And this, most prudent reader, I would not have you regard as a wild fancy and superstition, since, if you learn the cause of this novelty, you will admire and approve of the zeal and deed of the populace. For this blessed priest, when he celebrated the sacrament of the divine mysteries, did not, as is the ecclesiastical custom, sit upon his pontifical throne, but upon its footstool underneath, which, when the people beheld, they disliked, and complainingly exclaimed, "Thou oughtest, O father, to sit upon thy chair;" and when they repeated this frequently, the minister of the Lord rising, calmed their complaints with tranquil voice, and again took his seat upon the same stool. So all this seemed to be done by him from motives of humility. But upon a certain great festival it happened that he was offering the sacrifice of the mass, [2273] and wished to do this same thing. Thereupon, not only the people, but the clergy also, exclaimed with one voice, "Take thy seat upon thy chair, bishop." But he, as if conscious of a mystery, feigned not to hear this; and giving the signal for silence,--for no one dared pertinaciously to withstand him,--he made them all quiet, and yet, nevertheless, sat down on the footstool of the chair; and the solemnities of the mass [2274] having been celebrated as usual, each one of the faithful returned to his own home.
But the man of God sending for the clergy, with tranquil and serene mind, charged them with rashness, saying, "How is it that ye blush not for having joined the cry of the laity, and reproaching me? Howbeit, since your reproach flows not from the muddy torrent of arrogance, but from the pure fountain of love, I will unfold to you the secret of this mystery. Very often when I wish to draw near to that seat, I see a virtue as it were sitting upon it, exceeding radiant with the brightness of its light. Then, being in suspense between joy and fear, I acknowledge that I am altogether unworthy to sit upon such a seat, and if I did not hesitate to cause an occasion of offence to the people, without doubt I should not even venture to sit upon the stool itself. Thus it is, my beloved sons, that I seem to you, in this, to, transgress the pontifical rule. [2275] Nevertheless, many times when I see it vacant, as ye yourselves are witnesses, I refuse not to sit upon the chair after the accustomed manner. Wherefore do ye, now that ye are acquainted with my secret, and being well assured that, if I shall be indulged, I will sit upon the chair, for I hold not in slight esteem the dignity of my order, cease any further from joining in the exclamations of the populace." This explanation the most holy father whilst he was yet alive, was compelled to give to the clergy. The faithful of Christ, therefore, remembering all this with pious devotion, brought his sacred body, and caused it to sit upon the episcopal throne. As much joy and exultation arose then to heaven from the people, as if they were attending him alive and in the body. Then embalming him with sweet spices, they wrapped him in silken coverings; what each one of them could be the first to bring, this he accounted to himself as greatest gain. Then carrying palms, the tokens of victory, with flaming tapers, with sounding hymns, and with fragrant incense, celebrating the triumph of his heavenly victory, they laid down the sacred relics, and buried them in the cemetery which had been long ago constructed by him, where too from henceforth, and even to this day, miraculous virtues cease not to show themselves. Pious vows, forsooth, are received with a propitious hearing; the health of the impotent is restored; the expulsion of unclean spirits testifies to the martyr's merits. These gifts, O Lord Jesus, are Thine, whose wont it is thus magnificently to honour Thy martyrs after death: Thou who with the Father and the Holy Consubstantial Spirit livest and reignest for evermore. Amen.
After this, how that wolf and framer of treachery, that is Arius, covered with a sheep's skin, entered into the Lord's fold to worry and torment it, or in what manner he was enabled to attain to the dignity of the priesthood, let us employ ourselves in relating in brief. [2276] And this not to annoy those who ventured to recall to the threshing-floor of the Lord those tares of apostacy and contagion that had been winnowed out of the Church by a heavenly fan; for these are without doubt reckoned eminent for sanctity, but thinking it a light thing to believe so holy a man, they transgressed the injunctions of the divine command. What then? Do we reprehend them? By no means. For as long as this corruptible body weighs us down, and this earthly habitation depresses the sense of our infirmity, many are easily deceived in their imaginations, and think that which is unjust to be just, that to be holy which is impure. The Gibeonites who, by the divine threatenings, were to be utterly destroyed, having one thing in their wishes and another in their voice and mien, were able quickly to deceive Joshua, [2277] that just distributor of the land of promise. David [2278] also, full of prophetic inspiration, when he had heard the words of the deceitful youth, although it was by the inscrutable and just judgment of God, yet acted very differently from what the true nature of the case required. What also can be more sublime than the apostles, who have not removed themselves from our infirmity? For one of them writes, "In many things we offend all;" [2279] and another, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." [2280] But when we repent of these, so much the more readily do we obtain pardon, when we have sinned not willingly, but through ignorance or frailty. And certainly offences of this sort come not of prevarication, but of the indulgence of compassion. But I leave to others to write an apology for this; let us pursue what is in hand. After that magnificent defender of the faith, Peter, worthy of his name, had by the triumph of martyrdom, etc.
The Rest is Wanting.
[2241] As interpreted by Anastasius Bibliothecarius. Apud Maium, Spicilegii, tom. iii. p. 671. That Anastasius Bibliothecarius translated from the Greek the Passion of St. Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, is affirmed by Anastasius himself in his prologue, Ad Passionem Martyrum, MCCCCLXXX., published by Mabillon in the Museum Italicum, tom. i. part ii, p. 80: "Post translatam a me ad petitionem sanctitatis tunæ (he is addressing Peter, Bishop of Gavinum), passionem præcipui doctoris et martyris, Petri Alexandrinæ urbis episcopi." And then an anonymous biographer of John viii., in Muratori R. I. S., tom. iii. p. i. p. 269, confirms the same. Anastasius, the librarian of the Roman church, translated from the Greek into Latin the Passion of St. Peter, Archbishop of Alexandria. But it is a matter of conjecture which of the different Passions of St. Peter Anastasius translated. Of the Acts of St. Peter, there are three different records:--(1) Acta Sincera, which, according to Baronius, are the most genuine. (2) A shorter Latin version, by Surius. (3) A Greek version, by Combefis.
[2242] [Significant to find this term applied from Western thought to this great bishopric by such a translator as Anastasius.]
[2243] [See p. 257, supra, and p. 263, infra, note 2. Not his final rejection after the Nicene Council.]
[2244] [He is here speaking of its civil importance only.]
[2245] Hor., Od., ii. 10, 11.
[2246] [Anastasius, more Romano, uses the Middle-Age terminology as if it had existed in the Ante-Nicene period. So all the successors of the apostles at Rome, including St. Peter himself, are transformed into "Popes." We owe this abuse to the "False Decretals," of which we treat hereafter. But why is exploded fiction and demonstrated untruth perpetuated by enlightened historians? See vol. v. p. 155.]
[2247] Matt. v. 29.
[2248] [Post-Nicene terminology, condemned even by the Gallicans, as, e.g., Dupin. Alexandria, founded by St. Mark, was virtually an Apostolic See, though commonly called the Evangelic See.]
[2249] Thus watched the faithful at Milan around Ambrose, their bishop, against whom the wrath of the Arian Empress Justina was directed, according to the testimony of Augustine, who was an eye-witness. Cf. Confess., lib. ix. cap. 7.
[2250] [i.e., deacon; Isa. lxvi. 21. So Clement of Rome, cap. xl. p. 14, vol. i., this series.]
[2251] The Acta Combefisiana add, "quemadmodem ille Dei Filium a paterna gloria et substantia sequestravit," even as he has separated the Son of God from the glory and substance of His Father. But Arius had not as yet laid bare his heresy, but had been excluded from the Church for joining in the Meletian schism, and a suspicious course of action.
[2252] ["The dying are wont to vaticinate;" but the prophetic charismata (1 Cor. xiv. 31) were not yet extinct in the Church, in all probability, hence this conjecture was natural.]
[2253] kolobion--this is the tunicle, tunica, tunicella, dalmatica. It originally had no sleeves; it is said that wide sleeves were added in the West about the fourth century; and the garment was then called dalmatic, and was the deacon's vestment when assisting at the holy communion; while that worn by sub-deacons, called by the Anglo-Saxons "roc," and "tunicle" generally after the 13th century, was of the same form, but smaller and less ornamented (Palmer, Orig. Liturgicæ, vol. ii. p. 314). The word, in its classical use, meant an under-garment with its sleeves curtailed (kolobos)--i.e., reaching only half down to the elbow, or entirely without sleeves. [But the reference here is clearly to St. John xix. 23; and the introduction of the mediæval dalmatic, to translate kolobion, is out of place.]
[2254] Of Scripture.
[2255] Cf. 1 Tim. iv. 1.
[2256] [Another anachronism, but noteworthy as applied to the See of Alexandria. See p. 261, note 2.]
[2257] Cf. St. Paul's farewell address to the elders at Miletus, Acts xx. 28. [Acts xx. 32. The whole of this affecting address is borrowed from the touching eloquence of St. Paul.]
[2258] [Acts xx. 38. The spirit of Ignatius and of Polycarp is here clearly to be recognized in the fourth century.]
[2259] [Another anachronism; but, as applied to the Alexandrian primate, it is a concession to truth. The word was already used in the West, but not exclusively with respect to the Apostolic Sees. See vol. v. p. 270, note 1.]
[2260] John x. 11.
[2261] Matt. x. 28.
[2262] [Another anachronism. No such invocation of saints at this period. See note 6, p. 261, supra.]
[2263] [Wholly apocryphal in all probability, or based on a mere apostrophe. Such "patronage" was yet unknown.]
[2264] [Gen. xxxii. 26.]
[2265] The Latin reads here: "Spread out, ye aged men, the skins which ye are carrying."
[2266] agonothetes--the president of the Grecian games, the judge.
[2267] [Probably he wore ordinarily what afterwards became an ecclesiastical ornament. So the casula and other vestments were retained by the clergy after they ceased to be commonly worn. Marriott, Vestiar. Christian., p. 198.] The omophorion, which is worn by every Eastern bishop, resembles the Latin pallium, except that it is broader, and tied round the neck in a knot. Cf. following passage from Neale's Introduction to the Translation of the Eastern Liturgies: "But while the Gospel is being read, the bishop lays aside his omophorion, thereby making profession of his service to the Lord. For since it is the Lord who is represented as speaking by the Gospel, and is, as it were, Himself present, the bishop at that time ventures not to be arrayed with the symbol of His incarnation--I mean, the omophorion; but taking it off from his shoulders, he gives it to the deacon, who holds it folded in his right hand, himself standing near the bishop, and preceding the holy gifts. When he has finished the liturgy, and comes to the communion, he again assumes the omophorion, manifesting that before this he was one of the ministers, and was afraid to put upon himself that holy garment. But when the work is accomplished, and he goes on to elevate the bread, and to divide it into parts, and to receive it himself, and distribute it to others, it is necessary that he should put on all the sacred symbols of his dignity; and since the omophorion is the principal vest of a pontiff, he necessarily assumes that, and in that is partaker of the most divine things." [All this unknown to antiquity.]
[2268] A solidus or aureus worth 25 denarii, being 8½d.; it was worth 17s. 8½d.; five solidi, £4, 8s. 6½d. [More than $20.]
[2269] Virgil, Æn., book iii. 56:-- "O sacred hunger of pernicious gold, What bands of faith can impious lucre hold?" --Dryden.
[2270] [Here "standing" = continuing. He knelt, no doubt, to be beheaded; but the corpse remained in this posture. A noble horse, shot on the field of Antietam, remained on the field in an attitude of raising himself from the ground, as I saw it myself.]