Page images
PDF
EPUB

"De Inventionibus Rerum," and he proved that the marriage of priests was not contrary to the law of God, that the custom continued for a long period in the church, and added, "Furthermore, whilst the priests did beget lawful sons, the church flourished with a happy offspring of men; then your popes were most holy, your bishops most innocent, and your priests and deacons most honest and chaste."1 He gave, in the same place, also the reverse of the picture. "This I will affirm, that this enforced chastity is so far from surpassing conjugal chastity, that even the guilt of no crime ever brought greater disgrace to the holy order, greater danger to religion, or greater grief to all men, than the stain of the clergy's lust. Wherefore, it would, perhaps, be the interest as well of Christianity as of the holy order, that at least the right of public marriage were restored to the clergy, which they might rather chastely pursue without infamy, than defile themselves by such brutal lusts." As Rome cannot bear to hear the truth, the compilers of the Belgian and other Expurgatory Indices have ordered this fourth chapter of the fifth book of Polydore Vergil's work for seven consecutive pages to be expunged.

There is a curious document extant, a letter written by Udalric, or Ulrick, bishop of Augusta (A.D. 870), to pope Nicholas I. A warm dispute had arisen between the bishop and the pope on the subject of priestly marriages, the pope having censured Odo, the archbishop of Vienna, for permitting one of his subdeacons to marry. Ulrick reminded the pope that Gregory the

1 "Porro, dum sacerdotes generabant legitimos filios, ecclesia felici prole virum vigebat; tum sanctissimi erant pontifices, episcopi innocentissimi, presbyteri diaconique integerrimi castissimique." De Invent. Rerum. lib. 5, c. 4, pp. 86, 87. Ibid. c. 9. Edit. as above.

Great by a decree had deprived priests of their wives; shortly after some fishermen, instead of making a take of fish, took six thousand heads of infants which had been drowned in the ponds. When the pope heard of the scandal, the result of his decree, he immediately recalled it, and did acts of penance for the occasion he had given of so many deaths.1 That the prohibition has led to great scandals we have, alas! too many examples; it is condemned by all good and honest men.2

Popery proper may now be considered in its zenith; and this period is further remarkable for the fact, that now, for the first time, the pope took upon himself to anathematize, and depose an emperor. Gregory delivered this order of deposition in presence of his council, and in the form of a solemn address to St. Peter. It was hurled against the emperor Henry. Fleury says that this was the first time that a pope had undertaken to declare such a sentence, and the whole empire was thrown into astonishment and indignation. 3

A.D. 1090.-Chaplets and paternosters were, with the

1 "Gregorium Magnum suo quodam decreto sacerdotibus aliquando uxores ademisse. Cum vero paulo post jussisset ex piscina sua pisces aliquot capi, piscatores pro piscibus sex millia capitum infantum suffocatorum reperisse; quam cædem infantium cum intellexit Gregorius ex occultis fornicationibus vel adulteriis sacerdotum natam esse, continuo revocavit decretum, et peccatum suum dignis pœnitentiæ fructibus purgavit, laudans apostolicum illud, 'Melius est nubere quam uri' et de suo addens, Melius est nubere, quam mortis occasionem præbere.' Epist. Udalrici. apud Gerhard. Loc. Theolog. de Minist. Eccles. lect. cccxxxix. tom. vi. p. 548, 4to. Jenæ, 1619.

2 "Les Catholiques fuit garder de celibat à leurs prêtres, et la regle de leur charge les condamne à une chastité perpetuelle. Fardeau impossible! dont la reformation des Protestants à très-bien connu le poids. Leur ecclesiastiques se marient et la religion n'est pas plus mal; bien qu'on pretende que le marriage et les soins d'un ménage et d'une famille détourne un pasteur des soin de l'Eglise. Les ecclesiastiques qui sont privés du marriage ont tres souvent des maitresses, et cela ne vaut pas mieux qu'une femme." Picard, Dissertation sur le culte religieux, p. xv. tom. i. "Cérémonies et Coûtumes Religieuses." Amsterdam, 1723.

3 Eccl. Hist. tom. xiii. pp. 295, 301. Paris, 1769.

"Office and Hours of our Lady," invented by Peter the Hermit; but the former were put in general practice at the recommendation of Dominic (A.D. 1230), and he therefore passed as the author of this species of devotion.

A.D. 1095.-It may be worth recording here, by the way, that at the Council of Clermont, held in November of this year, by Pope Urban II., at the head of thirteen archbishops and 250 bishops and abbots, by the twenty-eighth canon it was directed that all who communicated should receive the body and blood of Christ under both kinds, unless there be necessity to the contrary.2

A.D. 1098.-Robert, abbot of Molême, bishop of Burgundy, founded a new order of monks called Cistercians, so called from the place in which he located himself, Citeaux, or Cistercium, within the bishopric of Châlon, not far from Dijon, in France.

Bruno, an ecclesiastic of Cologne, and master of the cathedral school at Rheims in 1084, settled down at Chartreux (Cartusium), near Grenoble, and there founded the order of Carthusian monks.3 In 1185, a Greek monk (a priest, Johannes Phocus) visited Mount Carmel, in Palestine, where he found the ruins of an old monastery, and where he also found an old priest of Calabria, one Berthold, who had, in consequence of a vision, erected on this spot a tower and small church, which he occupied, with about ten companions. Hence arose the order of the Carmelite monks.4

1 Polydore Vergil, b. v. c. vii. p. 107. London, 1551.

2 "Ne quis communicet de altari nisi corpus separatim et sanguinem similiter sumat, nisi per necessitatem et per cautelam." Labb. et Coss. Concl. Gen. tom. x. col. 506, can. 28. Paris, 1671.

3 Neander's Church History, vol. vii. page 367. London, 1852. 4 Ibid. vol. vii. p. 369.

THE TWELFTH CENTURY.

A.D. 1123.-Marriage of the presbyters, deacons, and sub-deacons was by the twenty-first canon of the First Council of Lateran prohibited. The following is the canon in question:

"We entirely forbid the presbyters, deacons, sub-deacons, and monks to contract marriages; and we judge that marriages contracted by these sort of persons ought to be annulled, and the persons brought to repentance, according to the decision of the said canons."

A similar canon was passed by the Second Lateran Council, A.D. 1139, canon vi. and vii.2

A.D. 1130.-Hugo de Victore, a Parisian monk, and Peter Lombard, bishop of Paris (1140), first asserted or defined the sacraments to be seven, but this was not yet declared to be the doctrine of the Church; the determinate number of seven sacraments was mentioned for the first time in the instruction given to Otto, of Bamberg, for persons newly baptized (A.D. 1124).3

A.D. 1140.—The festival of the Immaculate Conception of the blessed Virgin Mary was introduced at Lyons, about this time; but was opposed by Bernard, as a novelty without the sanction of Scripture or of reason.1

Bernard is a canonized saint of the Roman church, and is accounted as the last of the Fathers. His opinion on doctrinal questions is greatly esteemed by Romanists of the present day. When Bernard heard of the introduction of

1 Labb. et Coss. Concl. tom. x. col. 899. Paris, 1671.

2 Ibid. tom. x. cols. 1003, 1004.

3 Neander's Church History, vol. vii. p. 465. London, 1852.
4 Fleury, xiv. p. 527. Paris, 1769, and p. 560. Paris, 1727.

this new festival, he wrote an epistle of protest to the church of Lyons, wherein he said: "We can never enough wonder that some of you could have the boldness to introduce a feast which the church has not the least knowledge of, which is neither supported by reason nor backed by any tradition." He asserted that the feast was founded on an "alleged revelation, which is destitute of adequate authority," and inquired, "How can it be maintained that a conception which proceeds, not from the Holy Ghost, but rather from sin, can be holy ? or how could they conjure up a holy day on account of a thing that is not holy in itself ?” And he added that this feast "either honours sin, or authorizes a false holiness." It is difficult to conceive on what ground the church of Rome, after such a declaration as the above, could attempt to establish the "immaculate conception as a doctrine. We shall below (A.D. 1476) continue this subject as more appropriate to the period when the doctrine was seriously revived.

[ocr errors]

1

Peter Lombard first determined the three parts of Penance-contrition, confession, and satisfaction.2

A.D. 1151.-Gratian's collections of ecclesiastical decrees, canons, etc., were allowed and authorized by Pope Eugene III., who commanded them to be studied in the universities

1 "Unde miramur satis, quid visum fuerit hoc tempore quibusdam vestrum voluisse mutare colorem optimum, novam inducendo celebritatem, quam ritus ecclesiæ nescit, non probat ratio, non commendat antiqua traditio....Sed profertur scriptum supernæ, ut aiunt, revelationis. Ipse mihi facile persuades scriptis talibus non moveri, quibus nec ratio suppeditare, nec certa invenitur favere auctoritas....Cum hæc ita se habeant, quænam jam erit festivæ ratio conceptionis? Quo pacto, aut sanctus asseretur conceptus, qui de Spiritu Sancto non est, ne dicam de peccato est? Aut festus habebitur, qui minime sanctus est? Libenter gloriosa hoc honore carebit, quo vel peccatum honorari, vel falsa videtur induci sanctitas." S. Bernard. Epist. 174, Oper. tom. i. pp. 390, 391. Paris, 1839.

2 "Compunctio cordis, confessioris, satisfactio operis." History, vol. vii. p. 483. London, 1852.

Neander's Church

« EelmineJätka »