Chapter XX: Part 20

In the first part of this work he clears Christians
from the calumnies of incest and murder thrown upon
them, and demonstrates the injustice of punishing
them merely for a name, and exposes the absurdity
of Trajan’s order commanding them to be punished if
impeached, yet not to be sought after. He mentions
that Tiberius, and after his miraculous victory, Marcus
Aurelius, were favorable to the Christian religion.
He then proceeds to confute idolatry; asks, if Bacchus
was made a god for planting vines, why did not Lucullus
attain to the same honor, because he first brought
cherry-trees from Pontus to Rome? Why Aristides the
Just, Socrates, Crœsus, Demosthenes, and so many others
who had been most eminent, were not admitted to share
divine honors with Jupiter, Venus, &c.? He explains
the chief articles of our faith, and speaking of the
origin and false worship of the demons he inserts
the most daring challenge, which Saint Cyprian (ep.
ad Demetrianum), Lactantius (De Just. l. 5, c. 21)
and other primitive fathers repeat with the same
assurance,--“Let a demoniac be brought into court,”
says Tertullian, “and the evil spirit that possesses
him be commanded by any Christian to declare what he is,
he shall confess himself as truly to be a devil as he
did falsely before declare himself a god. In like manner
let them bring any of those who are thought to be
inspired by some god, as Æsculapius, &c. If all these
do not declare themselves in court to be devils, not
daring to lie to a Christian, do you instantly put that
rash Christian to death.”

The apologist mentions the submission of Christians to
the emperors, their love of their enemies, and their
mutual charity, horror of all vice, and constancy in
suffering death and all manner of torments for the
sake of virtue. The heathens called them in derision
Sarmentitians and Semaxians, because they were fastened
to trunks of trees, and stuck about with faggots to
be set on fire. But Tertullian answers them: “Thus
dressed about with fire, we are in our most illustrious
apparel. These are our triumphal robes embroidered
with palm-branches in token of victory (such the Roman
generals wore in their solemn triumphs), and mounted
upon the pile we look upon ourselves as in our
triumphal chariot. Who ever looked well into our
religion but he came over to it? and who ever came over
to it but was ready to suffer for it? We thank you for
condemning us, because there is such a blessed discord
between the divine and human judgment, that when you
condemn us upon earth, God absolveth us in heaven.”

Tertullian wrote about the same time his two books
Against the Gentiles, in the first confuting their
slanders, in the second attacking their false gods.
An accidental disputation of a Christian with a Jewish
proselyte engaged him to show the triumph of the
faith over that obstinate race, who seemed deaf to all
arguments. His book Against the Jews is just, solid,
and well supported, a model of theological controversy,
which wants but a little clearness of diction to be a
very finished piece. Hermogenes, a Stoic philosopher,
and a Christian, broached a new heresy in Africa,
teaching matter to be eternal. Tertullian shows it to
have been created by God with the world, and unravels
the sophistry of that heresiarch in its book Against
Hermogenes. That Against the Valentinians is rather a
satire and raillery, than a serious confutation of the
extravagant sentiments of those heretics. His excellent
book Of Prescription against Heretics was certainly
written before his fall; for in it he lays great stress
on his communion with all the apostolic churches,
especially that of Rome, and confutes by general
principles all heresies that can arise.

His design in this little treatise is to show, that
the appeal to scripture is very unjust in heretics,
who have no claim or title to the scriptures. These
were carefully committed in trust by the apostles
to their successors, and he proves, that to whom the
scriptures were intrusted, to them also was committed
the interpretation of scripture. He promises that
heresies are the very pest and destruction of faith,
but no just cause of scandal or wonder, any more than
fevers which consume the human body; for they were
predicted by Christ, and the necessary consequence
of criminal passions. He says, as if it had been to
anticipate or remove the offence which he afterward
gave by his fall: “What if a bishop, a deacon, a widow,
a virgin, a teacher, or even a martyr, shall fall from
the faith;--Do we judge of the faith by the persons or
of persons by their faith? No man is wise who holds not
the faith.” (c. 3.) He says: “We have no need of a nice
inquiry after we have found Christ, or of any curious
search after we have learned the gospel. If we believe
we desire nothing further than to be believers.”
(c. 7.) He adds, some heretics inculcate as a good
reason for eternal scruple and searching, that it is
written: _Seek and ye shall find_. But he takes notice
those words only belonged to those Jews who had not yet
found Christ, and cannot mean, that we must for ever
seek on. But if we are to seek, it must not be from
heretics who are estranged from the truth, who have
no power to instruct, no inclination but to destroy,
and whose very light is darkness. Christ laid down a
rule of faith, about which there can be no cavils,
no disputes but what are raised by heretics; and an
obstinate opposition to this rule is what constitutes
a heretic.

He inveighs against too curious searches in faith, as
the source of heresies. Then coming close to the point,
he will not have heretics admitted to dispute about the
scriptures, to which they have no claim; and in such a
scriptural disputation, the victory is precarious and
very liable to uncertainty. All then is to be resolved
into what the apostles have taught; which apostolical
tradition is the demonstration of the truth, and the
confutation of all error and heretical innovation. Our
perfect agreement, and general consent and harmony with
the apostolic churches which live in the unity of the
same faith, is the most convincing proof of the truth,
against which no just objection can possibly be formed.
(c. 21, 22.) He urges that Marcion, Apelles, Valentinus,
and Hermogenes were of too modern a date, and proved
by their separation and pretended claim of what was
ancient, that the Church was before them; they ought
therefore to say, that Christ came down again from
heaven and taught again upon earth, before they can
commence apostles. “But,” says he, “if any of these
heretics have the confidence to put in their claim
to apostolic antiquity, let them show us the original
of their churches, the order and succession of their
bishops, so as to ascend up to an apostle,” &c. He is
for having the heretics prove their mission by miracles,
like the apostles. (c. 35.) He writes: “To these men
the Church might thus fitly address herself: Who are
ye? When, and from whence came ye? What do ye in my
pastures, who are none of mine? By what authority do
you, Marcion, break in upon my enclosures? Whence,
O Apelles, is your power to remove my land-marks?
This field is mine of right, why then do you at your
pleasure sow and feed therein? It is my possession; I
held it in times past; I first had it in my hands; my
title to it is firm and indisputable, and derived from
those persons whose it was, and to whom it properly
belonged; I am the heir of the apostles; as they
provided in their testament, as they committed and
delivered to my trust, as they charged and ordered me,
so I hold.” (c. 37.) He takes notice that in the Pagan
superstitions the devil had imitated many ceremonies
both of the Jewish and Christian religion; and
that heretics in like manner were bad copies of the
true Church. (c. 40.) He appeals to the manners and
conversation of the heretics which are vain, earthly,
without weight, without discipline, in every respect
suitable to the faith they profess. (c. 41, 43.) “I
am very much mistaken,” says he, “if they are governed
by any rules, even of their own making, since every
one models and adopts the doctrine he has received
according to his fancy, as the first founder framed
them to his, and to serve his own turn. The progress of
every heresy was formed upon the footsteps of its first
introducers; and the same liberty that was assumed
by Valentinus and Marcion, was generally made use of
by their followers. If you search into all sorts of
heresies, you will find that they differ in many things
from the first authors of their own sect. They have few
of them in any Church; but without mother, without see,
without the faith, they wander up and down like exiled
men, entirely devoid of house and home.” (c. 42.)

Among his other works, the most useful is the book On
Penance, the best polished of all his writings; in the
first part, he treats of repentance at baptism; in the
second, on that for sins committed after baptism. He
teaches here that the Church hath power to remit even
fornication, which he denied when a Montanist. He
insists much on the laborious exercises of this penance
after baptism.

A book On Prayer, explaining in the first part the
Lord’s Prayer; in the second, several ceremonies often
used at prayer. An exhortation to Patience, in which
the motives are displayed with great eloquence. An
exhortation to Martyrdom, than which nothing can be
more pathetic.

He wrote a book On Baptism, proving in the first part,
its obligation and necessity; in the second, treating
on several points of discipline relating to that
sacrament.

As to his other works, in his first book to his Wife,
written probably before he was priest (see Ceillier,
p. 375, and 391), he exhorts her not to marry again,
if she should survive him; and mentions several in the
Church living in perpetual continency. In the second,
he allows second marriages lawful, but if the woman be
determined to engage a second time in the married state,
insists that it is unlawful to marry an infidel. He
alleges the impossibility of rising to prayer at night,
giving suitable alms, visiting the martyrs, &c. with
a pagan husband: “Can you conceal yourself from him,”
says he, “when you make the sign of the cross upon your
bed or your body?--Will he not know what you receive
in secret, before you take any food?” that is, the
eucharist, (l. 2, c. 5.) He concludes with an amiable
description of a Christian holy marriage: “The Church,”
saith he, “approves the contract, the oblation ratifies
it, the blessing is the seal of it, and the angels
carry it to the heavenly Father who confirms it. Two
bear together the same yoke, and are but one flesh, and
one mind: they pray together, fast together, mutually
exhort each other, go together to the church, and
to the table of the Lord. They conceal nothing from
each other, visit the sick, collect alms without
restraint, assist at the offices of the Church without
interruption, sing psalms and hymns together, and
encourage each other to praise God.”

In his treatise On the Shows, he represents them as
occasions of idolatry, impurity, vanity, and other
vices, and mentions a woman who, going to the theatre,
returned back possessed with a devil: when the exorcist
reproached the evil spirit for daring to attack one of
the faithful, it boldly answered: “I found her in my
own house.” In his book On Idolatry, he determines
many cases of conscience, relating to idolatry, as
that it is not lawful to make idols, &c., but he says,
a Christian servant may attend his master to a temple:
any friend may assist at an idolater’s marriage, &c.
In two books On the Ornaments or Dress of Women, he
zealously recommends modesty in attire, and condemns
their use of paint. In that On veiling Virgins, he
undertakes to prove that young women ought to cover
their faces at church, contrary to the custom of his
country, where only married women were veiled. In that
On the Testimony of the Soul, he proves that there is
only one God from the natural testimony of every one’s
soul. In his Scorpiace, written against the poison
of the Scorpions, that is, Gnostics, especially a
branch of those heretics named Cainites, he proves
the necessity of martyrdom, which they denied. In his
Exhortation to Chastity, he dissuades a certain widow
from a second marriage, which he allows to be lawful,
though hardly so; and the harshness of his expressions
show that he then leaned toward Montanism.

Tertullian was a priest, and continued in the Church
till the middle of his life, that is, to forty or
upwards, when he miserably fell. Montanus, an eunuch
in Phrygia, set up for a prophet, and was wonderfully
agitated by an evil spirit, and pretended to raptures
in which he lost his senses, and spoke incoherently,
not like St. Quadratus and other true prophets. He
was joined by Prisca, or Priscilla, and Maximilla,
two women of quality, and rich, but of most debauched
lives. These had the like pretended raptures, and many
were deceived by them. Montanus, about the year 171,
pretended that he had received the Holy Ghost to
complete the law of the gospel, and was called by
his followers the Paraclete. Affecting a severity of
doctrine, to which his manners did not correspond, he
condemned second marriages, and flight in persecution,
and ordered extraordinary fasts. The Montanists said
that, beside the fast of Lent observed by the Catholics,
there were other fasts imposed by the Divine Spirit.
They kept three Lents in the year, each of two weeks,
and upon dry meats, as necessary injunctions of the
Spirit by the new revelations made to Montanus, which
they preferred to the writings of the apostles; and
they said these laws were to be observed for ever.
(See Tert. de Jejun. c. 15, also St. Jerom, ep. 54,
ad Marcellam, et in Aggæ, c. 1), which is the reason
why the Montanists, even in the time of Sozomen, kept
their Antepaschal fast confined to two weeks, which the
Catholics at that time certainly observed of forty days.
For, as bishop Hooper (of Lent, p. 65), remarks, those
great fasters would hardly have been left behind, had
they not been restrained by the pretended institution
of the Spirit, to which they punctually kept; and
this circumstance rendered these facts superstitious.
Pepuzium, a town in Phrygia, was the metropolis of
these heretics, who called it Jerusalem. The bishops
of Asia having examined their prophecies and errors,
condemned them. It is said, that Montanus and Maximilla
going mad, hanged themselves. See Eusebius.

Tertullian’s harsh, severe disposition fell in with
this rigidness. His vehement temper was for no medium
in any thing; and failing first by pride, he resented
some affronts which he imagined he had received from
the clergy of Rome, as Saint Jerom testifies; and in
this passion deserted the Church, forgetting the maxims
by which he had confuted all heresies. Solomon’s fall
did not prejudice his former inspired writings. Nor
does the misfortune of Tertullian destroy at least the
justness of the reasoning in what he had written in
defence of the truth, any more than if a man lost his
senses, this unlucky accident could annul what he had
formerly done for the advancement of learning.

Tertullian is the most ancient of all ecclesiastical
writers among the Latins. St. Vincent of Lerins, who is
far from shading the blemishes of this great man, says,
“He was among the Latins what Origen was among the
Greeks--that is, the first man of his age. Every word
seems a sentence, and almost every sentence a new
victory. Yet with all these advantages, he did not
continue in the ancient and universal faith. His error,
as the blessed confessor Hilary observes, has taken
away that authority from his writings which they
would have otherwise deserved.” St. Jerom in his book
against Helvidius, when his authority was objected,
coolly answered, “That he is not of the Church,”
“Ecclesiæ hominem non esse.” Yet he sometimes speaks
advantageously of his learning. Lactantius calls his
style uncouth, rugged, and dark, but admires his depth
of sense; and he who breaks the shell will not repent
his pains for the kernel. Balsac ingeniously compares
his eloquence to ebony, which is bright and pleasing
in its black light. The great master of eloquence,
St. Cyprian, found such hidden stores under his dark
language, that he is reported never to have passed a
day without reading him; and when he called for his
book, he used to say, “Give me my master.”

We find this once great man, who expressed in his
Apologetic (cap. 39) the most just and fearful
apprehension of excommunication, which he there called,
The anticipation of the future judgment, afterward
proud, arrogant, and at open defiance with the censures
of the Church. And this great genius seems even to lose
common sense when he writes in favor of his errors and
enthusiasm, as when, upon the authority of the dreams
of Priscilla and Maximilla, he seriously disputes on
the shape and color of a human soul, &c. He lived to a
very advanced age, and leaving the Montanists, became
the author of a new sect called from him Tertullianists,
who had a church at Carthage till St. Austin’s time,
when they were all reconciled to the Catholic faith.
Tertullian died towards the year 245.

The works which he wrote after his fall are, a book
On the Soul, pretending it to have a human figure, &c.
Another On the Flesh of Christ, proving that he took
upon him human flesh in reality, not in appearance
only. One on the Resurrection of the Flesh, proving
that great mystery. Five books Against Marcion, who
maintained that there were two principles or gods, the
one good the other evil; that the latter was worshipped
by the Jews, and was author of their law; but that the
good god sent Christ to destroy his works. Against this
heresiarch, Tertullian proves the unity of God, and
the sanctity of the Old Law and Testament. In his book
Against Praxeas he proves excellently the Trinity of
Persons, and uses the very word Trinity (c. 2), but
he impiously condemns Praxeas, because coming from the
East to Rome he had informed pope Victor of the errors
and hypocrisy of Montanus; on which account he says,
he had banished the Paraclete (Montanus) and crucified
the Father. “Paracletum fugavit, Patrem crucifixit,”
(c. 1.) For Praxeas, puffed up with the title of
confessor, broached the heresy of the Patripassians,
confounding the three Persons, and pretending that
the Father in the Son became man, and was crucified
for us. His apology for the Philosophers’ Cloak, which
he continued to wear rather than the Toga, for its
conveniency, and as an emblem of a severer life, seems
only writ to display his wit. His apology to Scapula,
proconsul of Africa in 211, is an exhortation to put a
stop to the persecution, alleging that “a Christian is
no man’s enemy, much less the emperor’s.” In his book
On Monogamy he maintains against the Psychici (so he
calls the Catholics) that second marriages are unlawful,
which was one point of his heresy. One of his arguments
is, the duty of a widow always to pray for the soul of
her deceased husband. (c. 10.)

He writ his book on Fasts, to defend the extraordinary
fasts commanded by the Montanists; but shows that
certain obligatory fasts were observed by the Catholics,
as that before Easter, since called Lent, in which
they fasted every day till vespers or evening-service:
that those of Wednesday and Friday till three o’clock,
called stations, were devotional. Some added to these
Xerophagia or the use only of dried meats, abstaining
from all vinous and juicy fruits; and some confined
themselves to bread and water. The Montanists kept
three Lents a year, and other fasts always till night,
and with the Xerophagia.

Tertullian wrote also his book On Chastity, against the
Catholics, because they gave absolution to penitents
who had been guilty of adultery or fornication. For the
Montanists denied that the Church could pardon sins of
impurity, murder, or idolatry. In this book he mentions
twice, that on the sacred chalices was painted the
image of the good shepherd bringing home the lost sheep
on his shoulders. Scoffing at a decree made by the
bishop of Rome at that time, he writes, “I am informed
that they have made a decree, and even a peremptory one;
the chief priest, that is, the bishop of bishops, saith;
I remit the sins of adultery and fornication to those
who have done penance.” (c. 1.) He calls him apostolic
bishop, c. 19, and blessed pope, c. 13, ib. His book
On the Crown was written in 235, the first year of
Maximinus, to defend the action of a Christian soldier
who refused to put on his head a garland, like the rest,
when he went to receive a donative. Tertullian says
these garlands were reputed sacred to some false god or
other. He alleges that by tradition alone we practise
many things, as the ceremonies used at baptism, yearly
oblations (or sacrifices) for the dead, and for the
festivals of martyrs, standing at prayer on the Lord’s
day, and from Easter to Whitsuntide, and the sign of
the cross “which we make,” says he, “upon our foreheads
at every action, and in all our motions at coming in or
going out of doors, in dressing or bathing ourselves;
when we are at table or in bed; when we sit down or
light a lamp, or whatever else we do.” (De Corona, c. 3
and 4.) His book On Flight, was written about the same
time to pretend to prove against the Catholics that it
is a crime to fly in time of persecution.

The most correct edition of Tertullian’s works is that
of Rigaltius, even that of Pamelius being ill pointed,
and abounding with faults; though Rigaltius’s notes on
this and some other fathers want much amendment.

[191] Tert. l. ad Scapul. c. 3.

[192] L. 7, Ep. 8.

[193] Euchar.

[194] Ennod. l. 8, Ep. 24, ad Faust.

[195] Magisteriani were officers under the Magister
Officiorum, who held one of the first dignities in
the imperial court, and had a superintendency over the
Palatines, inferior officers of the court, the schools
or academies of the court, and certain governors. See
Du Cange, Glossar.

[196] This ceremony was much more ancient. Alcuin and
Amalarius ascribe its institution to pope Zosimus; but
others make it of older date. At Rome the archdeacon on
Holy Saturday blessed wax mingled with oil, particles
of which having a figure of a lamb formed upon them
were distributed among the people. Hence was derived
the custom of Agnus Deis made of wax sometimes mixed
with relics of martyrs, which the popes blessed in
a solemn manner. See Saint Gregory of Tours, de Vit.
Patr. c. 8. The Rom. Order, Alcuin, Sirmond, Not. In
Ennod., &c.

[197] That a pretended woman called Joan interrupted
the series of the succession between Leo IV. and
Bennet III., is a most notorious forgery. Lupus
Ferrariensis, ep. 103, to Bennet III. Ado in his
Chronicle, Rhegino in his Chronicle, the annals of
St. Bertin, Hincmar ep. 26, pope Nicholas I. the
successor of Bennet III. ep. 46, even the calumniators
of the holy see, Photius l. De Process. Spir. Sti. and
Metrophanes of Smyrna, l. de Divinitate Spiritus Sancti,
who all lived at that very time, expressly testify,
that Bennet III. succeeded immediately Leo IV. Whence
Blondel, a violent Calvinist, has by an express
dissertation demonstrated the falsity of this fable.
Marianus Scotus, at Mentz, wrote two hundred years
after, in 1083, a chronicle in which mention is first
made of this fiction; from whence it was inserted in
the chronicle of Martinus Polonus, a Dominican, in 1277,
though it is wanting in the true MS. copy kept in the
Vatican library, as Leo Allatius assures us, and in
other old MS. copies, as Burnet (Nouvelles de la Rep.
des Lettres, Mars, 1687), Casleu (Catal. Bibl. reg.
Londin, p. 102), &c., testify. Lambecius, the most
learned keeper of the imperial library at Vienna,
in his excellent catalogue of that library, vol. ii.
p. 860, has demonstrated this of the oldest and best
manuscript copies of this chronicle; also of Marianus
Scotus. Her name was foisted into Sigebert’s Chronicle,
written in 1112; for it is not found in the original MS.
copy at Gemblours, authentically published by Miræus.
Platina, and the other late copies of Martinus Polonus
and Sigebert, borrow it from the first forger in the
copy of Marianus Scotus, probably falsified; certainly
of no authority and inconsistent; for there it is said
that she sat two years five months, and that she had
studied at Athens, where no schools remained long
before this time.

As to the porphyry stool shown in a repository
belonging to the Lateran church, which is said to have
been made use of on account of this fable, it is an
idle dream. There were two such stools; one is now
shown to travellers. It is certainly of old Roman
antiquity, finely polished, and might perhaps be used
at the baths or at some superstitious ceremonies.
The art of cutting or working in porphyry marble
was certainly lost long before the ninth age, and not
restored before the time of Cosmus the Great of Medicis;
this work is still exceeding slow and expensive. On
this idle fable see Lambecius, Blondel, Leo Allatius,
Nat. Alexander, Boerhave, &c.

[198] The emperor Adrian, nobly born at Italica, near Seville,
in Spain, was cousin-german to Trajan; and having been
adopted by him, upon his death ascended the imperial
throne in 117. He was extremely inquisitive, and fond
of whatever was surprising or singular, well skilled
in all curious arts, mathematics, judiciary astrology,
physic, and music. But this, says Lord Bacon, was an
error in his mind, that he desired to comprehend all
things, yet neglected the most useful branches of
knowledge. He was light and fickle; and so monstrous
was his vanity, that he caused all to be slain who
pretended in any art or science to rival him; and
it was accounted great prudence in a certain person
that he would not dispute his best with him, alleging
afterward that it was reasonable to yield to him
who commanded thirty legions. The beginning of this
prince’s reign was bloody; yet he is commended in it
for two things: the first is mentioned by Spartian,
that when he came to the empire he laid aside all
former enmities, and forgot past injuries: insomuch
that, being made emperor, he said to one who had been
his capital enemy: “Thou hast now escaped.” The other
is, that, when a woman cried to him as he was passing
by: “Hear me, Cæsar;” and he answered, “I have not
leisure.” The woman replied: “Then cease to reign.”
“Noli ergo imperare.” Whereupon he stopped and heard
her complaint.

[199] St. Paulin. ep. 11. ad Sever.

[200] St. Hieron. ep. 13. ad Paul.

[201] Adrian became more cruel than ever towards the end
of his life, and without any just cause put to death
several persons of distinction. At last he fell sick
of a dropsy at his house at Tibur. Finding that no
medicines gave him any relief, he grew most impatient
and fretful under his lingering illness, and wished
for death, often asking for poison or a sword, which
no one would give him, though he offered them money
and impunity. His physician slew himself that he might
not be compelled to give him poison. A slave named
Mastor, a barbarian noted for his strength and boldness,
whom the emperor had employed in hunting, was, partly
by threats, partly by promises, prevailed upon to
undertake it; but instead of complying, was seized with
fear, and durst not strike him, and fled. The unhappy
tyrant lamented day and night, that death refused to
obey and deliver him who had caused the death of so
many others. He at length hastened his death by eating
and drinking things contrary to his health in his
distemper, and expired with these words in his month,
“The multitude of physicians hath killed the emperor.”
“Turba medicorum Cæsarem perdidit.” (See Dio et
Spartian in Adr.) He died in 138, being sixty-two
years old, and having reigned twenty-one years.

[202] _A sette Frate_, in the villa of Mafiei, nine miles
from Rome. See Aringhi, Roma Subter. l. 3, c. 14.

[203] Ado, Usuard; Mart. Rom. cum notis Baronii et Lubin.

[204] The best editions of St. Philastrius’s book De
Hæresibus, are that printed in Hamburg in 1721, by the
care of Fabricius, who has illustrated it with notes;
and that procured by Cardinal Quirini at Brescia in
1738 together with the works of St. Gaudentius.

[205] St. Aug. Pref. l. de hæres.

[206] Utrecht was an archbishopric in the time of St.
Willibrord, but from his death remained a bishopric
subject first to Mentz, afterward to Cologne, till,
in the reign of Philip II. Paul IV. in 1559, restored
the archbishoprics of Utrecht and Cambray, and erected
Mechlin a third with the dignity of primate. To Utrecht
he subjected the new bishoprics of Haerlem, Middleburg,
Deventer, Lewarden, and Groeningen; to Mechlin, those
of Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, Ipres, Bois-le-Duc and
Ruremond; to Cambray, those of Arras and Tournay,
with two new ones, St. Omer and Namur.

[207] He also gave him Austrasia, great part of which from
that age has been called Lorrain, either from this
Lothaire or rather his younger son of the same name,
whom he left king of that country.

[208] Louis left to her the management of all affairs, made
her elder brother Rodolph Guelph, governor of Bavaria,
and her younger brother, Conrad, governor of Italy,
and destined the best part of the kingdoms of Germany
and France to Charles _the Bald_, the son which she
bore him; to which dominions the sons by the first
wife thought they had a prior claim. They, by an
unjustifiable breach of their duty, twice took up arms
against their father; first in 830, when the empress
Judith was banished to a nunnery in Gascony, and the
emperor imprisoned; but he was soon released by the
Germans, and recalled Judith and her two brothers. In
the second rebellion, in 833, Lothaire, the eldest son,
banished Judith to Verona in Italy, and shut up her
son Charles in the abbey of Pruim, near Triers, and the
weak emperor himself in the abbey of St. Medard’s at
Soissons, after he had in an assembly of the states at
Compeigne, basely confessed himself justly deposed from
the empire, and guilty of the crimes which were laid
to his charge. He was afterward sent to the abbey of
St. Denys near Paris, and there clothed with the habit
of a monk; but soon after delivered by his two younger
sons, Pepin and Louis, and restored to his throne.
Judith after all these disturbances so dexterously
managed him that, at his death in 840, he left to her
son Charles the monarchy of France.

[209] P. 204.

[210] L. 1, de gestis Pontif. Angl. p. 197.

[211] Hist. Episcop. Ultraj.

[212] Chron.

[213] Ubbo Emmius, Rerum Frisic. l. 3, p. 74.

[214] The works of St. Bruno of Segni, or of Asti, with a
preliminary dissertation of Dom. Maur Marchesi were
printed at Venice in 1651, in two vols. folio, and in
the Bibl. Patr. at Lyons in 1677, t. 20. They consist
of comments on several parts of scripture, one hundred
and forty-five sermons, several dogmatical treatises,
and letters; and a life of St. Leo IX. and another
of St. Peter, bishop of Anagnia, whom Paschal II.
canonized. This latter the Bollandists have published
on the 3d of April.

[215] Collet, t. 1, b. 1, p. 66, 71.

[216] This book of Jansenius was condemned by Urban VIII.
in 1641, and in 1653 Innocent X. censured five
propositions to which the errors contained in this
book were principally reduced. Alexander VII. in 1656
confirmed these decrees, and in 1665 approved the
formulary proposed by the French clergy for the manner
of receiving and subscribing them. Paschasius Quenel,
a French oratorian, published in 1671 his book of
Moral Reflections on the Gospels, which he afterward
augmented, and added like reflections on the rest of
the New Testament, which work he printed complete in
1693 and 1694. In it he craftily insinuated the errors
of Jansenius, and a contempt of the censures of the
Church. Clement XI. condemned this book, in 1708; and
in 1713 by the Constitution Unigenitus, censured one
hundred and one propositions extracted out of it. These
decrees were all received and promulgated by the clergy
of France, and registered in the parliament of that
kingdom that they might receive the force of a law of
the state; and they are adopted by the whole Catholic
Church, as cardinal Bissy, Languet, and other French
prelates have clearly demonstrated.

The Jansenian heresy is downright Predestinationism,
than which no doctrine can be imagined more monstrous
and absurd. The principal errors couched in the
doctrine of Jansenists are, that God sometimes refuses,
even to the just, sufficient grace to comply with his
precepts; that the grace which God affords man since
the fall of Adam, is such that if concupiscence be
stronger, it cannot produce its effect; but if the
grace be more powerful than the opposite concupiscence
in the soul, or relatively to it victorious by a
_necessitating_ influence, that then it cannot be
resisted, rejected, or hindered; and that Christ
by his death paid indeed a price sufficient for the
redemption of all men, and offered it to purchase some
weak insufficient graces for reprobate souls, but not
to procure them means truly applicable, and sufficient
for their salvation; which is really to confine the
death of Christ to the elect, and to deprive the
reprobate of sufficient means to attain to salvation.
The main-spring or hinge of this system is that the
grace which inclines man’s will to supernatural virtue,
since the fall of Adam, consists in a moral pleasurable
motion or a delectation infused into the soul inclining
her to virtue, as concupiscence carries her to vice;
and that the power of delectation, whether of virtue
or vice, which is stronger, draws the will by an
inevitable necessity as it were by its own weight.

The equivocations by which some advocates for these
erroneous principles have endeavored to disguise or
soften their harshness, only discover their fear of the
light. A certain modern philosopher is more daring who,
in spite not only of revelation, which he disclaims,
but also of reason and experience, openly denies all
free-will or election in human actions, pretending to
apply this system of a two-fold delectation to every
natural operation of the will. (See Hume’s Essay on
Free-Will.) Those who obstinately oppose the decrees
of the Church in these disputes, without adopting any
heretical principle condemned as such by the Church,
but found their unjust exceptions in some points of
discipline, or any other weak pretences, cannot be
charged with heresy: nevertheless, only invincible
ignorance can exempt them from the guilt of
disobedience though they should not proceed to a
schismatical separation in communion.

[217] See F. Honoré Addit. sur les Observ. p. 241, &c.
Languet ep. Pastor, &c.

[218] Honoré, ibid. p. 245, 253, &c.

[219] See Collet’s life of St. Vincent, l. 3, t. 1, p. 260,
and Abelly, l. 2, ch. 12.

[220] L. 9.

[221] This consists in a prolapse both of the gut and the
omentum or caul together.

[222] T. 2, p. 546.

[223] “Fuge, tace, quiesce; hæc sunt principia salutis,”
Rosweide, Cotelier, et Saint Theod. Stud. Vit. S.
Arcen., c. 1, n. 7.

[224] A small Egyptian measure of vegetables made of
palm-tree leaves, as the word implies. See Cotelier,
Mon. Gr. t. 4, not. p. 748, and Du Cange, Gloss. Græc.
v. θάλλιν.

[225] St. Chrys. l. de Virginit. t. 1, p. 321, ed. Ben.

[226] St. Aug. in Ps. 128.

[227] St. John Clim. Grad. 7, p. 427.

[228] Gr. 27, n. 65.

[229] Conc. t. 4, p. 1286.

[230] Ennod. Apol. p. 342, ed. Sirmond. Item, l. 1, ep. 5.
Cassidor. in Chron. et Anast. in Pontific.

[231] Conc. t. 4, p. 1287.

[232] Ib. p. 1223.

[233] Dial. l. 4, c. 40. See Baron. ad an. 498, et Benedict
XIV. l. de Canoniz. Sanctor.

[234] T. 15, ch. 23, p. 352, Vie de Paschase.

[235] Symmach. Apol. t. 4, Conc. p. 1298.

[236] Ib. p. 1301.

[237] Act. i. 20.

[238] Hom. 3, in Act.

[239] Eus. Hist. l. 3, c. 39.

[240] L. 2, de Prædest.

[241] John Cassian, priest and abbot of the great monastery
of St. Victor’s at Marseilles, was a native of Lesser
Scythia, then comprised under Thrace. He inured himself
from his youth to the exercises of an ascetic life in
the monastery of Bethlehem. The great reputation of
many holy anchorets in the deserts of Egypt induced
him and one Germanus, about the year 390, to pay them
a visit. Being much edified with the great examples of
virtue they saw in those solitudes, especially in the
wilderness of Sceté, they spent there and in Thebais
several years. They lived like the monks of that
country, went bare-foot, and so meanly clad that their
friends would have been ashamed to meet them, and they
gained their subsistence by their work, as all the rest
did. (Col. 4, c. 10.) Their life was most austere,
and they scarce ate two loaves a day each of six
ounces. (Col. 19, c. 17.) In 403 they both went to
Constantinople, where they listened to the spiritual
instructions of St. Chrysostom, who ordained Cassian
deacon, and employed him in his church. After the
banishment of that holy prelate, Cassian and Germanus
travelled to Rome with letters from the clergy of
Constantinople to defend their injured pastor as
Palladius informs us. Cassian was promoted to the order
of priesthood in the West, and retiring to Marseilles,
there founded two monasteries, one for men, and another
for virgins, and wrote his spiritual Conferences and
other works. He died in odor of sanctity soon after
the year 433. His very ancient picture is shown in St.
Victor’s at Marseilles, where his head and right arm
are exposed in shrines on the altar, by the permission
of pope Urban V., the remainder of his body lies in a
marble tomb which is shown in a subterraneous chapel.
That abbey, by a special grant, celebrates an office
in his honor on the 23d of July.

His works consist, first of a book On the Incarnation,
against Nestorius, written at the request of St. Leo,
then archdeacon of Rome. Secondly, Of Institutions of a
Monastical Life, in twelve books. In the four first he
describes the habit that was worn, and the exercises
and way of living that were followed by the monks of
Egypt, to serve as a pattern for the monastic state in
the West. He says, their habit was mean, merely serving
to cover their nakedness; having short sleeves which
reached no further than their elbows; they wore a
girdle and a cowl upon their heads, but used no shoes,
only a kind of sandals which they put off when they
approached the altar; and they all used a walking-staff,
as an emblem that they were pilgrims on earth. He
observes that the monks forsook all things, labored
with their hands, and lived in obedience; he describes
the canonical hours of the divine office consisting of
psalms and lessons. He mentions that whoever desires to
be admitted into a monastery, must give proofs of his
patience, humility, and contempt of the world, and be
tried with denials and affronts; that no postulant was
allowed to give his estate to the monastery in which he
settled; that the first lesson which is taught a monk
is, to subdue his passions, to deny his own will, and
to practise blind obedience to his superior. Thus he is
to empty himself of all prevalence in his own abilities,
learning, or whatever can feed any secret pride or
presumption. Cassian observes, that young monks were
allowed no other food than boiled herbs, with a little
salt; but that the extraordinary austerities of the
Oriental monks in eating are not practicable in the
west. In the eight last books of this work he treats
of eight capital vices, prescribing the remedies and
motives against them, and explaining the contrary
virtues. He shows (l. 6, Inst. c. 5, 6), that chastity
is a virtue which is not to be obtained but by a
special grace of God; which must be implored by earnest
prayer, seconded by watchfulness and fasting. He
everywhere advises moderate fasts, but continual,
(l. 5, p. 107, &c.). He observes (l. 11, c. 4), that
vain-glory is the last vice that is subdued, and that
it takes occasion even from the victory itself to
renew its assaults. This seems the best and most
useful of Cassian’s writings, though the reading of
his Conferences has been strongly recommended to monks
by St. Bennet, St. John Climacus, St. Gregory, St.
Dominic, St. Thomas, and others.

In the book of his Conferences he has collected the
spiritual maxims of the wisest and most experienced
monks with whom he had conversed in Egypt. This
work consists of three parts; the first contains
ten Conferences, and was written in 423; the second
comprises seven Conferences, and was compiled two years
later; the third was finished in 428, and contains
seven other Conferences. Cassian, in this work, teaches
that the end to which a monk consecrates all his labors
and for which he has renounced the world, is, the more
easily to attain the most perfect purity or singleness
of heart, without which no one can see God in his glory,
or enjoy his presence by his special grace in this life.
For this he must forsake the world, or its goods and
riches; he must renounce or die to himself, divesting
himself of all vices and irregular inclinations; and
thirdly, he must withdraw his heart from earthly or
visible things to apply it to those that are spiritual
and divine. (Collat. 1 and 3.) He says, that the
veil of the passions being once removed, the eyes
of the mind will begin, as it were naturally to
contemplate the mysteries of God, which remain always
unintelligible and obscure to those who have only eyes
of flesh, or whose hearts are unclean, and their eyes
overclouded with sin and the world. (Coll. 5.) This
purgation of the heart is made by the exercises of
compunction, mortification, and self-denial; and the
unshaken foundation of the most profound humility must
be laid, which may bear a tower reaching to the heavens;
for, upon it is to be raised the superstructure of all
spiritual virtues. (Coll. 9.)

To gain a victory over vices he strenuously inculcates
the advantages of discovering all temptations to our
superior, for when detected, they lose their force;
the filthy serpent being by confession drawn out of
his dark hole into the light and in a manner exposed,
withdraws himself. His suggestions prevail so long as
they are concealed in the heart. (Coll. 2, c. 10, 11,
and Instit. l, 9, c. 39.) This he confirms by the
example of Serapion, cured of an inveterate habit of
stealing bread above his allowance in the community, by
confessing the fault. (Coll. 2, c. 11.) But he teaches
that these exercises are but preparations; for the
end and perfection of the monastic state consists in
continual and uninterrupted perseverance in prayer,
as far as human frailty will permit. This is the
conjunction of the heart with God. But this spirit of
prayer cannot be obtained without mighty contrition,
the purgation of the heart from all earthly corruption
and the dregs of passion, and the illumination of the
Holy Ghost, whose purest rays cannot enter an unclean
heart. He compares the soul to a light feather which
by its own levity is raised on high by the help of a
gentle breath; but if wet by the accession of moisture,
is depressed down to the very earth. The mind can only
ascend to God when it is disburdened of the weight of
earthly solicitude and corruption. (Coll. 9.)

He inculcates the use of frequent aspirations,
recommending that of the Church, “Deus, in adjutorium
meum intende,” &c.; and says, the end of the perfection
of the monastic state is, that the mind be refined from
all carnal dust, and elevated to spiritual things, till
by daily progress in this habit all its conversation
may be virtually one continual prayer, and all the
soul’s love, desire, and study, may be terminated
in God. In this her union with him by perpetual and
inseparable charity, she possesses an image of future
bliss, and a foretaste or earnest of the conversation
of the blessed. Inveighing against lukewarmness in
devotion he makes this remark (Coll. 4, c. 19): “We
have often seen souls converted to perfection from a
state of coldness, that is, from among worldlings and
heathens; but have never seen any from among tepid
Christians. These are moreover so hateful to God,
that by the prophet he bids his teachers not to direct
any exhortations to them, but to abandon them as a
fruitless barren land, and to sow the divine word on
new hearts, among sinners and heathens: ‘Break up the
new or fallow ground, and sow not upon land that is
overrun with thorns.’” (Jer. iv. 3.) He exceedingly
extols the unspeakable peace and happiness which souls
enjoy in seeking only God, and the great and wonderful
works which he performs in the hearts of his saints,
which cannot be truly known to any man except to
those who have experience of them. (Coll. 12, c. 12,
and Coll. 14, c. 14.) Cassian, in the thirteenth
Conference, under the name of the abbot Cheremon,
favors the principles of the Semipelagians, though that
error was not then condemned, it being first proscribed
in the second council of Orange in 529. Whence St.
Prosper himself, in his book against this discourse,
never names him, but styles him a catholic doctor.
(l. contra Collatorem, p. 828.) Cassian’s style, though
neither pure nor elegant, is plain, affecting, and
persuasive. His works were published with comments by
Alard Gazæus or Gazet, a Benedictin monk of St. Vaast’s
at Arras, first at Douay in 1616; and afterward with
more ample notes at Arras in 1618. They have been
since reprinted at Lyons, Paris, and Francfort. See
Dom. Rivet, Hist. Lit. t. 2, p. 215, and Cuper the
Bollandist, ad 23 Julij, t. 5, p. 458, ad 482.

[242] See the most edifying history of the eminent and holy
men of this monastery of St. Victor’s at Paris compiled
by F. Simon Gourdan, in seven volumes folio, kept in
MSS. in the curious public library of that house, t. 1,
p. 128, &c.

[243] Among the great men which this abbey produced in its
infancy, the most famous are Hugh and Richard of St.
Victor. Hugh, a native of the territory of Ypres in
Flanders, became a canon regular in this monastery
in 1115, was made prior, and taught divinity there
from the year 1130 to his death in 1142. His works are
printed in three vols. folio. In the first we have his
literal and historical notes on the scripture; also
mystical and allegorical notes on the same by some
later author of this house. In the second tome are
contained his spiritual works; the soliloquy of the
soul, the praise of charity, a discourse on the method
of praying, a discourse on love between the Beloved and
the Spouse, four books on the vanity of the world, one
hundred sermons, &c. The third tome presents us his
theological treatises, of which the principal are his
two books on the sacraments. He was called a second
Augustin, or the tongue of that great doctor, whose
spirit, sentiments, and style he closely follows. His
notes on the rule of St. Austin, in the second tome,
are excellent: also those on the Decalogue. The book
De claustro animæ is very useful for religious persons,
and shows the austere abstinence and discipline then
observed in monasteries; but is the work of Hugh Foliet,
a most pious and learned canon of this order, who was
chosen abbot of St. Dionysius’s at Rheims, though he
earnestly declined that dignity, in 1149. See Mabillon,
Analecta, t. 1, p. 133, and Annal. l, 77, p. 141.
Ceillier, t. 22, pp. 200, 224. Martenne, t. 5. Anecdot.
p. 887.

Richard of St. Victor, a Scotsman, regular canon of
St. Victor’s at Paris, scholar of Hugh, chosen prior of
that abbey in 1164, died in 1173. His works have been
often reprinted in two vols. folio; the best edition
is that given at Rouen in 1650. His comments on the
scripture are too diffusive: his theological tracts
are accurate, his writings on contemplation and
Christian virtues, though the style is plain, are
full of the most sublime rules of an interior life.
The collection of spiritual maxims of these holy men
which F. Gourdan has compiled from their writings and
sayings, demonstrates their heavenly wisdom, lights
and experience in spiritual things, and in the perfect
spirit of all virtues to which they attained by an
admirable purity of heart, and spirit of penance,
prayer, and divine love.

[244] Luke vii.

[245] Mention is made in the gospels of a woman who was a
sinner (Luke vii.), of Mary of Bethania, the sister
of Lazarus (John xi. 2, xii. 1, Mark xiv. 3, Mat.
xxvi. 6.), and of Mary Magdalen, who followed Jesus
from Galilee, and ministered to him. Many grave authors
think all this belongs to one and the same person; that
she fell into certain disorders in her youth, and in
chastisement was delivered over to be possessed by
seven devils; that she addressed herself to Jesus in
the house of Simon the pharisee, and by her compunction
deserved to hear from him that her sins were forgiven
her; and in consequence was delivered from the seven
devils: that with her brother Lazarus, and her sister
Martha, she left Galilee and settled at Bethania, where
Jesus frequently honored their house with his presence.
(See Pezron, Hist. Evang. t. 2, p. 350.) St. Clement of
Alexandria, (l. 2, Pædag. c. 8.) Ammonius, (Harmon. 4,
Evang.) St. Gregory the Great, (hom. 25 and 33, in
Evang.) and from his time the greater part of the
Latins down to the sixteenth century adopt this opinion;
though St. Ambrose, (lib. de Virgin. et l. 6, in Luc.)
St. Jerom, (in Mat. xxvi. l. 2, contr. Jovin. c. 16,
Præf. in Osee et ep. 150.) St. Austin, (tr. 49, in Joan.
n. 3.) Albertus Magnus, and St. Thomas Aquinas leave
the question undetermined. The two last say the Latins
in their time generally presumed that they were the
same person, but that the Greeks distinguished them.
Baronius, Jansenius of Ghent, Maldonat, Natalis
Alexander, (in Hist. Eccl. Sæc. 1, Diss. 17.) Lami,
(Harmon. Evang. et epist. Gallicâ.) Mauduit, (Analyse
des Evang. t. 2.) Pezron, Trevet, and strenuously
Solier the Bollandist, t. 5, Julij, p. 187, and others
have written in defence of the opinion of St. Gregory
the Great.

Others think these were distinct persons. This
sentiment is adopted by the Apostolic Constitutions,
(l. 3, c. 6.) St. Theophilus of Antioch, (in 4 Evang.)
St. Irenæus, (l. 3, c. 4.) Origen, (hom. 35, in Mat.
et hom. 1, or 2, Cant.) St. Chrysostom, (hom. 81, in
Mat. 26, et hom. 61, in Joan.) St. Macanus, (hom. 12,)
and by almost all the Greeks. Among the modern critics
Casaubon, (Exercit. 14, in Baron.) Estius, (Or. 14,)
three Jesuits, viz., Bulanger, (Diatrab. 3, p. 15,)
Turrian, (in Consens. l. 3, c. 6,) and Salmeron,
(t. 9, tr. 49,) also Zagers, a learned Franciscan,
(in Joan. 11.) Mauconduit, Anquetin, Tillemont, (t. 2,
p. 30, et 512.) Hammond, and many others, strenuously
assert these to have been three distinct women.