Chapter II: A Dinner at the Grange--A Pair of Owls (4)

Secondly, if existing matter is to receive a new substantial form, its old substantial form must give way and disappear, as our opponents themselves teach, by natural corruption. But the form which gives the first being to the matter is not corruptible. Therefore no truly substantial form can give way to a new substantial form. The minor of this syllogism is easily proved. For all natural substances consist of simple elements, of which every one has its first being by a form altogether simple and incorruptible. Moreover, the substantial form of primitive elements is a product of creation, not of generation; the term of divine, not of natural, action; it cannot, therefore, perish, except by annihilation. The only form which is liable to corruption is that which links together the elements of the specific compound; but this is a natural and essential, not a strictly substantial, form.

Thirdly, the form which gives the first being to the matter is altogether incorruptible, if the same is not subject to alteration; for alteration is the way to corruption. But no form giving the first being to the matter is subject to alteration. For, according to the universal doctrine, it is the matter, not the form, that is in potency to receive the action of natural agents. The form is an active, not a passive, principle; and therefore it is ready to act, not to be acted on; which proves that substantial forms are inalterable and incorruptible. We are at a loss to understand how it has been possible for so many illustrious philosophers of the Aristotelic school not to see the open contradiction between the corruption of strictly substantial forms and their own fundamental axiom: “Every being acts inasmuch as it is in act, and suffers inasmuch as it is in potency.” If the substantial form is subject to corruption, surely the substance suffers not only inasmuch as it is in potency, but also, and even more, inasmuch as it is in act. We say “even more,” because the substance would, inasmuch as it is in act, suffer the destruction of its very essence; whereas, as it is in potency, it would not suffer more than an accidental change. It is therefore manifest that the corruption of substantial forms cannot be admitted without denying one of the most certain and universal principles of metaphysics.

Fourthly, if the natural agents concerned in the generation of a new being cannot produce anything but accidental determinations, nor destroy anything but other accidental determinations, then, evidently, the form which is destroyed in the generation of a new thing is an accidental entity, as also the new form introduced. But the efficient causes of natural generations cannot produce anything but accidental determinations, and cannot destroy anything but other accidental determinations. Therefore in the generation of a new being both the form which is destroyed and the form which replaces it are accidental entities. In this syllogism the major is evident; and the minor is certain, both physically and metaphysically. For it is well known that the natural agents concerned in the generation of a new substance have no other power than that of producing local motion; also, that the matter acted on has no other passive potency than that of receiving local motion. Hence no action of matter upon matter can be admitted but that which tends to give an accidental determination to local movement; and if any cause be known to exert actions not tending to impart local movement, we must immediately conclude that such a cause is not a material substance. On the other hand, all act produced belongs to an order of reality infinitely inferior to that of its efficient principle; so that, as God cannot efficiently produce another God, so also a contingent substance cannot efficiently produce another contingent substance; and a substantial form cannot efficiently produce another substantial form; but as all that God efficiently produces is infinitely inferior to him in the order of reality, so all act produced by a created substance is infinitely inferior to the act which is the principle of its production.[71] It is therefore impossible to admit that the act produced, and the act which is the principle of its production, belong to the same order of reality; in other terms, they cannot be both “substantial”; but while the act by which the agent acts is substantial, the act produced is always accidental. And thus it is plain that no natural agent or combination of natural agents can ever produce a truly substantial form.

A great deal more might be said on this subject; but we think that our philosophical readers need no further reasonings of ours to be fully convinced of the inadmissibility of the Aristotelic hypothesis concerning the constitution and the generation of natural substances. Would that the great men who adopted it in past ages had had a knowledge of the workings of nature as extensive as we now possess; their love of truth would have prompted them to frame a philosophical theory as superior to that of the Greek philosopher as fact is to assumption. As it is, we must strive to do within the compass of our means what they would have done much better, and would do if they were among the living, with their gigantic powers. We cannot hold in metaphysics what we have to reject in physics. To say that what is true in physics may be false in metaphysics is no less an absurdity than Luther’s proposition, that “something may be true in philosophy which is false in theology.”

THE MODERN LITERATURE OF RUSSIA.[72]

The history of Russia, during the course of the last twenty years, has entered upon a new era. It also has had its 19th of February,[73] its day of emancipation; and from the hour when it was permitted to treat of the times anterior to the reign of the Emperor Nicholas, although still maintaining a certain reserve, it has lost no time in profiting by the benefit of which advantage has been eagerly taken. A multitude of writings, more or less important, which have since then been published, prove that, in order to become fruitful, it only needed to be freed from the ligatures of the ancient censure; and it is wonderful to note the large number of publications with which the history of the last century finds itself enriched in so short a space of time, besides the documents of every description that were never previously allowed to see the light of day, but from which the interdict has been removed that for so long had condemned them to the dust and oblivion of locked-up archives.

Nor has this been all. The riches of this new mine were sufficiently plentiful to supply matter for entire collections. Societies were formed for the purpose of arranging and publishing them without delay, in order to satisfy the legitimate desire of so many to know the past of their country, not only from official digests, but from the original sources of information. It will suffice to name the principal collections created under the inspiration of this idea, such as the _Russian Archives_, and also the _XVIIIth and XIXth Centuries_, of M. Bartenev, guardian of the Library of Tcherkov; the _Old Russian Times_ (_Russkaïa Starina_), of M. Semevski; the _Historical Society of the Annalist Nestor_, formed at Kiev, under the presidency of M. Antonovitch; the _Collection of the Historical Society of St. Petersburg_, under the exalted patronage of the czarovitch; without enumerating the periodical publications issued by societies which were already existing, as at Moscow and elsewhere.

To arrange in some degree of order the rapid notice which is all we must permit ourselves, and laying aside for the present any consideration of periodical literature, we will mention, in the first place, the works upon Russian history in general, ecclesiastical and secular; then the various memoirs and biographies; concluding with bibliography, or the history of literature.

I. GENERAL HISTORY OF RUSSIA.--Amongst the works which treat of this subject, that of M. Soloviev indisputably occupies the first place. His _History of Russia from the Earliest Times_ (_Istoria Rossiis drevneichikh vremen_) advances with slow but steady pace, and has at this time reached its twenty-third volume, embracing the second septennate of the Empress Elizabeth, which concludes with the year 1755--a year memorable in the annals of Russian literature, as witnessing the establishment of the first Russian university, namely, that of Moscow. It is not surprising that this subject has inspired the author, who is a professor of the same university, to write pages full of interest. With regard to what he relates respecting the exceedingly low level of civilization to which the Russian clergy had at that time sunk, other authors have made it the subject of special treatises, and with an amplitude of development which could not have found place in a general history. M. Soloviev’s method is well known--_i.e._, to turn to the advantage of science the original documents, for the most part inedited, and frequently difficult of access to the generality of writers. But does he always make an impartial use of them? This is a question. The manner in which he has recounted the law-suit of the Patriarch Nicon--to cite this only as an example--does not speak altogether favorably for the historian; besides, his history is too voluminous to be accessible to the generality of readers; and when it will be finished, who can divine?

For this reason a complete history, in accordance with recent discoveries, and reduced to two or three volumes, would meet with a warm welcome. That of Oustrialov is already out of date; the little abridgment of M. Soloviev is too short; and the work of M. Bestoujev-Rumine remains at its first volume, the two which are to follow, and which have been long promised, not having yet appeared.

M. Kostomarov, who has just celebrated the 25th year of his literary career, is also publishing a _History of Russia, Considered in the Lives of its Principal Representatives_,[74] of which the interest increases as the period of which it treats approaches our own. Two sections have already appeared. The first, which is devoted to the history of the house of S. Vladimir, embraces four centuries; the second, as considerable as its predecessor in amount of matter, comprises no more than the interval of about a century--that is to say, the reigns of Ivan the Terrible, his father, and his grandfather (1462-1583). Faithful to the plan he has adopted, the author relates the life and deeds of the most remarkable men, whether in the political or social order: thus, in the second section, after the historical figures of Ivan III., Basil, and Ivan IV., we have the Archbishop Gennadius, the monk Nilus Sorski, whom the Russian Church reckons among her saints: the Prince Patrikeïev, the celebrated Maximus, a monk of Mt. Athos, and, lastly, the heretic Bachkine with his sectaries. The first volume will be terminated by the third section, which will conclude the history of the house of Vladimir.

This history meets with a violent opponent and an implacable judge in the person of M. Pogodine, the veteran of Russian historians. The antagonism of these two writers, M. Pogodine and M. Kostomarov, is of long standing. But never have polemics taken a more aggressive tone than on the present occasion; and the aggression is on the part of M. Pogodine, who accuses his adversary of nothing more nor less than mystifying the public and corrupting the rising generation; of having arbitrarily omitted the origin and commencement of the nation; of throwing, by preference, into strong relief all the dark pages of the history; and, lastly, declares him to be guilty of venality. To these charges M. Kostomarov replies that his censor is playing the part of a policeman rather than of a critic; that his arguments, like his anger, inspire him with pity; and that the most elementary rules of propriety forbid him to imitate his language. Coming to historical facts, he explains the reasons for his silence on the _pagan_ period of Russian history; for treating the call of Rurik as a fable, together with a multitude of other stories of the ancient chronicles; for seeing in the Varangian[75] princes nothing but barbarians, and the pagans of this period the same. He also brings proofs to show that Vladimir Monomachus was really the first to seek allies among the tribes of the Polovtsis; that Vassilko caused the whole population of Minsk to be exterminated; and that Andrew Bogolubski was not by any means beloved by the people, as had been stated by M. Pogodine--these three subjects being among the principal points of dispute.

But we have no desire to pursue any further details which cannot in themselves have any interest for the public, although, taken in connection with the histories of the antagonistic authors, they may be suggestive. For instance, it is not easy to forget what the ardent professor of Moscow relates of himself with reference to certain of his fellow-countrywomen who had embraced the Catholic faith. Being at Rome, he tells us (and his words depict in a lively manner the character of his zeal) that he felt himself strongly tempted to _seize by the hair_ two Russian ladies[76] whom he saw crossing the Piazza di Spagna to enter a Catholic church. He is said to be at this time preparing a _Campaign against Adverse Powers_, in which he combats “historic heresies.”

But the services rendered by M. Pogodine to the national history are undoubtedly great. We may notice a new one in his _Ancient History of Russia before the Mongolian Yoke_,[77] in which, after grouping the Russian principalities around that of Kiev as their political centre anterior to the invasion of the Mongols, he also gives the separate history of each. In the second volume the church, literature, the state, manners, and customs, are treated upon in turn, and form a series of pictures traced by a skilful hand, closing with a terribly-vivid description of the Tartar invasion.

II. PARTICULAR OR INDIVIDUAL HISTORY.--It is about two years since historical science in Russia sustained a loss in the death of M. Pékarski, who had scarcely reached his forty-fifth year. This laborious and learned writer, who, in so short a space of time, produced an unusual number of important works,[78] died after having just completed his _History of the Academy of Sciences_. This work contains about eighteen hundred pages. After a solid introduction there follow the biographies of the first fifty members of the Academy, all of whom were foreigners, to which succeed those of Trediakovski and Lomonosov. In glancing over these biographies one is struck with the preponderance of the German element, the Academy, at its commencement, being almost exclusively composed of learned men of that nation. With the reign of Elizabeth the Russian party began to take the lead, and it was Lomonosov, the son of a fisherman of Archangelsk, who was the life and soul of it, as a learned man, an historian, and a poet. Pékarski mentions some curious details respecting the correspondence between Peter I. and the Sorbonne, touching the reunion of the Russian Church with Rome. It is to be wished that the documents treating of this matter, and which are preserved in the archives of the academy, might be published.

III. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.--After the _History of the Russian Church_, by Mgr. Macarius, the present Metropolitan of Lithuania, which has just reached its seventh volume, the first place is due to that by M. Znamenski, entitled _The Parochial Clergy in Russia, subsequent to the Reform of Peter I._[79] In presence of the Protestant reforms which are in course of introduction into the official church by the Russian government, M. Znamenski’s book offers an eminently practical interest, and it is greatly to be wished that those in power would profit by its serious teaching. The author advances nothing without producing his proofs, drawn from official documents, which he has taken great pains to search for and consult wherever they were to be found.

His work is divided into five chapters, the first of which treats of the “Nomination of the Parochial Clergy.” Down to the middle of the XVIIIth century its members were chosen on the elective system; it is the ancient mode of nomination, which existed also in the Catholic Church. But from the middle of the XVIIIth century this gave place, in Russia, to the _hereditary_ system, which has become one of the distinctive features of the Russian communion,[80] and in which may be found the cause of the separation and the spirit of caste which from that time began to isolate the clergy from the rest of society, and made them in all respects a body apart.

This spirit of caste still subsists, though not in so perceptible a degree as formerly. One inevitable consequence of this Levitism was the difficulty of quitting the caste when once a person belonged to it, as the author develops in his second chapter (pp. 176-354). In the third, he treats of the “Civil Rights of the Clergy,” and there depicts the revolting abuses in which the secular authorities allowed themselves with regard to the unfortunate clergy. The arbitrary injustice to which they were subjected during the whole of the XVIIIth century, and of which the still vivid traces remained in the time of the Emperor Alexander I., appears almost incredible. For instance, a poor parochial incumbent, having had the misfortune to pass before the house of the principal proprietor of the place without having taken off his hat to that personage, who was on the balcony with company, was immediately seized, thrust into a barrel, and thus rolled from the top of the hill on which the seignorial dwelling was situated, into the river which flowed at its base. His death was almost instantaneous. Justice, as represented in that quarter, being informed of this new species of murder, found itself unequal to touch the little potentate, and hushed up the affair. Similar horrors were by no means rare in the XVIIIth century. In the fourth chapter (pp. 507-617) the author speaks of the “Relations of the Clergy with the Ecclesiastical Authorities”; and although the picture he draws is somewhat less sombre than the preceding, still it is melancholy enough. Venality the most systematic, and rigor that can hardly be said to fall short of cruelty, were, for more than half a century, the most prominent features of the ecclesiastical government. No post, however small or humble, could be obtained without the imposition of a purely arbitrary tax; and these taxes formed in the end a very considerable amount. As for the spirit of the government, its fundamental maxim was to _hold down_ the lower clergy _in humility_ (_smirenié_)--a formula which was imprinted on the very bodies of the unfortunate victims. The slightest fault or error on their part was punished by corporal chastisements so severe that the sufferer sometimes expired under the blows. Priests were treated by their chief pastors as beings on a level with the meanest of slaves. One of these _vladykas_ (which is the name by which the Russian bishops are designated) condemned his subordinates to dig fish-ponds on his estate, which ponds were to be so shaped as to form on a gigantic scale the initials (E. B.) of his lordship’s name.[81]

The failure of resources, so materially diminished by the cupidity of their superiors, forced the parochial clergy to contrive for themselves an income by means more or less lawful. Besides the legal charges, they invented various small taxes on their own behalf; or, when all else failed, they begged their bread from their own parishioners, who were apt to be more liberal of reproaches than of alms. The well-being of the secular clergy being one of the questions under consideration by the present government, the author has devoted to it much of his last chapter.

Such is the general plan of this book, which must be read through to give an idea of the humiliating degradation to which the hapless clergy were for more than a century condemned, thanks to the anomaly of institutions still more than to the abuses practised by individuals. When the source is corrupt, can the stream be pure?

But all this relates to the “Orthodox” of the empire. That which is more directly interesting to the Catholic reader will be found in works respecting the Ruthenian[82] Church, which is at this time attracting the attention of the West.

The _History of the Reunion of the Ancient Uniates of the West_,[83] by M. Koïalovitch, Professor of the Ecclesiastical (Orthodox) Academy of the capital, repeats the faults of all the numerous writings, whether books, pamphlets, or articles, which have issued from his pen in the course of the last ten years, and which are painfully remarkable for their spirit of partiality, their preconceived ideas, their self-contradictions, and their hatred of the Catholic faith. An organ of the press of St. Petersburg has expressed a desire that the documents upon which this author professedly rests three-fourths of his last book, while purposely neglecting all extraneous sources whatever, whether political or diplomatic, should be given to the public, which would then be enabled to judge for itself how far the statements based upon them are to be trusted. Nor can any obstacle exist in the way of such publication, as was shown by the work of Moroehkine on the reunion of the Uniates in 1839, equally compiled from official documents of unquestionable importance, which were then edited for the first time.

It is impossible not to be struck with the strange coincidence of so many publications upon union with the painful events which are taking place at the present time in the Diocese of Khelm, and which had evidently been preparing long beforehand. Books have their _raison d’être_--a reason for their appearance at particular periods. It is said, even, that M. Koïalovitch is at the head of a school of opinion, and that his disciples can be pointed out without difficulty. Thus, Rustchinski is the author of a study on the _Religious Condition of the Russian People according to Foreign Authors of the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries_; Nicolaïevski has written on _Preaching in the XVIth Century_; Demaïanovitch, on _The Jesuits in Western Russia, from 1569 to 1772_, at which latter year the thread of their history is taken up and continued by Moroehkine; Kratchkovski, on the _Interior State of the Uniate Church_ (1872); and Stcherbinski has given the history of the Order of S. Basil. But we must not prolong the catalogue, which, however, is by no means complete. Never has so much literary activity been known in the “Orthodox” communion as now, if, perhaps, we except the first times of the union.

But before passing on to another head we must not fail to mention, as one of the principal representatives of the literary movement of the XVIth century, the celebrated namesake and predecessor of the present Metropolitan of Mesopotamia, _i.e._, Archbishop Macarius, to whom we are indebted for the monumental work known as the _Great Menology_, and which is a species of religious encyclopædia, containing, besides the lives of the saints for every day in the year, the entire works of the early fathers, as well as ascetic, canonical, and literary treatises. The Archæographic Commission of St. Petersburg has undertaken the republication, in its integrity, of this colossal work, of which only three quarto volumes in double columns have at present appeared.

IV. BIOGRAPHIES.--As we have already remarked, it is interesting to observe the eagerness with which the Russian people welcome everything that tends to throw light upon their past. For instance, what is usually drier than a catalogue? And yet the one compiled by M. Méjov has already reached four thousand copies. It is true that his _Systematic Catalogue_ (of original documents) combines various qualities that are somewhat rare in publications of this description. It is not, however, desirable that a taste for the mere reproduction of inedited manuscripts should be carried too far; the interests of science demanding rather that they should be made use of in the production of works aspiring to greater completeness, and suited to meet the requirements of modern criticism.

A certain number of works have already been written in accordance with this idea. That of M. Tchistovitch, entitled _Theophanes Procopovitch and his Times_, may be given as a model, as may also the excellent study of M. Ikonnikov on Count Nicholas Mordinhov, one of the remarkable men who flourished in the reign of the Emperor Alexander I. and Nicholas. Various memoirs of this personage had previously appeared in different collections, but no one before the young professor of Kiev had taken the trouble to study the original sources upon which alone an authentic life could be written, to reduce them to system, and give them a living form. It is not only the opinions and theories of the count which are given, but those also of contemporary society and the persons by whom he was surrounded, those of the latter being occasionally too lengthily developed. M. Ikonnikov was also, some years ago, the author of an interesting work, entitled _The Influence of Byzantine Civilization on Russian History_ (Kiev: 1870). And this leads us to mention a book recently published by M. Philimonov, vice-director of the Museum of Arms, on _Simon Ouchakov and the Iconography of his Time_.

The name of this artist has scarcely been heard in the West. Born in 1626, he early evinced a talent for painting, and at the age of twenty-two was admitted into the number of iconographists appointed by the czar; his specialty consisting in making designs, more particularly for the gold-work appropriated to religious uses. Of his paintings, the earliest bears the date of 1657. M. Philimonov passes in review all his later productions, accompanying each with a short but careful notice, and dwelling chiefly upon the two which he considers the masterpieces of Russian iconography at that period, namely, the painting of the Annunciation and that of Our Lady of Vladimir. Besides these two principal paintings, Ouchakov left a quantity of others, most of which bear his name, with the date of their completion, although these indications are not needed, his pictures being easily recognizable. He may, in fact, be considered as at the head of a new school of painting, taking the middle line between the conventional Muscovite iconography and the paintings of the West; between the inanimate and rigid formalism of the one and the living variety of the other; and thus inaugurating the new era in religious art which manifested itself in Russia with the opening of the XVIIth century, and permitting the introduction of a realism which the ancient iconographers were wholly ignorant of, and would have considered it detrimental to Oriental orthodoxy to countenance. Ouchakov was ennobled, in honor of his talents, and died in 1656, at the age of sixty, in the full enjoyment of public esteem.

In connection with the subject of art, we may add that M. Philimonov has just issued an elegant edition of the _Guide to Russian Iconography_, which teaches the correct manner in which to represent the saints. The text of this work, which is for the first time published in Russian, has been furnished by three of the most ancient manuscripts known to exist, one of which formerly belonged to the Church of S. Sophia of Novogorod. Fully to comprehend the text, however, it is necessary to have together with it, for constant reference, some pictorial guide, as, for instance, the one published by M. Boutovski. The two works explain and complete each other, as both alike refer to about the same period; but, also, both should be consulted in subordinate reference to the Greek _Guide_, if the reader is to be enabled to separate the Byzantine element from that which is specially characteristic of Russian iconography.

In connection with general literature mention must be made of the fabulist, Khemnitzer, whose complete works and correspondence have been edited by Grote, together with a biography, composed from previously-unpublished sources. After the vast labor of editing the works of Derjavine, those of Khemnitzer would be in comparison a mere amusement to the learned and indefatigable academician.

V. JOURNALS AND MEMOIRS.--The _Journal of Khrapovski_ (1782-1793), published by M. Barsoukov, who has enriched it with a biographical notice and explanatory notes, appears for the first time in its integrity, and accompanied by a _catalogue raisonné_ of all the personages who find themselves mentioned in the text. This journal derives its special interest and value from the position of the author, who for ten years was attached to the _personal_ service of the Empress Catherine II. (_Chargé des Affaires Personnelles_), and who, being thus admitted into the interior and home-life of the court, noted down day by day, and sometimes hour by hour, all that he there saw or heard. This is certainly not history; but an intelligent historian will sometimes find there, in a sentence spoken apparently at random, the germ of great political events which were accomplished later.

The _Journal of Lady Rondeau_, wife of the English resident-minister at the court of the Empress Anne, is the first volume of foreign writers on the Russia of the XVIIIth century, edited with notes by M. Choubinski. The idea of publishing the accounts of foreigners on the Russian Empire merits encouragement, and, if well carried out, will shed new light on numberless points which an indigenous author would leave unnoticed, but which have a real interest in the eyes of a stranger. If it should be objected that foreigners judge superficially and partially, it is none the less true that the worth of their impressions arises precisely from the diversity of country and point of view. Besides, all strangers could not, without injustice, be alike charged with lightness and inexactitude. The memoirs of Masson on the court of Catherine II. and of Paul I. are quoted by the Russians themselves as a striking proof to the contrary; no single fact which he mentions having been disproved by history. The merit of Lady Rondeau’s book is increased by the notice, in form of an appendix, which is added by her husband, on the character of each of the principal personages of the court.

We conclude this rapid and imperfect summary by mentioning the _Catalogue of the Section of Russica_, or writings upon Russia in foreign languages--a work of which the initiation is due to the administrators of the Public Library of St. Petersburg, and forming two enormous volumes. To give some idea of the riches accumulated in the section of _Russica_, perhaps unique in the world, and of which the formation commenced in 1849, it will suffice to say that the number of works enumerated in the catalogue reaches the figures 28,456, _without reckoning_ those composed in Lithuanian, Esthonian, Servian, Bulgarian, Greek, and other Oriental languages, which will together form a supplementary volume. Besides original works, the catalogue indicates all the translations of Russian books, and enumerates all the periodicals which have appeared in Russia in foreign languages.

The works are arranged in alphabetical order; but at the end of the second volume we find an analytical table, commencing with history, the historical portion being the most considerable one in the section of _Russica_. Thus the literary treasures possessed by the principal library of the empire are henceforward made known with regard to each branch of the sciences in relation to Russia. If to this we add the _Systematic Catalogue_ of M. Méjov, mentioned above, we possess the historic literature of Russia in its completeness.

THE FIRST JUBILEE.

Almighty God, who has “ordered all things in measure and _number_ and weight” (Wisd. xi. 21), and who teaches us, under the guidance of his church, to observe sacred times and seasons, has brought around again the Holy Year of Jubilee, during which an extraordinary indulgence is granted by the Pope, that sinners being led to repentance, and the just increased in grace, each one can hear it said to himself: “In an _acceptable time_ I have heard thee” (Is. xlix. 8).

We will not touch here upon the nature or doctrine of indulgences, more than to give a definition of our Jubilee, viz., a solemn plenary remission of such temporal punishment as may still be due to divine justice after the guilt of sin has been forgiven, which the Sovereign Pontiff, in the fulness of apostolic power, makes at a stated period to all the faithful, on condition of performing certain specified pious works; empowering confessors to absolve for the nonce in reserved cases and from censures not specially excepted, and to commute all vows not likewise excepted into other salutary matter. Our Holy Father, Pius IX., by an Encyclical Letter dated from S. Peter’s on the vigil of last Christmas, has announced that, the year 1875 completing the cycle of time determined by his predecessors for the recurrence of the Jubilee, he declares it the Holy Year, and sets forth the conditions of the same, with other circumstances of ecclesiastical discipline usual on so rare an occasion of grace.

The origin of the word _jubilee_ itself is uncertain. It is a Hebrew term that first occurs in the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus: “And thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year, … for it is the year of Jubilee.” Josephus (_Antiquit._, iii. 11) says that it means _liberty_, by which his annotators understand that discharge among the Jews from debts and bondage, and restitution to every man of his former property, as commanded by the law. The more common opinion derives it from _jobel_, a ram’s horn, because the Jubilee year was ushered in by the blasts of the sacred trumpets, made of the horns of the ram. Pope Boniface VIII. is erroneously supposed by many to have instituted the Christian Jubilee; for he only restored what had already existed, and reduced it substantially to its present form; inasmuch as there had been from an early period a custom among Christians of visiting Rome at the turn of every succeeding century, in the hope of obtaining great spiritual favors at the tomb of S. Peter, and perhaps also with the idea of atoning in some measure for the superstitious secular games which during the reign of Augustus the _Quindecimviri_ (a college of priests) announced as having been given once in every century in memory of the foundation of the Eternal City, and which, after consulting the Sibylline books in their care, they prevailed upon the emperor to celebrate again. Mgr. Pompeo Sarnelli, Bishop of Bisceglie in 1692, treats of the secular year of the heathen Romans and the Jubilee of their Christian descendants together, as though one were in some respect a purified outgrowth of the other. He says: “But the Christians, to change profane into sacred things, were accustomed to go every hundredth year to visit the Vatican basilica, and celebrate the memory of Christ, who was born for the redemption of the world; so that the Holy Year was the sanctification of the profane centenary in the lapse of time; but in its spiritual benefits it perfected the effects of the Jubilee kept by the Jews every fiftieth year for temporal advantages” (_Lettere Ecclesiast._, x. 50). Macri also, in his _Hiero-lexicon_ (1768), says: “We believe that the popes who have always endeavored (when the nature of the thing permitted) to alter the vain observances of the Gentiles into sacred ceremonies for the worship of God, in order to eradicate the superstitious secular year of the Romans, established our Holy Year of Jubilee, and enriched it with indulgences.” Of the connection between our Jubilee and that of the Jews Devoti (_Inst. Can._, ii. p. 250, note) remarks that their fiftieth year “aliquo modo imago fuit Jubilæi, quem postea Romani Pontifices instituerunt--” was in some wise a figure of that Jubilee which, at a later period, the Roman pontiffs instituted.

Benedetto Gaetani of Anagni (Boniface VIII.) had been elected pope at Naples on Dec. 24, 1294, and was residing in Rome at the close of the century, when he heard towards Christmas that many pilgrims were approaching the city, who came, they said, to gain the indulgence which an ancient tradition taught could be obtained there every hundredth year, at the beginning of a new century. Although search was made in the pontifical archives for some record of a concession of special indulgence at such a period, none was found; but witnesses of established veracity assured the pope that they had heard of this indulgence, and that it was connected with a visit to the tomb of S. Peter.

Brocchi in his _Storia del Giubbileo_, page 6, mentions among the venerable persons examined before the pope and cardinals one man 107 years old, and another--a noble Savoyard--over 100 years old, who both made deposition that as children they had been brought to Rome by their parents, who had often reminded them not to omit the pilgrimage of the next century, if they should live so long. Two very aged Frenchmen from the Diocese of Beauvais also deposed to having come to Rome on the strength of a like centennial tradition of which they had heard their fathers speak. The chronicler William Ventura of Asti (born in 1250) writes that at the beginning of the year 1300 an immense crowd of pilgrims, coming to Rome from the East and from the West, used to throng about the pope and cry out: “Give us thy blessing before we die; for we have learnt from our elders that all Christians who shall visit on the hundredth year the basilica where rest the bones of the apostles Peter and Paul can obtain absolution of their sins and the remission of any penance that might still be due for them” (apud Muratori, _Rer. Ital. Script._, xi. 26). Boniface VIII. then called a consistory, and on the advice of the cardinals determined to issue a bull confirming the grant of indulgence, did such really exist; and in any case offering a plenary indulgence to all who, contrite, should confess their sins and visit at least once a day for thirty days--not necessarily consecutive, if Romans; if strangers, only for fifteen days in the same manner--the two basilicas of the holy apostles SS. Peter and Paul during the course of the year 1300. This interesting bull, which is usually cited by its opening words, _Antiquorum habet fida relatio_, and may be seen in any collection of canon law among the _Extravagantes Communes_ (lib. v. De Pœn. et Rem., c. 1), is short and elegantly condensed--for which reason, perhaps, an old glossarist calls it “epistola satis grossè composite”--and, although written before the revival of Latin letters, compares favorably with the verbose composition of later documents. It was probably drawn up by Sylvester, the papal secretary, who is named as writer of the circular-letter sent in the pope’s name to all bishops and Christian princes to acquaint them with the measure taken, and invite them to exhort the faithful of their dioceses and their loyal subjects to go on the pilgrimage Romeward. The pope published his bull himself on the 22d of February, 1300, being the feast of S. Peter at Antioch, by reading it aloud from a richly-draped _ambon_ erected for the occasion before the high altar in S. Peter’s, which had a very different appearance from the domed and cross-shaped structure that we now admire, as lovers of architectural elegance; for as antiquarians we must regret the venerable building which was a _basilica_ in form as well as in name. When Boniface had finished, he descended, and went up in person to the altar to deposit upon it the bull of indulgence in homage to the Prince of the Apostles, whose successor he was, and not unworthily maintained himself to be. Then returning to his former place, while the cardinals stood with bended head around it and beneath him, he gave his solemn blessing to an immense number of pilgrims, who, filling the church and overflowing into the square in front, reverentially knelt to receive it. Truly, the hearts of the people were with that man, although the hands of princes were against him. A most interesting memorial of this very scene has been preserved to us through sack and fire for nearly six hundred years in the shape of a painting by the celebrated Giotto--a portrait, too, and not a fancy sketch--which is the only portion saved of the beautiful frescos with which he ornamented the _loggia_ built by Boniface at S. John Lateran. It represents the pope in the act of giving his benediction to the people between two cardinals (or, as some critics think, two prelates), one of whom holds a document in his hand--evidently meant for the bull of Jubilee by an artist’s license, to specify more distinctly the circumstance; for it was then actually on the altar--while the other looks down upon the crowd over the hanging cloth on which the Gaetani arms are emblazoned. This specimen of higher art of the XIVth century was for a long time preserved in the cloister of S. John, until a representative of the Gaetani (now ducal) family had it carefully set up against one of the pilasters of the church, and protected with a glass covering, in 1786, where it may still be seen, although it is not often noticed according to its merits.

Our chief authorities for the details of this Jubilee are the pope’s nephew, James Cardinal Stefaneschi; the Chronicler of Asti (generally quoted as _Chronicon Astense_); and the Florentine merchant and Guelph historian, John Villani, who died of the plague in 1348. All were eye-witnesses.

The cardinal wrote on the Jubilee in prose and verse. His work, _De centesimo, seu Jubilæo anno Liber_, is published in the _Biblioth. Max. Patrum_, tom. xxv. He is the earliest writer to use the word _jubilee_, which is not found in the pope’s bull, but must have been common at the period, for others use it. A sententious specimen of the cardinal deacon’s prose style may be interesting; it contains a good sentiment, and is not bad Latin, although the German Gregorovius, in his _History of Rome in the Middle Ages_, speaks of “die barbarische Schrift des Jacob Stefaneschi”--“that barbarous opuscule of James Stefaneschi”: “Beatus populus qui scit Jubilationem; infelices vero qui torpore, vel temeritate, dum alterius sibi forsan ævum Jubilæi spondent, neglexerint” (cap. xv.)--“Blessed is the people that profiteth by this season of remission; but unhappy are the slothful and presumptuous ones who, promising themselves another Jubilee, neglect it.” His hexameters, however, are undoubtedly execrable; for instance:

“Discite, centeno detergi crimina Phœbo, (!)
Discite, si latebras scabrosi criminis ora
Depromunt, contrita sinu, dum circulus anni
Gyrat, perque dies quindenos exter, et Urbis
Incola tricenos delubra patentia Patrum
Ætherei Petri, Pauli quoque gentibus almi
Doctoris subeant, ubi congerit urna sepultos.”

Cardinal James of the Title of S. George _in Velabro_ was one of the most distinguished men of Rome; “famous,” as Tiraboschi says (_Letterat. Ital._, v. 517), “not less for his birth than for his learning.” His mother was an Orsini. He died in 1343.

As soon as the grant of this great indulgence was noised abroad an extraordinarily large number of pilgrims set out from all parts of Italy, from Provence and France, from Spain, Germany, Hungary, and even from England, although not very many from that country, which was then at war. They came of every age, sex, and condition: children led by the hand or carried in the arms, the infirm borne in litters, the knightly and those of more means on horseback, while not a few old people were seen, Anchises-like, supported on the shoulders of their sons. _The Chronicle of Parma_ (quoted by Gregorovius, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter_, v. p. 549) says that “every day and at all hours there was a sight as of a general army marching in and out by the Claudian Way,” which brought the pilgrims into the city after joining the Flaminian Way at the gate now represented by the Porta del Popolo; and the Chronicler of Asti has to use the words of the Apocalypse to describe the throngs that gathered about the roaring gates. “I went out one day,” he says, and “I saw a great crowd which no man could number.” The whole influx of pilgrims, including men and women, during the year, was computed by the Romans at over two millions; while Villani, who was a careful observer, writes that about thirty thousand people used to enter and leave the city every day, there being at no time less than two hundred thousand within the walls over and above the fixed population. But the pilgrimage was especially one of the poor to the tomb of the Fisherman; and all writers on it have remarked, in noticing the fervent enthusiasm of the common people, the cold reserve and absence of their royal masters. Only the Frenchman Charles Martel, titular King of Hungary, came; it is presumable more to obtain the pope’s good-will in the dispute about the succession to the throne than from piety. The nearest approach to royalty after him was Charles of Valois, who came accompanied by his family and a courtly retinue of five hundred knights, and doubtless hoped to receive the crown of Sicily from Boniface, if he could expel the usurping Aragonese.

So many thousands of pilgrims, citizens and strangers, went day and night to S. Peter’s that not a few were maimed, and some even trampled to death, in the struggling crowd of goers and comers that met at the crossing of the Tiber over the old Ælian bridge leading to the Leonine city. To obviate such disasters in future, the wide bridge was divided lengthwise by a strong wooden railing, thus forming two passages, of which the advancing and returning pilgrims took respectively the one on their right. The poet Dante, who is strongly supposed to have been in Rome for the Jubilee, although there is no proof either in the _Divine Comedy_ or the _Vita Nuova_ that he was, may have written as an eye-witness when he describes this very scene of the passing but not mingling streams of human beings in the well-known lines:

“Come i Roman, per l’esercito molto,
L’anno del giubbileo, su per lo ponte
Hanno a passar la gente modo tolto;
Che dall’ un lato tutti hanno la fronte
Verso’l castello, e vanno a Santo Pietro--
Dall’ altra sponda vanno verso’l monte.”[84]

--_Inferno_, xviii.

The castle here mentioned is, of course, Sant’ Angelo; and the hill is probably Monte Giordano, in the heart of the city, which, although, from the grading of the surrounding streets, is now only a gentle rise graced by the Gabrielli palace, was a high and strongly-fortified position in the XIVth century. Among all the relics seen by the pilgrims in Rome, the Holy Face of our Lord, or Cloth of Veronica, which is preserved with so much veneration in S. Peter’s, seems to have attracted the most attention. By order of the pope it was solemnly shown to the people on every Friday and on all the principal feasts throughout the year of Jubilee. The great Tuscan has also sung of this, which he possibly saw himself:

“Quale è colui che forse di Croazia
Viene a veder la Veronica nostra,
Che per l’antica fama non si sazia,
Ma dice nel pensier, fin che si mostra;
Signor mio Gesù Cristo, Dio verace,
Or fu sì fatta la sembianza vostra?”[85]

--_Paradiso_, xxxi.

A modern economist might wonder how a famine was to be averted, with such a sudden and numerous addition to the population of the city. The foresight of the energetic pope, whose family also was influential in the very garden of the Campagna, among those hardy laborers of whom Virgil sung, “Quos dives Anagnia pascit,” had early in the year caused an immense supply of grain, oats, meat, fish, wine, and other sorts of provision for man and beast to be collected from every quarter and brought into the city, where it was stored and guarded against the coming of the pilgrims. The provisions were abundant and cheap. The Chronicler of Asti, it is true, complains of the dearness of the hay or fodder for his horse; but as he thought _tornesium unum grossum_ (equal to six cents of our money) too high for his own daily lodging and his horse’s stabling, without bait, we must think either that the means of living in Italy in those days were incredibly low, or that Ventura was very parsimonious. It is the testimony of all the writers on this Jubilee that, except an inundation of the Tiber, which threatened for a few days to cut off the train of supplies for the city, everything was propitious to the comfort and piety of the faithful. The roads through Italy leading to Rome were safe, at least to the pilgrims, to whom a general safe-conduct was given by the various little republics and principalities of the Peninsula; and if the Romans did grow rich off of the strangers, there was good-humor on both sides, and not the slightest collision. Indeed, the Romans (who perhaps gained the Jubilee before the great body of the pilgrims had arrived; at least we know that those out of the northern parts of Europe timed their departure from home so as to avoid the sweltering southern heat) seem to have shown some indifference to the spiritual favors offered; as Gregorovius--who, however, is anti-papal--with a quiet sarcasm says: “They left the pilgrims to pray at the altars, while they marched with flaunting banners against the neighboring city of Toscanella”; and Galletti, in his _Roman Mediæval Inscriptions_ (tom. ii. p. 4), has published a curious old one on this martial event, the original of which is now encased in one of the inside walls of the Palazzo dei Conservatori (this name may have been changed by the present usurpers) on the Capitoline hill, where it was set up under Clement X. in 1673. As it is most interesting for its synchronism with the first Jubilee, and the insight it gives us into the mixed sort of fines imposed by the descendants of the conquerors of the world upon a subjugated people in the middle ages--bags of wheat, a bell, the city gates, eight lusty fellows to dance while their masters piped, and a gentle hint that there was _no salt sown_--we think it might well appear (doubtless for the first time) in an American periodical. The original being in the abbreviated style of the XIVth century, we have modernized it to make it more intelligible to the reader:

“Mille trecentenis Domini currentibus annis
Papa Bonifacius octavus in orbe vigebat
Tunc Aniballensis Riccardus de Coliseo
Nec non Gentilis Ursina prole creatus
Ambo senatores Romam cum pace regebant
Per quos jam pridem tu Tuscanella fuisti
Ob dirum damnata nefas, tibi dempta potestas
Sumendi regimen est, at data juribus Urbis
Frumenti rubla bis millia ferre coegit
Annua te Roma vel libras solvere mille
Cum Deus attulerit Romanis fertilitatem
Campanam populi, portas deducere Romam
Octo ludentes Romanis mittere ludis--
Majori pœna populi pietate remissa.
Sunt quoque communis servata palatia Romæ
Dummodo certe ruant turresque palatia muri
Si rursus furere tentent fortassis in Urbem
Vel jam prolata nolint decreta tenere
In æde reponatur sacra pro tempore guerræ
Tempore vel caro servanda pecunia prorsus.”

The meaning of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth lines is that, since the Romans have land enough to give them their daily bread, but do not object to any amount of _quattrim_ (coin), if the vanquished should prefer, they may pay once for all a thousand pounds in money, instead of the annual tribute of two thousand sacks of grain--with freight charges to destination; and the last lines signify that a sum is laid up in the chapel to be used to carry on another war if the Tuscanellans should again machinate against the City--as Rome was proudly called--or refuse to fulfil the stipulations.

The pilgrims of the Jubilee generally made a small offering at the altars of the two basilicas, although no alms were required as a condition of gaining the indulgence; and it is particularly from a _naïve_ passage of one of them in his valuable chronicle that Protestants and Voltaireans have taken occasion to deride the Jubilees as mere money-making affairs; and even the Catholic Muratori (_Antichità Italiane_, tom. iii. part ii. p. 156) carps at the inimitable description of so Romanesque a scene as that of two chatting clerics raking in the oblations of the _forestieri_; but Cenni, the annotator of this great work of the Modenese historian in the Roman edition of 1755, which we use, aptly remarks here that if writers will look only at the bad side of the many and almost innumerable events that have occurred in this low world of ours, and illogically conclude from a particular to the universal, they will discover that art of putting things whereby what has generally been considered good and laudable will appear thereafter worthy only of censure. The Chronicler of Asti, certainly with no great thought of what people would think five hundred years after he was mouldering in his grave, simply writes of the pilgrims’ donations: “Papa innumerabilem pecuniam ab eisdem recepit, quia die ac nocte duo clerici stabant ad altare sancti Petri, tenentes in eorum manibus rastellos rastellantes pecuniam infinitam.”