Part 46

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.

Some, whose sentiment appears most plausible to Toinard and Calmet, distinguish the sister of Lazarus and Magdalen; for this latter attended Christ the last year of his life, and seems to have followed him from Galilee to Jerusalem, when he came up to the Passover, (see Mat. xxvii. 56, 57, Mark xv. 40, 41, Luke xxiii. 49,) at which time the sister of Lazarus was with her brother and Martha at Bethania, (John xi. 1.) Moreover, these two women seem distinctly characterized, the one being called Magdalen, and being ranked among the women that followed Jesus from Galilee, the other being everywhere called the sister of Lazarus; and though she might have possessed an estate at Magdalum in Galilee, and have come originally from that country, this constant distinction of epithets naturally leads us to imagine them different persons; but St. Irenæus, Origen, St. Chrysostom, &c., nowhere distinguish the penitent and Magdalen: and St. Luke having mentioned the conversion of the sinful woman (at Naim) in the next chapter, subjoins, that certain women who had been delivered by him from evil spirits and infirmities, followed him; and among these he names Mary Magdalen, out of whom he had cast seven devils; whence it may seem reasonable to conclude that the penitent and Magdalen are the same person.

This disputation, however, seems one of those debateable questions which are without end, nothing appearing demonstrative from the sacred text, or from the authority of the ancients. In the Roman Breviary the Penitent is honored on this day under the name of Mary Magdalen, and for our edification the history of all these examples of virtue is placed in one point of view, as if they belonged to one person, conformably to the sentiment of St. Gregory and others; but the offices are distinct in the Breviaries of Paris, Orleans, Vienne, Cluni, and some others.

[246] Job xx. 11.

[247] “Quâ spe? quâ fiduciâ? quâ confidentiâ? Quâ spe? illâ quâ Pater est. Ego perdidi quod erat filii: ille quod Patris est non amisit. Apud patrem non intercedit extraneus: intus est in Patris pectore qui intervenit et exorat, affectus. Urgentur Patris viscera iterum genitura per veniam,” &c. St. Peter Chrysolog. Serm. II.

[248] The ancient Jews did not sit down on carpets spread on the floor to eat, as the Arabs, Turks, and other inhabitants of the countries about Palestine do at this day. Their tables were raised above the ground. Exod. xxv. 24, Jud. l. 7, Mat. xv. 27, Luke xvi. 21. Neither Hebrews, Greeks, nor Romans used napkins or table-cloths. Their ancient custom was to sit at table, as we do now. Prov. xxiii. 1. But after Solomon’s time the Jews leaned or lay down on couches round the table. Amos, (iv. 7.) Toby, (xi. 3.) and Ezekiel (xxiii. 41.) speak of eating on beds or couches; but this custom was not general. It was become very frequent in our Saviour’s time, who ate in this manner not only on the present occasion, but also when Magdalen anointed his feet, Mat. xxvi. 7, and at his last supper, John xiii. 23, so that it seems to have then been the ordinary custom of that country. The Jews seem to have learned it from the Persians, Esth. i. 6, vii. 8. They took two meals a day from the times of the primitive patriarchs; but never ate before noon, Eccles. x. 16, Isa. v. 11, Acts ii. 15. And their dinner was usually rather a small refreshment than a meal; on fast-days the Jews never ate or drank till evening. See Calmet, Dissert. sur le Manger des Hebreux. Fleury, Mœurs des Israelites et Mœurs des Chrétiens. Also Alnay, sur la Vie Privée des Romains.

[249] S. Aug. Serm. 99, c. 6, ed. Ben. olim 23, ex. 50.

[250] Ferrarius, Daniel, Sanson, Calmet, and Monsieur Robert agree in placing the castle of Magdalum near the Lake of Genesareth, called the sea of Galilee.

[251] Luke viii. 2

[252] Some take Mary Magdalen to be the sister of Martha and Lazarus, of whom mention is made in the life of St. Martha. When Jesus, six days before his passion, supped in the house of Simon surnamed the Leper, whilst Martha waited on him, and Lazarus sat at table, Mary anointed his feet and head with precious ointment which she had brought in an alabaster box. The Greeks and Romans practised the same custom of using sweet scented ointments at banquets. Judas Iscariot murmured at this action out of covetousness, pretending the price of the ointment had better been given to the poor; but Jesus commended Mary’s devotion, said that her action would be a subject of admiration and edification wherever his gospel should be preached, and declared that she had by it advanced the ceremony of embalming his body for his burial. Though Christ has substituted the poor in his stead, to be succored by us in them; yet he is well pleased when charity consecrates some part of our riches to his external worship, to whom we owe all that we possess. But nothing can be more odious than for ministers of the altar, with Judas, to cover avarice under a cloak of zeal. See John xii. 1, 2, 3, Mat. xxvi. 6, Mark xiv. 3.

[253] Mark xvi. 2, Luke xxiv. 1, John xx. 1.

[254] St. Leo Serm. 2, de Ascens.

[255] John xx. Calmet, Vie de. J. C, ch. 37.

[256] Mat. xxvii. 9, Luke xxiv. 10.

[257] Certain Greeks, writers who lived in the seventh or later ages, tell us, that after the ascension of our Lord, St. Mary Magdalen accompanied the Blessed Virgin and St. John to Ephesus, and died and was buried in that city. This is affirmed by Modestus, patriarch of Jerusalem in 920,[258] and by St. Gregory of Tours. St. Willibald, in the account of his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, says, that her tomb was shown him at Ephesus. Simeon Logotheta mentions that the emperor Leo the Wise caused her relics to be translated from Ephesus to Constantinople, and laid in the church of St. Lazarus, about the year 890. But these modern Greeks might perhaps confound Mary the sister of the Blessed Virgin, or the sister of Lazarus, or some other Mary among those that are mentioned in the gospel with Mary Magdalen. The relics shown in the monastery at Vezelay in Burgundy, ten leagues from Auxerre in the diocess of Autun, may be a portion of the body of St. Mary Magdalen, or of some other Mary mentioned in the gospel. This famous ancient monastery of Vezelay was secularized in 1537; and the church, which is longer than that of our Lady at Paris, is now served only by ten canons.

[258] Hom. in Marias Unguenta ferentes.

[259] See Nat. Alex., sæc. 1, and Solier the Bollandist, Julij, t. 5, who confirms the tradition of the inhabitants of Provence, p. 213, § 14, and rejects that of Vezelay in Burgundy, whither some pretend that her body was translated out of Provence, ib. § 11, 12, 13, p. 207.

[260] These are the fruit of his pious meditations in the chapel of the Magdalen, the favorite retired place of his devotions, in which an excellent marble statue of this great man on his knees, is erected in the church of his Carmelite nuns at Paris. See his Works, p. 369 to p. 405.

[261] Serm. 128.

[262] Mab. Iter. Italic. p. 41.

[263] Famæ negociator, et vitæ. Tertul. Apol. c. 46.

[264] Philosophus gloriæ animal, et popularis auræ vile mancipium. S. Hieron. ep. ad Julian.

[265] Lactant. l. de Origine Erroris, § 3.

[266] B. 6, ep. 1.

[267] Spicileg. t. 5, p. 579.

[268] Exod. xxxii. 10.

[269] Sanctorum precibus stat mundus. Ruffin. Præf. in Vitas Patrum.

[270] Some derive the pedigree and names of the Muscovites from Mosoch, the son of Japhet, who, with his brothers Magog, Thubal, and Gomer, and their children peopled the northern kingdoms. (Ezech. xxxviii. 6, &c.) These are reputed the patriarchs of the Cappadocians, Tartars, Scythians, Sarmatians, &c. See Bochart, Phaleg. l. 3, c. 12, and Calmot. It seems not to be doubted, that the Moschi, mentioned by Strabo and Mela, and situated between Colchis and Armenia, near the Moschici Montes, were the descendants of Mosoch. As the Scythians from the coasts of the Euxine and Caspian seas afterward penetrated more northwards in Asia and Europe, and as the Cimmerii, who were the sons of Gomer, afterward settled about the Bosphorus and Mœotis, so some authors pretend that the Moschi passed into Europe, and settled near them on the borders of the Scythians and Sarmatians. But the Muscovites evidently take their name from the city of Moscow, built about the year 1149, so called from a monastery named Moskoi (from Mus or Musik, men, _q. d._ the Seat of Men), not from the river Moscow, which was anciently called Smorodina. (See J. S. Bayei, Orig. Russiæ, t. 8, Acad. Petrop. p. 390.) For the name of Muscovites was not given to this tribe of Russians before the beginning of the fourteenth century. It was assumed on the following occasion: In 1319, Gedimidius, great duke of Lithuania, having vanquished the Russian duke of Kiow, the archbishop Peter removed his see to Moscow, and from that town these Russians began then to be called Muscovites; for the duke John, son of Daniel, soon followed the archbishop, and transferred thither the seat of his principality from Uladimiria: though the archbishop of Kiow continued to take the title of Metropolitan of all Russia. See Herbersteinus (Chorographia Principatus Ducis Moscoviæ; also, in Rerum Muscovitarum Commentar.) and more accurately Ignatius Kulczynski, in Latin Kulcinius, a Basilian monk at Rome. (Specimen Ecclesiæ Ruthenicæ, printed at Rome in 1733, also Catalog. archiepisc. Kioviensium; and Series Chronol. Magn. Russiæ seu Moscoviæ Ducum.) Hence the name of Muscovites first occurs in Chalcocondylus and other Greek historians about that time. We are informed by these authors, and by Herbersteinius, that these Russians were tributary to the Tartar king of Agora in Asia from 1125 to 1506. But since they shook off that yoke they have subdued the Russians of Novogorod and other places in Europe, and have extended their dominions almost to the extremity of Asia in Great Tartary. See Bayer, Diss. de Russorum primâ expedit. Constantinopolitana, t. 6, Comm. Acad. Petrop. et Orig. Russiæ, ib. t. 8. Also Jos. Assemani, De Kalend. Univ. t. 1, par. 2, c. 4, p. 275.

The name, Russi or Rossi, seems not to be older than the ninth century. Cedrenus and Zonarus speak of them as a Scythian nation inhabiting the northern side of Mount Taurus, a southern region of Asiatic Scythia, now Great Tartary. They are a nation entirely distinct from the Roxolani, the ancient Sarmatians near the Tanais, though these Russians afterward became masters of that country, and took their name either from that of Roxolani abridged, or from Rosseia, which in their language signifies an assemblage of people. Constantine Porphyrogenetta tells us, that the language of the Russians and Sclavonians was quite different; and the monk Nestor, in the close of the eleventh century, the most ancient historian of Russia, in his chronicle assures us, that the Russians and Sclavonians are two different nations; but the great affinity of the present Russian language with the Sclavonian shows that the Russians, mixing with the Sclavonians, learned in a great measure their language.

It is well known that, anciently, the southern parts of Muscovy were inhabited by Goths, whom the Huns or ancient Tartars from Asia, expelled in the fourth century. Also that the northern part was peopled by Scythians, whom the Muscovites still call by the same name Tscudi, _i. e._ Scythians, and the lake Peipus, Tschudzhoi. We learn from Constantine Porphyrogenetta (l. De administ. Imper. c. 9,) that the name of Russia was given in the tenth century to the country of which Kiow was the capital, and which comprised also Czernigov, Novogorod, &c. Snorro Sturleson (Hist. regn. Septentr. t. 1, p. 6) says these people called their ancient capital, situated towards the gulf of Finland, Aldeiguborg or Old-Town, in opposition to which Novogorod or New-Town, took its name. The Waregians, invited by the Russians to defend them against the Khosares, who lived near the Black or the Euxine Sea, crossing the Baltic, settled among the Russians, it is uncertain in what age. See T. S. Bayer de Varegis, t. 4, Comment. Acad. Scient. Petrop. p. 275. Er. Jul. Biæner, Sched. Hist. Geogr. de Varegis heroibus Scandinianis et primis Russiæ Dynasts at Stockholm, 1743. Arvid. Mulleris De Varegia, 1731. Algol. Scarinus de Originibus priscæ gentis Varegorum, 1743.

We know not in what age the Sclavonians obtained settlements in the northern parts of Russia. They are first named in Procopius and Jornandes, were part of the Venedi, and with them from Sarmatia travelled into Germany; where they settled for some time on the coast of the Baltic, afterward in the centre of Germany near Thuringia, and in Beheim or Bohemia, where they long ruled and left their language. In the reign of Justinian they crossed the Danube, and conquered part of Pannonia and Illyricum, where a small territory, fifty German miles long, of which Peter-waradin is the most considerable place, between the Danube, the Drave, and the Save, is still called Sclavonia: it was conquered by the kings of Hungary, and is still subject to the house of Austria. The Slavi fell everywhere into so miserable a servitude, that from them are derived the names of Slavery and Slaves. The Sclavonian language is used in the divine office in Illyricum, &c. according to the Latin rite; in Muscovy, &c. according to the Greek rite. (See on SS. Cyril and Methodius, 22 Dec.) The Muscovites have no Russian Bibles; but with very little study can understand the Sclavonian, says Brusching.

In the year 892, Rurik, Simeus, and Tyuwor, three brothers from the Warengi on the other side of the Baltic, came by invitation into Russia, and ruled the Sclavonians and Russians united into one nation. Rurik survived his brothers, and became sole sovereign. The Runic inscriptions in the northern Antiquities are not of an older date.

Rurik fixed his seat near the lake Ladoga. His son Igor transferred his court from Novogorod to Kiow. His widow Olga received the faith, and was baptized at Constantinople. Their son Suatoslas died an idolater; but his son Wladimir the Great married Anne, a Grecian princess, received baptism, and was imitated by his subjects. He built the city which from him is called Wladimiria, which under his grandson, Andrew Bogolikski, became the ducal residence. Wladimir I. is honored in the Muscovite Calendar. Kiow still has its dukes. Jaroslas, son of Wladimir, was succeeded there by his son Wsevolod I. in 1078, in whose reign Ephrem, metropolitan of Kiow, established in Russia, pursuant to the bull of Urban II. the feast of the translation of the relics of St. Nicholas to Bari, on the 9th of May, never known in the Greek church; which shows their obedience to the pope, and their connection with the Latin church. The Greeks also were then Catholics. George duke of Russia at Wladimiria recovered Kiow, and in 1156 built the city of Moscow. Jaroslas II. succeeded his brother George II. in the great dukedom of Russia in 1238, and resided in Wladimiria. In his reign in 1244, the Russians were reunited to the see of Rome, part having been a little before drawn into the Greek schism. His son Alexander, in his father’s life-time prince of Novogorod, with his brother Feodor or Theodor, gained great victories over the Tartars, who had long oppressed the Russians, and succeeded to the great dukedom in 1246. He is surnamed Newski or of Newa, from a great victory which he gained in 1241 on the banks of the Newa, over the Poles and the Teutonic knights in Livonia. Those knights, who by victories over the idolaters had made themselves masters of Livonia, had their own high master at Riga, who soon made himself independent of the grand-master of the same order in Prussia. This order, which was dismembered from the Knights Hospitallers, or of Jerusalem (afterward of Rhodes and Malta), to defend the Christians in Germany against the inroads of the barbarous northern infidel nations, long produced many incomparably great heroes, and models of all virtues. But enriched by great conquests, their successors, by pride, luxury, and continual intestine wars, gave occasion to several scandals. At length, Albert, marquis of Brandenburg, grand-master in Prussia, turned Lutheran, and received from the king of Poland the investiture of ducal Prussia. The knights expelled by him retired to Mariandhal in Franconia, and there chose a new grand-master. He is chosen by the twelve provincial commanders. William of Furstenburg, Heer-meister of Livonia, also declared himself a Lutheran, and in 1559 resigned his dignity to his coadjutor Gotthard Kettler. He also being a Lutheran, ceded part of Livonia to the Danes, and the chief part to the Poles, receiving from the latter the investiture of Courland and Samogitia as secular dukedoms; Livonia fell under the power of Charles XI. of Sweden, but was added to the empire of Muscovy by Peter the Great.

To return to the grand duke Alexander Newski, he received an embassy from the pope in 1262, the contents of which are not recorded. He died crowned with glory at Gorodes near Nischui-Novogorod in 1262, on the 30th of April, on which day his festival is kept in Muscovy, and he is honored as one of the principal saints of the country. The tczar Peter the Great built, in his honor, a magnificent convent of Basilian monks on the banks of the Newa in Livonia, not far from his new city of Petersburg, the archbishop of which city resides in it. The empress Catharine instituted, in 1725, the second Order of Knighthood in Russia under his name. Their daughter the empress Elizabeth caused his bones to be put in a rich shrine covered with thick plates of silver, placed at the foot of a magnificent mausoleum in this monastery. The Muscovites relate wonderful things of his eminent virtues, and miracles wrought at his tomb. Pope Benedict XIV. proves that, upon due authority, all this may be admitted even of one who had died in a material schism, or with inculpable ignorance. But this prince lived and died in communion with the see of Rome, though he has never been placed in the Calendars of the Catholic Church.

Daniel, fourth son of Alexander, left by his father duke of Moscow, after the death of an uncle and three brothers became Grand Duke; and from his reign in 1304, Moscow became the ducal residence, till Peter I. gave a share in that honor to his new city of St. Petersburg.

In the reign of Basil or Vasili II. in 1415, Photius, metropolitan of Russia, residing at Kiow, having espoused the Greek schism, was deposed by the council of Novogrodek, under the protection of Alexander Vithold, grandduke of Lithuania. Retiring into Great Russia he there exceedingly promoted the schism. Gregory, who succeeded him at Kiow, assisted at the council of Constance. Iwan or John IV. is the first who took the title of Tczar in 1552. This word in the Russian language signifies king. In the Russian Chronicles that title is given to the Greek emperors. In their Bibles it is used for king, both in the Russian and Sclavonian language.

In Feodor or Theodore ended, in 1598, the race of Rurik. After two others who had been chief ministers and two false Demetriuses, in 1613, Michael, of the family of Romanow, allied to that of the preceding tczars was chosen great duke. The third of this family was Peter the Great, founder of the Russian empire.

[271] Possev. L. De Rebus Moscoviticis.

[272] Præf. ad Ephemer. Græco-Moschas, n. 11, p. 3.

[273] Dissert. de Russorum Conversione et Fide apud Acta Sanctor. t. 41, seu vol. 2, Septembris.