Month: August 2006

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Antiquity’s Great Inventions

Today is the feast day of the Invention of the Relics of St. Stephen. Now, “invention” here does NOT mean “fabrication,” but rather “discovery.”

The Church is one place on earth that pays profound respect to the work of archeologists. We even have feast days in honor of their greatest digs, as in the feast of the “Invention of the Cross.” In the preface to his great novel Helena, Evelyn Waugh tells of a British aristocrat who vents her hostility to Christianity by saying “I got the real lowdown at last. The whole story was made up by a British woman named Ellen. Why, the guide showed me the very place where it happened. Even the priests admit it. They call their chapel the ‘Invention of the Cross.'” (If you haven’t read Helena, do yourself a favor and start it today.)

Well, the Invention of the Relics of St. Stephen (the martyr of Acts 6-7 in the New Testament) might seem like a relatively minor discovery, but in its day (415 A.D.) it was instant news, worldwide. Augustine reported it breathlessly and stayed on the story as the relics were distributed throughout the empire.

The body was exhumed in a field outside the village of Caphargamala, near Jerusalem. A priest named Lucianus was an eyewitness at the discovery and sent off a letter detailing the moment of the find: “At that instant the earth trembled and a smell of sweet perfume came from the place such as no man had ever known of, so much that we thought that we were standing in the sweet garden of Paradise. And a that very hour, from the smell of that perfume, seventy-three persons were healed.” Immediately came a downpour, which ended a long drought in the region.

St. Augustine was thrilled that the body had been found after more than three and a half centuries. “His body lay hidden for so long a time. It came forth when God wished it. It has brought light to all lands, it has performed such miracles.” (You can find the Latin text of Augustine’s sermon on Stephen, Sermon no. 319, right here.)

Some of the relics came to rest quite near Augustine, in the town of Uzalis, outside Carthage. Many miracles followed. Here’s our preacher again, this time from his City of God, book 22.8:

When the bishop Projectus was bringing the relics of the most glorious martyr Stephen to the waters of Tibilis, a great concourse of people came to meet him at the shrine. There a blind woman entreated that she might be led to the bishop who was carrying the relics. He gave her the flowers he was carrying. She took them, applied them to her eyes, and forthwith saw. Those who were present were astounded, while she, with every expression of joy, preceded them, pursuing her way without further need of a guide.

Lucillus bishop of Sinita, in the neighborhood of the colonial town of Hippo, was carrying in procession some relics of the same martyr, which had been deposited in the castle of Sinita. A fistula under which he had long labored, and which his private physician was watching an opportunity to cut, was suddenly cured by the mere carrying of that sacred fardel,21 -at least, afterwards there was no trace of it in his body.

Eucharius, a Spanish priest, residing at Calama, was for a long time a sufferer from stone. By the relics of the same martyr, which the bishop Possidius brought him, he was cured. Afterwards the same priest, sinking under another disease, was lying dead, and already they were binding his hands. By the succor of the same martyr he was raised to life, the priest’s cloak having been brought from the oratory and laid upon the corpse.

There was there an old nobleman named Martial, who had a great aversion to the Christian religion, but whose daughter was a Christian, while her husband had been baptized that same year. When he was ill, they besought him with tears and prayers to become a Christian, but he positively refused, and dismissed them from his presence in a storm of indignation. It occurred to the son-in-law to go to the oratory of St. Stephen, and there pray for him with all earnestness that God might give him a right mind, so that he should not delay believing in Christ. This he did with great groaning and tears, and the burning fervor of sincere piety; then, as he left the place, he took some of the flowers that were lying there, and, as it was already night, laid them by his father’s head, who so slept. And lo! before dawn, he cries out for some one to run for the bishop; but he happened at that time to be with me at Hippo. So when he had heard that he was from home, he asked the presbyters to come. They came. To the joy and amazement of all, he declared that he believed, and he was baptized. As long as he remained in life, these words were ever on his lips: “Christ, receive my spirit,” though he was not aware that these were the last words of the most blessed Stephen when he was stoned by the Jews. They were his last words also, for not long after he himself also gave up the ghost.

There, too, by the same martyr, two men, one a citizen, the other a stranger, were cured of gout; but while the citizen was absolutely cured, the stranger was only informed what he should apply when the pain returned; and when he followed this advice, the pain was at once relieved.

Audurus is the name of an estate, where there is a church that contains a memorial shrine of the martyr Stephen. It happened that, as a little boy was playing in the court, the oxen drawing a wagon went out of the track and crushed him with the wheel, so that immediately he seemed at his last gasp. His mother snatched him up, and laid him at the shrine, and not only did he revive, but also appeared uninjured.

Augustine’s telling, while marvelous, is still on the sober side. You’ll find the tradition at its most fanciful in the late-medieval Golden Legend.

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No, not Vermicelli — Vercelli

Today’s also the day for St. Eusebius of Vercelli (A.D. 283-371), who labored to end the Arian heresy. It was a difficult time to be orthodox. The emperor had heretical leanings, and was in the habit of summoning synods to do nasty things like condemn St. Athanasius and exile the old Alexandrian once again from his see. Eusebius refused to take part in such proceedings, and for that refusal he himself was exiled, jailed, and publicly humiliated. He played an active role in many other controversies of his day. History proved him to pick the right side unfailingly. If a man is known by the company he keeps, then you can be sure that Eusebius was a great guy. Among his close friends were St. Athanasius and St. Hilary of Poitiers. Some scholars believe he is the true author of the so-called Athanasian Creed (which begins with the Latin word Quicumque, and which I try to recite once a month).

Eusebius of Vercelli is not to be confused with the historian Eusebius, who sometimes picked the wrong side of the same controversies.

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Even Stephen, a Wise Judge and Pontiff

Last weekend I spoke at the annual Defending the Faith Conference at lovely Franciscan University of Steubenville. My topic was martyrdom, specifically in the centuries before the accession of Constantine and the peace of the Church. During the Q&A afterward, someone asked how many of the popes of the first two centuries died as martyrs. I didn’t know the answer (and I still don’t), but I suggested that martyrdom was probably listed in the standard benefits package under the heading “pension plan.”

Today is the memorial of one of those early popes, Stephen I, who lived in a time of martyrs and was perhaps a martyr himself. In all events, he was a wise and just referee in the confusion that invariably attended persecution — judging among the contending voices of aggrieved confessors, repentant apostates, renegade theologians and strange bishops, not to mention slugs like me who were trying to get by.

May Pope St. Stephen intercede for us as we honor him today.

Wisdom! Be attentive to the old Catholic Encyclopedia:

It is generally believed that [Stephen] was consecrated 12 May, 254, and that he died 2 August, 257. According to the most ancient catalogues, he was a Roman by birth, and the son of Jovius, and there is no reason to doubt the assertion of the “Liber Pontificalis” that Lucius I, when about to be martyred, made over the care of the Church to his archdeacon Stephen. Most of what we know regarding Pope Stephen is connected directly or indirectly with the severe teachings of the heretic Novatus. Stephen’s most important work was his defense of the validity of heretical baptism against the mistaken opinion of St. Cyprian and other bishops of Africa and Asia. Stephen “triumphed, and in him the Church of Rome triumphed, as she deserved” [E.W. Benson, “Cyprian, His Life, His Times, His Works”, VIII (London), 1897, 3].

In the early part of his pontificate Stephen was frequently urged by Faustinus, Bishop of Lyons, to take action against Marcian, Bishop of Arles, who, attaching himself to doctrines of Novatus, denied communion to the penitent lapsi. For some reason unknown to us Stephen did not move. The bishops of Gaul accordingly turned to Cyprian, and begged him to write to the pope. This the saint did in a letter which is our sole source of information regarding this affair (Epp. lxix, lxviii). The Bishop of Carthage entreats Stephen to imitate his martyred predecessors, and to instruct the bishops of Gaul to condemn Marcian, and to elect another bishop in his stead. As no more is said by St. Cyprian on this affair, it is supposed that the pope acted in accordance with his wishes, and that Marcian was deposed. The case of the Spanish bishops Martial and Basilides also brought Stephen in connection with St. Cyprian. As libellatici they had been condemned by the bishops of their province for denying the Faith. At first they acknowledged their guilt, but afterwards appealed to Rome, and, deceived by their story, Stephen exerted himself to secure their restoration. Accordingly some of their fellow bishops took their part, but the others laid the case before St. Cyprian. An assembly of African bishops which he convoked renewed the condemnation of Basilides and Martial, and exhorted the people to enter into communion with their successors. At the same time they were at pains to point out that Stephen had acted as he had done because “situated at a distance, and ignorant of the true facts of the case” he had been deceived by Basilides. Anxious to preserve the tradition of his predecessors in matters of practical charity, as well as of faith, Stephen, we are told, relieved in their necessities “all the provinces of Syria and Arabia”. In his days the vestments worn by the clergy at Mass and other church services did not differ in shape or material from those ordinarily worn by the laity. Stephen, however, is said by the “Liber Pontificalis” to have ordained that the vestments which had been used for ecclesiastical purposes were not to be employed for daily wear. The same authority adds that he finished his pontificate by martyrdom, but the evidence for this is generally regarded as doubtful. He was buried in the cemetery of St. Calixtus, whence his body was transferred by Paul I to a monastery which he had founded in his honor.

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Diocletian and the New Empire

Diocletian’s name turns up frequently on this blog. It was he, after all, who — more than any other Roman emperor — made martyrdom widely available to the greatest number of Christians. But pity the man, at least for a moment.

Diocletian saw the empire suffering repeated civil wars, and he knew that something was wrong in the basic structure of the Empire itself.

First of all, in order to restore the respect for the Emperor that had been tattered by the years of uprisings, he decided to imitate Eastern kings. Instead of presenting himself as one of the people, Diocletian magnified himself into a god, an awful figure who could be approached only with fear and trembling — and through a system of etiquette that was painfully complex. He wore splendid robes and surrounded himself with ceremony every hour of the day. He also made sure that the ancient Roman religion was restored to its former dignity — and unlike most upper-class Romans, he seems to have really believed in the old gods.

But restoring respect for the Emperor was only the beginning of his plan. Diocletian came up with a brilliant scheme to end the civil wars forever. The problem, as he saw it, was that there was no set way to choose an emperor. Usually whoever had the largest part of the army behind him became emperor, but often different emperors were proclaimed in different parts of the Empire, and civil war was the inevitable result.

So Diocletian decided to scrap the whole system and start over. Instead of one Emperor for the enormous Roman Empire, there would be four — two Augusti and two Caesars. Each Augustus would rule for twenty years and then retire. During those twenty years, he would choose his Caesar, someone whose ability he trusted, and when the Augustus retired the Caesar would become a new Augustus. The elder of the two Augusti would be the head of the whole Empire. This way, there would be no doubt about who was to become the next emperor. And an ambitious Caesar wouldn’t be tempted to rebel, because he knew he would become Augustus when the current Augustus retired. Diocletian picked his other Augustus and the first two Caesars carefully — they were men who had shown exceptional ability as military leaders, and they seemed to be loyal to him and to his dream of a restored Roman Empire. Diocletian installed himself in the city of Nicomedia, southeast of where Istanbul is now, and the other Emperors chose the capitals that seemed most convenient for administering their sections of the Empire.

Diocletian was quite tolerant of the Christians. In fact, some of his best friends were Christians — even his wife and daughter were at least Christian sympathizers. His court was filled with Christians, and he seemed to trust them more than he did anyone else except the pagan priests. For most of his reign, the Church was left at peace, and it continued to grow.

But the pagan priests saw the writing on the wall. If Christianity continued to flourish, they would all be out of jobs. Diocletian was completely devoted to their pagan superstitions. But Diocletian was getting to be an old man, and according to his own system he was scheduled to retire soon. Here was their last chance to get rid of the Christians before the Christians got rid of them. The priests were supported by other pagan fanatics in the court. Chief among them was Galerius, Diocletian’s designated successor. He was a fanatical hater of Christians, and he was determined to reign in a Church-free Empire. Galerius, in turn, was urged on by his mother, who was even more hateful and more fanatical than Galerius was.

But what could be done about the Christians? Diocletian wanted peace more than anything else, and he wasn’t about to start a war against a large portion of his own people. But Diocletian made every decision by consulting the omens, as interpreted by the pagan priests. That gave those priests incredible power, and they decided to make the most of it.

One day Tagis, the chief priest, was offering a solemn sacrifice before the Emperor. As usual, the future of the Empire depended on the omens revealed in the sacrifice. The whole court was there, including the Christians. When the priest killed the sacrificial animal, the Christians crossed themselves—as they always did to show that they had nothing to do with sacrifices to idols.

But this time something unheard-of happened. Tagis announced that the omens hadn’t appeared in the entrails of the sacrifice. He ordered the priests to make another offering, but still no omens appeared. Drawing himself up and frowning with all the awful dignity of his office, Tagis pointed his finger at the Christians.

“The gods refuse to appear,” he shouted, “because these profane men are keeping them away with that sign, the sign that the gods hate!”

That was enough to convince Diocletian. But he still didn’t want to go down in history as a cruel tyrant. He had worked all his life to bring peace to the Empire. The Christian Church must be brought down, he agreed, but no blood must be shed.

“Oh, of course not,” the pagan fanatics told him. “That won’t be necessary. The Christian religion has grown only because we were so permissive. Once they see we’re serious, the Christians won’t be willing to die for their faith.”

Of course, Diocletian’s advisors knew they were lying. But all they had to do was get the Emperor started, and then he wouldn’t be able to stop.

Immediately the persecution began. Early in the morning, a hand-picked squadron of imperial storm troopers swooped down on the beautiful church in Nicomedia — built during the decades of peace since the last persecution — and broke down the doors. They made a bonfire of the Scriptures, then destroyed the whole building. After that, they posted copies of the new edict from the Emperor: all the churches were to be torn down, and all the Christian books were to be burned. An upper-class Christian tore down one of the posters, and he was immediately captured, tortured, and killed. The bloodshed had begun.

Now the pagan fanatics had to keep it going. Everywhere they magnified arguments into riots and riots into rebellions. As long as the Emperor was convinced that the Christians were conspiring to plunge the Empire into chaos, he would go along with any persecution, no matter how bloody. The Emperor’s own palace caught fire twice, and of course the Christians were blamed—although there was good reason to suspect that the pagans had set the fires just to make the Emperor more nervous. All the Christians in the court were given a choice: sacrifice to the Emperor or die. Many of them died.

Soon the persecution had reached even the remotest provinces. Even children who refused to give up their faith were executed. But it was only beginning. More edicts came out in Diocletian’s name. The clergy were rounded up and imprisoned. Finally, all Christians of every sort were ordered to sacrifice to the idols.

The Emperor tried to make it easy for the Christians: even a single grain of salt sacrificed to the idols would do, if only they would make the sacrifice. Some did. But many heroic Christians held out. With ruthless efficiency, the persecutors surrounded whole towns, rounded up all the Christians, and called each one by name to sacrifice. The ones who refused were carried off to horrible tortures.

And always the option of sacrificing to the idols was open to them. Just a little pinch of incense, and the tortures would stop, and they could go home free. Only an incredibly stubborn fanatic could refuse such a reasonable offer. But thousands did refuse. Some died from the tortures; others — the lucky ones — were executed.

Meanwhile, Diocletian lay sick in his bed, his dream of a peaceful Empire torn to shreds. From Gaul came the news that Constantius Chlorus, one of the Caesars, was refusing to persecute the Christians. The four emperors were no longer acting as one. And Diocletian had to watch helplessly as the persecution raged into something worse than civil war. Meanwhile, the time had come when he had said he would step aside. Galerius, who desperately wanted to finish the war against the Church, practically pushed Diocletian out the door in 305, and the poor old man retired to his palace in what is today Croatia to watch the Empire disintegrate around him. At the same time, Maximian, the other Augustus, was more or less forced out. Galerius was left as the supreme Emperor.

Immediately he picked two Caesars who were remarkable mostly for their unflagging hatred of Christians. But Constantius Chlorus, who was now the other Augustus, had a son named Constantine who was dangerously popular among the army. And Maximian had a son named Maxentius who was just plain dangerous. When Constantius Chlorus died, the army (used to having its own way) picked Constantine to succeed him. Galerius was forced to accept what he couldn’t stop, and made Constantine the second Caesar, while everyone else moved up one notch in the ranks. But Maxentius thought he deserved to be a Caesar too, and the army in Italy recognized his claim. And then—as if things weren’t mixed up enough already — Maximian decided to revoke his abdication, and declared that he was still Emperor. Soon six emperors were claiming the title of Augustus. Once again, there were too many emperors, and civil war was inevitable.

With his life’s work in tatters, Diocletian came out of his retirement and made a futile attempt to paste the Empire back together. Instead of gratitude, he got death threats. Broken and sad, Diocletian saw that there was no hope. His dream of a restored pagan Rome would never come true. Already sick, and with nothing left to live for, Diocletian found a comfortable spot to lie down, and then took poison.