CURIOSITIES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY PRIOR TO THE REFORMATION BY CROAKE JAMES Author of “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers” Methuen & Co. 18, BURY STREET, LONDON, W.C. 1892 All rights reserved Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury....

History is often a dreary study except to a few experts; and yet the Christians of to-day naturally wish to know more about their predecessors in the old time before them. There is always much difficulty in separating what to them must be interesting from masses of detail which do not touch their sympathies. From the time of Christ to the epoch of the Reformation there were no Dissenters—only traitors and heretics, who were deemed unworthy to live in the same world and to breathe the same air as

CHAPTER I. THE VIRGIN MARY, HOLY FAMILY, CHRIST, AND THE CRUCIFIXION. Heathen Knowledge about the Virgin, 1 ; Simeon’s Great Age, 2 ; Portraits of the Virgin, 2 ; Marriage of Joseph and Virgin Mary, 3 ; Massacre of Innocents, 4 ; Flight to Egypt, 5 ; Holy Family Leaving Egypt, 6 ; Assumption of Virgin Mary, 7 ; Christ Learning Alphabet, 9 ; Joseph and Jesus as Carpenters, 10 ; Christ’s Baptism, 10 ; Portraits of Christ, 11 ; King Agbarus, 12 ; Christ’s Preaching, 13 ; Sentence on Christ, 14 ; Ch

THE VIRGIN MARY, HOLY FAMILY, CHRIST, AND THE CRUCIFIXION. HEATHEN KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE VIRGIN MARY. According to an ancient legend, the Emperor Augustus Cæsar repaired to the sibyl Tiburtina to inquire whether he should consent to allow himself to be worshipped with Divine honours, which the Senate had decreed to him. The sibyl, after some days of meditation, took the Emperor apart, and showed him an altar; and above the altar, in the opening heavens, and in a glory of light, he beheld a beautif

THE DISCIPLES AND APOSTLES OF OUR LORD. DEATHS OF THE APOSTLES. St. Matthew suffered martyrdom by being slain with a sword at a distant city of Ethiopia. St. Mark expired at Alexandria, after having been cruelly dragged through the streets of that city. St. Luke was hanged upon an olive tree in Greece. St. John was put into a caldron of boiling oil, but escaped death in a miraculous manner, and was afterwards banished to Patmos. St. Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downward. St. James t

CHRIST’S CONTEMPORARIES—CLIMATE AND SCENERY OF PALESTINE. THE SAGES OF GREECE AND ROME ON CHRISTIAN PRODIGIES. Gibbon observes that during the age of Christ, of His Apostles and their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, demons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the Church. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside fr

EARLY CHURCH CUSTOMS, FASTS, AND FESTIVALS. CHURCH HISTORY DIVIDED INTO AGES AND PERIODS. Dr. Schaff, in his “History of the Apostolic Church,” has divided the whole history of the Church as follows:— First Age. —The Primitive or Universal Church, from its foundation on the day of Pentecost to Gregory the Great, thus embracing the first six centuries ( A.D. 30-590). First Period. —The Apostolic Church, from the first Christian Pentecost to the death of the Apostles ( A.D. 30-100). Second Period.

DIFFICULTIES WITH PAGANS, JEWS, IMAGE WORSHIPPERS, AND CIVIL POWERS. THE NAME OF CHRISTIAN. Though for the last sixteen centuries the name of Christian has been used throughout the whole world, this descriptive word was not much used in the first four centuries. The Christians used to call each other disciples, believers, elect, saints, and brethren. Third parties called them at first Jesseans, spiritual physicians, or gnostics. When heretics or followers of peculiar opinions of a novel kind aro

MARTYRS, HERMITS, ANCHORITES, AND RELICS. THE VIRGIN MARTYR VALERIA ( A.D. 50). St. Martial, the apostle of the Gauls, when a lad of fifteen, was taken by his father to see Christ, and became thenceforth a constant follower, and at a later date was a companion of St. Peter. In his career as first bishop of Limoges, he was hospitably entertained by a noble widow named Susanna. Her daughter Valeria devoted her virginity to the Lord, and having taken a vow of chastity she rejected the marriage whic

THE FATHERS. ORIGEN, CHAMPION OF ORTHODOXY ( A.D. 253). When a persecution was raging against the Christians about 206, Leonidas and his son Origen were among the suspected. Leonidas was beheaded. Origen, then aged seventeen, was also eager to meet the same fate, and he would have been beheaded also, but his mother privily in the night season conveyed away his clothes and his shirt. Whereupon, more for shame to be seen than for fear to die, he was constrained to remain at home. He was zealous, h

THE MONKS AND THEIR WAYS. ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF MONACHISM. As early as the second century men and women began to feel the charm of a peaceful, contemplative life, wholly severed from the selfish, sensual, and brutish ways of large communities. Hence they were attracted to deserts and secluded places, and to seek happiness by living entirely alone. It is thought this turn of religious life was first developed in Egypt. About 378 St. Basil, afterwards Bishop of Cæsarea, introduced monachism into

PROSELYTISING MONKS AND PREACHERS. A CAPTIVE NUN CONVERTING THE IBERIANS. In the reign of the Christian Emperor Constantine, early in the fourth century, a Christian nun, called Nunia, was carried off captive by the Iberians, and was given as a slave to one of the natives. Her ascetic and devotional life soon attracted the notice of the Pagans, who became convinced that she had some magical power of life and death. A child was thought to be at the point of death, and was carried from place to pl

FAMOUS MONKS AND MONASTERIES. A MONK WITH A GENIUS FOR MONKERY ( A.D. 400). Arsenius the Great was a famous monk, born about 354, and had been early in life made tutor to the sons of the Emperor Theodosius; but finding it an unsatisfactory post, retired at the age of forty, resolving to cleanse his soul and fly from the society of men. He went to Egypt; and being anxious to be taken in as a monk, applied to John Colobus (the Dwarfish), who invited him to a meal to test his suitability. Arsenius

SOME BISHOPS, KINGS, POPES, AND INQUISITORS. THEORY OF THE UNITY OF THE CLERGY. The clergy, including the monks and friars, were one throughout Latin Christendom. Whatever antagonism, feud, hatred, and estrangement might rise between rival prelates, rival priests, rival orders, whatever irreconcilable jealousy there might be between the seculars and regulars, yet the caste seldom betrayed the interest of the caste. The clergy in general were first the subjects of the Pope, then the subjects of t

SACRED LEGENDS. LIVES AND LEGENDS OF SAINTS AND MARTYRS. In the ninth century the monks busied themselves with collecting, compiling, and reviving biographies and histories of saints and martyrs. Many of the records of monasteries had been pillaged and destroyed by the ravages of the Northmen, and it was necessary and expedient to keep alive the memories of notable saints. Some prominent monks of St. Germains, of Paris, of Notker and St. Gall, devoted themselves to this task, and many narratives

THE CRUSADERS AND PILGRIMS. A MONK HISTORIAN ON THE CRUSADES. The old chroniclers are elated with a fine enthusiasm when narrating the exploits of the first Crusaders. Orderic the monk, who died about 1141, thus describes the situation: “Lo, the crusade to Jerusalem is entered on by the inspiration of God; the people of the West miraculously flock together from many nations, and are led in one united army to fight against the execrable Saracens, who so long had defiled with their abominations al

SOME GREAT CHURCHES AND CATHEDRALS. EARLY BASILICA CHURCH ARCHITECTURE. The basilicas of Pagan Rome were long rectangular buildings, divided along their whole length sometimes by two, not seldom by four, lines of columns, and serving as halls or courts of justice. The Christians of the fourth and fifth centuries often obtained from favouring emperors leave to turn these basilicas into churches. It was thought that this gave a pattern to early churches. The roof was gradually raised proportionate

THE SACRED PAINTERS AND COMPOSERS. IMAGES AND PICTURES IN CHURCHES. The Romish Church has from the beginning looked favourably on the practice of adorning churches with images and pictures of sacred persons. At Nola, in 460, the cathedral of St. Felix had wall paintings of stories taken from the Old Testament. In 752 a council of the Church required images to be erected in churches, and worship of these was inculcated as a remembrance of the holy lives and conversation of the dead. The Iconoclas