Part 39

[60] Socrates, in all things he said, used to add this form of speech, “By my Dæmon’s leave.” And just upon the point of expiring, he ordered a cock to be sacrificed to Esculapius (Plato’s Phædo sub finem). And in his trial we read one article of his impeachment to have been a charge of unnatural lust. Thales, the prince of naturalists, being asked by Crœsus what God was, put off that prince from time to time, saying, “I will consider on it.” But the meanest mechanic among the Christians can explain himself intelligibly on the Creator of the universe. Diogenes could not be contented in his tub without gratifying his passions. And when with his dirty feet he trod upon Plato’s costly carpets, crying that he trampled upon the pride of Plato, he did this, as Plato answered him, with greater pride. Pythagoras affected tyranny at Thurium, and Zeno at Pyrene. Lycurgus made away with himself because he was unable to bear the thought of the Lacedæmonians correcting the severity of his laws. Anaxagoras had not fidelity enough to restore to strangers the goods which they had committed to his trust. Aristotle could not sit easy till he proudly made his friend Hermias sit below him; and he was as gross a flatterer of Alexander for the sake of vanity, as Plato was of Dionysius for his belly. From Plato and Socrates the stoics derived their proud maxim, “The wise man is self-sufficient.” Epictetus himself allows “to be proud of the conquest of any vice.” Aristotle (Ethic. ad Nicom. l. 10, c. 7) and Cicero patronize revenge. See B. Cumberland of the Laws of Nature, c. 9, p. 346. Abbé Batteux demonstrates the impiety and vices of Epicurus mingled with some virtues and great moral truths. (La Morale d’Epicure, à Paris, 1758.) The like blemishes may be found in the doctrine and lives of all the other boasted philosophers of paganism. See Theodoret. De curandis Græcor. affectibus, &c.

[61] King Ina ruled the West-Saxons thirty-seven years with great glory, from the abdication of Ceadwalla who died at Rome. Ina vanquished the Welsh, several domestic rebels, and foreign enemies; made many pious foundations, and rebuilt in a sumptuous manner the abbey of Glastenbury. Ralph or Ranulph Higden in his Polychronicon, and others say this king first established the Rome-scot or Peter-pence, which was a collection of a penny from every house in his kingdom paid yearly to the see of Rome. By considering the vanities of the world and moved by the frequent exhortations of the queen his wife, he renounced the world in 728 in the highest pitch of human felicity, and leaving his kingdom to Ethelheard his kinsman, travelled to Rome, was there shorn a monk, and grew old in that mean habit. His wife accompanied him thither, confirmed him in that course, and imitated his example: so that living not far from each other in mutual love, and in the constant exercises of penance and devotion, they departed this life at Rome not without doing divers miracles, as William of Malmesbury and H. Huntingdon write. In 696 Sebbi, the pious king of the East-Saxons, preferred also a private life to a crown, took the monastic habit with the blessing of bishop Whaldere, successor to St. Erkenwald in the see of London, after bestowing a great sum of money in charity, and soon after departed this life in the odor of sanctity. See Bede b. 4, c. 11.

[62] Spelman Conc. Brit. t. 1.

[63] B. 5, ch. 19.

[64] Bede, p. 3, c. 6.

[65] On St. Edelburga see Solier the Bollandist, ad diem 7 Julij, t. 2, p. 481. She is called in French St. Aubierge. See on her also Du Plessis, Hist. de Meaux.

[66] Published by Dom. Martenne, Anecdot. t. 4.

[67] Urban VIII. Constit. 58. _Cum sicut._ An. 1626, Bullar. Roman. t. 5, p. 120.

[68] Grotius and others demonstrate the Greek language to have been, in the first ages of Christianity, common in Palestine; but this cannot be extended to all the country people, as this passage and other proofs clearly show. Hence Eusebius wrote his Acts of the Martyrs of Palestine in Syro-Chaldaic, but abridged the same in Greek, in the eighth book of his Church History.

[69] The old Latin Acts write his name Flavian, and some Fabian, by mistaking the Syriac name, which is written without vowels.

[70] Anglia Sacra, t. 1, p. 613, published by Wharton.

[71] Ibid. p. 606.

[72] Sozom. l. 3, c. 16.

[73] T. 3, p. 23.

[74] On this genuine work see Assemani, Op. t. 1, p. 119, ib. Proleg, c. 1, et t. 2, p. 37. Item Biblioth. Orient. t. 1, p. 141. The disciples of St. Ephrem committed to writing this same history, as they had often heard it from his mouth. Hence we have so many relations of it. One formerly published by Gerard Vossius, is republished by Assemani (t. 3, p. 23). But the most complete account is that given us in the saint’s confession, extant in the new Vatican edition.

[75] See Appendix on St. Ephrem’s Works, at the end of the life.

[76] Serm. Ascetic. 1, p. 4.

[77] In encomio Basilij, t. 2.

[78] From his conversing with St. Basil by an interpreter it is clear that St. Ephrem never understood the Greek language. The old vicious translation of the life of St. Basil, under the name of St. Amphilochius, pretends that St. Basil obtained for him miraculously the knowledge of the Greek tongue, and ordained him priest. But this is a double mistake, though the latter was admitted by Baillet. Saint Jerom, Palladius, and other ancients always style him deacon, never priest. Nor does Pseudo Amphilochius say, that St. Basil raised St. Ephrem, but only his disciple and companion to the priesthood, as the new translation of this piece, and an attentive inspection of the original text, demonstrate.

[79] T. 4, b. 1, ed. Vaticanæ.

[80] Necrosima, can. 81, p. 335, t. 6.

[81] St. Ephrem in Testam. p. 286, 395, and St. Greg. Nyss. p. 12.

[82] Testam. t. 2, p. 230, &c.

[83] Greg. M. Moral. l. 23, c. 21.

[84] Cant. ii. 12.

[85] John Oosterwican was director to a convent of nuns of the same order in Gorcum; he was then very old, and often prayed that God would honor him with the crown of martyrdom.

The names of the eleven Franciscans were Nicholas Pick, Jerom, a native of Werden, in the county of Horn, Theodoric of Embden, native of Amorfort, Nicaise Johnson, native of Heze, Wilhade, native of Denmark, Godfrey of Merveille, Antony of the town of Werden, Antony of Hornaire, a village near Gorcum, Francis Rodes, native of Brussels. These were priests and preachers. The other two were lay-brothers, namely, Peter of Asca, a village in Brabant, and Cornelius of Dorestate, a village now called Wick, in the territory of Utrecht.--The three curates were Leonand Vechel, Nicholas Poppel, and Godfrey Dunen. This last was a native of Gorcum, who having been rector of the university of Paris, where he had studied and taught, was some time curate in Holland near the French territories, but resigned his curacy and lived at Gorcum.

The other martyrs were John Oosterwican mentioned above; John, a Dominican of the province of Cologne, curate of Hornaire; Adrian Hilvarenbeck, a Norbertin of Middleburge, who served a parish at Munster, a village near the mouth of the Meuse; James Lacop of the same order and monastery, an assistant in a neighboring parish to Munster; and Andrew Walter, a secular priest, curate of Heinort, near Dort.

[86] Julij, t. 2, p. 823.

[87] De Canoniz. lib. iii. cap. 12.

[88] The reader will observe that this word is used in the Saints’ writings in the sense of elevated, and almost ecstatic, union with God, in prayer and contemplation.

[89] Pius VI. Decree approving the virtues of the Ven. Veronica Giuliani. April, 1796.

[90] Ceillier and some others think this emperor to have been M. Aurelius Antoninus Philosophus, who was a persecutor, and reigned with Lucius Verus; the latter was absent from Rome in the Parthian war from 162 to 166; on which account, say these authors, he did not appear in this trial. See Tillemont, t. 2, p. 326. But that these martyrs suffered under Antoninus Pius, in the thirteenth year of his reign, of Christ 150, we are assured by an old inscription in several ancient MS. copies of their acts mentioned by Ruinart. That this emperor put several Christians to death whilst he was governor of Asia before his accession to the empire, Tertullian testifies (ad Scapul.). And that towards the end of his reign, notwithstanding his former mildness towards them, he again exercised the sword and torments on them, we have an undoubted proof in the genuine epitaph of St. Alexander, martyr, produced by Aringhi, Diss. 2, l. 3, c. See Berti in Sæc. 2.

[91] Quæ in viduitate permanens Deo suam voverat castitatem. Ruin. Act. Sincer. p. 21.

[92] Omnes qui non confitentur Christum verum esse Deum, in ignem æternum mittentur. Ruin. p. 23.

[93] In Cyclum Pasch. p. 268.

[94] Nisibis was the Assyrian name of this city, which was called by the Greeks Antiochia Mygdoniæ, from the river Mygdon, on which it was situated, which gave name to the territory. The ancient name of this city was Achar or Achad, one of the seats of the empire of Nimrod. “He reigned in Arach, that is, Edessa, and in Achad, now called Nisibis,” says St. Jerom. (qu. in Gen. c. 10, n. 10). St. Ephrem had made the same observation before him. “He reigned in Arach, which is Edessa, and in Achar, which is Nisibis, and in Calanne, which is Ctesiphon, and in Rehebot, which is Adiab.” St. Ephrem, Comm. in Gen. See Sim. Assemani, Bibl. Orient. t. 2, Diss. de Monophysitis.

[95] Philoth. seu Hist. Relig. c. 1, p. 767.

[96] F. Cuper thinks the account of this event in Theodoret’s Religious History to be an addition inserted from other places, t. 4. Jul. in Comment. prævio ad Vitam, S. Jacobi, n. 12 et 17.

[97] Philost. Hist. l. 3, c. 23.

[98] Chron. Alex. p. 287, S. Hieron. In Chron. and Theophan. p. 28. See Le Beau, Hist. du Bas Empire, l. 6, n. 11, t. 2, p. 22.

[99] Wisdom xvi. 9.

[100] Theodoret, Hist. Relig. in vit. S. Jacobi, et in Hist. Eccl. l. 2. c. 30. Philost. l. 3, c. 32. Theophan. p. 33. Chron. Alex. Zozim. l. 3. Zonar. t. 2, p. 44. Le Reau, l. 7, p. 127, t. 2.

[101] Tillemont, Hist. des. Emp. t. 4, p. 674, places the second siege of Nisibis to 346, and the third in 350. But the dates above mentioned are more agreeable to history, and adopted by the suffrage of most modern critics.

[102] The two elder Assemani place the death of St. James in 338, soon after the first siege of Nisibis, of which they understand the circumstances which are usually ascribed to the second siege; for Theodoret confounds them together, as Garnier, (in hunc Theodoreti locum), Petau, (in Or. l. Juliani) Henricus Valesius, (in Hist. Eccl.). Theodoret, Ammian. Marcell. l. 18. Pagi, Tillemont, and others observe. Simon Assemani confirms this chronology by the express testimony of the authors of two Syriac Chronicles, that of Dionysius, patriarch of the Jacobits, and that of Edessa. See Simon Assemani, Biblio. Orient. t. 1, c. 5, p. 17, and Stephen Evodius Assemani in Op. S. Ephrem, t. 1. But neither of these Chronicles seems of sufficient authority to counterbalance the testimony of the Greek historians, and the circumstances that persuade us that St. James survived the second siege of Nisibis, upon which Tillemont, Ceillier, &c., place the death of St. James in 350; and Cuper the Bollandist between the years 350 and 361, in which Constantius died.

[103] Ammian. Marcelli. l. 18, c. 7. Zonaras, t. 2, p. 20. Monsignor Antonelli in vit. St. Jacobi, p. 26.

[104] See on him Galanus in parte 1. Historiali Concil. Armen. cum Roman. p. 239, and F. James Villotte, S. J. in serie Chronol. Patriarcharum Armeniæ, printed in the end of his Latin-Armenian Dictionary.

[105] These are extant, addressed not to St. Gregory the apostle of Armenia, surnamed the Illuminator, as some copies have mistaken, but probably to his nephew, another St. Gregory, who, being consecrated bishop preached the faith in Albania, a province of Greater Armenia, near the Caspian sea, where he was crowned with martyrdom among the infidel barbarians in the very country where Baronius places the Martyrdom of the apostle St. Bartholomew. See Galanus, Hist. Eccl. Armenorum, c. 5, et Not. ib. Also Antonelli, not. in ep. S. Gregorii ad S. Jacobum Misib. p. 1.

[106] These eighteen discourses of St. James are mentioned by Gennadius, who gives their titles, (t. 2, p. 901, Op. S. Hier. Veron. an. 1735,) commended by St. Athanasius (who calls them monuments of the simplicity and candor of an apostolic mind. Ep. encyclic. ad episcopos Egypti et Lybiæ) and by the Armenian writers quoted by Antonelli, who demonstrates from the discourses themselves that they are a work of the fourth century.

St. James, in the first, On Faith, demonstrates this to be the foundation of our spiritual edifice, which is raised upon it by hope and love, which render the Christian soul the house and temple of God, the ornaments of which are all good works, as fasting, prayer, chastity, and all the fruits of the Holy Ghost. He commends faith from the divine authority of Christ, who everywhere requires it, from its indispensable necessity, from the heroic virtues which it produces, the eminent saints it has formed, and the miracles it has wrought. The subject of his second discourse is Charity, or the Love of God and our Neighbor, in which the whole law of Christ is comprised, and which is the most excellent of all virtues, and the perfection of all sanctity, admirably taught by Christ both by word and example; the end of all his doctrine, mysteries, and sufferings being to plant his charity in our hearts. In the third discourse he treats on fasting, universal temperance, and self-denial, by which we subdue and govern our senses and passions, die to ourselves, and obtain all blessings of God, and the protection of the angels, who are moved to assist and fight for us, as he proves from examples and passages of holy writ (pp. 60, 61, 62). In his fourth he speaks on Prayer, on which he delivers admirable maxims, teaching that its excellence is derived from the purity, sanctity, and fervor of the heart, upon which the fire descends from heaven, and which glorifies God even by its silence. “But none,” says he, “will be cleansed unless they have been washed in the laver of baptism, and have received the body and blood of Christ. For the blood is expiated by this Blood, and the body cleansed by this Body. Be assiduous in holy prayer, and in the beginning of all prayer place that which our Lord hath taught us. When you pray, always remember your friends, and me a sinner, &c.”

His fifth discourse, On War, is chiefly an invective against pride, in vanquishing which consists our main spiritual conflict. The sixth discourse is most remarkable. The title is, On Devout Persons, that is, Ascetes. The Armenian word _Ugdavor_ signifies one who by vow has consecrated himself to God. From this discourse it is manifest that some of these Ascetes had devoted themselves to God in a state of continency by vow, others only by a resolution. The saint most pathetically exhorts them to fervor and watchfulness, and excellently inculcates the obligation which every Christian lies under of becoming a spiritual man formed upon the image of Christ, the second Adam, in order to rise with him to glory. He inveighs against some Ascetes who kept under the same roof a woman Ascete to serve them: a practice no less severely condemned by St. Gregory Nazianzen (Carm. 3, p. 56, and Or. 43, p. 701). St. Basil (Ep. 55, p. 149). St. Chrysostom, the council of Nice, that of Ancyra, &c. St. James was himself an Ascete from his youth, St. Gregory, to whom he sends these discourses, was also one, and it is clear from many passages in St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, and others, that they were very numerous in Cappadocia, Pontus, and Armenia before St. Basil founded there the monastic life. See Antonelli’s note, ib. p. 203. Saint James, in his seventh discourse, On Penance, strongly exhorts sinners to confess speedily their crimes; to conceal which through shame is final impenitence. He adds, the priests cannot disclose such a confession (p. 237). The infidels and several heretics in the first ages of the Church denying the general resurrection of bodies, St. James proves that mystery in his eighth discourse, On the Resurrection of the Dead. His ninth, On Humility, is an excellent eulogium of that virtue, by which men are made the children of God, and brethren of Christ; and it is but justice in man, who is but dust. Its fruits are innocence, simplicity, meekness, sweetness, charity, patience, prudence, mercy, sincerity, compunction, and peace. For he who loves humility is always blessed, and enjoys constant peace; God, who dwelleth in the meek and humble, abiding in him.

The tenth discourse, On Pastors, contains excellent advice to a pastor of souls, especially on his obligation of watching over and feeding his flock. In the eleventh, On Circumcision, and in the twelfth, On the Sabbath, he shows against the Jews, that those laws no longer oblige, and that the Egyptians learned circumcision from the Jews. In the thirteenth, On the Choice of Meats, he proves none are unlawful of their own nature. In the fourteenth, On the Passover, that the Paschal solemnity of Christ’s resurrection has abolished that Jewish festival: he adds that the Christian, in honor of Christ’s crucifixion, keeps every Friday, and also, at Nisibis, the fourteenth day of every month. In the fifteenth he proves the Reprobation of the Jews. In the sixteenth the Divinity of the Son of God. In the seventeenth the Virtue of holy Virginity, which both the Ascetes and the clergy professed, and which he defends against the Jews only; for he wrote before the heretics in the fourth age calumniated the sanctity of that state. In the eighteenth he confutes the Jews, who pretended that their temple and synagogue would be again restored at Jerusalem.

The long letter to the priests of Seleucia and Ctesiphon against schisms, and dissensions, when Papas, the haughty bishop of those cities, had raised there a fatal schism, is in some MSS. ascribed to St. James; but was certainly a synodal letter sent by a council held on that occasion, nine years after the council of Nice: on which see the life of St. Miles, and the notes of the archbishop of Apamea, Evodius Assemani, ib. Act. Mart. Orient. t. 1, p. 72, and Jos. Assemani Bibl. Orient. t. 1, p. 86, &c.

Among the oriental liturgies, one in Chaldaic, formerly in use among the Syrians, bears the name of St. James of Nisibis. Gennadius mentions twenty-six books written by this holy doctor in the Syriac tongue, all on pious subjects, or on the Persian persecution. They were never translated into Greek.

The letters of St. James and St. Gregory are published by Assemani, Bibl. Orient. t. 1, p. 552, 632.

[107] Ps. xxxiii. 16, Prov. iii. 23, Zach. ii. 8, Gen. xv. 1, Lev. xxxvi. 3.

[108] S. Chrys. Hom. 51, in Act. Hom. 15, in Rom. et 91, in Matt.

[109] Ose. i. 2, Zach. xi. 9, Isa. v. 5.

[110] Amos ix. 4.

[111] Molanus in Auctario Martytol. Menard, in Martyr. Bened. Bucelin, &c.

[112] Some have imagined that St. Hidulph was only chorepiscopus or vicar, probably with episcopal orders, for the administration of part of the diocess. But the most judicious critics agree with the original writers of his life, that he was himself archbishop of Triers.

[113] Sulpic. Sever. Dial. 1, c. 26, ol. 18, p. 94, ed. nov. Veron. an. 1741.

[114] Heraclides ap. Cotel. Monum. Eccl. Gr. t. 3, p. 172. See St. Chrys. contra oppugn. vitæ monast. t. 1. S. Gr. Naz. St. Basil, &c.