HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH*

 

 

CHAPTER XIV.

 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS.

 

[This chapter, with the exception of the last four sections, has been prepared under my direction by the Rev. Samuel M. Jackson, M. A., from the original sources, with the use of the best modern authorities, and has been revised, completed and adapted to the plan of the work.—P. S.

 

 § 142. Chronological List of the Principal Ecclesiastical Writers from the Sixth to the Twelfth Century.

 

I. Greek Authors.

St. Maximus Confessor

c. 580-662840

St. John of Damascus

c. 676-754841

Photius

c. 805-891842

Simeon Metaphrastes

10th century.

Oecumenius

10th century.

Theophylact

11th century.

Michael Psellus

c. 1020-c. 1106

Euthymius Zigabenus

12th century.

Eustathius of Thessalonica

12th century

Nicetas Acominatos

d. c. 1126

I. Latin Authors.

Cassiodorus

c. 477-c. 580

St. Gregory of Tours

538-594

St. Gregory the Great

c. 540-604843

St. Isidore of Seville

c. 560-636

The Venerable Bede (Baeda)

674-735844

Paulus Diaconus (Paul Warnefrid)

c. 725-800

St. Paulinus of Aquileia

c. 726-804

Alcuin

735-804845

Liudger

c. 744-809

Theodulph of Orleans

-821

Eigil

-822

Amalarius

-837

Claudius of Turin

-839846

Agobard of Lyons

779-840847

Einhard (Eginhard)

c. 770-840

Smaragdus

-c. 840

Jonas of Orleans

-844

Rabanus Maurus

c. 776-856848

Haymo

c. 778-853

Walafrid Strabo

c. 809-849

Florus of Lyons

-c. 860

Servatus Lupus

805-862

Druthmar

c. 860

St. Paschasius Radbertus

c. 790-865849

Ratramnus

-c. 868850

Hincmar of Rheims

c. 806-882851

Johannes Scotus Erigena

c. 815-877852

Anastasius

-886

Ratherius of Verona

c. 890-974

Pope Sylvester II. (Gerbert)

-1003853

Fulbert of Chartres

c. 950-1029

Peter Damiani

1007-1072

Bere

 

 

 § 143. St. Maximus Confessor.

 

I. Maximus Confessor: Opera in Migne, Patrol. Gr. Tom. XC., XCI., reprint of ed. of Fr. Combefis, Paris, 1673 (only the first two volumes ever appeared), with a few additional treatises from other sources. There is need of a complete critical edition.

II. For his life and writings see his Acta in Migne, XC. col. 109-205; Vita Maximi (unknown authorship) col. 67-110; Acta Sanctorum, under Aug. 13; Du Pin (Eng. transl., Lond. 1693 sqq. ), VI. 24-58; Ceillier (second ed., Paris, 1857 sqq. ), XI. 760-772.

III. For his relation to the Monotheletic controversy see C. W. Franz Walch: Historie der Kezerien, etc., IX. 60-499, sqq.; Neander: III. 171 sqq.; this History, IV. 409, 496-498. On other aspects see J. N. Huber: Die Philosophie der Kirchenväter. München, 1859. Josef Bach: Die Dogmengeschichte des Mittelalters. Wien, 1873-75, 2 parts, I. l5-49. Cf. Weser: Maximi Confesoris de incarnatione et deificatione doctrina. Berlin, 1869.

 

As a sketch of St. Maximus Confessor (c. 580-Aug. 13, 662) has been elsewhere given,856 it is only necessary in this place to pass in review his literary activity, and state briefly his theological position.

Notwithstanding his frequent changes of residence, Maximus is one of the most prolific writers of the Greek Church, and by reason of his ability, stands in the front rank. Forty-eight of his treatises have been printed, others exist in MS., and some are lost. By reason of his pregnant and spiritual thoughts he has always been popular with his readers, notwithstanding his prolixity and frequent obscurity of which even Photius and Scotus Erigena complain.

His Works may be divided into five classes.
I. Exegetical. A follower of the Alexandrian school, he does not so much analyze and expound as allegorize, and make the text a starting point for theological digressions. He wrote (1) Questions [and Answers] upon difficult Scripture passages,857 sixty-five in number addressed to Thalassius, a friend who had originally asked him the questions. The answers are sometimes very short, sometimes rich speculative essays. Thus he begins with a disquisition upon evil. Unless one is expert in allegorical and mystical writings, the answers of Maximus will be hard reading. He seems to have felt this himself, for he added explanatory notes in different places.858  (2) Questions, seventy-five in number, similar to the preceding, but briefer and less obscure. (3) Exposition of Psalm LIX.859  (4) The Lord's Prayer.860  Both are very mystical.

II. Scholia upon Dionysius Areopagita and Gregory Nazianzen, which were translated by Scotus Erigena (864).861

III. Dogmatical and polemical. (1) Treatises.862  The first twenty-five are in defense of the Orthodox dyotheletic doctrine (i.e. that there are in Christ two perfect natures, two wills and two operations) against the Severians. One treatise is on the Holy Trinity; another is on the procession of the Holy Spirit; the rest are upon cognate topics. (2) Debate with Pyrrhus (held July, 645) upon the Person of Christ, in favor of two wills.863  It resulted in Pyrrhus' retraction of his Monotheletic error. This work is easier to read than most of the others. (3) Five Dialogues on the Trinity.864  (4) On the Soul.865

IV. Ethical and ascetic. (1) On asceticism866 a dialogue between an abbot and a young monk, upon the duties of the monastic life. A famous treatise, very simple, clear and edifying for all Christians. It insists upon love to God, our neighbors and our enemies, and the renunciation of the world. (2) Chapters upon Charity,867 four in number, of one hundred aphorisms, each, ascetic, dogmatic and mystical, added to the preceding, but not all are upon charity. There are Greek scholia upon this book. (3) Two Chapters, theological and oeconomical,868 each of one hundred aphorisms, upon the principles of theology. (4) Catena,869 five chapters of one hundred aphorisms each, upon theology.

V. Miscellaneous. (1) Initiation into the mysteries,870 an allegorical exposition of the Church and her worship. Incidentally it proves that the Greek liturgy has not changed since the seventh century. (2) Commonplaces,871 seventy-one sections, containing texts of Scripture and quotations from the Fathers, arranged under heads. (3) Letters872 forty-five in number, on theological and moral matters; several are on the Severian heresy, others supply biographical details. Many of his letters exist in MS. only. (4) Hymns,873 three in number.

Maximus was the pupil of Dionysius Areopagita, and the teacher of John of Damascus and John Scotus Erigena, in the sense that he elucidated and developed the ideas of Dionysius, and in turn was an inspiration and guide to the latter. John of Damascus has perpetuated his influence in the Greek Church to the present day. Scotus Erigena introduced some of his works to Western Europe. The prominent points of the theology of Maximus are these:874 Sin is not a positive quality, but an inborn defect in the creature. In Christ this defect is supplied, new life is imparted, and the power to obey the will of God is given. The Incarnation is thus the Divine remedy for sin's awful consequences: the loss of free inclination to good, and the loss of immortality. Grace comes to man in consequence of Christ's work. It is not the divine nature in itself but in union with the human nature which is the principle of atoning and saving grace. God is the fountain of all being and life, the alpha and omega of creation. By means of the Incarnation he is the Head of the kingdom of grace. Christ is fully Man, and not only fully God. This is the mystery of the Incarnation. Opposed to the Monophysites and Monothelites, Maximus exerts all his ingenuity to prove that the difference of natures in Christ requires two wills, a human and a divine will, not separated or mixed, but in harmony. Christ was born from eternity from the Father, and in time from the Virgin, who was the veritable Mother of God. Christ's will was a natural, human will, one of the energies of his human nature. The parallel to this union of the divine and human in Christ is the human soul wrought upon by the Holy Spirit. The divine life begins in faith, rules in love, and comes to its highest development in the contemplative life. The Christian fulfils the command to pray without ceasing, by constantly directing his mind to God in true piety and sincere aspiration. All rational essences shall ultimately be re-united with God, and the final glorification of God will be by the complete destruction of all evil.

An interesting point of a humane interest is his declaration that slavery is a dissolution, introduced by sin, of the original unity of human nature, and a denial of the original dignity of man, created after the image of God.

 

 § 144. John of Damascus.

 

Cf. §§ 89 and 103.

 

I. Joannes Damascenus: Opera omnia in Migne, Patrol. Gr. Tom. XCIV.-XCVI. (reprint, with additions, of Lequien's ed. Paris, 1712. 2 vols. fol. 2d ed. Venice, 1748).

II. John of Jerusalem: Vita Damasceni (Migne, XCIV. col. 429-489); the Prolegomena of Leo Allatius (l.c. 118-192). Perrier: Jean Damascène, sa vie et ses écrits. Paris, 1862. F. H. J. Grundlehner: Johannes Damascenus. Utrecht, 1876 (in Dutch). Joseph Langen (Old-Catholic professor at Bonn): Johannes von Damaskus. Gotha, 1879. J. H. Lupton: St. John of Damascus. London, 1882. Cf. Du Pin, V. 103-106; Ceillier, XII., 67-99; Schroeckh, XX., 222-230; Neander, iii. passim; Felix Nève: Jean de D. et son influence en Orient sous les premiers khalifs, in "Revue Belge et etrangère," July and August, 1861.

 

I. Life. John of Damascus, Saint and Doctor of the Eastern Church, last of the Greek Fathers,875 was born in the city of Damascus in the fourth quarter of the seventh century.876  His common epithet of Chrysorrhoas (streaming with gold) was given to him because of his eloquence, but also probably in allusion to the river of that name, the Abana of Scripture, the Barada of the present day, which flows through his native city, and makes it a blooming garden in the desert. Our knowledge of his life is mainly derived from the semi-legendary account of John of Jerusalem, who used an earlier Arabic biography of unknown authorship and date.877

The facts seem to be these. He sprang from a distinguished Christian family with the Arabic name of Mansur (ransomed). His father, Sergius, was treasurer to the Saracenic caliph, Abdulmeled (685-705), an office frequently held by Christians under the caliphs. His education was derived from Cosmas, a learned Italian monk, whom Sergius had ransomed from slavery. He made rapid progress, and early gave promise of his brilliant career. On the death of his father he was taken by the caliph into his service and given an even higher office than his father had held.878  When the emperor Leo the Isaurian issued his first edict against images (726)879, he prepared a circular letter upon the subject which showed great controversial ability and at once raised him to the position of leader of the image worshippers. This letter and the two which followed made a profound impression. They are classical, and no one has put the case better.880  John was perfectly safe from the emperor's rage, and could tranquilly learn that the letters everywhere stirred up the monks and the clergy to fanatical opposition to Leo's decrees. Yet he may well have found his position at court uncomfortable, owing to the emperor's feelings towards him and his attempts at punishment. However this may be, shortly after 730 John is found as a monk in the Convent of St. Sabas, near the shore of the Dead Sea, ten miles southeast from Jerusalem. A few years later he was ordained priest.881  His last days were spent in study and literary labor. In the closing decade of his life he is said to have made a journey through Palestine, Syria, and even as far as Constantinople, for the purpose of exciting opposition to the iconoclastic efforts of the Emperor Copronymus. He died at St. Sabas; the exact date is not known, probably 754.882  The Greek Church commemorates him upon Dec. 4th (or Nov. 29 in some Menologies); the Latin upon May 6.

Many legends are told of him. The most famous is that Leo the Isaurian, enraged at his opposition to the iconoclastic edicts, sent to the caliph a letter addressed to himself which purported to have come from John, and was written in imitation of his hand and style, in which the latter proposed to the emperor to capture Damascus—a feat easily accomplished., the writer said, because of the insufficient guard of the city. Moreover, in the business he could count upon his support. The letter was of course a forgery, but so clever that when the caliph showed John the letter he acknowledged the similarity of the writing, while he denied the authorship. But the caliph in punishment of his (supposed) treachery had his right hand cut off, and, as was the custom, hung up in a public place. In answer to John's request it was, however, given to him in the evening, ostensibly for burial. He then put the hand to the stump of his arm, prostrated himself before an image of the Virgin Mary in his private chapel, and prayed the Virgin to cause the parts to adhere. He fell asleep: in a vision the Virgin told him that his prayer had been granted, and he awoke to find it true. Only a scar remained to tell the story of his mutilation. The miracle of course convinced the caliph of the innocence of his servant, and he would fain have retained him in office, but John requested his absolute dismission.883  This story was manifestly invented to make out that the great defender of image-worship deserved a martyr's crown.884

Other legends which have more of a basis of fact relate to his residence in the convent of St. Sabas. Here, it is said., he was enthusiastically received, but no one would at first undertake the instruction of so famous a scholar. At length an old monk undertook it, and subjected him to the most humiliating tests and vexatious restrictions, which he bore in a very saintly way. Thus he sent him once to Damascus to sell a load of convent-made baskets at double their real value, in order that his pride might be broken by the jeers and the violence of the rabble. He was at first insulted; but at last a man who had been formerly his servant, bought out of compassion the baskets at the exorbitant price, and the saint returned victorious over vanity and pride. He was also put to the most menial services. And, what must have been equally trying, he was forbidden to write prose or poetry. But these trials ended on a hint from the Virgin Mary who appeared one night to the old monk and told him that John was destined to play a great part in the church. He was accordingly allowed to follow the bent of his genius and put his immense learning at the service of religion.

II. Writings. The order of his numerous writings885 is a mere matter of conjecture. It seems natural to begin with those which first brought their author into notice, and upon which his fame popularly rests. These were his three Orations,886 properly circular letters, upon image worship, universally considered as the ablest presentation of the subject from the side of the image-worshippers. The first887 appeared probably in 727, shortly after the Emperor Leo the Isaurian had issued his edict forbidding the worship of "images," by which term was meant not sculptures, but in the Greek Church pictures exclusively; the second888 after Leo's edict of 730 ordering the destruction of the images; and the third889 at some later time.

In the first of these three letters John advanced these arguments: the Mosaic prohibitions of idolatry were directed against representations of God, not of men, and against the service of images, not their honor. Cherubim made by human hands were above the mercy-seat. Since the Incarnation it is allowable to represent God himself. The picture is to the ignorant what the book is to the learned. In the Old Testament there are signs to quicken the memory and promote devotion (the ark, the rod of Aaron, the brazen serpent). Why should the sufferings and miracles of Christ not be portrayed for the same purposes?  And if Christ and the Virgin have their images, why should not the saints have theirs?  Since the Old Testament Temple contained cherubim and other images, churches may be adorned with images of the saints. If one must not worship an image, then one must not worship Christ, for he is the image of the Father. If the shadows and handkerchiefs of apostles had healing properties, why can one not honor the representations of the saints?  It is true there is nothing about such worship in the Holy Scriptures, but Church ordinances depend for authority on tradition no less than on Scripture. The passages against images refer to idols. "The heathens dedicate their images to demons, whom they call gods; we dedicate ours to the incarnate God and his friends, through whom we exorcise demons."  He ends his letter with a number of patristic quotations of greater or less relevancy, to each of which he appends a comment. The second letter, which is substantially a repetition of the first, is characterized by, a violent attack upon the Emperor, because of his deposition and banishment of Germanus, the patriarch of Constantinople. It closes with the same patristic quotations, and a few new ones. The third letter is almost necessarily a repetition of the preceding, since it goes over the same ground. It likewise looks upon the iconoclasts as the servants of the devil. But it bears marks of more care in preparation, and its proofs are more systematically arranged and its quotations more numerous.890

For his writings in favor of images he was enthusiastically lauded by the second Nicene Council (787).891

But the fame of John of Damascus as one of the greatest theologians of history rests chiefly on his work entitled the Fount of Knowledge.892  It is made up of three separate and complete books, which yet were designed to go together and constitute in outline a cyclopaedia of Christian theology and of all other kinds of knowledge.893  It is dedicated to Cosmas, bishop of Maiuma, his foster-brother and fellow-student under the old monk. Its date is after 743, the year of Cosmas's consecration. In it the author avows that he has introduced nothing which had not been previously said, and herein is its value: it epitomizes Greek theology.

The first part of the trilogy, "Heads of Philosophy,"894 commonly called, by the Latin title, Dialectica, is a series of short chapters upon the Categories of Aristotle and the Universals of Porphyry, applied to Christian doctrines. The Dialectica is found in two forms, one with sixty-eight, and the other with only fifteen chapters. The explanation is probably the well-known fact that the author carefully revised his works before his death.895  The longer form is therefore probably the later. Its principal value is the light it throws upon the Church terminology of the period, and its proof that Christians preceded the Arabs in their study of Aristotle, by one hundred years. The second part of the trilogy, the "Compendium of Heresies,"896 is a description of one hundred and three heresies, compiled mostly from Epiphanius, but with two sections, on the Mohammedans and Iconoclasts, which are probably original. A confession of faith closes the book. The third, the longest, and by far the most important member of the trilogy is "An accurate Summary of the Orthodox Faith."897  The authors drawn upon are almost exclusively Greek. Gregory Nazianzen is the chief source. This part was apparently divided by John into one hundred chapters, but when it reached Western Europe in the Latin translation of John Burgundio of Pisa, made by order of Pope Eugenius III. (1150),898 it was divided into four books to make it correspond in outward form to Peter Lombard's Sentences. Accepting the division into four books, their contents may be thus stated: bk. I., Theology proper. In this he maintains the Greek Church doctrine of the single procession of the Holy Spirit. bk. II. Doctrines of Creation (severally of angels, demons, external nature, paradise, man and all his attributes and capacities); and of Providence, foreknowledge and predestination. In this part he shows his wide acquaintance with natural science. bk. III. Doctrine of the Incarnation. bk. IV. Miscellaneous subjects. Christ's passion, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, session; the two-fold nature of Christ; faith; baptism; praying towards the East; the Eucharist; images; the Scriptures; Manichaeism; Judaism; virginity; circumcision; Antichrist; resurrection.

The entire work is a noteworthy application of Aristotelian categories to Christian theology. In regard to Christology he repudiates both Nestorianism and Monophysitism, and teaches that each nature in Christ possessed its peculiar attributes and was not mixed with the other. But the divine in Christ strongly predominated over the human. The Logos was bound to the flesh through the Spirit, which stands between the purely divine and the materiality of the flesh. The human nature of Jesus was incorporated in the one divine personality of the Logos (Enhypostasia). John recognizes only two sacraments, properly so called, i.e. mysteries instituted by Christ—Baptism and the Lord's Supper. In the latter the elements are at the moment when the Holy Ghost is called upon, changed into the Body and Blood of Christ, but how is not known. He does not therefore teach transubstantiation exactly, yet his doctrine is very near to it. About the remaining five so-called sacraments he is either silent or vague. He holds to the perpetual virginity of Mary, the Mother of our Lord, and that her conception of Christ took place through the ear. He recognizes the Hebrew canon of twenty-two books, corresponding to the twenty-two Hebrew letters, or rather twenty-seven, since five of these letters have double forms. Of the Apocrypha he mentions only Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom, and these as uncanonical. To the New Testament canon he adds the Apostolical Canons of Clement. The Sabbath was made for the fleshly Jews—Christians dedicate their whole time to God. The true Sabbath is the rest from sin. He extols virginity, for as high as angels are above men so high is virginity above marriage. Yet marriage is a good as preventive of unchastity and for the sake of propagation. At the end of the world comes Antichrist, who is a man in whom the devil lives. He persecutes the Church, kills Enoch and Elijah, who are supposed to appear again upon the earth, but is destroyed by Christ at his second coming.899  The resurrection body is like Christ's, in that it is immutable, passionless, spiritual, not held in by material limitation, nor dependent upon food. Otherwise it is the same as the former. The fire of hell is not material, but in what it consists God alone knows.

His remaining works are minor theological treatises, including a brief catechism on the Holy Trinity; controversial writings against Mohammedanism (particularly interesting because of the nearness of their author to the beginnings of that religion), and against Jacobites, Manichaeans, Nestorians and Iconoclasts; homilies,900 among them an eulogy upon Chrysostom; a commentary on Paul's Epistles, taken almost entirely from Chrysostom's homilies; the sacred Parallels, Bible sentences with patristic illustrations on doctrinal and moral subjects, arranged in alphabetical order, for which a leading word in the sentence serves as guide. He also wrote a number of hymns which have been noticed in a previous section.901

Besides these there is a writing attributed to him, The Life of Barlaam and Joasaph902 the story of the conversion of the only son of an Indian King by a monk (Barlaam). It is a monastic romance of much interest and not a little beauty. It has been translated into many languages, frequently reprinted, and widely circulated.903  Whether John of Damascus wrote it is a question. Many things about it seem to demand an affirmative answer.904  His materials were very old, indeed pre-Christian, for the story is really a repetition of the Lalita Vistara, the legendary life of Buddha.905

Another writing of dubious authorship is the Panegyric on St. Barbara,906 a marvellous tale of a suffering saint. Competent judges assign it to him.907  These two are characteristic specimens of monastic legends in which so much pious superstition was handed down from generation to generation.

III. Position. John of Damascus considered either as a Christian office-holder under a Mohammedan Saracenic Caliph, as the great defender of image-worship, as a learned though credulous monk, or as a sweet and holy poet, is in every way an interesting and important character. But it is as the summarizer of the theology of the Greek fathers that he is most worthy of attentive study; for although he seldom ventures upon an original remark, he is no blind, servile copyist. His great work, the "Fount of Knowledge," was not only the summary of the theological discussions of the ancient Eastern Church, which was then and is to-day accepted as authoritative in that communion, but by means of the Latin translation a powerful stimulus to theological study in the West. Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas and other schoolmen are greatly indebted to it. The epithets, "Father of Scholasticism" and "Lombard of the Greeks" have been given to its author. He was not a scholastic in the proper meaning of that term, but merely applied Aristotelian dialects to the treatment of traditional theology. Yet by so doing he became in truth the forerunner of scholasticism.

An important but incidental service rendered by this great Father was as conserver of Greek learning. "The numerous quotations, not only from Gregory Nazianzen, but from a multitude of Greek authors besides would provide a field of Hellenic literature sufficient for the wants of that generation. In having so provided it, and having thus become the initiator of a warlike but ill-taught race into the mysteries of an earlier civilization, Damascenus is entitled to the praise that the elder Lenormant awarded him of being in the front rank of the master spirits from whom the genius of the Arabs drew its inspiration."908

One other interesting fact deserves mention. It was to John of Damascus that the Old Catholics and Oriental and Anglo-Catholics turned for a definition of the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and Son which should afford a solid basis of union.909  "He restored unity to the Triad, by following the ancient theory of the Greek church, representing God the Father as the ajrchv, and in this view, the being of the Holy Spirit no less than the being of the Son as grounded in and derived from the Father. The Holy Spirit is from the Father, and the Spirit of the Father; not from the Son, but still the Spirit of the Son. He proceeds from the Father the one ajrchv of all being, and he is communicated through the Son; through the Son the whole creation shares in the Spirit's work; by himself he creates, moulds, sanctifies all and binds all together."910

 

 § 145. Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople.

 

I. Photius: Opera omnia, in Migne, "Patrol. Gr." Tom. CI.-CIV. (1860). Also Monumenta Graeca ad Photium ejusgue historiam pertinentia, ed. Hergenröther. Regensburg, 1869.

II. David Nicetas: Vita Ignatii, in Migne, CV., 488-573. The part which relates to Photius begins with col. 509; partly quoted in CI. iii. P. De H. E. (anonymous): Histoire de Photius. Paris, 1772. Jager: Histoire de Photius. Paris, 1845, 2d ed., 1854. L. Tosti: Storia dell' origine dello scisma greco. Florence, 1856, 2 vols. A. Pichler: Geschichte der kirchlichen Trennung zwischen Orient und Occident. Munich, 1864-65, 2 vols. J. Hergenröther: Photius, Patriarch von Constantinopel. Sein Leben, seine Schriften und das griechische Schisma. Regensburg, 1867-69, 3 vols. (The Monumenta mentioned above forms part of the third vol.)  Cf. Du Pin, VII., 105-110; Ceillier, XII., 719-734.

 

Photius was born in Constantinople in the first decade of the ninth century. He belonged to a rich and distinguished family. He had an insatiable thirst for learning, and included theology among his studies, but he was not originally a theologian. Rather he was a courtier and a diplomate. When Bardas chose him to succeed Ignatius as Patriarch of Constantinople he was captain of the Emperor's body-guard. Gregory of Syracuse, a bitter enemy of Ignatius, in five days hurried him through the five orders of monk, lector, sub-deacon, deacon, and presbyter, and on the sixth consecrated him patriarch. He died an exile in an Armenian monastery, 891.

As the history of Photius after his elevation to the patriarchate has been already treated,911 this section will be confined to a brief recital of his services to literature, sacred and secular.912

The greatest of these was his so-called Library,913 which is a unique work, being nothing less than notices, critiques and extracts of two hundred and eighty works of the most diverse kinds, which he had read. Of the authors quoted about eighty are known to us only through this work. The Library was the response to the wish of his brother Tarasius, and was composed while Photius was a layman. The majority of the works mentioned are theological, the rest are grammatical, lexical, rhetorical, imaginative, historical, philosophical, scientific and medical. No poets are mentioned or quoted, except the authors of three or four metrical paraphrases of portions of Scripture. The works are all in Greek, either as originals or, as in the case of a few, in Greek translations. Gregory the Great and Cassian are the only Latin ecclesiastical writers with whom Photius betrays any intimate acquaintance. As far as profane literature is concerned, the Library makes the best exhibit in history, and the poorest in grammar. Romances are mentioned, also miscellanies. In the religious part of his work Chrysostom and Athanasius are most prominent. Of the now lost works mentioned by Photius the most important is by an anonymous Constantinopolitan author of the first half of the seventh century, who in fifteen books presented testimonies in favor of Christianity by different Greek, Persian, Thracian, Egyptian, Babylonian, Chaldean and Jewish scholars.

Unique and invaluable as the Library is, it has been criticized because more attention is given to some minor works than to other important ones; the criticisms are not always fair or worthy; the works spoken of are really few, while a much larger anthology might have been made; and again there is no order or method in the selection. It is, however, to be borne in mind that the object of the work was to mention only those books which had been read in the circle to which he and his brother belonged, during the absence of the latter; that it was hastily prepared, and was to have been followed by a second.914  Taking these facts into consideration there is nothing but praise to be given to the great scholar who in a wholly undesigned fashion has laid posterity under heavy obligation by jotting down his criticisms upon or making excerpts of the more important works which came under his observation during a comparatively short space of time.

Among the Greek fathers, he esteems most highly Athanasius, Chrysostom, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Epiphanius, Ephraem, Cyril of Alexandria, the fictitious Dionysius the Areopagite, and Maximus; among the Latin fathers, Leo. I. and Gregory I. He recognizes also Ambrose, Augustin, and Jerome as fathers, but often disputes their views. Of the ante-Nicene writers he has a rather low opinion, because they did not come up to his standard of orthodoxy; he charges Origen with blasphemous errors, and Eusebius with Arianism.

One of the earlier works of Photius, perhaps his earliest, was his Greek Lexicon,915 which he began in his youth and completed before the Library, although he revised it from time to time. He made use of the glossaries and lexica of former workers, whose names he has preserved in his Library, and has been in turn used by later lexicographers, e.g. Suidas (ninth century). Photius designed to remove the difficulties in the reading of the earlier and classic Greek profane and sacred literature. To this end he paid particular attention to the explanation of the old Attic expressions and figures of speech.

The most important of the theological works of Photius is the Amphilochian Questions 916 — so called because these questions had been asked by his friend, Amphilochius, metropolitan of Lyzikus. The work consists of three hundred and twenty-four discussions, mostly in biblical exegesis, but also dogmatical, philosophical, mythological, grammatical, historical, medical, and scientific. Like the other works of Photius it displays rare learning and ability. It was composed during his first exile, and contains many complaints of lack of books and excerpts. It has no plan, is very disjointed, unequal, and evidently was written at different times. Many of the answers are taken literally from the works of others. The same question is sometimes repeatedly discussed in different ways.917

Although it is doubtful whether Photius composed a complete commentary on any book of the Old Testament, it is very likely that he wrote on the Gospels and on Romans, Corinthians and Hebrews, since in the printed and unprinted catenae upon these books there are found many citations of Photius.918  No such commentary as a unit, however, now exists.

Two canonical works are attributed to Photius, "A Collection of Canons" and "A Collection of Ecclesiastical and Civil Laws."919  To these some add a third. The second of these works, the Nomocanon, is authoritative on canonical law in the Greek Church.920  The word "Nomocanon" itself is the Greek name for a combination of ecclesiastical laws (kanovne") and secular, especially imperial, law (novmoi). Photius made such a collection in 883, on the basis of earlier collections. It contains (1) the canons of the seven universally accepted oecumenical councils (325-787), of the Trullan council of 692 (Quinisexta), the synods of 861 and 879; and (2) the laws of Justinian relative to the Greek Church. Photius was not only a collector of canonical laws, but also a legislator and commentator. The canons of the councils held by him in 861 and 879, and his canonical letters or decretals had a great and permanent influence upon Greek canonical law. The Nomocanon was enlarged and commented on by Balsamon in the twelfth century, and is usually published in connection with these commentaries. It is used in the orthodox church of Russia under the name Kormczia Kniga, i.e., "The Book for the Pilot."  As in his other works, he builded upon the foundations of his predecessors.

The historical and dogmatico-polemical writings of Photius may be divided into two classes, those against the Paulicians or Manichaeans, and those against the Roman Church. In the first class are four books which bear in the editions the general title "Against the new Manichaeans."921  The first is a history of the old and new Manichaeans, written during Photius' first patriarchate, and apparently largely borrowed from a contemporary author; the remaining three are polemical treatises upon the new Manichaeans, in which biblical rather than philosophical arguments are relied upon, and mostly those which had already been used against the Manichaeans.

The works against the Latin Church embrace (1) The Mystagogia, or doctrine of the Holy Spirit; his most important writing against the Latins.922  It is a discussion of the procession alone, not of the personality and divinity, of the Holy Spirit, for upon these latter points there was no difference between the Latin and Greek Churches. It appears to be entirely original with Photius.923  It is characterized by acuteness and great dialectical skill. There exists an epitome of this book,924 but it is doubtful whether Photius himself made it. (2) A collection925 of ten questions and answers upon such matters as, "In what respects have the Romans acted unjustly?"  "How many and what true patriarchs are not recognized by the Romans, except compromisingly?"  "Which emperor contends for the peace of the Church?"  The collection has great historical interest, since it embraces materials which otherwise would be entirely lost. (3) Treatise against the Roman primacy. (4) Tractate against the Franks, from which there are extracts in the Kormczaia Kniga of the Oriental Slavs, which was extensively circulated in the thirteenth century, and enjoys among the Russians great authority as a book of canonical law. It has been attributed to Photius, but in its present shape is not his.926  (5) His famous Encyclical Letter to the Eastern Patriarchs, written in 867.927

The genuine works of Photius include besides those already mentioned three books of letters928 of different contents, private and public, written generally in verbose style; homilies,929 two printed entire and two in fragments and twenty unprinted; several poems930 and moral sentences, probably a compilation. Several other works attributed to Photius are only of doubtful genuineness.

 

 § 146. Simeon Metaphrastes.

 

I. Simeon Metaphrastes: Opera omnia, in Migne, Patrol. Gr. Tom. cxiv.-cxvi.

II. Panegyric by Psellus, in Migne, CXIV. col. 200-208; Leo Allatius: De Symeonum scriptis, in Migne, CXIV. col. 19-148; and the Preface to Migne's ed. Cf. Du Pin, VIII. 3; Ceillier, XII. 814-819.

 

This voluminous author probably lived in Constantinople during the reigns of Leo the Philosopher (886-911) and Constantine Porphyrogenitus (911-959).931  He was the Imperial Secretary, High Chancellor and Master of the Palace. When somewhat advanced in years he was sent by the Emperor Leo on a mission to the Cretan Arabs for the purpose, which was accomplished, of turning them from their proposed campaign against the Thessalonians. It was on this journey that he met on the island of Pharos, an anchorite, who suggested to him the writing of the lives of the saints and martyrs.

To this collection Simeon owes his fame.932  He apparently never carried out his original plan, which was to cover the year, for the genuine Lives of his now extant are nearly all of September (the first month of the Greek Church year), October, November and December. The remaining months have very few. But how many he wrote cannot be determined. Allatius credits him with only one hundred and twenty-two. MSS. attributed to him are found in the libraries of Munich, Venice, Florence, Madrid, Paris, London and elsewhere. The character of his work is sufficiently indicated by his epithet Simeon the Paraphraser, given to him because he turned "the ancient lives of the saints into another sort of a style than that wherein they were formerly written."933  He used old material in most cases, and sometimes he did no more than edit it, at other times he re-wrote it, with a view to make it more accurate or attractive. Some of the lives are, however, original compositions. His work is of very unequal value, and as his credulity led him to admit very doubtful matter, it must be used with caution. However, he deserves thanks for his diligence in rescuing from obscurity many now illustrious names.

Besides the Lives, nine Epistles, several sermons, orations, hymns, and a canonical epitome bear his name.934  The Simeonis Chronicon is probably the work of a Simeon of the twelfth century.

 

 § 147. Oecumenius.

 

I. Oecumenius: Opera omnia, in Migne, Patrol. Gr. Tom. CXVIII., CXIX., col. 726, reprint of ed. of Hentenius. Paris, 1630-31, 2 vols. fol. Ceillier, XII. 913, 914.

 

Oecumenius was bishop of Tricca, in Thessaly, toward the close of the 10th century, and wrote a commentary upon the Acts, the Epistles of Paul and the Catholic Epistles, which is only a catena, drawn from twenty-three Fathers and writers of the Greek Church,935 with an occasional original comment. The work displays taste and judgment.

 

 § 148. Theophylact.

 

I. Theophylact: Opera omnia, in Migne, Patrol. Gr. Tom. CXXIII.-CXXVI., reprint of ed. Of de Rubeis. Venice, 1754-63, 4 vols. fol. Du Pin, IX. 108, 109; Neander, III. 584-586; Ceillier, XIII. 554-558.

 

Theophylact, the most learned exegete of the Greek Church in his day, was probably born at Euripus,936 on the Island of Euboea, in the Aegean Sea. Very little is known about him. He lived under the Greek Emperors Romanus IV. Diogenes (1067-1071), Michael VII. Ducas Parapinaces (1071-1078), Nicephorus III. Botoniates (1078-1081), Alexius I. Comnenus (1081-1118). The early part of his life he spent in Constantinople; and on account of his learning and virtues was chosen tutor to Prince Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the son of Michael Ducas. From 1078 until after 1107 he was archbishop of Achrida and metropolitan of Bulgaria. He ruled his diocese in an independent manner, but his letters show the difficulties he had to contend with. It is not known when he died.

His fame rests upon his commentary937 on the Gospels, Acts, Pauline, and Catholic Epistles; and on Hosea, Jonah, Nahum and Habakkuk, which has recently received the special commendation of such exegetes as De Wette and Meyer. It is drawn from the older writers, especially from Chrysostom, but Theophylact shows true exegetical insight, explaining the text clearly and making many original remarks of great value.

Besides his commentary, his works embrace orations on the Adoration of the Cross,938 the Presentation of the Virgin939 and on the Emperor Alexius Comnenus;940 a treatise on the Education Of Princes;941 a History of Fifteen Martyrdoms942 and an Address on the Errors of the Latin Church.943  Two of these call for further mention. The Education of Princes is addressed to Constantine Porphyrogenitus. It is in two books, of which the first is historical and discourses upon the parents of the prince, the second discusses his duties and trials. It was formerly a very popular work. It is instructive to compare it with the similar works by Paulinus, Alcuin, and Smaragdus.944  The Address is the most interesting work of Theophylact. It is written in a singularly conservative and moderate strain, although it discusses the two great matters in dispute between the Greek and Latin Churches,—the procession of the Holy Spirit, and the bread of the Eucharist. Of these matters Theophylact considered the first only important, and upon it took unhesitatingly the full Greek position of hostility to the Latins. Yet his fairness comes out in the remark that the error of the Latins may be due to the poverty of their language which compelled them to "employ the same term to denote the causality of the communication of the Holy Spirit and the causality of his being. The Latins, he observed, moreover, might retain the less accurate forms of expression in their homiletic discourses, if they only guarded against misconception, by carefully explaining their meaning. It was only in the confession of faith in the symbol, that perfect clearness was requisite."945  In regard to the bread of the Eucharist the Latins held that it should be unleavened, the Greeks that it should be leavened. Each church claimed to follow the usage of Christ. Theophylact admitted that Christ used unleavened bread, but maintained that His example in this respect is not binding, for if it were in this then it would be in everything connected with the Supper, and it would be necessary to use barley bread and the wine of Palestine, to recline at table and to hold the Supper in a ball or upper room. But there is such a thing as Christian liberty, and the kind of bread to be used is one of the things which this liberty allows. Upon both these points of fierce and long controversy he counseled continual remembrance of the common Christian faith and the common Christian fellowship.

 

 § 149. Michael Psellus.

 

I. Michael Psellus: Opera, in Migne, Patrol. Gr., Tom. CXXII., col. 477-1358. His Hist. Byzant. et alia opuscula, ed. by Constantin Sathas. Paris, 1874.

II. Leo Allatius: Diatriba de Psellis, in Migne, l.c., col. 477-536. Ceillier, XIII. 335-337.

 

Michael Psellus, the third of the five of that name mentioned by Allatius, was born of a consular and patrician family in Constantinople about 1020. He took naturally to study, and denied himself the amusements and recreations of youth in order that he might make all the more rapid progress. Having completed his studies at Athens, he returned to Constantinople, and was appointed chief professor of philosophy. Constantine Monomachus invited him to his court, and entrusted him with secular business. He then turned his attention from philosophy and rhetoric to theology, physics, medicine, mathematics, astronomy and military science. In short, he explored the entire domain of knowledge, and as his memory was tenacious, he was able to retain everything he studied. "It has been said that in him human nature yielded up its inmost powers in order that he might ward off the downfall of Greek learning."946  He was made the tutor of Michael Ducas, the future emperor, who when he came to the throne retained him in his councils. Psellus, of course, took the Greek position upon the Filioque question, and thwarted the movement of Peter, bishop of Anagni, to establish peace between the Greek and Latin churches. When Michael Ducas was deposed (1078), he was deprived of his professorship, and so he retired to a monastery, where he died. The last mention of him is made in 1105.

Psellus was a prolific author, but many of his writings are unprinted, and many are lost.947  Of the theological works which have been printed the most important are:

(1) Exposition of the Song of Songs,948 a paraphrase in verse with a commentary and excerpts from Gregory of Nyssa, Nilus, and Maximus.

(2) A Learned Miscellany,949 in 157 paragraphs, in which nearly everything is treated of, from the relations of the persons of the Trinity to the rise of the Nile and the changes of the weather. It is one of those prodigies of learning which really indicate the comparative ignorance of the past, and are now mere curiosities.

(3) The Operations of Demons,950 an attack, in the form of a dialogue, upon the Euchites, whom he charges with revolting and disgusting crimes, under the prompting of demons. But he passes on to discuss the subject more broadly and resting on the testimony of a certain monk who had actually seen demons he teaches their perpetual activity in human affairs; that they can propagate their species; and go anywhere at will under either a male or female form. From them come diseases and innumerable woes. The book is very curious, and has permanent value as a contribution to the demonology of the Middle Ages.

Twelve letters of Psellus have been printed.951  His panegyric upon Simeon Metaphrastes has already been mentioned.952  He wrote a criticism of the eloquence of Gregory the Theologian, Basil, and Chrysostom,953 and celebrated these Fathers also in verse.954

Besides certain legal and philosophical treatises he wrote a poem on Doctrine,955 and a metrical Synopsis of Law.956

 

 § 150. Euthymius Zigabenus.

 

I. Euthymius Zigabenus: Opera omnia, in Migne, Patrol. Gr., Tom, CXXVIII.-CXXXI.

II. See the Prolegomena in Migne. Ceillier, XIV. 150-155.

Euthymius Zigabenus (or Zigadenus) was a learned and able Greek monk of the order of St. Basil in the convent of the Virgin Mary near Constantinople, and enjoyed the marked favor of the emperor Alexius Comnenus (1081-1118) and his wife Anna.957  Being requested by Alexius to refute the Bogomiles, who had become alarmingly numerous, he was led to prepare an extensive work upon heresy, entitled The Panoply.958  Among the heretics he included the Pantheists, Jews, the Pope and the Latins. His materials were the decisions of councils and the Greek Fathers and other writers, including some otherwise unknown.959  In this important work and in separate treatises960 he imparts much valuable historical information respecting the Bogomiles, Massalians, Armenians, Paulicians, and even about the Jews and Mohammedans, although it is evident that he was not well informed about the last, and was much prejudiced against them. Like other Greeks, he finds the latter heretical upon the procession of the Holy Spirit and upon the bread of the Eucharist. Besides the Panoply, Euthymius wrote commentaries upon the Psalms,961 much dependent upon Chrysostom, and on the Gospels,962 more independent and exhibiting exegetical tact which in the judgment of some puts him next to Theophylact.

 

 § 151. Eustathius of Thessalonica.

 

I. Eustathius: Opera omnia in Migne, Patrol. Gr. Tom. CXXXV. col. 517; CXXXVI. col. 764 (reprint of L. F. Tafel's ed. of the Opuscula. Frankfort, 1832, and appendix to De Thessalonica. Berlin, 1839. Tafel published a translation of Eustathius' ' jEpivskeyi" bivou monacikou'. Betrachtungen über den Mönchstand. Berlin, 1847. The valuable De capta Thessalonica narratio was reprinted from Tafel in a vol. of the "Corpus scriptorum historiae Byzantinae" (Bonn, 1842, pp. 365-512), accompanied with a Latin translation.

II. The funeral orations by Euthymius of Neopatria and Michael Choniates in Migne, Patrol. Gr. CXXXVI. col. 756-764, and CXL. col. 337-361. Fabricius: Bibliotheca Graeca, ed. Harless, XI. 282-84. Neander, IV. 530-533, and his essay, Characteristik des Bustathius von Thessalonich in seiner reformatorischen Richtung, 1841, reprinted in his "Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen," Berlin, 1851, pp. 6-21, trans. in Kitto's "Journal of Sacred Literature," vol. IV., pp. 101 sqq.

 

Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica and metropolitan, the most learned man of his day, was born in Constantinople, and lived under the Greek emperors from John Comnenus to Isaac II. Angelus, i.e., between 1118 and 1195. His proper name is unknown, that of Eustathius having been assumed on taking monastic vows. His education was carried on in the convent of St. Euphemia, but he became a monk in the convent of St. Florus. He early distinguished himself for learning, piety and eloquence, and thus attracted the notice of the Emperor Manuel, who made him successively tutor to his son John, deacon of St. Sophia and master of petitions, a court position. In the last capacity he presented at least one petition to the Emperor, that from the Constantinopolitans during a severe drought.963

To this period of his life probably belong those famous commentaries upon the classic authors,964 by which alone he was known until Tafel published his theological and historical works. But Providence designed Eustathius to play a prominent part in practical affairs, and so the Emperor Manuel appointed him bishop of Myra,965 the capital of Lycia in Asia Minor, and ere he had entered on this office transferred him to the archbishopric of Thessalonica (1175). He was a model bishop, pious, faithful, unselfish, unsparing in rebuke and wise in counsel, "one of those pure characters so rarely met among the Greeks—a man who well knew the failings [superstition, mock-holiness and indecorous frivolity] of his nation and his times, which he was more exempt from than any of his contemporaries.966  His courage was conspicuous on several occasions. The Emperor Manuel in a Synod at Constantinople in 1180 attempted to have abrogated the formula of adjuration, "Anathema to Mohammed's God, of whom he says that he neither begat nor was begotten," which all who came over from Mohammedanism to Christianity had to repeat. Manuel argued that this formula was both blasphemous and prejudicial to the spread of Christianity in Islam. But Eustathius dared to brave the emperor's rage and deny the truth of this argument. The result was a modification of the formula.967  Although Manuel threatened to impeach Eustathius, he really did not withdraw his favor, and the archbishop was summoned to preach the sermon at the emperor's funeral.968  When in 1185 Thessalonica was sacked by Count Alduin acting under William II. of Sicily, Eustathius remained in the city and by direct personal effort procured some alleviation of the people's sufferings, and defended their worship against the fanatical Latins.969  Again, he interposed his influence to keep the Thessalonians from the rapacity of the imperial tax-gatherers. But notwithstanding his high character and unsparing exertions on behalf of Thessalonica there were enough persons there who were incensed against him by his plain speaking to effect his banishment. This probably happened during the reign of the infamous Andronicus (1180-1183), who was unfriendly to Eustathius. A brief experience of the result of his absence led to his recall, and he ended his days in increased esteem. It is strange indeed to find Eustathius and Calvin alike in their expulsion and recall to the city they had done so much to save.

His writings upon practical religious topics have great interest and value. Besides sermons upon Psalm xlviii.,970 on an auspicious year,971 four during Lent,972 in which he specially inveighs against the lax marital customs, and five on different martyrs,973 he wrote an enthusiastic treatise in praise of monasticism974 if properly used, while at the same time he faithfully rebuked the common faults of the monks, their sloth, their hypocrisy and their ignorance, which had made the very name of monk a reproach. To the Stylites,975 he was particularly plain in setting forth their duty. By reason of their supposed sanctity they were sought by all classes as oracles. He seeks therefore to impress them with their responsibility, and tells them always to speak fearlessly, irrespective of person; not flattering the strong nor domineering the weak. He addressed also the laity, not only in the sermons already mentioned, but in separate treatises,976 and with great earnestness and tenderness exhorted them to obedience to their lawful rulers, and rebuked them for their hypocrisy, which was the crying sin of the day, and for their vindictiveness. He laid down the true gospel principle: love is the central point of the Christian life. His letters977 of which 75 have been published, give us a vivid picture of the time, and bear unconscious testimony to his virtue. To his Interpretation of the Pentecostal hymn of John of Damascus Cardinal Mai accords the highest praise.978

 

 § 152. Nicetas Acominatos.

 

I. Nicetas Choniates: Opera, in Migne, Tom. CXXXIX., col. 287—CXL., col. 292. His History was edited by Immanuel Bekker in Scriptores Byzantinae. Bonn, 1835.

II. See Allatius in Migne, CXXXIX., col. 287-302. Ceillier, XIV. 1176, 1177. Karl Ullmann: Die Dogmatik der griechischen Kirche im 12. Jahrhundert, reprinted from the "Studien und Kritiken," 1833.

 

Nicetas Acominatos, also called Choniates, to denote his birth at Chonae the old Colossae in Phrygia, was one of the great scholars and authors of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He was educated at Constantinople, studied law and early rose to prominence at the imperial court. He married a descendant of Belisarius; and at the time when Constantinople was taken by the crusaders (1204) he was governor of Philippopolis. He fled to Nicaea, and there died about 1216. It was during this last period of his life that he composed his Treasury of Orthodoxy,979 for the consolation and instruction of his suffering fellow-religionists. This work was in twenty-seven books, but only five have been published complete, and that only in the Latin translation of Peter Morel, made from the original MS. brought to Paris from Mt. Athos.980  Cardinal Mai has, however, given fragments of Books vi. viii. ix. x. xii. xv. xvii. xx. xxiii. xxiv. xxv., and these Migne has reprinted with a Latin translation. The work is, like the Panoply of Euthymius, a learned text-book of theology and a refutation of heresy, but it has more original matter in it, and being written by a layman and a statesman is more popular.

Book 1st is a statement of Gentile philosophy and of the errors of the Jews. Book 2d treats of the Holy Trinity, and of angels and men. Book 3d of the Incarnate Word. From Book 4th to the end the several heresies are described and combated. Nicetas begins with Simon Magus and goes down to his own day.

But his fame really rests upon his History,981 which tells the story of Byzantine affairs from 1117 to 1205; and is an able and reliable book. The closing portions interestingly describe the destruction or mutilation of the monuments in Constantinople by the Latins.

 

 § 153. Cassiodorus.

 

I. Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator: Opera omnia, in Migne, "Patrol. Lat." Tom. LXIX. col. 421-LXX. Reprint of ed. of the Benedictine Jean Garet, Rouen, 1679, 2 vols. 2d ed., Venice, 1729. The Chronicon was edited from MSS. by Theodor Mommsen, Leipzig, 1861, separately published from Abhandlungen der königlichsächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften. Historische Klasse. Bd. III. The Liber de rhetorica, a part of his Institutiones, was edited by C. Halm, Leipzig, 1863.

II. Vita, by Jean Garet, in Migne, LXIX., col. 437-484, and De vita monastica dissertatio by the same, col. 483-498. Denis de Sainte-Marthe: Vie de Cassiodore. Paris, 1694. Olleris: Cassiodore conservateur des livres de l'antiquité latine. Paris, 1841. A. Thorbecke: Cassiodorus Senator. Heidelberg, 1867. A. Franz: Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorius Senator. Breslau, 1872. Ignazio Ciampi: I. Cassiodori nel V. e nel VI. secolo. Imola, 1876. Cf. Du Pin, V. 43-44. Ceillier, XI. 207-254. Teuffel, 1098-1104. A. Ebert, I. 473-490.

 

Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator982, whose services to classical literature can not be over-estimated, was descended from an old Roman family, famous for its efficiency in state affairs. He was born about 477, at Scyllacium in Bruttium, the present Squillace in Calabria, the extreme southwest division of Italy. His father, whose name was Cassiodorus also, was pretorian prefect to Theodoric, and senator. The son, in recognition of his extraordinary abilities, was made quaestor when about twenty years of age, and continued in the service of Theodoric, as private secretary and indeed prime minister, being also with him on terms of friendship, until the latter's death, Aug. 30, 526. He directed the administration of Amalasontha, the daughter of Theodoric, during the minority of her son Athalaric, and witnessed her downfall (535), but retained his position near the throne under Theodatus and Vitiges. He was also consul and three times pretorian prefect. He labored earnestly to reconcile the Romans to their conquerors.

But about 540 he withdrew from the cares and dangers of office, and found in the seclusion of his charming paternal domains in Bruttium abundant scope for his activities in the pursuit of knowledge and the preservation of learning. He voluntarily closed one chapter of his life, one, too, full of honor and fame, and opened another which, little as he expected it, was destined to be of world-wide importance. Cassiodorus the statesman became Cassiodorus the monk, and unwittingly exchanged the service of the Goths for the service of humanity. The place of his retirement was the monastery of Viviers (Monasterium Vivariense), at the foot of Mt. Moseius,983 in southwestern Italy, which he had himself founded and richly endowed. Upon the mountain he built another monastery (Castellense) in which the less accomplished monks seem to have lived, while the society of Viviers was highly cultivated and devoted to literature. Those monks who could do it were employed in copying and correcting classical and Christian MSS., while the others bound books, prepared medicine and cultivated the garden.984  He moved his own large library to the monastery and increased it at great expense. Thus Viviers in that sadly confused and degenerate time became an asylum of culture and a fountain of learning. The example he set was happily followed by other monasteries, particularly by the Benedictine, and copying of MSS. was added to the list of monastic duties. By this means the literature of the old classical world has come down to us. And since the initiation of the movement was given by Cassiodorus he deserves to be honored as the link between the old thought and the new. His life thus usefully spent was unusually prolonged. The year of his death is uncertain, but it was between 570 and 580.

The Works of Cassiodorus are quite numerous. They are characterized by great erudition, ingenuity and labor, but disfigured by an incorrect and artificial style. Some were written while a statesman, more while a monk.985

1. The most important is the Miscellany,986 in twelve books, a collection of about four hundred rescripts and edicts issued by Cassiodorus in the King's name while Quaestor and Magister officiorum, and in his own name while Pretorian prefect. He gives also in the sixth and seventh books a collection of formulas for the different offices, an idea which found imitation in the Middle Age. From the Miscellany a true insight into the state of Italy in the period can be obtained. One noticeable feature of these rescripts is the amount of animation and variety which Cassiodorus manages to give their naturally stiff and formal contents. This he does by ingeniously changing the style to suit the occasion and often by interweaving a disquisition upon some relevant theme. The work was prepared at the request of friends and as a guide to his successors, and published between 534 and 538.

2. His Ecclesiastical History, called Tripartita,987 is a compilation. His own part in it is confined to a revision of the Latin condensation of Sozomen, Socrates and Theodoret, made by Epiphanius Scholasticus. It was designed by Cassiodorus to supply the omissions of Rufinus' translation of Eusebius, and was indeed with Rufinus the monastic text-book on church history in the Middle Age. But it is by no means a model work, being obscure, inaccurate and confused.

3. The Chronicle,988 the earliest of his productions, dating from 519, is a consular list drawn from different sources, with occasional notes of historical events. Prefaced to the list proper, which goes from Junius Brutus to Theodoric, is a very defective list of Assyrian (!), Latin and Roman Kings.

4. The Computation of Easter, written in 562.989

5. Origin and History of the Goths, originally in twelve books, but now extant only in the excerpt of Jordanis.990  In it Cassiodorus reveals his great desire to cultivate friendship between the Goths and the Romans. It dates from about 534.

6. Exposition of the Psalter.991  This is by far the longest, as it was in the Middle Age the most influential, of his works. It was prepared in Viviers, and was begun before but finished after the Institutes992 (see below). Its chief source is Augustin. The exposition is thorough in its way. Its peculiarities are in its mystic use of numbers, and its drafts upon profane science, particularly rhetoric.993

7. Institutions of Sacred and Secular Letters,994 from 644, in two books,995 which are commonly regarded as independent works. The first book is a sort of theological encyclopaedia, intended by Cassiodorus primarily for his own monks. It therefore refers to different authors which were to be found in their library. It is in thirty-three chapters—a division pointing to the thirty-three years of our Lord's life—which treat successively of the books of the Bible, what authors to read upon them, the arrangement of the books, church history and its chief writers, and the scheme he had devised for usefully employing the monks in copying MSS., or, if not sufficiently educated, in manual labor of various kinds. In the second book he treats in an elementary way of the seven liberal arts (grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy).

8. On Orthography,996 a work of his ninety-third year,997 and a mere collection of extracts from the pertinent literature in his library.

9. The Soul,998 written at the request of friends shortly after the publication of his Miscellany. It is rather the product of learning than of thought. It treats of the soul, its nature, capacities and final destiny.

10. Notes upon some verses in the Epistles, Acts of the Apostles, and Apocalypse999 This was a product of his monastic period, strangely forgotten in the Middle Age. It was unknown to Garet, but found at Verona and published by Maffei in 1702. Besides these a Commentarium de oratione et de octo partibus orationis is attributed to him and so published.1000  But its authorship is doubtful.

 

 § 154. St. Gregory of Tours.

 

I. St. Georgius Florentius Gregorius: Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. LXXI. (reprint of Ruinart's ed. Paris, 1699). The best critical edition of Gregory's great work, Historiae Francorum libri decem, is by W. Arndt and Br. Krusch. Hannover, 1884 (Gregorii Turonensis opera pars I. in "Scriptorum rerum Merovingicarum," T. I., pars I. in the great "Monumenta Germaniae historica" series), and of his other works that by H. L. Bordier, Libri miraculorum aliaque opera minora, or with the French title, Les livres des miracles et autres opuscules de Georges Florent Grégoire, evêque de Tours. Paris, 1857- 64, 4 vols., of which the first three have the Latin text and a French translation on opposite pages, and the last, containing the De cursu stellarum and the doubtful works, the Latin only. There are several translations of the Historia Francorum into French (e.g., by Guizot. Paris, 1823, new ed. 1861, 2 vols.; by H. L. Bordier, 1859-61, 2 vols. ), and into German (e.g., by Giesebrecht, Berlin, 1851, 2 vols., 2d ed., 1878, as part of Pertz, "Geschichtsschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit"). The De cursu stellarum was discovered and first edited by F. Hasse, Breslau, 1853.

II. The Lives of Gregory, by Odo of Cluny (d. 943, valuable, ) Migne, l.c., and by Joannes Egidius (Jean Gilles of Tours, 16th cent., of small account) are given by Bordier, l.c. IV. 212-237. Modern biographies and sketches of Gregory are: C. J. Kries: De Gregorii Turonensis Episcopi vita et scriptis. Breslau, 1839. J. W. Löbell: Gregor von Tours. Leipzig, 1839, 2d ed. 1869. Gabriel Monod: Grégorie de Tours, in Tome III."  Bibliothèque de l'École des hautes études."  Paris, 1872 (pp. 21-146). Cf. Du Pin, V. 63. Ceillier, XI, 365-399. Hist. Lit. de la France, III. 372-397. Teuffel, pp. 1109-10. Wattenbach, I. 70 sqq. Ebert, I. 539-51. L. von Ranke: Weltgeschichte, 4ter Theil, 2te Abtheilung (Leipzig, 1883), pp. 328-368, mainly a discussion of the relation of Gregory's Historia to Fredegar's Historia Epitomata and to the Gesta regum Francorum. He maintains that they are independent. Cf. W. Arndt's preface (30pp.) to edition mentioned above.

 

Georgius Florentius, or as he called himself on his consecration Gregorius, after his mother's grand-father, the sainted bishop of Langres, was born in Arverna (now Clermont),1001 the principal city of Auvergne, Nov. 30., 538. His family was of senatorial rank on both sides, and its position and influence are attested by the number of bishops that belonged to it. His father (Florentius) apparently died early, and his mother (Armentaria) removed to Burgundy, her native country, but his uncle Gallus, bishop of Auvergne, who died in 554, and Avitus the successor of Gallus, cared for his education. He entered the church in discharge of a vow made at the shrine of St. Illidius, the patron saint of Arverna, during a severe and supposed fatal illness. In 563 he was ordained deacon by Avitus, and served in some ecclesiastical capacity at the court of Sigebert king of Austrasia, until in 573, at the unanimous request of the clergy and people of that city, the king appointed him bishop of Tours. Although loath to take so prominent and responsible a position, he at last consented, was consecrated by Egidius, archbishop of Rheims, and welcomed by Fortunatus in an official, which yet had more real feeling in it than such productions usually have, and was a true prophecy of Gregory's career.

Tours was the religious centre of Gaul. The shrine of St. Martin was the most famous in the land and so frequented by pilgrims that it was the source of an immense revenue. In Alcuin's day (eighth century) the monastery of Tours owned 20,000 serfs, and was the richest in the kingdom. Tours was also important as the frontier city of Austrasia, particularly liable to attack. The influences which secured the position to Gregory were probably personal. Several facts operated to bring it about. First, that all but five of the bishops of Tours had been members of his family (Euphronius whom he succeeded was his mother's cousin), and further, that he was in Tours on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Martin to recover his health about the time of Euphronius' death, and by his life there secured the love of the people. Add to this his travels, his austerities, his predominant love for religion, and his election is explained.1002  Gregory found the position no sinecure. War broke out between Sigebert and the savage Chilperic, and Tours was taken by the latter in 575. Confusion and anarchy prevailed. Churches were destroyed, ecclesiastics killed. Might made right, and the weak went to the wall. But in that dark and tempestuous time Gregory of Tours shines like a beacon light. The persecuted found in him a refuge; the perplexed a guide; the wicked king a determined opponent. Vigilant, sleepless, untiring in his care for Tours he averted an attempt to tax it unjustly; he maintained the sanctuary rights of St. Martin against all avengers; and he put an end to partisan strifes. His influence was exerted in the neighboring country. Such was his well earned repute for holiness founded upon innumerable services that the lying accusation of Leudastes at the council of Braine (580) excited popular indignation and was refuted by his solemn declaration of innocence.1003

In 584 Chilperic died. Tours then fell to Guntram, king of Orleans, until in 587 it was restored to Childebert, the son of Sigebert. The last nine years of Gregory's life were comparatively quiet. He enjoyed the favor of Guntram and Childebert, did much to beautify the city of Tours, built many churches, and particularly the church of St. Martin (590). But at length the time of his release came, and on Nov. 17, 594, he went to his reward. His saintship was immediately recognized by the people he had served, and the Latin Church formally beatified and canonized him. His day in the calendar is November l7.

The Works of Gregory were all produced while bishop. Their number attests his diligence, but their style proves the correctness of his own judgment that he was not able to write good Latin. Only one is of real importance, but that is simply inestimable, as it is the only abundant source for French history of the fifth and sixth centuries. It is the Ecclesiastical History of the Franks, in ten books,1004 begun in 576, and not finished until 592. By reason of it Gregory has been styled the Herodotus of France. It was his object to tell the history of his own times for the benefit of posterity, although he was aware of his own unfitness for the task. But like the chroniclers of the period he must needs begin with Adam, and it is not till the close of the first book that the history of Gaul properly begins. The last five books tell the story of the events in Gregory's own life-time, and have therefore most value. Gregory is not a model historian, but when speaking of facts within his experience he is reliable in his statements, and impartial in his narrative, although partial in his judgments.

Gregory gives at the close of his Ecclesiastical History a catalogue of his writings, all of which have been preserved, with the exception of the commentary on the Psalms, of which only the preface and the titles of the chapters are now extant.1005  The complete list is as follows:1006 The Miracles of St. Martin, in four books, begun in 574, finished 594; the miracles were recorded by direction of Gregory's mother, who appeared to him in a vision; The Passion of St. Julian the Martyr, written between 582 and 586; The Martyr's Glory, written about 586; The Confessor's Glory, about 588; The Lives of the Fathers, written at different times and finished in 594. The last is the most interesting and important of these hagiographical works, which do not call for further mention.1007  The Course of the Stars, or as Gregory calls it, The Ecclsiastical Circuit, is a liturgical work, giving the proper offices at the appearance of the most important stars.

 

 § 155. St. Isidore of Seville.

 

I. St. Isidorus Hispalensis Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. LXXXI.-LXXXIV. (reprint of F. Arevalo's ed. Rome, 1797-1803, 7 vols., with the addition of the Collectio canonum ascribed to Isidore). Migne's Tom. LXXXV. and LXXXVI. contain the Liturgia Mozarabica secundum regulam beati Isidori. Editions of separate works: De libris iii. sententiarum. Königsburg, 1826, 1827, 2 parts. De nativitate Domini, passione et resurrectione, regno atque judicio, ed. A. Holtzmann, Carlsruhe, 1836. De natura rerum liber, ed. G. Becker, Berlin, 1857.

II. Besides the Prolegomena of Arevalo, which fill all Tom. LXXXI., see Vita S. Isidori, LXXXII., col. 19-56. P. B. Gams: Kirchengeschichte von spanien. Regensburg, 1862-1879, 5 parts. (II. 2, 102 sqq). J.C.E. Bourret: L'école chrétienne de Seville sous la monarchie des Visigoths. Paris, 1855. C. F. Montalembert: Les moines d' occident. Paris, 1860-67, 5 vols. (II. 200-218), Eng. trans. Monks of the West. Boston, 1872, 2 vols. (I. 421-424). Hugo Hertzberg: Die Historien und die Chroniken des Isidorus von Sevilla, 1ste, Th. Die Historien. Göttingen, 1874. "Die Chroniken" appeared in Forschungen zur deutchen Geschichte, 1875, XIV. 289-362. Chevalier: Répertoire des sources historiques du moyen âge. Paris, 1877, sqq. II. 112, sqq. Du Pin, VI. 1-5; Ceillier, XI. 710-728; CLARKE, II. 364-372; Bähr, IV. I. pp. 270-286; Teuffel, pp. 1131-1134; Ebert, I. 555-568.

 

Isidore of Seville, saint and doctor of the Latin Church, was born about 560 either at Carthagena or Seville. He was the youngest child of an honored Roman family of the orthodox Christian faith. His father's name was Severianus. His eldest brother, Leander, the well-known friend of Gregory the Great, and the successful upholder of the Catholic faith against Arianism, was archbishop of Seville, the most prominent see in Spain, from about 579 to 600; another brother, Fulgentius, was bishop of Astigi (Ecija) in that diocese, where his sister, Florentina, was a nun.1008  Isidore is called Senior to distinguish him from Isidore of Pax Julia, now Beja (Isidorus Pacensis), and Junior to distinguish him from Isidore of Cordova. His parents died apparently while he was quite young. At all events he was educated by his brother Leander. In the year 600 he succeeded his brother in the archiepiscopate of Seville. In this position he became the great leader of the Spanish Church, and is known to have presided at two, councils, the second council of Seville, opened November 13, 619, and the fourth council of Toledo, opened December 5, 633.1009  The first of these was of local interest, but the other was much more important. It was the largest ever held in Spain, being attended by all the six metropolitans, fifty-six bishops and seven bishops' deputies. It has political significance because it was called by King Sisenand, who had just deposed Suintila, the former king. Sisenand was received by the council with great respect. He threw himself before the bishops and with tears asked their prayers. He then exhorted them to do their duty in correcting abuses. Of the seventy-five canons passed by the council several are of curious interest. Thus it was forbidden to plunge the recipient of baptism more than once under the water, because the Arians did it three times to indicate that the Trinity was divided (c. 6). It was not right to reject all the hymns written by Hilary and Ambrose and employ only Scriptural language in public worship (c. 13). If a clergyman is ever made a judge by the king he must exact an oath from the king that no blood is to be shed in his court (c. 31). By order of King Sisenand the clergy were freed from all state taxes and services (c. 47). Once a monk always a monk, although one was made so by his parents (c. 49) 1010  While compulsory conversion of the Jews was forbidden, yet no Jew converted by force was allowed to return to Judaism (c. 57). Very strenuous laws were passed relative to both the baptized and the unbaptized Jews (c. 58-66). The king was upheld in his government and the deposed king and his family perpetually excluded from power. When Isidore's position is considered it is a probable conjecture that these canons express his opinions and convictions upon the different matters.

Warned by disease of death's approach, Isidore began the distribution of his property. For the last six months of his life he dispensed alms from morn till night. His end was highly edifying. Accompanied by his assembled bishops he had himself carried to the church of St. Vincent the Martyr, and there, having publicly confessed his sins, prayed God for forgiveness. He then asked the pardon and prayers of those present, gave away the last thing he owned, received the Holy Communion, and was carried to his cell, in which he died four days later, Thursday, April 4, 636.1011  He was immediately enrolled among the popular saints and in the 15th council of Toledo (688) is styled "excellent doctor," and by Benedict XIV. (April 25, 1722) made a Doctor of the Church.

Isidore of Seville was the greatest scholar of his day. He was well read in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, in profane as well as in sacred and patristic literature. He was also a vigorous and dignified prelate, admired for his wondrous eloquence and beloved for his private virtues. He did much for education, especially of the clergy, and established at Seville a highly successful school, in which he himself taught. But his universal fame rests upon his literary works, which embrace every branch of knowledge then cultivated, and which though almost entirely compilations can not be too highly praised for their ability and usefulness. He performed the inestimable service of perpetuating learning, both sacred and secular. It is a striking testimony to his greatness that works have been attributed to him with which he had nothing to do, as the revision of the Mozarabic Liturgy and of Spanish ecclesiastical, and secular laws, and especially the famous Pseudo-Isidorian decretals.

His Works may be divided loosely into six classes. We have two lists of them, one by his friend and colleague Braulio, bishop of Saragossa, and the other by his pupil, Ildefonsus of Toledo. No strict division of these works is possible, because as will be seen several of them belong in parts to different classes.

I. Biblical. This class embraces, 1. Scripture Allegorics,1012 allegorical explanations, each in a single sentence, of 129 names and passages in the Old Testament, and of 211 in the New Testament; a curious and, in its way, valuable treatise, compiled from the older commentaries. 2. Lives and Deaths of Biblical Saints.1013  Very brief biographies of sixty-four Old Testament and twenty-one New Testament worthies. 3. Introductions in the Old and New Testaments,1014 a very general introduction to the entire Bible, followed by brief accounts of the several books, including Esdras and Maccabees. The four Gospels, the epistles, of Paul, Peter and John are treated together in respective sections. Acts comes between Jude and Revelation. It was compiled from different authors. 4. Scripture Numbers1015 (1-16, 18-20, 24, 30, 40, 46, 50, 60), mystically interpreted. Thus under one, the church is one, the Mediator is one. Under two, there are two Testaments, two Seraphim, two Cherubim. 5. Questions on the Old and New Testaments,1016 a Biblical catechism of forty-one questions and answers. Some are very trivial. 6. Expositions of Holy Mysteries, or Questions on the Old Testament,1017 a paraphrase of Genesis, and notes upon Joshua, Judges, the four books of Kings, Ezra and Maccabees. The work is compiled from Origen, Victorinus, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustin, Fulgentius, Cassianus and Gregory the Great. A summary of each chapter of the books mentioned is given. The exposition is allegorical.

II. Dogmatic. 1. The Catholic Faith defended against the Jews.1018  A treatise in two books, dedicated to his sister Florentina, the nun. In the first book he marshals the Scripture prophecies and statements relative to Christ, and shows how they have been verified. In the second book in like manner he treats of the call of the Gentiles, the unbelief of the Jews and their consequent rejection, the destruction of Jerusalem, the abolition of the ceremonial law, and closes with a brief statement of Christian doctrine. The work was doubtless an honest attempt to win the Jews over to Christianity, and Spain in the 7th century was full of Jews. Whatever may have been its success as an apology, it was very popular in the Middle Age among Christians, and was translated into several languages.1019  2. Three books of Sentences,1020 compiled from Augustin and Gregory the Great's Moralia. This work is a compend of theology, and is Isidore's most important production in this class. Its influence has been incalculable. Innumerable copies were made of it during the Middle Age, and it led to the preparation of similar works, e.g., Peter Lombard's Sentences.1021  3. Synonyms, in two books;1022 the first is a dialogue between sinful and despairing Man and Reason (or the Logos), who consoles him, rescues him from despair, shows him that sin is the cause of his misery, and sets him on the heavenly way. The second is a discourse by Reason upon vices and their opposite virtues.1023

4. The Order of Creation.1024  It treats of the Trinity, the creation, the devil and demons, paradise, fallen man, purgatory, and the future life.

III. Ecclesiastic and monastic. 1. The Ecclesiastical Offices, i.e., the old Spanish liturgy.1025  It is dedicated to his brother Fulgentius, and is in two books, for the most part original. The first is called "the origin of the offices," and treats of choirs, psalms, hymns and other topics in ecclesiastical archaeology. Under the head "sacrifice"1026 Isidore expresses his view of the Lord's Supper, which is substantially that "Body and Blood" denote the consecrated elements, but not that these are identical with the Body and Blood of our Lord. The second book, "the origin of the ministry," treats of the different clerical grades; also of monks, penitents, virgins, widows, the married, catechumens, the rule of faith, baptism, chrism, laying on of hands and confirmation. 2. A Monastic Rule.1027  It was designed for Spanish monasteries, drawn from old sources, and resembles the Benedictine, with which, however, it is not identical. It throws much light upon the contemporary Spanish monasticism, as it discusses the situation of the monastery, the choice of the abbot, the monks, their duties, meals, festivals, fasts, dress, punishment, sickness and death. It recalls the somewhat similar Institutes of Cassiodorus already mentioned.1028

IV. Educational and philosophical. 1. Twenty books of Etymologies.1029  This is his greatest work, and considering its date truly an astonishing work. Caspar Barth's list of the one hundred and fifty-four authors quoted in it shows Isidore's wide reading. Along with many Christian writers are the following classic authors: Aesop, Anacreon, Apuleius, Aristotle, Boëthius, Caesar, Cato, Catullus, Celsus, Cicero, Demosthenes, Ennius, Herodotus, Hesiod, Homer, Horace, Juvenal, Livy, Lucan, Lucretius, Martial, Ovid, Persius, Pindar, Plato, Plautus, Pliny, Quintilian, Sallust, Suetonius, Terence, Varro, Virgil.1030  It is a concise encyclopedia of universal learning, embracing the seven liberal arts (grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), and medicine, law, chronology, angelology, mineralogy, architecture, agriculture and many other topics. Although much of his information is erroneous, and the tenth book, that of Etymology proper, is full of absurdities, the work as a whole is worthy of high praise. It was authoritative throughout Europe for centuries and repeatedly copied and printed. Rabanus Maurus drew largely upon it for his De Universo. 2. The Differences, or the proper signification of terms,1031 in two books. The first treats of the differences of words. It is a dictionary of synonyms and of words which sound somewhat alike, arranged alphabetically. The second book treats of the differences of things, and is a dictionary of theology, brief yet comprehensive. 3. On the Nature of Things,1032 in forty-eight chapters, dedicated to King Sisebut (612-620), who had given him the subject. It is a sort of natural philosophy, treating of the divisions of time, the heavens and the earth and the waters under the earth. It also has illustrative diagrams. Like Isidore's other works it is a skilful compilation from patristic and profane authors,1033 and was extremely popular in the Middle Age.

V. Historical. 1. A Chronicle,1034 containing the principal events in the world from the creation to 616. It is divided into six periods or ages, corresponding to the six days of creation, a division plainly borrowed from Augustin.1035  Its sources are Julius Africanus, Eusebius, Jerome, and Victor of Tunnena.1036  2. History of the Goths, Vandals and Suevi,1037 brought down to 61. A work which, like Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks, is the only source for certain periods. It has been remarked1038 that Isidore, like Cassiodorus, in spite of his Roman origin, had a high regard for the Goths. 3. Famous Men1039 a continuation of Gennadius' appendix to Jerome's work with the same title. It sketches forty-six authors, beginning with Bishop Hosius of Cordova, and extending to the beginning of the seventh century.

VI. Miscellaneous. Under this head come thirteen brief Letters1040 and minor works of doubtful genuineness. There are also numerous spurious works which bear his name, among which are hymns.

 

 § 156. The Venerable Bede (Baeda).

 

I. Venerabilis Baeda: Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. XC.-XCV., substantially a reprint of Dr. J. A. Giles' edition. London, 1843-1844, 12 vols. His Ecclesiastical History (Historica ecclesiastica) has been often edited, e.g. by John Smith, Cambridge, 1722; Joseph Stevenson, London, 1838, and in the Monumenta historica Britannica I. 1848; George H. Moberley, Oxford, 1869; Alfred Holder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1882. Books III.-V. 24 were separately ed. by John E. B. Mayor and John R. Lumby, Cambridge, 1878. The best known English translation of the History is Dr. Giles' in his edition, and since 1844 in Bohn's Antiquarian Library. His scientific writings are contained in Thomas Wright: Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle Ages. London, 1841. Marshall translated his Explanation of the Apocalypse, London, 1878. For further bibliographical information regarding the editions of Bede's History, see Giles' ed. ii. 5-8.

II. Biographies are contained in the above-mentioned editions. Hist. V. 24, and the letter on his death by Cuthbert (Giles' trans. in Bohn, pp. xviii.-xxi.) are the best original sources. The old Vitae given in the complete editions are almost worthless. Modern works are Henrik Gehle: Disputatio historico-theologica de Bedae venerabilis presbyteri Anglo-Saxonis vita et scriptis. Leyden, 1838. Carl Schoell: De ecclesiasticae Britonum Scotorumque historiae fontibus. Berlin, 1851. Karl Werner: Beda der Ehrwürdige und seine Zeit. Wien, 1875. 2d ed. (unchanged), 1881. Geo.  F. Browne: The Venerable Bede. London, 1879. Cf. Du Pin, VI. 89-91. Cave, II. 241-245. Ceillier, XII. 1-19. Clarke, II. 426-429. Bähr, IV. 175-178, 292-298. Ebert, I. 595-611.

 

The Venerable Bede (properly Baeda) is never spoken of without affectionate interest, and yet so uneventful was his useful life that very little can be said about him personally. He was born in 673, probably in the village of Jarrow, on the south bank of the Tyne, Northumbria, near the Scottish border. At the age of seven, being probably an orphan, he was placed in the monastery of St. Peter, at Wearmouth, on the north bank of the Wear, which had been founded by Benedict Biscop in 674. In 682 he was transferred to the newly-founded sister monastery of St. Paul, five miles off, at Jarrow.1041  He is not known ever to have gone away from it farther than to the sister monastery and to visit friends in contiguous places, such as York. The stories of his visit to Rome and professorship at Cambridge scarcely deserve mention. His first teacher was Benedict Biscop, a nobleman who at twenty-five became a monk and freely put his property and his learning at the public service. Biscop traveled five times to Rome and each time returned, like Ethelbert and Alcuin subsequently, laden with rich literary spoils and also with pictures and relics. Thus the library at Wearmouth became the largest and best appointed in England at the time.1042  It was Biscop's enterprise and liberality which rendered it possible that Bede's natural taste for learning should receive such careful culture. So amid the wealth of books he acquired Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and laid up a rich store of multifarious knowledge. Such was his character and attainments that at nineteen, six years before the then canonical age, he was ordained deacon, and at thirty a priest. He thus describes his mode of life: "All the remaining time of my life [i.e., after leaving Wearmouth] I spent in that, monastery [of Jarrow], wholly applying myself to the study of Scripture, and amidst observance of regular discipline and the daily care of singing in the church. I always took delight in learning, teaching and writing.1043  He declined to be abbot because the office, as he said, demands close attention, and therefore cares come which impede the pursuit of learning. As it was, the "pursuit of learning" took up only a portion of his time, for the necessary duties of a monk were many,1044 and such a man as Bede would be frequently required to preach. It appears that he published nothing before he was thirty years old, for he says himself: "From which time [i.e., of his taking priest's orders] till the fifty-ninth year of my age, I have made it my business, for the use of me and mine, to compile out of the works of the venerable Fathers, and to interpret and explain according to their meaning these following pieces."1045  Then follows his list of his works. The result of such study and writing was that Bede became the most learned man of his time, and also the greatest of its authors. Yet he was also one of the humblest and simplest of men.

He died on Wednesday, May 26, 735, of a complaint accompanied with asthma, from which he had long suffered. The circumstances of his death are related by his pupil Cuthbert.1046  During Lent of the year 735 Bede carried on the translation of the Gospel of John and "some collections out of the Book of Notes" of Archbishop Isidore of Seville. The day before he died he spent in dictating his translations, saying now and then, "Go on quickly, I know not how long I shall hold out, and whether my Maker will not soon take me away."  He progressed so far with his rendering of John's Gospel that at the third hour on Wednesday morning only one chapter remained to be done. On being told this he said, "Take your pen, and make ready, and write fast."  The scribe did so, but at the ninth hour Bede said to Cuthbert, ' "I have some little articles of value in my chest, such as pepper, napkins and incense: run quickly, and bring the priests of our monastery to me, that I may distribute among them the gifts which God has bestowed on me. The rich in this world are bent on giving gold and silver and other precious things. But I, in charity, will joyfully give my brothers what God has given unto me."  He spoke to every one of them, admonishing and entreating them that they would carefully say masses and prayers for him, which they readily promised; but they all mourned and wept, especially because he said, "they should no more see his face in this world."  They rejoiced for that he said, "It is time that I return to Him who formed me out of nothing: I have lived long; my merciful Judge well foresaw my life for me; the time of my dissolution draws nigh; for I desire to die and to be with Christ."  Having said much more, he passed the day joyfully till the evening, and the boy [i.e., his scribe] said, "Dear master, there is yet one sentence not written."  He answered, "Write quickly."  Soon after the boy said, "It is ended."  He replied, "It is well, you have said the truth. It is ended. Receive my head into your hands, for it is a great satisfaction to me to sit facing my holy place, where I was wont to pray, that I may also sitting call upon my Father."  And thus on the pavement of his little cell, singing, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," when he had named the Holy Ghost, he breathed his last, and so departed to the heavenly kingdom."

Bede's body was buried in the church at Jarrow, but between 1021 and 1042 it was stolen and removed to Durham by Elfred, a priest of its cathedral, who put it in the same chest with the body of St. Cuthbert. In 1104 the bodies were separated, and in 1154 the relics of Bede were placed in a shrine of gold and silver, adorned with jewels. This shrine was destroyed by an ignorant mob in Henry VIII's time (1541), and only a monkish inscription remains to chronicle the fact that Bede was ever buried there.

The epithet, "Venerable," now so commonly applied to Bede, is used by him to denote a holy man who had not been canonized, and had no more reference to age than the same name applied to-day to an archdeacon in the Church of England. By his contemporaries he was called either Presbyter or Dominus. He is first called the Venerable in the middle of the tenth century.

Bede's Writings are very numerous, and attest the width and profundity of his learning, and also the independence and soundness of his judgment. "Having centred in himself and his writings nearly all the knowledge of his day, he was enabled before his death, by promoting the foundation of the school of York, to kindle the flame of learning in the West at the moment that it seemed both in Ireland and in France to be expiring. The school of York transmitted to Alcuin the learning of Bede, and opened the way for culture on the continent, when England under the terrors of the Danes was relapsing into barbarism."  His fame, if we may judge from the demand for his works immediately after his death, extended wherever the English missionaries or negotiators found their way."1047

Bede himself, perhaps in imitation of Gregory of Tours,1048 gives a list of his works at the conclusion of his History.1049  There are few data to tell when any one of them was composed. The probable dates are given in the following general account and enumeration of his genuine writings. Very many other, writings have been attributed to him.1050

I. Educational treatises. (a) On orthography1051 (about 700). The words are divided alphabetically. (b) On prosody1052 (702). (c) On the Biblical figures and tropes.1053  (d) On the nature of things1054 (702), a treatise upon natural philosophy. (e) On the times1055 (702). (f) On the order of times1056 (702). (g) On the computation of time1057 (726). (h) On the celebration of Easter.1058  (i) On thunder.1059

II. Expository works. These are compilations from the Fathers, which originally were carefully assigned by marginal notes to their proper source, but the notes have been obliterated in the course of frequent copying. He wrote either on the whole or a part of the Pentateuch, Samuel, Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, the Twelve Minor Prophets, Tobit, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Catholic Epistles and the Apocalypse.1060  His comments are of course made upon the Latin Bible, but his scholarship comes out in the frequent correction and emendation of the Latin text by reference to the original. The most frequent subject of remark is the want of an article in the Latin, which gave rise to frequent ambiguity.1061  Throughout he shows himself a careful textual student.1062

III. Homilies.1063  These are mostly doctrinal and objective. The fact that they were delivered to a monastic audience explains their infrequent allusion to current events or to daily life. They are calm and careful expositions of passages of Scripture rather than compact or stirring sermons.

IV. Poetry.1064  Most of the poetry attributed to him is spurious. But a few pieces are genuine, such as the hymn in his History upon Virginity, in honor of Etheldrida, the virgin wife of King Egfrid;1065 the metrical version of the life of Saint Cuthbert and of the Passion of Justin Martyr, and some other pieces. The Book of Hymns, of which he speaks in his own list of his writings, is apparently lost.

V. Epistles.1066  These are sixteen in number. The second, addressed to the Archbishop Egbert of York, is the most interesting. It dates from 734, and gives a word-picture of the time which shows how bad it was.1067  Even the archbishop himself comes in for faithful rebuke. Bede had already made him one visit and expected to make him another, but being prevented wrote to him what he desired to tell him by word of mouth. The chief topics of the letter are the avarice of the bishops and the disorders of the religious houses. After dwelling upon these and kindred topics at considerable length, Bede concludes by saying that if he had treated drunkenness, gluttony, luxury and other contagious diseases of the body politic his letter would have been immoderately long. The third letter, addressed to the abbot of Plegwin, is upon the Six Ages of the World. Most of the remainder are dedicatory.

VI. Hagiographies.1068  (a) Lives of the five holy abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow, Benedict, Ceolfrid, Easterwine, Sigfrid and Huetberct. The work is divided into two books, of which the first relates to Benedict. (b) The prose version of the Life of St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne. The poetical version already spoken of, is earlier in time and different in character in as much as it dwells more upon Cuthbert's miracles. The prose version has for its principal source an older life of Cuthbert still extant, and relates many facts along with evident fictions. Great pains were bestowed upon it and it was even submitted for criticism, prior to publication, to the monks of Lindisfarne. (c) The life of Felix of Nola, Confessor, a prose version of the life already written by Paulinus of Nola. (d) Martyrology. It is drawn from old Roman sources, and shows at once the learning and the simplicity of its author.

VII. Ecclesiastical History of England.1069  This is Bede's great work. Begun at the request of King Ceolwulf, it was his occupation for many years, and was only finished a short time before his death. It consists of five books and tells in a simple, clear style the history of England from the earliest times down to 731. The first twenty-two chapters of the first book are compiled from Orosius and Gildas, but from the mission of Augustin in the 23d chapter (a.d. 596) it rests upon original investigation. Bede took great pains to ensure accuracy, and he gives the names of all persons who were helpful to him. The History is thus the chief and in many respects the only source for the church history of England down to the eighth century. In it as in his other books Bede relates a great many strange things; but he is careful to give his authorities for each statement. It is quite evident, however, that he believed in these "miracles," many of which are susceptible of rational explanation. It is from this modest, simple, conscientious History that multitudes have learned to love the Venerable Bede.

 

 § 157. Paul the Deacon.

 

I. Paulus Winfridus Diaconus: Opera omnia in Migne, Tom. XCV., col. 413-1710. Editions of Paul's separate works: Historia Langobardorum in: Monumenta Germanicae historica. Scriptores rerum langobardorum et italicarum. Saec. VI.-IX. edd. L. Bethmann et G. Waitz, Hannover, 1878, pp. 45-187. Historia romano in: Monum. Germ. Hist. auctor. antiquissimor. Tom. II. ed. H. Droysen, Berlin, 1879. Gesta episcoporum Mettensium in: Mon. Germ. Hist. Script. Tom. II. ed. Pertz, pp. 260-270. Homiliae in: Martène et Durand, Veterum scriptorum collectio, Paris, 1733, Tom. IX. Carmina (both his and Peter's) in: Poetae latini aevi Carolini, ed. E. Dümmler, Berlin, 1880, I. 1. pp 27-86. Translations: Die Langobardengeschichte, übertsetzt Von Karl von Spruner, Hamburg, 1838; Paulus Diaconus und die übrigen Geschichtschreiber der Langobarden, übersetzt von Otto Abel, Berlin, 1849.

II. Felix Dahn: Paulus Diaconus. I. Abtheilung, Leipzig, 1876. Each of the above mentioned editions contains an elaborate introduction in which the life and works of Paul are discussed, e.g. Waitz ed. Hist. pp. 12-45. For further investigations see Bethmann: Paulus Diaconus' Leben und Schriften, and Die Geschichtschreibung der Langobarden, both in Pertz's "Archiv der Gesellsch. für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde." Bd. X. Hannover, 1851; Bauch: Ueber die historia romana des Paulus Diaconus, eine Quellenuntersuchung, Göttingen, 1873; R. Jacobi: Die Quellen der Langobardengeschichte des Paulus Diaconus, Halle, 1877; and Mommsen: Die Quellen der Langobardengeschichte des Paulus Diaconus in: Neues Archiv der Gesellsch. für ältere Geschichtskunde, Bd. V. pp. 51 sqq. Du Pin, VI. 115-116. Ceillier, XII. l141-148. Ebert, II. 36-56.

 

Paul the Deacon (Paulus Diaconus), the historian of the Lombards, was the son of Warnefrid and Theudelinda. Hence he is frequently called Paul Warnefrid. He was descended from a noble Lombard family and was born in Forum Julii (Friuli, Northern Italy), probably between 720 and 725. His education was completed at the court of King Liutprand in Pavia. His attainments included a knowledge of Greek, rare in that age. Under the influence of Ratchis, Liutprand's successor (744-749), he entered the church and became a deacon. King Desiderius (756-774) made him his chancellor,1070 and entrusted to his instruction his daughter Adelperga, the wife of Arichis, duke of Benevento. In 774 the Lombard kingdom fell, and Paul after residing for a time at the duke's court entered the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino. There he contentedly lived until fraternal love led him to leave his beloved abode. In 776 his brother, Arichis, having probably participated in Hruodgaud's rebellion, was taken prisoner by Charlemagne, carried into France, and the family estates were confiscated. This brought the entire family to beggary.1071  

Paul sought Charlemagne; in a touching little poem of twenty-eight lines, probably written in Gaul in 782, he set the pitiful case before him1072 and implored the great king's clemency.

He did not plead in vain. He would then at once have returned to Monte Cassino, but Charlemagne, always anxious to retain in his immediate service learned and brilliant men., did not allow him to go. He was employed as court poet, teacher of Greek, and scribe, and thus exerted great influence. His heart was, however, in his monastery, and in 787 he is found there. The remainder of his life was busily employed in literary labors. He died, April 13, probably in the year 800, with an unfinished work, the history of the Lombards, upon his hands.

Paul was a Christian scholar, gentle, loving, and beloved; ever learning and disseminating learning. Although not a great man, he was a most useful one, and his homilies and histories of the Lombards are deservedly held in high esteem.

His Works embrace histories, homilies, letters, and poems.

I. Histories. (1) Chief in importance is the History of the Lombards.1073  It is divided into six books, and carries the history of the Lombards from their rise in Scandinavia down to the death of Liutprand in 744. It was evidently Paul's intention to continue and revise the work, for it has no preface or proper conclusion; moreover, it has manifest slips in writing, which would have been corrected by a final reading. It is therefore likely that he died before its completion. It is not a model of historical composition, being discursive, indefinite as to chronology, largely a compilation from known and unknown sources, full of legendary and irrelevant matter. Nevertheless it is on the whole well arranged and exhibits a love of truth, independence and impartiality. Though a patriot, Paul was not a partisan. He can see some good even in his hereditary foes. The popularity of the History in the Middle Age is attested by the appearance of more than fifteen editions of it and of ten continuations.

(2) Some scholars1074 consider the History of the Lombards the continuation of Paul's Roman History,1075 which he compiled (c. 770) for Adelperga from Eutropius (Breviarum historiae Romanae);1076 Jerome, Orosius (Historia adversus Paganos),1077 Aurelius Victor (De Caesaribus historia), Jordanis (De breviatione chronicorum),1078 Prosper (Chronicon),1079 Bede and others. The Historia is in sixteen books, of which the first ten are mere excerpts of Eutropius, with insertions from other sources. The last six carry the history from Valens, where Eutropius ends, down to Justinian. The plan of these latter books is the same as that of the former: some author is excerpted, and in the excerpts are inserted extracts from other writers. The History is worthless to us, but in the Middle Age it was extremely popular. To the sixteen books of Paul's were added eight from the Church History of Anastasius Bibliothecarius, and the whole called Historia Miscella, and to it Landulph Sagax wrote an appendix, which brings the work down to 813.

Besides these histories several other briefer works in the same line have come down to us.

(3) Life of St. Gregory the Great,1080 a compilation from Bede's Church History of England, and Gregory's own works.

(4) A short History of the bishopric of Metz.1081  It was written about 784, at the request of Angilram, bishop of Metz. It is in good part only a list of names. In order to please Charlemagne, Paul inserted irrelevantly a section upon that monarch's ancestry.

II. Homilies.1082  A collection made by request of Charlemagne, and which for ten centuries was in use in the Roman Church. It is in three series. 1. Homilies upon festivals, two hundred and two in number, all from the Fathers. 2. Homilies upon saints' days, ninety-six in number. 3. Homilies, five in number. Many of the second series and all of the last appear to be original.

III. Letters,1083 four in number, two to Charlemagne, one each to Adalhard, abbot of Corbie, in France, and to the abbot Theudemar.

IV. Poems, including epitaphs.1084 From the first stanza of De Sancto Joanne Baptista, Guido of Arezzo took the names of the musical notes.

 

 § 158. St. Paulinus of Aquileia.

 

I. Sanctus Paulinus, patriarcha Aquileiensis: Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. XCIX. col. 9-684, reprint of Madrisius' ed., Venice, 1737, folio, 2d ed. 1782. His poems are given by Dümmler: Poet. Lat. aevi Carolini I. (Berlin, 1880), pp. 123-148.

II. Vita Paulini, by Madrisius in Migne's ed. col. 17-130. Cf. Du Pin, VI. 124. Ceillier, XII. 157-164. Hist. litt. de la France, IV. 284-295; Bähr: Geschichte der römischen Literatur im Karolingischen Zeitalter, Carlsruhe, 1840 (pp. 88, 356-359); Ebert, II., 89-91.

 

Paulinus, patriarch of Aquileia, was born about 7261085 in Forum Julii, now Friuli, near Venice. He entered the priesthood, was employed in teaching and arrived at eminence as a scholar. He played a prominent part in the affairs of his country, and his services in suppressing a Lombard insurrection met, in the year 776, with recognition and reward by Charlemagne, who gave him an estate and in 787 elevated him to the patriarchal see of Aquileia.1086  He carried on a successful mission among the Carinthians, a tribe which lived near Aquileia, and also another among their neighbors, the Avari (the Huns).1087  He opposed with vigor the Adoptionists, and his writings contributed much to the extinction of the sect. He lived entirely for God and his church, and won the hearts of his spiritual children. Perhaps the most striking proof of his virtue is the warm friendship which existed between himself and Alcuin. The latter is very, enthusiastic in his praise of the learning and accomplishments of Paulinus. Charlemagne seems to have valued him no less.1088  With such encouragement Paulinus led a busy and fruitful life, participating in synods and managing wisely his see until his death on January 11, 804.1089  Very, soon thereafter he was popularly numbered among the saints,1090 and stories began to be told of his miraculous powers.1091  His bones were deposited in the high altar of the collegiate church of Friuli, or as the place was called Civitas Austriae. The church underwent repairs, and his bones were for a time laid by those of the martyr Donatus, but at length on January 26, 1734, they were separated and with much pomp placed in the chapel under the choir of the great basilica of Friuli.1092

The writings of Paulinus comprise (1) Brief treatise against Elipandus,1093 archbishop of Toledo and primate of Spain, who is generally regarded as the father of Adoptionism. It was issued in the name of the council of Frankfort-on-the-Main (794), and sent into Spain. It was first published by Jean de Tillet, in 1549. (2) Three books against Felix of Urgel,1094 also against the Adoptionists. It was prepared in 796 by order of Charlemagne, and probably submitted to Alcuin, agreeably to the author's request.1095  It is the most important work of Paulinus, though by no means the best in point of style. The Felix addressed was bishop of Urgel and the leader of the Adoptionists. Paulinus refutes the heretics by quotations of Scripture and the Fathers. The work is elaborately annotated by Madrisius, and thus rendered much more intelligible.1096  (3) A deliverance by the council of Friuli, held in 796, upon the Trinity and the Incarnation.1097  (4) An exhortation to virtue,1098 addressed to Henry, count or duke of Friuli. It was written about 795, and consists of sixty-six chapters upon the virtues to be practiced and the vices to be shunned by the duke. The style is excellent. The work was once claimed for Augustin, but this is now conceded to be an error. Nine of the chapters (x.-xv. xvii.-xix. ) are copied from The contemplative life, a work by Pomerius, a Gallican churchman of the fifth century. On the other hand, chapters xx.-xlv. have been plagiarized in an Admonitio ad filium spiritualem which was long supposed to be by Basil the Great.1099

(5) Epistles. (a) To Heistulfus,1100 who had murdered his wife on a charge of adultery preferred against her by a man of bad character. It was written from Frankfort, in 794, during the council mentioned above. Paulinus sternly rebukes Heistulfus for his crime, and tells him that if he would be saved he must either enter a monastery or lead a life of perpetual penitence, of which he gives an interesting description. The letter passed into the Canon Law about 866.1101  It has been falsely attributed to Stephen V.1102  (b) To Charlemagne,1103 an account of the council of Altinum1104 in 803. (c) Fragments of three other letters to Charlemagne, and of one (probably) to Leo III.1105

(6) Verses. (a) The rule of faith,1106 a poem of one hundred and fifty-one hexameters, devoid of poetical merit, in which along with a statement of his belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation Paulinus gives a curious description of Paradise and of Gehenna, and to the latter sends the heretics, several of whom he names. (b) Hymns and verses,1107 upon different subjects. (c) A poem on duke Eric.1108

(7) A Mass.1109

(8) The preface to a tract upon repentance1110 which enjoins confession to God in tender words.

(9) A treatise upon baptism.1111

 

 § 159. Alcuin.

 

I. Beatus Flaccus Albinus seu Alcuinus: Opera omnia, Migne, Tom. C. CI., reprint of the ed. of Frobenius. Ratisbon, 1772, 2 vols. fol. Monumenta Alcuiniana, a P. Jaffé preparata, ed. Wattenbach et Dümmler (vol. vi. Bibliotheca rerum germanicarum). Berlin, 1773. It contains his letters, poems and life of Willibrord. His poems (Carmina) have been separately edited by E. Dümmler in Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, I. 1. 169-351, and some additional poetry is given in Addenda, Tom. II. 692.

II. Vita (Migne, C. col. 89-106), anonymous, but probably by a monk of Ferrières, based upon information given by Sigulf, Alcuin's pupil and successor as abbot of Ferrières. De vita B. F. Albini seu Alcuini commentatio (col. 17-90), by Froben, for the most part an expansion of the former by the introduction of discussions upon many points. Eulogium historicum Beati Alcuini (CI. col. 1416-1442), by Mabillon. Of interest and value also are the Testimonia veterum et quorumdam recentiorum scriptorum (col. 121-134), brief notices of Alcuin by contemporaries and others.

III. Modern biographies and more general works in which Alcuin is discussed. Friedrich Lorentz: Alcuin's Leben, Halle, 1829, Eng, trans. by Jane Mary Slee, London, 1837. Francis Monnier: Alcuin et son influence littéraire, religieuse et politique chez les France, Paris, 1853, 2d ed. entitled Alcuin et Charlemagne, Paris, 1864. Karl Werner: Alcuin and sein Jahrhundert, Paderborn, 1876, 2d ed. (unchanged), 1881. J. Bass Mullinger: The schools of Charles the Great, London, 1877. Cf. Du Pin, VI. 121-124. Ceiller, XII. 165-214. Hist. Lit. de la France, IV. 295-347. Clarke, II. 453-459. Bähr, 78-84; 192-195; 302-341. Wattenbach, 3d ed. I. 123 sqq; Ebert, II. 12-36. Guizot: History of Civilization, Eng. trans, , Bohn's ed. ii. 231-253. The art. Alcuin by Bishop Stubbs in Smith and Wace, Dict. Chr. Biog. (i. 73-76), deserves particular mention.

 

Flaccus Albinus, or, as he is commonly called in the Old English form, Alcuin1112 ("friend of the temple"), the ecclesiastical prime minister of Charlemagne, was born in Yorkshire about 735. He sprang from a noble Northumbrian family, the one to which Willibrord, apostle of the Frisians, belonged, and inherited considerable property, including the income of a monastic society on the Yorkshire coast.1113  At tender age he was taken to the famous cathedral school at York, and there was educated by his loving and admiring friends, Egbert, archbishop of York (732-766) and founder of the school, and Ethelbert, its master. With the latter he made several literary journeys on the continent, once as far as Rome, and each time returned laden with MS. treasures, secured, by a liberal expenditure of money, from different monasteries. Thus they greatly enlarged the library which Egbert had founded.1114  In 766 Ethelbert succeeded Egbert in the archbishopric of York, and appointed Alcuin, who had previously been a teacher, master of the cathedral school, ordained him a deacon, Feb. 2, 767, and made him one of the secular canons of York minster. In 767 he had Liudger for a pupil. Some time between the latter year and 780,1115 Ethelbert sent him to Italy on a commission to Charlemagne, whom he met, probably at Pavia. In 780 Ethelbert retired from his see and gave over to Alcuin the care of the library, which now was without a rival in England. Alcuin gives a catalogue of it,1116 thus throwing welcome light upon the state of learning at the time. In 780 Alcuin again visited Rome to fetch the pallium for Eanbald, Ethelbert's successor.

On his return he met Charlemagne at Parma (Easter, 781), and was invited by him to become master of the School of the Palace. This school was designed for noble youth, was attached to the court, and held whenever the court was. Charlemagne and his family and courtiers frequently attended its sessions, although they could not be said to be regular scholars. The invitation to teach this school was a striking recognition of the learning and ability of Alcuin, and as he perceived the possibilities of the future thus unexpectedly opened to him he accepted it, although the step involved a virtual abnegation of his just claim upon the archiepiscopate of York. In the next year (782), having received the necessary permission to go from his king and archbishop, he began his work. The providential design in this event is unmistakable. Just at the time when the dissensions of the English kings practically put a stop to educational advance in England, Alcuin, the greatest teacher of the day, was transferred to the continent in order that under the fostering and stimulating care of Charlemagne he might rescue it from the bondage of ignorance. But the effort taxed his strength. Charlemagne, although he attended his instruction and styles him "his dear teacher," at the same time abused his industry and patience, and laid many very heavy burdens upon him.1117  Alcuin had not only to teach the Palatine school, which necessitated his moving about with the migratory court to the serious interruption of his studies, but to prepare and revise books for educational and ecclesiastical uses, and in general to superintend the grand reformatory schemes of Charlemagne. How admirably he fulfilled his multifarious duties, history attests. The famous capitulary of 7871118 which Charlemagne issued and which did so much to advance learning, was of his composition. The Caroline books,1119 which were quite as remarkable in the sphere of church life, were his work, at least in large measure. For his pecuniary support and as a mark of esteem Charlemagne gave him the monasteries of St. Lupus at Troyes and Bethlehem at Ferrières, and the cell of St. Judecus on the coast of Picardy (St. Josse sur mer). But the care of these only added to his burdens. In 789 he went to England on commission from Charlemagne to King Offa of Mercia, and apparently desired to remain there. Thence in 792 he sent in the name of the English bishops a refutation of image-worship. But in 793 Charlemagne summoned him to his side to defend the church against the heresy of Adoptionism and image-worship, and he came. In 794 he took a prominent part, although simply a deacon, in the council of Frankfort, which spoke out so strongly against both, and in 799, at the council of Aachen, he had a six days' debate with Felix, the leader of the Adoptionists, which resulted in the latter's recantation. In his negotiations with the Adoptionists he had the invaluable aid of the indefatigable monk, Benedict, of Nursia. In 796, Charlemagne gave him in addition to the monasteries already mentioned that of St. Martin at Tours and in 800 those of Cormery and Flavigny. The monastery of Tours1120 owned twenty thousand serfs and its revenue was regal. To it Alcuin retired, although he would have preferred to go to Fulda.1121  There he did good work in reforming the monks, regulating the school and enlarging the library. His most famous pupil during this period of his life was Rabanus Maurus. In the year of his death he established a hospice at Duodecim Pontes near Troyes; and just prior to this event he gave over the monastery of Tours to his pupil Fredegis, and that of Ferrières to another pupil, Sigulf It is remarkable that he died upon the anniversary on which he had desired to die, the Festival of Pentecost, May 19, 804. He was buried in the church of St. Martin, although in his humility he had requested to be buried outside of it.

One of his important services to religion was his revision of the Vulgate (about 802) by order of Charlemagne, on the basis of old and correct MSS., for he probably knew little Greek and no Hebrew. This preserved a good Vulgate text for some time.

Alcuin was of a gentle disposition, willing, patient and humble, and an unwearied student. He had amassed all the treasures of learning then accessible. He led his age, yet did not transcend it, as Scotus Erigena did his. He was not a deep thinker, rather he brought out from his memory the thoughts of others. He was also mechanical in his methods. Yet he was more than a great scholar and teacher, he was a leader in church affairs, not only on the continent, but, as his letters show, also in England. Charlemagne consulted him continually, and would have done better had he more frequently followed his advice. Particularly is this true respecting missions. Alcuin saw with regret that force had been applied to induce the Saxons to submit to baptism. He warned Charlemagne that the result would be disastrous. True Christians can not be made by violence, but by plain preaching of the gospel in the spirit of love. He would have the gospel precepts gradually unfolded to the pagan Saxons, and then as they grew in knowledge would require from them stricter compliance. Alcuin gave similar council in regard to the Huns.1122  His opinions upon other practical points1123 are worthy of mention. Thus, he objected to the employment of bishops in military affairs, to capital punishment, to the giving up of persons who had taken refuge in a church, and to priests following a secular calling. He was zealous for the revival of preaching and for the study of the Bible. On the other hand he placed a low estimate upon pilgrimages, and preferred that the money so spent should be given to the poor.1124

Writings.—The works of Alcuin are divided into nine classes.

I. Letters.1125  A striking peculiarity of these letters is their address. Alcuin and his familiar correspondents, following an affectation of scholars in the middle age, write under assumed names.1126  Among his correspondents are kings, patriarchs, bishops and abbots. The value of these letters is very great. They throw light upon contemporary history, and such as are private, and these are numerous, allow us to look into Alcuin's heart. Many of them, unfortunately, are lost, and some are known to exist unprinted, as in the Cotton collection. Those now printed mostly date from Tours, and so belong to his closing years. They may be roughly divided into three groups:1127 (1) those to English correspondents. These show how dear his native land was to Alcuin, and how deeply interested he was in her affairs. (2) Those to Charlemagne, a large and the most important group.1128  Alcuin speaks with freedom, yet always with profound respect. (3) Those to his bosom friend, Arno of Salzburg.

II. Exegetical Miscellany.1129  (a) Questions and answers respecting the interpretation of Genesis. (b) Edifying and brief exposition of the Penitential Psalms, Psalm CXVIII and the Psalm of Degrees. (c) Short commentary on Canticles. (d) Commentary on Ecclesiastes. (e) A literal, allegorical and moral Interpretation of the Hebrew names of our Lord's ancestors (in which he makes much out of the symbolism of the numbers). (f) Commentary on portions of John's Gospel. (g) On Titus, Philemon, Hebrews.1130  These comments, are chiefly derived from the Fathers, and develop the allegorical and moral sense of Scripture. That on John's Gospel is the most important. The plan of making a commentary out of extracts was quickly followed and was indeed the only plan in general use in the Middle Age.

III. Dogmatic Miscellany.1131  (a) The Trinity, written in 802, dedicated to Charlemagne, a condensed statement of Augustin's teaching on the subject. It was the model for the "Sentences" of the twelfth century. It is followed by twenty-eight questions and answers on the Trinity. (b) The Procession of the Holy Spirit, similarly dedicated and made up of patristic quotations. (c) Brief treatise against the heresy of Felix (Adoptionism). (d) Another against it in seven books. (e) A treatise against Elipandus in four books. (f) Letter against Adoptionism, addressed to some woman. These writings on Adoptionism are very able and reveal learning and some independence.

IV. Liturgical and Ethical Works.1132  (a) The Sacraments, a collection of mass-formulae, from the use of Tours. (b) The use of the Psalms, a distribution of the Psalms under appropriate headings so that they can be used as prayers, together with explanations and original prayers: a useful piece of work. (c) Offices for festivals, the Psalms sang upon the feast days, with prayers, hymns, confessions and litanies: a sort of lay-breviary, made for Charlemagne. (d) A letter to Oduin, a presbyter, upon the ceremony of baptism. (e) Virtues and vices, dedicated to Count Wido, compiled from Augustin. (f) The human soul, addressed in epistolary form to Eulalia (Gundrada), the sister of Adalhard, abbot of Corbie, in France. (g) Confession of sins, addressed to his pupils at St. Martin's of Tours.

V. Hagiographical Works.1133  (a) Life of St. Martin of Tours, rewritten from Sulpicius Severus. (b) Life of St. Vedast, bishop of Atrebates (Arras), and (c) Life of the most blessed presbyter Requier, both rewritten from old accounts. (d) Life of St. Willibrord, bishop of Utrecht, his own ancestor, in two books, one prose, the other verse. This is an original work, and valuable as history.

VI. Poems.1134  The poetical works of Alcuin are very numerous, and of very varied character, including prayers, inscriptions for books, churches, altars, monasteries, etc., epigrams, moral exhortations, epistles, epitaphs, enigmas, a fable,1135 and a long historical poem in sixteen hundred and fifty-seven lines upon the bishops and saints of the church of York from its foundation to the accession of Eanbald.1136  It is very valuable. In its earlier part it rests upon Bede, but from the ten hundred and seventh line to the close upon original information. It seems to have been written by Alcuin in his youth at York. Its style is evidently influenced by Virgil and Prudentius.

VII. Pedagogical Works.1137  (a) Grammar. (b) Orthography. (c) Rhetoric. (d) Dialectics. (e) Dialogue between Pippin and Alcuin1138  (f) On the courses and changes of the moon and the intercalary day (Feb. 24th). These works admit us into Alcuin's school-room, and are therefore of great importance for the study of the learning of his day.

VIII. Dubious Works.1139 (a) A confession of faith, in four parts, probably his. (b) Dialogue between teacher and pupils upon religion. (c) Propositions. (d) Poems.

IX. Pretended Works1140 (a) The holy days. (b) Four homilies. (c) Poems.

 

 § 160. St. Liudger.

 

I. S. Liudgerus, Minigardefordensis Episcopus: Opera, in Migne, Tom. XCIX. col. 745-820.

II. The old Lives of S. Liudger are four in number. They are found in Migne, but best in Die Vitae Sancti Liudgeri ed. Dr. Wilhelm Diekamp. Münster, 1881 (Bd. IV. of the series: Die Geschichtsquellen des Bisthums Münster). Dr. Diekamp presents revised texts and ample prolegomena and notes. (1) The oldest Vita (pp. 3-53) is by Altfrid, a near relative of Liudger and his second successor in the see of Münster. It was written by request of the monks of Werden about thirty years after Liudger's death, rests directly upon family and other contemporary testimony, and is the source of all later Lives. He probably divided his work into two books, but as the first book is in two parts, Leibnitz, Pertz and Migne divide the work into three books, of which the first contains the life proper, the second the miracles wrought by the saint himself, and the third those wrought by his relics. (2) Vita Secunda (pp. 54-83) was written by a monk of Werden about 850. The so-called second book of this Life really belongs to (3) Vita tertia (pp. 85-134.)  (2) Follows Altfrid, but adds legendary and erroneous matter. (3) Written also by a Werden monk about 890, builds upon (1) and (2) and adds new matter of a legendary kind. (4) Vita rythmica (pp. 135-220), written by a Werden monk about 1140. Biographies of Liudger have been recently written in German by Luise von Bornstedt (Münster, 1842); P. W. Behrends (Neuhaldensleben u. Gardelegen, 1843); A. Istvann (Coesfeld, 1860); A. Hüsing (Münster, 1878); L. Th. W. Pingsmann (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1879). Cf. Diekamp's full bibliography, pp. CXVIII.-CXMI. For literary criticism see Ceillier, XII. 218. Hist. Lit. de la France, V. 57-59. Ebert, II. 107, 338, 339.

 

Liudger, or Ludger, first bishop of Münster, was born about 744 at Suecsnon (now Zuilen) on the Vecht, in Frisia. His parents, Thiadgrim and Liafburg, were earnest Christians. His paternal grandfather, Wursing, had been one of Willibrord's most zealous supporters (c. 5).1141  He early showed a pious and studious disposition (c. 7). He entered the cloister school of Utrecht, taught by the abbot Gregory, whose biographer he became, laid aside his secular habit and devoted himself to the cause of religion. His proficiency in study was such that Gregory made him a teacher (c. 8). During the year 767 he received further instruction from Alcuin at York, and was ordained a deacon (c. 9). In 768 he was in Utrecht; but for the next three years and a half with Alcuin, although Gregory had been very loath to allow him to go the second time. He would have staid longer if a Frisian trader had not murdered in a quarrel a son of a count of York. The ill feeling which this event caused, made it unsafe for any Frisian to remain in York, and so taking with him "many books" (copiam librorum), he returned to Utrecht (c. 10). Gregory had died during his absence (probably in 771), and his successor was his nephew, Albric, a man of zeal and piety. Liudger was immediately on his return to York pressed into active service. He was sent to Deventer on the Yssel in Holland, where the, saintly English missionary Liafwin had just died. A horde of pagan Saxons had devastated the place, burnt the church and apparently undone Liafwin's work (c. 13). Liudger was commissioned to rebuild the church and to bury the body of Liafwin, which was lost. Arrived at the spot he was at first unsuccessful in finding the body, and was about to rebuild the church without further search when Liafwin appeared to him in a vision and told him that his body was in the south wall of the church, and there it was found (c. 14). Albric next sent him to Frisia to destroy the idols and temples there. Of the enormous treasure taken from the temples Charlemagne gave one-third to Albric. In 777 Albric was consecrated bishop at Cologne, and Liudger at the same time ordained a presbyter.

For the next seven years Liudger was priest at Doccum in the Ostergau, where Boniface had died, but during the three autumn months of each year he taught in the cloister school at Utrecht (c. 15). At the end of this period Liudger was fleeing for his life, for the pagan Wutukint, duke of the Saxons, invaded Frisia, drove out the clergy, and set up the pagan altars. Albric died of a broken heart, unable to stand the cruel blow. Liudger with two companions, Hildigrim and Gerbert, retired to Rome, where for two and a half years he lived in the great Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino (c. 18). There he not only had a pleasant retreat but also opportunity to study the working of the Benedictine rule. He did not, however, take monastic vows.

His fame for piety and learning had meanwhile reached the ears of Charlemagne,—probably through Alcuin,—and so on his return the emperor assigned to his care five Frisian districts (Hugmerchi, Hunusga, Fuulga, Emisga, Fedirga) upon the eastern side of the river Labekus (Lauwers), and also the island of Bant. His success as missionary induced him to undertake an enterprise in which even Willibrord had failed. He sailed over the German Ocean to Heligoland, then called Fosetelant (the land of the god Fosete). His confidence was justified by events. He made many converts, among them the son of the chief of the island who became a priest and a missionary. Shortly after on the mainland there was another irruption of pagans from East Frisia, and the usual disheartening scenes of burnt churches, scattered congregations, and martyred brethren were enacted. But once more the Christian faith conquered (c. 19). Charlemagne's continued regard for Liudger was proved by his gift to him of the abbey Lothusa (probably Zele, near Ghent in Belgium), in order that its revenues might contribute to his support, or that being far from Frisia he might retreat thither in times of danger; and further by his appointment of him to the bishopric of Mimigernaford (later form Mimigardevord, now Münster, so called from the monasterium which he built there), in Westphalia, which was now sufficiently christianized to be ruled ecclesiastically. He still had under his care the five districts already named, although so far off. At first these charges were held by him as a simple presbyter, and in that capacity he carried out one of his darling purposes and built the famous monastery of Werden1142 on the Ruhr, formerly called Diapanbeci. But persuaded by Hildebald he became the first bishop of Münster (c. 20). The year of this event is unknown, but it was between 802 and 805.1143  Tireless in his activity he died in the harness. On Sunday, March 26, 809, he preached and performed mass at Coesfeld and at Billerbeck. In the evening he died (Acta II. c. 7). He was buried at Werden, which thus became a shrine of pilgrims.

The only extant writing of Liudger is his Life of St. Gregory,1144 which gives a pleasing picture of the saint, in whose school at Utrecht many famous men, including bishops, were trained. Twelve of its twenty-two chapters are taken up with Boniface. Much of the matter is legendary. He also wrote a life of Albric,1145 which is lost. His connection with Helmstedt is purely imaginary. The Liudger Monastery there was not founded by him, for it dates from the tenth century. The colony of monks may, however, have well come from Werden, and have therefore given the name Liudger to the monastery.

 

 § 161. Theodulph of Orleans.

 

I. Theodulph, Aurelianensis episcopus: Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. CV. col. 187-380. His Carmina are in Dümmler's Poëtae Lat. aev. Car. I. 2. pp. 437-58l, 629, 630.

II. L. Baunard: Théodulfe, Orleans, 1860. Rzehulka: Theodulf, Breslau, 1875 (Dissertation). Cf. the general works, Mabillon: Analecta, Paris, 1675. Tom. I. pp. 386 sqq.; Tiraboschi: Historia della letteratura italiana new ed. Florence. 1805-18, 20 parts, III. l. pp. 196-205 (particularly valuable for its investigation of the obscure points of Theodulph's life). Du Pin, VI. 124; Hist. Lit. de la France, IV. 459-474; Ceillier, XII. 262-271, Bähr, 91-95, 359, 860; Ebert, II. 70-84.

 

Theodulph, bishop of Orleans, one of the most useful churchmen of the Carolingian period, was probably born in Spain,1146 past the middle of the eighth century. In 788 he attracted the notice of Charlemagne, who called him into France and made him abbot of Fleury and of Aignan, both Benedictine monasteries in the diocese of Orleans, and later bishop of Orleans. He stood in high favor with his king and was entrusted with important commissions. He participated in the council of Frankfort (794); was made missus dominicus1147 in 798; accompanied Charlemagne to Rome, sat as one of the judges in the investigation of the charges against Leo III. (800) and received from the supreme pontiff the pallium (801).1148  He succeeded Alcuin (804) as first theological imperial counsellor. In 809 he sat in the council of Aix la Chapelle and by request of the emperor collected the patristic quotations in defence of the Filioque clause. In 811 he was witness to the emperor's will. Louis the Pious, Charlemagne's son and successor, for a time showed him equal honor and confidence, for instance in appointing him to meet Pope Stephen V. when he came to the coronation at Rheims (816). But two years afterwards he was suspected, it would seem without good reason, of complicity in king Bernard's rebellion, and on Easter 818 was deposed and imprisoned at Angers, in the convent either of St. Aubin or of St. Serge. He stoutly persisted in his declaration of innocence, and in 821 he was released and reinstated, but died1149 on his way back or shortly after his arrival in Orleans, and was buried in Orleans Sept. 19, 821.

Theodulph was an excellent prelate; faithful, discreet and wise. He greatly deplored the ignorance of his clergy and earnestly labored to elevate them. To this end he established many schools, and also wrote the Capitula ad presbyteros parochicae suae mentioned below. In this work he was particularly successful. The episcopal school of Orleans was famous for the number, beauty and accuracy of the MSS. it produced. In his educational work he enjoyed the assistance of the accomplished poet Wulfin. Theodulph was himself a scholar, well read both in secular and religious literature.1150  He had also a taste for architecture, and restored many convents and churches and built the splendid basilica at Germigny, which was modelled after that at Aix la Chapelle. His love for the Bible comes out not only in the revision of the Vulgate he had made, and practically in his exhortation to his clergy to expound it, but also in those costly copies of the Bible which are such masterpieces of calligraphy.1151  He was moreover the first poet of his day, which however is not equivalent to saying that he had much genius. His productions, especially his didactic poems, are highly praised and prized for their pictures of the times, rather than for their poetical power. From one of his minor poems the interesting fact comes out that he had been married and had a daughter called Gisla, who was the wife of a certain Suavaric.1152

The extant prose works of Theodulph are: 1. Directions to the priests of his diocese,1153 written in 797. They are forty-six in number and relate to the general and special duties of priests. The following are some of the more instructive directions: Women must not approach the altar during the celebration of mass (c. 6). Nothing may be kept in the churches except holy things (c. 8). No one save priests and unusually holy laity may be buried in churches (c. 9). No woman is allowed to live in the house with a priest (c. 12). Priests must not get drunk or frequent taverns (c. 13). Priests may send their relatives to monastic schools (c. 19). They may keep schools themselves in which free instruction is given (c. 20). They must teach everybody the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed (c. 22). No work must be done on the Lord's Day (c. 24). Priests are exhorted to prepare themselves to preach (c. 28). Daily, honest confession of sins to God ensures pardon; but confession to a priest is also enjoined in order that through his counsels and prayers the stain of sin may be removed (c. 30). True charity consists in the union of good deeds and a virtuous life (c. 34). Merchants should not sell their souls for filthy lucre (c. 35). Regulations respecting fasting (c. 36-43). All should come to church to celebrate mass and hear the preaching, and no one should eat before communicating (c. 46). 2. To the same, a treatise upon sins and their ecclesiastical punishment; and upon the administration of extreme unction.1154  3. The Holy Spirit.1155  The collection of patristic passages in defense of the Filioque, made by order of Charlemagne (809), as mentioned above. It has a metrical dedication to the emperor. 4. The ceremony of baptism,1156 written in 812 in response to Charlemagne's circular letter on baptism which Magnus, archbishop of Sens (801-818), had forwarded to him. It consists of eighteen chapters, which minutely describe all the steps in the ceremony of baptism. 5. Fragments of two sermons.1157

The Poetical works of Theodulph are divided into six books.1158  The first is entirely devoted to one poem; The exhortation to judges,1159 in which besides describing a model judge and exhorting all judges to the discharge of their duties he relates his own experiences while missus and thus gives a most interesting picture of the time.1160  The second book contains sixteen pieces, including epitaphs, and the verses which he wrote in the front of one of his illuminated Bibles giving a summary in a line of each book, and thus revealing his Biblical scholarship. The verses are prefaced in prose with a list of the books. The third book contains twelve pieces, including the verses to Gisla already mentioned. The fourth book contains nine pieces, the most interesting of which are c.1 on his favorite authors, and c.2 on the seven liberal arts,—grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, music, geometry and astrology. The fifth book contains four pieces: Consolation for the death of a certain brother, a fragment On the seven deadly sins, An exhortation to bishops, and four lines which express the evangelical sentiment that only by a holy life is heaven gained; without it pilgrimages avail nothing. The sixth book contains thirty pieces. Ten other poems appear in an appendix in Migne.1161

 

 § 162. St. Eigil.

 

I. Sanctus Eigil, Fuldensis abbas: Opera, in Migne, Tom. CV. col. 381-444. His Carmina are in Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, ed. Dümmler I. 2  (Berlin, 1881).

II. S. Eigilis vita auctore Candido monacho Fuldensi, in Migne CV. col. 383-418.  Hist. Lit. de la France, IV. 475-478. Ceillier, XII. 272, 273. Ebert, II. Cf. Carl Schwartz: Uebersetzung und Bemerkungen zu Eigil's Nachrichten über die Gründung und Urgeschichte des Klosters Fulda. Fulda, 1858.

 

Eigil was a native of Noricum, the name then given to the country south of the Danube, around the rivers Inn and Drave, and extending on the south to the banks of the Save. In early childhood, probably about 760, he was placed in the famous Benedictine monastery of Fulda in Hesse, whose abbot, its founder Sturm (Sturmi, Sturmin), was his relative. There Eigil lived for many years as a simple monk, beloved and respected for piety and learning. Sturm was succeeded on his death (779) by Baugolf, and on Baugolf's resignation Ratgar became abbot (802). Ratgar proved to be a tyrant,1162 and expelled Eigil because he was too feeble to work. In 817, Ratgar was deposed, and the next year (818) Eigil was elected abbot. A few months afterwards, Ratgar appeared as a suppliant for readmission to the monastery. "It was not in Eigil's power to grant this request, but his influence was used to gain for it a favorable response at court [i.e. with Louis the Pious], and Ratgar for thirteen years longer lived a submissive and penitent member of the community which had suffered so much at his hands.1163  This single incident in the life of Eigil goes far to prove his right to the title of saint.

Loath as he had been to accept the responsible position of abbot in a monastery which was in trouble, he discharged its duties with great assuiduity. He continued Ratgar's building operations, but without exciting the hatred and rebellion of his monks. On the contrary, Fulda once more prospered, and when he died, June 15, 822, he was able to give over to his successor and intimate friend, Rabanus Maurus, a well ordered community.

The only prose writing of Eigil extant is his valuable life of Sturm.1164  It was written by request of Angildruth, abbess of Bischofheim, and gives an authentic account of the founding of Fulda. Every year on Sturm's day (Dec. 17) it was read aloud to the monks while at dinner. Eigil's own biography was written by Candidus, properly Brunn, whom Ratgar had sent for instruction to Einhard at Seligenstadt, and who was principal of the convent school under Rabanus Maurus. The biography is in two parts, the second being substantially only a repetition in verse of the first.1165

 

 § 163. Amalarius.

 

I. Symphosius Amalarius: Opera omnia in Migne, Tom. CV. col. 815-1340. His Carmina are in Dümmler, Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, I.

II Du Pin, VII. 79, l58-160. Ceillier, XII. 221-223. Hist. Lit. de la France, IV. 531-546. Clarke, II. 471-473. Bähr, 380-383. Hefele, IV. 10, 45, 87, 88. Ebert, II. 221, 222.

 

Amalarius was a deacon and priest in Metz, and died in 837, as abbot of Hornbach in the same diocese. It is not known when or where he was born. During the deposition of Agobard (833-837), Amalarius was head of the church at Lyons. He was one of the ecclesiastics who enjoyed the friendship of Louis the Pious, and took part in the predestination controversy, but his work against Gottschalk, undertaken at Hincmar's request, is lost. He was prominent in councils. Thus he made the patristic compilation from the Fathers (particularly from Isidore of Seville) and councils upon the canonical life, which was presented at the Diet at Aix-la-Chapelle in 817,1166 and partly that upon image-worship in the theological congress of Paris, presented Dec. 6, 825. In 834, as representative of Agobard, he held a council at Lyons and discoursed to the members for three days upon the ecclesiastical offices, as explained in his work mentioned below. The majority approved, but Florus of Lyons did not, and sent two letters to the council at Diedenhofen, calling attention to Amalarius insistence upon the use of the Roman order and his dangerous teaching: that there was a threefold body of Christ, (1) the body which he had assumed, (2) the body which he has in us so long as we live, (3) the body which is in the dead. Hence the host must be divided into three parts, one of which is put in the cup, one on the paten and one on the altar, corresponding to these three forms respectively. Farther he was charged with teaching that the bread of the Eucharist stood for the body, the wine for the soul of Christ, the chalice for his sepulchre, the celebrant for Joseph of Arimathea, the archdeacon for Nicodemus, the deacons for the apostles, the sub-deacons for the women at the sepulchre. But the council had business in hand of too pressing a character to admit of their investigating these charges. Not discouraged, Florus sent a similar letter to the council of Quiercy (838), and by this council the work of Amalarius was censured.1167

His writings embrace (1) Rules for the canonical life,1168 already referred to. It treats of the duties of ecclesiastics of all grades.

(2) Four books upon The ecclesiastical offices.1169  It was written by request of Louis the Pious, to whom it is dedicated, and was completed about 820. In order to make it better, Amalarius pursued special investigations in Tours, at the monastery of Corbie, and even went to Rome. In 827 he brought out a second and greatly improved edition. In its present shape the work is important for the study of liturgics, since it describes minutely the exact order of service as it was observed in the Roman church in the ninth century. If Amalarius had been content to have given merely information it would have been better for his reputation. As it was he attempted to give the reasons and the meanings of each part of the service, and of each article in any way connected with the service, and hence was led into wild and often ridiculous theorizing and allegorizing. Thus the priest's alb signifies the subduing of the passions, his shoes, upright walking; his cope, good works; his surplice, readiness to serve his neighbors; his handkerchief, good thoughts, etc.

(3) On the order of the anthems,1170 i.e.  in the Roman service. It is a compilation of the antiphones of the Roman and French. churches.

(4) Eclogues on the office of the Mass,1171 meaning again the Roman mass. This insistence upon the Roman order was directed against Archbishop Agobard of Lyons, who had not only not adopted the Roman order, but had expurgated the liturgy of his church of everything which in his judgment savored of false doctrine or which was undignified in liturgical expression.

(5) Epistles.1172  The first letter, addressed to Jeremiah, archbishop of Sens, on the question whether one should write Jhesus or Jesus. The second is Jeremiah's reply, deciding in favor of Jhesus. In the third, Amalarius asks Jonas of Orleans whether one should use I H C or I H S as a contraction of Jesus. Jonas favored I H S. The fourth is on the Eucharist. Rantgarius is his correspondent. Amalarius maintains the Real Presence. He says the first cup at supper signified the Old Testament sacrifices, the figure of the true blood, which was in the second cup. The fifth letter is to Hetto, a monk, who had asked whether "seraphin" or "seraphim" is the correct form. Amalarius replies with learned ignorance that both are correct, for "seraphin" is neuter and "seraphim," masculine!  The sixth is the most important of the series. It is addressed to a certain Guntrad, who had been greatly troubled because Amalarius had spit shortly after having partaken of the Eucharist, and therefore had voided a particle of the body of Christ. Amalarius, in his reply, says that he had so much phlegm in his throat that he was obliged to spit very frequently. He did not believe, however, that God would make that which helped his bodily injure his spiritual health. He then goes on to say that the true honor of the body of Christ is by the inner man, into which it enters as life. Hence if one who inwardly revered the host should accidentally or unavoidably spit out a fragment of the host he must not be judged as thereby dishonoring the body of Christ. He thus touches, without passing judgment upon, the position of the Stercoranists. The last letter is only a fragment and is so different in style from the former that it probably is not by Amalaritius of Metz.

 

 § 164. Einhard.

 

I. Einhardus: Opera in Migne, Tom. CIV. col. 351-610; and Vita Caroli in Tom. XCVII. col. 25-62; also complete Latin and French ed. by A. Teulet: OEuvres complètes d'Éginhard, réunies pour la première fois et traduites en français. Paris, 1840-43, 2 vols. The Annales and Vita of Migne's ed. are reprinted from Pertz's Monumenta Germaniae historica (I. 135-189 and II. 433-463, respectively); separate ed. of the Vita, Hannover, 1839. The best edition of the Epistolae and Vita, is in Philipp Jaffé: Monumenta Carolina, Berlin, 1867, pp. 437-541; and of the Passio Marcellini et Petri is in Ernest Dümmler; Poëtae Latini aevi Carolini, Tom. II. (Berlin, 1884), pp. 125-135. Teulet's translation of Einhard's complete works has been separately issued, Paris, 1856. Einhard's Vita Caroli has been translated into German by J. L. Ideler, Hamburg, 1839, 2 vols. (with very elaborate notes), and by Otto Abel, Berlin, 1850; and into English by W. Glaister, London, 1877, and by Samuel Epes Turner, New York, 1880. Einhard's Annales have been translated by Otto Abel (Einhard's Jahrbücher), Berlin, 1850.

II. Cf. the prefaces and notes in the works mentioned above. Also Ceillier, XII. 352-357. Hist. Lit. de la France, IV. 550-567. Bähr, 200-214. Ebert, II. 92-104. Also J. W. Ch. Steiner: Geschichte und Beschreibung der Stadt und ehemal Abtei Seligenstadt. Aschaffenburg, 1820.

 

Einhard (or Eginhard),1173 the biographer of Charlemagne and the best of the historians of the Carolingian age, was the son of Einhard and Engilfrita, and was born about 770, in that part of the Valley of the Main which belongs to Hesse-Darmstadt. His family was noble and his education was conducted in the famous Benedictine monastic school of St. Boniface at Fulda, to which his parents sent gifts.1174  About 792 the abbot Baugolf sent him to the court of Charlemagne, in order that his already remarkable attainments might be increased and his ability find ample scope. The favorable judgment and prophecy of Baugolf were justified by events. He soon won all hearts by his amiable disposition and applause by his versatile learning. He married Imma, a maiden of noble family, sister of Bernharius, bishop of Worms, and with her lived very happily for many years.1175  She bore him a son named Wussin who became a monk at Fulda. He enjoyed the Emperor's favor to a marked degree,1176 and figured in important and delicate matters. Thus he was sent in 806 to Rome to obtain the papal signature to Charlemagne's will dividing the empire among his sons.1177  Again in 813 it was he who first suggested the admission of Louis to the co-regency. He superintended the building operations of Charlemagne, e.g. at Aix la Chapelle (Aachen), according to the ideas of Vitruvius, whom he studied diligently.1178  His skill as a craftsman won him the academic title of Bezaleel.1179  He pursued his studies and gathered a fine library of classic authors. He edited the court annals.1180  Charlemagne's death (814) did not alter his position. Louis the Pious retained him as councillor and appointed him in 817 instructor to his son Lothair. When trouble broke out (830) between father and son he did his best to reconcile them.

Although a layman he had received at different times since 815 a number of church preferments. Louis made him abbot of Fontenelle in the diocese of Rouen, of St. Peter's of Blandigny and St. Bavon's at Ghent, of St. Servais' at Maestricht, and head of the church of St. John the Baptist at Pavia. On Jan. 11, 815, Louis gave Einhard and Imma the domains of Michelstadt and Mulinheim in the Odenwald on the Main; and on June 2 of that year he is first addressed as abbot.1181  As the political affairs of the empire became more complicated he withdrew more and more from public life, and turned his attention to literature. He resigned the care of the abbey of Fontenelle in 823, and after administrating other abbeys sought rest at Michelstadt. There he built a church in which he put (827) the relics of the saints Marcellinus and Petrus which had been stolen from the church of St. Tiburtius near Rome.1182  A year later, however, he removed to Mulinheim, which name he changed to Seligenstadt; there he built a splendid church and founded a monastery. After his unsuccessful attempt to end the strife between Louis and Lothair he retired altogether to Seligenstadt. About 836 he wrote his now lost work upon the Worship of the Cross, which he dedicated to Servatus Lupus.1183  In 836 his wife died. His grief was inconsolable, and aroused the commiseration of his friends;1184 and even the emperor Louis made him a visit of condolence.1185  But he carried his burden till his death on March 14, 840. He is honored as a saint in the abbey of Fontenelle on February 20. His epitaph was written by Rabanus Maurus.

He and his wife were originally buried in one sarcophagus in the choir of the church in Seligenstadt, but in 1810 the sarcophagus was presented by the Grand Duke of Hesse to the count of Erbach, who claims descent from Einhard as the husband of Imma, the reputed daughter of Charlemagne. The count put it in the famous chapel of his castle at Erbach in the Odenwald.

Einhard was in stature almost a dwarf, but in mind he was in the esteem of his contemporaries a giant. His classical training fitted him to write an immortal work, the Life of Charlemagne. His position at court brought him into contact on terms of equality with all the famous men of the day. In youth he sat under Alcuin, in old age he was himself the friend and inspirer of such a man as Servatus Lupus. His life seems to have been on the whole favored, and although a courtier, he preserved his simplicity and purity of character.

His Writings embrace:

1. The Life of the Emperor Charlemagne.1186  This is one of the imperishable works in literature. It is a tribute of sincere admiration to one who was in many respects the greatest statesman that ever lived. It was Einhard's ambition to do for Charlemagne what Suetonius had done for Augustus. Accordingly he attempted an imitation of Suetonius in style and as far as possible in contents,1187 and it is high praise to say that Einhard has not failed. The Life is the chief source of knowledge about Charlemagne personally, and it is so written as to carry the stamp of candor and truth, so that his private life stands revealed and his public life sufficiently outlined. Einhard began it soon after Charlemagne's death (814) and finished it about 820. It quickly attained a wide-spread and enthusiastic reception.1188  It was looked upon as a model production. Later writers drew freely upon it and portions were rendered into verse.1189  It is not, however, entirely free from inaccuracies, as the critical editions show.

2. The Annals of Lorsch.1190  Einhard edited and partly rewrote them from 741 to 801,1191 and wrote entirely those from 802 to 829. These annals give a brief record of the events of each year from the beginning of Pepin's reign till the withdrawal of Einhard from court.

3. Account of the removal of the relics of the blessed martyrs Marcellinus and Petrus.1192  This is a very extraordinary narrative of fraud and cunning and "miracles." In brief it very candidly states that the relics were stolen by Deusdona, a Roman deacon, Ratleik, Einhard's representative and Hun, a servant of the abbey of Soissons. But after they had been safely conveyed from Rome they were openly exhibited, and very many "miracles" were wrought by them, and it was to relate these that the book was written.

4. The Passion of Marcellinus and Petrus1193 is a poem of three hundred and fifty-four trochaic tetrameters. It has been attributed to Einhard, but the absence of all allusion to the removal of the relics of these saints renders the authorship very doubtful. 1194

5. Letters.1195  There are seventy-one in all; many of them defective. They are mostly very brief and on matters of business. Several are addressed to Louis and Lothair, and one to Servatus Lupus on the death of his (Einhard's) wife, which deserves particular attention.

 

 § 165. Smaragdus.

 

I. Smaragdus, abbas monasterii Sancti Michaelis Virdunensis: Opera omnia in Migne, Tom. CII. cols. 9-980: with Pitra's notes, cols. 1111-1132. His Carmina are in Dümmler, Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, I. 605-619.

II. Hauréau: Singularités historiques et littéraires. Paris, 1861 (pp. 100 sqq.) H. Keil: De grammaticis quibusdam latinis infimae aetatis (Program) . Erlangen, 1868. Hist. Lit. de la France, IV. 439-447. Ceillier, XII. 254-257. Bähr, 362-364. Ebert, II. 108-12.

 

Of the early life of Smaragdus nothing is known. He joined the Benedictine order of monks, and after serving as principal of the convent school was elected about 805 abbot of the monastery on Mt. Castellion. Sometime later he moved his monks a few miles away and founded the monastery of St. Mihiel on the banks of the Meuse, in the diocese of Verdun. He was a man of learning and of practical activity. In consequence he was highly esteemed by the two monarchs under whom he lived, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious. The former employed him to write the letter to Pope Leo III. in which was communicated the decision of the council of Aix la Chapelle (809) respecting the adoption of the Filioque, and sent him to Rome with the commissioners to lay the matter before the pope. He acted as secretary, and drew up the protocol. Louis the Pious showed him equal consideration, richly endowed his monastery, and in 824 appointed him to act with Frotharius, bishop of Toul (813837) as arbitrator between Ismund, abbot of Milan, and his monks. Smaragdus died about 840.

His writings show diligence and piety, but no originality. His published works in prose are: (1) Collections of Comments on the Epistle and Gospel for each holy day in the year, 1196 an uncritical but comprehensive compilation from numerous ecclesiastical writers, prepared for the use of preachers, and described by the author as a liber comitis. (2) The monk's diadem, 1197 a collection in one hundred chapters of ascetic rules and reflections concerning the principal duties and virtues of the monastic life. It is for the most part a compilation. The sources are the Collectiones patrum of Cassian and the writings of Gregory the Great. Smaragdus made it after his elevation to the abbotship and enjoined its daily evening reading upon his monks.1198  It proved to be a very popular work, was widely circulated during the Middle Age, and has been repeatedly published .1199  (3) Commentary upon the rule of St. Benedict 1200 undertaken in aid of the monastic reforms instituted by the council of Aix la Chapelle (817). It is characterized by great strictness. (4) The Royal way1201  dedicated to Louis the Pious while king of Aquitania.1202  it consists of thirty-two chapters of moral and spiritual counsels, which if faithfully followed will conduct an earthly king into the heavenly kingdom. The work is really only an adaptation of the Diadem to the wants of the secular life. (5) Acts of the Roman conference,1203 the protocol already alluded to. (6) Epistle of Charles the Great to Leo the Pope upon the procession of the Holy Spirit,1204 the letter mentioned above. (7) Epistle of Frotharius and Smaragdus to the Emperor Louis,1205 the report of the arbitrators. (8) A larger grammar or a commentary upon Donatus.1206  His earliest work, written at the request of his scholars, probably between 800 and 805. It is still unprinted, except a small portion.1207  There yet remain in MS. a Commentary on the Prophets, and a History of the Monastery of St. Michael 1208  Smaragdus also wrote poetry. Besides a hymn to Christ,1209 there have been preserved his metrical introductions to his Collections and Commentary on the rule of St. Benedict, of which the first has twenty-nine lines in hexameter, and the second thirty-seven distichs.

 

 § 166. Jonas of Orleans.

 

I. Jonas, Aurelianensis episcopus: Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. CVI. col. 117-394.

II. Du Pin, VII. 3, 4. Ceillier, XII. 389-394. Hist. Lit. de la France, V. 20-31. Bähr, 394-398. Ebert, II. 225-230.

 

Jonas was a native of Aquitania, and in 821 succeeded Theodulph as archbishop of Orleans. In the first year of his episcopate he reformed the convent at Mici, near Orleans, and thereby greatly extended its usefulness. His learning in classical and theological literature joined to his administrative ability made him a leader in important councils, and also led to his frequent employment by Louis the Pious on delicate and difficult commissions. Thus the emperor sent him to examine the administration of the law in certain districts of his empire, and in 835 to the monasteries of Fleury and St. Calez in Le Mains. His most conspicuous service was, however, in connection with the gathering of bishops and theologians held at Paris in Nov. 825 to consider the question of image-worship. The emperor sent him and Jeremiah, archbishop of Sens, to Rome to lay before the pope that part of the collection of patristic quotations on the subject made by Halitgar and Amalarius, which was most appropriate. 1210  The issue of this transaction is unknown. He was the leading spirit in the reform council of Paris (829), and probably drew up its acts;1211 and again at Diedenhofen, where, on March 4, 835, he dictated the protocol of Ebo's deposition.1212  He died at Orleans in 843 or 844.

His Writings are interesting and important, although few.

1. The layman's rule of life,1213 in three books, composed in 828 for Mathfred, count of Orleans, who had requested instruction how to lead a godly life while in the bonds of matrimony. The first and last books are general in their contents, but the second is for the most part specially addressed to married people. As might be expected Jonas takes strong ground against vice in all its forms and so his work has great value in the history of ethics. It is very likely that the second book was composed first.1214

 2. The Kings rule of life,1215 written about 829 and dedicated to Pepin. Both the above-mentioned works are little more than compilations from the Bible and the fathers, especially from Augustin, but the author's own remarks throw a flood of light upon the sins and follies of his time.1216

 3. The Worship of Images.1217  This is his chief work, and a very important one. It is in three books, and was written against Claudius of Turin. It was nearly finished at the time of the latter's death (839), and then laid aside since Jonas fancied that the bold position of Claudius would scarcely be assumed by any one else. But when he found that the pupils and followers of Claudius were propagating the same opinions he took up his book again and finished it about 842. It had been begun at the request of Louis the Pious; but he having died in 840, Jonas dedicated the work to his son, Charles the Bald, in a letter in which the above-mentioned facts about its origin are stated. Jonas opposes Claudius with his own weapons of irony and satire, gives his portrait in no flattering colors and even ridicules his latinity. The first book defends the use of images (pictures), the invocation and worship of the saints, the doctrine of their intercession, and the veneration due to their relics, but asserts that the French do not worship images. The second book defends the veneration of the cross, and the third pilgrimages to Rome.

4. History of the translation of the relics of Saint Hubert.1218  Hubert, patron saint of hunters, died in 727 as first bishop of Liége, and was buried there in St. Peter's church. In 744 he was moved to another portion of the church, but in 825 bishop Walcand of Liége removed his relics to the monastery of Andvin which he had reestablished, and it is this second translation which Jonas describes.

 

 § 167. Rabanus Maurus.

 

I. Rabanus Maurus: Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. CVII.-CXII. His Carmina are in Dümmler's Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, II. 159-258. Migne's edition is a reprint, with additions, of that of Colvenerius, Cologne, 1617, but is not quite complete, for Dümmler gives new pieces, and others are known to exist in MS.

II. The Prolegomena in Migne, CVII. col. 9-106, which contains the Vitae by Mabillon, Rudolf, Raban's pupil, and by Trithemius. Johann Franz Buddeus: Dissertatio de vita ac doctrina Rabani Mauri Magnentii, Jena, 1724. Friedrich Heinrich Christian Schwarz: Commentatio de Rabano Mauro, primo Germaniae praeceptore (Program). Heidelberg, 1811. Johann Konrad Dahl: Leben und Schriften des Erzbischofs Rabanus Maurus. Fulda, 1828. Nicolas Bach: Hrabanus Maurus; der Schöpfer des deutschen Schulwesens (Program). Fulda, 1835. Friedrich Kunstmann: Hrabanus Magnentius Maurus. Mainz, 1841. Theodor Spengler: Leben des heiligen Rhabanus Maurus. Regensburg, 1856. Köhler: Hrabanus Maurus und die Schule zu Fulda (Dissertation). Leipzig, 1870. Richter: Babanus Maurus. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Paedagogik im Mittelalter (Program). Malchin, 1883. Cf. E. F. J. Dronke: Codex dip Fuld. Cassel, 1850. J. Bass Mullinger: The Schools of Charles the Great. London, 1877, pp. 188-157. J. F. Böhmer: Regesten zur Gesch. d. Mainzer Erzbischöfe, ed. C. Will. 1. Bd. a.d. 742-1160. Innsbruck, 1877.

III. Du Pin, VII. 160-166. Ceillier, XII. 446-476. Hist. Lit. de la France, V. 151-203. Bähr, 415-447. Ebert, II. 120-145.

 

His Life.

 

Magnentius Hrabanus Maurus is the full name, as written by himself,1219 of one of the greatest scholars and teachers of the Carolingian age. He was born in Mainz1220 about 776. At the age of nine he was placed by his parents in the famous Benedictine monastery of Fulda, in the Grand-duchy of Hesse, which was then in a very flourishing condition under Baugolf (780-802). There he received a careful education both in sacred and secular learning, for Baugolf was himself a classical scholar. Raban took the monastic vows, and in 801 was ordained deacon. In 802 Baugolf died and was succeeded by Ratgar. The new abbot at first followed the example of his predecessor, and in order to keep up the reputation of the monastery for learning he sent the brightest of the inmates to Tours to receive the instruction of Alcuin, not only in theology but particularly in the liberal arts. Among them was Raban, who indeed had a great desire to go. The meeting of the able and experienced, though old, wearied and somewhat mechanical teacher, and the fresh, vigorous, insatiable student, was fraught with momentous consequences for Europe. Alcuin taught Raban far more than book knowledge; he fitted him to teach others, and so put him in the line of the great teachers—Isidore, Bede, Alcuin. Between Alcuin and Raban there sprang up a very warm friendship, but death removed the former in the same year in which Raban returned to Fulda (804), and so what would doubtless have been a most interesting correspondence was limited to a single interchange of letters.1221

Raban was appointed principal of the monastery's school. In his work he was at first assisted by Samuel, his fellow-pupil at Tours, but when the latter was elected bishop of Worms Raban carried on the school alone. The new abbot, Ratgar, quickly degenerated into a tyrant with an architectural mania. He begrudged the time spent in study and instruction. Accordingly he chose very effective measures to break up the school. He took the books away from the scholars and even from their principal, Raban Maur.1222  In 807 the monastery was visited with a malignant fever, and a large proportion of the monks, especially of the younger ones, died, and many left. Thus by death and defection the number was reduced from 400 to 150, but those who remained had to work all the harder. It was probably during this period of misrule and misery that Raban made his journey to Palestine, to which, however, he only once alludes.1223  On December 23, 814, he was ordained priest.1224

In 817 Ratgar was deposed and Raban's friend Eigil elected in his place.1225  With Eigil a better day dawned for the monastery. Raban was now unhampered in teaching and able once more to write. The school grew so large that it had to be divided. Those scholars who were designed for the secular life were taught in a separate place outside the monastery. The library was also much increased.

In 822 Eigil died and Raban was elected his successor. He proved a good leader in spiritual affairs. He took personal interest in the monks, and frequently preached to them. He paid particular attention to the education of the priests. He compiled books for their especial benefit, and as far as possible taught in the school, particularly on Biblical topics. The principal of the school under him was Canadidus, already mentioned as the biographer of Eigil.1226  His most famous pupils belong to this period: Servatus Lupus, Walahfrid Strabo (826-829) and Otfrid. He showed his passion for collecting relics, which he enshrined in a very costly way. He also built churches and extended the influence of Fulda by colonizing his monks in different places, adding six affiliated monasteries to the sixteen already existing.

In the spring of 842 Raban laid down his office and retired to the "cell" on the Petersberg, in the neighborhood of Fulda. There he thought he should be able to end his days in literary activity undisturbed by the cares of office. To this end he called in the aid of several assistants and so worked rapidly. But he was too valuable a man to be allowed to retire from active life. Accordingly on the death of Otgar, archbishop of Mainz (April 21, 847), he was unanimously elected by the chapter, the nobility and the people of Mainz his successor. He reluctantly consented, and was consecrated June 26, 847. In October of that year he held his first synod in the monastery of St. Alban's, Mainz. It was a provincial council by command of Louis the German. Among the notables present were his suffragans, Samuel of Worms, his former fellow-teacher, Ebo of Hildesheim, Haymo of Halberstadt, his fellow-student under Alcuin, and also Ansgar of Hamburg, who had come to plead for the Northern mission. This synod renewed the command to the priests to preach. In this act Raban is recognized. On October 1, 848, a second synod was held at Mainz, which is memorable as the first in which the Gottschalk matter was discussed. Gottschalk had been a pupil at Fulda and his course had incurred the anger of Raban, who accordingly opposed him in the council. The result was that the synod decided adversely to Gottschalk and sent him for judgment to Hincmar. In the Annals of Fulda begun by Enhard (not to be confounded with Einhard), and continued by Rudolf, it is gratefully recorded that during the great famine in Germany in 850 Raban fed more than 300 persons daily in the village of Winzel.1227  In October, 851 or 852, Raban presided over a third synod at Mainz, which passed a number of reform canons; such as one forbidding the clergy to hunt, and another anathematizing a layman who withdrew from a priest who had been married, thinking it wrong to receive the eucharist from such a one.1228

Raban died at Mainz Feb. 4, 456, and was buried in the monastery of St. Alban's. He wrote his own epitaph which is modest yet just. In 1515 Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg removed his bones to Halle.

 

His Position And Influence.

 

Raban was one of the most eminent men in the ninth century for virtue, piety and scholarship. As pupil he was unremitting in his pursuit of learning; as teacher he was painstaking, inspiring and instructive; as abbot he strove to do his whole duty; as archbishop he zealously contended for the faith regardless of adversaries; according to his own motto, "When the cause is Christ's, the opposition of the bad counts for naught." He bore his honors modestly, and was free from pride or envy. While willing to yield to proper demands and patient of criticism, he was inflexible and rigorous in maintaining a principle. He had the courage to oppose alone the decision of the council of 829 that a monk might leave his order. He denied the virtues of astrology and opposed trial by ordeal. He early declared himself a friend of Louis the Pious and plainly and earnestly rebuked the unfilial conduct of his sons. After the death of Louis he threw in his fortune with Lothair and the defeat of the latter at Fontenai, June 25, 841, was a personal affliction and may have hastened his resignation of the abbotship, which took place in the spring of the following year. The relations, however, between him and his new king, Louis the German, were friendly. Louis called him to his court and appointed him archbishop of Mainz.

Raban's permanent fame rests upon his labors as teacher and educational writer. From these he has won the proud epithet, Primus Germaniae Praeceptor. The school at Fulda became famous for piety and erudition throughout the length and breadth of the Frankish kingdom. Many noble youth, as well as those of the lower classes, were educated there and afterwards became the bishops and pastors of the Church of Germany. No one was refused on the score of poverty. Fulda started the example, quickly followed in other monasteries, of diligent Bible study. And what is much more remarkable, Raban was the first one in Germany to conduct a monastic school in which many boys were trained for the secular life.1229  It is this latter action which entitles him to be called the founder of the German school system. The pupils of Raban were in demand elsewhere as teachers; and princes could not find a better school than his for their sons. One of the strongest proofs of its excellence is the fact that Einhard, himself a former pupil at Fulda, and now a great scholar and teacher, sent his son Wussin there, and in a letter still extant exhorts his son to make diligent use of his rare advantages, and above all to attend to what is said by that "great orator," Raban Maur.1230  Raban's encyclopaedia, The Universe, attests his possession of universal learning and of the power to impart it to others. So, while Alcuin was his model, he enlarged upon his master's conception of education, and in himself and his works set an example whose influence has never been lost.

 

His Writings.

 

Raban was a voluminous author. But like the other writers of his time, he made mostly compilations from the Fathers and the later ecclesiastics. He was quick to respond to the needs of his day, and to answer questions of enquiring students. He betrays a profound acquaintance with the Holy Scripture. His works may be divided into seven classes.

I. Biblical. (1) Commentaries upon the whole Bible, except Ezra, Nehemiah, Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, the Minor Prophets, Catholic Epistles and Revelation. He commented also on the Apocryphal books, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus and Maccabees.1231  These commentaries were probably in part compiled by his pupils, under his direction. They preserved a knowledge both of the Bible and of the Fathers in an age when books were very scarce and libraries still rarer. A single fact very strikingly brings out this state of things. Frechulf, bishop of Lisieux, in urging Raban to comment on the Pentateuch, states that in his diocese there were very few books of any kind, not even a whole Bible, much less any complete exposition of it.1232  Raban thus gives his views of biblical interpretation:1233 "If any one would master the Scriptures he must first of all diligently find out the amount of history, allegory, anagoge and trope there may be in the part under consideration. For there are four senses to the Scriptures, the historical, the allegorical, the tropological and the anagogical, which we call the daughters of wisdom. Through these Wisdom feeds her children. To those who are young and beginning to learn she gives the milk of history; to those advancing in the faith the bread of allegory; those who are truly and constantly doing good so that they abound therein she satisfies with the savory repast of tropology; while, finally, those who despise earthly things and ardently desire the heavenly she fills to the full with the wine of anagoge."

In accordance with these principles his commentaries' except that of Matthew, the earliest issued (819), contain very little proper exegesis, but a great deal of mystical and spiritual interpretation. The labor in their composition must have been considerable, but he carried it on for twenty years. He did not always copy the exact language of his sources, but reproduced it in his own words. He was particular to state the place of his excerpts. Each successive commentary had a separate dedication. Thus, those on Judith and Esther were dedicated to the empress Judith, because, he says, she resembled the Hebrew heroines; that on Chronicles to Louis the Pious, her husband, as a guide in government; that on Maccabees to Louis the German; that on Jeremiah to Lothair.

(2) He also prepared a commentary in the same style upon the Biblical hymns sung in morning worship.1234

(3) Scripture Allegories1235 a conveniently arranged dictionary, in alphabetical order of terms which were defined allegorically. Thus, "Annus is the time of grace, as in Isaiah [lxi. 2], 'the acceptable year of the Lord.' Also, the multitude of the redeemed, as in Job iii. 6, 'let it not be joined unto the days of the year' among the elect who are saved. Also the eternity of Christ, as in Psalm cii. 24, 'thy years are throughout all generations,' because the eternity of God lasts forever. It also signifies our life, as in Psalm xc. 9, 'our years are thought upon as if a cobweb' (Vulg.) i.e., our life rushes along in emptiness and corruption."1236

(4) The life of Mary Magdalene and her sister Martha.1237  It includes the related sections of our Lord's life and the legendary history of the sisters, and is in its way an interesting work. But he confounds Mary the sister of Lazarus with Mary of Magdala, and the latter again with the woman that was a sinner. Hence after declaring that Mary was a miracle of beauty he is obliged to touch upon her unchastity prior to her meeting with Christ.

II. Educational. (1) The Institutes of the clergy.1238  This important work was written in 819 in answer to numerous requests. It is in three books, prefaced by a poetical epigram. The prose preface gives an outline of the work, and states its sources. The work is very largely directly compiled from Augustin's De doctrina Christiana, Cassiodorus' Institutiones, and Gregory's Cura pastoralis. The first book of Raban's Institutes relates to ecclesiastical orders, clerical vestments, the sacraments,1239 and the office of the mass. The second book relates to the canonical hours, the litany, fasting, alms, penance, the feasts, prayers for the dead, singing of psalms and hymns, reading of the Scriptures, the creed and gives a list of the heresies. The third book treats of the education requisite to make an efficient servant of the church. It is noteworthy that he lays primary stress upon a knowledge of the Scriptures,1240 and gives directions for their study and explanation. He then passes on to discuss the components of education as then conducted, i.e. the seven liberal arts, and closes with directions how to speak and teach with the best results. He properly remarks that the preacher should have regard to the age, sex, and failings of his audience. He is to come forth as God's spokesman, and if he is truly a man of God he will be upheld by divine power. This is the proper spirit. Man is nothing. God is everything. "Let him who glorieth glory in Him in whose hand both we and our sermons are."1241

(2) On Computation.1242  It was written in 820, and is in the form of a dialogue between a master and his disciple. Much of it was copied verbatim from Bede's De temporum ratione, Isidore's Etymologies, and Boëthius' Arithmetic. But the resulting work marked an advance in instruction in the important matter of computing numbers, times and seasons.

(3) The Universe.1243  Isidore of Seville had already set the example of preparing an encyclopedia of universal knowledge, and Raban in his Universe merely reproduces Isidore's Etymologies, with some difference in the arrangement of the material, and with the addition of allegorical and spiritual matter, interpretations of the names and words, together with many quotations of Scripture. The work was one of the early fruits of his learned leisure, being written about 844. It is in twenty-two books, the number in the Hieronymian canon of the Old Testament, and is dedicated to Haymo of Halberstadt, and to King Louis. It begins with the doctrine of God, and the first five books relate to religion and worship. The remaining books relate to secular things, ranging from man himself, considered as an animal, through the beasts to the starry heavens, time and the divisions of time, the waters on and under the earth, the clouds above it, and the earth itself. He then speaks of mountains and valleys and divers places; of public buildings and their parts; of philosophy and linguistics, stones and metals, weights and measures, diseases and remedies, trees and plants, wars and triumphs, shows and games, pictures and colors, dress and ornaments, food and drink, vehicles and harness.

(4) Excerpt from Priscian's Grammar,1244 an abridged edition of a standard grammar. It is almost entirely confined to prosody, but it served to introduce Priscian into schools.1245

(5) The holy orders, divine sacraments and priestly garments.1246

(6) Ecclesiastical discipline.1247  The last two treatises, made during the author's archiepiscopate, are merely extracts from the Institutes, with slight alterations.

(7) The parts of the human body, in Latin and German.1248  This glossary, was drawn up by Walahfrid Strabo from Raban's lectures. At the end are the months and the winds in Latin and German.1249

(8) The invention of languages1250 [letters], a curious collection of alphabets—Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Scythian and Runic, with the names of the supposed inventors. The little tract also includes the commonest abbreviations and monograms.

III. Occasional writings, i.e., upon current questions and in answer to questions. (1) The oblation of boys,1251 the famous treatise in which Raban argued against the position the Mainz Council of 829 had taken in allowing Gottschalk to leave his order. Gottschalk produced two arguments, the first that it was not right to compel a person to remain a monk just because his parents had in his infancy, or immature youth put him in a monastery. The second was that the oblation of a minor must be established by a properly qualified witness, and that in his case only Saxons could give such testimony, since, according to Saxon law, it was illegal to deprive a Saxon of his liberty on the testimony of a non-Saxon. Raban tries to refute him upon both points. He shows that both the Scriptures and the Fathers by precept and example allow of the consecration of children, and in relation to the second point he rejoins:  As if the service of Christ deprived a man of his liberty and nobility!"1252  But the real objection to Gottschalk's second argument was the latter's assertion that Frankish testimony could not be received. This roused Raban's patriotism and incited his eloquence. "Who does not know," he says, "that the Franks were Christians long before the Saxons?  Yet the latter, contrary to all human and divine law, arrogate to themselves the right to reject Frankish testimony."1253  Having thus answered Gottschalk, he proves by the Bible his third argument, that a vow to God must not be broken. His final point is that monasticism is a divine institution. In this treatise he does not name Gottschalk, but the reference is unmistakeable. His whole conduct towards the unfortunate Gottschalk was intolerant.

(2) The reverence of children to their parents, and of subjects to their king.1254  This was addressed to Louis the Pious after his deposition and imprisonment in the year 833. By Biblical quotations he shows that God has commanded children to honor their parents and subjects their kings, and has put his curse upon those who do not. Then coming directly to the point he makes the application to the existing circumstances, and calls the sons of Louis to obedience. He defends Louis against the charge of homicide in executing Bernard; and finally addressing the emperor he comforts him in his sorrow and counsels him to exercise clemency when he is restored to power. The whole treatise does great credit to Raban's head and heart.

(3) On the degrees of relationship within which marriage is permissible.1255

(4) Magic arts.1256  Raban was singularly free from the superstitions of his time, for in the second part of this tract, written in 842, he takes strong ground against necromancy in all its forms, of which he gives an interesting catalogue, and while explaining the appearance of ghosts, evil spirits and similar supposed existences on the ground of demoniac influence, he yet admits the possibility that the senses may be deceived. Curiously enough, he cites in point the appearance of Samuel to Saul. He denies the reality of Samuel's appearance and holds that Saul was deceived by the devil; for two reasons, (1) the real Samuel, the man of God, would not have permitted the worship which Saul paid to the supposed Samuel; (2) the real Samuel was in Abraham's bosom; he would, therefore, not say to the impious king, "To-morrow thou shalt be with me."1257

(4) A Response to certain Canonical Questions of the Suffragan Bishop Reginald.1258

(5) Whether it is permissible for a suffragan bishop to ordain priests and deacons with the consent of his bishop.1259  He replies in the affirmative.

IV. Writings upon Penance. (1) Two Penitentials.1260  They give the decisions of councils respecting penance. (2) Canonical questions relating to penance.1261  (3) The virtues and vices and the satisfaction for sin.1262

V. Miscellaneous. (1) Homilies.1263  There are two collections, the first seventy in number upon the principal feasts and on the virtues; the second, one hundred and sixty-three upon the Gospels and Epistles. The first collection must have been made earlier than 826, for it is dedicated to bishop Haistulf, who died in that year. The most of these homilies were doubtless actually delivered by Raban. The sermons of Leo the Great, Augustin, Alcuin and others have been liberally drawn on, and so the homilies are compilations in great measure, like the rest of his works. Yet a few are apparently original and have the greatest interest, inasmuch as they treat of the vices then current and so furnish a picture of the times.1264

(2) Treatise on the Soul.1265  It is an extract with slight additions from Cassiodorus' De Anima, as he acknowledges in his preface to king Lothair. To it are appended extracts from the De disciplina Romanae militiae of Flavius Vegetius Renatus. The reason given for this strange appendix is "the frequent incursions of the Barbarians." The treatise was perhaps the last product of Rabanus.1266

(3) A martyrology.1267  The saints for the different days are noted, in most cases merely the name is given, in others there are short sketches. Its principal source is Jerome. It was prepared at the request of Ratleik, who stole the relics of SS. Marcellinus and Petrus for Einhard; and is prefaced by a short poem addressed to the abbot Grimold.

(4) The vision of God, purity of heart and mode of penance.1268  Three books dedicated to the abbot Bonosus (Hatto). The first is mostly extracted from Augustin's De vivendo Deo; the second and the third from other old sources.

(5) The Passion of our Lord,1269 a brief and pious meditation upon our Lord's sufferings.

VI. Letters. (1) A letter to Bishop Humbert upon lawful degrees of relationship between married persons.1270  (2) Seven miscellaneous letters.1271  Epist. i. to suffragan bishop Regimbald on discipline. Epist. iii. to Eigil against Radbertus's view of the Lord's Supper. Epist. iv. v. vi. to Hincmar, Notingus and Count Eberhard upon predestination. Epist. vii. to Louis the German; the acts of the Mainz council of 848. Epist. viii. on Gottschalk, a synodical letter to Hincmar.

VII. Poems. Raban was no poetic genius; yet he had carefully studied prosody and he was able to write verses to his friends and for different occasions.1272  He also wrote some epitaphs, including his own. His most extraordinary production is a long poem, "The praise of the Cross." This was begun at the suggestion of Alcuin in Tours, but not completed until 815. It is a monument of misdirected skill and patience. He presents twenty-eight drawings by his friend Hatto. Some are geometrical, others are of persons or objects. The page on which is the drawing is filled in by a stanza of the poem, the letters of which are regularly spaced and some are purposely arranged in prominent and peculiar positions so that they catch the eye and form other words. Each stanza is followed by an explanatory section in prose, and the second book is a prose treatise upon the subject. The whole is prefaced by three poems; the first pleads for the intercession of Alcuin, the second is the dedication to the Pope, and the third, "The figure Of Caesar" is the dedication to Louis the Pious. Alcuin had written a poem, "On the Holy Cross," upon a somewhat similar plan. So that the suggestion may have come from him, but the idea may be traced to Fortunatus. This poem of Raban Maur was very popular in the Middle Age and was considered a marvel of ingenuity.

The hymns of Raban are few in number, for although many have been attributed to him his right to most of them is very doubtful.

 

 § 168. Haymo.

 

I. Haymo, Halberstatensis episcopus: Opera, in Migne, Tom. CXVI.-CXVIII.

II. Paul Anton: De vita et doctrina Haymonis, Halle, 1700, 2d ed. 1705; C. G. Derling: Comm. Hist. de Haymone, Helmstädt, 1747. Ceillier XII. 434-439. Hist. Lit. de la France, V. 111-126. Bähr, 408-413.

 

Haymo (Haimo, Aymo, Aimo) was a Saxon, and was probably born about 778. He took monastic vows at Fulda, was sent by, his abbot (Ratgar) with his intimate friend Rabanus Maurus in 803 to Tours to study under Alcuin; on his return he taught at Fulda until in 839 he was chosen abbot of Hirschfeld. In 841 he was consecrated bishop of Halberstadt. In 848 he sat in the Council of Mayence which condemned Gottschalk. He founded at considerable expense the cathedral library of Halberstadt, which unfortunately was burnt in 1179. He died March 27, 853. He was an excellent scholar. As an exegete he was simple and clear, but rather too verbal.

His writings are voluminous, and were first published by the Roman Catholics in the Reformation period (1519-36). They teach a freer and less prejudiced Catholic theology than the Tridentine. Thus he denies that Peter founded the Roman church, that the pope has universal supremacy, and rejects the Paschasian doctrine of transubstantiation. His works consist principally of (1) Commentaries.1273  He wrote or compiled upon the Psalms, certain songs in the Old Testament, Isaiah, the Minor Prophets, Canticles, Pauline Epistles and the Apocalypse.

Besides these commentaries, (2) Homilies,1274 upon the festivals of the church year and (3) Miscellanies, "The Body and Blood of the Lord,"1275 which is an extract from his commentary on 1st Cor., "Epitome of sacred history,"1276 substantially though not entirely an extract from Rufinus' Latin translation of Eusebius' "Ecclesiastical history," and an ascetic piece in three books, "The love for the heavenly country."1277

 

 § 169. Walahfrid Strabo.

 

I. Walafridus Strabus, Fuldensis monachus: Opera, in Migne, Tom. CXIII.-CXIV. His Carmina have been edited in a very thorough manner by Ernst Dümmler: Poetae Latini aevi Carolini. Tom. II. (Berlin, 1884), pp. 259-473.

II. For his life see the Preface of Dümmler and Ebert, II. 145-166. Cf. also for his works besides Ebert, Ceillier, XII. 410-417; Hist. Lit. de la France, V. 59-76; Bähr, pp. 100-105, 398-401.

 

Walahfrid, poet and commentator, theologian and teacher, was born of obscure parentage in Alemannia about 809, and educated in the Benedictine abbey school of Reichenau on the island in Lake Constance. His cognomen Strabus or, generally, Strabo was given to him because he squinted, but was by himself assumed as his name.1278  From 826 to 829 he studied at Fulda under Rabanus Maurus. There he formed a friendship with Gottschalk, and there he appears to have lived all alone in a cell, the better perhaps to study.1279  On leaving Fulda he went to Aix la Chapelle, and was befriended by Hilduin, the lord chancellor, who introduced him to the emperor Louis the Pious. The latter was much pleased with him and appreciating his scholarship made him tutor to his son Charles. The empress Judith was also particularly friendly to him. In 838 Louis the Pious appointed him abbot of Reichenau, but two years later Louis the German drove him from his post and he went to Spires, where he lived until 842, when the same Louis restored him to his abbotship, probably at the solicitation of Grimald, his chancellor.1280  In 849 he went over to France on a diplomatic mission from Louis the German to Charles the Bald, but died on August 18th of that year while crossing the Loire, and was buried at Reichenau.1281

Walahfrid was a very amiable, genial and witty man, possessed remarkable attainments in both ecclesiastical and classical literature, and was moreover a poet with a dash of genius, and in this latter respect is a contrast to the merely mechanical versifiers of the period. He began writing poetry while a mere boy, and in the course of his comparatively brief life produced many poems, several of them of considerable length.

His Writings embrace

1. Expository Works. 1. Glosses,1282 i.e., brief notes upon the entire Latin Bible, including the Apocrypha; a very meritorious compilation, made especially from Augustin, Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, and Bede, with very many original remarks. This work was for five hundred years honored by the widest use in the West. Peter Lombard quotes it as "the authority" without further designation; and by many its notes have been given equal weight with the Bible text they accompany. It was one of the earliest printed works, notwithstanding its extent.1283  2. Exposition of the first twenty Psalms,1284 rather allegorical than really explanatory. 3. Epitome of Rabanus Maurus' Commentary on Leviticus.1285  This work is an indication of Walahfrid's reverence for his great teacher. 4. Exposition of the Four Evangelists.1286  It was formerly printed among the works of Jerome. The notes are brief and designed to bring out the "inner sense." 5. The beginnings and growth of the divine offices.1287  This valuable and original work upon the archeology of the liturgy was written about 840 at the request of Reginbert, the learned librarian of the abbey of Reichenau, who desired more accurate information upon the origin of the different parts of the liturgy. The supplementary character of the work explains its lack of system. Walahfrid treats in disconnected chapters of temples and altars; bells; the derivation of several words for holy places; the use of "pictures," as ornaments and aids to devotion, but not as objects of worship; the things fitting divine worship; "the sacrifices of the New Testament" (in this chap., No. XVI., he dissents from the transubstantiation theory of Radbertus, saying, Christ "after the Paschal supper gave to his disciples the sacrament of his body and blood in the substance of the bread and wine and taught them to celebrate [the sacrament] in memory of his passion"1288); then follow a number of chapters upon the Eucharist; sacred vestments; canonical hours and hymns; baptisms; titles, &c. The work closes with a comparison of ecclesiastical and secular dignities.

II. A Homily on the Fall of Jerusalem.1289  Walahfrid gives Josephus' account of the fall of the city and then proceeds to the spiritual application of our Lord's prophetic discourse (Matt. xxiv.).

III. Biographies. 1. Life of the Abbot St. Gall,1290 the apostle of Switzerland (d. 645 or 646). It is not original, but a rewriting of the life by Wettin, Walahfrid's honored teacher at Reichenau. Walahfrid reproduced the same in verse.1291  2. Life of St. Othmar, abbot of St. Gall,1292 similarly reproduced. 3. The prologue to his edition of Einhard's Life of Charlemagne, which gives valuable information about Einhard.1293

IV. Poetry. 1. The Vision of Wettin.1294  This is the oldest of his poems, dating according to his own assertion from his eighteenth year1295 (i.e., c. 826). It is not original, but a versification, with additions, of the prose work of Heito. The ultimate source is Wettin himself, who relates what he saw (October 824) on his journey, under angelic guidance, to Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. The fact that Wettin was very sick at the time explains the occasion of the vision and his reading its contents, but the poem is interesting not only in itself, but as a precursor of Dante's Divine Comedy.1296  2. The Life and Death of St. Mammes,1297 an ascetic from childhood, who preached to the wild sheep gathered by a strange impulse in a little chapel. This extraordinary performance attracted adverse notice from the authorities. Mammes was accused of witchcraft and, on refusing to sacrifice to the gods, also of atheism. His enemies vainly attempted to kill him by fire, by wild beasts, and by stoning. Finally he was peacefully called from life by the voice of God. 3. The Life and Death of St. Blaithmaic, abbot of Hy and martyr.1298  It relates how an Irish crown prince embraced an ascetic life in childhood and attained a martyr's crown on the island of Hy. 4. Garden-culture,1299 a curious poem upon the plants in the convent garden. 5. On the Image of Tetricus1300 (Dietrich), an ingenious poem in laudation of Louis the Pious and his family.1301  6. Miscellaneous Poems,1302 including epistles, epigrams, inscriptions and hymns.

 

 § 170. Florus Magister, of Lyons.

 

I. Florus, diaconus Lugdunensis: Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. CXIX. ol. 9-424. His poems are given by Dümmler: Poet. Lat. aev. Carolini, II. (Berlin, 1884), pp. 507-566.

II. Bach: Dogmengeschichte des Mittelalters, Wien, 1873-1875, 2 Abth. I. 240. Hist. Lit. de la France, V. 213-240. Ceillier, XII. 478-493. Bähr, 108, 109; 447-453. Ebert, II. 268-272.

 

Florus was probably born in the closing year of the eighth century and lived in Lyons during the reigns of Louis the Pious, Charles the Bald and Louis II. He was head of the cathedral school, on which account he is commonly called Florus Magister. He was also a deacon or sub-deacon. He enjoyed a wide reputation for learning, virtue and ability. He stood in confidential relations with his bishop, Agobard, and with some of the most distinguished men of his time. His library was a subject of remark and wonder for its large size.1303

Like every other scholar under Charles the Bald, he made his contribution to the Eucharistic and Predestination controversies. In the former he took the side of Rabanus Maurus and Ratramnus against the transubstantiation theory of Paschasius Radbertus; in the latter he opposed Johannes Scotus Erigena, without, however, going entirely over to the side of Gottschalk. He sat in the council of Quiercy (849), the first one called by Hincmar in the case of Gottschalk. He died about 860.

His complete works are:

1. A patristic cento on the election of Bishops,1304 written in 834, to show that in primitive Christian times the bishops were always chosen by the free vote of the congregation and the clergy. Therefore the interference of the king in such elections, which was one of the growing evils of the time, was unwarranted by tradition and only defensible on the plea of necessity to preserve the union between Church and State.

2. An Exposition of the Mass,1305 compiled, according to his own express statement, for the most part, from Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustin, and other Fathers.

3. A Treatise against Amalarius,1306 in which he supports Agobard against Amalarius, who had explained the liturgy in a mystical and allegorical manner.1307

4. A Martyrology,1308 a continuation of Bede's.

5. Sermon on Predestination.1309

6. A treatise against Scotus Erigena's errors,1310 written in 852 in the name of the church of Lyons. He calls attention to Erigena's rationalistic treatment of the Scriptures and the Fathers; rejects the definition of evil as negation; insists that faith in Christ and an inner revelation are necessary to a right understanding of the Scriptures. It is noticeable that while he censures Erigena for his abuse of secular science, he claims that it has its proper use.1311

7. St. Augustin's Exposition of the Pauline Epistles,1312 long attributed to Bede.

8. Capitulary collected from the Law and the Canons.1313

9. Miscellaneous Poems,1314 which prove him to have had a spark of true poetic genius.1315

10. There is also extant a letter which he wrote to the empress Judith.1316

 

 § 171. Servatus Lupus.

 

I. Beatus Servatus Lupus: Opera, in Migne, Tom. CXIX. col. 423-694 (a reprint of the edition of Baluze. Paris, 1664, 2d ed. 1710). The Homilies and hymns given by Migne (col. 693-700) are spurious.

II. Notitia historica et bibliographica in Servatum Lupum by Baluze, in Migne, l.c. col. 423-6. Nicolas: Étude sur les lettres de Servai Loup, Clermont Ferrant, 1861; Franz Sprotte: Biographie des Abtes Servatus Lupus von Ferrières, Regensburg, 1880. Du Pin, VII. 169-73. Ceillier, XII. 500-514. Hist. Lit. de la France, V. 255-272. Bähr, 456-461. Ebert, II. 203-209. J. Bass Mullinger: The Schools of Charles the Great. London, 1877, pp. 158-170. For Lupus' part in the different councils he attended, see Hefele: Conciliengeschichte, IV. passim.

 

Lupus, surnamed Servatus,1317 was descended from a prominent family. He was born in Sens (70 miles S. E. of Paris) in the year 805 and educated in the neighboring Benedictine monastery of SS. Mary and Peter anciently called Bethlehem, at Ferrières, then under abbot Aldrich, who in 829 became archbishop of Sens, and died early in 836. He took monastic vows, was ordained a deacon and then taught in the convent-school until in 830 on advice of Aldrich he went to Fulda. Einhard, whose life of Charlemagne had already deeply impressed him,1318 was then abbot of Seligenstadt, only a few miles away, but his son Wussin was being educated at Fulda, and it was on a visit that he made to see his son that Lupus first met him. With him and with the abbot of Fulda, the famous Rabanus Maurus, he entered into friendship. It was he who incited Rabanus to make his great compilation upon the Epistles of Paul;1319 and to him Einhard dedicated his now lost treatise De adoranda cruce.1320  He pursued his studies at Fulda and also gave instruction until the spring of 836, when he returned to Ferrières.1321  He then took priest's orders and taught grammar and rhetoric in the abbey school. In 837 he was presented at the court of Louis the Pious, and by special request of the empress Judith appeared the next year (Sept. 22, 838).1322  The favor showed him led him naturally to expect speedy preferment, but he was doomed to disappointment. In the winter of 838 and 839 he accompanied Odo, who had succeeded Aldrich, to Frankfort,1323 where the emperor Louis spent January and February, 839. Louis died in 840 and was succeeded by Charles the Bald. In 842 Charles deposed Odo because of his connection with Lothair, and by request of the emperor the monks elected Lupus their abbot, Nov. 22, 842,1324 and the emperor confirmed the election. It was with difficulty that Odo was removed. The year 844 was an eventful one with Lupus. The monks of Ferrières were bound yearly to supply money and military service to Charles, and Lupus had to take the field in person.1325  In this year he went against the rebellious Aquitanians. On June 14th he was taken prisoner by them in the battle of Angoulême, but released after a few days by intervention of Turpio, count of Angoulême, and on July 3d he was back again in Ferrières. Later on he was sent by Charles, with Prudentius, bishop of Troyes, to visit the monasteries of Burgundy, and at the close of the year he sat in the council of Verneuil, and drew up the canons.1326  Can. XII. is directed against the king's seizure on ecclesiastical property. His own special grievance was that Charles had rewarded the fidelity of a certain Count Odulf by allowing him the revenues of the cell or monastery of St. Judocus on the coast of Picardy (St. Josse sur mer), which had belonged to Alcuin, but was given to Ferrières by Louis the Pious, and the loss of which greatly crippled his already expensive monastery.1327  It was not, however, until 849 that the cell was restored. This is the more strange because Charles had a high regard for his learning and diplomatic skill, as is shown by his employment of Lupus in delicate public business. Thus in 847 Lupus sat in the peace congress at Utrecht between Lothair, Louis and Charles the Bald. In midsummer 849 Charles sent him to Leo IV. at Rome concerning the ecclesiastical encroachments of the Breton Duke Nominoi. In the spring of 853 he sat in the council of Soissons and took Hincmar's side regarding the deposition of those priests whom Ebo had ordained, after his own deposition in 835. In the same year he attended the convocation of the diocese of Sens and there sided with Prudentius against Hincmar's deliverances in the Gottschalk controversy. It is supposed that he was also at the council of Quiercy, 857, because his Admonitio1328 is written in the spirit of the deliberations of that council respecting the troubles of the times. In 858 he was sent on diplomatic business to Louis the German. But in the same year he was forced by the exigencies of the times to deposit the abbey's valuables with the monks of St. Germain Auxerrois for safe keeping. In 861 Foleric of Troyes offered protection to his monastery. In 862 he was at Pistes, and drew up the sentence of the Council against Robert, archbishop of Mans. As after this date all trace of Lupus is lost, his death during that year is probable,

Servatus Lupus was one of the great scholars of the ninth century. But he gained knowledge under great difficulties, for the stress of circumstances drove him out of the seclusion he loved, and forced him to appear as a soldier, although he knew not how to fight, to write begging letters instead of pursuing his studies, and even to suffer imprisonment. Yet the love of learning which manifested itself in his childhood and increased with his years, notwithstanding the poor educational arrangements at Ferrières,1329 became at length a master passion and dominated his thoughts.1330  It mattered not how pressing was the business in hand, he would not let business drive study out of his mind. He set before him the costly and laborious project of collecting a library of the Latin classics, and applied to all who could assist him, even to the pope (Benedict III.). He was thankful for the loan of codices, so that by comparison he might make a good text. He was constantly at work upon the classics and gives abundant evidence of the culture which such study produces, in his "uncommon skill in the lucid exposition of a subject."1331

His Works are very few. Perhaps the horrible confusion of the period hindered authorship, or like many another scholar he may have shrunk from the labor and the after criticism. In his collected works the first place is occupied by his

1. Letters,1332 one hundred and thirty in number. They prove the high position he occupied, for his correspondents are the greatest ecclesiastics of his day, such as Raban Maur, Hincmar of Rheims, Einhard, Radbert, Ratramn and Gottschalk. His letters are interesting and instructive.1333

2. The Canons of Verneuil, 844.1334  See above.

3. The Three Questions, in 852.1335  They relate to free will, the two-fold predestination, and whether Christ died for all men or only for the elect. It was his contribution to the Gottschalk controversy in answer to Charles the Bald's request. In general he sides with Gottschalk, or rather follows Augustin. In tone and style the book is excellent.

4. Life of St. Maximinus, bishop of Treves.1336  It is in fifteen chapters and was written in 839. It is only a working over of an older Vita, and the connection of Lupus with it is questionable.1337

5. Life of St. Wigbert, in thirty chapters, written in 836 at the request of Bun, abbot of Hersfeld.1338  It tells the interesting story of how Wigbert came from England to Germany at the request of Boniface, how he became abbot of Fritzlar, where he died in 747, how he wrought miracles and how miracles attended the removal of his relics to Hersfeld and were performed at his tomb.

 

 § 172. Druthmar.

 

I. Christianus Druthmarus: Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. CVI. col. 1259-1520.

II. Ceillier, XII. 419-423. Hist. Lit. de la France, V. 84-90. Bähr, 401-403.

 

Christian Druthmar was born in Aquitania in the first part of the ninth century. Before the middle of the century he became a monk of the Benedictine monastery of old Corbie.1339  About 850 he was called thence to the abbey of Stavelot-Malmédy, in the diocese of Liège, to teach the Bible to the monks.1340  It is not known whether he died there or returned to Corbie.

He was a very superior scholar for his age, well versed in Greek and with some knowledge of Hebrew. Hence his epithet, the "Grammarian" (i.e. Philologist). His fame rests upon his Commentary on Matthew's Gospel,1341 a work distinguished for its clearness of statement, and particularly noticeable for its insistence upon the paramount importance of the historic sense, as the foundation of interpretation.1342  To such a man the views of Paschasius Radbertus upon the Lord's Supper could have no attraction. Yet an attempt has been persistently made to show that in his comments upon Matt. 26:26-28, he teaches transubstantiation. Curiously enough, his exact language upon this interesting point cannot be now determined beyond peradventure, because every copy of the first printed edition prepared by Wimphelin de Schelestadt, Strassburg 1514, has perished, and in the MS. in possession of the Cordelier Fathers at Lyons the critical passage reads differently from that in the second edition, by the Lutheran, Johannes Secerius, Hagenau 1530. In the Secerius text, now printed in the Lyons edition of the Fathers, and in Migne, the words are, 26:26, "Hoc est corpus meum. Id est, in sacramento" ("This is my body. That is, in the sacrament," or the sacramental sign as distinct from the res sacramenti, or the substance represented). Matt. 26:28, Transferens spiritaliter corpus in panem, vinum in sanguinem ("Transferring spiritually body into bread, wine into blood").1343  In the MS. the first passage reads: "Id est, vere in sacramento subsistens" ("That is, truly subsisting in the sacrament"); and in the second the word "spiritaliter "is omitted. The Roman Catholics now generally admit the correctness of the printed text, and that the MS. has been tampered with, but insist that Druthmar is not opposed to the Catholic doctrine on the Eucharist.

The brief expositions of Luke and John1344 are probably mere notes of Druthmar's expository lectures on those books, and not the works he promises in his preface to Matthew.1345

 

 § 173. St. Paschasius Radbertus.

 

I. Sanctus Paschasius Radbertus: Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. CXX.

II. Besides the Prolegomena in Migne, see Melchior Hausher: Der heilige Paschasius Radbertus. Mainz 1862. Carl Rodenberg: Die Vita Walae als historische Quelle (Inaugural Dissertation). Göttingen 1877. Du Pin, VII. 69-73, 81. Ceillier, XII. 528-549. Hist. Lit. de la France, V. 287-314. Bähr, 233, 234, 462-471. Ebert, II. 230-244.

 

Radbertus, surnamed Paschasius,1346 the famous promulgator of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, was born of poor and unknown parents, about 790, in or near the city of Soissons in France. His mother died while he was a very little child, and as he was himself very sick he was "exposed" in the church of Soissons. The nuns of the Benedictine abbey of Our Lady in that place had compassion upon him and nursed him back to health.1347  His education was conducted by the adjoining Benedictine monks of St. Peter, and he received the tonsure, yet for a time he led a secular life. His thirst for knowledge and his pious nature, however, induced him to take up again with the restraints of monasticism, and he entered (c. 812) the Benedictine monastery at Corbie, in Picardy, then under abbot Adalhard. There he applied himself diligently to study and to the cultivation of the monastic virtues, and so successfully that he soon won an enviable reputation for ascetic piety and learning. He was well read in classical literature, particularly familiar with Virgil, Horace and Terence, and equally well read in the Fathers. He knew Greek and perhaps a little Hebrew. His qualifications for the post of teacher of the monastery's school were, therefore, for that day unusual, and he brought the school up to a high grade of proficiency. Among his famous pupils were Adalhard the Younger, St. Ansgar, Odo, bishop of Beauvais, and Warinus, abbot of New Corbie. He preached regularly and with great acceptance and was strict in the observance by himself and others, of the Benedictine rule.

In the year 822 he accompanied his abbot, Adalhard, and the abbot's brother and successor, Wala, to Corbie in Saxony, in order to establish there the monastery which is generally known as New Corbie. In 826 Adalbard died, and Wala was elected his successor. With this election Radbertus probably had much to do; at all events, he was deputed by the community to secure from Louis the Pious the confirmation of their choice. This meeting with the emperor led to a friendship between them, and Louis on several occasions showed his appreciation of Radbertus. Thus in 831 he sent him to Saxony to consult with Ansgar about the latter's northern mission, and several times asked his advice. Louis took the liveliest interest in Radbertus's eucharistic views, and asked his ecclesiastics for their opinion.

In 844 Radbertus was elected abbot of his monastery. He was then, and always remained, a simple monk, for in his humility, and probably also because of his view of the Lord's Supper, he refused to be ordained a priest. His name first appears as abbot in the Council of Paris, Feb. 14, 846. He was then able to carry through a measure which gave his monastery freedom to choose its abbot and to govern its own property.1348  These extra privileges are proofs that the favor shown toward him by Louis was continued by his sons. Radbertus was also present in the Council of Quiercy in 849, and joined in the condemnation of Gottschalk. Two years later (851) he resigned his abbotship. He had been reluctant to take the position, and had found it by no means pleasant. Its duties were so multiform and onerous that he had little or no time for study; besides, his strict discipline made his monks restive. But perhaps a principal reason for retiring was the fact that one of his monks, Ratramnus, had ventured to criticize, publicly and severely, his position upon the Eucharist; thus stirring up opposition to him in his own monastery.

Immediately upon his resignation, Radbertus went to the neighboring abbey of St. Riquier, but shortly returned to Corbie, and took the position of monk under the new abbot. His last days were probably his pleasantest. He devoted himself to the undisturbed study of his favorite books and to his beloved literary labors. On April 26, 865,1349 he breathed his last. He was buried in the Chapel of St. John. In the eleventh century miracles began to be wrought at his tomb. Accordingly he was canonized in 1073, and on July 12th of that year his remains were removed with great pomp to St. Peter's Church at Corbie.

The fame of Paschasius Radbertus rests upon his treatise on The body and blood of the Lord,1350 which appeared in 831, and in an improved form in 844. His arguments in it and in the Epistle to Frudegard1351 on the same subject have already been handled at length in this volume.1352  His treatise on The birth by the Virgin,1353 i.e. whether Christ was born in the ordinary manner or not, has also been sufficiently noticed.1354

Besides these Radbertus wrote, 1. An Exposition of the Gospel of Matthew.1355  He explained this Gospel in his sermons to the monks. At their request, he began to write out his lectures, and completed four of the twelve books before his election as abbot, but was then compelled to lay the work aside. The monks at St. Riquier's requested its continuance, and it finally was finished. The special prefaces to each book are worth attentive reading for their information concerning the origin and progress of the commentary, and for the views they present upon Biblical study in general. As the prologue states, the principal sources are Jerome, Ambrose, Augustin, Chrysostom, Gregory the Great, and Bede.1356  Of these, Jerome was most used. His excerpts are not always literal. He frequently alters and expands the expressions.1357  Radbertus was particular to mark on the margin of his pages the names of the authors drawn upon, but in transcribing his marks have been obliterated. His interpretation is rather more literal than was customary, in his day, and he enlivens his pages with allusions to passing events, dwelling especially upon the disorders of the time, the wickedness of the clergy and monks, the abuses of the confessional, and the errors of the Adoptionists, Claudius of Turin and of Scotus Erigena. He also frequently quotes classic authors.1358

2. An Exposition of Psalm XLIV1359  It was written for the nuns of Soissons, to whom he owed his life, and the dedication to them is an integral part of the first of its four books. It is allegorical and very diffuse, but edifying.

3. An Exposition of the Lamentations of Jeremiah.1360  This was the fruit of his old age, and once more, as in his early manhood, he deplored the vices, both lay and clerical, which disgraced his times. His allusion to the Norman incursions in the neighborhood of Paris,1361 which took place in 857, proves that he must have written the work after that date. In his prologue, Radbertus states that he had never read a commentary on Lamentations written by a Latin author. Hence his information must have been derived from Greek sources, and he was unacquainted with the similar work by Rabanus Maurus. He distinguished a triple sense, a literal, spiritual, and a moral, and paid especial regard to types and prophecies, as he considered that there were prophecies in Lamentations which referred to his own day.

4. Faith, Hope and Love.1362  This work is preceded by an acrostic poem, the first letters of each line forming the name "Radbertus Levita." Each of the three books is devoted to one of the Christian virtues. Radbertus wrote the treatise at the request of abbot Wala, for the instruction of the younger monks. The book on faith is remarkable for its statement that faith precedes knowledge, thus antedating the scholastics in their assertion, which is most pregnantly put in the famous expression of Anselm, Credo ut intelligam.1363  The third book, On Love, is much later than the others on account of the author's distractions.

5. Life of Adalhard,1364 the first abbot of New Corbie. It is a panegyric rather than a strict biography, but contains much interesting and valuable information respecting the abbot and the founding of the German monastery of Corbie. The model for the work is the funeral oration of Ambrose upon Valentinian II. Its date is 826, the year of Adalhard's death. It contains much edifying matter.

6. Life of Wala,1365 the brother of Adalhard at Old Corbie, and his successor. It is in the peculiar form of conversations. In the first book the interlocutors are Paschasius, as he calls himself, and four fellow Corbie monks—Adeodatus, Severus, Chremes, Allabicus; and in the second, Paschasius, Adeotatus and Theophrastus. These names are, like Asenius, as he calls Wala, manifestly pseudonyms. He borrowed the idea of such a dialogue from Sulpicius Severus, who used it in his life of St. Martin of Tours. The date of the book is 836, the year of Wala's death.

7. The Passion of Rufinus and Valerius,1366 who were martyrs to the Christian faith, at or near Soissons, in the year 287. In this work he uses old materials, but weakens the interest of his subject by his frequent digressions and long paraphrases.

 

 § 174. Patramnus.

 

I. Ratramnus, Corbeiensis monachus: Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. CXXI. The treatise De corpore et sanguine Domini was first published by Johannes Praël under the title Bertrami presbyteri ad Carolum Magnum imperatorum, Cologne, 1532. It was translated into German, Zürich 1532, and has repeatedly appeared in English under the title, The Book of Bertram the Priest, London 1549, 1582, 1623, 1686, 1688 (the last two editions are by Hopkins and give the Latin text also), 1832; and Baltimore., U. S. A., 1843. The best edition of the original text is by Jacques Boileau, Paris, 1712, reprinted with all the explanatory matter in Migne.

II. For discussion and criticism see the modern works, Du Pin, VII. passim; Ceillier, XII. 555-568. Hist. Lit. de la France, V. 332-351. Bähr, 471-479. Ebert, II. 244-247. Joseph Bach: Dogmengeschichte des Mittelalters, Wien, 1873-75, 2 parts (I. 193 sqq.); Joseph Schwane: Dogmengeschichte der mittleren Zeit, Freiburg in Br., 1882 (pp. 631 sqq.) Also Neander, III. 482, 497-501, 567-68.

 

Of Ratramnus1367 very little is known. He was a monk of the monastery of Corbie, in Picardy, which he had entered at some time prior to 835, and was famed for his learning and ability. Charles the Bald frequently appealed to his judgment, and the archbishop of Rheims gave over to him the defense of the Roman Church against Photius. He participated in the great controversies upon Predestination and the Eucharist. He was an Augustinian, but like his fellows he gathered his arguments from all the patristic writers. In his works he shows independence and ingenuity. One of his peculiarities is, that like Bishop Butler in the Analogy, he does not name those whom he opposes or defends. He was living in 868; how long thereafter is unknown.

He was not a prolific author. Only six treatises have come down to us.

1. A letter upon the cynocephali.1368  It is a very curious piece, addressed to the presbyter Rimbert who had answered his queries in regard to the cynocephali, and had asked in return for an opinion respecting their position in the scale of being. Ratramnus replied that from what he knew about them he considered them degenerated descendants of Adam, although the Church generally classed them with beasts. They may even receive baptism by being rained upon.1369

2. How Christ was born.1370  In this treatise Ratramnus refutes the theory of some Germans that Christ issued from the body of the Virgin Mary in some abnormal way.1371  He maintains on the contrary, that the birth was one of the ordinary kind, except that his mother was before it, during it, and after it a Virgin1372 because her womb, was closed. He compares Christ's birth to his issuing from the sealed tomb and going through closed doors.1373  The book is usually regarded as a reply to the De partu virginis of Radbertus, but there is good reason to consider it independent of and even earlier than the latter.1374

3. The soul (De anima). It exists in MS. in several English libraries, but has never been printed. It is directed against the view of Macarius (or Marianus) Scotus, derived from a misinterpreted sentence of Augustin that the whole human race had only one soul. The opinion was condemned by the Lateran council under Leo X. (1512-17).

4. Divine predestination.1375  It was written about 849 at the request of Charles the Bald, who sought Ratramnus' opinion in the Gottschalk controversy. Ratramnus defended Gottschalk, although he does not mention his name, maintaining likewise a two-fold predestination, regardless of the fact that the synods of Mayence (848) and of Quiercy (849) had condemned it, and Gottschalk had been cruelly persecuted by Hincmar of Rheims. In the first book Ratramnus maintains the predestination of the good to salvation by an appeal to the patristic Scriptural quotations and interpretations upon this point, particularly those of Augustin. In the second book he follows the same method to prove that God has predestinated the bad to eternal damnation. But this is not a predestination to sin. Rather God foresees their determination to sin and therefore withholds his help, so that they are lost in consequence of their own sins.

5. Four books upon the Greeks' indictment of the Roman Church.1376  Like the former work, it was written by request. In 967 Photius addressed a circular letter to the Eastern bishops in which he charged the Roman Church with certain errors in faith and practice: e.g., the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the celibacy of the clergy, the Sabbath and Lent fasts. Nicholas I. called upon his bishops to refute this charge. Hincmar of Rheims commissioned Odo of Beauvais to write an apologetic treatise, but his work not proving satisfactory he next asked Ratramnus. The work thus produced is very famous. The first three books are taken up with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit; but in the fourth he branches out upon a general defense of the ecclesiastical practices of the Latin Church. He does this in an admirable, liberal and Christian spirit. In the first chapter of the fourth book he mildly rebukes the Greeks for prescribing their peculiar customs to others, because the difference in such things is no hindrance to the unity of the faith which Paul enjoins in 1 Cor. i. 10. This unity he finds in the faith in the Trinity, the birth of Christ from a Virgin, his sufferings, resurrection, ascension, session at God's right hand, return to judgment, and in the baptism into Father, Son and Holy Spirit.1377  In the first three chapters of the book he proves this proposition by a review of the condition of the Early Church. He then passes on to defend the Roman customs.1378

6. The Body and Blood of the Lord.1379  This is the most valuable writing of Ratramnus. It is a reply to Paschasius Radbert's book with the same title.1380  It is dedicated to Charles the Bald who had requested (in 944) his opinion in the eucharistic controversy. Without naming Radbert, who was his own abbot, he proceeds to investigate the latter's doctrines. The whole controversy has been fully stated in another section.1381

The book has had a strange fate. It failed to turn the tide setting so strongly in favor of the views of Radbertus, and was in the Middle Age almost forgotten. Later it was believed to be the product of Scotus Erigena and as such condemned to be burnt by the council of Vercelli (1050). The first person to use it in print was John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, who in writing against Oecolampadius quotes from it as good Catholic authority.1382  This called the attention of the Zwinglian party to it and they quickly turned the weapon thus furnished against the Catholics. In the same year in which it was published at Cologne (1532), Leo Judae made a German translation of it (Zürich, 1532) which was used by the Zürich ministers in proof that the Zwinglian doctrine of the Lord's Supper was no novelty.1383  But the fact that it had such a cordial reception by the Reformed theologians made it suspicious in Catholic eyes. The Council of Trent pronounced it a Protestant forgery, and in 1559 it was put upon the Index. The foremost Catholic theologians such as Bellarmin and Allan agreed with the Council. A little later (1571) the theologians of Louvain (or Douay) came to the defense of the book. In 1655 Sainte Beuve formally defended its orthodoxy. Finally Jacques Boileau (Paris, 1712) set all doubt at rest, and the book is now accepted as a genuine production of Ratramnus.

It remains but to add that in addition to learning, perspicuity and judgment Ratramnus had remarkable critical power. The latter was most conspicuously displayed in his exposure of the fraudulent character of the Apocryphal tale, De nativitate Virginis, and of the homily of Pseudo-Jerome, De assumptione Virginis, both of which Hincmar of Rheims had copied and sumptuously bound.

 

 § 175. Hincmar of Rheims.

 

I. Hincmarus, Rhemensis archiepiscopus: Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. CXXV.-CXXVI., col. 648. First collected edition by Sirmond. Paris, 1645.

II. Prolegomena in Migne, CXXV. Wolfgang Friedrich Gess: Merkwürdigkeiten aus dem Leben und Schriften Hincmars, Göttingen, 1806. Prichard: The life and times of Hincmar, Littlemore, 1849. Carl von Noorden: Hinkmar, Erzbischof von Rheims, Bonn, 1863. Loupot: Hincmar, évêque de Reins, sa vie, ses oeuvres, son influence, Reims, 1869. Auguste: Vidieu: Hincmar de Reims, Paris, 1875. Heinrich Schrörs: Hincmar, Erzbischof von Reims, Freiburg im Br., 1884 (588 pages).

III. Cf. also Flodoard: Historia ecclesia, Remensis, in Migne, CXXXV., col. 25-328 (Book III., col. 137-262, relates to Hincmar); French trans. by Lejeune, Reims, 1854, 2 vols. G. Marlot: Histoire de Reims, Reims, 1843-45, 3 vols. F. Monnier: Luttes politiques et religieuses sous les Carlovingiens, Paris, 1852. Max Sdralek: Hinkmar von Rheims kanonistisches Gutachten über die Ehescheidung des Königs Lothar II. Freiburg im Br., 1881. Du Pin, VII. 10-54. Ceillier, XII. 654-689, Hist. Lit. de la France, V., 544-594 (reprinted in Migne, CXXV. col. 11-44). Bähr, 507-523. Ebert, II. 247-257. Hefele: Conciliengeschichte, 2d ed. IV. passim.

 

Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, was born of noble and distinguished ancestry, probably in the province of that name,1384 in the year 806. His name is also spelled Ingumar, Ingmer and Igmar. He was educated in the Benedictine monastery of St. Denis, near Paris, under abbot Hilduin. When the latter was appointed (822) chancellor to Louis the Pious he took young Hincmar to court with him. There his talents soon brought him into prominence, while his asceticism obtained for him the especial favor of Louis the Pious. This interest he used to advance the cause of reform in the monastery of St. Denis, which had become lax in its discipline, and when the Synod of Paris in 829 appointed a commission to bring this about he heartily co-operated with it, and entered the monastery as a monk. In 830, Hilduin was banished to New Corbie, in Saxony, for participation in the conspiracy of Lothair against Louis the Pious. Hincmar had no part in or sympathy with the conspiracy, yet out of love for Hilduin he shared his exile. Through his influence with Louis, Hilduin was pardoned and re-instated in his abbey after only a year's absence. Hincmar for the next nine or ten years lived partly at the abbey and partly at court. He applied himself diligently to study, and laid up those stores of patristic learning of which he afterwards made such an effective use. In 840 Charles the Bald succeeded Louis, and soon after took him into his permanent service, and then began that eventful public life which was destined to render him one of the most famous of churchmen. After his ordination as priest in 844, Charles the Bald gave him the oversight of the abbeys of St. Mary's, at Compiegne, and of St. Germer's, at Flaix. He also gave him an estate,1385 which he made over to the hospice of St. Denis, on his elevation to the archiepiscopate. In December, 844, Hincmar took a prominent part in the council at Verneuil, and in April of the following year at the council of Beauvais he was elected by the clergy and people of Rheims to be their archbishop. This choice being ratified by Charles the Bald, and the permission of his abbot being received, he was consecrated by Rothad, bishop of Soissons, archbishop of Rheims and metropolitan, May 3, 845.

No sooner had he been established in his see and had secured from Charles the restitution of all property that belonged to it, than trouble broke out. His diocese had fallen into more or less disorder in consequence of the ten years which had elapsed between Ebo's deposition and his election. Hincmar's first trouble came from Ebo, who contested Hincmar's election, on the ground that he was still archbishop. But the council of Paris in 846 affirmed Hincmar's election, and, in 847, Leo IV. sent him the pallium. The first difficulty being overcome, a second presented itself. For a few months in 840 Ebo had occupied his old see by force, and during this time bid ordained several priests. Hincmar degraded them and the council of Soissons in 853 approved his act. But naturally his course was opposed. The leader of the malcontents was Wulfad, one of the deposed priests. The matter was not disposed of until 868, when Pope Hadrian decided practically in favor of the deposed priests, for while exonerating Hincmar of all blame, at the same time he confirmed the election of Wulfad (866) as archbishop of Bourges.

Another trouble came from Rothad, bishop of Soissons, who had consecrated him, and who was one of his suffragans. Rothad had deposed a priest, for unchastity and the deposition was confirmed by an episcopal council. Hincmar took the ground that Rothad, being only a suffragan bishop, had no right of deposition, and also no right to call a council. He also brought formal charges of disobedience against him and demanded the reinstatement of the deposed priest. Rothad persistently refusing compliance was then himself deposed (861). Both parties appealed to the pope, who at last (January 21, 865) decided in Rothad's favor and re-instated him.1386

In 863 Hincmar refused to give his assent as metropolitan to the elevation of Hilduin, brother of Günther of Cologne, to the bishopric of Cambrai. Hilduin had been nominated to this position by Lothair, but Hincmar said that he was unfit, and the pope approved of his action.

His longest and hardest fight was with his nephew and namesake, Hincmar, bishop of Laon. The latter was certainly very insubordinate and disobedient both to his metropolitan and his king. In consequence Hincmar of Rheims deposed him (871) and the king took him prisoner and blinded him. Pope Hadrian II. (d. 872) defended him but accomplished nothing. Pope John VIII. also pleaded his cause, and in 878 gave him permission to recite mass. He died in 882.

These controversies, and those upon Predestination and the Eucharist, and his persecution of Gottschalk, elsewhere treated at length,1387 have tended to obscure Hincmar's just reputation as a statesman. Yet he was unquestionably the leader in the West Frankish kingdom, and by, his wisdom and energy preserved the state during a sadly disordered time. His relations with Louis the Pious, Charles the Bald and Carloman were friendly. He crowned several queens of the Carolingian family, and in 869 Charles the Bald. He also solemnized their marriages. In 859 he headed the German delegation to Louis, and in 860 conducted the peace deliberations at Coblenz. He took the side of Charles the Bald in his fight with Rome, and in 871 wrote for him a very violent letter to Pope Hadrian II.1388  It may be said that in state politics he was more successful than in church politics. He preserved his king from disgrace, and secured his independence, but he was unable to secure for himself the papal sanction at all times, and the much coveted honor of the primacy of France which John VIII., in 876, gave to Ansegis, archbishop of Sens.

One of the most important facts about these Hincmarian controversies is that in them for the first time the famous pseudo-Isidorian decretals1389 are quoted; and that by all parties. Whether Hincmar knew of their fraudulent character may well be questioned, for that he had little if any critical ability is proved by his belief in two literary forgeries, an apocryphal tale of the birth of the Virgin, and a homily upon her assumption,1390 attributed to Jerome. The fraud was exposed by Ratramnus. His use of the decretals was arbitrary. He quoted them when they would help him, as against the pope in contending for the liberty of the Frankish Church. He ignored them when they opposed his ideas, as in his struggle with his nephew, because in their original design they asserted the independence of bishops from their metropolitans.

Hincmar was not only a valiant fighter, but also a faithful shepherd. He performed with efficiency all the usual duties of a bishop, such as holding councils, hearing complaints, settling difficulties, laying plans and carrying out improvements. He paid particular attention to education and the promotion of learning generally. He was himself a scholar and urged his clergy to do all in their power to build up the schools. He also gave many books to the libraries of the cathedral at Rheims and the monastery of St. Remi, and had many copied especially for them. His own writings enriched these collections. His attention to architecture was manifested in the stately cathedral of Rheims, begun by Ebo, but which he completed, and in the enlargement of the monastery of St. Remi.

The career of this extraordinary man was troubled to its very end. In 881 he came in conflict with Louis the Third by absolutely refusing to consecrate one of the king's favorites, Odoacer, bishop of Beauvais. Hincmar maintained that he was entirely unfit for the office, and as the Pope agreed with him Odoacer was excommunicated. In the early part of the following year the dreaded Normans made their appearance in the neighborhood of Rheims. Hincmar bethought himself of the precious relics of St. Remi and removed them for safety's sake to Epernay when he himself fled thither. There he died, Dec. 21, 882. He was buried two days after at Rheims.

Looking back upon Hincmar through the vista of ten centuries, he stands forth as the determined, irrepressible, tireless opponent of both royal and papal tyranny over the Church. He asserted the liberty of the Gallican Church at a time when the State on the one hand endeavored to absorb her revenues and utilize her clergy in its struggles and wars, and the Pope on the other hand strove to make his authority in ecclesiastical matters supreme. That Hincmar was arrogant, relentless, self-seeking, is true. But withal he was a pure man, a stern moralist, and the very depth and vigor of his belief in his own opinions rendered him the more intolerant of the opinions of opponents, as of those of the unfortunate Gottschalk. The cause he defended was a just and noble one, and his failure to stem the tide setting toward anarchy in Church and State was fraught with far-reaching consequences.

 

His Writings.

 

His writings reveal his essentially practical character. They are very numerous, but usually very short. In contents they are designed for the most part to answer a temporary purpose. This makes them all the more interesting to the historian, but in the same degree of less permanent importance. The patristic learning they exhibit is considerable, and the ability great; but the circumstances of his life as prelate precluded him from study and quiet thought, so he was content to rely upon the labors of others and reproduce and adapt their arguments and information to his own design. Only the more important can be here mentioned. Some twenty-three writings are known to be lost.1391

I. Writings in the Gottschalk Controversy.1392

1. The first was in 855, Divine Predestination and the Freedom of the Will. It was in three books. All has perished, except the prefatory epistle to Charles the Bald.1393

2. At the request of this king he wrote a second treatise upon the same subject.1394

3. In 857 he refuted the charge made against him by Gottschalk and Ratramnus that in altering a line of a hymn from "Te, trina Deitas," to "Te, sancta Deitas," he showed a Sabellian leaning.1395

II. Writings in the Hincmar of Laon Controversy.1396  They consist of letters from each disputant to the other, formal charges against Hincmar of Laon, the sentence of his deposition, the synodical letter to Pope Hadrian II. and the letter of Hincmar of Laon to the same.

III. Writings relative to political and social affairs.

1. The divorce of king Lothair and queen Theutberga.1397  This treatise dates from 863 and is the reply to thirty questions upon the general subject asked Hincmar by different bishops. It reveals his firm belief in witches, sorcery and trial by ordeal, and abounds in interesting and valuable allusions to contemporary life and manners.1398

2. Addresses and prayers at the coronation of Charles the Bald, his son Louis II. the Stammerer, his daughter Judith, and his wife Hermintrude.1399

3. The personal character of the king and the royal administration.1400  It is dedicated to Charles the Bald, and is avowedly a compilation. The Scriptures and the Fathers, chiefly Ambrose, Augustin, and Gregory the Great are its sources. Its twenty-three chapters are distributed by Hincmar himself1401 under three heads:

(a) the royal person and office in general [chaps. 1-15]; (b) the discretion to be shown in the administration of justice [chaps. 16-28]; (c) the duty of a king in the unsparing punishment of rebels against God, the Church and the State, even though they be near relatives [chaps. 29-33]. It was composed in a time of frequent rebellion, and therefore the king had need to exercise severity as well as gentleness in dealing with his subjects.1402  Hincmar delivers himself with great plainness and gives wise counsels.

4. The vices to be shunned and the virtues to be exercised.1403  Another treatise designed for the guidance of Charles the Bald, compiled chiefly from Gregory the Great's Homilies and Morals. Its occasion was Charles's request of Hincmar to send him Gregory the Great's letter to king Reccared, when the latter came over to Catholicism. Hincmar's treatise is a sort of appendix. It begins with a reference to the letter's allusion to the works of mercy, and then out of Gregory's writings Hincmar proceeds to treat of these works and their opposite vices. In chaps. 9 and 10 Hincmar discusses the eucharist and shows his acceptance of the view of Paschasius Radbertus.

5, 6. Treatises upon rape, a common offense in those lawless days.1404

7. To the noblemen of the Kingdom for the instruction of King Carloman1405  It was Hincmar's response to the highly complimentary request of the Frankish nobles, that he draw up some instructions for the young King Carloman, on his accession in 882. It was therefore one of the last pieces the old statesman prepared.

IV. Writings upon ecclesiastical affairs. 1. The Capitularies of 852, 874, 877, 881.1406  2. A defense of the liberties of the church, addressed to Charles.1407  It is in three parts, called respectively Quaterniones, Rotula and Admonitio; the first sets forth the necessity of the independence of the Church of the State, and quotes the ancient Christian Roman imperial laws on the subject. The second is on the trial of charges against the clergy as laid down in synodical decrees and papal decisions. The third is an exhortation to the king to respect ecclesiastical rights.

3. The crimination of priests, a valuable treatise upon the way in which their trials should be conducted, as shown by synodical decrees and quotations from Gregory the Great and others.1408

4. The case of the presbyter Teutfrid, who had stolen Queen Imma's tunic, a golden girdle set with gems, an ivory box, and other things.1409  The treatise deals with the ecclesiastico-legal aspects of the case, and shows how the criminal should be treated. Gregory the Great is freely quoted.

V. Miscellaneous. 1. Exposition of Psalm civ. 17.1410  In the Vulgate the second clause of the verse reads, "the nest of the stork is their chief." The treatise was written in answer to Louis the German's question as to the meaning of these words. He begins with a criticism of the text, in which he quotes the Septuagint rendering, the exposition of Jerome, Augustin, Prosper and Cassiodorus. The meaning he advocates is that the nest of the stork surpasses that of the little birds of which it is the chief or leader. The treatise is particularly interesting for its manner of dealing with one of the so-called Scripture difficulties,

2. The vision of Bernold.1411  This interesting little story dates from 877, the year of Charles the Bald's death. Bernold lived in Rheims, and was known to Hincmar. He had a vision after he had been four days at the point of death, which he related to his confessor, and the confessor to Hincmar, who for obvious reasons published it. Bernold regained his health, and was therefore a living witness to the accuracy of his story. In his vision he went to "a certain place," i.e. purgatory, in which he found forty-one bishops, ragged and dirty, exposed alternately to extreme cold and scorching heat. Among them was Ebo, Hincmar's predecessor, who immediately implored Bernold to go to their parishioners and clergy and tell them to offer alms, prayers and the sacred oblation for them. This he did, and on his return found the bishops radiant in countenance, as if just bathed and shaved, dressed in alb, stole and sandals, but without chasubles. Leaving them, Bernold went in his vision to a dark place, where he saw Charles the Bald sitting in a heap of putrefaction, gnawed by worms and worn to a mere skeleton. Charles called him by name and implored him to help him. Bernold asked how he could. Then Charles told him that he was suffering because he had not obeyed Hincmar's counsels, but if Bernold would secure Hincmar's help he would be delivered. This Bernold did, and on his return he found the king clad in royal robes, sound in flesh and amid beautiful surroundings. Bernold went further and encountered two other characters—Jesse, an archbishop, and a Count Othar, whom he helped by going to the earth and securing the prayers, alms and oblations of their friends. He finally came across a man who told him that in fourteen years he would leave the body and go back to the place he was then in for good, but that if he was careful to give alms and to do other good works he would have a beautiful mansion. A rustic of stern countenance expressed his lack of faith in Bernold's ability to do this, but was silenced by the first man. Whereupon Bernold asked for the Eucharist, and when it was given to him he drank almost half a goblet of wine, and said, "I could eat some food, if I had it." He was fed, revived and recovered. Hincmar, in relating this vision, calls attention to its similarity to those told in the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, in the writings of St. Boniface, and to that of Wettin, which Walahfrid Strabo related.1412  He ends by exhorting his readers to be more fervent in their prayers, and especially to pray for king Charles and the other dead.

3. The life of St. Remigius,1413 the patron saint of Rheims. This is an expansion of Fortunatus' brief biography by means of extracts from the Gesta Francorum, Gregory of Tours, and legendary and traditional sources, and particularly by means of moralizing and allegorizing. The length of the book is out of all proportion to its value or interest. To the life he adds an Encomium of St. Remigius.1414  The object of these two books is not to produce history or criticism, but an edifying work and to exalt the church of Rheims by exalting its patron. Perhaps also he would hint that the gift which Chlodwig made to Remigius might be acceptably imitated.1415

4. Hincmar appears as a genuine historian in the third part of the Bertinian Annals,1416 so called because first published from a MS. found in the convent of St. Bertin. These Annals of the West Frankish Kingdom begin with the year 741 and go down to 882. Hincmar wrote them from 861 to 882. He evidently felt the responsibility of the work he conducted, for he put every fact down in a singularly impartial manner, especially when it is remembered that he was himself an important part of contemporary history.1417

5. Letters.1418  These are fifty-five in number, and are upon weighty matters; indeed they are official documents, and not familiar correspondence.

6. Poems..1419  They are very few and devoid of poetical merit1420

 

 § 176. Johannes Scotus Erigena.

 

I. Johannes Scotus: Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. CXXII. (1853). H. J. Floss prepared this edition, which is more complete than any other, for Migne's series. The De divisione naturae was separately edited by C. B. Schlüter, Münster, 1838, who reprints in the same vol. (pp. 593-610) thirteen religious poems of Scotus as edited by Cardinal Mai (Class. Auct. V. 426 sqq.). B. Hauréau has edited Scotus's commentary on Marcianus Capella, Paris, 1861; and Cardinal Mai, his commentary on the Heavenly Hierarchy of Dionysius Areopagita in Appendix at opera edita ab Mai, Rome, 1871. There is an excellent German translation of the De Div. Nat. by L. Noack (Erigena über die Eintheilung der Natur, mit einer Schlussabhandlung Berlin, 1870-4, Leipzig, 1876, 3 pts.),

II. Besides the Prolegomena and notes of the works already mentioned, see Peder Hjort: J. S. E., oder von dem Ursprung einer christlichen Philosophie und ihrem heiligen Beruf, Copenhagen, 1823. F. A. Staudenmaier: J. S. E., u. d. Wissenschaft s. Zeit., vol. I. (all published), Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1834. St. Réné Taillandier: S. E. et la philosophie scholastique, Strasbourg, 1843. N. Möller: J. S. E. u. s. Irrthümer, Mayence, 1844. Theodor Christlieb Leben u. Lehre d. J. S. E., Gotha, 1860; comp. also his article in Herzog,² XIII. 788-804 (1884). Johannes Huber: J. S. E. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie im Mittelalter, Munich, 1861. A. Stöckl: De J. S. E., Münster, 1867. O. Hermens: Das Leben des J. S. E., Jena, 1869. R. Hoffmann: De J. S. E. vita et doctrina, Halle, 1877 (pp. 37). Cf. Baur: Geschichte der Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit, II. 263-344. Dorner: Gesch. d. Lehre v. d. Person Christi, II. 344-359. Neander, III. 461-466.

III. On particular points. Torstrick: Philosophia Erigenae; 1. Trinitatis notio, Göttingen, 1844. Francis Monnier: De Gothescalci et J. S. E. controversia, Paris, 1853. W. Kaulich: Das speculative System des J S. E., Prag, 1860. Meusel: Doctrina J. S. E. cum Christiana comparavit, Budissae (Bautzen), 1869. F. J. Hoffmann: Der Gottes u. Schöpfungsbegriff des J. S. E., Jena, 1876. G. Anders: Darstellung u. Kritik d. Ansicht dass d. Kategorien nicht auf Gott anwendbar seien, Sorau, 1877 (pp. 37). G. Buchwald: Der Logosbegriff de J. S. E., Leipzig, 1884. For his logic see Prantl: Geschichte d. Logik im Abendlande, Leipzig, 1855-70, 4 vols. (II. 20-37). For his philosophy in general see B. Hauréau: Histoire de la philosophie scholastique, Paris, 1850, 2 vols., 2d ed. 1872-81, (chap. viii). F. D. Maurice: Mediaeval Philosophy, London, 1856, 2d ed. 1870 (pp. 45-79). F. Ueberweg: History of Philosophy, Eng. trans. I., 358-365. Reuter.: Geschichte d. religiösen Aufklärung im Mittelalter, Berlin, 1875-1877, 2 vols. (I. 51-64). J. Bass Mullinger.: The Schools of Charles the Great, London, 1877 (pp. 171-193). Also Du Pin, VII. 82-84. Ceillier, XII. 605-609. Hist. Lit. de la France, V. 416-429. Bähr., 483-500. Ebert, II. 257-267.

 

His Life.

 

Of Johannes Scotus Erigena, philosopher and theologian, one of the great men of history, very little is known. His ancestry, and places of birth, education, residence and death are disputed. Upon only a few facts of his life, such as his position at the court of Charles the Bald, and his literary works, can one venture to speak authoritatively.

He was born in Ireland1421 between 800 and 815, educated in, one of its famous monastic schools, where the Greek Fathers, particularly Origen, were studied as well as the Latin. He went to France about 843, attracted the notice of Charles the Bald, and was honored with his friendship.1422  The king appointed him principal of the School of the Palace, and frequently deferred to his judgment. John Scotus was one of the ornaments of the court by reason of his great learning, his signal ability both as teacher and philosopher, and his blameless life. He was popularly regarded as having boundless knowledge, and in reality his attainments were uncommon. He knew Greek fairly well and often introduces Greek words into his writings. He owed much to Greek theologians, especially Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus.1423  He was acquainted with the Timaes of Plato in the translation of Chalcidus and with the Categories of Aristotle.1424  He was also well read in Augustin, Boëthius, Cassiodorus and Isidore. He took a leading part in the two great doctrinal controversies of his age, on predestination and the eucharist,1425 and by request of Charles the Bald translated into Latin the Pseudo-Dionysian writings. The single known fact about his personal appearance is that, like Einhard, he was of small stature. He died about 877, probably shortly after Charles the Bald.

 

His Writings.

 

Besides the treatise upon Predestination and the translation of Dionysius, already discussed,1426 Scotus Erigena wrote:

1. A translation of the Obscurities of Gregory Nazianzen, by Maximus Confessor.1427  This was made at the instance of Charles the Bald, in 864.

2. Expositions of the Heavenly Hierarchy, the, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and the Mystical Theology of Dionysius.1428

3. Homily upon the prologue to John's Gospel.1429

4. A commentary upon John's Gospel.1430  Only four fragments of it have as yet been found.

5. A commentary upon the Dialectic of Martianus Capella. This has been published by Hauréau.1431

6. The outgoing and in-coming of a soul to God.1432  Of this only a small fragment has as yet been found.

7 The vision of God. This is in MS. at St. Omer and not yet printed.

8. Verses.1433  Among them are some Greek verses, with a self- made Latin interlinear translation. He introduces both single Greek words and verses similarly interlineated into his other poems.

9. The great work of Scotus Erigena is The Division of Nature.1434  It consists of five books in the form of a dialogue between a teacher and a disciple. The latter, generally speaking, represents the ecclesiastical conscience, but always in the end echoes his teacher. The style is lively and the range of topics embraces the most important theological cosmological and anthropological questions. The work was the first practical attempt made in the West to unite philosophy and theology. As in the dedication to Wulfad, the well-known opponent of Hincmar, John calls him simply "brother," the work must have been written prior to 865, the Year of Wulfad's elevation to the archiepiscopate of Bourges.1435

 

His Theological Teaching.

 

In the Division of Nature Scotus Erigena has embodied his theology and philosophy. By the term "Nature" he means all that is and is not.1436  The latter expression he further interprets as including, 1st, that which is above the reach of our senses or our reason; 2d, that which though known to those higher in the scale of being is not known to those lower; 3d, that which is yet only potentially existent, like the human race in Adam, the plant in the seed, etc.; 4th, the material which comes and goes and therefore is not truly existent like the intelligible; 5th, sin as being the loss of the Divine image.1437  Nature is divided into four species: (1) that which creates and is not created, (2) that which is created and creates, (3) that which is created and does not create, (4) that which neither creates nor is created. The first three divisions are a Neo-Platonic and Christian modification of the three-fold ontological division of Aristotle:1438 the unmoved and the moving, the moved and moving, and the moved and not moving. The fourth form was suggested by the Pseudo-Dionysian doctrine of the return of all things to God.

One of the fundamental ideas of his theology is the identity of true philosophy and true religion. Both have the same divine source.1439  "True religion" and authority, i.e. the Church doctrine, are however not with him exactly identical, and in a conflict between them he sides with the former. In his use of Scripture he follows the allegorical method. He puts the Fathers almost upon a level with the Sacred Writers and claims that their wisdom in interpreting Scripture must not be questioned. At the same time he holds that it is permissible, especially when the Fathers differ among themselves, to select that interpretation of Scripture which most recommends itself to reason as accordant with Scripture.1440  It is, he says, the province of reason to bring out the hidden meaning of the text, which is manifold, inexhaustible, and striking like a peacock's feathers.1441  It is interesting to note in this connection that John Scotus read the New Testament in the original Greek, and the Old Testament in Jerome's version, not in the Septuagint.1442  And it is still more interesting to know that he prayed most earnestly for daily guidance in the study of the Scriptures.1443

The doctrinal teaching of Scotus Erigena can be reduced, as he himself states, to three heads. (1) God, the simple and at the same time the multiform cause of all things; (2) Procession from God, the divine goodness showing itself in all that is, from general to particular; (3) Return to God, the manifold going back into the one.

First Head. God, or Nature, which creates but is not created. a. The Being of God in itself considered. God is the essence of all things, alone truly is,1444 and is the beginning, middle and end of all things.1445  He is incomprehensible.1446  While the predicates of essence, truth, goodness, wisdom, &c., can be, according to the "affirmative" theology, applied to God, it can only be done metaphorically, because each such predicate has an opposite, while in God there is no opposition. Hence the "negative" theology correctly maintains they can not be.1447  Neither can self-consciousness be predicated of God.1448  Although not even the angels can see the essence of God, yet his being (i.e. the Father) can be seen in the being of things; his wisdom (i.e. the Son) in their orderly arrangement, and his life (i.e. the Holy Spirit) in their constant motion.1449  God is therefore an essence in three substances. Scotus Erigena takes up the doctrine of John of Damascus concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit and applies it to the relation of the Son to the Father:  "As the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, so is the Son born of the Father through the Holy Spirit."1450  In the old patristic fashion he compares the Three Persons to light, heat and radiance united in the flame. But he understood under "persons" no real beings, only names of the aspects and relations under which God's being comes out. God realizes himself in creation, and in every part of it, yet he does not thereby yield the simplicity of his essence. He is still removed from all, subsists outside of and above the world, which has no independent existence apart from God, but is simply his manifestation. He is both the substance and the accidents of all that exists. "God therefore is all and all is God."1451  But God reveals himself to the creature. He appeared first to the pious in visions, but this was only occasional.1452  He then appeared constantly in the form of the different virtues.1453  The intellect is itself a theophany; and so is the whole world, visible and invisible.1454

2. The Procession from God or Nature. a. Nature which creates and is created, or the primordial ideas of the world and their unity in the Logos. God is the nature and essence of the world. Creation is the effect of the divine nature, which as cause eternally produces its effects, indeed is itself in the primordial ideas the first forms and grounds of things.1455  As the pure Being of God cannot immediately manifest itself in the finite, it is necessary that God should create the prototypes in which he can appear. In creation God passes through these prototypes or primordial causes into the world of visible creatures. So the Triune God enters the finite, not only in the Incarnation, but in all created existences. Our life is God's life in us. As remarked above, we know God because in us he reveals himself. These prototypes have only subjective existence, except as they find their unity in the Logos.1456  Under the influence of the Holy Spirit they produce the external world of time and space.

b. Nature, which is created and does not create, or the phenomenal world and its union in man. In the Logos all things existed from eternity. Creation is their appearance in time. The principle of the development of the primordial ideas is the Holy Spirit.1457  The materiality of the world is only apparent, space and time only exist in the mind. The "nothing" from which God made the heavens and the earth was his own incomprehensible essence.1458  The whole phenomenal world is but the shadow of the real existence.1459  Man is the centre of the phenomenal world, uniting in himself all the contradictions and differences of creation.1460  His intellect has the power to grasp the sensuous and intelligible, and is itself the substance of things.1461  So all nature is created in man, and subsists in him,1462 because the idea of all its parts is implanted in him. The divine thought is the primary, the human the secondary substance of things.1463

Paradise is to be interpreted spiritually. Adam is not so much an historical personage as the human race in its preëxistent condition. Man was never sinless, for sin, as a limitation and defect, is not accidental or temporal, but original in the creation and nature of man.1464

c. The union of divinity and created existence, or the Godman. Scotus Erigena shows upon this point the duality of' his system. On the one hand he presents Christ as an historical character, with body, mind, soul, spirit, in short the union of the entire sensible and intellectual qualities of the creature.1465  But on the other hand he maintains that the Incarnation was an eternal and necessary fact,1466 and that it came about through an ineffable and multiplex theophany in the consciousness of men and angels.1467

3. The return to God, or the completion of the world in Nature, which creates not and is not created. a. The return to God according to its pre-temporal idea, or the doctrine of predestination. There is only one true predestination, viz. to holiness. There is no foreknowledge of the bad. God has completest unity and simplicity; hence his being is not different from his knowledge and will; and since he has full liberty, the organization of his nature is free. But this organization is at the same time to the world law and government, i.e. its predestination; and because God is himself goodness, the predestination can only be to good. The very character of wickedness,—it is opposed to God, not substantial in nature, a defect mixed up with the good, transitory, yet essential to the development of the world,—renders it unreal and therefore not an object of divine knowledge. God does not know the bad as such, but only as the negation of the good. "God's knowledge is the revelation of his essence, one and the same thing with his willing and his creating. As evil cannot be derived from the divine causality, neither can it be considered as an object of divine knowledge."1468  Nor is there any divine predestination or foreknowledge respecting the punishment of the bad, for this ensues in consequence of their violation of law. They punish themselves.1469  Hell is in the rebellious will. Predestination is, in brief, the eternal law and the immutable order of nature, whereby the elect are restored from their ruin and the rejected are shut up in their ruin.1470

b. The return of all things to God considered according to their temporal principles, or the doctrine of salvation. There are only a few scattered remarks upon this subject in Scotus Erigena. Christ is the Saviour by what he is in himself, not by what he does. His death is important as the means of resurrection; which began with the resurrection and exaltation of Christ, because then all things began to return to their union in their primordial causes, and this return constitutes salvation. The consequences of salvation are therefore felt by angels as well as men, and even by inanimate things.1471  Salvation, as far as we are concerned, consists in speculative knowledge. We unite ourselves with God by virtue of contemplation.1472

c. The return of all things to God considered according to their future completion. All things came out from God, all things go back to God. This is the law of creation. The foundation of this return is the return of man to the Logos. The steps are, 1st, deliverance from the bodily forms; 2d, resurrection and the abrogation of sex; 3d, the transformation of body into spirit; 4th, the return to the primordial causes; 5th, the recession of nature, along with these causes, into God. But this, of course, implies that God alone will exist forever, and that there can be no eternal punishment. Scotus Erigena tries in vain to escape both these logical conclusions.1473

 

His Philosophy.

 

Ueberweg thus states Scotus Erigena's philosophical position and teachings:1474 "The fundamental idea, and at the same time the fundamental error, in Erigena's doctrine is the idea that the degrees of abstraction correspond with the degrees in the scale of real existence. He hypostasizes the Tabula Logica. The universals are before and also in the individual objects which exist, or rather the latter are in the former: the distinction between these (Realistic) formulae appears not yet developed in his writings .... He is throughout a Realist. He teaches, it is true, that grammar and rhetoric, as branches of dialectic or aids to it, relate only to words, not to things, and that they are therefore not properly sciences; but he co-ordinates dialectic itself with ethics, physics and theology, defining it as the doctrine of the methodical form of knowledge, and assigning to it in particular, as its work, the discussion of the most general conceptions or logical categories (predicaments); which categories he by no means regards as merely subjective forms or images, but as the names of the highest genera of all created things ....

"The most noteworthy features in his theory of the categories are his doctrine of the combination of the categories with each other, and his attempt to subsume them under the conceptions of motion and rest; as also his identification of the categories of place with definition in logic, which, he says, is the work of the understanding. The dialectical precepts which relate to the form or method of philosophising are not discussed by him in detail; the most essential thing in his regard is the use of the four forms, called by the Greeks division, definition, demonstration and analysis. Under the latter he understands the reduction of the derivative and composite to the simple, universal and fundamental; but uses the term also in the opposite to denote the unfolding of God in creation."

 

His Influence and Importance.

 

Scotus Erigena was considered a heretic or a madman while he lived, and this fact joined to the other that his views were far in advance of his age, caused his influence to be at first much less than might have been expected. He passed into almost complete obscurity before he died, as the conflicting reports of his later years show. Yet he did wield a posthumous influence. His idea of the unity of philosophy and theology comes up in Anselm and Thomas Aquinas; his speculation concerning primordial causes in Alexander of Hales and Albertus Magnus. From him Amalrich of Bena, and David of Dinanto drew their pantheism; and various mystical sects of the Middle Ages were inspired by him. The Church, ever watchful for orthodoxy, perceived that his book, De Divisione Naturae, was doing mischief. Young persons, even in convents read it eagerly. Everywhere it attracted notice. Accordingly a council, at Sens, formally condemned it, and then the Pope (Honorius III.) ordered, by a bull of Jan. 23, 1225, the destruction of all copies that could be found, styling it "a book teeming with the worms of heretical depravity."1475  This order probably had the desired effect. The book passed out of notice. But in 1681 Thomas Gale issued it in Oxford. Again the Roman Church was alarmed, and Gregory XIII., by bull of April 3, 1685, put it on the Index.

Scotus Erigena was a man of rare originality and mental vigor. His writings are full of ideas and bold arguments. His strongly syllogistic mode of developing his theme was all his own, and the emphasis he put upon logic proves his superiority to his age. Unlike the scholastics, who meekly bowed to tradition, he treated it with manly independence. To his "disciple" he said: "Let no authority terrify thee.1476  Hence it is erroneous to call him "the Father of Scholasticism;" rather is he the founder of Speculative Philosophy.1477  The scholastics drew from him, but he was not a scholastic. The mystics drew from him, but he was not a mystic. As a pathfinder it was not given to him to thoroughly explore the rich country he traversed. But others eagerly pressed in along the way he opened. He is one of the most interesting figures among the mediaeval writers. He demands study and he rewards it. De Divsione Naturae is a master-piece, and, as Baur well says, "an organized system which comprehends the highest speculative ideas."1478

 

Note on the country of birth and death of Scotus Erigena.

 

The statement that John was born in Ireland rests upon the interpretation of his name. Scotus is indefinite, since it was used of both Ireland and Scotland, the former country being called Scotia Major. But Erigena is most probably a corruption of  JIerou'  [sc. nhvsou] gena, Hierugena, which John, with his fondness for using Greek words on all occasions, added to his original name to indicate his birth in the "holy isle," or "isle of saints," a common designation of Ireland. The derivation is the more probable since he himself calls Maximus Confessor Graiga-gena, to indicate the latter's birth in Greece. By his contemporaries and in the oldest codices he is called Joannes Scotus or Scottus,1479 but in the oldest MSS. of his translation of Dionysius Joanna Ierugena.1480  In course of time, owing to his scribes' ignorance of Greek, the epithet was written Eriugena, Erygena, and finally Erigena. Another derivation of the epithet, which has less to commend it, is from  jIevrnh ? gevna,  jIevrnh being the Greek name for Ireland. But this leaves the disappearance of the first v to be accounted for. The far-fetched explanations of Erigena either from Ayr, a city on the west coast of Scotland, or Ergene in Hereford, a shire in England on the south Welsh border, and gena, may be dismissed without discussion.

The absence of authentic information to the contrary makes it probable that Scotus Erigena died in France. But there is a tradition that he was called by Alfred the Great into England and made abbot of Malmesbury, and there died a violent death at the hands of his scholars. It is inherently improbable that a conservative and loyal son of the church like Alfred, would invite to any position so eccentric, if not heretical, a man as Scotus Erigena. Charles the Bald died in 877. It is not likely that Erigena would leave France before that date, but then he was at least sixty-two, and hence rather old to change his residence. A reference to Asser's biography of King Alfred affords a rational explanation of the tradition. Asser says that Alfred invited from Gaul a priest and monk named John, who was remarkable for energy, talent and learning, in order that the king might profit by his conversation. A few pages further on, Asser calls this John an old Saxon, and says that Alfred appointed him the first abbot of Athelney, and that he was almost murdered by hired ruffians. Mon. Hist. Brit. vol. i. [1848], pp. 489, 493, 4 Eng. trans. Six Old English Chronicles in Bohn's "Antiquarian Library," pp. 70, 80, 81. It needed only that the fame of John Scotus should reach England for the John of Asser's biography to be confounded with him, and thus the story arose as it is found in Ingulph, William of Malmesbury, and Matthew Paris.

 

 § 177. Anastasius.

 

I. Anastasius Bibliothecarius: Opera omnia in Migne, Tom. CXXVII.-CXXIX. col. 744.

II. The Prolegomena in Migne, CXXVII. Ceillier, XII. 712-718. Bähr, 261-271.

 

Anastasius, librarian of the Roman Church, hence surnamed the "Librarian," to distinguish him from others of the same name, was abbot of the monastery of Sancta Maria trans Tiberim under Nicolas I. (858-867). He was sent in 869 to Constantinople as ambassador to arrange a marriage between the daughter of Louis II. and a son of Basil the Macedonian. While there the eighth oecumenical council was in session, and by his knowledge of Greek he was very useful to the Papal ambassador in attendance. He brought back with him the canons of the council and at the request of Hadrian II. translated them into Latin. He died, according to Baronius, in 886.

He has been identified by some (e.g. Fabricius1481 and Hergenröther1482) with the Cardinal presbyter Anastasius who was deposed and excommunicated in 850, anathematized in 853, but elected pope in 855 in opposition to Benedict III. whom he imprisoned. He was deposed in 856 and died in 879. Those who accept the statement are obliged to suppose that for some reason Nicolas and Louis II. condoned his fault and Hadrian II. continued him in favor. The name Anastasius is too common in Church history to render it necessary or safe to resort to such an improbable identification.

The fame of Anastasius rests upon his numerous translations from the Greek and his supposed connection with the Liber Pontificalis.1483  His style is rude and semi-barbarous, but he brought to the knowledge of the Latins much information about the Greeks. He translated the canons of the sixth, seventh and eighth oecumenical councils;1484 the Chronology of Nicephorus;1485 the collection of documents in Greek for the history of Monotheletism which John the Deacon had made;1486 and the lives of several saints.1487 He also compiled and translated from Nicephorus, George Syncellus, and Theophanus Confessor a church history, which has been incorporated with the so-called Historia Miscella of Paulus Diaconus.

His original writings now extant consist of a valuable historical introduction to the translation of the canons of the Eighth Oecumenical Council, a preface to that of the Collectanea, three letters (two to Charles the Bald and one to archbishop Ado),1488 and probably the life of Pope Nicolas I.1489 in the Liber Pontificalis.

 

 § 178. Ratherius of Verona.

 

I. Ratherius, Veronensis episcopus: Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. CXXXVI. col. 9-768 (reprint of ed. by Peter and, Jerome Balterini, Verona, 1765).

II. See Vita by Ballerini in Migne, l.c. col. 27-142. Albrecht Vogel: Ratherius von Verona und das 10. Jahrhundert. Jena, 1854, 2 vols. Cf. his art. in Herzog², XII. 503-506. Du Pin, VIII. 20-26.Ceillier, XII. 846-860. Hist. de la France, VI. 339-383. Bähr, 546-553.

 

Ratherius (Rathier) was born of noble ancestry at or near Liège in 890 (or 891) and educated at the convent of Lobbes. He became a monk, acquired much learning and in 931 was consecrated bishop of Verona. By his vigorous denunciation of the faults and failings of his clergy, particularly of their marriages or, as he called them, adulteries, he raised a storm of opposition. When Arnold of Bavaria took Verona (934), king Hugo of Italy deposed him for alleged connivance with Arnold and held him a close prisoner at Pavia from February, 935, until August, 937, when he was transferred to the oversight of the bishop of Como.

In the early part of 941 Ratherius escaped to Southern France, was tutor in a rich family of Provence, and in 944 re-entered the monastery of Lobbes. Two years later he was restored to his see of Verona; whence he was driven again in 948. From 953 to 955 he was bishop of Liège. On his deposition he became abbot of Alna, a dependency of the monastery of Lobbes, where he stirred up a controversy upon the eucharist by his revival of Paschasian views. In 961 he was for the third time bishop of Verona, but having learned no moderation from his misfortunes he was forced by, his indignant clergy to leave in 968. He returned to Liège and the abbotship of Alna. By money he secured other charges, and even for a year (971) forcibly held the abbotship of Lobbes. On April 25, 974, he died at the court of the count of Namur.

Ratherius "deserves in many respects to be styled the Tertullian of his time."1490 Some see in his castigation of vice the zeal of a Protestant reformer, but his standpoint was different. He was learned and ambitious, but also headstrong and envious. His works are obscure in style, but full of information. The chief are

1. The Combat, also called Preliminary discourses, in six books.1491  It treats in prolix style of the different occupations and relations in life, and dwells particularly upon the duties of bishops. It was the fruit of his prison-leisure (935-937), when he was without books and friends.

2. On contempt for canonical law.1492  It dates from 961, and is upon the disorders in his diocese, particularly his clergy's opposition to his dispensation of its revenues. In all this Ratherius sees contempt of the canons which he cites.

3. A conjecture of a certain quality.1493  This is a vigorous defense of his conduct, written in 966. Fourteen of his Letters and eleven of his Sermons have been printed.1494  In the first letter he avows his belief in transubstantiation.

 

 § 179. Gerbert (Sylvester II.).

 

I. Silvester II. Papa (Gerbertus): Opera, in Migne, Tom. CXXXIX. col. 57-350. Contains also the biographical and literary notices of Natalis Alexander, Fabricius, and the Bened. Hist. Lit. de la France. OEuvres de Gerbert par A. Olleris. Clermont, 1867. Pertz: Monum. Germ. Tom. V. Script. III. contains Gerberti archiep. Remensis Acta Concilii Remensis, and the Libri IV. Historiarum of Richerus monachus S. Remigii. Richer was a pupil of Gerbert, and his history of France was first edited by Pertz.

II. Abr. Bzovius: Sylvester vindicatus. Rom., 1629. Hist. Lit. de la France, VI., 559-614. C. F. Hock: Gerbert oder Papst Sylvester und sein Jahrh. Wien, 1837. Max Büdinger: Ueber Gerberts wissenschaftl. und polit. Stellung. Marburg, 1851. Gfrörer: Allgem. Kirchengeschichte, Bd. III. Abth. 3. Wilmanns: Jahrbücher des deutschen Reichs unter Otto III. Berlin, 1840. Giesebrecht: Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit, Bd. I. 613-616; 712-715: 842 (3d ed. 1865). Hefele: Conciliengesch. Bd. IV. 637 and passim. (2d ed. 1879). A. Olleris: Vie de Gerbert. Clermont-Ferrand, 1867.  Eduard Barthelémy: Gerbert, étude sur sa vie et ses ouvrages, suivie de la traduction de ses lettres. Paris, 1868. Loupot: Gerbert, sa vie et ses écrits. Lille, 1869. Karl Werner: Gerbert von Aurillac. Wien, 1878. Hauck: Silvester II., in Herzog, XIV. 233-240. Comp. also Ceillier, XII. 901-9II. Neander: III. 371-374, and Reuter: Aufklärung in Mittelalter, I. 78-84.

 

Gerbert, the scholar and philosopher in the Fisherman's chair, and the brightest light in the darkness of the tenth century was born before 950, of low parentage, in or near Aurilac in Auvergne, and educated as a monk in the Benedictine convent of that place. He accompanied Count Borel of Barcelona to Spain and acquired there some knowledge of Arabic learning, but probably only through Latin translations. He also visited Rome (968) in company of his patron Borel, and attracted the attention of Pope John XIII., who recommended him to Emperor Otho the Great. He afterwards became the tutor and friend of the youthful Otho III., and inspired him with the romantic and abortive scheme of re-establishing the Graeco-Roman empire of Constantine the Great in the city of Rome. He was ambitious and fond of basking in the sunshine of imperial and royal favor.

Gerbert became master of the cathedral school of Rheims and acquired great fame as a scholar and teacher. He collected rare and valuable books on every subject. He was intensely interested in every branch of knowledge, divine and human, especially in mathematics, astronomy, physics, and music; he first introduced the Arabic numerals and the decimal notation into France, and showed his scientific and mechanical genius by the construction of astronomical instruments and an organ blown by steam. At the same time he was a man of affairs, a statesman and politician.1495

In 972 he obtained through imperial favor the abbey, of Bobbio, but was involved in contentions with the neighboring nobles and left in disgust, though retaining his dignity. "All Italy," he wrote to a friend, "appears to me a Rome, and the morals of the Romans are the horror of the world." He returned to his position at Rheims, attracted pupils from near and far and raised the cathedral school to the height of prosperity. He was the secretary of the council held in the basilica of St. Basolus near Rheims in 991, and gave shape to the flaming speech of the learned bishop Arnulf of Orleans against the assumptions and corruptions of the papacy.1496  No Gallican could have spoken more boldly. By the same synod Arnulf, archbishop of Rheims, an illegitimate son of one of the last Carolingian kings, was deposed on the charge of treason against Hugh Capet, and Gerbert was chosen in his place, at the desire of the king. But his election was disputed, and he assumed an almost schismatical attitude towards Rome. He was deposed, and his rival Arnulf, with the aid of the pope, reinstated by a Council of Senlis or Rheims (996).1497  He now left France and accepted an invitation of his pupil Otho III. to Magdeburg, followed him to Italy (996), was by imperial favor made archbishop of Ravenna (998), and a year afterwards raised to the papal throne as Sylvester II. He was the first French pope. The three R's (Rheims, Ravenna, Rome) mark his highest dignities, as expressed in the line ascribed to him:

 

"Scandit ab R. Gerbertus in R., fit postea papa vigens R."

 

As Gerbert of Rheims he had advocated liberal views and boldly attacked the Roman Antichrists who at that time were seated in the temple of God; but as Sylvester II. he disowned his Gallican antecedents and supported the claims of the papacy.1498  He did, however, nothing remarkable during his short and troublesome pontificate (between 999-1003), except crown King Stephen of Hungary and give the first impulse, though prematurely, to the crusades at a time when hundreds of pilgrims flocked to the Holy Land in expectation of the end of the world after the lapse of the first Christian millennium.1499

His character has been very differently judged. The papal biographers of the later middle ages malignantly represent him as a magician in league with the devil, and his life and pontificate as a series of monstrous crimes.1500  This story arose partly from his uncommon learning and supposed contact with Mohammedanism, partly from his former antagonistic position to Rome. Some modern historians make him an ambitious intriguer.1501

His literary labors are chiefly mathematical.1502  His theological works are few and unimportant, and do not rise above the superstition of his age. His short treatise, "De Corpore et Sanguine Domini," is a defense of the doctrine of transubstantiation as taught by Paschasius Radbertus, with the additional notion that the consecrated elements are not digested like other food (as the Stercorianists held), but are imperishable spiritual nourishment for the inner man, and constitute the germ of the future resurrection body.1503  Where words give out there is the more room for faith.1504

In his sermon De informatione episcoporum, if genuine,1505 he presents the high theocratic view of the middle ages, raises the episcopate far above royalty,1506 and attacks the common traffic in ecclesiastical dignities (simony), but maintains also that all bishops share with Peter the care of Christ's flock.1507  This indicates that the tract was written before his elevation to the papacy, and that he did not hold the ultramontane or Vatican doctrine of papal absolutism.

His Epistles to popes, emperors, kings, queens, archbishops and other dignitaries., shed light on the history of the times, and show his high connections, and his genius for politics and intrigue.1508  They are mostly short, and include also some letters of Otho III. The longest and most interesting is addressed to Queen Adelaide, wife of Hugo Capet, and the suffragans of the diocese of Rheims,1509 in defense of his ordination as archbishop of Rheims in opposition to his rival Arnulf, whom he afterwards reinstated in his see as soon as he became pope.1510

 

 § 180. Fulbert of Chartres.

 

I. Sanctus Fulbertus, Carnotensis episcopus: Opera, in Migne, Tom. CXLI. col. 163-374. They were first printed by Masson at Paris, 1585.

II. Du Pin, IX. 1-6. Ceillier, XIII. 78-89. Hist. Lit. de la France, VII. 261-279 (reprinted in Migne, l.c. col. 167-184). Neander III. passim. Reuter: Gesch. der Rel. Aufklärung in Mittelalter (1875), I. 89-91. J. B. Souchet: Hist. du diocèse et de, la ville de Chartres. Chartres, 1867-1876.4  vols. Cf. Karl Werner: Gerbert von Aurillac. Wien, 1878. A. Vogel in Herzog² IV. 707 sq.

 

The most distinguished pupils of Gerbert were the Emperor Otho III., King Robert of France, Richer, the historian of France, and Fulbert of Chartres, the most renowned teacher of his age. They represent the rise of a new zeal for learning which began to dispel the darkness of the tenth century. France took the lead, Italy followed.

Fulbert, called by his admiring disciples "the Socrates of the Franks," was born of poor and obscure parents, probably at Chartres, about 950, and educated in the cathedral school of Rheims by Gerbert. He founded a similar school at Chartres, which soon acquired a brilliant reputation and rivalled that of Rheims. About 1003 he was elected chancellor of the church of Chartres, and in 1007 its bishop. When the cathedral burned down (1020), he received contributions from all parts of France and other countries for its reconstruction, but did not live to finish it. He was involved in the political and ecclesiastical disturbances of his country, opposed the use of the sword by the bishops, and the appropriation of church property, and sale of offices by the avaricious laity. He lost the favor of the court by his opposition to the intrigues of Queen Constantia. He died April 10, 1029.1511

Fulbert's fame rests chiefly on his success as a living teacher. This is indicated by his surname.1512  He was not an original thinker, but knew how to inspire his pupils with enthusiasm.1513  His personality was greater than his learning. He wisely combined spiritual edification with intellectual instruction, and aimed at the eternal welfare of his students. He used to walk with them at eventide in the garden and to engage in familiar conversations on the celestial country; sometimes he was overcome by his feelings, and adjured them with tears, never to depart from the path of truth and to strive with all might after that heavenly home.1514

His ablest pupil was Berengar of Tours, the vigorous opponent of transubstantiation, and it has sometimes been conjectured that he derived his views from him.1515  But Fulbert adhered to the traditional orthodoxy, and expressed himself against innovations, in letters to his metropolitan, Leutberich, archbishop of Sens. He regarded the real presence as an object of faith and adoration rather than of curious speculation, but thought that it is not more difficult to believe in a transformation of substance by Divine power than in the creation of substance.1516  He was a zealous worshipper of the saints, especially of the Virgin Mary, and one of the first who celebrated the festival of her Nativity.

The works of Fulbert consist of one hundred and thirty-nine (or 138) Letters, including some letters of his correspondents;1517 nine Sermons;1518 twenty-seven Hymns and Poems,,1519 and a few minor compositions, including probably a life of St. Autbert.1520  His letters have considerable interest and importance for the history of his age. The longest and most important letter treats of three doctrines which he regarded as essential and fundamental, namely, the trinity, baptism, and the eucharist.1521

From the school of Gerbert at Rheims proceeded the school of Fulbert at Chartres, and from this again the school of Berengar at Tours—all equally distinguished for popularity and efficiency. They in turn were succeeded by the monastic school of Lanfranc at Bec, who came from Italy, labored in France, opposed Berengar, his rival, and completed his career in England as archbishop of Canterbury. He was excelled by his pupil and successor, Anselm, the second Augustin, the father of Catholic scholasticism. With him began a new and important chapter in the development of theology.

 

 § 181. Rodulfus Glaber. Adam of Bremen.

 

I. Rodulfus Glaber (Cluniacnesis monachus): Opera, in Migne, Tom. CXLII. col. 611-720. The Historia sui temporis or Historia Francorum is also printed in part, with textual emendations by G. Waitz, in the Monum. Germ. Script., ed. by Pertz, Tom. VII. 48-72, and the Vita Willelmi abbatis in Tom. IV. 655-658. Comp. Ceillier: XIII. 143-147. Wattenbach: Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen. Potthast: Biblioth. Hist. medii aevi, p. 521.

II. Adamus Bremensis: Gesta Hammaburgenais ecclesiae Pontificum, seu Historia ecclesiastica. Libri IV. Best. ed. by Lappenberg in Pertz, Mon. Germ. Scriptores, Tom. VII. 267-389. German translation by Laurent, with introduction by Lappenberg, Berlin, 1850 (in "Geschichtschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit;" XI. Jahrh. B. VII.). In Migne, Tom. CXLVI. col. 433-566 (reprinted from Pertz).—Comp. Giesebrecht: Wendische Geschichte, III. 316 sqq.; Wattenbach: Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen (first ed. p. 252 sqq.); Koppmann: Die mittelalterlichen Geschichtsquellen in Bezug auf Hamburg (1868); Potthast, l.c p. 100; C. Bertheau in Herzog² I. 140 sqq. Of older notices see Ceillier, XIV. 201-206.

 

Among the historical writers of the eleventh century, Rodulfus Glaber, and Adam of Bremen deserve special mention, the one for France, the other for the North of Europe.

Rodulfus Glaber1522 was a native of Burgundy, sent to a convent in early youth by his uncle, and expelled for bad conduct; but he reformed and joined the strict Benedictine school of Cluny. He lived a while in the monastery of St. Benignus, at Dijon, then at Cluny, and died about 1050.

His chief work is a history of his own time, from 1000-1045, in five books. Though written in barbarous Latin and full of inaccuracies, chronological blunders, and legendary miracles, it is an interesting and indispensable source of information, and gives vivid pictures of the corrupt morals of that period.1523  He wrote also a biography of St. William, abbot of Dijon, who died 1031.1524

Adam of Bremen, a Saxon by birth, educated (probably) at Magdeburg, teacher and canon of the chapter at Bremen (1068), composed, between 1072 and 1076, a history of the Bishops of Hamburg-Bremen.1525  This is the chief source for the oldest church history of North Germany and Scandinavia, from 788 to the death of Adalbert, who was archbishop of Bremen from 1045-1072. Adam drew from the written sources in the rich library, of the church at Bremen, and from oral traditions.1526  He went to the Danish King Sven Estrithson, who "preserved the whole history of the barbarians in his memory as in a book." He is impartial and reliable, but neglects the chronology, . He may almost be called the Herodotus of the North except for his want of simplicity. He was familiar with Virgil, Horace, Lucian, and formed his style chiefly after Sallust; hence his artificial brevity and sententiousness.1527  He ranks with the first historians of the middle ages.1528

 

 § 182. St. Peter Damiani.

 

I. Beati Petri Damiani (S. R. E. cardinalis Episcopi Ostiensis Ordinis S. Benedicti) Opera omnia in quatuor tomos distributa, studio et labora Domni Constantini Cajetani (of Montecassino), first publ. Rom. 1606-'13; in Paris, 1663; in Venice, 1783. Reprinted with Vitae and Prolegomena in Migne's "Patrol. Lat.," Tom. CXLIV. and CXLV. (1853). Tom. I. 1060 cols.; Tom. II. 1224 cols.

II. Three biographies of Damiani, one by his pupil, Joannes monachus, who, however, only describes his monastic character. See Migne, I. 47-204. Acta Sanctorum (Bolland.), for February 23, Tom. III. 406-427. Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Bened., Saec. VI. Also the Annales Ordinis S. Benedicti, ed. Mabillon, Tom. IV., lib. LVIII.-LXII. (which extend from a.d. 1039-1066, and notice the public acts of Damiani in chronological order).

III. Jac. Laderchi: Vita S. Petri Damiani S. R. E. Cardinalis. Rom. 1702. 3 Tom. Albr. Vogel: Peter Damiani. Jena, 1856. Comp. his art. in Herzog² III. 466 sqq. F. Neukirch: Das Leben des Peter Dam. Göttingen, 1876. Jos. Kleinermanns (R.C.): Petrus Damiani in s. Leben und Wirken, nach den Quellen dargestellt. Steyl, 1882. Comp. also Ceillier, XIII. 296-324. Neander, III. 382, 397 and passim; Gfrörer Gregor. VII, Bd. I.; Höfler: Die deutschen Paepste; Will: Die Anfänge der Restauration der Kirche im elfte Jahrh.; Giesebrecht: Gesch. der deutschen Kaizerzeit, vol. II.; Hefele: Conciliengesch., vol. IV.

 

I. Life. Peter Damianus or Damiani (1007-1072),1529 a friend of Hildebrand and zealous promoter of the moral reform of the clergy, was a native of Ravenna, had a very hard youth, but with the help of his brother Damianus (whose name he adopted),1530 he was enabled to study at Ravenna, Faenza and Parma. He acquired honor and fortune as a teacher of the liberal arts in his native city. In his thirtieth year he suddenly left the world and became a hermit at Fonte Avellano near Gubbio (Eugubium) in Umbria, following the example of his countryman, Romuald, whose life he described.1531  He soon reached the height of ascetic holiness and became abbot and disciplinarian of the hermits and monks of the whole surrounding region. Even miracles were attributed to him.

He systematized and popularized a method of meritorious self-flagellation in connection with the recital of the Psalms; each Psalm was accompanied with a hundred strokes of a leathern thong on the bare back, the whole Psalter with fifteen thousand strokes. This penance became a rage, and many a monk flogged himself to death to the music of the Psalms for his own benefit, or for the release of souls in purgatory. The greatest expert was Dominicus, who wore an iron cuirass around his bare body (hence called Loricatus), and so accelerated the strokes that he absolved without a break twelve Psalters; at last he died of exhaustion(1063).1532  Even noble women ardently practiced "hoc purgatorii genus," as Damiani calls it. He defended this self-imposed penance against the opponents as a voluntary imitation of the passion of Christ and the sufferings of martyrs, but he found it necessary also to check unnatural excesses among his disciples, and ordered that no one should be forced to scourge himself, and that forty Psalms with four thousand strokes at a time should be sufficient as a rule.

The ascetic practice which he encouraged by word and example, had far-reaching consequences; it became a part of the monastic discipline among Dominicans1533 and Franciscans, and assumed gigantic proportions in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, especially during the reign of the Black Death (1349), when fraternities of Flagellants or Cross-bearers, moved by a spirit of repentance, preceded by crosses, stripped to the waist, with faces veiled, made pilgrimages through Italy, Germany and England and scourged themselves, while chanting the penitential psalms, twice a day for thirty-three days, in memory of the thirty-three years of our Lord's life.1534

Damiani became the leader of the strict monastic party which centred at Cluny and labored, from the sacerdotal and theocratic point of view, for a reformation of the clergy and the church at a time of their deepest degradation and corruption. He compared the condition of his age to that of Sodom and Gomorrah; he opposed simony and the concubinage of priests, as the two chief sources of evil. He advocated a law which punished simony with deposition, and which prohibited the laity from hearing mass said by married priests. Such a law was enacted by the Lateran Council of 1059. He also condemned in the clergy the practice of bearing arms, although even Pope Leo IX., in 1053, led an army against the pillaging Normans. He firmly maintained that a priest should not draw the sword even in defense of the faith, but contend only with the Word of God and the weapon of the Spirit.

A man of such talent, piety and energy could not remain hidden in the desert. He was drawn to Rome, and against his will chosen bishop of Ostia and Cardinal of the Roman church by Stephen X. in 1058. He narrowly escaped the triple crown in 1061. He was the spiritual counsellor and censor of the Hildebrandian popes (Gregory VI., Clement II., Leo IX., Victor II., Stephen X., Nicolas II., Alexander II.), and of Hildebrand himself. He was employed on important missions at Milan, Florence, Montecassino, Cluny, Mainz, Frankfort. He helped to put down the papal schism of Cadalous.1535  He had the confidence of the Emperor Henry III. whom he highly praise as a second David, became confessor of the widowed Empress Agnes, and prevented the divorce of her son Henry IV. from his wife Bertha. He resigned his bishopric, but was again called out from his retreat by Hildebrand; hence he called him his holy Satan, and also the lord of the pope.1536  He despised the vanities and dignities of high office. He preferred his monastic cell in the Apennines, where he could conquer his own world within, recite the Psalter, scourge himself, and for a change write satires and epigrams, and make wooden spoons. "What would the bishops of old have done," he said, "had they to endure the torments which now attend the episcopate?  To ride forth constantly accompanied by troops of soldiers with swords and lances, to be girt about with armed men, like a heathen general!  Every day royal banquets, every day parade!  The table loaded with delicacies for voluptuous guests; while the poor pine away with famine!"

His last work was to heal a schism in the church of his native city. On his return he died of fever at Faenza, Feb. 23, 1072, one year before Hildebrand ascended the papal chair to carry out the reforms for which Damiani had prepared the way with narrow, but honest, earnest and unselfish devotion.

II. The Works of Damiani consist of Epistles, Sermons, Lives of Saints, ascetic tracts, and Poems. They are a mirror of the church of his age.

1. The Epistles are divided into eight books. They are addressed (a) to contemporary Roman Bishops (Gregory VI., Clement II., Leo IX., Victor II., Nicolas II., Alexander II., and the Anti-pope Cadalous or Honorius II.); (b) to the Cardinal Bishops, and to Cardinal Hildebrand in particular; (c) to Patriarchs and to the Archbishops of Ravenna and Cologne; (d) to various Bishops; (e) to Archpresbyters, Archdeacons, Presbyters and other clergy. They give a graphic picture of the corruptions of the church in his times, and are full of zeal for a moral reform. He subscribes himself "Petrus peccator monachus." The letters to the anti-pope Cadalous show his power of sarcasm; he tells him that his very name from cado, to fall, and laov", people, was ominous, that he deserved a triple deposition, that his new crime was adultery and simony of the worst sort, that he had sold his own church (Parma) and bought another, that the church was desecrated to the very top by such adulteries. He prophesied his death within one year, but Cadalous outlived it, and Damiani defended his prophecy as applying to moral death.

2. Sermons, seventy-four in number.1537  They are short and treat of church festivals, apostles, the Virgin Mary, martyrs, saints, relics, and enjoin a churchly and ascetic piety.

3. Lives of Saints, of the Benedictine order, namely, Odilo of Cluny, Romuald, Rodulphus, and Dominicus Loricatus (the hero of self-flagellation), whose examples are held up for imitation.1538

4. Dogmatic Discussions, De Fide Catholica; Contra Judaeos; Dialogus inter Judaeum et Christianum; De Divina Omnipotentia; De Processione Spiritus Sancti (against the Greeks), etc.1539

5. Polemic and ascetic treatises. The most important is the Liber Gomorrhianus (1051), a fearless exposure of clerical immorality which appeared to him as bad as the lewdness of Sodom and Gomorrah (hence the title).1540  It is addressed to Pope Leo IX. and calls on him to exercise his authority in removing the scandals. The Liber Gratissimus, addressed to Henry, archbishop of Ravenna, is directed against simony.1541  He wrote also tracts on the contempt of the world, on monastic perfection, on the life of hermits, on sacerdotal celibacy, against intemperance, against avarice, etc.1542

6. On Miracles and Apparitions.1543

7. On the Pictures of the chief Apostles, especially Peter and Paul.1544

8. Exposition of the Canon of the Mass, and other liturgical topics.1545

9. Exegetical Fragments on the Old and New Testaments.1546

10  Poems, satires, epigrams and Prayers.1547  His best hymn is on the glory of Paradise, based on poetic prose of St. Augustin: "Ad perennis vitae fontem mens sativit arida."1548