked St. Stephen to _depose_ Marcion, Bishop of Arles, as being a partisan of Novatian, and to appoint another in his place. But we must ask pardon of the reader for having already been too long in these references--though as yet we have said nothing of the many acts and letters of Pope St. Leo the Great--all of which demonstrate beyond the shadow of doubt that the most ample exercise of _all primatial_ prerogatives was made in nearly all the churches of the Christian world. A rapid glance over the discourses and letters of the distinguished pontiff, in the voluminous work of Ballerini, will corroborate our assertion in its whole extent. What are we to think of these words of _Janus_, "No one acquainted with church history will choose to affirm that the popes ever exercised a fixed primatial right"? To us, it would seem nothing less than an appeal to the ignorance of his readers. A similar proceeding we notice in the following paragraph:

"The well-known fact speaks clearly enough for itself, that
throughout the whole ancient canon law, whether in the
collections preserved in the eastern or the western church,
there is no mention made of papal rights."

We do not attribute such a confused and inaccurate knowledge to _Janus_, that he is not fully aware what all these collections comprise. These collections or codes of law are pretty numerous,[74] both in the Greek and in the Latin churches, and some of them contain besides the "Canones Apostolorum," not only many decrees of the councils, both particular and œcumenical, that were held during the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, but also the decretals of the early popes. Thus, for instance, the collection made by the monk Dionysius[75] comprises, in a chronological order, the decretals or decrees of all the popes from St. Siricius, in the year 395, to St. Anastasius II. in 486. Another Spanish collection of canons, called the _Liber Canonum_, is very comprehensive,[76] embracing the decrees of all the synods that were held in the eastern and western churches, together with the decretal letters of twenty popes from St. Damasus to Gregory the Great. A similar collection of canons in Africa was approved by the Synod of Carthage in 419. Now, according to our authors, in _all these collections_ "no mention is made of papal rights, or any reference to a legally defined action of the Bishop of Rome in other churches." Truly! we need but challenge an examination of many decrees of synods, and of the official letters of the popes contained in these collections, and we shall find all primatial rights fully exercised and universally acknowledged. Who does not know the splendid testimonies of the fathers in the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, both of which acknowledged in their acts the supremacy of the see of Rome! As to the many decretal letters of the popes, there are no more celebrated documents in early history than the professions of faith given by Pope Celestine I. to the bishops of Gaul against Semipelagianism,[77] St. Boniface to the bishops of Illyria, St. Gelasius in a decree on _canonical_ Scripture and the well-known formula of Pope St. Hormisdas,[78] subscribed to by the eastern bishops. By far the greater number of these pontifical letters constituting those _collections_ imply one or another prerogative exercised by the bishops of Rome, who were ever conscious, even in _those early ages_, of being the supreme teachers and guardians of faith appointed by Christ himself. With what mien of self-sufficiency and confidence _Janus_ can style a "well-known fact," something of which just the very opposite results from an inspection of historical records, is more than unintelligible in authors who make such ado about their scientific fairness. With a desire to save _Janus's_ reputation as a _learned canonist_ and _faithful historian_, we must presume such a grave misstatement wilful, and naturally enough he must have reckoned on readers who have little or no knowledge of the "ancient collections of the canons." Yet we must not fail to enter an energetic protest against these self-proclaimed "scientific labors and contributions to ecclesiastical history." Is it by such unblushing assertions, without proof to sustain them, that the authors show their "love and honor for an institution" which forms an essential part of the constitution of the church?

The whole introduction of this work, covering nearly thirty pages, exhibits a programme with summary indications, whence _Janus_ infers that with the present council the system of absolutism is to be crowned, and the church to come within the grasp of a "powerful coalition." This great danger to the church the anonymous authors feel in duty bound to avert, and to oppose this "advancing flood-tide," in which we may discover another characteristic mode of warfare, since _Janus_ deems it necessary to "assail a powerful party, with clearly ascertained objects, which has gained a firm footing through the wide ramifications of the Jesuit order." And this party he can only attack by "bringing forward a very dark side of the history of the papacy." Indeed, a singular mode of warfare, but one which presents no feature of novelty. Have not the Reformers of the sixteenth century, like most of their forerunners, concealed their true aim by attacking ostensibly the Curia, or some religious body, as Luther did the Dominicans, and in the seventeenth century did not the Jansenists resort to a similar stratagem? Now, with such a clear profession before us, why these assaults on the hierarchy and the church in general for the last thousand years? Why make the whole church accountable for the misdeeds and _menacing coalition_ of a party? Why, as _faithful Catholics_, appeal, not to the council nor to the hierarchy, but "to the thinkers among believing Christians"? _Reformers_ before _Janus_ usually appealed from the popes to general councils, but he surpasses them all by appealing neither to the one nor to the other, but to the laity, who may even pronounce on the "reception or rejection of the council or its decisions." Assuredly no further arguments need be brought forward to satisfy candid and discriminating minds that _Janus_ has ill succeeded in masking his true purpose; nor can his professions of loving truth and justice stand the test of criticism, or the dignity of scientific investigation tolerate the insolent treatment it has suffered at the hands of _Janus_ and his school. For those among our readers who must be shocked at seeing names of men distinguished for their learning and piety at a very critical period in Germany, quoted in support of the opinions of this school of traitors, (pp. 16, 17,) we can say that _Janus_, by attributing to such men a similarity of views with himself, makes a gratuitous and bold assertion, corroborated by no reliable authority; only one name, that of the eccentric Baader, lends any probability to this impudent statement. But such names as Walter, Philipps, Hefele, Hagemann, Gfrörer, and even Döllinger up to a certain time, renowned for their profound researches and contributions to ecclesiastical history and jurisprudence, are studiously omitted by _Janus_; nor would it have served his purpose, since the eminent theologians just mentioned have undermined and exploded whatever scientific or historical basis Febronianism and Gallicanism could boast of, and which _Janus_ would reëstablish. In summing up our considerations on this point, we fully concur in the remarks of an able writer, that _Janus_

"does his utmost to overthrow what is at present by far man's
strongest barrier against the rapid and violent inflowing
atheistic tide, without attempting to substitute another in its
place. If his book could exercise any real power, that power
would be put forth in favor of those whom the author agrees
with us in regarding as the most dangerous enemies of every
highest human interest."

This serious apprehension has been fully verified by the many admirers _Janus_ has found in the hostile camp; nay, the apostate Froschhamer has even complimented _Janus_ publicly,[79] with only one restriction, namely, that he has only gone half-way, and finds fault with this inconsistency.

2. We did not propose to content ourselves with the gratuitous assertion that _Janus_ is not "throughout a thorough Catholic and earnest Christian;" but we shall make it clear that he has already seceded from well-established points of doctrine, and even rendered his scheme of reforming the church an impossible hypothesis. As we have already stated, _Janus_ directs his attacks against a "party"--ultramontanism--which, he says, is "essentially papalism." (P. 34.) But while professing to oppose an "ultramontane scheme," he finally arrives, by a very promiscuous array of _historical facts_ and _scientific investigations_, at the conclusion that the entire church, led by the popes during the last thousand years, has been dragged into this gross error and devastating _torrent_ of ultramontanism. By means of a _huge forgery_ the "whole constitution and government of the church has been changed"--that is, has become a human institution, and lost its divine character. What, then, is the result the writers of _Janus_ arrive at as to their own position? "Inwardly a great gulf separates" them from such a church and its chief pastor--that is, from Pius IX. and the episcopacy. For in another place (p. 3) he affirms that the doctrines he attacks are "identical with those of the chief head." Does it not follow from these premises that _Janus_ excludes himself from this "centre of unity," as the see of Rome has been called by St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage? Likewise St. Jerome, in his book against Rufinus, asks the latter, "Is your faith the faith of the Church of Rome? If so," he adds, "we are both Catholics." During the pontificate of St. Hormisdas, from the year 514 to 523, two hundred and fifty bishops signed a formulary sent them by the pope, in which they declared that they who were not in all things in union with the apostolic see were cut off from communion with the Catholic Church.[80]

"Sequentes in omnibus," says the text so forcibly, "Apostolicam
Sedem et prædicantes ejus omnia constituta, spero ut in una
communione vobiscum, quam Sedes Apostolica prædicat, esse
merear, in qua est integra et verax Christianæ religionis
soliditas. Etiam sequestratos a communione Ecclesiæ Catholicæ,
id est, non consentientes Sedi Apostolicæ."[81]

By what right, then, or by what interpretation, we demand, can _Janus_ be called a "thorough Catholic"?

The unity and indefectibility of the church of Christ are essential doctrines, most clearly and distinctly embodied in the sacred Scriptures. But _Janus_ no longer admits them, as the following passages will show:

"The previously united church has been split up into three
great ecclesiastical bodies, divided and at enmity with each
other.... When the presidency in the church became an empire,
... then the _unity_ of _the church_, so firmly secured before,
was _broken_ up." (P. 21.)

According to _Janus_, a "great and searching reformation of the church is necessary;" and, let it be understood, not in matters of discipline, which can vary, but in matters of faith--yes! in the most important points touching the divine constitution of the church.

"The popes possessed none of the three powers which are the
proper attributes of sovereignty; neither the legislative, the
administrative, nor the judicial."

"For a long time nothing was known in Rome of definite rights
bequeathed by Peter to his successors."

"The bishops of Rome could neither exclude individuals nor
churches from the church universal." (Pp. 64, 66.)

Confront these assertions with the few but remarkable facts already given from history, and what becomes of them?

"There are many national churches which were never under Rome,
and never even had any intercourse with Rome." (P. 68.)

_Janus_ then proceeds to give examples of such autonomous churches, and we confess that it has seldom been our lot to see any thing more vague and evasive.

In the first place, we refer to the letter of the Syrian bishops, which was read in the fifth session of the synod held in Constantinople in the year 536, by the Patriarch Mennas; moreover, the profession which the Archimandrites and other Syrian monks sent to Pope Hormisdas, in which they plainly acknowledge and invoke the Bishop of Rome as supreme guardian of the entire flock of Christ.