The Age of Reason - D. J. Medley (free novels .txt) 📗

which denoted martyrs was mistaken for the Roman numeral for one thousand, and so the number of virgins was ultimately swollen to eleven thousand. A legend, possibly working on an old one, was invented by a writer of the twelfth century that these virgins were martyred by the Huns in the fifth century. In the middle of that century, when heresy was rife at Köln, a number of bones of persons of both sexes were found near Köln, and the authenticity of the relics was put beyond dispute by the revelations vouchsafed to Saint Elizabeth, Abbess of Schönau, to whom the matter was referred. Even though she did give a date for the event which was historically impossible, the confirmatory evidence of the Premonstratensian Abbot Richard nearly thirty years later put the matter beyond the doubt of any pious Christian. But the interest of these unsavoury remains of anonymous men and women, however saintly, pales before certain relics of our Lord's life on earth which gained currency. Of these the most famous were the Veronica, a cloth on which Christ, on His way to Calvary, was supposed to have left the impress of His face, and a vessel of a green colour which was identified with the holy grail, the cup which our Lord used at the Last Supper. Of garments purporting to be the seamless coat of Christ there were a considerable number shown in different places; but the most famous to this day remains the Holy Coat of Treves, which, in Dr. Robertson's caustic words, "the Empress Helena (the mother of Constantine) was said to have presented to an imaginary archbishop of her pretended birthplace, Treves." During the First Crusade the army before Antioch was only spurred on to the efforts which resulted in the capture of the city, by the opportune discovery of the Holy Lance with which the Roman soldier had pierced Christ's side while He hung upon the cross.

[Sidenote: Adoration of the Virgin.]

The great increase in the whole intercessory machinery of the Church culminated in the adoration of the Virgin Mary. The extravagant expression of this devotion was widespread. For the many it found vent in the language of popular hymns. Among the monks the Cistercians were under her special protection, and all their churches were dedicated to her. Of the learned men Peter Damiani in the eleventh century, St. Bernard and St. Bonaventura in the two succeeding centuries respectively, especially helped in various ways to crystallise her position in the Church. As a result of the efforts of her devotees Saturdays and the vigils of all feast days came to be kept in her honour; the salutation "Ave Maria gratia plena" with certain additions was prescribed to be taught to the people, together with the Lord's Prayer and the Creed. In the thirteenth century its frequent repetition resulted in the invention of the Rosary, a string of beads by which the number of repetitions could be counted. The religion of Mary soon showed signs of development as a parallel religion to that of Christ. She is styled the Queen of Heaven; her office, composed by Peter Damiani, was ordered by Urban II to be recited on Saturday; and a Marian Psalter and a Marian Bible were actually composed; while in place of the didia or reverence offered to the saints, there was claimed for the Virgin a higher step, a hyperdulia, which St. Thomas places between dulia and the latria or adoration paid to Christ.

[Sidenote: The immaculate conception.]

A final stage in possible developments was reached in the twelfth century in the institution of a feast in honour of the conception of the Blessed Virgin. Hitherto it had been supposed by Christian writers, notably by St. Anselm, that the Mother of the Lord had been conceived as others. Towards the middle of the twelfth century some Canons of Lyons evolved the theory that she was conceived already sinless in her mother's womb. St. Bernard strenuously opposed this notion of her immaculate conception, pointing out that the supposition involved in the theory could not logically stop with the Virgin herself, but must be applied to her parents and so to each of their ancestors in turn in an endless series. Nor was St. Bernard alone in his objection: indeed, nearly all the chief theologians of the thirteenth century, including Thomas Aquinas, declared that there was no warrant of Scripture for the theory. But notwithstanding this criticism, the festival won its way to recognition. Those who kept it, however, declared that it was merely the conception which they celebrated; and St. Thomas interpreting this to denote the sanctification, was of opinion that such a celebration was not to be entirely reprobated. It was Duns Scotus who first among the schoolmen defended the theory of the immaculate conception, but in moderate language; and his Franciscan followers, who at a General Council of the Order in 1263 had admitted the festival among some other new occasions to be observed, in the course of the fourteenth century adopted it as a distinctive doctrine.

CHAPTER XII HERESIES

[Sidenote: Cause of heresy.]

It was not until the thirteenth century that the Church had to face that spirit of scepticism or anti-religious feeling which is the chief bug-bear of modern Christianity. Her elaborate organisation and the gradual development of her own dogmatic position enabled her to deal with individual writers of a speculative turn like Berengar or Abailard. Nor were these in any sense anti-Christian. But they were the inciters to heresy; and a real danger to the Church lay in the filtering down of intellectual speculations to ignorant classes, by whom they would be transformed into weapons against the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. Indeed, from the eleventh century onward the Church was constantly threatened by heresy of a popular kind, which tended to develop into schism. And for this she had to thank not only the growing materialisation of her doctrine, but even more the worldly life of her ministers. Unpalatable doctrines may commend themselves by the pure lives which profess to be founded on them; but evil doing carries no persuasion to others.

[Sidenote: Two kinds of heretics.]

It is a real difficulty that our sources of information of all the heretics of these centuries are chiefly the writings of their successful opponents—the defenders of the orthodox faith. But much information remains to us from the admissions of her supporters as to the depraved condition of the Church at this period; so that we need not believe the allegations or their opponents that a chief inducement to join heretical sects lay in the greater scope for the indulgence of sin. Charges of immorality against opponents were the stock-in-trade of the controversialist, while the greatest authorities in the Church allow that heresy lived upon the scandals and negligences of the Church. Moreover, based as they were upon opposition to the existing organisation, the doctrines of the various sects had much in common. The Church did not distinguish between them, but excommunicated them all alike. If, however, we would understand the developments of opinion in the succeeding centuries, it is important to discriminate; and a clear distinction can be made between those opponents of the Church whose views were aimed against the development of an extreme sacerdotalism within the Church, and those who, going beyond this negative position, reproduced the Manichæan theories of an early age and threatened to raise a rival organisation to that of the Christian Church.

[Sidenote: Anti-sacerdotalists.]

The object which those who belonged to the first of these divisions set before themselves, was to get behind the elaborate organisation which the Church had built up and which, instead of being a help to lead man to God, had now become a hindrance by which the knowledge of God was actually obscured. They would therefore sweep away all this machinery and return to the Christianity of apostolic times. Their objection was primarily moral, but it soon became doctrinal; and among the heretics of this class there was revived the Donatist theory that the sacraments depend for their efficacy on the moral condition of those who administer them. The campaign of the Church reformers against clerical marriage seemed directly to support this view; but the canons which forbade any one to be present at a Mass performed by a married priest had to be explained away as a mere enforcement of discipline; and in 1230 Gregory IX definitely laid it down that the suspension of a priest living in mortal sin merely affects him as an individual and does not invalidate his office as regards others. But such declarations did nothing to meet the common feeling of the great incompatibility between the awful powers with which the Church clothed her ministers and the sinful lives led by a large proportion of the existing clerical body.

[Sidenote: Extreme examples.]

From an early period in the twelfth century sectaries of this class are found in several quarters. Two extreme instances are Tanchelm, who preached in the Netherlands between 1115 and 1124, and Eon de l'Etoile, who gathered round him a band of desperate characters in Brittany about 1148. They have been described as "two frantic enthusiasts," and Eon was almost certainly insane. Eon was imprisoned and his band dispersed. But Tanchelm found a large following when he taught that the hierarchy was null and that tithes should not be paid. He came to an untimely end; but the influence of his doctrines continued so strong in Antwerp that St. Norbert came to the help of the local clergy and succeeded in obliterating all traces of the heresy.

[Sidenote: Petrobrusians and Henricians.]

It was in the south of France that this and all heresy assumed a more formidable shape. The population was very mixed; the feudal tie, whether to France, England, or the Emperor, was slight; there was more culture and luxury, the clergy were more careless of their duties, while Jews had greater privileges, than anywhere else in Europe. Moreover, the early teachers were men of education. Two such were Peter de Bruis (1106-26), a priest, and Henry of Lausanne (1116-48), an ex-monk of Cluny. Peter was burnt and Henry probably died in prison. Peter preached in the land known later as Dauphiné; and the views of the Petrobrusians, as his followers were called, so continued to spread after his death that Peter the Venerable, the Abbot of Cluny, thought it worth while to write a tract in refutation of them. Henry was more formidable. He preached over all the south of France, was condemned as a heretic at the Council of Pisa (1134), but was released and resumed his preaching. As the bishops could not and the lay nobles would not do anything against him, the papal legate obtained the help of St. Bernard, who, although ill, preached at Albi and elsewhere with an effect which was much enhanced by the miracles which in popular belief accompanied his efforts. Henry declined a debate to which Bernard challenged him, and so became discredited, and shortly after he fell into the hands of his enemies.

The tract of Peter the Venerable is practically the sole authority for the tenets of the Petrobrusians. According to this they were frankly anti-sacerdotal. Infant baptism was held to be useless, since it was performed with vicarious promises. Churches were useless, for the Church of God consists of the congregation of the faithful; the Cross, as being the instrument of Christ's torture, was a symbol to be destroyed rather than invoked; there was no real presence and no sacrifice in the Mass, for Christ's body was made and given once for all at the Last Supper; all offerings and prayers for the dead were useless, since each man would be judged on his own merits. Henry with his followers practically adopted these views and added attempts at social reform on Christian lines, especially in the matter of marriage, persuading courtesans to abandon their vicious life and promoting their union to some of his adherents.

[Sidenote: Waldenses.]

By far the most important body of these anti-sacerdotal heretics were the Waldenses. Their founder was Peter Waldo, whose name takes many forms—Waldez, Waldus, Waldensis. He was a wealthy merchant of Lyons who, moved with religious feelings and himself ignorant, caused two priests to translate into the vernacular Romance the New Testament and a collection of extracts from the chief writers of the early Church known as Sentences. From a perusal of these he became convinced that the way to spiritual perfection lay through poverty. He divested himself of his wealth and, as a way of carrying out the gospel further, he began to preach (1170-80). He attracted men and women of the poorer classes, whom he used as missionaries; and the neglect of the pulpit by the clergy caused these lay preachers to find ready listeners in the streets and even in the churches of Lyons. According to the custom of the day they adopted a special dress; and the sandals (sabol) which they wore in