Chapter 72
_ 282 Verba Senorium_, xiv.
283 Palladius, _Hist. Laus._ cap. lx.x.xvii.
284 Bollandists, June 6. I avail myself again of the version of Tillemont. "Lorsque S. Pemen demeuroit en Egypte avec ses freres, leur mere, qui avoit un extreme desir de les voir, venoit souvent au lieu ou ils estoient, sans pouvoir jamais avoir cette satisfaction.
Une fois enfin elle prit si bien son temps qu'elle les rencontra qui alloient a l'eglise, mais des qu'ils la virent ils s'en retournerent en haste dans leur cellule et fermerent la porte sur eux. Elle les suivit, et trouvant la porte, elle les appeloit avec des larmes et des cris capables de les toucher de compa.s.sion.... Pemen s'y leva et s'y en alla, et l'entendant pleurer il luy dit, tenant toujours la porte fermee, 'Pourquoi vous la.s.sez-vous inutilement a pleurer et crier? N'etes-vous pas deja a.s.sez abattue par la vieillesse?' Elle reconnut la voix de Pemen, et s'efforcant encore davantage, elle s'ecria, 'He, mes enfans, c'est que je voudrais bien vous voir: et quel mal y a-t-il que je vous voie? Ne suis-je pas votre mere, et ne vous ai-je pas nourri du lait de mes mammelles? Je suis deja toute pleine de rides, et lorsque je vous ay entendu, l'extreme envie que j'ay de vous voir m'a tellement emue que je suis presque tombee en defaillance.' "-_Memoires de l'Hist. eccles._ tome xv. pp. 157, 158.
285 The original is much more eloquent than my translation. "Fili, quare hoc fecisti? Pro utero quo te portavi, satiasti me luctu, pro lactatione qua te lactavi dedisti mihi lacrymas, pro osculo quo te osculata sum, dedisti mihi amaras cordis angustias; pro dolore et labore quem pa.s.sa sum, imposuisti mihi saevissimas plagas."-_Vita Simeonis_ (in Rosweyde).
286 Bingham, _Antiquities_, book vii. ch. iii.
287 Ibid.
288 Bingham, _Antiquities_, book vii. chap. 3.
289 Milman's _Early Christianity_ (ed. 1867), vol. iii. p. 122.
290 Ibid. vol. iii. p. 153.
291 Ibid. vol. iii. p. 120.
_ 292 De Virginibus_, i. 11.
293 See Milman's _Early Christianity_, vol. iii. p. 121.
_ 294 De Virginibus_, i. 11.
_ 295 Epist._ xxiv.
296 St. Jerome describes the scene at her departure with admiring eloquence. "Descendit ad portum fratre, cognatis, affinibus et quod majus est liberis prosequentibus, et elementissimam matrem pietate vincere cupientibus. Jam carbasa tendebantur, et remorum ductu navis in altum protrahebatur. Parvus Toxotius supplices ma.n.u.s tendebat in littore, Ruffina jam nubilis ut suas expectaret nuptias tacens fletibus obsecrabat. Et tamen illa siccos tendebat ad caelum oculos, pietatem in filios pietate in Deum superans. Nesciebat se matrem ut Christi probaret ancillam."-_Ep._ cviii. In another place he says of her: "Testis est Jesus, ne unum quidem nummum ab ea filiae derelictum sed, ut ante jam dixi, derelictum magnum aes alienum."-Ibid. And again: "Vis, lector, ejus breviter scire virtutes? Omnes suos pauperes, pauperior ipsa dimisit."-Ibid.
297 See Chastel, _Etudes historiques sur la Charite_, p. 231. The parents of St. Gregory n.a.z.ianzen had made this request, which was faithfully observed.
298 Chastel, p. 232.
299 See a characteristic pa.s.sage from the _Life of St. Fulgentius_, quoted by Dean Milman. "Facile potest juvenis tolerare quemcunque imposuerit laborem qui poterit maternum jam despicere dolorem."-_Hist. of Latin Christianity_, vol. ii. p. 82.
_ 300 Ep._ xiv. (_Ad Heliodorum_).
301 St. Greg. _Dial._ ii. 24.
302 Bollandists, May 3 (vol. vii. p. 561).
303 "Hospitibus omni loco ac tempore liberalissimus fuit.... Solis consanguineis durus erat et inhuma.n.u.s, tamquam ignotos illos respiciens."-Bollandists, May 29.
304 See Helyot, _Dict. des Ordres religieux_, art. "Camaldules."
305 See the charming sketch in
306 The legend of St. Scholastica, the sister of St. Benedict, has been often quoted. He had visited her, and was about to leave in the evening, when she implored him to stay. He refused, and she then prayed to G.o.d, who sent so violent a tempest that the saint was unable to depart. (St. Greg. _Dial._ ii. 33.) Ca.s.sian speaks of a monk who thought it his duty never to see his mother, but who laboured for a whole year to pay off a debt she had incurred.
(Cn.o.b. _Inst._ v. 38.) St. Jerome mentions the strong natural affection of Paula, though she considered it a virtue to mortify it.
(_Ep._ cviii.)
_ 307 Life of Antony._ See, too, the sentiments of St. Pachomius, _Vit._ cap. xxvii.
308 "Nec ulla res aliena magis quam publica."-Tertullian, _Apol._ ch.
x.x.xviii.
309 "Quid interest sub cujus imperio vivat h.o.m.o moriturus, si illi qui imperant, ad impia et iniqua non cogant."-St. Aug. _De Civ. Dei_, v.
17.
310 St. Jerome declares that "Monachum in patria sua perfectum esse non posse, perfectum autem esse nolle delinquere est."-_Ep._ xiv. Dean Milman well says of a later period: "According to the monastic view of Christianity, the total abandonment of the world, with all its ties and duties, as well as its treasures, its enjoyments, and objects of ambition, advanced rather than diminished the hopes of salvation. Why should they fight for a peris.h.i.+ng world, from which it was better to be estranged?... It is singular, indeed, that while we have seen the Eastern monks turned into fierce undisciplined soldiers, perilling their own lives and shedding the blood of others without remorse, in a.s.sertion of some shadowy shade of orthodox expression, hardly anywhere do we find them a.s.serting their liberties or their religion with intrepid resistance. Hatred of heresy was a more stirring motive than the dread or the danger of Islamism. After the first defeats the Christian mind was still further prostrated by the common notion that the invasion was a just and heaven-commissioned visitation;... resistance a vain, almost an impious struggle to avert inevitable punishment."-Milman's _Latin Christianity_, vol. ii. p. 206. Compare Ma.s.sillon's famous _Discours au Regiment de Catinat_:-"Ce qu'il y a ici de plus deplorable, c'est que dans une vie rude et penible, dans des emplois dont les devoirs pa.s.sent quelquefois la rigueur des cloitres les plus austeres, vous souffrez toujours en vain pour l'autre vie.... Dix ans de services ont plus use votre corps qu'une vie entiere de penitence... un seul jour de ces souffrances, consacre au Seigneur, vous aurait peut-etre valu un bonheur eternel."
311 See a very striking pa.s.sage in Salvian, _De Gubern. Div._ lib. vi.
312 Chateaubriand very truly says, "qu'Orose et saint Augustin etoient plus occupes du schisme de Pelage que de la desolation de l'Afrique et des Gaules."-_etudes histor._ vime discours, 2de partie. The remark might certainly be extended much further.
313 Zosimus, _Hist._ v. 41. This was on the first occasion when Rome was menaced by Alaric.
314 See Merivale's _Conversion of the Northern Nations_, pp. 207-210.
315 See Sismondi, _Hist. de la Chute de l'Empire romain_, tome i. p.
230.
316 Eunapius. There is no other authority for the story of the treachery, which is not believed by Gibbon.
317 Sismondi, _Hist. de la Chute de l'Empire romain_, tome ii. pp.
52-54; Milman, _Hist. of Latin Christianity_, vol. ii. p. 213. The Monophysites were greatly afflicted because, after the conquest, the Mohammedans tolerated the orthodox believers as well as themselves, and were unable to appreciate the distinction between them. In Gaul, the orthodox clergy favoured the invasions of the Franks, who, alone of the barbarian conquerors of Gaul, were Catholics, and St.
Aprunculus was obliged to fly, the Burgundians desiring to kill him on account of his suspected connivance with the invaders. (Greg.
_Tur._ ii. 23.)
318 Dean Milman says of the Church, "if treacherous to the interests of the Roman Empire, it was true to those of mankind."-_Hist. of Christianity_, vol. iii. p. 48. So Gibbon: "If the decline of the Roman Empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, the victorious religion broke the violence of the fall and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors."-Ch. x.x.xviii.
319 Observe with what a fine perception St. Augustine notices the essentially unchristian character of the moral dispositions to which the greatness of Rome was due. He quotes the sentence of Sall.u.s.t: "Civitas, incredibile memoratu est, adepta libertate quantum brevi creverit, tanta cupido gloriae incesserat;" and adds: "Ista ergo laudis aviditas et cupido gloriae multa illa miranda fecit, laudabilia scilicet atque gloriosa secundum hominum existimationem... causa honoris, laudis et gloriae consuluerunt patriae, in qua ipsam gloriam requirebant, salutemque ejus saluti suae praeponere non dubitaverunt, pro isto uno vitio, id est, amore laudis, pecuniae cupiditatem et multa alia vitia comprimentes.... Quid aliud amarent quam gloriam, qua volebant etiam post mortem tanquam vivere in ore laudantium?"-_De Civ. Dei_, v. 12-13.
320 "Praeter majorum cineres atque ossa, volucri Carpento rapitur pinguis Damasippus et ipse, Ipse rotam stringit multo sufflamine consul; Nocte quidem; sed luna videt, sed sidera testes Intendunt oculos. Finitum tempus honoris Quum fuerit, clara Damasippus luce flagellum Sumet."-Juvenal, _Sat._ viii. 146.
_ 321 Nat. Quaest._ iv. 13. _Ep._ 78.
322 "Pessimum vitae scelus fecit, qui id [aurum] primus induit digitis... quisquis primus inst.i.tuit cunctanter id fecit, laevisque manibus, latentibusque induit."-Plin. _Hist. Nat._ x.x.xiii. 4.
323 See a curious pa.s.sage in his _Apologia_. It should be said that we have only his own account of the charges brought against him.
324 The history of false hair has been written with much learning by M.
Guerle in his _eloge des Perruques_.
325 The fullest view of this age is given in a very learned little work by Peter Erasmus Muller (1797), _De Genio aevi Theodosiani_.
Montfaucon has also devoted two essays to the moral condition of the Eastern world, one of which is given in Jortin's _Remarks on Ecclesiastical History_.