1849.] Legendary Saints. 361 three thousand martyrs. * He gives an adroit explanation of the existence of duplicates, triplicates, and indeed of any number of rival originals of the relics of saints. The same relics, existing in altar-treasuries thousands of miles from each other, have wellnigh confuted the mathematical axiom, that the whole is greater than a part. If some of these relics were equal to all their parts, they would tell of a Titanic as well as of a martyr race. Mr. Digby says, that the faithful made copies of the relic or the image, which were touched to the real ones, and afterwards venerated, as partaking of their grace. "This was the case with the thorns of the crown, the wood of the cross, and the heads and vestments of saints." The explanation is hardly so ingenious as that given to account for the existence of two skulls of St. Patrick in rival churches in the North and South of Ireland. One of these, however, proved happily to be much smaller than the other, and it was peacefully decided that this should stand for the skull of St. Patrick when he was a boy, the other being his skull when he was a man. That Mr. Digby imagines every reason save the right one, why Protestants do not share the regard of Roman Catholics for the relics, images, tombs, and days of the so-called Saints. The real and sufficient reason is, that Protestants do not believe that they were saints. Protestantism allows, favors, and manifests as deep, but not so misplaced and undue and superstitious, a feeling of regard for true worthies, as does the Romanist. The Middle Ages have too many reputed saints, and the terms of their canonization were doubtful. was good policy of the ancient Romans, which Cicero records and explains, that, when Tullus Hostilius was struck by lightning, it was not given out that he was received among the gods, as was said of Romulus, dying by the same death. The honor would have become too cheap, if too many had shared it. That Moses brought the bones of Joseph from Egypt, and that the patriarchs wished their bodies to be carried to Canaan, is constantly alleged by the Romanists to sustain their regard for relics. But there is no analogy between wishing to be buried with our fathers, and the enshrining and revering of relics. The just and natural feeling Protestantism indulges equally with Romanism. Fénelon, and the few like him of his communion, receive equal honor from all Christians. But we should not consent to his technical canonization, because that involves fraud in the pretence of authenticated miracles. Nor can any Protestant do any thing but loathe that terrible old reprobate called St. Dunstan, whose chief miracle consisted in undermining the floor of a hall where he was to hold a conference with his opponents, and letting them down through it, while he and his friends around him were miraculously preserved. Mr. Digby spends much effort in various parts of his work, to prove the "super-earthly" sanctity of thousands in the Middle Ages, and claims for them miraculous wisdom and power. Now we think that a cautious and skeptical suspicion is drawn upon those ages, their saints and superstitions, from the very fact of the extraordinary claims advanced for their sanctity and their marvels. Puerility and gross trifling are prominent marks in their legends. The number of their miracles is astounding. The purpose of them is often childish, and seldom worthy of the finger of God. Had these legendary miracle-workers been content to appear before us in the simple garments of truth, undecked and natural, they would have wrought upon us far more powerfully than they now do. Nothing would have so compelled our reverence as the artless shapes and deeds of sincerity in men, and in record, conformed to what we know must have marked the early periods of civilized society. As a general rule, too, the narrower the compass over which the fame and reverence of a reputed saint extend, the more healthful, sincere, and effective are they, and the more of actual truth will be their warrant. Some small sects have canonized their eminent members with better reason and with higher effect than attend the host of saints who trespass on each other in the crowded calendar of Rome. A faithful mother is most truly sainted by revering children, and next to her claim to canonization comes that of a patriarch, a wise teacher, or an humble village priest. Rome has forgotten her truest saints. The more concentrated the odor of sanctity, the more pungent it is. The blessing pronounced on mourners is treated by our author as the third great division of his subject. He includes under this many themes which might as well have been treated under his other divisions. Indeed, the plan of his work is not entirely clear, nor are topics carefully distinguished. He lays down the distinction between the sober 1849.] Use of Latin. 363 and holy melancholy which is truly religious and the mere sadness which worldly sorrow inflicts; he attaches the former to the ages of faith, and applies the benediction accordingly. Then he contrasts the days and occasions of sacred observance in old times with the mere birth-day festivals of the present. The saints enjoyed great length of days. The sentiment involved in pilgrimages was that of holy mourning. Deathscenes were then edifying, and even the bodies of the faithful did not send forth so offensive an effluvia in decay, on account of the simplicity of the food then used, as do the bodies of Protestants.* The author presses hard upon the moderns a contrast, which has of late been frequently urged in controversy, between the modesty, gravity, and simplicity of ancient monumental inscriptions, and the vanity and bombast too often displayed in recent years. He quotes for this purpose the pompous epitaph on Sir Philip Sydney, in St. Paul's, London, beginning, "England, Netherland, the heavens, and the arts," &c. This is in bad taste, no doubt. But there is another inscription in an Italian church, to a great favorite of our author, a renowned man of the Middle Ages, which he seems to have forgotten. It reads, put into English, "Here lies John Picus of Mirandula. The Tagus, and the Ganges, and perhaps even the Antipodes, know all the rest." Though our author may not wisely throw stones in this matter, yet there is justice in his criticism. Few visitors can enter St. Paul's, in London, and read, without being offended, the inscription fronting the choir, which makes that Christian church a monument to its designer. Mr. Digby vindicates the use of the Latin language in the Church, in order that there might be a uniform and unchangeable liturgy, and that the one Church might have one worship. A writer in the Dublin Review ‡ gives us another reason for this usage. He says, it is frivolous to allege that the language of the liturgy is unknown to the larger number of those who worship by it. "Mankind have always been sensible that an ancient tongue was a more fitting and digni fied vehicle for the celebration of religious worship than a vulgar and a recent one." To this he adds, that the most solemn service of the Church "is an awful, tremendous sacrifice, which, independently of its words, commands attention and excites reverential piety." * Vol. I. pp. 445, 455, 512. t Vol. I. p. 576. + Vol IX. p. 2. Our author devotes much space to the symbolical meaning of the ceremonies and the priestly robes, and to the external significance and the interior sense of the sacraments. All these religious offices are an expression of the hunger and thirst of the soul after justice, (righteousness,) and this brings the author to the fourth beatitude, and to the opening of his second volume. He refers to those writers who for three centuries have misrepresented the Church of the faithful ages, and dismisses their charges rather summarily, "where philosophy is heard, they cannot be received as evidence." He allows that these were ages of crime, "but mark, it was crime along with infinite pity, infinite horror for sin, and infinite desire of justice." A strange combination, truly! He says that a countenance for Judas would now be found sooner in London or Berlin than it was by Da Vinci, who searched for one a whole year at Milan, for his painting of the Lord's Supper. Mr. Digby should have told the rest of the story, that the painter was at last highly satisfied to take the face of the head of the convent for which he was exercising his art, an avaricious and wicked man. Mr. Digby is scandalized by the recent publication, by Méon and others, of the Fabliaux of the Middle Ages. They are, indeed, to the last degree obscene and disgusting, and bear a sad testimony to the times which produced them. Specimens of them are given by Thomas Wright, in his volumes. on the Middle Ages. When Mr. Digby undertakes to represent the state of the public mind and manners in those ages as regards conformity to the Divine law, he finds it necessary to depreciate the testimony of those of his own Church who have drawn deplorable descriptions of the general depravity of their times; as, for instance, in the prologue to the "Customs of Cluny,' and in the "Annals of the Camaldolese." He then passes on to domestic manners and to nunneries. Here are some of the most beautiful passages in his volumes. Virginity gave sanctity to the marriage state. "From the first moment that there was a free and voluntary condition of life for women, they had a personal importance; and this doctrine of virginity, which seems fatal to marriage, on the contrary, constituted its new force and grandeur." As said the song of the Nibelungen, "The virtues of the maiden made other 1849.] Morality. 365 ladies fair." Our author traces to the nunnery respect for females and a higher view of love, and then proceeds to consider the institution, character, and influence of the clergy, as regards justice. Even so stern a judge and opponent of the Church of Rome as Michelet admits, "that the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the twelfth century was an anchor of safety. It might spare some guilty persons, but how many innocent did it not save!"* Sanctuary privileges, by which even the bell-tower became a safe asylum, sheltered the innocent and the guilty. There are mountain-loads of testimony about the gorgeousness and state of the clergy, which the single exceptions of our author cannot remove. He asserts that strict justice decided the order of promotion from rank to rank among the clergy, and he apologizes for the warrior prelates. Yet it appears that some of the wisest provisions of authority, which he most applauds, were called out by abuses which he makes of small account. The preaching of the Middle Ages, he says, was far exalted above modern preaching. In this connection he gives us the famous sermon of St. Eloy, which Robertson in his History so grossly misrepresented, and for which he is so justly taken to task in Dr. Maitland's work on the "Dark Ages." The morality of those ages, says our author, was heroic and "supernatural," disinterested, and earnest, and pure. It was presided over by the confessional, that wonderful invention, whose effects Michelet expresses in a sentence, which, when put into English, is still French," This was a new era of morality, the accession of conscience." In treating of the confessional and of indulgences, Mr. Digby becomes very controversial, and aims to meet objections, though he passes over that which attaches to the possible character of the priest who received confessions. The demand, the absolute compulsion, which enforced the confessional, was a tyrannical and most iniquitous exaction upon The declaration of absolution and indulgence was an encroachment upon the prerogatives of God. Neither Gospel nor Epistle will show an instance in which the Master or an apostle demanded or listened to an exposure of bosom secrets. Our author is excessively severe, and almost unscrupulous, in comparing modern manners and principles with man. * Histoire de France, II. 393. |