449 LI m CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FINE ARTS LIBRARY SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henrg M, Sage 1891 \,\^^scq I 111 o5 Cornell university Library N 80S0.B43L7 > and legends of the great h^^^^ '|5""924 020 507 939 DATE DUE PRINTED IN aSA Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924020507939 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART THE GREAT HERMITS AND FATHERS OF THE CHURCH, ETC. sA previous Volume deals with THE LIVES AND LEGENDS OF THE EVANGELISTS, APOSTLES, AND OTHER EARLY SAINTS ^nd a Third Volume is in preparation on THE ENGLISH BISHOPS AND KINGS; THE MEDIAEVAL MONKS, WITH OTHER LATER SAINTS LIVES AND LEGENDS OF THE GREAT HERMITS AND FATHERS OF THE CHURCH, WITH OTHER CONTEMPORARY SAINTS MRS. ARTHUR BELL Author of 'Lives and Legends of the Evangelists, Apostles, and other Earlji Saints' 'The Elementary History of Art,' 'Representative Painters of the Nineteenth Century! etc. LONDON GEORGE BELL & SONS 1902 3^ ±±±a=B^^ ^. PREFACE The present volume deals with a deeply interesting period of the history alike of the Church and of Christian art, for between 300 and 700 A.D. a complete revolution took place in the atti- tude of the world towards Christianity ; a revolution reflected in every branch of culture, but especially in literature, paint- ing, sculpture, and architecture. During the fourth century many hundreds of martyrs were sacrificed to the blind fury of the heathen, with the result that more canonized saints belong to it than to any other period. In the seventh, on the other hand, when the death penalty was inflicted, it was generally by the Christians themselves as a punishment for heresy. In the fourth century the art which was most thoroughly imbued with the Christian spirit was, strange to say, still strictly classic in form, for it was rather by the tran substantia- tion of heathen ideas than the introduction of new ones that the radical change taking place amongst all classes of the com- munity was illustrated. The Christians, surrounded as they were on every side by enemies, had at first no time for the evolution of original art-forms, and gladly availed themselves of those already in use, selecting, of course, such as were best suited to bear a new and more spiritual significance. Early Christian art was, indeed, until some time after the conversion of Constantine, practised solely for the sake of doing honour to the dead, and nearly all the examples of it which have been preserved to the present day, are the frescoes and sculptures of the catacombs and of some few sarcophagi from elsewhere. By the middle of the fourth century, however. vi PREFACE mosaics were very generally used for the decoration of the basilicas which then took the place of the underground churches, in which the Christians used to meet to worship in secret, and an entirely new class of subject, partly historical and partly legendary, came into vogue. This was the first stage in the evolution of Christian art properly so called, and from that time until the decadence set in after the golden age of painting and sculpture, there was practically no limit to the production of beautiful work, combining with greater or less technical skill, the expression of the deep reverence for their themes, characteristic of those who worked, not for earthly gain, but for pure love of art and religion. When the masterpieces of mediaeval art were produced their meaning was intelligible to all, for the lives and legends of the Saints were familiar even to the unlearned ; but as time went on, and faith in the unseen grew dim, their significance became obscured, whilst the origin of the symbols introduced was more or less completely forgotten. With the new enthusiasm for art, which was one of the most marked charac- teristics of the nineteenth century, however, was associated a revival of interest in the subjects chosen for representation by the sculptors and painters of the past. On every side it became recognised that to understand the creations of such men as Giotto, Fra Angelico and their successors, or of the nameless sculptors who enriched the cathedrals of Europe with exquisite statues and bas-reliefs, caring nothing for individual fame, it is not enough to be a good judge, able to recognise the hand of this or that master, not enough to have a general knowledge of the history of the Church. The student must be as thoroughly in touch with the subjects treated as were the artists themselves ; he must view their work from within, not from without, and if he cannot altogether share their faith in the reality of their visions, he must at least be able, with the aid of his imagination, to appreciate their attitude. NANCY BELL. Southbourne-on-Sea, July, 1902. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE FIRST CHRISTIAN HERMITS - - - I II. SOME CELEBRATED CONTEMPORARIES AND SUCCESSORS OF ST. ANTONY THE HERMIT - - I4 III. OTHER GREAT HERMITS AND CONVERTS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY - - - - - 26 IV. MARTYRED CHURCHMEN OF THE FOURTH CENTURY - 39 V. MARTYRED CITIZENS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY - 5 1 VI. ST. GEORGE AND OTHER WARRIOR SAINTS 64 VII. SAINTS LUCY, AGNES, DOROTHEA AND CATHERINE 79 VIII. OTHER MARTYRED WOMEN OF THE FOURTH CENTURY 97 IX. ST. HELENA AND THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE I05 X. ST. ATHANASIUS - - - I16 XI. ST. BASIL THE GREAT - - 122 Xn. ST. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS - - 1 28 XIII. ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM - - 1 32 XIV. ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA - - 139 XV. THE FOUR GREAT LATIN FATHERS - - I42 XVI. ST. JEROME - - - I4S XVII. ST. AMBROSE - - - I55 XVIII. ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO AND HIS MOTHER - 165 XIX. ROMAN POPES AND GREEK BISHOPS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY .... . 175 XX. WESTERN BISHOPS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY - - 189 viii CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XXI. SOME HOLY WOMEN OF THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES 2IO XXII. ST. GENEVlkVE, QUEEN CLOTILDA, KING SIGISMUND, AND ST. MflN^HOULD - 2l6 XXIIL SOME GREAT CHURCHMEN OF THE FIFTH CENTURY - 226 XXIV. HERMITS AND OTHER RECLUSES OF THE FIFTH CENTURY 235 XXV. SAINTS PATRICK AND BRIDGET OF IRELAND 24 1 XXVI. SAINTS BENEDICT, SCHOLASTICA, MAURUS, AND PLACIDUS 25 1 XXVII. SAINTS RADEGUND, MONEGONDA, AND URSULA - 265 XXVIII. SOME CELEBRATED MONKS AND HERMITS OF THE SIXTH CENTURY 279 XXIX. ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 290 XXX. SOME GREAT CHURCHMEN OF THE SIXTH CENTURY - 300 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS St. George St. Antony the Great and St. John THE Baptist The Meeting between St. Antony AND St. Paul The Madonna and Child, with St. Antony and other Saints The Madonna and Child, with Saints Antony and Mary Mag- dalene St. Hilarion vanquishing the Dragon Madonna and Child, with St. Donato, St. Nicholas, and other Saints St. Ansano St. John the Baptist, with St. COSMAS AND other SaINTS The Frustrated Attempt to burn Saints Cosmas and Damianus - The Triumph of St. George St. George St. Victor The Madonna and Child, with St. Lucy and other Saints St. Agnes PAGE Donatella Frontispiece Fra Filippo Lippi 4 Pinturicchio 6 Lorenzo Lotto 8 Francesco Bonsignori 12 Pietro Lorenzetti 1 8 Luca Signorelli 46 Sodoma 48 Fra Filippo Lippi 54 Fra Angelica 56 Vittore Carpaccio 66 Andrea Mantegna yo Sodoma 74 Sodoma 80 Andrea del Sarto 84 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Martyrdom of St. Dorothea - The Marriage of St. Catherine St. Catherine disputing with the Wise Men The Burial of St. Catherine St. Justina Madonna and Child, with St. Christina and other Saints St. Helena bearing the Cross The Vision of St. Helena - The Invention of the Cross The Mass of St. Basil St. John Chrysostom - The Charity of St. John Chrysos- tom The Four Latin Fathers St. Jerome in the Desert - Saints Jerome, Clara and Mary Magdalene The Death of St. Jerome St. Ambrose enthroned The ' Felicini ' Altar-piece, with Saints Augustine and Monica - St. Augustine in his Study - Part of the 'Gozzadini' Predella, WITH St. Augustine Scenes from the Life of St. Nicholas - The ' Ansidei ' Madonna, with Saints Nicholas and John the Baptist The Dedication of St. Genevieve - Attila rebuked by St. Leo the Great Scenes from the Life of St. Zenobio St. Zenobio enthroned , St. Benedict - PAGE Sir Edward Burne-Jones 88 Bernardino Luini 92 Pinturicchio 94 Bernardino Luini 96 Alvise Vivarini 102 Luca Signorelli 104 Tamaroedo 106 Paolo Veronese 1X2 Piero della Francesca 116 Subleyras 124 SebasHano del Piombo 134 Titian 138 n Moretto 142 Lord Leighton 148 Luca Signorelli 150 Fra Filippo Lippi 154 Alvise Vivarini 158 Francia 166 Fra Filippo Lippi it 2 Francia 174 Fra Angelica 182 Raphael 186 Puvis de Chavannes 218 Raphael 226 Sandro Botticelli 228 Domenico Ghirlandajo 230 Peruana 252 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS XI St. Benedict leaving Home - The Martyrdom of Saints Placidus AND Flavia Ippolita Sforza, with Saints Scho- lastica, Agnes and Catherine - St. Benedict exorcising the Evil Spirit .... The ' Parma ' Altar-piece, 1515. with Saints Benedict, Scholastica AND Placidus The Dream of St. Ursula - The Arrival of St. Ursula at Cologne The Pope receiving St. Ursula The Madonna and Child, with Saints Gregory and Urban The Holy Trinity, with St. Gregory and other Saints St. Frediano changing the Course of a River page Sodoma 256 Correggio 258 Bernardino Luini 260 Sodoma 262 Francia 264 Vittore Carpaccio 270 Hans Memlinc 274 Hans Memlinc 278 Lorenzo Lotto 294 Raphael and Peruana 298 Fra Filippo Lippi 318 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART A.D. 3P0 — 600 CHAPTER I THE FIRST CHRISTIAN HERMITS It was in the latter part of the third century, when the Roman Empire was rapidly falling into decay, and internal dissensions were beginning to add to the difficulties of the early Church, that it became customary for converts to seek in the desert the quietness and peace they could no longer find in the haunts of men. The Christian hermits were, however, by no means the first to withdraw from the world with a view to leading a life of solitary meditation and prayer. The Essenes of Pales- tine, for instance, who had had so much to do with the develop- ment of Judaism as it existed in the time of our Lord, had already long practised a rigid asceticism, many of them living in absolute solitude, striving to keep their bodies pure by abstention from all earthly joys, and to bring their souls into touch with the Divine. It has, indeed, been claimed by some writers on the history of the Church that St. John the Baptist, and even Christ Himself, belonged to the brotherhood of the Essenes, and there is no doubt that many of the customs of the early Christians, such as the holding of all property in common and the frequent meetings for worship, greatly resembled those of the Jewish sect. "Whether the Christian hermits borrowed the idea of solitary asceticism from the Essenes, or merely arrived at the same conclusions as their predecessors from similar causes, there is no doubt that many of them went to much greater lengths in VOL, II. ' I 2 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART their self-discipline than did any of the Jewish recluses, for they were not content with mere abstention from pleasure : they inflicted the severest suffering upon themselves. They forgot that as the temples of the Holy Ghost, their bodies were worthy of all reverence, even from themselves, and they were in danger, moreover, of losing sight of the beautiful truth, that the highest life is not a struggle to win individual salvation, but an unceasing effort to obtain the greatest good for others. To be in the world, but not of it, was the ideal set by the Master before His disciples, and in His beautiful prayer for them before His Passion, He asked the Father, not that they should be taken out of the world, but that they should be kept from the evil. The first Christian hermit was a young man named Paul, a native of Thebes, who was born in the second half of the third century, and was left an orphan before he was sixteen. He is said to have been of noble descent, and to have been educated as a Christian. In any case, he was amongst those who fell under suspicion during the terrible persecution ordered by Decius, and after being hidden in Thebes for some time he succeeded in escaping to the desert, intending, probably^ to remain there only until he could return home in safety. He chose as his retreat a cave near to which grew a fine palm-tree, sheltering a beautiful spring of clear water, and he soon be- came so enamoured of solitude that he resolved to spend the rest of his life in the charming spot. As he left no record of how he spent his time, and he had dwelt alone for more than twenty years before he was dis- covered, it is impossible to give any real account of his life. According to a generally received tradition, he at first ate nothing but the fruit of his palm, and quenched his thirst with water from his spring, but later a raven brought him a loaf of bread every day, and the wild beasts of the desert used to gather about the entrance to his cave, forming a kind of guard. The leaves of the palm sewn together with fibres, served as garments to the saint, and from them also he wove a scourge with which to discipline himself. St. Paul of Thebes might have ended his life amongst his dumb friends unknown to all his fellow-men, but for the fact that his existence was revealed in a dream to St. Antony of Alexandria, who, Hke himself, had left the world in early ST. ANTONY THE GREAT 3 youth to seek in solitude a closer communion with God. Born of Christian parents at Coma, a village near Heraclea, the young Antony was early left an orphan, but it was not until he had led a gay life for some years that he was converted at heart. Wealthy, talented, and of very pleasing appearanpe, he was much beloved in Alexandria, and great was the dismay of his companions, when he announced his intention of retiring to the desert, impelled to do so, it is said, by hearing the words read out in church : ' Go and sell all that thou hast, and give it to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.' Unlike the 3'oung man to whom this advice was first addressed, St. Antony at once resolved to obey, and having first provided for his only sister, he gave away all his other possessions, retaining for himself nothing but the clothes he had on at the time and a pilgrim's staff. According to one account, St. Antony joined a community of hermits, already living in a mountain not far from Coma, each in a separate cave, meeting only rarely for worship ; but the generally received opinion is that he was himself the founder of this community, the other members having gathered about him after he had lived alone for many years. However that may be, St. Antony, who is surnamed the Great, is always sup- posed to have been the true founder of monachism, the insti- tution which was eventually to exercise so great an influence in the Church. He may justly be called the first Christian monk, as St. Paul of Thebes was the first Christian hermit or anchorite ; he is generally spoken of as St. Antony the Abbot, and it is impossible to overestimate the influence he exercised during his life-time, or the results of his work after his death. Many are the quaint legends which have gathered about the memory of St. Antony, and from them a very clear idea may be obtained of the character of the young Egyptian. He had, it is true, renounced the world and all its pleasures, but it would appear that in his secret soul he still cherished a love of being first. He wished to be more fervent in prayer, more vigorous in fasting, more severe in self-discipline, than any of his fellow-hermits. In fact, though his pride in his earthly position was conquered, his spiritual pride still sorely needed humbling. For this reason the devil was permitted to harass the saint in many ways, and the silent solitude of his cell was often invaded by the emissaries of the Evil One, who whispered all I — 2 4 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART manner of wicked suggestions in his ear. Nor was this all : the supernatural power of these agents of the devil enabled them to tempt the recluse with actual visions of the good things he had left behind him. Now a table covered with delicate food was spr.ead before him, now beautiful women hovered about him, urging him to enjoy life whilst he could ; but he repelled - all their seductions with prayer, and in the end prevailed against them, though the struggle left him faint and exhausted. Then Satan tried less gentle means to win him from his allegiance to Christ, letting loose upon him horrible fiends in all manner of revolting human and animal forms, who scourged him, tore his flesh, and finally left him half dead upon the ground of his cave. Here he was found by one of the other hermits, who nursed him back to life, and to whom he told his terrible experiences. It is further related that when the sufferer opened his eyes after his long swoon, the cell was filled with heavenly radiance, and he cried aloud, ' Where wast Thou, my Lord and Master, in my suffering for Thee ? why wast Thou not with me to aid me in my conflict ?' to which touching appeal the voice of Christ Himself replied, 'Antony, I was with thee all the time; I stood by thee and beheld thy combat, and because thou didst manfully overcome, I will be with thee to the end, and make th)'- ■ name famous throughout the world.' Greatly cheered and strengthened by this commendation, St. Antony resolved to strive yet harder to dg:iggte_ himself utterly to the service of the EordT BI3aing~aIlhis~BfotKer hermits farewell, he withdrew to an even more remote retreat, dwelling utterly alone in a cavern for no less than twenty years, during which he was fed miraculously, so that when at last he was discovered he was still a hale and hearty man, his long white beard alone testifying to his age. The place of his retirement once revealed, the saint found it impossible any longer to remain in seclusion, so great were the crowds who flocked to him for advice, and so many were those who wished to emulate his example. Reluctantly he consented to come down from his mountain, and in the year 305 he founded at Phainum, not far from Memphis, the first regular Monastery, consisting of a number of scattered cells in which the monks lived alone under a rule given to them by St. Antony. The holy man remained at Phainum until 311, when, a fresh perse- Aliiiari pkotd] \_Accademia, Florence ST. ANTONY THE GREAT AND ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST B)f Fra Filippo Lippi To face p. 4 ST. ANTONY THE GREAT 5 cution of the Christians having broken out, he went to Alexan- dria in the hope of winning the crown of martyrdom. Wear- ing the long white or gray robes he had chosen as the garb of his community, he appeared constantly in the streets, preaching to the people, and winning many new converts, but to his own great disappointment he was left unmolested. In 311 he re- turned to his Monastery, and a few years later founded a similar community on the banks of the Nile ; but though he retained the chief control over both, he contented himself with occasional visits to them, spending the greater part of the rest of his life in his mountain retreat, where he was waited upon with the utmost devotion by two of his disciples, named Macarius and Amathas. In his old age St. Antony was, it is said, once more assailed by the chief temptation of his youth, for the spiritual pride he imagined he had conquered so completely got the better of him again. For seventy-five years he had led a life of absolute self-denial, and in his secret heart he thought to himself, ' Surely in all the wide world there is none holier than I.' One night, however, as he slept on his hard bed, he seemed to hear a voice saying to him, ' There is one holier than thou, for Paul the hermit has served God in solitude and penance for ninety years.' This revelation was a great blow to the saint, but, with his usual courage, he quickly accepted the inevitable, and resolved to go at once to seek the man whom God Himself had thus commended. Taking no one with him, and with nothing but his staff to help him on his arduous journey, St. Antony, in spite of his great age, set out to walk across the desert, trusting to heavenly guidance to direct his steps. Meeting by the way many wild creatures, including, according to the legend, a centaur and a satyr, who bowed down before him in reverence, he asked of them the way to the retreat of Paul, and thanks to their directions he reached the cave after three days' journey, recognising it at once by the palm-tree and the spring. Thanking God for the guidance which had brought him safely to his goal, St. Antony knocked at the entrance to the cave and called to Paul to let him in. It was long, however, before he could get any response from the recluse, who for ninety years had exchanged no greeting with any human creature. When at last the stone forming the door of the retreat was 6 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART rolled away, and the two old men stood face to face, the emotion of both was very great, and after gazing on each other in silence for a few moments, they embraced as if they had been brothers, shedding tears of joy. His tongue once loosed, many were the eager questions asked by St. Paul of St. Antony, and great was his astonishment at the news he heard. It is said that the first inquiry of the older hermit was, ' Are there still any left who do not believe in Christ ?' and St. Antony's answer must have been a bitter disappointment to St. Paul, who had dreamt that the millennium had already come. Talking earnestly together, the hermits were presently aroused to notice the flight of time by the arrival of St. Paul's old friend the raven, who had brought with him a whole instead of half a loaf of bread, which he dropped at the feet of the two old men, an incident alluded to in the Breviary in the following words, put into the mouth of the hermit : ' For sixty years I have daily received half a loaf; now at thy arrival Christ has doubled His gift to His soldiers.' This fresh miracle convinced the older recluse that St. Antony had indeed been sent to him by the Master they both served, and after the simple meal was over he said to his guest : ' My brother, God hath sent thee here to receive my last breath and bury me. Go back to thy dwelling, I pray thee, and fetch thence the cloak given to thee by the holy Bishop Athanasius : wrap me in it, and lay me in the earth.' Surprised at the mention of this cloak, which had indeed been given to him by St. Athanasius many years before, but which he had spoken of to no one, and had never worn, St. Antony longed to question his friend further. Something, however, seemed to check his speech, and he therefore merely embraced St. Paul once more and set forth on his return journey. He arrived safely at his Monastery, fetched the cloak, without meeting any of the brethren, and hastened back, hoping to find St. Paul still alive ; but at a distance of three days' journey from the cave it was revealed to him that the end had come, for he heard beautiful music, and, looking up, he saw angels bearing the pure soul of the saint to heaven. When he reached the home of St. Paul, he found him kneeling, as if in prayer, but he was quite dead, and St. Antony knew not what to do, for old, feeble, and weary with his long journeys, he had no strength to dig a grave. Weeping bitterly, he /mm / {^^ m Pi Ik ^jjBr'ifc' ^^ '^fJ|Ey :irt .- W"^5^^1i^ ^^ W.-^Pt. O^^ mmm Jilt .,■ .■''. : ,, -Anderson fhotd] [Afpartamenii Borgia, Vatican, Some THE MEETING BETWEEN ST. ANTONY AND ST. PAUL ^j/ Pinttiricchio To face p. 6 ST. ANTONY THE GREAT 7 cried : ' Oh that it might please God to let me die beside thee, oh my brother!' but as the sad words left his lips a noise outside the cave made him turn his head, and, lo ! two lions were preparing a grave in the ground with their paws. When it was ready, the faithful creatures drew back and waited reverently whilst St. Antony, having wrapped the body of St. Paul in the cloak he had brought from so far, laid the sacred burden in the grave. The lions then helped him to cover it over with sand, and the mourner, touched at their devotion, prayed for them, saying : ' O Lord, without whose divine protection no leaf can stir upon the tree, no little bird fall to the ground, bless these creatures who have thus honoured the dead according to their nature.' An account of the visit of St. Antony to St. Paul and the strange funeral is given in a manuscript Breviary preserved in a nunnery at Amiens, in which occurs the following graphic description of the actual interment : ' The gentleman (St. Antony) had lions in his service, lions with whose help, instead of that of a hoe, he dug deep into the soil, where he sorrowfully buried the dead Paul.' His melancholy task performed, St. Antony sadly returned to the Monastery, taking with him in exchange for the cloak he had used as a shroud, the tunic of palm-leaves St. Paul had worn so long. Having related all his experiences to his monks, he went back again to his lonely mountain cell, greatly humbled at heart, for he knew now that St. Paul had indeed been holier than he. Except for one short visit to Alexandria in 355, to reason with the Arians, who were greatly troubling the Church, St. Antony left his solitude no more until his death, which took place at the age of 105 years. Before the end he instructed the two disciples mentioned above to bury his body secretly, adding his conviction that in the day of the resurrection he would receive it again incorruptible from the hand of Christ. His only personal property, two sheepskins with the tunic of St. Paul, he bequeathed to St. Athanasius and Bishop Serapion, and with the touching words, ' Farewell, my children ; Antony is departing, and will be no longer with you,' he breathed his last. The Abbot's instructions as to his interment were carefully followed, but his body is said to have been discovered in the sixth century, and to have been translated first to Alexandria, 8 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART then to Constantinople, and finally to Motte Saint Didier, in Dauphine, where it is still greatly revered. In spite of the revelation said to have been made by God Himself as to the superior claims to sanctity of St. Paul, the fame of the first hermit has been altogether overshadowed by that of St. Antopy, probably because the work of the former ended with his life, whilst that of the latter is still even at this late day fruitful of results. Comparatively few appeal for aid in their distress to St. Paul, but many towns have chosen St. Antony as patron, and various classes of the community claim to be under his special protection. He is amongst the saints honoured at Naples, Paderborn, Hildesheim and Paris. The people of Munich are devoted to him because he is sup- posed to have aided Alfonso the Great in winning back their islands from the Moors in the ninth century, and the Hos- pitallers, amongst other religious societies, revere him as the founder of the first monastic institution. On account of his own victory over the devil, St. Antony is credited with the power to exorcise evil spirits and also to be able to save his votaries from infectious diseases, for in the eleventh century, when the terrible epidemic, to which later the name of St. Antony's fire was given, was devastating Europe, many of those who prayed at his shrine escaped. Keepers of pigs and pork-butchers invoke St. Antony, for a reason explained below; winnowers of wheat call upon his name, probably because he and the other hermits of Egypt were in the habit of weaving mats and baskets of straw ; and grocers, notably those of the city of London, formerly known as Pepperers, chose the hermit as their patron, it has been suggested because many of their commodities came from the East. The most constant attributes of St. Paul the Hermit in art are a raven and a loaf of bread. He is as a rule represented as very old and emaciated, with long white hair and a white beard, reaching nearly to his knees. His only clothing is a tunic or waistcloth of woven palm-leaves, and whether he appears alone beneath his tree in the desert, or with other saints in devotional pictures, he always seems to be completely lost to his surroundings in earnest meditation. In the Turin Gallery is a very characteristic painting by Ribera of St. Paul, seated on a rock, with a skull beside him. AUnart photo] \San Bernardino^ Bergamo THE MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH ST. ANTONY AND OTHER SAINTS By Lorenzo Lotto To face p. 8 ST. ANTONY THE GREAT 9 and a raven hovering above his head, whilst in the distance St. Antony is seen approaching ; and in the Louvre, Paris, is another representation of him from the same great hand. In S. Agostino, Rome, is an Altar-piece by Guercino in which St. Paul the Hermit is on one side of St. Augustine, and St. John the Baptist on the other ; Giotto in his fine ' Coronation of the Virgin' in S. Croce, Florence, has given the great recluse a place of honour beside St. Peter, and in the same subject by Girolamo da Santa Croce in S. Giuliano, Venice, he is grouped with Saints Florian and Giuliano. The attributes given to St. Antony are numerous and excep- tionally quaint. Chief amongst them is the pig or hog, with or without a bell round its neck, whose constant presence has been variously explained, some seeing in it the emblem of the vices of sensuality and gluttony over which St. Antony triumphed so successfully, whilst others look upon it merely as a type of the privileges enjoyed by the pigs of mediaeval monasteries, who were allowed to run wild in towns and villages long after those of laymen had been deprived by law of their liberty. St. Antony was, as already mentioned, the patron Saint of the Hospitallers, who devoted themselves to the care of the sick and suffering, and when, owing to the many accidents which had occurred, including the death of a French Prince, who was thrown to the ground in a street of Paris through a hog having tripped up his horse, orders were given for the confiscation of wild porkers, an exception was made in favour of those of the Antonins, or nursing friars. To distinguish them from the common herd, these pigs had to wear a bell, and at the sound of the bell pious householders were in the habit of placing food outside their doors, a custom which gave rise to the popular proverb, 'to run from door to door like a pig of St. Antony,' applied to beggars and parasites, and the name of a Tantony, or St. Antony pig, being given to a very fine animal. At York it was long customary for the Master of the Hospital of St. Antony to keep one pig out of every litter born in the district. A bell is also an emblem of St. Antony, in allusion to the power of the Saint to cast out evil spirits, who are said to hate the sound of consecrated bells. The passing-bell was rung in olden times, not merely as a call to all within hearing to pray for the departing soul, but also to scare away the devil, who 10 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART was supposed, to be waiting in the hope of intercepting the spirit on its way to heaven. When the bell is worn by the pig in pictures of St. Antony, its meaning is, of course, that given above, but when it is placed in the hand of the Saint, suspended to his staff, or lying at his feet, it may be taken to bear the more spiritual signification. In some old representations of St. Antony the Hermit he holds a scroll on which is written the words ' Quis evadet ?' in allusion to a vision in which he saw the whole world in a large net held by the devil, and cried aloud ' Quis evadet ?' or 'What will avail to save?' to which agonized question the answer ' Humilitas ' was given fronj heaven. Sometimes flames are introduced at the side or beneath the feet of St. Antony, some suppose because of the Saint's aid_against the dise.ase_ called the fire of St. Antony, whilst otBers, 'wifh scant reason, see in it a reference to his ability to save from fire in this world and the next. In his right hand St. Antony generally holds an open book, and in his left a staff with a T-shaped handle, a symbol into which, as explained below, various meanings have been read, but which is probably merely indicative of the Saint's great age and the many journeys he performed on foot. St. Antony generally wears the loose robes of a monk, and they are, as a rule, of a gray or brown colour, although his friend St. Athanasius says that he always wore white ; but these simple garments are sometimes replaced by the ornate costume of a Prince of the Church, as in a painting by Barocchio in the Louvre, whilst, instead of the staff or crutch, the Bishop's crosier is placed in the right hand. However much such details as these may vary, one remarkable symbol is rarely absent in representations of the great founder of monachism. This is the'lettjer_Tyworked in bluedr white on the "StTbuiaer or the hem oT the outer robe, and many earnest discussions have been held as to its meaning, some asserting that it and the T-shaped handle of the staff of St. Antony were both mem oriab_^f a cross of similar form, in use as early as the time of the PharaoEs as a type~ofTmmortality, and adopted in the third century by the Christians of Alexandria as an emblem of their faith. To some few the T has a yet more spiritual significance, for it is taken to be the first letter of Theos, the Greek word for God, and to mark the fact that St. Antony ST. ANTONY THE GREAT ii was one of the elect ; but if this were so the letter would have been stamped, not merely on the robes, but on the forehead of the Saint. Others again, including the learned P^re Cahier, are of opinion that the much-discussed T merely represents the crutch, which in the middle ages became a kind of badge of _ the monastic profession, the first "^uty of monks having origintrlly-been to aid the crippled and infirm. In any case the first Abbot's name was given to all nursing friars, and near his shrine at Motte Saint Didier a great almshouse was founded, in the first instance to receive patients attacked by the disease called St. Antony's fire, but later open to all sufferers. Whatever the original significance of the T, it eventually became so closely associated with St. Antony that it may be taken for granted that it has reference to him, even when introduced in connection with some other Saint, as on the reverse of a medal found in the Seine bearing the effigy of St. Claude of Besan9on, the T in this case meaning merely that the brotherhood of St. Claude used to meet in a church named after the celebrated Hermit. The various legends respecting the temptations to which St. Antony was subjected have led to the constant introduction at his feet of a demon, sometimes in the form of a man of hideous aspect, sometimes in that of a goat. Occasionally he is seen meeting the satyr or the centaur of whom he is said to have inquired the way when seeking St. Paul. In every case he appears as a man of noble presence, with a long white beard, and he has none of the emaciation from fasting which makes some of the representations of his friend St. Paul so painful. St. Athanasius who knew him well, said of St. Antony that, after thirty years of loneliness, * he appeared not to others with a sullen or savage, but with a most obliging, sociable air,' and many artists seem to have had this description in their minds when they painted the great recluse. In old Greek pictures he is often represented giving the Benediction with an expression of great benevolence ; in the celebrated ' Heures d'Anne de Bretagne,' preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, he is seated in meditation, with flames at his feet ; in the beautiful panel by Marco Basaiti in the Venice Academy, his attitude is full of dignity ; and in the famous engraving by Albert Dtirer he is represented seated outside the city of 12 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART Nuremberg, absorbed in a book, whilst beside him is a lofty double cross from which hangs the symbolic bell. In Giovanni Battista's picture, now in the Venice Academy, of St. Joseph holding the Infant Christ on a pedestal, St. Antony the Hermit is grouped with Saints Anne, Antony of Padua and Peter of Alcantara ; in the beautiful ' Madonna and Saints ' by Paolo Veronese, in S. Francesco della Vigna, Venice, St. Antony is introduced opposite to St. Catherine, and his figure is con- sidered remarkably fine ; in one of Baldovinetti's most beauti- ful groups of Saints, now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, the Abbot is on the right of the Virgin, beside St. Lawrence ; in Titian's celebrated 'Virgin with the Roses,' in the same gallery, he is the companion of the young St. John ; and in the Florence Academy are two panels by Fra Filippo Lippi, evidently originally part of an important painting, in one of which is a very beautiful figure of St. Antony leaning on his T-handled crutch. There is also a fine profile head of the Hermit in the ' Christ bearing His Cross,' by Fra Bartolommeo, in the Florence Academy ; and on the wall of a street in Prato, the birthplace of Filippino Lippi, there is a fresco by that master in which St. Antony is introduced. The favourite subjects from the lives of the two first hermits are the Temptation of St. Antony, his Meeting with St. Paul, the Death and Burial of the latter, and the Funeral of St. Antony. In the celebrated frescoes by Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti of Siena, in the Campo Santo, Pisa, six subjects Are from the legend of Saints Paul and Antony. In one the two old men are meeting at the mouth of St. Paul's cave, both on their knees, St. Antony holding up his characteristic staff as if to show it to the older hermit ; in the second scene St. Antony is preparing the body of his friend for interment ; in the third the lions are digging the grave ; in the fourth St. Antony lies prostrate outside his cell, submitting calmly to the scourging two demons in human shape are inflicting on him ; in the fifth he is seen after he has won the victory, kneeUng at the feet of Christ to receive His blessing; and in the sixth he is repre- sented twice: seated quietly in his cell, apparently carving a spoon out of a piece of wood, and standing beside his Monas- tery, with his crutch in one hand and the other raised in benediction. In painting and engraving the ' Temptation of St. Antony ' w ^: w < a o < OS o < z; o H < H Q £ o o Z; yas St. Pachomius of Thebes, who is sometimes represented in art receiving a book or roll of MS. from an angel, and with a serpent or a crocodile beside him, for he is said to have received this rule of the monastery founded by ST. PACHOMIUS 15 him at Tabenna direct from heaven, to have been able to walk on venomous snakes unharmed, and to have been in the habit of riding across the Nile on a crocodile's back. Even when fact is sorted from fiction, the story of St. Pacho- mius is a deeply interesting one, full of the quaint charm so characteristic of the early days of the Church, when God seemed specially near to those who sought Him in solitude and a direct response to prayer was no surprise to the faithful suppliant. A soldier in the Roman army, the 5'oung Pachomius had been converted to Christianity at the age of twenty, and when his regiment was disbanded, on the fall of Maximianus, he resolved to retire altogether from the world. He went first to ask the advice of an old man named Palemon, who had long lived alone in the Theban desert, and had won a great reputa- tion for holiness. Surprised that one so young and handsome as his visitor should wish to become a hermit, Palemon at first tried to dissuade him, painting the life in the very gloomiest colours, but Pachomius was not to be daunted, and in the end the kindly old man allowed him to share his cell. The two remained happily together for some months, the novice becoming greatly attached to Palemon, waiting on him as if he had been his son, and endeavouring to tempt him to relax his self-discipline a little. Palemon, in his turn, was beginning to fear that all his efforts to give his heart wholly to God had been in vain, so much did he love his pupil, when an abrupt close was put to their intercourse. Pachomius was one ■day praying alone in the desert, as was his wont, and presently felt that some strange presence was near him. He looked up, and an angel stood beside him, who told him not to fear, but to listen to a Divine message. He was to leave his present alDode and found a monastery on the banks of the Nile. According to some, the heavenly visitor gave the rules to be observed in the new community in writing to the astonished hermit, but others are content with asserting that he merely dictated them. In any case, when Pachomius related his vision to Palemon, the latter at once decided to go with his adopted son to Tabenna, the spot indicated by the angel, and there the two, with their own hands, built the first cell, which soon became the nucleus of a large community. The work done, Palemon sadly bade his beloved pupil fare- i6 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART well, returning alone to his old home, where he soon afterwards died. Pachomius had not long to wait for further leading; first one of his brothers and then many young Egyptians joined him, each building for himself a small cell, and all working together at the large refectory in which they met for meals. The rule given by the angel was, it is said, exceedingl)' rigid : absolute silence was to be preserved, and all communica- tions were to be made by signs. The dress consisted of a sleeveless white linen tunic, with a large cowl completely con- cealing the features, and a goat's skin to serve as mantle. The Abbot enjoyed no special privileges beyond that of inflicting on himself a severer discipline than on any of his followers. It is related that when his own sister came to ask for an interview with him he sent back the stern reply that no woman could be allowed to cross his threshold, and that she must be content with knowing that her brother still lived. To this she meekly replied, that her only desire was to lead a life of religious meditation, and Pachomius, though deaf to the appeal of natural affection, at once ordered a cell to be built for her on the other side of the Nile, where in course of time she was joined by other holy women, who formed themselves into a community resembling that at Tabenna. Before his death, at the early age of fifty-seven, St. Pacho- mius had founded no less than seven monasteries in the Theban desert, their inmates numbering more than six thou- sand. He was, in fact, the true founder of the monastic system, although that honour is generally given to St. Antony, for the recluses who joined the great hermit were bound by no special rules, and were free to return to the world, whereas the monks of the Order of St. Pachomius took upon themselves life-long vows of seclusion and celibacy. St. Hilarion of Gaza, the first hermit of Palestine, was sent by his parents when very young to Alexandria to be educated in all the learning of the Egyptians, but he was converted to Christianity soon after his arrival, and went to visit St. Antony in his mountain retreat. The celebrated hermit took a great fancy to him,, and would fain have kept him with him. This would not, however, have been consistent with the rigid self- denial he considered it his duty to practise, so he sent the young man away, advising him to return home and lead a solitary life in his native land. ST. HILARION 17 On his arrival at Gaza, whither he went in obedience to the suggestion of St. Antony, the young Hilarion found that his parents were both dead and had left him all their wealth. This he divided amongst his relations and the poor, retaining nothing for himself, after which he withdrew to the desert, where he is said to have lived for twenty years quite alone. At the end of that time those afflicted with disease or possessed by evil spirits began to seek him out, for it is related that when patients from Syria went to consult St. Antony, he used to say to them, ' Why do you come so far to see me, when you have my son Hilarion close at hand ?' The first miracle of healing with which St. Hilarion was credited was the restoration to health of three children at Gaza, whose mother had induced him to come forth from his retreat to see them. Standing beside their bed, the holy man merely uttered the one word 'Jesus,' and they at once recovered, with the result, that on the return of St. Hilarion to his cell, he was so besieged by other applicants for relief that he could no longer lead the life of seclusion he had chosen. Many were the evil spirits he cast out, many the unholy spells he broke by his simple belief in the power of prayer ; but the two most celebrated of his triumphs were the calming, by making three crosses in the sand, of a great storm on the coast of Dalmatia, and the destruction of a terrible dragon, which had devoured many men, women, and children, keeping the whole country in a state of terror. In the latter case the saintly man had a quantity of wood piled up, leaving a space in the centre, and then commanded the dragon to place himself within the fatal space. The poor creature meekly obeyed, the wood was set fire to, and the evil monster was quickly consumed. Hearing of the death of St. Antony, St. Hilarion resolved to visit the place where the great recluse had died, hoping thus to get away from the crowds by whom he was now constantly surrounded. So great, however, was the opposition to his leaving Palestine, that he was at last compelled to consent to a compromise, and to take forty monks with him. With them he visited every spot made sacred by the presence of his revered predecessor, and then, resisting all the efforts of the hermits of Egypt to induce him to take the place of their lost leader, he returned alone to Palestine. Before leaving he told his attendant monks that they would be safer without him, an VOL. II. 3 i8 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART excuse which turned out to be true, for no sooner had he left them than messengers arrived with orders from Julian the Apostate to slay St. Hilarion wherever he should be found. The rest of his life was one vain struggle for the seclusion he looked upon as essential to the true worship of God, for it is said that even if he succeeded in concealing his retreat from his friends, it was always known to those possessed of evil spirits through the uneasiness of their tormentors. At last, in a wilderness near Paphos, on the island of Cyprus, death released the much-persecuted Saint from all importunities. He was not, however, allowed to expire alone, for many who had come to seek his aid were gathered about him. Almost with his last breath he entreated that he might be buried where he died, without pomp or ceremony, and in the hair-cloth shirt and cloak he was then wearing. His wishes were respected, but not many months afterwards his friend and disciple, Hesychius, secretly removed the body to Palestine, re-interring it in his own monastery near Majuma, St. Hilarion is sometimes represented alone in prayer in the desert, or dying surrounded by his monks and patients; but more often, as in the celebrated fresco in the Campo Santo, Pisa, he appears vanquishing the dragon, who seems to be listening spell-bound to his exhortation, or is about to place himself amidst the flames at the command of the saint. A good deal of confusion has arisen between two great hermits named Macarius, which signifies 'happy,' who both lived in the fourth century, and, though not related to each other, were for some little time associated in banishment. To dis- tinguish them they are called the Elder and the Younger, although authorities differ greatly as to the date of the birth of both of them. St. Macarius the Elder is generally represented praying or working in his cell, with a lantern hanging above his oratory, in token of his having withdrawn to a remote district to commune alone with God. He is said to have been a herdsman who left his flocks to take care of themselves, and retired with a few companions to the desert of Scet6 when he was about twenty years old. There he grew in holiness, and became a very successful opponent of the devil, whom, according to tradition, he worsted in many a conflict. It is related that one of the disciples of St. Macarius the Elder, meeting a heathen priest '^ ^ ^ O ^ ST. MACARIUS THE ELDER 19 hastening along as if he were running in the Bacchanalian festival, called out to him, ' Where are you running to, demon ?' a question which so enraged the priest that he beat the inquirer nearly to death with a heavy stick. This incident being miraculously revealed to St. Macarius, he sought out the priest, and, instead of reproaching him, said to him in a gentle voice : ' Good-day. You have been taking a great deal of trouble ; you must be very tired.' At a loss to understand what was meant the priest entered into conversation with the monk, who so touched his heart that he fell on his knees before the holy man, entreating his forgiveness, and promising to retire to the desert himself if only St. Macarius would receive him as a Christian convert. The hermit gladly consented, and the two went together to pick up the poor victim of the priest's rage, and carried him to the retreat of St. Macarius, where he was tenderly nursed back to health. The priest was duly baptized, became a monk, and never again returned to the world. On another occasion the devil is said to have appeared to St. Macarius in the form of an old man carrying with him a large number of phials. St. Macarius knew who he was at once, and asked him on what evil errand he was bound, to which the old man replied : ' I am going round amongst the hermits of this desert with a potion for each. I shall give them their choice, so that if they do not fancy one they can have another. The Saint smiled, for he knew that no temptation was likely to shake the constancy of the men who had already won so many victories over evil, and he waited the return of his visitor with- out any misgivings. Presently the devil came back, and St. Macarius said to him, ' Well, how did you get on ?' ' Oh,' was the reply, ' they are all intractables, these monks of yours ; not one of them would follow me.' ' What !' cried St. Macarius in pretended sympathy, ' have you not one friend ?' ' Yes,' said the devil, ' I think I have one,' and he mentioned the name of a young monk. ' He pretends he doesn't care for me, but I know he does, and believes in me too.' Then St. Macarius resolved to go at once to the aid of the young monk, and by telling him of his own temptations, he won his confidence and strengthened him to resist the Evil One, who confessed later to the holy man that he had now lost his one friend, who shut the door in his face the last time he attempted to enter. Except for a brief banishment with some other monks who 2—2 20 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART had fallen under the displeasure of Lucius, the Arian Bishop of Alexandria, St. Macarius the Elder lived for sixty years in his desert cell, having, it is said, won many hundreds to follow his example. Where he was buried is not known, nor has the site of the home in which he dwelt so long been identified. St. Macarius the Younger is supposed to have been born in Alexandria, to have been the pupil of St. Pachomius, and to have dwelt in the Theban desert for seventy -two years. Scarcely anything is known of him except that he shared the exile of St. Macarius the Elder for a time, but many very significant legends have gathered about his name. It is related that he chose an old tomb as his retreat, and one day, finding a skull on the ground, he held a long conversation with it, an incident represented in the centre of the Campo Santo fresco, already referred to in connection with Saints Paul, Antony and Hilarion. St. Macarius hegan his chat with the skull by asking to whom it had belonged in life, receiving the answer, ' To a pagan.' 'Where, then,' said the hermit, 'is thy soul?' 'In hell,' was the startling answer. ' How deep ?' asked the Saint. * Deeper than the distance from heaven to earth.' 'Are there any deeper down in misery than thou art ?' further inquired the holy man, and the skull said, ' Yes ; the Jews are deeper still.' Then came the last question, ' Are there any deeper down than the Jews ?' and the startling answer, ' Ay indeed ; the Christians, whom Jesus Christ has redeemed, yet by their actions prove their want of belief in Him, are in a yet deeper depth.' How this extraordinary interview affected the inquirer is not told, but it probably caused him much heart-searching, lest haply he should himself share the doom of the faithless ones. Another anecdote is to the effect that St. Macarius generally went about with a heavy load of sand upon his back, and when asked the reason he replied, ' I torment him who torments me,' meaning, possibly, that he strove by self-inflicted weariness to out-do the devil. Whatever its original signification, the sack of sand on the shoulder became, in course of time, the most distinctive characteristic of St. Macarius the Younger ; but he also sometimes carries in his girdle, or suspended round his neck, a small calabash or phial, in allusion to the power over evil spirits with which he was credited, his mode of delivering his patients being to anoint them with the holy oil he always ST. MARK THE HERMIT 21 carried with him for the purpose. Occasionally St. Macarius is seen surrounded with wild animals, in allusion to his friend- ship with them in the remote wilds of the desert, and the skin of a wolf is associated with him ; but this is the result of the misappropriation of a legend belonging rightly to his contem- porary and friend, St. Mark, the so-called Wonder-worker of Egypt. This St. Mark was, it is said, on the authority of St. Macarius the Younger, a man of such exceptional holiness that the Holy Communion was administered to him by angels, for which reason he is represented in some old Greek paintings with an angel beside him, or, more rarely, kneeling to receive the sacred elements, which are offered to him, by a hand issuing from the clouds above his head, in a kind of spoon, such as is still in use in the Eastern Church for administering the Sacra- ment to laymen. Another pleasing legend related of St. Mark the Hermit is that he healed not only those of his fellow-creatures who came to him for aid, but also the wild animals of the desert. On one occasion a lioness brought her cub to him, and dropped it at his feet, looking into his face with eyes full of a yearning appeal for help. When St. Mark examined the little one, he found it was quite blind, and he gave it sight by calling on the holy name of Jesus. The mother gratefully licked the hands of the healer and went off happily, carrying her cub in her mouth, to return the next day, bringing the skin, some say of a ram, others of a hyena, as a reward for the service rendered to her, for which reason the skin of a wild animal is one of the attributes in art of St. Mark. The gift of the lioness is said to have been presented by St. Mark to St. Athanasius, and later passed on by him to St. Melania the Elder, a holy woman who founded a nunnery at Jerusalem at the latter end of the fourth century. Another very celebrated hermit of Egypt was St. John, surnamed the Obedient, a man of humble birth, who had practised the trade of a carpenter for several years before he decided to abjure the world, and appears sometimes in art amongst the other early recluses, watering a barren tree or standing beside a mass of rock. He lived at first with an old recluse in the Theban desert, and there earned his nickname, for it is related that his master, who seems to have been a very 22 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART eccentric person, ordered him to water a dry stick he had stuck up in the ground twice daily, and to roll down to his cell a large rock which several hundred men could not have moved. Without a murmur at the absurd and useless tasks set him, St. John fetched water from a distance of two miles every day, to pour it over the stick, and spent many hours toiling in vain at the rock, to the surprise and admiration of those who came to consult his tyrannical master. At the end of twelve years the old man died, and St. John, set free at last from his voluntary bondage, withdrew to the top of a lofty hill, where he dwelt alone in a walled-up cell, spending five days of the week in solitary meditation and prayer, but devoting the other two to the aid of those who came to him for advice, amongst whom was the Emperor Theodosius. St. John used to speak to his visitors through a little window, and is said to have wrought many wonderful miracles of healing. As time went on and his fame increased, he allowed some of his disciples to build a small hospital near his retreat for the use of patients from a distance ; but he never relaxed the severity of his self-discipline, and died at the age of ninety, without having once come down from his lofty retreat. Yet another celebrated hermit of the fourth century was St. Arsenius, who is introduced in the great Campo Santo fresco at Pisa plaiting a basket of rushes, and is sometimes represented, for a reason explained below, seated with crossed legs reading a book. The son of Roman parents of high rank, who had brought him up as a Christian, Arsenius early decided to dedicate his life to God, and he had just been ordained deacon, when the Emperor Theodosius appointed him tutor to his sons. After trying in vain to escape from accepting a position for which he did not consider himself fitted, Arsenius resigned himself to the inevitable, and soon obtained such a good influence over his pupils, that it was not until he had been at Court for eleven years that he felt free to leave. One night, however, when he had been praying earnestly for guidance, he is said to have heard a voice from heaven, saying : 'Arsenius, flee the company of men, and thou shalt be saved.' Accepting these words as a command, he fled from the palace the next day, and, taking ship for Alexandria, made his way thence to the desert of Scet6, already the home of so many holy men. ST. ARSENIUS 23 Greatly annoyed at the disappearance of the man he had learnt to look upon as a friend, the Emperor made strenuous efforts to discover his retreat, and having at last done so, he offered him large sums of money to be devoted to the foundation of monasteries, if he would return to Rome. It was, however, all in vain : St. Arsenius was not to be persuaded, and, after more than forty years of seclusion, he died at the age of ninety-five at Memphis, where he had taken refuge when the desert of Scetd was invaded by a horde of barbarians. Many quaint stories are told illustrative of the humility which seems to have been the chief characteristic of St. Arsenius. He began his life in the desert by presenting himself, as was customary, before the chief hermits already settled there, to ask their permission to become one of them. He was told to appear that same evening at the general repast, and was left standing unnoticed until the meal was nearly over, when one of the brethren threw a piece of bread at his feet, telling him to take it or leave it, as he pleased. The only reply made by Arsenius to this rough speech was to sit down on the ground and quietly eat the piece of bread. The new recluse retained, it is said, several habits he had acquired at Court, and used sometimes to sit cross-legged when he was reading, though this could scarcely have been a custom at Rome. To rebuke what he considered an attitude unfitting for an anchorite, the Abbot of the community assumed the same posture one night at supper. St. Arsenius took the hint, and never offended again. When Theophilus, the Patriarch of Alexandria, honoured St. Arsenius by coming to visit him with several nobles of the city, the holy man naively asked them if they would promise to follow his counsel, and when they eagerly replied that they would, he merely told them to spare themselves the trouble of coming after the worthless Arsenius again. Later, when a Roman lady travelled all the way from her native city to see him, and waited outside his cell till he came forth for the evening meal, the hermit reproved her so sternly for seeking one so unworthy as he, that she dared not raise her eyes from the ground, but only begged him in a trembling voice to pray for her. To this St. Arsenius replied, with scant courtesy, that he would ask God to efface the remembrance of her entirely from his memory. On the approach of death, the great humility of the Saint 24 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART made him fear that even now he might be shut out from heaven, and the brethren who were ministering to him asked him if he were afraid to die, to which he replied that he was indeed, adding that the dread had been ever present with him in all the long years of his sojourn in the desert ; a remarkable confession, showing that the holy man did indeed count him- self as less than the least in the sight of God. Guessing that the hermits would probably give him a grand funeral, and that, when he could no longer prevent it, undue honour would be paid to him, he made them solemnly promise just before the end, that they would drag his body to the top of the mountain on which he died, and leave it there to be devoured by wild beasts. He was reluctantly obeyed, and every trace of his remains was lost, but his memory is still cherished as that of one who was consistent to the last. With St. Arsenius may be ranked St. Ephrem of Edessa, one of the earliest of the so-called Fathers of the Greek Church, who, although not a hermit in the strictest sense of the term, for he only withdrew to the desert at intervals, yet led a life of the strictest self-denial, even when in the world. Born of Christian parents at the town after which he is named, at the beginning of the fourth century, he was dedicated in his in- fancy to God, but was not actually baptized until he was eighteen years old. Endowed with great intellectual gifts, St. Ephrem himself wrote an account of his early life in what he called his Confessions or Reprehensions, in which he relates several anecdotes illustrative of his self-will as a boy. One day, he says, he was sent into the country by his parents, and seeing a cow grazing by the wayside, he stoned her to death. Meeting her owner a littfe later, he added a lie to his other sin, declar- ing he had not seen the cow. A few months after this the boy was again sent on some errand into the fields near his home, and, making friends with a shepherd, he remained all night with him and his flock. The sliepherd, having had too much to drink, fell asleep, wolves came and devoured some of the sheep, and Ephrem, being found by their owner with the careless guardian, was thrown into prison as an accomplice in his crime. Whilst awaiting his trial, Ephrem was, he says, three times visited by an angel, whose heavenly counsels affected him so deeply that, when after seventy days' confinement he was ST. EPHREM 25 released, his character was completely changed. His one desire was now to serve God, and as soon as he had been baptized he withdrew to a desert in Mesopotamia to join a small community of monks established there. He remained there for some years, and, as he himself relates, divided his time between prayer and making sails, which were sold for the benefit of the poor. Of a naturally hot temper, he so entirely subdued it that he became known as the meek, or the peace- able man of God, and he shed so many tears on account of his sins that St. Gregory of Nyassa said of him, ' To weep seemed almost as natural for him as it is for other men to breathe.' St. Ephrem is said to have seen God face to face in his desert retreat, and to have received orders direct from Him to return to Edessa, to do work awaiting him there. He obeyed, and very soon became famous as a preacher and teacher, confirm- ing waverers, convincing doubters, and winning many hundreds of new followers for Christ. His sermons and homilies are amongst the greatest treasures of the Greek Church, and are full of eloquent advice suitable for every age. When he felt death approaching, he called his disciples about him and said to them : ' Sing no funeral hymns at Ephrem's burial, suffer no eulogiums to be pronounced, wrap not my dead body in any costly shroud, erect no monument to my memory. Allow me only the portion and place of a pilgrim, for I am a pilgrim and a stranger, as all my fathers were on earth.' Hearing as he lay dying that a lady asked to see him to make a last request, St. Ephrem admitted her, and when, falling on her knees beside his bed, she entreated to be allowed to provide a coffin for him, he consented, stipulating, however, that it should be a very mean one. He then, in his turn, made his visitor promise that she would henceforth renounce all the pomps and vanities of the world, and soon afterwards he breathed his last. Greek artists represented St. Ephrem of Edessa as a man in the prime of life, with a long beard and tears flowing down his cheeks. He wears the simple monastic habit in use at his time, the cowl, which is worn over the forehead, bearing a small cross, and he uplifts one hand with an eloquent gesture, as if he were preaching. In a quaint old picture which has been severally times engraved, called ' The Obsequies of St. Ephrem,' he is seen lying on his bier with his weeping disciples around him, 26 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART and in the background are various anchorites doing penance, reading or conversing in their cells, St. Simeon Stylites, with scant regard for chronology, appearing on his pillar in their midst, although he was not born until many years after the death of St. Ephrem. CHAPTER III OTHER GREAT HERMITS AND CONVERTS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY Amongst other fourth-century hermits who, although they are not very frequently represented in art, became widely known for their sanctity, and about whose memories many beautiful legends full of spiritual meaning have gathered, , were St. Onuphrius ; St. Paphuntius, with whose name that of St. Thais is inseparably connected ; St. Abraham, who won his niece St. Mary from an evil life; St. Zosimus, who was with St. Mary of Egypt when she died; and St. Julian the Hospitable, who, although a married man, became a recluse late in life. St. Onuphrius, or S. Onofrio, as he is called in Italy, where he is much honoured, the monastery near Rome in which Tasso died being named after him, is said to have been a Prince of Abyssinia who was taken prisoner by some of the nomads of the desert, and became so enamoured of their quiet life that, when they released him, he joined one of the monastic communities in the Theban desert. Later he yearned for even greater solitude, and withdrew to a remote cave, where he lived, for sixty years, without seeing a fellow-creature, sustained only by bread and water brought to him by an angel. At the end of that time he was discovered by St. Paphuntius, who at first took him for a wild beast, so un- couth was his appearance, with his long hair and beard form- ing his only covering, but for a belt of twisted leaves about his loins. When he realized that the strange creature was indeed a man like himself, St. Paphuntius was filled with awe and reverence, for he knew that this must be one who had ST. PAPHUNTIUS 27 achieved great holiness. Falling on his knees at the feet of St. Onuphrius, he asked him to bless him, and, his request having been granted the two exchanged experiences. St. Onuphrius told his visitor how he had resolved to live and die alone, but had been cheered in his solitude by the frequent visits of an angel. He added that, as St. Paphuntius had been allowed to find him, it was evident that he had been sent by God to bury him. He begged him, therefore, to give him the Holy Communion before the end, and having partaken of the sacred elements, he peacefully breathed his last. St. Paphuntius, with the aid, it is said, of two lions, dug a grave, and having laid his friend in it, he started for home, resolved if possible to emulate the example of the departed Saint, by yet greater self-denial than he had hitherto practised. It is related that before he died St. Onuphrius urged St. Paphuntius not to loiter by the way on his return to his own cell, for that if he did some signal judgment would befall him. In spite of this warning, however, the traveller halted to rest in a deserted cell, and whilst there he was sorely tempted by a beautiful woman, who tried to cheer his loneliness. St. Paphuntius turned his back on her, and, to divert his mind from her attractions, thrust his hands into a fire he had lit to warm himself, and the woman at once fell down dead. The prayers of the hermit restored her to life, and she entreated him to forgive her, promising if he would give her his blessing to forsake her evil ways. The holy man granted her request, and she left him once more alone in his cell, but an earth- quake destroyed it and a fine palm-tree growing beside it. Rescued from all these dangers, St. Paphuntius got safely back at last to his own retreat in the remote districts of the Theban desert. There he lived alone for many years, ever growing in holiness, but much troubled with the very human longing to know how he was progressing in his spiritual life. He often prayed to God to reveal to him if he had succeeded in pleasing Him, and one night an angel is said to have appeared to him in a dream, to tell him that in a certain town some distance off lived a strolling player who was more highly thought of in heaven than himself. When he awoke, St. Paphuntius hastened to seek the musician, and found him pursuing his calling in the streets, with a crowd about him listening to his singing. The hermit 28 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART looked at him in astonishment, for there was nothing at all remarkable in his appearance, and his wonder became still greater when he learned from the man's own lips that he had been a great sinner, but was now penitent. St. Paphuntius explained the reasons for his questions, and the musician seemed much touched at what he heard. The two eagerly discussed together what could be the meaning of the angel's words, and came to the conclusion that what had won so great a commendation from on high, must be the fact that the player gave all his earnings to the poor and had rescued many a despairing debtor from prison. With the naive simplicity which was his most noteworthy characteristic, St. Paphuntius entreated his new friend to return with him to the desert, and the musician consented, although by so doing he was putting an end to his powers of usefulness. The two lived in separate cells, meeting but rarely, and St. Paphuntius continued his efforts to achieve the greatest holiness possible to man. Presently he again entreated God to reveal to him what progress he was making, and again an angel appeared to answer his prayer. This time the suppliant was told that a rich man living in a town still further off than that where the musician had been found was higher in favour with the Almighty than himself. Bitterly disappointed, St. Paphuntius set forth without delay to find his new rival, and having identified his house, a very magnificent one, he rang the bell and begged for admis- sion. He was courteously received, and taken at once into the presence of the master, who entreated his blessing, insisted on washing his feet, and made him sit in a place of honour by his side. The hermit then explained the reason ,of his visit, and his host, who could scarcely believe his ears, was altogether at a loss to understand in what his own holiness consisted. True, he gave much away to those in want, but, then, he had great wealth, and did not suffer at all from his generosity. After a very long discussion, St. Paphuntius persuaded the rich man to distribute all he had to the poor and to join him in the desert. Yet another cell was built for him, and all went well in the little community of three, until the old desire to know his own position once more assailed St. Paphuntius. Greater than ever was his astonishment when SAINTS PAPHUNTIUS AND THAIS 29 the angel, who a third time appeared to him, told him that a beautiful sinner named Thais, who had drawn into her net many of the young nobles of Alexandria, was more precious in the sight of God than he. St. Paphuntius resolved to go and see her, but, aware that a man in the dress of a hermit would not be likely to gain admittance, he arrayed himself in costly garments, hired a grand carriage, and drove up to her door, as if he were a suitor for her favour. He was ushered into her presence, and found himself amongst a crowd of her admirers. She was so beautiful, and there was such a child- like charm about her, that it was all the holy man could do to steel his heart against her. He pretended at first that he had only come to see her on account of her beauty, but when, after a good deal of hesitation, she granted him a private interview, he told her the whole truth, and asked her if she could herself explain the revelation of the angel. The astonishment of the young girl can be imagined. Was it indeed possible, she cried, that she, a sinner, was of value to God ? Oh, why had she not known it before ? Was it too late for her to turn to Him ? Touched by her emotion, and forgetting his own original motive for seeking an inter- view with her, St. Paphuntius assured her that it was never too late to appeal to the All-merciful, who had sent His only Son to die for sinners. Weeping bitterly, the poor girl entreated to be told how best to atone for the past, declaring she would do anything if only she might win forgiveness. Then St. Paphuntius, who had but one piece of advice for everyone, told her she must give away all her ill- gotten gains, and henceforth live alone, spending all her time in prayer. She agreed at once, and when she had deprived herself of everything but a few coarse garments, the relentless hermit took her to a nunnery in the wilderness, and there she was walled up in a cell, with only a little opening left through which her food could be given to her. Before St. Paphuntius left her to this terrible life of lonely penance, Thais asked him to teach her how to pray, and he told her to repeat constantly the brief petition : ' Qui plasmati me, miserere mei ' (Thou who didst create me, have pity on me). For three long years the girl who had had all Alexandria at her feet remained shut out from all human sympathy ; but it is related that at the end of that time St. Paphuntius, who had 30 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART never forgotten her, asked St. Antony if he did not think she had now suffered enough. The great Founder of Monachism at once sunimoned a council of hermits, and to one amongst them, known as Paul the Simple, it was revealed in a vision that Thais was forgiven. He had, he reported, seen three angels guarding a beautiful bed, and a voice had told him it was reserved for Thais the Penitent. St. Paphuntius was chosen to take the good news to the sufferer, but when her cell was opened, and she was told she was free to leave it, she replied that she had learnt to love it now, and would be content to die in it. She was, however, at last persuaded to leave it, but she died a few days afterwards in the convent to which she was taken. Opinions are divided as to the manner of death of St. Paphuntius himself. According to some, he died peacefully in the monastery he had founded, which before the end came numbered several hundred inmates. Others assert that when the fierce persecution under Diocletian broke out the holy man left the seclusion of the desert to preach the Gospel in Egypt and encourage the martyrs, himself falling a victim to the fury of the heathen, by whom he was crucified on a palm-tree, as represented in the Greek Menology and elsewhere. Saints Onuphrius and Paphuntius are generally grouped together amongst the hermits, but the former is sometimes represented alone, as a very old man of emaciated appearance, with hair and beard of immense length, wearing a garment of palm leaves, and holding a staff in one hand, whilst in the other is a rosary, although he is scarcely likely to have owned that aid to devotion. Occasionally, in allusion probably to his supposed royal birth, a crown and sceptre are lying at his feet. In the Campo Santo fresco at Pisa the burial of St. Onu- phrius by St. Paphuntius with the aid of the lions, the destruc- tion of the cell by the earthquake, the visit from the beautiful woman, her death and her repentance after her restoration to life, are graphically rendered. Very realistic also is a drawing in a manuscript translation into French of the ' Golden Legend ' preserved in one of the libraries of Paris, representing the meet- ing between the hermit and the musician, the latter holding a kind of hurdy-gurdy with five strings. The conversion of St. Thais and her arrival with St. Paphuntius opposite the cell in which she is to pass the rest of her life are the subjects of various quaint engravings in old collections of legends, in which SAINTS ABRAHAM AND MARY 31 the penitent wears the dress of a nun, but is without the scroll bearing the words of her prayer, ' Qui plasmati me, miserere mei,' which is her usual characteristic. The legend of St. Abraham and his niece Mary greatly resembles that of St. Paphuntius and Thais. St. Abraham had, it is said, lived alone for many years in a desert of Syria, when he learnt that the daughter of a brother who had recently died was leading an evil life in a neighbouring town. He therefore disguised himself in the uniform of an officer of the army and went to visit her. He was received by Mary without any suspicion as to his real character, and when they were alone together he told her who he was, entreating her to repent for the sake of her immortal soul. After he had pleaded long with her, he succeeded in touching her heart, and she con- sented to return with him to the desert, having first burnt all her finery. According to another account, the little Mary had been con- fided to St. Abraham's care when she was only seven years old, and had lived near him in a cell of her own for thirteen years, seeing no one but her guardian, and spending all her time in prayer. She had grown up to be very lovely, and her lonely life had been a very poor preparation for resisting the sudden temp- tation which overtook her when she was twenty years old. A young hermit had come to consult her uncle in some difficulty, and had peeped through the window of Mary's cell. The sight of the girl kneeling, with her beautiful eyes upraised in rapt devotion, astonished him. He spoke to her, and she, suspect- ing no evil, answered him frankly. This was the beginning of a romance which had a terribly tragic ending. The young hermit, forgetting all his vows, came again and again, nominally to see St. Abraham, but really to court his niece. Mary learnt to love him, and finally ran away with him. A brief time of guilty happiness was suc- ceeded by terrible remorse. Either she left her lover or he deserted her; in any case, she presently found herself utterly alone in the wilderness, and, falling on her face, she lay moan- ing in her despair, crying that for her there was no hope left ; shame must henceforth be her only portion. Meanwhile St. Abraham, who appears to have been singularly blind to what had been going on, was greatly grieved at the loss of the girl committed to his charge, and prayed daily to 32 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART God to restore her to him. On two successive nights he dreamt that he saw a dragon devouring a white dove, and each time he rescued the bird by treading on the head of the evil beast. He then held the wounded dove tenderly against his breast ; it revived and flew up to heaven, where it was received out of his sight. Feeling sure that these dreams were an answer to his prayers, and that the bird typified the soul of the lost one, the old man set forth to seek her, and after wandering about for many days he found her almost at the point of death. He raised her from the ground, told her he knew and forgave all, even as God would forgive if she truly turned to Him again with her whole heart. St. Abraham then led her back to her cell, where she lived for several years after the death of her uncle. The fame of her sanctity spread far and wide, so that many flocked to her for advice, and she healed them all from their diseases, whether physical or mental. Saints Abraham and Mary are generally represented in two cells side by side. Their return home is the subject of a fine old engraving, wrongly attributed to Albert Dtirer, and still very popular in Germany, in which the old man is seen leading an ass, on which the penitent girl is seated, hiding her face in her hands. In two of his landscapes Philippe de Champagne introduced scenes from the legend of St. Mary: in one the visit of the young hermit to her is shown, whilst in the other she is back in her cell after her sad experiences, and crowds of pilgrims are bringing patients on litters to seek her advice. Little is really known of St. Zosimus, and it is probable that but for the accident of his discovery of St. Mary the Egyptian he 'would have been almost forgotten. He had, it is said, been Abbot of one monastery in Palestine for forty-three years, when he received instructions in a dream to seek another home beyond the Jordan. He obeyed, and in the course of his wanderings he suddenly came upon a strange figure which he at first took for some holy hermit, but on nearer approach found to be a woman. Some say her long hair completely covered her, so that she needed no other garment, others that her white hair was cut short, and that she cried to the intruder, ' Abbot Zosimus, throw me your mantle to cover me before you come nearer.' Surprised that his name was SAINTS MARY AND ZOSIMUS 33 known to one he had never seen before, the holy man did as he was requested ; the woman wrapped herself in the garment, and, coming near to him, told him that his coming had been miraculously foretold to her. He begged her to explain her presence in the desert, and with some reluctance she told him her sad story. She had, she said, lived an evil hfe for seven- teen years, and had been brought to repentance by a remark- able occurrence. Hearing that a number of pilgrims were on their way to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross of Christ, she decided to go too, not with any idea of worship, but for the sake of the change and excitement. Arrived at the Holy City, Mary went with the rest of the crowds to the church where the ceremony was to take place, but when she tried to enter it she found herself unable to do so. She returned again and again to the porch, but whenever she attempted to cross its threshold some invisible power held her back. Convinced at last that the cause of her difficulty was her own sin, she smote upon her breast and earnestly besought forgiveness. No answer came at first, but, looking up, the penitent woman saw an image of the Blessed Virgin, who seemed to look at her with eyes of yearning love. Beseeching the Holy Mother of God to intercede for her, she prayed yet more fervently, promising to sin no more if she might only be allowed to enter the sacred building. This time her petition was heard : she found herself able to go into the church, and, prostrating herself before the Holy Cross, she vowed hence- forth to lead a life of lonely penitence in the desert. As she was about to rise, she heard a voice bidding her go beyond the Jordan, for there she would find rest and comfort, and she started at once on the journey, lingering in Jerusalem only long enough to return thanks before the shrine of the Blessed Virgin, to whom she felt she owed her fdrgiveness, and to buy three loaves of bread. This, she added, was forty-seven years ago, and since then she had exchanged no word with any human creature, and had lived entirely on the three loaves she had brought with her, supplemented by the few wild berries to be found in the wilderness. When her story was told, St. Zosimus asked her what she wished him to do; and she begged him to leave her now, keep silence for a year, and then return to give her the Holy Com- munion before her death, which she knew would take place in VOL. II. 3 34 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART another two years. St. Zosimus was to bring the sacred elements to the further side of the Jordan on Holy Thursday, and there await her coming. He promised to do as she asked, and when he had prayed with her, he resumed his interrupted journey, full of wonder at all that he had heard and seen. A year later St. Zosimus returned to keep his appointment with St. Mary, and arrived on the banks of the Jordan, he there awaited her coming. The river was at that time in full flood, and St. Zosimus wondered greatly how the penitent would cross it, but he waited patiently for some hours, and just as night was falling he saw her approaching from the other side. Without a moment's pause she walked across the river as if it had been dry land, and, falHng on her knees before the holy man, she begged him to hear her confession. He did so, and when she had received the Holy Communion with the deepest reverence, she bade him farewell, telling him to come at the Tame time the following year to the spot where he had first met her, to bury her body, which he would find awaiting him. St. Zosimus, who was now an old man, doubted much whether he would survive St. Mary, but she would not listen to any doubts on that point, and he promised if he were still alive to do as she requested. The next year he duly kept his appointment, and found the Saint lying dead on the ground, her features wearing an expression of deep peace and her hands folded across her breast. Beside her in the sand was written, ' Oh Father Zosimus, bury the body of the poor sinner Mary of Egypt ! give earth to earth and dust to dust for Christ's sake.' The holy man, who had not had the forethought to bring a spade with him, was looking about for something with which to dig a grave, when a lion came out of a little wood hard by and proceeded to do the work with his paws. He then helped St. Zosimus to bury the body, remained looking on whilst the holy man repeated the burial service, and then quietly withdrew. St. Zosimus returned to his convent and told the monks of the wonders he had seen. Before his death he wrote down full particulars of his interviews with St. Mary, who was henceforth greatly venerated in the Church. St. Mary of Egypt, is sometimes associated in art with an image of the Blessed Virgin, in allusion to the cause of her SAINTS MARY AND ZOSIMUS 35 conversion, and occasionally, as on the seal of the Recollet Monastery at Dunkirk, of which she is patron, she is repre- sented holding three loaves of bread in her hand, in memory of those she took with her to the desert. Now and then the penitent of Egypt appears in devotional pictures, as in an engraving by Israel von Meckenen opposite to St. Mary Magdalene, her lean, emaciated figure and careworn face contrasting forcibly with the youthful beauty of her namesake. In one of the rooms of II Bargello, originally a chapel, and later a prison, now the Museo Nationale of Florence, are some much-defaced frescoes of the lives of Saints Mary of Egypt and Mary Magdalene, and in the Church of S. Pietro al P6 Cremona, where some of the relics of St. Mary of Egypt are said to be preserved, is a painting by the little known Malosso, representing the Saint in all her worldly finery, trying in vain to enter the church at Jerusalem. The first meeting between St. Mary and the hermit is the subject of a celebrated picture by Ribera, in which she appears as an old woman with short white hair, clothed in rags, and in another work from the same great hand, she is seen crossing the Jordan with the aid of angels, whilst St. Zosimus awaits her coming on his knees. The modern frescoes of the Church of St. Merri in Paris include four scenes from the life of St. Mary the Egyptian, and her legend is very constantly introduced in stained- glass windows, especially in France. In those of the Cathedrals of Chartres and Bourges the meeting between St. Zosimus and the penitent, with her burial with the aid of the lion, are very graphically rendered, and in the Cathedral of Auxerre is a large window, of which, unfortunately, six medallions are missing, which when uninjured, told the whole story from the conversion at Jerusalem and the buying of the loaves, to the carrying of the soul of the Saint to heaven by angels. Of the remaining scenes the central medallion and that above are specially interesting. In the former St. Mary receives the Communion standing, and a hand issuing from a cloud above the head of St. Zosimus is pointing at her. In the latter the lion, who stands on his hind-legs, holds the head of the dead Saint tenderly and reverently against his shoulder, as he aids St. Zosimus to place the body in the grave. The story of St. Julian the Hospitable, who is still greatly honoured in Italy and France, is more like a Homeric than a 3—2 35 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART Christian legend, and its hero has been likened, not without reason, to the Greek CEdipus, driven as he was by irresistible fate to commit crimes altogether hostile to his own nature. The nationality of St. Julian is unknown, but he is supposed to have been of noble birth, and to have been living happily with his parents, to whom he was devoted, when a strange incident occurred, which led him to leave home and become a wanderer on the face of the earth. One day, when he was hunting a stag in the forest near his father's castle, the poor creature suddenly turned to him and said, in a voice like that of a man : ' Why dost thou, who art to be the murderer of thine own father and mother, seek to kill me also ?' Astonished and terrified, Julian begged the stag to explain the meaning of this awful prophecy, but the animal merely bounded away, leaving him to solve the mystery as best he could. Never for a moment doubting that the revelation made to him was a genuine and supernatural one, the young man did not dare to return home, but went forth alone to seek his fortunes far away, hoping thus to elude his terrible fate. In course of time he arrived in a country whose King, a noble and generous Prince, took a great fancy to him, and gave him an important post at Court. St. Julian served his master faith- fully, married a beautiful woman named Basilassa, and in his new life gradually forgot the danger which threatened him. Fate was not, however, to be thus eluded ; his broken-hearted parents, who had sought him far and near, in their turn came to the town in which he was, and asked for shelter at his house during his temporary absence. With the ready hospi- tality of the time, Basilassa received them kindly, questioned them as to the reason for their journey, and to her delight discovered that her husband was their son. After a good meal the happy parents were taken by Basilassa, who could not do them honour enough, to her own apartments, which she placed at their disposal, herself withdrawing to a small room in another part of the castle. Early the next morning she went, as was her custom, to church, full of happy thoughts of the pleasant surprise awaiting her husband on his return, and little dreaming of the tragedy which had even then taken place. During the night St. Julian had returned unexpectedly, and, going straight to the room he generally shared with his wife, SAINTS JULIAN AND BASILASSA 37 expecting to find her alone, he was astonished to see a bearded man in his own place. In the dim light he failed to notice that the woman beside the stranger was not Basilassa, and in his jealous rage he drew his sword and slew both the sleepers. With his hands still stained with blood, and despair in his heart, the murderer was rushing out of his desecrated home, when he met his wife returning from her devotions. She came eagerly forward to tell him the good news of the arrival of his parents, but he started back, crying in a voice of anguish, 'Who, then, was the woman in thy bed?' When he heard the truth, the unhappy man wept bitterly, and told Basilassa that he was no longer worthy to be her husband, for that God had evidently forsaken him. She tried to comfort him, and now for the first time learnt the reason of his flight from home. True woman that she was, the awful truth only bound her the more closely to the victim of fate. When St. Julian said he would release her from her vows and go forth to a life of penance alone, she refused to forsake him, and the two departed together from their home, leaving behind them all their wealth. _ After many days' wandering the travellers came to a great river, where many had perished miserably in trying to cross over to the other side. They were seeking for a ford, when it was revealed to St. Julian that God willed he should remain where he was, to aid those who were in peril, and he therefore built two huts, one for himself and one for Basilassa. Later he added to these shelters a larger one for poor travellers, and for many years he and his wife spent all their time ministering to the needs of pilgrims, St. Julian ferrying, without fee, all who wished to cross over the river, and Basilassa tending those who needed nursing and care in the hospital. One terrible night, when so great a storm was raging that St. Julian had felt sure his services would not be needed, he heard a voice calling to him from the other side of the swollen river, and without a moment's hesitation he launched his boat to obey the summons. Having got safely across, he found a young man awaiting him who was in a terribly loathsome state from leprosy, and was apparently almost dying of exhaustion. Nothing daunted, St. Julian carried him to the ferry-boat, and, having with great difficulty made the passage, laid him on his own bed. 38 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART The wounds of the sufferer were tenderly dressed by Basilassa, and the devoted husband and wife watched beside him till the morning. When daylight came, they were sur- prised to see that their patient appeared to be perfectly restored to health, and as they watched him a glory shone round about him, dazzling their eyes, and convincing them that some great marvel was taking place. Then the leper, whose face was now as that of an angel, said to Julian : ' The Lord hath sent me to tell thee that thy penance is accepted and thy rest is at hand.' The next moment the heavenly visitant, who some say was Christ Himself, disappeared, and a few days afterwards St. Julian and his wife passed peacefully away, thanking God for all His mercies. In a Spanish version of this touching story, the fatality by which the family of St. Julian was so relentlessly pursued is to some extent explained as the result of the sins of his parents, who eloped with each other in early youth. The little Julian was their illegitimate child, and he was but fifteen when the terrible prophecy drove him from home. Lope de Vega's tragedy ' El animal profeta ' is founded on the St. Julian legend, but it does not include the leper incident. St. Julian, who is much honoured in Italy as San Giuliano Ospitale, and in France as St. Julien I'Hospitalier or JuHen le Pauvre, is the patron Saint of travellers, ferrymen, and boatmen, and is also appealed to for aid by the thatchers of Li6ge — why it is difficult to understand — and by jugglers, stroll- ing players — hence the mask sometimes introduced at his feet — musicians, quack doctors, and shepherds, probably because they all wander about a good deal in the exercise of their professions. Travellers in difficulties say a paternoster in honour of St. Julian, and in olden times there were many wayside hospices, where the mention of the Saint's name was enough to secure to the wanderer food and shelter for three days and nights. Indeed, there is still, or was until quite recently, such a shelter at Antwerp. St. Julian is generally represented in art as a handsome young man, sometimes in the ornate costume of a mediaeval courtier, but more often in the simple robe of a hermit. He holds a hunting-horn, boat or oar in one hand, and a stag is often introduced beside him, whilst in the background is seen a river with a ferry-boat, to distinguish him from St. SAINTS JULIAN AND BASILASSA 39 Hubert, whose attributes are similiar to his. The whole story of his chequered career is graphically told in many stained- glass windows in French churches, notably in one in the Cathedral of Chartres, and in another in that of Rouen, the latter presented by the bateliers of that town in the fourteenth century. In the quaint old church of St. Julien le Pauvre in Paris, there used to be an interesting bas-relief, representing the husband and wife crossing the water with Jesus Christ Himself, whom they have mistaken for a leper ; in the Pitti Gallery, Florence, there is a fine composition by AUori, called the ' Hospitality of St. Julian,' in which the hermit, a man in the prime of life, with a long beard, is supporting the fainting leper in his arms, whilst in the distance St. Basilassa is holding up a light to guide some pilgrims to the riverside hospice ; and in the Brussels Gallery is a painting of doubtful authorship of the Ascension to heaven in a blaze of glory of the supposed leper, with Saints Julian and Basilassa prostrating themselves on the ground in wondering awe. In England some few churches are dedicated to St. Julian the Hospitable, including one at Southampton, originally founded in the thirteenth century by twin .brothers named Gervasius and Protasius after the well- known martyrs ; and another at Wellow in Somerset, contain- ing a modern stained-glass window representing the Saint as a ferryman, his oar in his hand. CHAPTER IV MARTYRED CHURCHMEN OF THE FOURTH CENTURY Great as had been the rage of the heathen against the Christians in the third century, it became even more intense in the first part of the fourth, and until the conversion of Constantine at last gave peace to the long-suffering Church, the number of martyrs who gladly laid down their lives rather than deny their Lord was daily on the increase. It is ever darkest ■before the dawn, and even after the issue of the Edict of Milan, granting civil rights and liberty of conscience to the Christians 40 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART throughout the Empire, death was often inflicted in outlying districts by those in authority, who had not yet accepted the principles of toleration. True, many, as has been seen in the preceding chapters of this volume, withdrew to the desert, where they were able to serve God in their own way un- molested, but to leave their posts was impossible to the greater number of the Christians, and it was the clergy, true vicars of their flocks, who bore the brunt of the persecution under Diocletian. One of the first to suffer in the fourth century was St. Erasmus, called by the Italians S. Elmo, and by the French St. Elme, about whom next to nothing is really known, though many quaint and touching legends have gathered about his memory. He is supposed to have been a Bishop, though of what see is not stated, and after long years of work for his flock, to have withdrawn to the solitudes of Mount Lebanon, where he was miraculously fed by a raven. According to another version of his legend, he was imprisoned somewhere in Palestine for his zeal in preaching the faith, and rescued by the Archangel Michael, who suddenly appeared to him, saying : ' Arise, Eras- mus, and follow me, for thou shalt yet convert many to Christ!' The Bishop of course obeyed, and was taken by his guide to the coast, where the two embarked and sailed to the coast of Campania. There they landed and the angel left Erasmus, telling him to resume his work as a teacher. The Bishop, after fulfilling the prophecy that he should convert many, was arrested by order of Diocletian at Formia, now Mola di Gaeta, and subjected to terrible tortures, which he bore with un- flinching courage. He was, it is said, put into red-hot armour, flung into a caldron of molten lead, pitch, and resin, and cut open, after which, with revolting refinement of cruelty, his entrails were wound by his executioners upon a kind of wheel. For the last detail there seems, however, to be absolutely no foundation in fact, and the capstan-like implement, with its coil of rope, generally associated with St. Erasmus, which is, as a rule, explained by reference to the manner of his death, is by the latest authorities supposed to be merely an allusion to his being the patron of sailors. St. Erasmus is one of the fourteen auxiliary Saints specially honoured in Germany, but in the various missals in which' his legend is related, there is no allusion to the horrible SAINTS ERASMUS AND JANUARIUS 41 martyrdom he is said to have suffered, though the incident of the raven is usually introduced. In the silk-producing dis- tricts of France the martyred Bishop is invoked by those suffering from colic or other ailments of the stomach, and it is customary for children to offer him skeins of silk on his fSte- day, probably because the wooden winder used by the weavers resembles the implement associated with him. St. Erasmus is generally represented, as in the Chronicle of Nuremberg, wearing the mitre and robes of a Bishop, with his staff in one hand and his capstan or windlass in the other. An angel sometimes stands beside or behind him and a raven is on the ground at his feet. Pictures or sculptures of his martyrdom are rare, but in an old stained-glass window in the Church of St. Botolph, LuUingstone, he is seen lying on the ground beneath a windlass, on to which his entrails are being wound, and above the altar dedicated to him in St. Peter's, Rome, is a fine mosaic rendering of the final scene of his martyrdom, after a design by Nicholas Poussin. There was also at one time a statue of St. Erasmus in St. Martin's Church, Canterbury, where it was placed opposite to one of St. Christopher. Another celebrated Bishop who suffered martyrdom early in the fourth century was St. Januarius, some say of Naples, others of Benevento, who, after many years of fruitful work, was arrested and thrown into prison at Pozzuolo, whence he was dragged without trial to the amphitheatre of that city to be devoured by wild beasts. They, however, refused to harm him, and he was therefore condemned to be beheaded. It is related that, as he was being led to execution, he was asked by an old man to give him something to remember him by, to which he replied that he had nothing left but a handkerchief, and that he needed to bind his eyes with. Seeing the old man's disappointment, he then added, ' But you shall have it when I am gone.' After the head of the martyr was struck off, the executioner said in a mocking voice, as he tore off the handker- chief and flung it on the ground, ' How about your promise ?' On his return to the town, however, the scoffer met the old man again, and, lo ! he held in his hand the very blood- stained handkerchief which had been left at the place of execution. The body of St. Januarius was taken to Naples and reve- 42 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART rently buried there. It was later removed, first to Benevento, and then to Monte Vergine, but it now rests in a beautiful shrine beneath the high altar of the Cathedral of Naples, which is dedicated to the saint. The head and two phials con- taining some of the martyr's blood are preserved apart from the rest of the remains, in the Cappella del Tesoro. The blood is said to become liquid at certain times, and a great festival is held in honour of the Saint at Naples on these occa- sions, when the blood is carried in an ornate shrine round the city. The distinctive attributes of St. Januarius in art are two phials containing globules of blood, either held in his hand or placed at his feet. The Cappella del Tesoro in the Cathedral of Naples owns in addition to a fine fourteenth-century bust of the martyr, and a silver relief depicting the return of the body of the Saint to Naples after its temporary absence, several paintings on copper and frescoes by Domenichino, Guido Reni and Lanfranco, representing the martyrdom of St. Janu- arius, the miracle of the raising of a young man from the dead said to have been performed by him, with various wonders wrought at his shrine. In the Cappella del Capece Galeota in the same cathedral is a fifteenth-century painting, in which St. Januarius is on one side of Christ and St. Athanasius on the other ; and in the quaint old seventh-century Church of S. Restituta is a very ancient mosaic of the Virgin, with St. Januarius on one side and St. Restituta on the other, whilst on one of the walls is a bas-relief, which originally formed part of an altar- screen, in which the figure of St. Januarius with his phials is introduced. St. Blaise, a very popular Saint in England, France and Germany, who is generally placed side by side with St. Erasmus amongst the auxiliary Saints, was Bishop of Sebaste, and was driven by the persecution under Diocletian, to flee to a lonely mountain for safety. There he is said to have lived unmolested for some years, visited in secret by numbers of his flock, and beloved by all the wild animals, who used to come from far and near to gather about his cave, outside which they waited patiently every morning until he dismissed them with his blessing. The discovery of his retreat by the Roman authori- ties was due to an accident. The supply of wild beasts for the games in the amphitheatre was running short, and the ST. BLAISE 43 Governor of Sebaste sent hunters to make up the deficiency. These hunters found the holy Bishop sitting outside his cave, with a crowd of Hons, tigers, and other animals, in- cluding such timid creatures as deer, gathered about him, apparently listening reverently to what he was saying. Pre- sently one or another of his dumb friends came close up to him to have some wound attended to, and the hunters looked on in ever-increasing astonishment. Their surprise did not, however, prevent them from taking the holy man prisoner, for when the animals had dispersed St. Blaise was dragged back to Sebaste to be tried. On his way thither he met a poor woman who was going to the Bishop's cave to seek help for her boy, who had swallowed a fish-bone. Seeing the prisoner amongst his captors, she flung herself at his feet, crying, ' Oh, servant of Christ, have mercy upon me !' and St. Blaise touched the throat of the sufferer, who was at once cured. A little later another woman appealed to the Bishop for help : a wolf had carried off her pig, and was even then disappearing with it in the distance. St. Blaise at once called to the wolf to restore the stolen prey, and he was obeyed; the hunters feeling more and more that he whom they had captured was of greater value than any previous quarry. On their arrival at Sebaste, they told the Governor all that had happened, but he, instead of being convinced of the holiness of St. Blaise, looked upon him as a magician, and determined to destroy him. He ordered him to be first scourged, and then to have his flesh torn with an iron comb ; but nothing shook the constancy of the martyr, and after enduring many other tortures he was finally beheaded; a number of Christian women wiping up his blood after his death. The characteristics of St. Blaise in art are numerous, and some of them difficult of explanation. Generally, as on a leaden medal found in the Seine, now in the Cluny Museum, in which he is grouped with St. Louis of France, he holds what looks like a rake in one hand. More rarely he has two candles, or, as in a quaint old drawing preserved at Aix-Ia- Chapelle, he has a rolled candle in his left hand, this emblem being supposed to refer to his having said to a woman who brought him food and light in his cave : ' Offer a candle to your church every year in memory of me, and all shall be well 44 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART with you and yours.' Sometimes, as in the coinage of Ragusa, of which city St. Blaise is patron, he holds a church in his hand, and in certain old calendars his fSte-day, February 3, is marked with a horn, in allusion, probably, to his familiarity with wild animals, though he never hunted them. For many years it was the custom in the British Isles to light huge bon- fires, called blazes after St. Blaise, on February 3, and it was supposed that even the wild animals celebrated the occasion by flocking forth to look at the flames. St. Blaise is invoked by all who suffer from diseases of the throat, and on the eve of his ffete-day two candles are in certain districts blessed by the priest, who touches with them the throats of all who come to him for the purpose, saying : ' By the prayers and merits of St. Blaise, may God deliver thee from all sufferings in the throat.' It is related of St. Francis that he used this formula when patients came to him to be healed of throat diseases, and that he was annoyed when the cure was attributed to his own powers. St. Blaise is the patron Saint of weavers and wool-carders, because of the resemblance of the combs they use to one of the instruments of torture associated with him, and he is specially honoured in Yorkshire, where he is credited with having invented wool-combing. He is also invoked by hewers of stone, perhaps because his iron comb was not altogether unlike a chisel. He is the protector of all in danger from wild beasts, and, on account of the incident related above, is sup- posed to take a great interest in pigs. He is often represented, as in some windows at Chartres, with wild animals gathered about him, or he is seen ordering a wolf to give up a pig, or touching the throat of a child. The beloved Bishop appears sometimes in devotional pictures with his emblems beside him, as in a beautiful ' Madonna and Child ' by a pupil of Pinturicchio in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, in which he is opposite to St. Bartholomew. There is a fine painting of his martrydom by Carlo Maratta in S. Maria in Carignano at Genoa, and the same subject has been painted by the little-known artist Monsignori of Verona. Three other martyred Bishops of the third century, who, however, suffered after the Christian religion had become that of the State, were St. Gaudenzio of Rimini, whose effigy appears in the early coinage of that city, but of whom little is known ST. DONATO 45 beyond the fact that he was stoned to death by the Arian heretics, St. Donato of Arezzo, who is greatly venerated in Belgium as well as in Italy, and St. Ansano of Siena. St. Donato is said to have been of noble Roman birth, and to have been brought up with the Emperor Julian, who, as is well known, renounced the Christian faith before his accession to the throne, although he did not avow his apostasy until he had reigned for some years. Having lost his father, and finding Rome no longer a safe place for Christians, St. Donato fled to Arezzo, where in course of time he became Bishop, winning a great reputation for sanctity, healing the sick by his prayers, and even sometimes raising the dead. Amongst the miracles said to have been performed by him, was the rescue of a tax-gatherer falsely suspected of making away with the public funds. The supposed thief appealed to the Bishop, explaining to him that he had given the money to his wife, who had buried it in a secret place, but had died without telling him where to find it. St. Donato at once went to the tomb with the widower, and, after praying earnestly for help from on high, called to the dead woman to tell him where the treasure was concealed ; she repHed immediately, and the money was refcovered. On another occasion, when the Bishop was administering the Holy Communion, the chalice he held in his hand was broken by some heathen who were bent on disturbing the service ; but the holy man, not one whit dismayed, prayed that the sacrilegious deed might be neutralized, and the cup was mended at once, not a drop of the wine having been spilt. The great influence acquired by St. Donato over the people of Arezzo aroused the jealousy of the heathen authorities, and although nominally toleration of all religions was still the policy of the State, the Bishop was arrested with a com- panion named Hilarion, and both were condemned to death, the former to be beaten with clubs till life was extinct, the latter to be beheaded. The bodies were buried together where the Cathedral of Arezzo now stands, the high altar of which is adorned with fine sculptures by Giovanni da Pisano, repre- senting scenes from the life of St. Donato, whilst on the walls are pictures by different masters of similar subjects, including the martyrdom. The chief characteristic of St. Donato in art is a chalice 46 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART held in one hand, and he appears with it on certain ancient coins of Arezzo, but he also sometimes holds a sword, the symbol of his martyrdom. He is introduced in a celebrated picture by Jan van Eyck, now in the Museum of Bruges, in which he stands on one side of the Mother and Child, and St. George on the other ; in a ' Madonna and Saints ' by Luca Signorelli in the Arezzo Gallery, he is in a place of honour opposite St. Stephen, and Jacques Callot has painted him reading in a cave, to which he used to retire for meditation. The legend of St. Ansano of Siena greatly resembles that of St. Erasmus, for he is said to have been tortured to death, after a vain attempt to burn him, by having his heart and entrails cut out, for which reason he is sometimes represented holding a bleeding heart in his hand. More often, as in a beautiful painting by Sodoma, now in the Palazzo Pubbhco at Siena, and in a group of sculpture in the Cathedral of the same city, the patron Saint is seen baptizing his converts. The general opinion is that he was beheaded for his zeal in propagating the Christian faith. With the Bishops who in the fourth century laid down their lives for the faith may be named the priest St. Lucien of Antioch, who suffered in 303, of whom it is related that, when left in prison to die of starvation because he would not deny his Lord, he begged on the eve of his death enough bread for a farewell administration of the Sacrament to his friends. His request was granted, and having no altar on which to place the sacred food, he used his own breast, thus exercising at once the office of priest and victim. He died the next day, and his body was thrown into the sea with a stone round the neck ; but a friendly dolphin is said to have taken it to the shores of Bithynia, where it was reverently interred by the Christians of that district. On account of these two details of his legend, St. Lucien is represented in art, consecrating the bread as described above, or with a dolphin beside him. He is sometimes confounded with St. Lucien of Beauvais, who was beheaded a year or two before the death of his namesake, and is one of the Saints represented holding their own heads in their hands. Another early martyr of the fourth century was the fellow- townsman of St. Lucien, St. Cyprian of Antioch, who, on account of his name being the same as that of the celebrated [A/rzzo Gallery MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH ST. DONATO, ST. NICHOLAS, AND OTHER SAINTS By Luca Signorelli To face p. 46 ST. CYPRIAN OF ANTIOCH 47 Bishop of Carthage, rarely receives the honour really due to him. St. Cyprian of Antioch was a famous magician to whom resorted many lovers who wished to secure the return of their affections. Amongst his clients was a young heathen of noble birth who was attached to a beautiful maiden named Justina. She, being a Christian, rejected all her suitors, declaring her intention to dedicate her life to God. The magician tried all the usual spells in vain, and was at last, it is related, informed by the devil himself that even he could do nothing against those who put their trust in the God of the Christians. This was indeed a revelation to Cyprian, who determined to inquire further about the God whose power was greater than that of the Prince of Evil. He therefore attended several Christian services, and was in the end converted to the true faith. According to some, he became first a priest and then Bishop of Antioch ; whilst others speak of him as a layman only. In any case, it seems certain that he was martyred, and it is sup- posed that he suffered at the same time as St. Justina, with whom he is generally associated, both having been be- headed at Damascus, after being scourged and torn with iron hooks. Their relics are said to be preserved in S. Giovanni in Laterano at Rome, and they are sometimes introduced amongst other martyred Saints in sacred pictures, St. Cyprian with the devil fleeing from him, and with a sword in his hand ; St. Justina holding a little cross, in allusion to her victory over temptation through her faith in the Crucified, or she is reading and holds a lily, the symbol of purity, in one hand. Sometimes Saints Cyprian and Justina are grouped with a third figure, that of St. Theoctistus, a convert to Chris- tianity, who, having come to the place of execution to bid farewell to St. Cyprian, was compelled to share his fate. Examples occur of the association of a unicorn with St. Justina, as in a painting attributed to Giorgione in the possession of Herr von Kauffmann at Berlin. This emblem, which has greatly puzzled the students of Christian symbolism, is now generally supposed to typify indomitable strength of will, especially that of a young girl, who, sustained by faith, is able to overcome all her trials. Worthy, in spite of his humble position in the Church, to- take rank in the noble army of martyrs with such men as Bishops Blaise, Gaudenzio and Donato, was the young deacon 48 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART Vincent of Saragossa, surnamed the Invincible, who in the time of the terrible persecution under Diocletian, distinguished himself by the zeal with which he ministered to the suffering Christians. He was only twenty years old when he was arrested with Valerius, the aged Bishop of Saragossa, and taken before the Proconsul, Dacian, who excelled all the agents of the Emperor in his love of cruelty. It is related that when Valerius answered the questions put to him in the low, trembling voice of old age, the young Vincent burst out with the words : ' How is this, my father ? canst thou not speak aloud and defy this heathen dog ? Speak, that all the world may hear, or suffer me, who am only thy servant, to speak in thy stead.' The Bishop gave him leave, and the young man then poured forth a perfect torrent of eloquence, declaring himself ready, nay, eager, to suffer all things for the cause of Christ. Dacian was only too glad to take him at his word ; the old Bishop was merely banished from Saragossa, but Vincent was subjected to all the tortures it was still the custom in Spain to inflict upon apostates from heathenism. His body was torn with iron implements, he was half roasted on a large gridiron above a slow fire, and then, bleeding and blistered, was taken back to prison, where he was laid on the ground upon broken glass and pottery. Angels, however, came and ministered to him, and Dacian, fearing that his victim would after all pass away with his spirit unbroken, sent orders that his friends should be allowed to visit him, in the hope that they might save his life for further sufferings. His wounds were bound up, and he was laid upon a soft bed strewn with roses, but it was too late : he died with a smile of triumph on his lips, and his soul was taken up to heaven by angels, in the presence of those who were left to mourn his loss. By order of the Proconsul the body of St. Vincent was flung into a marsh outside the city, to be devoured by wild beasts; but, adds the legend, a raven came and protected it from injury, driving off all who approached it. It was then sewn up in a sack and taken out to sea, where it was flung overboard with a millstone attached to it, but when the sailors got back to land, the body was found lying on the beach in perfect preservation. There it was left, and the friendly waves soon accomplished what man had failed to do, Alinari 'photo\ [Palazzo Fuhblico, Siena ST. ANSANO By Sodoma To fact p. 48 ST. VINCENT 49 burying it beneath the sand, as they do all things left to their ministrations. Many years afterwards the sacred remains were discovered by some Christians, who took them to Valencia, where they were re-interred with all due reverence. In the eighth century, when the Moors drove the Christians out of Spain, the latter took the body of the young martyr with them, and being driven by contrary winds on to the promontory now know as Cape St. Vincent, they buried it there. Here it is said the grave was guarded by numerous ravens, who kept watch over it day and night, their devotion being com- memorated in the name of El Monte de las Cuervas, given to the place by the Spanish. In the twelfth century Alonzo I. of Portugal had the relics removed to Lisbon, where they found a final resting-place in the cathedral. A pair of ravens accompanied the ship in which the body was taken down the coast ; the birds were looked upon as sacred, no one was allowed to molest them, and their numerous descendants have ever since been fed by the Chapter of Lisbon, to whom a yearly allowance is given for their support. The attributes of St. Vincent are as numerous as were his sufferings in life and the vicissitudes of his body after death. An angel is constantly introduced beside him ; he often holds a small boat or a millstone in his hands, both in allusion to the unsuccessful attempt to sink his remains at sea ; and he some- times has a gridiron at his feet, but as this is the universally accepted emblem of St. Lawrence, it is generally supplemented by other instruments of torture, such as iron hooks, etc. A raven is, however, his most persistent symbol ; now and then it is perched on a millstone, or it is driving off a wolf which is trying to attack the dead body of the Saint. The coat-of-arms of Lisbon consists of a boat on a stormy sea, with the figure of St. Vincent on its mainmast, and two ravens, one on the prow, the other on the poop. The vinedressers of the South of France have chosen the young martyr as their patron, probably because the first syllable of his name means wine ; and he is sometimes represented, as in a leaden medal found in the Seine, holding a pruning knife in his hand, or he has a vat beside him and is surrounded with the foliage of the vine. The sailors of Spain and Portugal appeal to St. Vincent for aid in storms, and he is supposed to be able to recover lost property for his votaries. VOL. II. 4 50 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART Few Saints are more popular on the Continent of Europe than St. Vincent, whose name is met with at every turn in Spain and Portugal. He is the patron not only of Valencia, Saragossa and Lisbon, but of Chalons and Saone and other French towns, of Berne, Magdeburg, and Milan. The well- known church of St. Germain des Pr6s in Paris was originally dedicated to him, for, according to an unfounded tradition, part of his relics were once deposited there, a mistake explaining the occasional association in certain pictures, as in one by Vien in the Louvre, of St. Germain of Auxerre with the young deacon. Scenes from the legend of St. Vincent are of constant occur- rence in the stained-glass windows of France, of which those in the Cathedrals of Chartres and Bourges and the Church of St. Vincent at Rouen are amongst the most interesting. In them the martyr is seen in his deacon's robes standing beside Bishop Valerius before the Proconsul ; bound to his gridiron, or being torn with iron implements ; lying in prison with angels attending on him, and dying on a bed of roses. Strange to say, paintings of incidents of the career of St. Vincent are rare, probably because of the similarity of his legend to that of St. Lawrence ; but there is a fine altar-piece by Carpaccio, in which the young deacon is the principal figure, in the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo at Venice, and in the predella beneath are scenes from his life. He is also introduced in many devotional pictures, notably in one by Pietro Pollajuolo in the Ufiizi Gallery, Florence, in which he is on one side of St. James the Elder, and St. Eustace on the other. There is a sculptured figure of the young deacon in Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster, and he is also introduced above the southern porch of the Cathedral of Chartres. A more or less apocryphal Bishop of the fourth century was St. Narcissus of Girona in Catalonia, who is said to have evangelized the whole of that province, to have slain a dragon which had devoured all who attempted to draw water at a certain spring, and to have been in the end assassinated in his own church when saying Mass. St. Narcissus, who for some unexplained reason is greatly honoured at Augsburg, is sometimes represented holding a bunch of narcissi in his hand, in allusion, of course, to his name. Spanish artists have shown a great predilection for a remarkable incident said to have occurred at his tomb in 1286, when, in response to the prayers ST. ALBAN 51 of his votaries, a great swarm of venomous flies revenged the sacrilege committed by the soldiers of Charles of Valois in the churches of Girona. In certain old engravings the flies are seen issuing from the effigy of the Saint, who is represented as a beardless young man wearing the Bishop's mitre and robes, with his feet resting on the hilt of a sword, the supposed instrument of his martyrdom. CHAPTER V MARTYRED CITIZENS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY Amongst martyrs of the fourth century who held no definite rank in the Church on earth, yet have been admitted into the great hierarchy of martyrs, few are more celebrated than St. Alban, who was the first to lay down his life for the truth in the British Isles, and is almost as much venerated in France as in England, St. Germanus of Auxerre having, it is said, taken part of his relics to Paris in the fifth century. The main facts of the life of St. Alban are well authenticated, and even for some of the quaint legends related of him there seems to have been some slight foundation in fact. Born at Verulam, close to the site of the town now named after him, he was of noble Saxon birth, and skilled in all the learning of the heathen. The Christian religion had, as is now generally believed, been introduced into Britain as early as the second century, but, fortunately, the island was too distant from Rome to share in the persecutions to which so many fell victims elsewhere in the early days of the Church. The close of the third century was, however, marked by a great increase of zeal against the Christians, and the Imperial edicts concerning them began to be put into force even in the most remote districts. One day a young priest named Amphiphalus, fleeing from those sent to arrest him, took refuge in the house of St. Alban, who hid and sheltered him for several weeks, during which the host was converted by his guest, the two becoming close friends. Presently the place of concealment of the fugitive was discovered, and Roman soldiers came to take him prisoner, but St. Alban changed clothes with him, and was 4—2 52 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART dragged before the magistrate in his stead, wearing the long priestly garment called a caracalla. When the deception was discovered, the indignation of the accusers was very great, and St. Alban was told that he must prove that he did not share his friend's apostasy by betraying his hiding-place and sacri- ficing to the gods, or he would himself be put to death. To this the gallant young Briton replied that he was a Christian, a worshipper of the one true and living God, the Creator of all things, adding that the sacrifices offered by the heathen were really made to devils, who could give no aid to their wor- shippers. Every effort to make him retract was in vain, and he was condemned to be first scourged and then beheaded outside the city. The excitement caused by this sentence was intense and wide-spread, for St. Alban was greatly beloved in Verulam, and an immense multitude flocked out of the city to see him die. It is related that the crowds were so great that the bridge over the river became blocked, so that the soldiers with their prisoner could not pass it, but St. Alban, kneeling down on the bank, prayed that a passage might be provided. The waters at once parted, so that all could pass over dry-shod, and the executioner, who was walking beside his intended victim, was so astonished at the miracle that he flung his sword at St. Alban's feet, declaring he could not use it against one so evidently under the protection of God, artd begging to be allowed to die in his stead. The new convert was dragged away by the soldiers, and another executioner was chosen, but he, too, was very reluctant to perform his office. Just before the end a second wonder was performed, for St. Alban prayed aloud that some sign might be given of the truth of the religion for which he was about to die. Immediately a spring of pure water gushed forth at his feet, and having drunk from it, he told the executioner he was ready, bending his head for the blow. With trembling hands the man did his duty, but directly the martyr was dead he, too, declared himself a Christian, and was in his turn beheaded with the soldier who had refused to kill the Saint. According to one version of the legend, the eyes of the executioner fell out as his sword descended upon the neck of the saintly victim, but for this gruesome detail there seems to be absolutely no foundation. St. Alban is supposed to have been buried where he fell, and SAINTS COSMAS AND DAMIANUS 53 some historians, including Bede, speak of a noble church mark- ing the scene of his sufferings, but all trace of it had disappeared when the place where the bones of the martyr were interred was revealed in a dream to King Offa of Mercia. The King caused a search to be made, and the remains were found inclosed in a plain wooden coffin. King Offa then ordered a rich shrine to be made for the sacred relics, and founded a great Benedic- tine monastery in memory of the Saint, the church of which, in spite of all the vicissitudes it has undergone, is still one of the finest Norman buildings in England. Of the actual shrine given by the Saxon monarch nothing now remains, but a marble slab marks the spot in the abbey where the bones of the martyr are said to rest. Representations of St. Alban are of rare occurrence, but he sometimes appears amongst the martyrs with a small fountain gushing up at his feet ; on a brass commemorative of Abbot Delamere at St. Albans he is introduced holding a long-hilted cross in one hand and a sword in the other, and in a church dedicated to him and St. Martin at Cologne he is represented carrying his own head. Contemporary with St. Alban of England were the two young Arabian doctors, Cosmas and Damianus, who are honoured alike in the Eastern and Western Churches as ' silverless doctors,' or healers who took no fees. They are said to have been brought up as Christians by their mother, and to have early become celebrated for their great skill in medicine. In- heriting a good income from their father, who died when they were children, they never took any payment for their services, for which reason the Greeks gave them the honourable title of 01 dytoi avapyvpoi, or the unmercenary. They were living happily in the city of Egsea in Cilicia, devoting their lives to the care of sufferers of every rank, when the rumour of their zeal for the cause of the poor, marking them out as Christians, attracted the attention of the heathen authorities, and they were arrested by order of the Governor. On their refusal to recant, they were condemned to death by drowning and were thrown into the sea, but an angel is said to have saved them. An equally fruitless attempt was made to burn them at a stake, for they remained unharmed, whilst the flames rushed out and slew their would-be executioners. Crucifixion was next tried, and the faithful sufferers were stoned as they hung 54 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART on their crosses ; yet still they survived, some of the stones flung at them killing the bystanders. Then, as a last resource, they were dragged outside the town to be beheaded, and no further supernatural interference took place on their behalf. Their bodies are supposed to have been taken to Syria and buried at Cyrus, where they remained until the sixth century, when they were removed to Rome and re- interred in the church built in their honour and named after them by Pope Felix IV. in 826. Many and wonderful have been the supposed cures brought about since their death by the intercession of the two brothers. The Greeks gave to them all the credit which used to accrue to the god .iEsculapius, and distinguished them by the title of Anarguri, meaning ' without fees.' The Emperor Theodosius credited them with saving his life in a dangerous illness ; and in comparatively modern times a man suffering from cancer in the leg, who prayed at their shrine in Rome, is said to have been actually operated on by them in a deep sleep which overtook him in the midst of his devotions. When he awoke, he found a new leg in the place of his own, and related that, as he slept. Saints Cosmas and Damianus stood beside him, one holding a sharp knife, the other a box of ointment, in his hand. One of the celestial visitors then said : ' If we cut off the bad leg, how shall we replace it?' To which his brother replied : 'A Moor has just beeh buried in S. Pietro in Vincoli ; we will take one of his legs.' This they did, and having anointed the joint with ointment, they disappeared. Those to whom the subject of the miracle told the wondrous tale hastened to the tomb of the Moor, and found that the diseased white leg lay in the place of the healthy brown one, so that all doubt of the truth was set at rest. The symbols by which the two 5'oung doctors may be recog- nised in art are peculiarly characteristic, and have all of them more or less direct reference to their profession. These symbols are : a transparent phial or jar, with or without a cover, a lancet, a small case of instruments, a box of oint- ment, and a cylinder, the last-named supposed to represent the rod or wand occasionally placed in the hand of those about to be bled, to facilitate the flow of blood. To these are sometimes added, as on the reverse side of a leaden medal found in the Seine, bearing the effigies of the brothers, a comb, a pair of scissors, and a razor, evidently because Saints Cosmas •1: SAINTS COSMAS AND DAMIANUS 55 and Damianus were early chosen as patrons by the Barber- surgeons of Paris. The martyrs were, of course, from the first supposed to look after the interests of doctors and dealers in drugs, and they are also appealed to by midwives and by mothers whose children suffer from convulsions in teething. They are among the patron Saints of Bohemia, of Florence, Salamanca, and Zurich, and, strange to say, the powerful family of the Medici claim to be under their special protection, perhaps because the name of Cosmo de Medici resembled that of one of the brothers, but more probably on account of the similarity between the words Medici and medecin, for, though they retain in their coat-of- arms the symbol of the pills, the haughty Florentines would have scorned to trace their origin from men so humble as the feeless doctors. In a quaint old engraving in the Chronicle of Nuremberg one brother appears to be much older than the other ; but as a rule the two doctors are represented as quite young men. In the beautiful painting by Pesellino, now in the Louvre, for instance, in which they are bending over a boy, who is lying in an insensible condition on a bed, whilst a woman is hastening forward, bringing a jflaster and some bandages. In the mosaics of the apse of SS. Cosmo e Damiano at Rome, the two doctors are seen being presented to the Saviour by 'Saints Peter and Paul; and in all that is now left of S. Michele in Africisco at Ravenna are a few remains of mosaics in which the brothers were grouped with the Archangels Michael and Gabriel on either side of Christ. They are very constantly introduced in devotional pictures, wearing the red fur-trimmed robes and fur caps of their profession. Fra Angelico especially had a great predi- lection for them. They appear with St. Dominic on one side of the Virgin in the ' Madonna d'Annalena,' now in the Florence Academy ; with St. Peter in the ' Madonna of S. Bonaventura ' in the same collection ; in the ' Great Cruci- fixion ' still in San Marco, Florence, in which they are on the right of the penitent thief near St. Lawrence and St. Mark ; and in the great Altar-piece known as the ' Madonna di San Marco,' painted by iFra Angelico by order of Cosmo de Medici, now in the Florence Academy, they kneel on a carpet at the foot of the shrine, with Saints Dominic, Francis, 56 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART Lawrence, and others. On the predella of this grand work was painted a series of scenes from the lives of Saints Cosmas and Damianus, from their first appearance before the judge to their martyrdom; but, unfortunately, these beautiful pictures are now dispersed — one is at Dublin, one at Munich, and one in the Louvre, Paris, whilst the rest are in the Florence Academy. In the National Gallery, London, there is an interesting picture by a Greek priest named Emanuel, representing Christ blessing Saints Cosmas and Damianus ; in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, is a fine painting of the ' Beheading of the brothers,' by Pesellino; and in the same collection is a quaint repre- sentation of the ' Miracle of the Leg,' by an unknown hand, in which the physicians are fastening a black leg on to the body of the sleeper, whilst the dead man lies near with a white leg beside him. The Martyrdom of Saints Cosmas and Damianus was very realistically rendered by Tintoretto in the Altar-piece still in S. Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, and a painting of the same subject, by Salvator Rosa, is in S. Giovanni de' Fiorentini, Rome, but they are neither of them in any way equal to the scattered predella pictures of Fra Angelico's San Marco 'Madonna.' In the beautiful bas-relief of the 'Virgin and Child ' by Luca Delia Robbia in S. Maria della Misericordia, Florence, the brothers appear on either side of the central group, and there still remain good statues of them in the niches above the figures of the Apostles and Martyrs in the remarkable bronze doors, designed by Donatello, of the old Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, Florence. Another doctor who suffered martyrdom about the same time as Saints Cosmas and Damianus was St. Pantaleon of Nicomedia, a man of noble birth, fascinating personality, and high culture, who when still in early youth attracted the attention of the Emperor Galerius Maximianus, and was by him appointed Court physician at Rome. The son of a heathen father, but of a Christian mother, Pantaleon had been secretly baptized in infancy, and had been taught the principles of Christianity. These principles do not, how- ever, appear to have taken very deep root in his character, for he at first concealed his religion, taking part with his fellow-courtiers in the worship of the gods. He was, fortu- ST. PANTALEON 57 nately, later brought to a better mind by an old priest named Hermolaus, who persuaded him to avow himself a Christian, and to use his medical skill for the poor in Rome, seeking no earthly reward. The change in all his habits which now took place — for he devoted every spare moment to nursing the sick — soon attracted the notice of his fellow-courtiers, and the rumour of the miracles his faith enabled him to perform, came to the ears of the Emperor himself. Anxious to save his favourite, Galerius sent for him, and admonished him in private. But it was of no use. St. Fantaleon remained steadfast, and reluctantly his master was obliged to allow the law to take its course. After a public trial the doctor was condemned to death, and was, it is said, first bound to a barren olive-tree, with his hands nailed to the top of his head, the blood from his wounds, as it dropped down the trunk, causing foliage and fruit to sprout forth. When at last the sufferer was led forth to be beheaded, even the sword, generally so immediately fatal, refused to harm him, remaining suspended in the air in spite of all the efforts of the executioner to wield it, till the martyr himself prayed aloud to God to allow it to end his pain. The aged priest Hermolaus, who had been with his pupil from the first, cheering him with his presence, shared his fate ; and the two friends are supposed to have been buried together where they fell. The body of St. Pantaleon was, however, later translated to Constantinople, where a beautiful church, now destroyed, was built in his honour. Many cities claim to own a share of the young martyr's remains, part being shown at St. Denis, part at Oporto, and his head at Lyons, but there seems to be considerable doubt as to the authenticity of the relics. St. Pantaleon is almost as much honoured in the medical profession as St. Luke, and his intercession is supposed to be specially efficacious in cases of consumption. He is generally represented in art as an extremely handsome young man, with- out a beard, wearing the loose red robes of a doctor, and hold- ing in his hand the palm of the martyr or a branch of olive, the latter in allusion to the incident related above. Sometimes he is seen bound to a tree, with a sword at his feet, and occasionally he holds the sword and palm in one hand, whilst a lion crouches beside him, in allusion to a local tradition that after the torture on the tree, he was thrown to wild beasts, who would not harm him. 58 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART St. Pantaleon is sometimes introduced in devotional pictures, and may be distinguished from St. Sebastian, whom he greatly resembles in face and figure, by the position of his arms and hands. Paintings of scenes from his life and legend are rare ; but in the church dedicated to him at Venice some of the miracles with which he was credited during his life are repre- sented, including the ' Healing of a Boy,' by Paolo Veronese, whilst on the ceiling is a large composition by the little-known Fumiani, showing the young martyr in glory. Other courtiers who fell victims to their zeal for the Chris- tian faith in the sanguinary fourth century were St. Vitus of Sicily, with his nurse Crescentia and his foster-father Modestus; Saints Phocas of Sinope ; Theodotus of Galatia ; Sabas the Goth ; the three friends, Tarachus, Protus and Andronicus of Cilicia ; Julian of Antioch, Philemon the actor ; and the child Pancras of Rome. St. Vitus, also known as St. Guy, was the son of noble heathen parents, and was converted to Christianity by Cres- centia, under whose care he had been placed by his father. At the age of twelve years the boy declared himself to be a Christian, and all attempts made to shake his faith by his own people having failed, he was taken before Valerianus, the Governor of Sicily, who ordered him to be flogged. It is related that the arms of those who attempted to carry out the sentence became paral)'zed, so that they could not wield their whips, and the child was sent home again. He was there shut up for some time in an upper room, where he was visited by angels of such dazzling brightness that his father, who had looked through a crack in the door, was struck blind. Restored to sight by the prayers of his boy, the father seems to have been all but convinced of the truth of the Christian religion, and would gladly have saved Vitus from further persecution. He therefore connived at his escape with Crescentia and Modestus, and the three reached Italy in safety, aided, it is said, by an angel who steered their boat. They were, however, soon arrested by order of the heathen authorities, and were martyred in Lucania by being flung into a caldron of boiling oil. Little as is really known of St. Vitus, he has become one of the most popular Saints of Christendom. He is the patron of Bohemia, as well as of his native land of Sicily, and is one of the ST. VITUS 59 fourteen auxiliary Saints specially honoured in Germany. He is invoked by ballet-dancers and comedians, and is supposed to be able to guard his votaries against nervous diseases, mad- ness, the bites of mad dogs, and against oversleeping them- selves. To explain fully why a martyr who died at the early age of fourteen should be credited with such remarkable powers is impossible, but the name of St. Vitus' dance having been given to the nervous affection known to doctors as chorea, is probably the reason that dancers turn to the young Saint for aid. His early death may possibly be the origin of the belief in his aid against too much sleep, and the symbol of the cock, often associated with him, evidently has reference to the same thing. As late as the eighteenth century it was cus- tomary in some districts, notably in Prague, to sacrifice a cock in honour of St. Vitus on his fete day, June 15. Amongst other attributes of St. Vitus are a dog held in leash, some say in reference to the faithfulness of Crescentia and Modestus, who died rather than desert their foster-child. A lion is sometimes introduced beside him, for, according to one version of his legend, he was exposed in the amphitheatre before his death in the boiling oil, and occasionally a wolf takes the place of the dog or the lion, for his body is said to have been guarded by a wolf from other beasts of prey until it was buried. In his ' Caract^ristiques des Saints,' P^re Cahier reproduces a beautiful German representation of St. Vitus with Modestus and Crescentia, the child, his cock at his feet, holding the martyr's palm in one chubby little hand, whilst he holds up the other in the act of benediction. The older martyrs walk behind him with their palms, Modestus bending forward as if whispering encouragement to his little charge. There are two fine paintings by Wohlge- muth of St. Vitus, one in the Castle of Nuremberg, and the other in the Moritz Chapel ; in the Cathedral of Prague is a shrine said to contain one of his arms, adorned with a good modern statue of him ; his ' Martyrdom,' with Saints George and Wolfgang looking on, by Bassetti of Verona, is in the Munich Gallery, and in the Campana Museum, Paris, is a devotional picture by Fontana, in which St. Vitus is associated with St. Peter Chrysologus, Bishop of Ravenna in the sixth century. St. Phocas was the son of humble Christian parents, after 6o THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART whose death he dwelt alone outside the town of Sinope in Pontus, cultivating a beautiful garden and giving gratuitous hospitality to all who cared to receive it. His good works told against him with the heathen authorities, for none but the Christians gave alms in those days, and presently soldiers were sent to kill him. They came in due course to the gates of Sinope, and finding them closed for the night, they asked Phocas to receive them, not knowing who he was. The gardener bade them welcome, fed them well, and after supper asked them to tell him what their business was in the town. They replied that they were seeking a Christian named Phocas, and had orders to put him to death wherever they might find him ; could he, perhaps, help them in their quest? Their host replied calmly that he could, but he would rather wait until the morrow, and begged them to remain with him for the night. They consented, and were escorted to a comfortable room by their host, who promised to call them early. Phocas then spent the night in prayer and in digging his own grave. The next morning he woke his guests, told them his name, and urged them to do their duty without delay. They hesitated, for they were unwilling to harm one whose hospitality they had enjoyed ; but he en- treated them to get the matter over, encouraging them by saying, ' Since it is the will of God, I am willing to die.' So they followed him to the ready-made grave, struck off his head, and buried him. The place where the martyr so bravely met his fate was long greatly honoured by his countrymen, even the heathen, it is said, reverencing it on account of the heroism with which he met his fate. Sailors used to salute it as they passed it afar on the Black Sea, and when the persecution of the Christians subsided on the conversion of Constantine, a beautiful church was built above it. Magnificent gifts were offered at the shrine, and even pirates who ravaged the coast refrained from touching them. Later the greater portion of the sacred relics was translated to Constantinople, with much pomp, the Emperor following the procession from the shores of the Bosphorus on foot. St. Phocas, whom the Greeks call the hiero, or sacred martyr, is the patron Saint of gardeners and of mariners, and it is said that in olden times Greek sailors used to set aside in his honour a portion of every meal eaten on shore. This ST. THEODOTUS 6i portion was sold, and the profits, often amounting to a large sum, were given to the poor. In spite of the veneration in which he is held, representa- tions of St. Phocas are rare, but he is introduced as an old man wearing the coarse habits of a gardener, and with a spade in his hand, in the mosaics of San Marco at Venice, and in those of the Cathedral of Monreale. St. Theodotus of Galatia, who appears occasionally in Greek works of art, holding a torch and a sword, in allusion to his having been first tortured with burning brands and then be- headed, was an innkeeper, who had been converted to Chris- tianity in his boyhood by a saintly maiden named Thecusa. He married early in life, and brought up his family in his own faith. It is said that he carried on a very thriving business, though he allowed no one to drink too much in his house, but converted many of his guests to the true religion. When the fierce persecution under Diocletian was raging, St. Theodotus fed and sheltered many of the persecuted, visited those in prison, and buried the dead, although he knew full well that by so doing he must in the end seal his own fate. All went well with him, however, for some time, till he was discovered aiding in the recovery of the bodies of seven virgins, one of whom was his old friend and teacher, Thecusa, from a pond into which they had been flung after their martyrdom. Betrayed by a trusted friend who accused him to save his own life, Theodotus was arrested, but offered freedom if he would sacrifice to the gods. He refused, and after being torn on the rack, broken on the wheel, and burnt with torches, he was beheaded. His body was then given to some soldiers, with orders that it should be burned to ashes, to prevent the Christians from burying it. The story goes that, as the men were on their way from the city to obey these instructions, they met a priest named Fronton, an old friend of St. Theodotus, to whom the martyr had given a ring, in pledge that he would one day send him some valuable relics for his church. Fronton guessed at once that St. Theodotus must have meant his own body, so he plied the guards with wine, and when they fell into a drunken sleep carried away the treasure on his ass. The ring was replaced on the dead man's finger, and the body was buried in the presence of many Christian fugitives. St. Sabas the Goth, whose legend is not, however, very well 62 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART authenticated, is worthy of special mention as having been the first of his nation to suffer death for the faith. He was martyred about 372 by order of King Athanasie, and it is related that many unsuccessful attempts were made to kill him before he was finally despatched by being strangled in a river, into which he was flung with an axle-tree fastened round his neck. His distinctive symbol in art is a bundle of thorns held in one hand, in allusion to his having been dragged naked over rough ground and briers. Jacques Callot has represented him stand- ing in a caldron of boiling pitch ; others have chosen his actual death in the river for their subject, and in certain Iconographies of the Saints he appears hanging to a tree by his hands, which are nailed to the trunk, although in the account of his many sufferings given in the ' Acta Sanctorum ' there is no reference to this particular detail. Saints Tarachus, Protus and Andronicus of Cilicia were all of noble birth, and, though not related to each other, had long been close friends when they were arrested as Christians, and after being tortured for many weeks were beheaded in the amphitheatre, the wild beasts to whom they were thrown having refused to hurt them. They are represented in art either all together, generally just before their sufferings ended in death, or separately, Saints Protus and Andronicus each bound to a post with a knife piercing his heart, and St. Tarachus standing before his judges, one of whom is urging him to sacrifice to an idol, whilst a soldier with a big stone in his hand awaits the order to fling it at the prisoner. St. Tarachus is one of the patron Saints of Madeira, the Cathedral of which is said to own his skull, and he is invoked by those suffering from brain diseases, probably because he is said to have been branded on the forehead with a red-hot coal. He and his companions, though greatly honoured for their constancy, are somewhat blamed by certain writers for their freedom of speech at their trial, Tarachus especially having greatly in- censed his judges by the way in which he bandied words with them. St. Julian of Antioch, whose legend greatly resembles that of St. Julian the Hospitable, with whom he is often con- founded, was a young man of noble birth. Converted as a child to Christianity, he had vowed that he would dedicate his life to God, and he was therefore greatly dismayed when ST. JULIAN OF ANTIOCH 63 his parents arranged a marriage for him with a beautiful girl, whose name, Basilassa, was the same as that of the wife of his namesake, the hermit. It was, however, revealed to St. Julian in a dream that his bride was also a Christian, who had made a promise similar to his own. When the two had consulted together, they resolved to be married to please their parents, but to remain true to their vows and spend their time working for the poor. One day, when they were praying together, an angel appeared to them, and told them that their names were written in the Book of Life, and that the trial of their faith was approaching. Soon after this St. Julian was arrested, and con- demned to be tortured. As the executioners were performing their horrible duty, one of them accidentally put out the eyes of the other, and St. Julian healed the sufferer, saying to him : ' The gods you wish me to worship could have done nothing for you, but to Christ, my Lord, all things are possible.' The incident so enraged the Emperor that he ordered fresh anguish to be inflicted on the young martyr. Amongst the crowds watching the sufferings of St. Julian was a little boy named Celsus, whose eyes were opened to see a band of white-robed angels placing a crown on the head of the sufferer. The child ran to St. Julian, pushing his way through the executioners, and was, it is said, martyred with him the next day, though his mother went to the prison in which the two were confined, to try and save him. By this time Celsus had been baptized ; nothing would induce him to leave his new friend, and he was beheaded at the same time as St. Julian. According to one account, St. Basilassa long survived her husband, but according to another she was martyred with him and the little Celsus. In any case, the married pair are always represented together, each with a lily and a book, the former in allusion to their chastity, the latter to the visit of the angel. St. Philemon of Rome, whose legend is very graphically told by Mephrastes, and who is sometimes represented by German artists with a musical instrument, not unlike a bagpipe, in his hand, is said to have been a celebrated strolling player who laid down his life for a friend. This friend, a professional scribe named ApoUonius, who had been converted to Chris- tianity, was summoned by the heathen authorities to sacrifice to the gods, and, unwilling either to deny his faith or to suffer the consequences of refusing to do so, he persuaded Philemon to 64 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART change clothes with him and go to the temple in his stead. On the way to the trial the young actor resolved to go through with the matter to the end, and proclaimed himself a Christian. He was condemned to death, and his constancy is said to have so touched Apollonius that he came forward at the last moment to share his fate. St. Pancras of Rome, who appears occasionally either alone or with other martyrs, holding a sword in his hand, was beheaded at the age of fourteen, having hastened his own doom by publicly declaring himself a Christian before he was accused. He is much honoured, not only in Rome, where there is a church dedicated to him near the scene of his martyrdom, but also in France and in England. A large parish in London bears his name, and St. Augustine dedicated to him the temple at Canterbury in which King Ethelbert used to sacrifice to the heathen gods, when it was converted into a Christian church after the conversion of the monarch. For some reason hitherto unexplained, the young martyr is supposed to protect his votaries from false witnesses ; in olden times it was customary for French monarchs to swear by St. Pancras to keep their treaties faithfully, and it was sup- posed that none who took his name in vain escaped punishment from Heaven. CHAPTER VI ST. GEORGE AND OTHER WARRIOR SAINTS Of the many soldiers who, in the early part of the fourth century, fought the good fight of faith, and were as eager to lay down their lives for the cause of Christ as for that of their country, none is more widely celebrated than St. George, who is called by the Greeks the great martyr, and is honoured throughout Christendom as the very pattern of chivalry, the ideal knight of spotless fame, who was from first to last without fear and without reproach. Although the very existence of St. George has been denied by some, whilst others wrongly identify him with Archbishop ST. GEORGE OF CAPPADOCIA 65 George of Alexandria, who was killed by the people of that city in a fit of rage against his misgovernment, there seems little doubt that there really was a Christian soldier of Cappa- docia named George, who did great things for his fellow- believers, and was put to death about 303 by order of Diocletian. Round about these simple facts, however, have gathered many quaint and touching legends, full, in spite of their utter improbability, of spiritual significance. Briefly told, the story of St. George is as follows : the son of noble parents, who had been converted to Christianity, he was baptized in infancy, and lived happily at his home in Cappadocia till the death of his father, when his mother took him with her to Palestine, where she owned a large estate, of which the boy was the heir. When he was old enough he joined the Roman army, and soon rose to the rank of tribune. On one of his military journeys he came to a certain city — some say Selene in North Africa ; others, Berytus in Syria — where the people were suffering terrible things from a great dragon dwelling in a marsh near by, from which he daily came forth to devour all who fell in his way, poisoning the air with his foetid breath for miles around. Every day two sheep, or oxen, were set aside for him, and when all the flocks and herds had been destroyed, the children had to be sacrificed. The poor little victims were chosen by lot from those under fifteen, and on every side was heard nothing but mourning and lamentation. Presently the lot fell upon the only daughter of the King, a beautiful maiden named Cleodolinda, and her father offered all his wealth to save her in vain, for the people cried out against him, and would have taken her away by force had he not yielded to their demand. They did, however, grant him eight days' delay, and at the end of that time the young girl, having first asked her father to bless her, and told him she was willing to die for her people, was led to the gates of the town, which, when she had issued forth, were closed against her. As the doomed maiden, clad in her beautiful robes and with her golden hair streaming down her back, went her trembling way to meet her doom, she saw a noble knight mounted on a fine horse approaching her, who, reining up his steed, asked her whither she was going. She told him, and he cried at once that he would save her. She replied that that would be im- possible, and begged him to escape before the dragon should VOL. II. 5 66 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART see him. To which he answered : ' God forbid that I should fly. I will deliver thee from this horrible beast in the name of Jesus Christ, whose soldier I am.' As he spoke these brave words, the monster came forth from his marsh, and, spreading his great wings, flew heavily towards the two. Then St. George dashed upon the enemy, making the sign of the cross, and after a brief but fierce struggle he drove his lance through the body of the dragon, pinning him to the ground. Though mortally wounded, the terrible creature was not yet dead, so St. George bound him with the girdle of the rescued maiden, and bade her lead him into the city, that all might see there was nothing more to fear. When, after some difficulty, the people were induced to open the gates again, the strange procession, escorted by crowds, made its way to the palace of the ^ing. The monarch, over- joyed at the return of his daughter, promised to give her rescuer anything he asked, to which the hero replied that all he wished was the conversion of the monarch and his people to Christianity, adding that if they would be baptized he would kill their enemy in sight of them all. To this the King agreed ; he and twenty thousand of his subjects became Christians, the dragon's head was cut off, and St. George went on his way again rejoicing. In course of time the slayer of the dragon rose to high rank in the Roman army, and when Diocletian began the fresh persecutions of the Christians, it is said that St. George endeavoured to plead for them ; but, finding nothing he could do of any avail, he resigned all his appointments, refusing to serve against his fellow-believers. He even went so far as to tear down the Imperial edict from the gates of the temple in the city of Nicomedia and trample it under his feet. As a matter of course he was arrested and tortured, but nothing ■could shake his fortitude. After being bound to a cross for eight days, during which his body was torn with iron nails, he was compelled to drink a cup of poison, which did him no harm, for he made the sign of the cross over it as he put it to his lips. Then he was fastened to a wheel studded with sharp knives, but two angels came from heaven and released him ; and when he was dragged once more to the temple, in the hope that his sufferings would make him recant, his prayers caused the building with its idols to fall upon the priests and worshippers, who were all killed. Then at last the judge ordered him to be beheaded, and, bending his neck to the blow, ST. GEORGE OF CAPPADOCIA 67 the gallant young soldier died with a smile of joy upon his lips. The story of St. George and the dragon is now generally supposed to be but a comparatively modern form of the old myth, which is common to every branch of the great Aryan family, of the Sun-god, whose rays dispel all evil, whilst the rescued maiden is said by certain writers to typify merely the conversion of some city to Christianity, it having been customary amongst the Greeks to personify their towns and provinces by a female form. However this may be, the story of St. George's gallant rescue of the King's daughter took, from the first, a deep hold upon the popular imagination, and no legend of the Saints is more generally believed than it, in spite of the fact that it was omitted from the reformed Roman Calendar at the «nd of the fifth century. St. George is said to have been buried in Palestine, and a church was built over his tomb by Constantine, who also erected one in his honour at Constantinople ; hence the name of the Arm of St. George given to a portion of the Hellespont. A great impulse was given to the cult of the warrior Saint n during the Crusades, when he is said to have appeared, first to Godfrey de Bouillon, and later to Richard I., on the eve of battle, in each case securing victory to the Christians. He was henceforth veneraj ed as^ Jhe_patrQn Saint of England. His j filte-day was kept as a public holiday, and when, in 1334, the most noble Order of the Garter was founded by Edward III., the name of St. George succeeded that of the Virgin amongst those in whose honour it was instituted. Later the Order ibecame known as that of St. George. An effigy of the young soldier slaying the dragon is part of the insignia of the knights, and they meet every year on the eve of his festival in thie chapel named after him at Windsor. The red cross of St. George is a fundamental feature of the national flag of England ; the red rose of St. George is a favourite badge of the £nglish, as the thistle is of the Scotch, .or the shamrock of the Irish, and the leek of the Welsh. St. George is not only the patron Saint of England, wherie nearly 200 churches are dedicated to him, but his effigy is stamped on the gold coinage of Constantinople, of Antioch, and of a very great number of Continental cities. He is also held in high honour by the Knights of the great Teutonic 5—2 68 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART Order of Chivalry, founded in the twelfth century. Military men of several European countries appeal to him for aid ; C he is supposed to give special attention to the interests of tarchers, and is one of the fourteen auxiliary Saints of Germany, where he is generally classed with St. Eustace. In France and elsewhere he is affectionately spoken of as ' le chevalier de la belle monture ' ; and horses are placed under his pro- tection when they are turned out to grass. In some old calendars, April 23, the fete-day of St. George, is marked by a horse holding the head of a lance in one hoof; and every- where throughout Europe the favourite knight is associated with a noble steed, \ ' mounted like a St. George ' being a common expression tcrindicate a rider on a fine horseTj When introduced amongst other Saints in devotional pictures, St. George may be easily recognised by the ideal beauty of his face and figure, and by his complete suit of armour, which is sometimes that of a Roman soldier, more often that of a mediaeval knight. He generally holds a lance, from which sometimes floats a banner bearing a red cross, in one hand, and rests the other on the hilt of his sword, whilst the vanquished dragon is constantly seen lying at his feet. In early representations of the fight with the terrible beast, it was usual to introduce a young girl kneeling near, awaiting the issue of the conflict ; but as time went on she was omitted, except in some few Byzantine and later pictures, when the struggle became� purely symbolic one between the powers of good and evikS In meoiseval times it was customary for knights to have little leaden images of St. George and the dragon — such as one of those found in the Seine, preserved in the Cluny Museum — fastened to the riding cloak or hood. In various stained-glass windows, as in one in the Cathedral of Chartres, his efiigy in full armour, with shield, lance and sword, is supplemented by a quaint representation of the torture of the wheel, in which the martyr stands in the centre with the points of twelve knives in his body, whilst two men are about to whirl the wheel round, each holding one end of a chain fastened to the sufferer's hands. Sometimes St. George, mounted on a beautiful horse, is seen on the ramparts of a besieged town, and the Blessed Virgin is stretching a thread between him and the assailants, in allusion to a legend of local origin only. ST. GEORGE OF CAPPADOCIA 69 (When St. George is represented as the patron Saint of England, he has the garter fastened round one knee, and the star of the Order embroidered on his mantle ; but when he appears as the guardian of other cities these emblems are omitted, i Of the many fine devotional pictures in which St. George is introduced, may be named the Stefai ifiBchi — Altar^jiece, by Giotto, in which the warrior Saint kneels at the feet of the enthroned St. Peter ; the ' Madonna with St. George ' in the Dresden Gallery, by Cnreg gin, the last altar-piece painted by that great master ; the ' Madonna with the kneeling sena- tors,' by Tintoretto, in SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice ; the ' Madonna and Saints,' by Cima da Conegliano, in the Venice Academy ; the ' Blessed Virgin and Child,' by Memlinc, in the National Gallery, London, in which St. George, with a very innocent-looking dragon at his feet, stands behind the kneeling donor of the picture; the 'Apotheosis of St. Ambrose,' by Alvise Vivarini, in S. Maria Gloriosa, Venice ; and the great Altar-piece by Rubens, in his own sepulchral chapel in the Church of St. Jacques at Antwerp, in which the St. George is a portrait of the painter himself. Erne single figures of this most popular Saint are the cele- brateti marble Statue by Donatell o. now in the Museo Nazionale, Florence, originally executed for the west front of Or San Michele in that city; the Bas-relief, by Luca della Robbia, in the Church of Pieve di Brancoli; the colossal Figure in mosaic in the Cathedral of Monreale ; and the Statue on the south porch of Chartres Cathedral. Of the countless representations of St. George slaying the dragon, few are more celebrated than the two by Raphael, one in the Louvre, Paris, the other in the Hermitage of St. Peters- burg, both fine realizations of the ideal knight overcoming the spirit of evil ; the painting by Sodoma, in the possession of Sir Francis Cook, of Richmond, Surrey, in which the Prin- cess is seen in the foreground eagerly awaiting the result of the fiery onslaught of her deliverer ; the quaint rendering of the same subject by Crivelli, the property of Mrs. Gardiner of Boston, which has all the lavish ornament characteristic of its author's earlier work ; theC St. George slaying the Dragon,' ) by ^hirlandaj o, in the Church of the Ognisanti, Florence; the same su^ect, by Tintoretto, in the National Gallery, 70 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART London ; and that by Sir Edward Burne- Jones, in private possession. In the ancient Chapel of S. Georgio, adjoining the Scuola of S. Antonio at Padua, are some very early frescoes, by Jacopo d' Avanzo and Altichieri, of the legend of St. George, including the Fight with the dragon, the Baptism of the King, Queen, and their whole Court, the various futile attempts to kill the hero, and his final Martyrdom. In the Church of S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni at Venice are some very dramatic renderings of the St. George legend by Carpaccio ; in S. Ambrogio, Milan, the same subject has been well treated in fresco by Bernar- dino Luini ; in S. Giorgio in Braida, Verona, is a beautiful Altar-piece, by Paolo Veronese, representing the Martyrdom of the Saint; and the same subject has been ably treated by Rubens. In the Martinengo Gallery, Brescia, there is a very poetic rendering of the dragon incident, ascribed to Quirico da Murano, and on a shield preserved in the Casa Rodriguez at Bologna is a fine design attributed to Francia, who had a special predilection for St. George, representing the warrior- martyr as a noble young knight engaged in a spirited conflict with a very formidable dragon. On this quaint relic of the days of chivalry are inscribed in Latin the following quota- tions from the New Testament, ' But He, passing through the midst of them, went His way,' and ' If, therefore, ye seek Me, let these go their way,' which, as remarked by Dr. Williamson in his able monograph on Francia, points to the spiritual nature of the conflict, and the desire of the hero to fight it out alone. St. George is very constantly introduced in stained-glass windows both in England and on the Continent. In the north-east transept of Hereford Cathedral is a fine example of fourteenth-century work, which had long been packed away in separate pieces, but was restored and placed in its present position in 1864, representing Saints George, Catherine of Alexandria, Gregory the Great, and Thomas of Canterbury ; St. George also appears kneeling at the foot of the cross, beside Prince Arthur of "Wales, in the beautiful east window of St. Margaret's, Westminster, which was originally designed as a marriage-gift to the heir of England from Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, the parents of his affianced bride ; and in ST. ADRIAN 71 one of the clerestory windows of the nave of Chartres Cathedral three scenes from the legend of St. George are given, with two from that of St. Giles. Other martyred soldiers of the fourth century who have been admitted to the hierarchy of the Saints were Adrian, Didymus, Theodore of Heraclea, Theodore the Conscript, Victor of Marseilles, Victor of Milan, Menna the Greek, Pro- copius of Cesarea, and Florian of Austria. Of the first- named very little is known beyond the fact that he was an officer in the army of Maximianus, who was condemned to death because of his refusal to sacrifice to idols. Popular imagination has, however, supplemented this meagre informa- tion by a romantic story of the devotion of the martyr's wife, a beautiful young girl named Natalia, who was a Christian when Adrian married her, although he did not know it. It is said that he was very soon converted by her, and one day when he was sent to examine some Christians in prison, he was so touched by their replies that he said to the gaolers, ' Add my name to those of your prisoners, for I too am a Christian.' They complied, and when the news was brought to the Emperor he was greatly enraged. St. Adrian was sum- moned before him and bravely answered all the questions put to him, glorying in the despised name of Christian. He was remanded to prison to await his trial, and there he was visited by his wife, who rejoiced that he had been found worthy to suffer for Christ. She encouraged him to per- severe, and promised to be with him through whatever should befall him. Presently he was condemned to death, and he bribed his gaoler to let him go to say good-bye to his wife. When he appeared at the door of their home, Natalia thought he had recanted, and closed it against him, upbraiding him bitterly for his apostasy, but when he explained the truth she said she would return to prison with him. This she did dis- guised as a man, for a woman would not have been admitted, and she remained with him to the last. Amongst other tortures before he was beheaded, St. Adrian is said to have been stretched upon an anvil and to have had all his limbs broken with a hammer, Natalia standing by and herself placing his limbs in position. According to one version of his legend, the young martyr was one of twenty-four sufferers executed at the same time, and Natalia obtained for him the privilege of 72 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART dying first. Whether she was martyred herself is not known, but her name is always associated with that of her husband in martyrologies. St. Adrian, who is one of the patron Saints of gaolers, executioners, and soldiers, is generally represented in art leaning against an anvil, on which he rests one hand, whilst in the other he holds the martyr's palm. Occasionally the palm is replaced or supplemented by a sword, a hammer, an iron bar, or a key, and now and then a lion crouches at his feet ; why is not known, but it is supposed to have reference to his indomitable courage under his sufferings, and to the constancy of his wife. In Flanders St. Adrian is sometimes introduced amongst other Saints, wearing the costume of a pilgrim, probably on account of the immense number of pilgrims who flock to the little town of Grammont, which claims to own his relics. In some old engravings a wheel is associated with St. Adrian, although there is no reference in his legend to his having suffered on it. It has, however, been suggested that, like the key, it has reference to his being the patron of execu- tioners, for torturing on the wheel was in olden times an important part of their profession, in which considerable skill was required. Of St. Didymus, a young soldier of the Roman army, who appears sometimes amongst other martyrs with a sword or palm in his hands, the touching story is told that he rescued a beautiful maiden named Theodora from a fate worse than death, by changing clothes with her and allowing her to escape from the house in which she had been shut up, by order of the Prefect of Alexandria, for refusing to sacrifice to idols. In the brief interview between the two young people, St. Theodora converted St. Didymus to Christianity, and when the fraud he had practised was discovered, he proclaimed his new faith at once. He was taken before the judge and condemned to be beheaded, but just as the sword was about to fall, St. Theodora is said to have rushed out of the crowd of spectators, entreat- ing to be allowed to die in his stead, even as he had taken her place in the house of detention. He refused, and the noble contest between the two for the crown of martyrdom was presently cut short by the authorities, who ordered both to be beheaded and the bodies to be burnt. Saints Didymus and Theodora are occasionally grouped together amongst other ST. THEODORE THE CONSCRIPT 73 martyrs, when the latter has her face hidden by a veil, in allu- sion to the incident of her rescue. St. Theodore of Heraclea, who amongst the Greeks ranks with St. George of Cappadocia as one of the greatest of martyrs, is supposed to have been a General in the army of the Emperor Licinius, and to have been converted to Christianity when in the prime of life. According to one version of his legend, he brought his doom upon him by break- ing up a number of gold and silver idols, and distributing the pieces to the poor, but according to another he set fire to a temple of Cybele, which was completely destroyed. His rank probably saved him from torture, and he was condemned to be beheaded, meeting his fate with the greatest composure. St. Theodore is generally represented in the armour of a General, mounted on a fine horse and with a dragon or crocodile at his feet, some say in allusion to his having slain a terrible creature which had long devastated the country, others to his successful warfare against idolatry. A good statue of him was brought to Venice by the Doge Marco Dandolo, and is still to be seen on the Piazetta. He is one of the six warrior Saints of gigantic stature represented in mosaic in the Cathedral of Monreale, and in the mosaics above the altar in the Church of S. Teodoro at Rome he is introduced between Saints Peter and Paul. St. Theodore the Conscript is supposed to have been a native of Amassia in Asia Minor, and to have been burnt alive as a punishment for having set fire to a heathen temple. He is generally called S. Teodoro Tiro, the surname being ex- plained by some as having reference to the name of the legion to which he belonged, whilst others think it means the younger only. The Conscript Theodore is constantly confused with the General of the same name, and in some old Greek pictures he, too, rides a white horse, but this is in allusion to an appa- rition he is said to have seen, not to any rank in the army held by him. He may be distinguished from his namesake by his youthful appearance, and by the fact that his armour is that of a Christian knight, not of a Roman soldier. He appears sometimes in early mosaics, as in one preserved in the sacristy of S. Marco, Venice, and his legend is the subject of one of the stained-glass windows in the Cathedral of Chartres. St. Victor of Marseilles, who is greatly honoured not only 74 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART in the seaport with which his name is associated, but through- out France, was a young soldier in the Roman army, who had. been early converted to Christianity, and who, in the terrible persecution under Diocletian, is said to have gone about in the night cheering and aiding those under sentence of death. His zeal, of course, drew down on him the notice of his officers, and he was taken before Maximianus himself, who had lately arrived in the South of Gaul, fresh from the massacre of the Theban legion. It is related that when the young soldier was ordered to sacrifice at an altar he kicked it over, and the Emperor immediately ordered his foot to be cut off. Many other tortures were also inflicted upon him, and when the executioners were quite tired out with their exertions, he was placed under the grindstone of a mill, which it was hoped would crush him to powder in a few moments ; but the machinery gave way before death came, and the sufferer was- finally despatched with a sword. It is related that when. St. Victor was stretched on the rack, at the beginning of his- martyrdom, Christ appeared to him holding a cross, and that as his soul left his crushed and bleeding body angels were heard singing ' Vicisti, Victor Beate, vicisti.' With St. Victor were martyred two of his gaolers, whom he had converted in prison, and the three bodies were flung into the sea, but they were cast up on the beach shortly afterwards and buried by the Christians. Above their grave arose in the fifth century the celebrated monastery of St. Victor, the church of which, one of the oldest in France, still remains. Part of the relics of St. Victor were later taken to Paris, where a little chapel was built to receive them, and in the reign of Louis VI. was founded the celebrated community of Canons of St. Victor, the arms of which consisted of a wheel, in allusion to the martyrdom of the young soldier, some writers speaking of his having been torn to pieces on a kind of wheel, not crushed beneath a millstone. St. Victor of Marseilles is generally represented in the armour of a Roman soldier, and occasionally he appears on horseback with a standard in his hand. More often he is on foot with a millstone on the ground beside him, and French image-makers place a model of a mill in his hand. In one of the windows of the Cathedral of Strasburg he is introduced in the chain armour and with the shield and spurs of a mediaeval Lombardi photo] [Palazzo Pubblico, Siena ST. VICTOR By Sodoma To face p. 74 ST. VICTOR OF MILAN 75 knight, and examples occur of a dragon appearing at his feet, but this is probably symbolic only of his victory over temptation. An overturned altar is another symbol by which St. Victor of Marseilles may be identified, and he is sometimes grouped with the gaolers who shared his fate. St. Victor of Milan was also a soldier of the Roman army, and was born in Mauritania, hence the name sometimes given to him of the Moor. "When in garrison at Milan in 303 a.d., he was denounced as a Christian, and, scorxting to deny his faith, he was condemned to be put to the torture and be- headed. It is related that, after he had been stretched on the rack for hours, burning lead was poured over him, and for this reason he is sometimes represented standing near a fiery furnace. When life was extinct, his body was flung outside the city to be devoured by wild beasts, but two lions are said to have protected it from injury, until it was buried by some fellow - Christians. The fact that lions are not native to Northern Italy has not shaken the popular belief in the legend, and St. Victor is therefore often represented with a lion at his feet. He generally wears the picturesque armour of a Roman soldier, and holds an unsheathed sword in one hand. A fiery furnace sometimes appears beside him, in allusion to the torture he endured, and occasionally, as in a ' Madonna and Child with Saints,' by one of the Campi at Cremona, he is resting one foot on an overturned altar. St. Victor of Milan is often confounded with his namesake of Marseilles, but repre- sentations of the latter are rare out of France, and the many St. Victors of the North of Italy, of which the colossal figure by Sodoma in, the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena is one of the best, are all probably intended for the martyr of Milan. St. Menna, or Mennas, who occasionally appears with other martyrs in devotional pictures, was a soldier of Greek birth, executed in the great persecution under Diocletian with exceptional barbarity, his eyes having been put out and his hands cut off before death released him from his sufferings. His constancy, it is said, so touched his judge, Hermogenes, that he was converted to the true faith, and was beheaded immediately after the young hero he had condemned had passed away. The soldier Mennas must not be confounded with the hermit of Phrygia of the same name, who left the army to retire to the desert, and died a natural death. 76 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART St. Procopius of Cesarea is greatly honoured in the Greek Church, ranking amongst the most illustrious of the early martyrs. He is said to have held high rank in the Roman army, and is generally represented as a man in the prime of life, but without a beard, and the emblems by which he may be identified are a cross, a sword, and burning wood or a brazier beside him, each referring to some incident of his legend, which is a very romantic one and somewhat resembles the life of St. Paul. It is related that when Procopius was on his way to execute the orders of Diocletian against the Christians, he was suddenly thrown from his horse by an earth- quake, and as he lay on the ground a luminous cross appeared in the sky above, whilst a voice, which rang out clearly in the midst of thunder, said to him : ' Whither goest thou, and against whom art thou marching with such eager zeal ?' ' I am going to Alexandria,' replied the astonished officer, ' by order of the Emperor, to slay all the Galileans who will not renounce the name of Jesus Christ.' ' It is, then, on Me,' said the voice, 'that thou dost make war.' 'And who art Thou, Lord ?' asked Procopius, unconsciously acknowledging the Divinity of the speaker. Then in the midst of the gleaming cross appeared the figure of the Saviour, and the soldier in mingled rapture and terror asked Him, if He were indeed God, how it was that He was scourged and crucified. The Master deigned to explain to him the mystery of His Passion, and when the vision faded Procopius resumed his journey a changed man. Arrived at his destination, the new convert took no steps against the Christians, but went to a jeweller and asked to have a cross, such as that he had seen in the sky, made in silver. At first the jeweller refused, for the making of the emblem of the hated faith was forbidden, but when Procopius promised not to betray him, he consented to humour his customer. The legend minutely describes the cross, on one side of which was engraved the image of the Redeemer, and on the other the figures of the archangels Michael and Gabriel. With its aid Procopius won many signal victories over evil of every kind. On one occasion, when he was marching at the head of his troops against the Arabs, a cross again appeared to him in the sky, and a voice assured him of victory. His change of religion, of course, soon brought him into conflict ST. FLORIAN ^ with the heathen authorities. His own mother, it is said, denounced him because he had broken the idols she revered, and he was condemned to b^ burnt to death. The flames, however, did him no harm, and he was in the end beheaded. According to another version of his story, St. Procopius was a native of Jerusalem, early converted to Christianity, who, when the persecution under Diocletian began, had won great repute amongst the Christians for his power over evil spirits. Though he did not withdraw from the world as did the hermits and monks, he practised the greatest austerities, eating nothing but bread and drinking nothing but water. He was one of the first to be arrested in the Holy City, and was taken to Cesarea, where, having refused to sacrifice to the gods, he was beheaded. St. Fiorian, a very popular Saint in Austria, in Bohemia and in Poland, is supposed to have been a Roman soldier, a native of Lorsch, who was martyred at the end of the third century by being beaten with rods and then flung into the river Ens with a millstone round his neck. In spite of this precaution to insure the sinking of the corpse, it is said to have remained afloat, protected from injury by an eagle, which hovered above it, till it was taken from the water and buried by some Christians. Later the remains were removed to Rome and enshrined in the sacristy of St. Peter's, where they rested un- disturbed until the twelfth century, when, at the request of King Casimir of Poland, they were sent to Cracow. The story goes that when the Pope received the embassy from the Polish monarch, asking for some relics for his cathedral. His Holiness, being in a somewhat facetious mood, went into the sacristy, and said in a loud voice, ' Now, which of you would like to go to Poland ?' St. Fiorian stretched out his hand in reply, and his body was therefore sent to King Casimir, who received it with all due honour, re-interring it with great pomp. On account of the manner of his death, St. Fiorian is in- voked in cases of fire, and is constantly represented in Austria and Poland bending down from the sky, emptying a kind of bucket over a flaming city. He wears a half-military, half- clerical costume, for, according to one version of his legend, he was ordained deacon after his conversion. An eagle is some- times introduced hovering above him, and now and then a tomb from which a hand is pointing is associated with him. 78 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART Two other young Romans, erroneously represented as soldiers in some devotional pictures, who were martyred in the latter part of the fourth century, were Saints John and Paul, stewards in the palace of the Princess Constantia, daughter of the great Emperor Constantine, who on her death left much of her wealth to them. Zealous Christians, they devoted their riches to the poor, and thus fell under the dis- pleasure of Julian the Apostate, who threatened them with death if they would not sacrifice to idols. They, of course, refused, and to avoid a scandal, Christianity being now the religion of the State, the Emperor had them secretly beheaded in their own home. The truth, however, soon leaked out, for wonderful miracles were wrought at their tomb. The son of the very man who had carried out the sentence upon them was healed by touching it, and the people were convinced that the beloved brothers had been the victims of treachery. The grateful father and son became Christians, and one of the last acts of the apostate Emperor was to have them beheaded. The house in which Saints John and Paul suffered was long held sacred, and early in the fifth century a small church was built on its site which enclosed within it part of their actual home. Injured when Rome was sacked by Robert Guiscard in the eleventh century, the church was restored and added to in the twelfth, it has since then been gradually transformed into a modern building. In the excavations beneath it, con- ducted in the last years of the nineteenth century, remains of two houses were discovered, in one of which, possibly that of the brothers, is preserved a fresco, said to be the very earliest representation of a Christian martyrdom still extant. The sword, in allusion to the manner of their death, with the martyr's palm, are generally given to Saints John and Paul, and a thunderbolt is also sometimes associated with them, for they are invoked in Germany against storms, though why has not yet been ascertained. In the fourth century perished also in Armenia the forty martyrs of Sebaste, who are occasionally represented in art as noble-looking young men, each with a crown. Though of different nationalities, they were all enrolled in the twelfth legion of the Roman army, and had all been converted to Christianity. It is related that when the order was issued by the Emperor Licinius that all the soldiers should offer sacri- THE MARTYRS OF SEBASTE 79 fice to the gods, the devoted forty refused, and every effort to shake their constancy having failed, they were exposed naked upon a frozen pond. To make the trial of their faith greater, a warm bath was prepared near the scene of their suffering, to which, it was announced, any one of them who would recant was at liberty to go. As the day wore on to night, the cold becoming more and more intense, the martyrs prayed aloud that all might have strength to endure to the end, adding the beautiful petition, ' Lord, we are forty who are engaged in this combat ; grant that we may be forty crowned, and that not one be wanting to this sacred number.' In spite of this, how- ever, the courage of one did fail, and he rushed to the warm bath ; but, alas ! he had no sooner plunged into it than he died, so that he gained nothing by his recantation. The remaining thirty-nine were greatly distressed at the loss of their comrade ; but before the end came one of their guards was miraculously converted by a vision of angels, bearing crowns in their hands, hovering above the pond. Eager to share in the heavenly reward, he tore off his armour and took the place of the missing martyr, receiving the crown which would have been his. The bodies were burned and the ashes were thrown into the river ; but some of them are supposed to have been collected by the Christians of Sebaste, and in course of time to have been translated to Constantinople, where they were long greatly honoured. CHAPTER VII SAINTS LUCY, AGNES, DOROTHEA AND CATHERINE Great as was the constancy shown by the men who suffered in the terrible years preceding the conversion of' Constantine, when the rage of the heathen against the Christians was intensified by the presentiment that the triumph of the hated sect was at hand, it was equalled, if not surpassed, by that of many women, in whose very weakness the strength of their faith was made perfect. Amongst the maidens who, in the fourth century, gladly 8o THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART laid down their lives for the truth on the threshold of their womanhood, none are more celebrated than Saints Lucy, Agnes, Dorothea and Catherine. Very quaint and touching, and in some cases very full of spiritual significance, are the legends which have in the course of centuries gathered about their memories, and very beautiful are many of the representa- tions of them in sacred art, their tragic stories having appealed not only to the aesthetic sense, but also to the chivalry, of the great masters of the past. St. Lucy was a native of Syracuse; her father died soon after she was born, and her widowed mother, Eutychia, brought her up as a Christian. The two lived happily together in their beautiful home till Lucy was fifteen, when she was betrothed to a noble young heathen, much against her own wishes, for she had already resolved to dedicate her life to Christ alone. With a wisdom beyond her years, however, she said nothing at the time, determined to watch for a favour- able opportunity to break her intentions to her mother. That opportunity soon came, for Eutychia, who had long suffered from a painful disease, grew worse, and Lucy persuaded her to go with her on a pilgrimage to Catania to pray at the shrine of St. Agatha. As the mother and daughter knelt in supplication at the tomb, St. Agatha herself is said to have appeared to Lucy, and to have addressed her in the following words : ' O sister handmaid of Christ, well art thou called Lucia, for thou art indeed a light to the faithful ; behold thy mother is healed . . . and even as Catania has been defended by me shall Syracuse be protected of Heaven for thy sake.' Eutychia was of course delighted at her own recovery, and when her child, seizing this favourable moment, confided to her her dislike to marriage, begging that the dowry reserved for her should be given to the poor, the mother consented, only making the pathetic stipulation that Lucy should wait till she was dead to reduce her to absolute poverty. Even this consolation was, however, denied her, for her daughter pointed out to her that a gift which cost . nothing to the giver was worthless in the sight of God. So poor Eutychia yielded everything, saying submissively : ' Do as thou wilt.' Back again in Syracuse, St. Lucy sold her jewels and set to work to disperse the money amongst the most wretched in the city. The young nobleman to whom she was betrothed was not Brogi plu)to\ \^Titriii Gallery THE MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH SAINT LUCY AND OTHER SAINTS By Sodoma To face p. So ST. LUCY 8r unnaturally indignant, and when he reproached her she told him she could never be his wife. He tried to get her to alter her decision, and finding her obdurate, he accused her as a Christian to the Governor. She was arrested, ordered to sacri- fice to idols, and when she refused she was condemned to be taken to a house of ill-fame, and there to be left to her fate. When the guards tried to take her away, however, a wonderful miracle was performed. They could not move her from where she stood, and even when oxen were harnessed to ropes fastened round her body, they failed to make the slightest impression upon her, though they pulled with all their strength. The most skilful magicians of the country were next sent for, and they cast upon the maiden all manner of spells in vain. She still stood like a rock, and the judge ordered piles of faggots to be placed around her, but when they were set fire to, the flames did not harm her. At last, at a sign from the Governor, who had lost all patience with his obstinate prisoner, a soldier plunged a sword or dagger into her throat, and she died with a smile of triumph on her lips. Her body was buried by her fellow-Christians, and is said to have been taken later to Venice. Certain modern versions of the legend of St. Lucy add the revolting detail that her eyes were torn out before her death. This appears, however, to have had no foundation in fact, but to be the result of confusion having arisen between St. Lucy of Syracuse and another Saint of the same name, who lived con- siderably later. Of this second St. Lucy the story is told that, being worried by the persistent attentions of a young man, she one day asked him what made him follow her about as he did. He replied, ' It is the beauty of your eyes,' and to his horror the young girl at once plucked her eyes out of their sockets, and offered them to him, saying : ' Take what you want, then, and leave me in peace.' The lover repented of his importunity, became a Christian, and spent the rest of his life in good works. It is related further that the courageous maiden did not always remain blind, her sight having been suddenly restored to her one day when she was kneeling in prayer in her own room. This quaint and gruesome legend, to whichever Lucy it really belongs, is very likely the outcome merely of the fact that the name of the heroine signifies light. In any case, St. VOL. 11. 6 82 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART Lucy of Syracuse has for many centuries been invoked in Roman Catholic countries by those suffering from diseases of the eyes, and a lotion much in vogue in Italy and France is called the ' water of St. Lucy.' The most constant attribute in art of St. Lucy of Syracuse is a pair of eyes on a plate, either held by her or placed beside her ; but this emblem is sometimes replaced by a lamp, in allusion to her name. Now and then she holds a kind of dagger, the supposed instrument of her death, or a spindle, for, according to one version of her legend, she used one to pluck out her eyes. The martyr's palm is generally in her right hand, and examples occur of her holding three crowns, one indicating her noble birth, another her chastity, and the third her martyrdom. In groups of martyrs St. Lucy is often associated with Saints Thekla, Agnes, and Catherine. In an old German print, reproduced by Pere Cahier in his ' Caract6ristiques des Saints,' St. Lucy and her mother are seen, kneeling at the tomb of St. Agatha on one side, and on the other, the executioner is plunging a dagger into the neck of the martyr, whilst the judge looks on from the back- ground. Above the entrance to the Church of S. Lucia, Florence, is a beautiful bas-relief by Luca della Robbia, repre- senting the young mar±yr holding her lamp ; in an ' En- throned Madonna ' by Barocchio, now in the Louvre, St. Lucy is offering her palm to the Virgin, and an angel beside her holds her eyes in a cup ; in a fine painting by Sodoma in the Turin Gallery the Saint holds two eyes in a dish, and is looking out at the spectator, as if to call attention to them ; in the ' St. Nicholas in Glory,' by Lorenzo Lotto, in the Carmine Church, Venice, the eyes are introduced in a plate on the clouds beside their owner, who is seated opposite St. John the Baptist; in a picture by Carlo Dolci in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, rays of light issue from the wound in the breast of the saint, in allusion, probably, to her name of Lucia ; and in an oil-painting in the Prado Gallery, Madrid, Estilo de Correa has painted the martyred maiden with a plate containing her eyes in one hand, and a palm in the other. More celebrated than any of these representations of St. Lucy is the great Altar-piece painted for her church at Florence by Domenico Veneziano, of which the upper part is now in the Uffiizi Gallery in that city, and the predella at Berlin. In the ST. AGNES 83 former the Madonna and Child are enthroned with Saints John the Baptist and Francis on one side, and Saints Nicholas and Lucy on the other, whilst on the predella the Martyrdom of the maiden is represented as taking place in the presence of a crowd of spectators. In the Jesi Library are three panels by Lorenzo Lotto, representing the chief scenes of the St. Lucy legend ; and in a much-defaced fresco at Padua, the frustrated attempt of oxen and men to drag the maiden from the judg- ment-hall is rendered in a very realistic manner. There is a fine painting of the actual Martyrdom by L. Bassano in S. Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, and one by G. Massarotti at Cremona, in which the victim is bound to a stake, calmly awaiting the death-blow. The legend of St. Agnes greatly resembles that of St. Lucy, but she was even younger than her fellow-martyr when she met her terrible fate. The daugh ter of noble Roman parents, she was sought in marriage at the early age of thirteen by Sempronius, the son of the Prefect of Rome, but rejected his advances with scorn, declaring that she meant to be the bride of none but Christ. Her lover tried to induce her to listen to him by offer- ing her all manner of costly gifts, but she refused to accept them, saying, ' I am betrothed to One greater and fairer than any earthly suitor, who will crown me with jewels com- pared to which thy gifts are dross.' Cut to the heart by the disappointment — for he truly loved the maiden — the young Roman went home, took to his bed, and was soon at the point of death. The physicians declared that their patient was suffering from a hopeless passion, and their skill could avail nothing. Hearing this, the Prefect cross-examined his son, who confessed that the child Agnes was the object of his love and that, unless he could win her for his bride he knew that he must die. So the Prefect went to Agnes and himself pleaded with her for the life of his boy ; but she was obdurate, repeating what she had already said to her lover. At last, losing patience, the Prefect ordered her to be arrested as a Christian, and, when she refused to sacrifice to the gods, she was subjected to all manner of tortures and insults, none of which could harm her. When stripped naked, her long hair covered her like a veil ; when men approached to harm her, an angel appeared beside her, guarding her from every profane touch, and the room in which she was shut up became filled with 6—2 84 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART heavenly radiance. The young Sempronius, hearing on his sick-bed of the attempts that were being made to subdue Agnes to his will, arose and came to her ; but as he approached her, her guardian angel put forth a warning hand. The unfortunate lover was at once smitten with blindness, and fell in convulsions at the feet of the maiden. He was carried home in a dying state, and his father, realizing at last how useless it was to contend against one thus aided from heaven, besought Agnes to pray for his boy, that he might be healed. She did so, and he at once recovered. After this miracle the Prefect, it is said, would gladly have saved the saintly maiden from further perse- cution, but it was too late : the fury of the people was aroused, and they clamoured for the death of the sorceress, who, they said, could kill and make alive with a word. St. Agnes was condemned to be burnt to death, and tied to the stake with faggots piled around her ; but the flames, instead of burning her, slew the executioners whose business it was to keep up the fire. She was therefore beheaded, meeting her fate with joy, and with her last breath thanking God for having been with her through so many trials. Her body was buried by her parents outside the city on the Via Nomentana, where not very long afterwards, the Basilica of S. Agnese fuori le Mura was founded in memory of the martyr, by Constantine the Great. It is related that a short time after her death, when her father and mother were praying at her tomb, St. Agnes appeared to them with a lamb of snowy whiteness by her side, and said : ' Weep not, but rejoice with exceeding joy : for me a throne is prepared by the side of Him whom on earth I preferred to all others, and to whom I am united for ever in heaven.' On account of this vision, or because her name signifies lamb, the chief attribute in art of St. Agnes is a lamb, and it became customary in Rome to offer at her altar on her fSte-day, January 21, a lamb, which was afterwards presented to the Pope. The ceremony of the blessing of the lambs still takes place on that day in S. Agnese fuori le Mura, and in the Monastery of the same name is kept a special breed of sheep, from the wool of which the archiepiscopal pallia are woven. Young girls invoke St. Agnes to insure the faithfulness of their lovers, and think that if they are betrothed on her ffete-day all will go well with them. She is also supposed, though why is not known, to protect her votaries from all perils of the sea, Alinari phofo\ [Duomo, Pisa ST. AGNES By Andrea del Sarto To face p. 84 ST. AGNES 85 and she is one of the chosen patrons of the Order of Trini- tarians, founded in her native city in the twelfth century for the rescue of Christians from slavery. St. Agnes was a very favourite Saint with Italian and Spanish painters, and she is constantly introduced in devotional pictures, either kneeling with a lamb beside her or in her arms, with a lily or a palm in one hand and a book in the other, the last probably on account of her love of the Holy Scriptures, or because her name was early written in the Book of Life. More rarely she has a sword in her hand or plunged into her throat. Sometimes, as in one of Fra Angelico's many ' Corona- tions of the Virgin,' St. Agnes may be recognised by her long hair, covering her as with a garment, and occasionally an angel stands beside her, in allusion to the supernatural aid she received during her trial. ■St. Agnes is placed between St. Eulalia and St. Agatha in the mosaic Procession of martyrs in S. ApoUinare Nuovo Ravenna, in the seventh-century mosaics of S. Agnese fuori le Mura, Rome, she appears between Popes Honorius and Symmachus, and in one of the subterranean chapels beneath the comparatively modern Church of S. Agnese on the Piazza Navona, Rome, is a bas-relief by Algardi, representing her Martyrdom, which is supposed to have taken place close by, in what is now a Roman circus. Fine single figures of this favourite Saint are the fresco by Andrea del Sarto, in the Cathedral of Pisa, that by Luini in S. Maurizio, Milan, and the rare engraving by Martin Schon- gauer, in which she is represented wearing a crown of olive, and with her long hair flowing down her shoulders. In Fra AngeHco's ' Coronation of the Virgin,' now in the Louvre, the group of Saints Agnes and Catherine is especially beautiful ; in Titian's ' Madonna and Child,' in the same collec- tion, St. Agnes is offering her palm to the Infant Saviour ; in the ' Enthroned Madonna ' by Paolo Veronese, in the Venice Academy, she is presenting a nun to the Blessed Virgin ; in El Greco's ' Virgin and Child in Glory ' in S. Jos6, Toledo, she appears with her lamb on her knees ; and in Tinto- retto's ' Paradiso,' in the Doge's Palace, Venice, she stands near the patriarchs Abraham and Isaac. Amongst the many renderings of the Martyrdom of St. Agnes, none are better known than the terribly realistic painting by 86 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART Domenichino, in the Bologna Academy; that by Vicente Joannes, in the Prado Gallery, Madrid ; and the two interpreta- tions of the same subject by Tintoretto, one in the Academy, the other in the Church of S. Maria dell' Orto, Venice, which also contains a fine representation of the so-called ' Miracle of St. Agnes,' by the same master, in which the maiden Saint is seen restoring to life the son of the Prefect of Rome. During her protracted trial, St. Agnes is said to have been closely attended by her young foster-sister, St. Emerantiana, who reproached the executioners for their barbarity. No special notice was taken of her at the time, but it is related that a few days after the martyrdom, when she was praying at the grave of the victim, some of the heathen, whose anger she had aroused against her by her conduct at the execution of her friend, gathered about her and stoned her to death. She was, it is added, only a catechumen at the time, but the Christians said she was baptized in her own blood, and she is now accounted a Saint in the Roman Catholic Church. She is sometimes associated with St. Agnes in works of art, and may be recognised by the stones she holds in her lap. Very poetic is the legend told of St. Dorothea, a noble maiden of Cesarea, who was martyred, it is supposed, about the same time as Saints Lucy, Agnes, and Emerantiana. Accused of being a Christian, she was brought before the Governor Fabricius, who was famed for the ingenuity of the tortures he inflicted on his prisoners. Dorothea was, however, so lovely that even his hard heart was touched by her beauty, and he longed to rescue her and marry her. Instead of order- ing her to be torn on the rack, therefore, he had her shut up in a dungeon, and instructed two apostate women to go to her, promising them a great reward if they could persuade her to recant. The result was very unexpected, for St. Dorothea, instead of yielding to their arguments, made them so ashamed of their own weakness that they returned to the true faith themselves. When they left her they went back to the Governor, telling him that they were Christians once more, and were ready to die for their faith. Enraged against them for their failure, Fabricius condemned them to be burnt to death, and St. Dorothea was sent for to witness the sufferings she had brought upon them. Undismayed even by this terrible ordeal, the saintly maiden stood beside the martyrs ST. DOROTHEA • 87 to the end, encouraging them to persevere, and assuring them that their transient pangs would be followed by the joys of eternal life. When the poor women were dead, Fabricius gave St. Dorothea one more chance of saving herself by sacrificing to the gods, promising her a life of happiness with him if she would yield, but she resisted all temptations, declaring that she would be the bride of none but Christ, in whose garden grew celestial fruits and roses that would never fade. Worn out at last by the young girl's obstinacy, the Governor ordered her to be first tortured and then beheaded. She received the sentence with joy, and after being stretched on the rack and torn with pincers, she was led forth from the city to be beheaded. As she passed through the streets of Cesarea on her way to death, a young man named Theophilus came out from the crowd and cried out to her derisively : ' Ha, ha, fair maiden ! goest thou to join thy bridegroom ? I pray thee send me some of the fruits and flowers from His garden, for I would fain taste them.' To this taunt St. Dorothea, meekly bowing her beautiful head, replied : ' Thy request is granted, O Theophilus !' At which he turned to his gay companions to share the good joke with them, and they all laughed heartily over it. When the place of execution was reached, St. Dorothea knelt down to receive her death-blow, and just before the end all present saw standing beside her a beautiful boy with gleaming golden hair, who held in his hand a basket containing some fine apples and roses. When St. Dorothea saw them, she knew that her prayer for the conversion of the scoffer had been answered, and she said to the heavenly messenger : ' Take the basket to Theophilus ; say that Dorothea sent them before she went to the garden whence they came, where she will await his coming.' The angel obeyed, and found Theophilus still surrounded by his friends, and gloating over the grim joke he had made. Great indeed was the astonishment of all at the apparition, and when the messenger placed the basket in the hands of the young lawyer, telling him what St. Dorothea had said, a great silence fell upon them all. They were eager to question the boy, but he disappeared directly his duty was done, and Theophilus, touched to the heart by the miracle, proclaimed 88 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART himself a Christian. He is said to have been beheaded soon afterwards, meeting his fate with quiet heroism. St. Dorothea, who is the patron Saint of young lovers, of gardeners, and, strange to say, of brewers, though why is not known, is generally represented crowned with flowers, and with flowers in her lap or in her hands. Sometimes an angel stands beside her, holding a basket of fruit and flowers ; an incident of her legend referred to in Passau Breviary (Venice, 1321) in the following quaint Latin lines : ' Paradisi de veridasjo Rosas mittis notario, Quern mortis cum salario Coeli jungis sacrario,' etc.* In certain old calendars February 6, the f6te-day of St. Dorothea, is marked with an apple and a pair of pincers, in joint allusion to the martyred maiden's sufferings and triumph. The beautiful legend of St. Dorothea inspired the well-known tragedy of Massinger, ' The Virgin Martyr,' in which the romance of the situation is heightened by making Antonius the son of Fabricius, the lover of the young girl, whose last prayer for him is that the ' affection in which he languishes to death may be changed to the love of heaven.' In the sacristy of the Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle is a quaint old painting of St. Dorothea, with a basket of flowers on her knees and a bunch of roses in her right hand ; and an anonymous engraving of her, dated 1418, is preserved in the Brussels Museum. In some devotional pictures, as in one by Israel van Melen, she is introduced on one side of the Enthroned Madonna, or she kneels below, offering her basket of flowers to the Holy Child. In the so-called S. Gemignano Altar-piece by Francia, now in the Berlin Gallery, she stands, with St. Catherine, in the centre of the principal scene ; in a paint- ing by Carlo Dolci, in the Darmstadt Gallery, an angel is bringing her a basket of flowers ; and in a fine picture by Van Dyck she holds a palm as well as her roses. The Martyrdom of St. Dorothea is the subject of a dramatic com- * ' From the green fields of Paradise Roses to the lawyer dost thou send, Where by him thou shalt be joined When he, too, the reward of death hath won.' ^ ^ ^ V •5! W (-1 O o o O S o D PS >< a ^ M W H to S to ST. CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA 89 position at Brescia, by Jacopo Ligozzi, in which angels are introduced hovering above the kneeling maiden, with garlands of roses in their hands, whilst Fabricius and his attendants are looking on. An extremely fine modern rendering of the legend of the roses is that by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, in private possession, in which the angel approaches Theophilus with a basket of flowers and fruit, as he stands watching the removal of the dead body of the martyr. In spite of the great and widespread veneration in which St. Catherine of Alexandria is held, very little is really known about her. She is, however, supposed to have been of noble, some say of royal, birth, the daughter of Costis, son of Con- stantine Chlorus, the father of Constantino the Great, and to have been one of the most learned women of her time, able to hold her own in argument with the far-famed philosophers of Egypt, many of whom she won over to Christianity. Whether she was brought up as a Christian or early converted to the faith is uncertain, but it is related that her mother, Sabinella, who was Queen of Egypt in her own right, dreamt that the child to be born to her should be raised to great glory, and when the little one arrived she had a gleaming aureole about her head. King Costis, who loved his daughter greatly, had her instructed in all the wisdom of the day, and when he died left her heiress of all he possessed, though she was but fourteen years old at the time. The orphaned Catherine was crowned Queen of Egypt without opposition, although, apparently, her mother, Queen Sabinella, was still living. The people of Egypt naturally wished their young monarch to marry, that an heir to the kingdom might be born, but nothing was further from her intentions, and she told her nobles, when they suggested that she should choose a husband, that she had resolved to remain single all her life. They explained to her that this was impossible, for it was her duty to marry a prince who could aid her in the government of her country, command the army in case of war, and be in every sense worthy of her own noble birth, wisdom, and beauty. This persistency greatly troubled Queen Catherine, but she proved her knowledge of human nature by seeming to yield to the pressure put upon her, promising that if a man could be found possessing certain notable gifts she would marry him. , ' He that shall be my husband and lord of my heart,' she said, ' must go THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART be so endowed that all creatures shall have need of him, but he shall have need of none. He shall be of such noble blood that all men shall worship him ; so great that I shall never be reminded that he owes his position to me ; so rich that he shall own more than all others ; so beautiful that the very angels of God shall long to behold him ; and so loving that he can forgive every affence against him.' Surprised at such an address from the young girl they had expected to be able to manage easily, the nobles consulted together, when all agreed that such a hero as the Queen had described had never existed, and that to search for him would be a mere waste of time. Queen Sabinella was appealed to, and she said to St. Catherine, ' Alas, my daughter ! where are you likely to find such a husband ?' To which the young girl replied, ' If I do not find him, he shall find me ; for other husband will I none.' As a result of this obstinacy, the situation at the Court of Alexandria became very strained, and there was much mur- muring amongst the people. Presently, however, there arrived in the city a holy hermit, who, according to one version of the legend, was really St. Luke the Evangelist himself. Declaring that he was charged with an important mission to the Queen, the holy man asked for a private interview with her. It was granted, for it was hoped that he might be the emissary of some noble suitor, and the stranger then told the young ruler that there did exist such an one as she had de- scribed in her speech to her courtiers. The Virgin Mary, he added, had appeared to him in a dream, and told him that her Son, who was Himself the King of Glory, the Lord of heaven and earth, would accept Queen Catherine as His bride. The hermit then showed to the astonished maiden a picture of the Virgin Mother and her Divine Child, at the sight of which St. Catherine's heart was at once filled with love and reverence for them. She bade the hermit leave the picture with her, and, forgetting all else, gazed upon it continually. The next night she, in her turn, dreamed a wonderful dream, in which she seemed to wander forth from her city with the hermit, till she came to a gleaming temple on the summit of a high mountain. The two paused when they reached the gateway, and from it issued forth an escort of angels, clothed in white, ST. CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA gr who bade Queen Catherine welcome, and took her through many antechambers full of winged attendants in shining garments, till they came to an inner sanctuary, where stood the Mother of the Lord with her glorious Son, surrounded by a great host of worshippers. Taking St. Catherine by the hand, one of the angels led her to the feet of the Blessed Virgin, who received her graciously, and in her turn pre- sented her to Christ, saying, ' This is thy servant Catherine, who for Thy love hath given up all earthly joys.' To the trembling maiden's bitter grief, however, the Lord turned away His head with the words, ' She is not fair enough for Me.' Here a burst of weeping woke the Queen, and the vision faded away, but the first thing the next morning she sent for the hermit, begging him to tell her how she should become worthy of the heavenly bridegroom to whom she had now given her whole heart. The holy man told her she must be- come a Christian and be baptized. She listened eagerly to his instructions, and ere long was admitted into the Church, in spite of all the opposition of her nobles and people. On the night after her baptism a new and yet more wonderful vision was vouchsafed to her. The Blessed Virgin and her Son, with a noble company of angels, appeared to her, and the Redeemer with a smile of ineffable beauty, telling her she was now beautiful enough for Him, placed a ring of betrothal upon her finger. When St. Catherine awoke, the ring is said to have been still there, leaving her in no possible doubt as to the reality of the marvellous experience. Of course, after this all efforts to induce the Queen to marry were in vain, but she ruled her kingdom with such wisdom that, in spite of her disregard of their wishes, her people became deeply attached to her. She might, perhaps, have won the whole of Egypt to her own faith, had not the Emperor Maximianus come to Alexandria for a time with the determination to exterminate all the Christians. Many were arrested, tortured, and executed, although Queen Catherine herself pleaded their cause with the tyrant. Maximianus is said to have fallen in love with her at first sight, and to have paid court to her, although he was already married. Finding her proof against all his flatteries, however, he became en- raged against her, and, hoping to put her to public shame, he 92 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART challenged her to argue out in public, with several of the most learned scholars of the day, the points in dispute between the Christians and the heathen. St. Catherine, nothing daunted, disputed so eloquently that all her opponents were vanquished, many of them being converted on the spot, including, some say, the celebrated philosopher Porphyry, one of the most bitter writers against the Christians of his time. Finding gentle measures of no avail against this rarely-gifted maiden, Maximianus now resorted to violence, and, strange to say, in spite of her royal dignity, no efforts appear to have been made by her subjects to save their Queen from imprisonment and torture. She was not, however, left unaided : angels minis- tered to her in prison, and the Empress herself, who went to visit her, hoping, perhaps, to find her rival in her husband's affec- tions dead or dying, was won over to the true faith. Glad of an excuse to get rid of his wife, Maximianus condemned her and all the other converts to be put to death, after which he renewed his courtship of St. Catherine, promising to make her Empress if she would recant. Needless to add that she indig- nantly refused, upbraiding her suitor with his crimes, and declaring herself eager to die and be with Christ. Then the Emperor vowed that he would find some death for her to die more terrible than any ever yet inflicted, and he commanded that four wheels, each studded with sharply-pointed knives, should be constructed in such a manner that two should revolve one way and two the other. To this horrible machine St. Catherine was bound, and the signal to set it in motion was given by Maximianus himself; but at that very moment fire fell from heaven, the ropes were sundered, and the wheels, breaking into hundreds of pieces, struck the executioners, killing some and wounding others. Even this wonderful deliverance did not touch the hard heart of the Emperor ; he merely gave orders that the rescued maiden should be taken outside the city and beheaded. As usual, no supernatural intervention prevented the carrying out of this legal sentence, but it is said that after the head of the patient sufferer had been severed from her body, angels came and replaced it, drawing the beautiful hair over the wound. They then carried the martyr to Mount Sinai, where they reverently buried her, on the spot above which a beautiful monastery was erected by St. Helena in the eighth century. Some are of opinion, however, that Montabone photo\ \Poldi-Pezzoli Gallery, Milan THE MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE By Bernardino Litini To face p. 92 ST. CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA 93. St. Catherine was buried where she died, her remains having been translated to the monastery, where they are still reverently preserved in a marble sarcophagus. St. Catherine of Alexandria is one of the fourteen auxiliary Saints of Germany, amongst whom she is generally grouped with St. Barbara. She is the patron Saint of unmarried women, especially, in spite of her royal dignity, of girls in domestic service ; she is supposed to look after the interests of orators and philosophers, because of the public disputation she held with the learned men of her time ; and wheelwrights, millers, and makers of pottery, all appeal to her for aid, on account of a wheel having been the chief instrument of torture used at her martyrdom. The wheel is, of course, the most constant symbol associated in art with the martyred Queen of Egypt. This wheel is sometimes represented broken, and occasionally, as in a paint- ing by a follower of Giotto, in private possession, the Saint stands between two wheels. In some old calendars a small wheel, set with spikes, marks November 25, the day sacred to St. Catherine. In many paintings she wears a similar wheel as an ornament round her neck, or a wheel is em- broidered on the back of a book she is reading. The sword, in allusion to the manner of her death, the martyr's palm, the crown, in token of her royal rank, and a book, on account of her learning, are also given to St. Catherine. Occasionally, as in an old window in West Wickham Church, in a 'quaint old sculpture in Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster, and in a sixteenth-century German group, also in wood, which was amongst the recent bequests to the French nation of Baron Adolphe de Rothschild, a prostrate figure is introduced at the feet of the martyr, said to represent one of the philosophers whom she worsted in argument, or the Emperor Maximianus, whose addresses she repudiated with scorn. Now and then angels are seen near to St. Catherine, breaking the wheel to which she is bound, or a dove hovers above her head, in allusion to the supernatural aid she received during her trial, and sometimes the hermit of the legend, or St. Luke, appears beside her, the latter showing her his portrait of the Blessed Virgin and her Divine Son. St. Catherine is one of the Saints whose bodies are sup- posed to emit a miraculous balm, and amongst the post-Com- ■94 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART munion prayers in an old Alsatian missal occurs the following remarkable petition : ' Sumptis, Domine, salutis seternae mys- teriis, te suppliciter deprecamur ut sicut liquor qui de membris beatse Catherinse virginis et martyris tuse jugiter manat, lan- guidorum corpora sanat ; sic ejus oratio cunctas a nobis iniquitates expellat. Per D. N. J. C* Amongst the most beautiful of the many single figures of St. Catherine of Alexandria are the painting by Raphael, in the National Gallery, London; that by Andrea del Sarto, in the Cathedral of Pisa ; and that by Correggio, in which the holy maiden is represented reading, now in Hampton Court Palace. Very beautiful, too, are those by Titian and Ghirlandajo, in the Uiifizi Gallery, Florence, and that by Luini, in S. Maurizio, Milan. The character of the martyred Queen has also been ably interpreted in many celebrated devotional pictures. In the Altar-piece known as the ' Madonna del Rosario,' by Sassoferrato, in S. Sabina, Rome, she appears with St. Dominic ; in the ' Madonna and Saints ' by Paolo Veronese, in S. Fran- cesco della Vigna, Venice, her seated figure is remarkably effective ; in the same subject by Giovanni Bellini, in S. Zaccaria, Venice, she is grouped with St. Peter on the left of the Enthroned Virgin ; in the ' Sacra Conversazione' by Pordenone, in the Pitti Gallery, Florence, she kneels in adoration of the Holy Child; in the Virgin and Saints by Filippo Lippi in S. Spirito, Florence, and in Fra Angelico's ' Coronation of the Virgin ' in the Louvre, the figure of St. Catherine is especially beautiful. In the ' Madonna Enthroned ' by Andrea del Sarto in the Berlin Museum, the martyred maiden kneels by her broken wheel ; in Botticelli's ' Madonna with two Seraphs,' in the Academy, Florence, she is grouped with Saints Barnabas, John the Evangelist, and Ambrose; in Sebastiano del Piombo's ' St. John Chrysostom,' in S. Giovanni Crisostomo, she appears with Saints Agnes and Mary Magda- lene. Andrea del Sarto introduced her in his fine ' Pieta,' now in the Pitti Gallery, Florence, in which she kneels behind the Magdalene at the foot of the dead Christ. In Titian's celebrated ' Cornaro Family,' now in the Alnwick collection, the * O Lord, now that the mysteries of eternal salvation have been shown forth, we. Thy humble suppliants, beseech Thee, that even as the balm flow- ing from the limbs of St. Catherine, Thy Virgin and Martyr, heals the bodies of the sick, so may her prayers preserve us from all ill. Anderson fhoid] \Appartamenti Borgia, Vatican, Rome ST. CATHERINE DISPUTING WITH THE WISE MEN By Pifituricchio To face p. 94 ST. CATHERINE OF ALEXAN.DRIA 95 unfortunate Catherine, Queen of Cyprus, is represented as St. Catherine of Alexandria, and in the ' Madonna and Child with St. Catherine,' by Palma Vecchio, in the Vienna Gallery, the artist has taken his own lovely daughter as the model for the martyred Saint. The mystic Marriage of St. Catherine was a very favourite subject with German, Flemish, and Italian artists. One of the very earliest copperplate engravings, by the anonymous ' Master of 1466,' represents the ceremony as taking place in heaven, at the foot of the throne of the Virgin, who is about to place a wreath of roses, handed to her by St. Dorothea, on the head of the kneeling St. Catherine, beside whom stands the bridegroom, a child of five or six years old, who places the ring on the finger of His bride. Round about this central group stand other martyred maidens, and in the background is a choir of angels, whilst above hovers the dove of the Holy Spirit. The same subject was chosen for two of his fine altar- pieces by Hans Memlinc, one of which is now in the Hospital of St. John at Bruges, and the other in the possession of Mr. Bodley, A.R.A. At Antwerp is an oil-painting by Rubens, representing the Marriage as taking place in the presence of Saints Peter and Paul, with a large audience of angels. In the Academy of Venice is a remarkable rendering of the same theme by Lucas van Leyden, in which the bride wears a crown ; in the Royal Collection of England is a beau- tiful ' Marriage of St. Catherine,' by Van Dyck, in which the Blessed Virgin is about to place a crown upon the head of the Saint, as she receives the marriage-ring from her Divine suitor ; and Luini, Correggio, Fra Bartolommeo and other Italian masters have also done full justice to the favourite theme. St. Catherine arguing with the philosophers in the presence of the Emperor and his Court has also been many times represented, the finest rendering, perhaps, being the great fresco by Pinturicchio, in the Appartamenti Borgia of the Vatican. In it the Saint appears as a lovely girl of about sixteen, with a face full of more than human wisdom, standing in her royal robes opposite to Maximianus on his throne, whom she appears to be addressing, whilst the scholars and other spectators listen to her in enthralled astonishment. 96 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART Other celebrated pictures of scenes from the legend of St. Catherine are the ' Rescue from the Torture of the Wheel ' by Gaudenzio Ferrari,, in the Brera Gallery, Milan, in which an angel is seen with a drawn sword in his hand rushing down to the aid of the sufferer ; the ' Beheading of the Saint ' by Aretino Spinelli in the Berlin Gallery, in which St. Catherine is kneeling to receive her death-blow in the foreground, whilst above angels are seen carrying her body over the sea, and in the distance it is being placed in a tomb on the top of a hill ; the fresco by Luini in the Brera Gallery, Milan, in which three angels are about to lay their sacred burden in an ornate tomb ; and the series of scenes in fresco from the life of the martyred maiden by Masaccio, in the Church of S. Clemente, Rome, beginning with her refusal to offer incense to idols, and ending with her burial by angels. In one of the fine stained-glass windows in the Cathedral of Angers, various episodes from the life of St. Catherine are given, the burial scene differing from other representations of it, for the severed head is not restored to its place, but held in a napkin by one of the three angels, who watches the other two lowering the body into the tomb. In the east window of St. Margaret's, Westminster, St. Catherine of Alexandria is introduced above Catherine of Aragon, and Sir Edward Burne-Jones has taken the legend of St. Catherine as his leading motive in the beautiful window in Christchurch Cathedral, Oxford, in memory of Edith Liddell, who died five days after her betrothal. The martyred maiden wearing her crown occupies the central light, having on one side an angel, wit;h a flaming wheel at her feet, typical of suffering patiently borne, and on the other, an angel typical of Divine deliverance from pain, crushing the wheel and extinguishing the flames ; In the lower lights are represented the Dispute with the Philosophers, the ' Dream in which the Blessed Virgin leads the maiden into the presence of Christ,' and the ' Burial of the martyr by angels.' In the choir of the same church is a quaint figure of very early date of St. Catherine, holding the remains of a sword in one hand, and a piece of a wheel in the other ; and in the Lady Chapel of Lichfield Cathedral is a fine modern statue of the martyr treading on a dragon, and holding her sword and wheel. In England the f^te-day of St. Catherine, November 25, ST. EUPHEMIA 97 was long kept as a public holiday, and passages from her ' Acts ' used to be read in all Roman Catholic churches. There are, perhaps, more churches and chapels dedicated to her in the British Isles than to any other Saint, and her name has been given to many features of natural scenery, especially in the South of England. Near to Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight, alone are St. Catherine's Point, St. Catherine's Beacon, and St. Catherine's Downs ; and a mile from Christchurch, Hants, is St. Catherine's Hill. The Catherine Wheel was long a favourite sign with inn-keepers, although after the Reforma- tion, an attempt was made by Protestants to change it into the Cat and Wheel. In fact, the romantic story of the more or less apocryphal maiden has taken a remarkably strong hold on the popular imagination, and even in some EngHsh churches dedicated to St. Catherine, a banner bearing her effigy leaning on her wheel is carried round in procession on the great feast-days, although her example was scarcely one j which it would be desirable for the young girls of the present { day to follow. CHAPTER VIII OTHER MARTYRED WOMEN OF THE FOURTH CENTURY Other noble women, less celebrated than Saints Lucy, Agnes, Dorothea, and Catherine, but probably no less worthy, who suffered martyrdom in the fourth century, were Saints Euphemia of Chalcedon, Julietta of Iconium, Afra of Augsburg, Justa and Rufina of Seville, Lucia and Bibiana of Rome, and Justina of Padua, with whom, as constantly represented in art, must also be named St. Christina of Bolsena, though her legend has now been rejected by the Roman Catholic Church. Of the life of St. Euphemia no absolute facts are known, and her fame rests principally upon a sermon preached on her fi^te-day, September 16, by Bishop Asterius of Amasea in Pontus, who, alluding to a picture, now lost, but then a trea- sure of the chief church of Chalcedon, made the following remarks : ' We see her in this picture ... in the dark-brown mantle VOL. II. 7 gS THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART worn in Greece by philosophers, and typical of their renuncia- tion of all worldly pleasures ... we see her brought before the judge Priscus by two soldiers . . . and in another part of the picture tortured by two executioners, one of whom drags back her head by her long hair, whilst the other strikes her in the mouth with a wooden mallet, causing the blood to flow. ... In the background is seen the interior of a dungeon. St. Euphemia, seated on the ground, raises her eyes to heaven. Above her head a cross appears . . . and near the prison a pile of faggots is kindled, in the midst of which stands the beautiful and courageous martyr.' Tradition has supplemented this account with many thrilling details. When the beautiful maiden was in prison, Satan him- self is said to have come to tempt her, threatening to kill her then and there if she would not yield to him ; but she routed him by reciting the Angelic Salutation; when she was bound to the stake the flames made a glory around her, but did her no harm ; when she was bound to wheels, in the same manner as St. Catherine had been, an angel broke her,bonds ; when she was flung to the lions, they only licked her hands and feet. At last, Priscus, worn out with her constancy and the perpetual interference from heaven, rushed upon her, sword in hand, and himself plunged it into her bosom. According to another version of her story, St. Euphemia, when in the amphi- theatre, prayed to God to put an end to her sufferings, and a bear at once killed her with one snap of his teeth, crouching reverently beside the body immediately afterwards. St. Euphemia, who for some imexplained reason is the patron of theologians, is occasionally introduced in devotional pictures, as in one by Marco Oggione, in the church named after her at Milan, in which she is being presented to the Enthroned Virgin by St. John the Baptist ; and in another by Simone Cantarini, in the Bologna Gallery, in which she sta;nds with her lion beside her, beneath the Madonna in glory, at whom she is pointing. As a rule, she wears a crown on her head, holds a lily in one hand and a palm in the other, and has a cross embroidered on her robes, in allusion to the apparition of the cross in her prison. The story of St. Julietta of Iconium is peculiarly touch- ing. She was a young wife, dwelling happily with her husband and their one little son^ of three years old, named Cyricus, ST. JULIETTA 99 •when she was accused of being a Christian. She fled from her native town with her child and two women servants to Seleucia, hoping to remain there in safety until the fierceness of the persecution should abate. Unfortunately, however, she was again arrested, and taken before the Governor, Alexander, with her boy in her arms. All attempts to make her recant having failed, she was condemned to be tortured on the rack. Alexander ordered the guards to give Cyricus to him, and when the poor child had with difficulty been torn from his mother's arms, he took him on his knee and tried to comfort him. It was, of course, in vain. Every time he heard his mother cry, ' I am a Christian !' Cyricus echoed her words, stretching out his little arms to her, and struggling to go to her. Presently the inhuman judge lost patience, and dashed the child to the ground with such violence that he was killed on the spot. Julietta, now that her child was dead, cared less than ever to preserve her own life, and after suffering terrible things at the hands of her persecutors she was beheaded. Her servants, who had fled when she was arrested, came by night and buried her and her little one side by side without the city, and after the conversion of Constantine the spot was identified. Portions of the relics were later translated to Nevers, Toulouse, and other Continental towns, in which the memory of the martyred mother and son are still held specially sacred. It is related that St. Cyricus rescued the Emperor Charlemagne from being killed by a boar near Nevers. The enraged animal was just about to slay the Emperor, who had got separated from his companions, when a beautiful nude boy suddenly appeared, jumped upon the boar, and, holding it by its tusks, led it to the Emperor, who slew it with his spear. The incident is commemorated in the arms of the Cathedral of Nevers, and also in those of the Collegiate Church of Issundun, St. Cyricus being represented holding the boar by the tusks, whilst Charlemagne stands by, spear in hand. Saints Julietta and Cyricus often appear in art amongst other martyrs, each with a palm, the little boy clasped in his mother's arms, and looking up to heaven with a charming expression of devotion. A crown and sceptre are sometimes placed at the feet of St. Julietta, in allusion to her supposed Toyal birth, and now and then a boar appears beside her. 7— a 100 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART The memory of the martyred mother and child is held dear even in England, especially in the south-west, where several churches are dedicated to them. St. Afra of Augsburg is said to have led an evil life, and to have been converted to Christianity by a priest named Nar- cissus, who took refuge in her house from his persecutors, not knowing who she was. Later she confessed her past sins to him, and he gave her absolution, assuring her that Christ re- jected none who were truly penitent. When the retreat of the priest was discovered, St. Afra saved him at the risk of her own life, and, whilst he made good his escape, she was dragged before the judge, who was. greatly astonished when she pro- claimed herself a Christian. He asked her how she could expect to be accepted by the God of her fellow-worshippers, and she replied : ' I know I am unworthy, but He who did not turn away from Mary Magdalene when she washed His feet with her tears, will not refiise to receive me.' All efforts to shake her faith having failed, she was condemned to be burnt alive, and died at the stake, praying aloud until the end. Her mother and three of her handmaidens whom she had con- verted, were, it is said, martyred in a similar manner soon afterwards, but not until they had reverently interred the remains of St. Afra outside the city. St. Afra, to whom penitent sinners appeal for aid, is some- times grouped in German devotional pictures with her fellow- patron of Augsburg, St. Ulrich, who was Bishop of that city in the tenth century. In the Cathedral of Augsburg is an Altar- piece by Christopher Amberger, in which her Martyrdom at the stake is painted on one wing and St. Ulrich, in full Bishop's robes, appears on the other, whilst in the predella beneath St. Narcissus is grouped with the mother and three hand- maidens of St. Afra. Saints Justa and Rufina, who are little known out of Spain, were makers of pottery at Seville, of whom it is related that one day, when they were selling their wares in the market, the image of the goddess Salambo, supposed to be the same as the Astarte of the Greeks and Romans, was carried by. The priestesses, as their custom was, asked all in their path for an offering for the divinity, but Justa and Rufina, who had been converted to Christianity, refused to give anything. They were therefore arrested, and in the end martyred, but how is not ST. BIBIANA loi stated. They have been several times represented by Spanish masters, notably by Murillo, and may be recognised by the pottery always introduced beside them. St. Lucia of Rome is said to have been a lady of noble birth, who was converted to Christianity after the death of her husband, and was denounced to the authorities by her own son when she was at a very advanced age. Refusing to recant, she was publicly scourged, but an earthquake put an end to the torture, and the Temple of Jupiter fell in ruins at her feet. Later she was flung into a caldron of boiling pitch, but it failed to harm her, and she was then dragged through the streets of Rome to be flung into prison. Amongst the crowd looking on at her sufferings was a young man named Gemianus, who was, it is related, converted in a very remarkable way. A dove circled round his head, making him look up, and he saw heaven opened above him, with angels waiting to receive the soul of St. Lucia. Convinced at once that the faith she pro- fessed was the true one, he hastened after her, and was imprisoned with her. At the same time an angel is said to have appeared to a priest in Rome, and to have told him to go and baptize Gemianus. The next day the old lady and the new convert were both beheaded, for which reason, when introduced with other martyrs in works of art, they are generally grouped together. St. Bibiana of Rome was one of a family of Christians, all of whom were martyred about 363 A.D. by order of the Governor Apronianus, who accused them of having by their magical arts caused him to lose the sight of one of his eyes. St. Flavian, the father, after being cruelly tortured, was banished, and died of his wounds. St. Dafrosa, his wife, was beheaded ; whilst St. Bibiana and her young sister, Demetria, were shut up in their home for many days without food, and when weakened by fasting were brought before Apronianus for trial. Demetria, after refusing to recant, fell down dead at the feet of the judge, but St. Bibiana was reserved for a more terrible fate. She was bound to a pillar and beaten to death with leaded ropes. Her body was then flung without the city to be devoured by wild beasts ; but it was secretly buried by a priest named John, and a little church was built by a Christian lady called Olympia to mark the resting-place of the saint, enclosing within it the column to which the martyred girl had been bound, 102 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART and of which a portion is still preserved. Rebuilt in 1625 by Bernini under Pope Urban VIII., the walls of the new church were adorned with frescoes of scenes from the life of St. Bibiana by Pietro da Cortona and others, and above the high altar was placed a fine marble statue by the architect. The chief attribute of St. Bibiana in art is a branch of a tree with many twigs, supposed to represent the scourge used at her execution, which is occasionally replaced by a truer rendering of a leaded rope. Occasionally she holds a dagger, for, accord- ing to one account, she was stabbed to death at the last, and she is generally grouped with her father, mother, and sister. Greatly venerated in Italy and in Germany, she is appealed to for aid, possibly because her name signifies the drinker, by habitual drunkards, and also, though why it is impossible to explain, by sufferers from epilepsy. St. Justina of Padua is said to have been of royal birth, and to have been brought up as a Christian by her father. On his death she was accused of belonging to the hated sect, and dragged before the Emperor, who ordered her to be stabbed. She received the sentence gladly, and was killed at one blow from the executioner's sword, which pierced her heart. Accord- ing to another version of her story, her sad fate was the result of her refusal to receive the addresses of the Governor of Rome, who slew her in revenge for his disappointment, and a stone was long shown in Venice said to preserve the marks made by her knees as she prayed to Heaven for protection from her ardent suitor. In allusion to the chastity of St. Justina, a unicorn is some- times introduced beside her, for the reason already explained in connection with her namesake of Antioch, and she generally holds a dagger or a sword, in allusion to the manner of her death. She is greatly honoured in Padua and Venice. Her effigy was stamped on the coinage of the latter city under the Doges Leonardo Donato and Pasquale Cicogna and she is introduced in many devotional pictures wearing rich robes, and with the martyr's palm in her hand. In the fifth century the beautiful Church of S. Giustina at Padua was built in her honour above the catacomb containing her remains with those of other martyrs, and at the beginning of the sixteenth century it was restored by the Benedictines, who had chosen St. Justina as their patron. In the choir of the new building \Galleria Bagati- Valsecchi, Milan ST. JUSTINA By Alvise Vivarini To face p. 102 ST. CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN 103 is a shrine enriched with sculptured scenes from the life of the martyred girl, and above the high altar is a fine oil-painting by Paolo Veronese representing her Martyrdom. There is a very good single figure of St. Justina by Alvise Vivarini in the Bagati-Valsecchi Gallery, Milan, in which the martyred girl, the sword piercing her heart, seems about to step out of the picture. She holds a palm in one hand and a closed book in the other. In the frescoes by Bernardino Luini, on the eastern wall in S. Maurizio, Milan, she is introduced with St. Ursula or St. Dorothea, and in the great picture commemorative of the Battle of Lepanto by Tintoretto, in the Sala del Collegio of the Doge's Palace, Venice, St. Justina and St. Mark are pre- senting an allegorical figure of the City of the Lagoons to the Enthroned Virgin. The legend of St. Christina of Sweden — now, as already stated, generally repudiated — is to the effect that she was the daughter of a Roman patrician named Urbanus, and was. converted to Christianity in early girlhood. Her home was full of beautiful idols in silver and gold, and it often grieved her loving heart to think how much use the material of which, they were made might be to the poor and suffering. One day, in the absence of her father, she could resist the temptation no longer, but broke up the images of the gods and dis- tributed the pieces to the Christians who came to her for help. They departed, overjoyed at her generosity, carrying, one the head of a Jupiter, another that of a Venus, and so on. When Urbanus returned, he was not unnaturally enraged at the de- struction of his property, and ordered his daughter to be scourged. This was done, and St. Christina, bleeding from her wounds, was flung into a dark dungeon, where angels visited her, healed her with a touch, and promised to keep her courage good to the end. Finding her still obdurate in refusing to recant her errors, or express regret for her destruction of the idols, her father had her further tortured, and finally, as she was not yet quite dead, to be thrown into the sea with a millstone round her neck. Yet again she was rescued by messengers from on high, who removed the millstone, clothed the suffering girl in shining white raiment, and led her back to Urbanus. The father, thinking himself the victim of magic, now endeavoured to have his obstinate child burnt to death, and J04 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART when that failed she was given a chance of life if she would sacrifice to idols. She was taken to the Temple of Jupiter, but directly she entered it the image of the god fell to the ground at her feet and was broken to pieces, which so terrified her father that he died on the spot. His cruel work was how- ever carried on by his successor, Julian, who had St. Christina's tongue cut out, but she continued to sing the praises of the Redeemer all the same. She was then given over to venomous reptiles, who would do her no harm, and finally her beautiful body was bound to a post to be shot at with arrows by the Roman soldiers, until at last the pure spirit was released, angels receiving it and bearing it to heaven. The most constant attribute in art of St. Christina is a mill- stone, suspended round her neck on a rope, but she also sometimes holds an arrow in one hand and a book in the other, as in a quaint old painting engraved in the ' Acta Sanc- torum,' in which the Lake of Bolsena, the furnace, and the tower in which the Saint was shut up, are all introduced, ■whilst three cherubim on clouds, with the triangle, the symbol of the Holy Trinity, above them, appear in one corner. Occasionally, as in an engraving reproduced by Pdre Cahier in his ' Caract6ristiques des Saints,' the martyred maiden has a small serpent coiled round her wrist, and she, of course, generally has the martyr's crown and palm. In the eleventh-century church at Bolsena, founded in honour of St. Christina, and named after her, her tomb is shown, and in a museum connected with the church is a sixteenth-century terra-cotta statue of her. In the Bologna Gallery is a painting by the little-known Jacopo Avanzi, representing St. Christina bound to a tree, with two soldiers aiming arrows at her, whilst the judge looks on ; and in the Venice Academy are preserved four out of ten scenes from her legend, painted by Paolo Veronese for the Church of S. Antonio Torcello, these four being the ' Con- fession and Martyrdom,' the ' Flagellation,' the ' Visit of the Angels to the Saint in Prison,' and the ' Refusal to sacrifice to Idols.' In the Munich Gallery is a beautiful representation of St. Christina in the dress of the sixteenth century, resting one hand on her millstone, and holding a palm in the other ; and in the Church of S. Maria Mater Domini, Venice, is an exceptionally interesting composition by Vincenzio Catena, [National Gallery, London MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH ST. CHRISTINA AND OTHER SAINTS By Lttca Signorelli To face p. 104 ST. HELENA 105 in which angels are seen upholding the millstone above the lake, and Christ Himself is giving one of the heavenly messengers a white robe in which to clothe the rescued girl. St. Christina is also sometimes introduced in some Madonna pictures, notably in one by Luca Signorelli, now in the Mariani collection at Citta di Castello, in which she wears a very formidable-looking millstone hanging down her back. Another maiden martyr of the fourth or fifth century was St. Julia of Corsica, who is sometimes represented bound to a cross, or clasping a crucifix in her hands. It is related of her that when Carthage was taken by Genseric she was sold as a slave to a heathen merchant of Syria, whose affections she won by her noble and consistent conduct. Although he respected her resolve never to marry, he took her with him wherever he went, and it was when travelling in his suite in Corsica that she fell under the displeasure of the heathen authorities for refusing to sacrifice to idols. Her master did all he could to save her, but he failed to do so, and she was put to death by being tied to a cross and left to die. CHAPTER IX ST. HELENA AND THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE Fact and fiction are so closely interwoven with regard to St. Helena and her son that it is impossible to separate them. Some, including Gibbon, assert that the future Empress was the daughter of an innkeeper, and was born at York ; others, that her father was a well-to-do citizen of Colchester. Yet another opinion, adopted by such good authorities as Leland and Henry of Huntingdon, is that St. Helena was the only child of the British King Cortus, the Old King Cole of the nursery ballad, who was the first to enclose within walls the town named after him. This tradition is memorialized in the arms of Colchester, which consist of four crowns and a cross, the latter emblem in allusion to the legend related below. In any case, it seems certain that when Constantius Chlorus wooed his bride he was still but a private officer of the Roman io6 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART ariny, and the fact that on his accession to the Imperial dignity in 305 he was at once divorced from the mother of Con- stantine would seem to favour the idea of her lowly origin, no accusation having ever been brought against her as a wife. The name of Stabularia given to St. Helena in old records, say some, means ' ostler-wench,' but those who claim that she was a Princess, insist that it has reference rather to her having built a church over the stable in which the Redeemer was born. An equally marked difference of opinion exists as to the date of St. Helena's conversion to Christianity. Theodoret and others seem to imply that she gave her son a Christian education, but Eusebius asserts that it was Constantine who converted her when she was quite an old woman. What became of St. Helena after her separation from her husband is not known, but on his accession to supreme power the new Emperor proclaimed her Augusta, and to the end of her life treated her with all possible honour and respect. Whichever account be true, it is certain that St. Helena did not receive baptism until after the great victory over Maxentius in 312 ; but this must not be taken to prove too much, for in those early days it had not become customary for new converts to be baptized at once as a matter of course, and Constantine himself did not receive the rite until just before his death. The Emperor Constantine is canonized in the Greek though not in the Latin Church, and the main facts of his life must be recorded here on account of the many beautiful-works of art they have inspired. He was the eldest son of Constantine Chlorus and St. Helena, and is supposed to have been born in 274 at Naissus, in Upper Mcesia. He greatly distinguished him- self in the wars of Diocletian, and was a very great favourite in the army and at Court on account of his handsome person and charming manners. When, through the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian in 305, his father became joint Emperor of the West with Galerius, and his mother was divorced, he found himself in a very difficult position, for his popularity aroused the jealousy of Galerius, who endeavoured to get rid of him by placing him on every occasion in the forefront of danger. Fore- seeing the difficulties with which his beloved son would have to contend, Constantius Chlorus summoned him to join him in Gaul, and, having with great difficulty obtained leave of absence, Constantine left the palace of Galerius at night, and reached 1 1 IS P 1 wr^ -^ ^M ipp [^^ m \^ 1 ^K^ Nf^lj^^^^H |y| ! %-*r- ^jm ^^ik^ H j^^ j^^^^^t ^^^^^^^^^ ^^ "vIS^^H ^^^1 /^^^^■Mfl^lP^ ij^^^^^^i ^^^ ^H ^^1 1 ^^^^^V' ^^^^^^K J 1 w ""^^ ^BL^ ^>^hb ^H 1 ^<^ ^ 1 iflll § 1 1 [Hampton Court Palace ST. HELENA BEARING THE CROSS By Tamai'occio To face p. io6 THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE 107 Boulogne just as his father was starting for Britain. He took part in the successful expedition against the Picts, and was with his father when he died at York in 306, after naming him his successor as Caesar of the West, and guiardian of his six young step-brothers and sisters. Galerius reluctantly accepted an appointment he was unable to refuse, endorsed as it was by popular consent ; but the life of the young Emperor was one long struggle for the next five years, until, by his great victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge near Rome in 312, he became sole Emperor of the West. It was on the eve of this victory that the remarkable incident occurred which is generally supposed to have been the cause of the conversion of Constan- tine. The story was told by the Emperor himself to Eusebius, and was to the effect that, being anxious and worried about the approaching conflict, he was hesitating to what god to appeal for aid, when, looking up, he saw a flaming cross in the sky, on which was inscribed Ef rovrca viKa (by this conquer). This was at noonday, and in a dream the same night the meaning of the portent was explained, a celestial visitor instructing Constantine to engrave upon the shields of his soldiers the monogram of the name of Christ. This was the origin of the famous standard of the Cross called the Labarum, though why no one has been able to determine, which originally consisted of a pike with a bar of wood fixed near its point, thus forming a cross, whilst on the point itself was a gem-studded crown bear- ing in its centre the monogram of X.R.I, the first three letters of the Greek name of Christ, said to have been a modification of the symbol of the sun-god. The famous Labarum was not given to the army by Constantine until 323, but the Edict of Milan of 313 granting civil rights to the Christians is supposed to have been the immediate result of the so-called Vision of the Cross. It must be added, however, that those who assume that it was an actual cross seen in the sky by the Emperor are in danger of forgetting that the cross was not accepted by Christians as the emblem of our Lord's Passion until con- siderably later, and that the word ' cross ' was used in the time of Constantine to signify the monogram which owed its origin in part to a pagan symbol. The Christians recognised in this heathen emblem a mystic prophecy of the Redeemer, but the only figure resembling a cross which they themselves io8 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART used in the first two centuries of the new era was the so-called swastica, resembling two interlaced Z's, and even as late as the fourth century the cross was still dissimulated, as in a fresco in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, in which it is represented as a green tree with two horizontal branches. In the fifth century the so-called 'Nile key' — a stunted cross surmounted by a circle — was borrowed by the Christians from the Egyptians, as com- bining the cross with the crown, and gradually the crown came to enclose the cross. It is supposed by many authorities that the Constantinian monogram was a modification of this Egyptian symbol, and some are even of opinion that all the Emperor really saw in the sky was an unusual effect of sunlight resembling the symbol of the sun-god, but they fail to explain why a portent such as this should have been at once associated in his mind with Christianity. In any case, the fact remains that in giving the Labarum, whatever its origin, to his army Constantine set the seal of official recognition on the hitherto proscribed re- ligion, and by so doing inaugurated a new era. The date of the military acceptance of the cross as the sign in which to conquer, was also that of the defeat and death of Licinius, the Christian Emperor's only remaining rival. Con- stantine was now sole ruler of the East and West, and having decided to make Byzantium his capital, he took up his residence there, changing its name to Constantinople. The profession of Christianity now ceased to be looked upon as a crime, and although some few martyrs still suffered in outlying districts of the vast Empire, a new and glorious chapter in the history of the Church began. The long-despised sect had finally con- quered, and ere long it became the turn of the heathen to be delivered over to condemnation by those who believed that there was no salvation possible for unbelievers. The man who brought about this mighty change, or, rather, who set the seal of authority upon that change — for it had been inaugurated long before his conversion — has naturally been glorified as a hero of the noblest character, one who brought light into darkness and bequeathed to his successors a boon of priceless value. Unfortunately, this estimate is not fully justified by facts. The last few years of the first Christian Emperor were stained by most unchristian crimes, including the judicial murder of his own son, the gallant Crispus, whom he suspected of ambitious designs. It is true that Constantine founded many Christian THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE 109 churches, working at some of them with his own hands ; but it was not until shortly before his death that he had the heathen temples finally closed and Christianity proclaimed the religion of the State. He put off his baptism also until the last moment, probably because he had adopted the popular idea that the rite would wash away all previous guilt, and he wished to get all possible good out of it. The story of his having been baptized by Pope Sylvester at Rome in 326 is now generally known to be fictitious. Out of it, however, has grown a very picturesque legend, which has been the subject of several interesting series of frescoes. According to this legend, St. Sylvester, who was Bishop of Rome before the conversion of Constantine, had fled from persecution, and taken refuge in a cave in Monte Calvo. Whilst St. Sylvester was in concealment the Emperor Con- stantine was attacked by leprosy, and the heathen priests he summoned to the palace to his aid declared that the only thing to cure him was a bath of children's blood. No less than three thousand children were collected by the soldiers to be slain, and the Emperor set forth in his chariot to the place appointed by the priests for the terrible sacrifice. On the way the mothers of the little ones intercepted him, blocking his path and piteously entreating him to be mercifuL Touched to the heart, Constantine cried aloud, ' Far better that I should die than cause the murder of these innocents !' and, turning to his officers, he ordered them to release the intended victims. He then gave money to the mothers and went home again. That same night Saints Peter and Paul appeared to the Emperor in a dream, and told him to seek Bishop Sylvester, who would show him a pool wherein to wash, the waters of which would cleanse him from his leprosy. They urged him, further, to believe in the Christians' God, for it was He who had sent them to him. Constantine obeyed, and when he had found St. Sylvester he related his vision. The Bishop could not at first believe that the Apostles had really appeared to a heathen, and sent for some pictures of Saints Peter and Paul owned by a member of his flock. Constantine declared that they resembled his visitors, so St. Sylvester,^ interpreting the vision in his own way, baptized the Emperor, who came forth from the font healed of his disease. Convinced now that Jesus Christ was indeed God, Constantine ordered no THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART that He should be everywhere adored as such, and that the Bishops of Rome should take precedence of all Bishops, just as the Emperor took precedence of all secular rulers. Furthermore, he granted the privilege of sanctuary to Christian churches, ordered that the tithes of all Roman lands should be given to Christ's Vicar on- earth, and finally he himself dug the foundations of a new Basilica, that now known as S. Giovanni in Laterano, which was dedicated to St. John the Baptist. The Empress Helena is said to have reproached her son for his conduct on this occasion, for she was not yet converted, and she came to Rome with a large following of Jewish Rabbis, who argued the matter with certain Greek philosophers named by Constantine. To this wonderful meet- ing St. Sylvester also came, apparently without an invitation, and he confuted Jews and Greeks alike, rousing the anger of all against him, so that a magician named Zambri defied him to a trial of skill, declaring that if a wild bull were brought in, he would whisper a name in its ear which would kill it on the spot. The bull was fetched, requiring a hundred men to hold it ; Zambri whispered in its ear and it fell down dead. Jews and Greeks alike then fell upon the Bishop, and would have torn him to pieces, when he cried : ' The name the magician pro- nounced cannot have been that of God, but of the devil, for Christ our God does not strike dead the living, but restores the dead to life. It is easy to kill — wild beasts can do that — but who can give back the life that is gone ? Let Zambri restore with a word the creature he has slain : as it is written, I will kill and I will make alive.' Then the Emperor and the judges ordered Zambri to obey, but he could not. The bull remained motionless until St. Sylvester made the sign of the cross over it, when it rose up, bowing its head as meekly as if it had borne the yoke all its life. After this extraordinary proof of the power of St. Sylvester, it is no wonder that the Emperor turned to him in every difficulty. On another occasion, when the heathen priests of Rome com- plained that a great dragon devoured all who ventured out of the city, Constantine sent for the Bishop, who went forth alone, bearded the dragon in the deep moat in which he dwelt, tied up his mouth with a twisted thread, and sealed it with a cross, leaving the helpless beast to die miserably, a manifest allegory of the power of the Cross to save from the death of ST. HELENA m sin. St. Sylvester, though he was not the extraordinary character these legends would make him appear, was, indeed, evidently well fitted to govern the Church in her new position of prosperity and triumph, and the stories about him are prob- ably founded on the real benefits he conferred on his flock, by the tact of his dealings with the first Christian Emperor. At whatever time the conversion of St. Helena took place, it was not until some twelve years after the apparition of the flaming cross or monogram to her son, when she was quite an old woman, that she made the memorable journey to Palestine. Constantine is said to have written in 326 to St. Macarius, then Bishop of Jerusalem, on the subject of the erection of a church on Mount Calvary, and St. Helena decided to go there to superintend the carrying out of the scheme. She resolved at the same time to endeavour to find the cross on which the Saviour had suffered, having received instructions direct from heaven on the subject in a wonderful dream, in which a cross was shown to her by two beautiful child-angels. As already stated, it was not until many years after the death of our Lord that the cross became the symbol of Christianity, and no attempt had been made by the early converts to obtain possession of the one on which the Redeemer had suffered. At the beginning of the third century, however. Christians began to use the sign of the cross, and to pray with outstretched arms in memory of the attitude in which Christ had died. From this the transition was natural to veneration of the actual instrument of His Passion, and about the time of the conversion of Constantine an eager discussion began as to the form of that instrument, some asserting that it was of the shape known as the Latin — that is to say, with arms of equal length springing from the upper part of the central shaft; others, that it was of the Greek form, with shaft and arms all exactly alike; and yet others, that it was a mere transverse cross without central shaft, forniing the letter X. Now one and now another of these forms became used as a symbol side by side with the fish which had so long been the only Christian emblem ; but the problem was finally solved, and the form of the cross fixed by the Empress Helena, who imme- diately on her arrival at Jerusalem secured the co-operation of Bishop Macarius in her quest. Although the Christians themselves had been unable to 112 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART mark the scene of their Lord's death in any way, it was not very difficult to identify it, because the heathen had raised a temple to Venus on Calvary, with a view, it is said, to making those who came to worship on the sacred spot appear to be doing reverence to that goddess. The first thing to be done, therefore, was to destroy this temple, and the fact that St. Helena had no difficulty in getting this done is an incidental proof of the great change which had recently taken place in popular feeling with regard to the Christians. After a long search and digging to a great depth, the explorers were, it is said, rewarded by finding the three crosses with the very nails which had pierced the hands and feet of the Lord, and the Inscription which had been set up over His head. The fact that this Inscription was lying apart from the crosses, made it difficult to decide which was that of the Lord, but St. Macarius suggested that all three should be taken to the house of a Christian lady then at the point of death. This was done, and after an earnest prayer by St. Macarius that a sign might be granted to those present, the patient was touched by each of the crosses in turn. When the third and last test was applied, she sat up perfectly restored to health, and all knew that there could no longer be any doubt as to which was the true cross. Dehghted with her success, St. Helena at once ordered a beautiful church to be built on the scene of her discovery, but, unfortunately, in her eager desire that all should share in the benefits of the marvellous reUc she had found she did not pre- serve it intact. One portion of the true cross she sent to her son at Constantinople, another with the inscription to Rome, where it is preserved in S. Croce in Gerusalemme, and a third portion she confided to Bishop Macarius for the new church at Jerusalem. The Emperor received the relic with much veneration, and in memory it is supposed of the great dis- covery, he put a final stop throughout his dominions to the use of the cross for the putting to death of malefactors. The nails found with the cross St. Helena also divided. One she had set in a bridle, another in a diadem for her son, and the third she kept herself until the day when she flung it into the Adriatic during a terrible storm, with the result that the sea at once became calm, on which account sailors still look upon the gulf as sacred to the memory of the Empress. St. Helena remained at Jerusalem until the new church was \ISfational Gallery^ London THE VISION OF ST. HELENA By Paolo Veronese To face p. 112 ST. HELENA 113 completed, building also a convent for holy women, in which she dwelt herself, serving the inmates with her own hands and nursing them in sickness. When she felt that her end was ap- proaching, she returned to Rome, anxious to see her son once more, and she expired in his presence in 326 or 328. She was interred with great pomp in S. Croce in Gerusalemme, but her body is said to have been translated in the ninth century to the Abbey of Hautvilliers, in Champagne. Her empty Mausoleum is kept in a cloister of S. Giovanni in Laterano, and her memory is still preserved in the church in which she rested for a time, by a chapel bearing her name, and by two Statues, one at the entrance opposite to that of St. Sylvester, and another above the altar, which is really a copy of the Barberini Juno, except for the fact that a cross is held in the right hand and a nail in the left. St. Helena is generally represented in Imperial robes, with a crown on her head, an open book in one hand, and in the other a cross of the form known as the crux immissa, with a long shaft and short arms, as in an engraving from the Boiss6rie Collection, now in the Munich Gallery, and in the carvings of a rood-screen at Eye in Suffolk. More rarely, as in paintings by Simone Memmi, and II Giottino, the cross the Empress has in her hand is small, or it is replaced, as in a picture by Domenichino, by a nail, which she holds over a cup, or by a church, supposed to be that of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. She appears occasionally only in devotional pic- tures, as in the ' Nativity ' of Cima da Conegliano in S. Maria del Carmine, Venice, and in an Altar-piece by Lambertini in the Academy of the same city. The attributes in art of Constantine the Great are a chrism or tablet bearing the monogram of Christ, in allusion to the vision related above ; a cross, which varies in size, but never in form, on account of the discovery of the true cross by his mother ; and a church, because he gave a political status to the Christian religion and built many basilicas. The chrism of Con- stantine at first represented simply the three letters XRI, already explained, but as time went on it became replaced by a new monogram of which the meaning was not exactly the same, the IHS, or the initials of Jesus, being substituted for those of Christ, for it was urged that the Apostles had said ' at the name of Jesus,' not at the name of Christ, ' every knee shall bow.' VOL. II. 8 114 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART The introduction of the Emperor Constantine in devotional pictures is very rare, but occasionally, as in a painting by Palma Vecchio in the Brera Gallery, Milan, and in one by Cima da Conegliano in S. Giorgio in Bragora, Venice, he stands on one side of a cross, and his mother on the other. Now and then, as in the picture by Rubens, painted for her chapel at Rome, but now in private possession, St. Helena embraces the cross with both hands, or she kneels in adoration at its foot, as in a quaint old engraving reproduced by Pere Cahier in his ' Caract6ristiques des Saints,' in which St. Macarius is seen staggering beneath a heavy cross, with which he is touching the forehead of a woman in bed, whilst the crosses of the thieves are lying on a hill in the background. In a quaintly-carved cross in the chancel wall of the Church of Kelloc in Durham, St. Helena is represented discovering the cross. In the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, there is an interesting marble group by Antonio Dentone of the Empress presenting General Vittore Capello with a Marshal's baton, and a Statue of the same Saint, by Bolgi, occupies one of the niches of the lower part of the dome of St. Peter's. It is in fresco and in oil-painting, however, that the fullest justice has been done to the famous mother and son, the many romantic incidents of their lives having been the subjects of some of the great masterpieces of Italian art. In the choir of the Capella Alberti in S. Croce, Florence, are a number of beautiful frescoes by Agnolo Gaddi, collectively known as the ' Finding of the True Cross,' which include many incidents leading up to the expedition to Palestine of St. Helena, with others supposed to have taken place after her time. To make these remarkable works intelligible, it is necessary to give in outline the most interesting of the legends which have gathered about the story of the Cross, going back to the time of Adam and Eve. It is related that when Adam was at the point of death he received, by the hands of his son Seth, from the Archangel Michael, a branch of the tree of knowledge, which Seth planted above his father's heart after the burial. This branch grew into a tree, and when Solomon built the Temple at Jerusalem it was cut down for his use, but it was so tough and generally unmanageable that it was flung aside as useless. A little later ST. HELENA 115 it served as a bridge for the Queen of Sheba, who, as she set foot on it, saw a vision of Christ on the cross, and knew that she was even then using the wood which should form that cross. She told her royal host of what she had seen, and he, not understanding it fully in spite of his great wisdom, had the tree buried deeply in the earth at the very spot where the Pool of Bethesda was later to witness so many miracles. The tree was one day found floating on the pool, and the Jews used it to form the cross on which the Redeemer suffered. On His death, as was customary at the time, the tree was buried in a hole dug near by, into which the crosses of the thieves were also flung, there to remain for three hundred years. After St. Helena had found and divided the true cross, the three portions rested un- disturbed in the various churches in which they were enshrined, until the Holy Land was invaded in the sixth century by Chos- roes II., King of Persia, who took the piece from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and carried it to his own land. In the seventh century the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, who was an earnest Christian, determined to win back the treasure, and succeeded in doing so after a long siege of Ctesiphon, the city in which it had been kept for nearly a century. He took the holy relic back to Jerusalem, and tried to enter the city on horseback, carrying it with him. His horse, however, refused to go through the gates, and the Emperor had to dismount and carry the cross into the city on foot. No less interesting than the frescoes of Santa Croce are those by Pietro della Francesca in the Church of S. Francesco at Arezzo, which include the ' Recognition of the holy tree by the Queen of Sheba,' who falls on her knees before it ; the ' Victory of Constantine over Maxentius '; the * Finding of the cross by St. Helena '; its ' Verification by the cure of the dying woman by means of the sacred Relic '; the ' Apparition of an angel to Heraclius,' which, faded though it is, is still remark- able for the wonderful effect of light ; the ' Defeat and Death of King Chosroes in the battle with Heraclius '; and the ' Bringing back of the true Cross to Jerusalem,' in which the artist has ignored the fact that it was only a portion of it which was restored. In another chapel of the same church are some frescoes by Giottino of the legend related above respecting St. Sylvester and the Emperor Constantine, including the Scene when 8—2 ii6 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART the latter desists from his terrible purpose to bathe in the blood of the children, his ' Baptism by the Bishop,' the 'Restoration of the bull to life by St. Sylvester,' and the 'Sealing of the mouth of the dragon by the same great teacher/ In the Sala di Constantino of the Vatican various ' Scenes from the life of Constantine the Great ' were added after the death of Raphael by Giulio Romano, with the assistance of Francesco Penni, and Rafaello dal Colle. Of these, perhaps the finest is the ' Battle between the Emperor and Maxentius,' in which the latter is seen drowning, whilst the former dashes on with his soldiers bearing the new standard of the cross, behind him. The ' Baptism of the Conqueror by Bishop Sylvester,' which is represented as taking place in the Lateran basilica, the ' Presentation of Rome to the Pope,' and the ' Address of the Emperor to his troops on the subject of the Apparition of the flaming cross,' are also very fine. The latter is said to have been designed by Raphael himself. In the Academy of Venice is preserved an interesting fresco of the ' Invention of the Cross ' by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, from the ceiling of the Capuchin Church at Castello; and of the many representations of the Empress, perhaps none is more beautiful than the ' Vision of St. Helena ' by Paolo Veronese, now in the National Gallery, London, in which the Saint is represented as a beautiful young woman wrapped in the repose, not of sleep, but of suspended consciousness, the angels appearing above bearing the cross. The ' St. Helena carrying the Cross ' at Hampton Court, which was successfully transferred from its worm-eaten panel to canvas in 1865, and was long ascribed to Lorenzo Costa, but is now supposed, with greater probability, to be the work of Tamoroccio, a pupil of Francia, is also very fine. CHAPTER X ST. ATHANASIUS St. Athanasius, who was lovingly called during his lifetime the Pater Orthodoxi^, or Orthodox Father, and is spoken of by Gibbon as ' the intrepid Athanasius . . . whose immortal o o w a H o O H > g s '^ ST. ATHANASIUS 117 name will never be separated from the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity,' was born at Alexandria about a.d. 296, when his great antagonist, Arius, was already twenty years old, and had already begun to propagate the heresy, with the refuta- tion of which the name of St. Athanasius is inseparably connected. The parents of St. Athanasius are supposed to have been Christians, and to have died when their boy was quite a child. He was, however, adopted by St. Alexander, then Primate of Alexandria, who treated him as his own son, and by whom he was ordained as soon as he was old enough. One of the greatest pleasures of the neophyte during his probation years was to visit St. Antony the Hermit, to whom he became devotedly attached, and to whom he often turned for advice in later life. When the Council of Nicsea was convened in 325 by the Emperor Constantine, to settle the controversy between the Orthodox believers led by St. Alexander and the heretics led by Arius, the Primate took his deacon with him to act as his secretary, and occasionally also as his spokesman. It was at this celebrated Conference that St. Athanasius first attracted general attention by his eloquence and incisive reasoning, for he met the arguments of Arius and of his supporters, Eusebius, Theognis, and Maris, with a skill which won even their reluctant admiration. As is well known, the point at issue at this great Council turned apparently merely on a slight verbal, or rather literal, difference in the terms used to define the opinions of the combatants. The Western Bishops, who rallied round Saints Alexander and Athanasius, supported the so-called Homoousian doctrine, whilst the Oriental primates, who were on the side of Arius, contended for that known as the Homoiousian, the former signifying identity with, the latter the similarity only, of the substance of the three persons of the Holy Trinity. The triumph of St. Alexander and his friends was complete, and the ' identity of substance doctrine ' was embodied before the dispersion of the Council, in what is still known as the Nicene Creed, and has for many centuries been incorporated, with certain later additions, in the Protestant Communion Service. The so-called Athanasian Creed was not really drawn up until some two centuries later, and became associated with ii8 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART the name of St. Athanasius simply because it expressed so forcibly the views he entertained. The young Athanasius had gone to Nicsea an obscure deacon ; he returned to Alexandria a celebrated orator, looked up to and reverenced by all who shared his opinions. When, five months later, St. Alexander was on his death-bed, he earnestly recommended the clergy who had gathered round him to choose St. Athanasius as his successor, and they, con- vinced of the wisdom of the advice, agreed to do so. It is related that the dying Bishop then called three times for his young friend to come to him, and when no answer came — for the deacon was absent on some errand — he cried : ' Athanasius, Athanasius ! you think to escape, but you are mistaken ;' and with these words he expired. St. Athanasius was duly elected Primate of Alexandria, and all went well with him at first, but for some reason, not suffi- ciently explained by historians, Arius, who had been banished after the Council, was allowed to return to the capital, where his presence soon caused fresh difficulties to the heads of the Church. St. Eusebius of Nicomedia and the Princess Con- stantia both eagerly espoused the cause of Arius, and obtained for him an interview with the Emperor, who, though an able soldier and statesman, was quite unable to judge of the merits of the controversy, which he considered of trifling importance. Arius easily succeeded in satisfying his Imperial judge that he was no heretic, and Constantine sent orders to St. Athanasius to receive his antagonist back into the Church. This the Bishop naturally refused to do, with the result that he was himself summoned before the Council of Tyre to answer for his contu- macy. It is related that before the meeting of the Council St. Athanasius managed to obtain an interview with the Emperor by intercepting him in a street of Constantinople, and so overawed him by his noble bearing that the monarch listened respectfully to his arguments, and, though he would not entirely forgive him or release him from the trial, yet managed that condemnation should involve no worse consequence than temporary banishment to Augusta Trevorum, the present Treves. In this initial struggle between Church and State, which has been waged ever since with more or less bitterness, it is impossible to deny that St. Athanasius was worsted for a time, at least; and although on the death of Constantine ST. ATHANASIUS 119 in 338 he was allowed to return to Alexandria, and he was nominally Primate of Egypt for forty-six years, he spent twenty of them in exile. Throughout the whole of his chequered career, however, he was ever true to his principles, working for the cause he had at heart wherever he might be, with unfailing enthusiasm, and, as his great admirer Gibbon, who calls him the ' Ecclesiastical Dictator,' eloquently says, counting his sufferings on account of the Homoousian doctrine ' as the sole pleasure and business, as the duty, and as the glory of his life.' On his condemnation by the Council of Milan, at the instance of Constantius, the unworthy successor of Constan- tine the Great, St. Athanasius declared that he would not leave Alexandria without an order signed by the Emperor himself ; and when the church in which he was presiding over the service was besieged by a party of soldiers, he remained calmly seated on his throne, awaiting the issue of the struggle. Ready to meet the death which appeared imminent, he refused, in spite of the importunities of his clergy, to withdraw until the terrified congregation had dispersed, and it was only by a miracle that he escaped with his life, some of his devoted adherents carry- ing him away to the desert almost by force under cover of the confusion and darkness. A price being set on his head, he remained concealed for six years, appearing now and then amongst his friends at the risk of his life, and escaping from his enemies many times in a most remarkable manner. On one occasion he is said to have been betrayed by a female slave when he was hiding from his enemies in a dried-up well. On another he was saved by a beautiful girl, who hid him for many days in her own room, which she gave up to him, supplying him with food and books. Recalled to Alexandria in 361, on the accession of Julian, St. Athanasius was driven away again in 363 by the Emperor Valens, when he took refuge in the tomb of his father outside the city. He was now an old man, enfeebled by all he had gone through, and four months later the orthodox Alexandrians, who had been true to him through evil and good report, prevailed on the Emperor to allow him to come back. He himself describes in touching terms the state of his beloved city on the occa- sion of this last return. 'The people,' he says, 'formed assemblies in which they reciprocally excited each other to piety and perseverence. Many young men and women who had 120 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART intended to marry gave up their union for the love of Jesus Christ; parents exhorted their children to embrace the monastic life, and children begged permission to do so as a favour. . . . Widows and orphans who had hitherto been a prey to hunger and all manner of need were nourished and provided for by charitable gifts. In a word, every house resembled a temple of God, and every family a Christian com- munity, where day and night prayers were offered up and pious actions performed.' St. Athanasius lived for ten years after his last experience of persecution, which he called ' a mere passing cloud '; and during these ten years the Church enjoyed a peace long unknown to it. Speaking of the wonderful influence exercised by the Patriarch over air with whom he was brought in contact, St. Gregory Nazianzus says : ' His faith was so pure and so orthodox that everyone who wished to know whether he had the true belief had but to compare it with his, and his manners were so pure and his virtues so complete that in praising Athanasius you praise virtue itself.' In 373 the much-tried Bishop passed peacefully away, ' departing this life,' says the same appreciative critic, 'with far greater honour and glory than he had received in his more than triumphant entries into Alexandria, when he returned from his banishments, so much was his death lamented by all good men.' The four Greek Fathers : Saints Athanasius, Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, and Gregory Nazianzus, with whom is some- times associated St. Cyril of Alexandria, are frequently intro- duced in Byzantine ecclesiastical decoration. Their only symbols, properly so called, are the large circular nimbus, a book, in token of their having taught the Word of God, and a church either held on the book or in the hand. St. Athanasius, however, sometimes has, in addition to these, the equilateral triangle, emblematic of the Holy Trinity, which was a symbol of those who, like himself, had to contend against Arianism. The Doctors are generally represented bare-headed, for mitres were not part of the Greek episcopal costume, and they wear the rich vestments suitable to their high rank in the Church. Occasionally to the book is added a scroll bearing some celebrated sentence from the writings of the Saint who holds it, that of St. Athanasius, for instance, having the words, ' Often and anew do we flee to thee, O God,' etc. The name THE GREEK FATHERS 121 of each Doctor is generally inscribed above or beside the head, rendering symbols unnecessary for identification. In the mosaics of the Baptistery of S. Marco at Venice, and in those of the Cathedral of Monreale, the four Greek Doctors are represented seated, and in the Christian Museum of the Vatican is a beautiful Byzantine miniature in which they appear with St. Cyril, who has a kind of cap on his head. Each has a book in the left hand, and the right is raised in the Greek attitude of benediction — that is to say, with the thumb and first finger meeting, whilst the third finger is crooked, so as to extend beyond the second and fourth, which are held upright. In the fine frescoes by Domenichino, which rank as among his best works, in the chapel of the Monastery at Grotta Ferrata, near Frascati, and in those in the Santa Casa at Loreto by Signorelli, the Fathers of the Greek Church are introduced beneath the Evangelists. The so-called Cathedra Petri, or throne designed by Bernini enclosing the old wooden chair of St. Peter, in the tribune of St. Peter's, Rome, is upheld by bronze figures of the four Doctors. St. Athanasius, who is invoked by those suffering from head- ache, it is suggested because he did so much thinking himself, is rarely represented without the other Fathers, but in an ancient Greek painting reproduced in a seventeenth-century edition of his writings he is represented wearing the Arch- bishop's pallium. He is also sometimes introduced in old Greek paintings escaping in a boat on the Nile, pursued by soldiers, to whom he is reported to have said when they asked him if he had seen the fugitive : ' You are on his track, and you have but to put forth your hand to take him.' There is a fairly satisfactory statue of St. Athanasius, by Angelo Solari, in S. Francesco di Paolo at Naples ; Signorelli has introduced him in a ' Madonna and Child,' now in the Florence Academ)^; and in the Altar-piece from S. Francesco at Volterra, now in the gallery of that city. In Bristol Cathedral is a fine modern window with figures of the four Greek Fathers, each writing in an open book, and St. Athanasius is amongst the Bishops introduced in the great south window of Lichfield. He appears also in one of the lights of the clerestory of Wells Cathedral. T22 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART CHAPTER XI ST. BASIL THE GREAT The life of St. Basil — justly surnamed the Great, and lovingly styled in the office sacred to him the ' divine Bee of the Church ' — was full of romantic incidents, and reflected in a very remark- able degree the characteristics of the time at which he lived. He belonged to a family of illustrious descent, famed for their devotion to Christianity, and learnt the elements of the faith from his grandmother, St. Macrina, who in the early part of the fourth century fled with her husband to the desert, to escape persecution, and was there, according to a picturesque legend, fed by stags who of their own free will came to minister to the needs of the exiles. Born at Csesarea in 328, St. Basil was named after his father, St. Basil the Elder, and was the eldest of four sons, the other three being Naucratius, of whom little is known, St. Gregory of Nyassa, and St. Peter of Sebaste. After spending some years at a school in Csesarea, the young Basil went to Constantinople, where he worked under the celebrated heathen rhetorician Libanus, with whom he corresponded to the end of his life, in spite of the great difference in their opinions. From the Eastern capital the eager student passed to Athens, still, in spite of the decline which had set in at the end of the third century, an intellectual centre, where he became the close friend of two men who were to exercise almost as great an influence as himself over their contemporaries : the future Emperor Julian the Apostate, and St. Gregory of Nazianzus, who in his writings has given such a vivid picture of St. Basil and him- self in their happy student days. ' We knew only two streets,' says St. Gregory, ' and chiefly the first of these, which led us to the church and to the holy teachers and doctors, who there attended the service of the altar and nourished the flock of Christ with the food of life. The other street with which we were acquainted, but which we held in much less esteem, was the road to the schools and to our masters in the sciences. We left to others the streets which led to the theatres, to spectacles and diversions. We ST. BASIL 123 made it our only and great affair ; it was our only aim, and all our glory, to be called and to be Christians.' St. Basil had at first intended to be a lawyer, and after winning a great name for learning and eloquence at Athens, he returned to his native city, where he founded a school for oratory, which quickly became famous. A great career as a pleader and teacher seemed to be before him, when to the astonishment of all his friends he suddenly resolved to renounce the world and become a monk, in consequence, it is said, of the persuasions of his sister, St. Macrina the younger, who with her mother's aid had lately opened a nunnery for devout women, not far from Csesarea. St. Basil was now about thirty years old, and until the age of thirty- eight he kept his resolution of hiding his great gift of eloquence, leading the austere life of a recluse, and founding in the desert of Pontus the first monastic society properly so called of the Greek Church. To it the name of the Basilian Order was given, and it became practically the model of all later institutions of the kind in the East, the rules laid down by St. Basil for the guidance of his infant community being still strictly followed in Oriental monasteries. In 358 St. Basil, after having visited all the monasteries of Syria, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, returned to Csesarea, and was there ordained presbyter by the Bishop, Dianseus, who had baptized him as a child. After his ordination, however, St. Basil again withdrew to the desert, governing his monastery, which was opposite to the nunnery of his brother, on the banks of the Iris, for another five years, and practising such terrible austerities that his health was completely ruined. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, who joined him for a time, says that ' he was so excessively pale his body scarce seemed to have life ; . . . he was without a wife, without estate or goods, without flesh, and seemingly without blood. . . . He never had more than one tunic and one coat, he slept on the ground, sometimes watch- ing all night, never had a bath, and lived on bread and water only.' ' It was his riches,' adds his friend, ' to have no earthly goods, and to follow naked the cross of his Saviour, which was all his treasure.' On his accession to the Imperial throne in 361, Julian, the old friend and school-fellow of St. Basil, invited him to come to Court, promising him preferment, but the recluse replied that 124 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART the life he had chosen made it impossible for him to consent. In 362, however, he resigned the government of his monastery to his brother, St. Peter of Sebaste, and returned home, feeling, perhaps, that the time had come for him to do other work. No sooner was he back in Ceesarea than a second letter came from the Emperor, couched in very different terms, and threatening, unless St. Basil paid a large sum into the Imperial Exchequer, the town of Csesarea should be razed to the ground. Needless to add that the threat had no greater effect than the offer of preferment ; the monk replied that he had not enough money to buy himself food for a single day, and boldly expressed his surprise that his correspondent should neglect the essential duties of his crown, and provoke the anger of God by openly contemning His worship. Julian, who, had he lived, and had his old friend condescended to humour him a little, might have been won to better things, took no notice of this reproof, but resolved that St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nazianzus, who had also defied him, should be arraigned when he himself should return from his expedition to Persia. As is well known, however, the Emperor was killed at the beginning of the campaign. St. Basil remained unmolested, and spent much of his time preaching to the people of Csesarea, winning back many who had joined the Arians to their allegiance to the Church. On the death, in 370, of Eusebius, who had suc- ceeded Dianseus in the See of Caesarea, St. Basil, who had long aided the Bishop with his counsels, was chosen to take his place, and he retained that office until his own death in 379. The last nine years of his life were one long struggle against difficulties of every kind. The Emperor Valens, who had espoused the cause of the Arians, singled him out for persecu- tion, ordering him to conduct the services of his church accord- ing to the heretic custom, and threatening him, if he did not comply, with banishment first, and, if he continued obstinate, with death. St. Basil refused firmly but gently, and Modestus, the envoy sent by Valens to bring him to reason, after several interviews with him, wrote to his employer : ' We are over- come; this man is above our threats.' Valens resolved, there- fore, to see what he could do in person, and he came to Csesarea with all his Court, appearing, with a long train of attendants, on the feast of the Epiphany, in the church in which St. Basil was officiating. Mansell photo] iLouvre, Paris THE MASS OF ST. BASIL By Stibleyras To face p. 124 ST. BASIL 125 The arrival of the Emperor caused, of. course, a great stir amongst the congregation, but neither the Bishop nor his clergy paid the slightest attention to him. This very unexpected recep- tion took Valens by surprise ; his mind, ever readily swayed by circumstance, veered round in favour of a man who could dare thus openly to defy him, and, to the astonishment of his followers, he went quietly up to the altar to offer the usual gift. Here a fresh blow awaited him ; the priest, receiving no sign from the Bishop, hesitated to accept the Imperial offering, and Valens was so overcome with emotion at this public insult that he fainted away, and would have fallen to the ground had not one of his guards caught him in his arms. According to another account of the same incident, St. Basil accepted the oblation at the altar, but declined to administer the Communion to the Emperor. In either case, the attitude of the Bishop was full of dignity, and in a private conference which took place between him and the Emperor a few days later, several concessions were granted to the orthodox Chris- tians. Moreover, Valens gave a large sum of money to a hospital founded by the Bishop, and for a short time it seemed likely that the ascendancy gained by him over the Emperor would be maintained. Valens had, however, no sooner left Csesarea than the old bitterness returned. He issued an edict of banishment against St. Basil, and his messengers were actually on their way to enforce obedience to it, when the little Prince Valentinianus Galens, the Emperor's only child, was taken dangerously ill. The parents were in despair, and the Empress Dominica, who had been troubled by terrible dreams for some time, declared that she believed the child's illness was a punishment for the Emperor's harshness to the Bishop of Csesarea. Valens sent in all haste for St. Basil, whose prayers for the little sufferer were answered. The Bishop returned home believing that he had now finally secured the friendship of the Emperor, but he had not been gone long before the old influences were brought to bear against him. It is related that Valens tried three times to sign another edict of banishment, but that on each attempt the reed he was using broke in his hand. The boy whom St. Basil had restored to health was baptized by an Arian Bishop, and soon afterwards died ; but even this signal judgment did not touch the heart of Valens, who continued his hostility to the orthodox Christians. 126 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART until his tragic death in 378, one year only before that of St. Basil. The last words of the much-tried Bishop of Csesarea were : ' Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.' He was but fifty-one years old, and his end was undoubtedly hastened by his own neglect of the laws of health. He left behind him a great reputation for learning, and his fame, as Gibbon justly says, ' has been immortal in the monastic history of the East. With a mind that had tasted the learning and eloquence of Athens, with an ambition scarcely to be satisfied by the arch- bishopric of Caesarea, Basil retired to a savage solitude in Pontus, and deigned to give laws to the spiritual colonies which he profusely scattered along the coast of the Black Sea.' The same able critic dwells on the beautiful friendship between Saints Basil and Gregory Nazianzus, ' in which every spark of emulation or envy appeared to be totally extinguished in their holy and ingenuous breasts,' but at the same time he charges the Archbishop of Csesarea with spiritual pride, and gives as an instance, his offer to St. Gregory ' of the wretched village of Sasima out of the fifty bishoprics in his gift, a favour received and perhaps intended, as a cruel insult.' St. Basil the Great, who was surnamed the Torch of the Universe by Theodoret, the Ornament of the Church by St. Isidore of Pelusium, and was spoken of at the Great Council of Chalcedon, held in 451, as the Interpreter of truth to the whole earth, is said to have been directly inspired by the Holy Spirit, and it is related of him, as of St. Gregory the Great and St. John Chrysostom, that a white dove was some- times seen perched on his shoulder whispering in his ear as he was engaged in writing. His works include the so-called ' Liturgy of the Holy Basil,' still in use in the Greek Church, and many eloquent homilies, which are looked upon as price- less heirlooms by Christians of all shades of belief. Many touching legends are related of the miracles performed by the beloved Bishop. On one occasion, when he was praying to God to ward off from the Christians the evils with which they were threatened by Julian the Apostate, St. Mercurius, a martyred soldier who had suffered under Decius, appeared to him in full armour, and told him his petition would be granted. So efficacious, indeed, was the intercession of St. Basil supposed to be, that he was credited with the power ST. BASIL 127 of releasing souls from purgatory, and even to have been able to rescue lost angels who had never lived on earth. One of them knovs^n as Galaxy, who fell from heaven at the same time as Satan himself, and had remained in hell ever since, is said by the Armenians to have been restored to the favour of God by the saintly Bishop, who knew that he had become involved in the ruin of his fellow- sufferers from accident, not from crime. When grouped with the other doctors of the Greek Church, as in the frescoes at Grotta Ferrata and elsewhere, and in two engravings of the ' Acta Sanctorum,' St. Basil wears the ornate robes of his episcopal office, and is distinguished from his colleagues by the great length of his beard, in allusion, according to some authorities, to his having founded the first monastic order in the Greek Church; When he appears as a monk, he wears the simple black tunic, with a cowl and the rope or leather girdle of his own order, which has never varied since its first introduction in his lifetime. Occasionally he holds a scroll bearing a sentence from one of his homilies, beginning, ' None of us who are in bondage of fleshly desires are worthy.' When introduced in devotional pictures, the great Bishop generally holds a church in his right hand, on account of his work in Csesarea or of his foundation of the Basilian Order. Scenes from his life are rare in art, but he is sometimes represented giving a plate of food to a beggar, or receiving the gifts of the faithful at the altar. In S. Maria degli Angeli at Rome is a fine painting by Subleyras, reproduced in mosaics in the Capella Gregoriana of St. Peter's, for which the original drawing is in Louvre, of the dramatic scene in the church at Csesarea, when the Emperor Valens fainted away on the refusal of St. Basil to give him the Holy Sacrament. The Louvre also owns a beautiful interpretation of the character of St. Basil by Francisco de Herrera the elder, who has repre- sented the Bishop dictating to his secretary, and a few episodes from the life of the Bishop are also introduced in the manu- script edition of the sermons of his friend St. Gregory of Nazianzus, preserved in the Biblioth^que Nationale of Paris. 128 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART CHAPTER XII ST. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS As has been pointed out by Mr. Bury, the learned editor of one of the latest editions of Gibbon's ' Rome,' the name by which the great Bishop of Nazianzus is generally known is incorrect. He should be called Gregory of Nazianzus or Gregory Nazianyene, not Gregory Nazianzen. Born at Arianzus, a little village near Nazianzus, he belonged, as did St. Basil, to a family of saints, and was the son of St. Gregory, whom he succeeded in the See of Nazianzus, and St. Norma, his wife, who was celebrated for her piety. Two of his sisters were also canonized, and his boyhood was passed in a refined and sheltered home. He himself relates that when he was still a child he had a won- derful dream, which exercised a considerable influence over his after-life. Two beautiful girls clothed in white, and with faces shining like the stars of heaven, stood beside him, took him in their arms, and kissed him as if he belonged to them. He asked them who they were and whence they came, to which they replied that they were called Chastity and Wisdom, adding : ' We come to thee from Paradise, where we stand ever before the throne of Christ and taste ineffable joy. Come to us and dwell with us for ever.' The vision then gradually faded away, and as the young Gregory stretched out his arms towards his heavenly visitors, he awoke. After spending a short time at one of the celebrated schools of Csesarea, Gregory was sent first to Alexandria, and then to Athens, for the completion of his education. In the latter city he met St. Basil, for whom he at once conceived a great affection, which, but for a brief alienation in later life, he retained to the last. Writing of his attachment to the chosen friend of his youth, St. Gregory says : ' Corporeal love, having for its aim perishable things only, is necessarily perishable like a flower of spring. When the material is exhausted, entirely consumed by fire, the flame goes out for want of food, just as when the beloved matter decomposes love ceases. But the love of souls comes from God, attaches itself to imperishable things, and as a consequence it is eternal and imperishable ST. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS lag even as God is. . . . Souls thus united by a chaste love, the nearer they come to the end of their lives the more they become conscious of the first rays of blessed eternity and the nearer they draw to each other.' When the news of the death of St. Basil was brought to St. Gregory, he expressed his grief in words which call up a vivid picture of their youth together. ' Who,' he said, ' can give me back the happy old days when I was rich with you in the midst of poverty and privation ? Who will give me back the beautiful starlight nights which we passed together singing the praises of God ? Who will restore to me the prayers we prayed in common, the innocent and angelic life we led, the harmony of soul which united us and merged our natures in one pure and sacred fraternity ; our serious and deep studies in the holy books, in which, thanks to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we daily found new truth and light ?' In a letter of con- dolence to St. Basil's mother on the loss of her gifted son, St. Gregory wrote, ' I have lost half myself in losing him,' and added : ' But I see him often in my dreams. He comes to teach, to warn, or to reprove me as he used to do when he was alive.' Beautiful as was the affection between these two great men, it might perhaps have been better for St. Gregory and for those who knew how to value his great gifts of eloquence if he had been less influenced by the ascetic teaching of his friend. The austerities the two practised in their retreat in the desert of Pontus no doubt shortened the lives of both, and greatly marred their powers of usefulness. On leaving Athens, at the age of thirty, St. Gregory was baptized by his father, and resolved to dedicate his whole life to God. To quote his own words once more : ' I have,' he said, ' given all I have to Him, from whom I received it, and have taken Him alone for my whole possession. I have consecrated to Him my goods, my glory, niy health, my tongue, and my talents.' In 358 he joined St. Basil in his retreat on the Iris, but at the urgent request of his father he returned to Nazianzus in 361, where, very much against his own will, he was ordained priest, for he knew that, having once accepted that office, he could no longer rightly shut himself away from work in the Church. He fled back to St. Basil, it is true, but his conscience would not let him rest, and on Easter Day of the same year he reappeared at Nazianzus VOL. II. g 130 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART and was appointed by his father, the Bishop, to preach in the great church. The eloquent oration delivered on this occasion, which has been preserved under the name of St. Gregory's ' Apology for his flight,' proved to all who heard it how mistaken the speaker was in thinking he could best serve God by silence. His own resolution was, however, unchanged. He assisted the Bishop for some little time in his work at Nazianzus, accepted in 371 the bishopric of Sasima, given to him by St. Basil, but he never took up his residence there, and on the death of his father, in 374, he was appointed his successor. Nominally Bishop, St. Gregory spent most of his time in a monastery at Seleucia, but after the death of the Emperor Valens, he was persuaded to go to Constantinople, then the scene of a fierce struggle between the orthodox Christians and the Arians, to take charge of a small congregation still faithful to the doctrine known as the Nicene. Here his learning and eloquence soon won him a great number of adherents, and after a couple of years of fruit- ful work he was made by the Emperor Theodosius, Archbishop of the capital of the East, a dignity he would gladly have dispensed with. This appointment so enraged the Arians that they made several attempts to assassinate the new prelate, and St. Gregory, who would not have yielded from any fear of death, saw in this hostility his opportunity to escape from the honour he had never sought. At a great assembly of digni- taries of the Church, he is said to have cried out : ' If my hold- ing the See of Constantinople gives any disturbance, behold, I am very willing, like Jonah, to be cast into the sea to appease the storm, though I did not raise it. If all followed my example, the Church would enjoy an uninterrupted tranquillity. This dignity I never desired. I took this charge upon me much against my will ; if you think fit, I am most ready to depart, and I will return back to my little cottage.' The Bishops, astonished at such a speech from a man so much dreaded, gladly accepted his resignation ; but, as St. Gregory himself well knew, this was not enough to release him from an appointment bestowed on him by the Emperor, so he went direct from the church to the palace, flung himself on his knees before . the astonished Theodosius, and said to him : ' I am come to ask neither riches nor honours for myself or friends, nor ornaments for the churches, but license to retire. Your Majesty knows how much against my will I was placed in this chair. ... I ST. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS 131 beseech you, and this is my last petition, that among your triumphs you make this the greatest, that you restore to the Church unity and concord.' With infinite difficulty Theodosius was persuaded to grant this strange request, and in the great church of St. Sophia, St. Gregory, in a magnificent and most pathetic sermon, bade farewell to his beloved flock, concluding with the touching words : ' Dear children, preserve the deposit of faith, and forget not the stones which have been thrown at me because I planted it in your hearts.' Followed out of the city by a weeping crowd who vainly entreated him not to leave them, St. Gregory left Constanti- nople never to return, and after a short visit to Nazianzus, where he appointed Eulalius to the bishopric in his stead, he withdrew to his little cottage at Arianzus, where he remained until his death in 389, spending his leisure in writing poems and homilies, many of which are still unsurpassed for beauty of diction and spirituality of feeling. He was buried a.t Nazianzus, but in 930 his remains were translated to Constanti- nople, whence they were later removed to Rome and re-interred in St. Peter's. The first Christian poet, and surnamed the Theologian on account of his great eloquence in defending the Nicene Creed against the attacks of the Arians, St. Gregory of Nazianzus will ever hold an exceptional position in the Greek Church ; but in the West his fame has been completely overshadowed by that of his namesake, St. Gregory the Great. He appears, of course, with the other Greek Fathers, amongst whom he is distinguished by his short, bushy beard, in ecclesiastical decora- tions, and elsewhere, sometimes holding a scroll with the words in Greek : ' God the Holy among the Holies, the thrice holy,' but almost the only examples of representations of scenes from his life are the ninth-century miniatures in the manu- script edition of his ' Orations,' preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, already referred to in connection with St. Basil, and a painting in the Louvre by Jacques Callot, representing the vision referred to above. 9—2 132 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART CHAPTER XIII ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM The most popular, and at the same time, perhaps, also the most saintly of the four Greek Fathers, St. John Chrysostom, or the golden-mouthed — so called on account of his great eloquence — was born at Antioch about 347, and was brought up as a Christian by his widowed mother Arethusa. He was educated as a lawyer, and had a.lready won great renown as a pleader at the bar, when at the age of twenty-six he resolved to renounce the world. When the young John declared that the only true way of serving God was to lead a life of solitary penitence, Arethusa, a woman of cultured intellect, and endowed with the yet rarer gift of practical common- sense, tried in vain to convince him that his resolution was at the best a selfish one. He escaped from Antioch and hid himself in the desert, where he remained for nearly six years, weakening himself so much by fasting and self- inflicted penance that he was at last obliged to return home to save his life. Back again in Antioch, he attracted the notice of the Bishop, St. Meletius, who persuaded him to live with him for three years, ordained him Reader, and endeavoured to win him from his undue love of silence and solitude. For a time it seemed as if he had succeeded, but in 374 St. John fled once more to the desert, where he joined a community of anchorites, celebrated even in that day of asceti- cism for the severity of their self-discipline. It was not, indeed, until he was already past forty that the real work of the life of St. John Chrysostom began, when the holy Bishop Honorius, to whom the Christians owed so much, induced him finally to abandon his retreat and become a preacher of the Gospel in his native city. Ordained priest in 386, a white dove, it is said, hovering above his head at his consecration, St. John of the Golden Mouth very quickly proved how true had been his mother's judgment concerning him, for he won over to the Church such numbers of converts that the building in which he preached was soon too small to hold his congregation. When the people of Antioch fell under the just displeasure of the ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM 133 Emperor, it was St. John who composed the speech of St. Flavianus, which so touched the heart of the Emperor that he granted a full pardon to the offenders. Again, when the Roman supremacy was divided between the sons of Theodosius I., and Arcadius became the Emperor of the East, the voice of St. Chrysostom was often fearlessly raised against the luxury of the Court. He became indeed so great a power in the land that in 397, by the advice of Eutropius, the favourite eunuch of Arcadius, he was made Archbishop of Constantinople on the death of Nectarius. The thought of losing their beloved teacher so moved the people of Antioch that they refused to let him go, and it was not until an armed escort was sent to fetch him that he was able to start for his new sphere of action. Arrived in the capital of the East, St. John at once set to work to practise the doctrines he had preached as a priest. He reduced the number of the servants in his palace, leading a life almost as austere as he had done in the desert, and giving away so much money in charity that he became known as St. John the Almoner. Not long after his accession to the archiepiscopal throne, occurred one of the most striking incidents of his remarkable career : his rescue of Eutropius from the fury of the mob. The eunuch, who had so long virtually ruled the Empire, was suddenly disgraced, the Empress Eudoxia having complained to her husband of a real or imaginary insult he had offered to herself. Pursued by the officers of justice sent to arrest him, the unhappy man fled to the cathedral for sanctuary, and took refuge beneath the altar at which the Archbishop was officiating. St. John Chrysostom, unmoved by the clamours of the people, or by the fact that a troop of soldiers with drawn swords surrounded the building, ascended the pulpit, that he might, says Gibbon, ' be distinctly seen and heard by an innumerable crowd of either sex and every age, and pronounced a reasonable and pathetic discourse on the forgive- ness of injuries and the instability of human greatness. The agonies of the pale and affrighted wretch,' continues the historian, ' grovelling under the table of the altar, exhibited a solemn and instructive spectacle, and the orator, who was afterwards accused of insulting the misfortunes of Eutropius, laboured to excite the contempt that he might assuage the fury of the people.' Eutropius escaped for the time, only to 134 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART be impeached for high treason and beheaded a few months later, but the fame of the man who had been able to hold spell-bound by his eloquence, so many thirsting for vengeance, and to induce even the Emperor to respect the sanctuary of the Church, became so great that St. John, in his turn, aroused the jealousy of Eudoxia, who, having got rid of Eutropius, now determined to bring about also the exile of his rescuer. St. John, it is said, had aroused her special animosity by his sermons against extravagance in dress, which she chose to think were intended to apply specially to her. Aided by the influence of Theophilus, the Patriarch of Alex- andria, who was also incensed against the Archbishop on account of his admission to communion of certain so-called heretics, the Empress succeeded in obtaining a decree of banishment against him, and he was driven out of Constanti- nople in 403, after preaching a farewell sermon full of the noblest resignation to the will of God, in which he declared himself ready to die a thousand deaths for his people, if he could only save their souls. ' Violent storms encompass me on all sides,' he exclaimed, ' yet I am without fear, because I stand upon a rock. Though the sea roar, and the waves rise high, they cannot sink the vessel of Jesus. I always say,' he added, ' O Lord, may Thy will be done : not what this or that creature wills, but what it shall please Thee to appoint, that shall I do and suffer with joy. This is my strong tower ; this is my unshaken rock ; this is my staff that can never fail.' The soldiers sent to see that the Emperor was obeyed were only able to fulfil their duty through the aid of the victim him- self, who managed to elude the vigilance of his friends and to deliver himself into the hands of his enemies. He had not, however, been gone from the city many days before a terrible earthquake took place, which so alarmed the guilty conscience of the Empress that she entreated Arcadius to recall St. John, crying in her terror, ' If he do not return our Empire is undone.' The Emperor consented, and the Archbishop was brought back again in triumph, all the inhabitants of the town going out to meet him. He was, however, again banished in the following year, and he was never afterwards allowed to return. When, on the death of Eudoxia, the broken-hearted widower Arcadius wrote to the celebrated hermit, St. Nilus, asking his prayers for the Empire, the holy man replied : ' How A li?iari [St. Gian Grisostomo, Venice ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM By Sebastiano del Piombo To face p. 134 ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM 135 do you hope to see Constantinople delivered from the destroying angel of God after . . . having banished the most blessed John, the pillar of the Church, the lamp of truth, the greatest light of the earth !' Meanwhile many powerful statesmen had endeavoured to obtain the recall of St. John, but their importunity, unfortunately, only led to fresh proceedings against him. He had taken refuge at Nicsea, and was there fervently preaching the Gospel, when orders were received that he should be removed to the little town of Cucusus, in a remote district of the Taurus Mountains. There he was received with the greatest enthusiasm by the inhabitants, and was allowed to remain unmolested for a short time, converting many Persians to Christianity, and writing numerous beautiful letters and essays, full of touching resignation, proving how true was his own assertion : ' None can trust the man who will not trust himself.' The three years spent at Cucusus and the neighbouring town of Arabissus, were, says Gibbon, ' the last and most glorious of the life of the great teacher. His character was consecrated by absence and persecution . . . every tongue repeated the praises of his genius and virtue, and the respectful attention of the Christian world was fixed on a desert spot among the mountains of Taurus.' The Emperor Honorius, recognising how great a mistake had been made in banishing such a man, endeavoured to get his cause brought before what the historian calls ' the supreme tribunal of a free and general council.' But it was all in vain ; the enemies of the Saint were too powerful, and the weak-minded, Arcadius could not be induced to interfere in his behalf. The agitation in favour of St. John resulted merely in a fresh edict of banishment against him. He was to be removed at once from the new home he had learnt to love, to the yet more remote town of Pytius on the Euxine. It is even believed by some that secret orders were given, to the officers sent to take him there, to bring about his death on the road, if possible, and so end all further trouble on his behalf. Worn out with all he had gone through, and with a constitution weakened by his early austerities, the much-persecuted Saint, though as yet only sixty years old, was in no fit state to travel, and he died on the road after terrible sufferings. It is related that on the eve of his death he was allowed to rest for a few hours in a little wayside shrine above the remains of the 136 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART martyr St. Basiliscus, who appeared to him in a dream, and said to him : ' Be of good courage, Brother John ; to-morrow we shall be together.' This greatly cheered the Archbishop, and when he awoke he begged his guards to let him remain in the shrine for a few hours longer, in the hope of thus winning per- mission to die in peace. They refused, and compelled him to proceed, but he had not gone far before it became evident that he was dying, and touched, perhaps, at last by his patient suffering, the men carried him back to the shrine and laid him down on it. With a touching desire to do honour to the moment of his meeting with the Lord he had served so well, St. John persuaded his companions to allow him to put on his white robes. His last prayer is said to have been the beautiful one still in use in the English Church, ending with the petition, * granting us in this world knowledge of Thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting,' and when the Amen had been said he died with the words ' Glory be to God in all things ' trembling on his lips. He was buried beside St. Basiliscus, but his body was translated to Constantinople in 434, where it was re-interred with great pomp in the Church of the Apostles, in the presence of the Emperor Theodosius II., who, it is related, had gone out to meet the funeral procession at Chalcedon, and there, ' falling prostrate on the coffin, had implored in the 'name of his guilty parents, Arcadius and Eudoxia, the forgiveness of the injured Saint.' The noble simplicity and unselfish devotion of the life of St. John Chrysostom have not, unfortunately, prevented the growth of many incongruous legends respecting him, which are without any foundation in fact, and are altogether out of harmony with his character. The beautiful and significant name of the Golden-mouthed is explained as having reference to an interview between St. John and the devil, in which the latter, eager to prevent the writing of words which would win souls to God, upset the Saint's inkhorn. St. John appealed to heaven for aid, and, impelled to put his pen in his mouth by unseen guidance, he drew it out filled with golden ink. In the words of a quaint old French manuscript, with a representation in miniature of the interview, preserved in the Biblioth^que Nationale of Paris : ' En sa bouche I'enkre prenoit, sa salive devenoit ors.' The writer further explains that after this all the books of the Saint were written in gold : ' Quant sene ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM 137 fut la novele, que ses livres tot d'or escrit, et qu'en sa bouche destrempre prist, par miracle, Dieu en loferent, et pus bouche d'or I'apel^rent.' Absurd as is this explanation of a surname, the meaning of which is apparent to the least observant, it is excelled in grotesqueness by the horrible legend relating to the so-called Penitence of St. John Chrysostom, alluded to here only on account of its representation in art. This libel — for libel it certainly is — on the memory of a man whose life was exception- ally pure, appears to have originated in Italy in the fifteenth century, and it so took the popular fancy that it became the theme of many ballads, which were reprinted again and again, and translated with variations into German and French. Briefly told, the story is this : during his seclusion in the desert, St. John the golden - mouthed was visited by a beautiful girl to whom he became greatly attached, and who bore him a son. Just before the birth of the child was to take place, the Saint repented of his wickedness, and flung the expectant mother down a precipice. He then resolved to do seven years' penance for his double crime, swearing that he would neither eat bread, drink wine, look up into the face of heaven, or speak either in Greek or Latin, unless in the interval an infant of seven days old should open its mouth and say, ' Heaven hath pardoned thee ; go in peace.' The introduction of this saving clause, with its naive leaving open of a door of escape, is enough to betray the popular origin of the story, and the event proved how wise was the reservation. The Saint, after making his vow, stripped himself naked, and spent many months, some versions of the legend say years, walking on all fours on the ground like a wild beast. At last the strange animal was found by the huntsmen of the King of the country, and taken home to be added to the royal menagerie. Not long after a son was born to the Queen, and when the infant was seven days old he astonished everyone by proclaim- ing in perfectly intelligible language that God had forgiven the sins of the hermit. The wonderful tale concludes with the finding of the poor girl, who had been thrown down the precipice, alive and well, with a beautiful child of seven years old beside her. She turns out to be of royal birth, and is restored to her parents with much rejoicing, whilst the pardoned Saint returns to his cell, there to resume his life of solitary meditation. 138 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART Sometimes the incident of the golden ink is worked into the same legend as the Penance story, and the devil is left out altogether. The new-born babe challenges St. John to speak, but he makes signs that he will write. An inkstand is brought, and turns out to be empty, so the hermit wets his pen in his mouth, which becomes filled with golden ink. In yet another version the precocious baby declines to be baptized by the Pope, who has come a long distance to perform the ceremony, and cries aloud three times, ' I will not be baptized by thee, but by St. John,' an appeal the supposed wild beast responds to with eager joy. Many quaint illustrations of details of the Penance legend are introduced in mediaeval collections of legends, and it has been treated also by the Behams, Albrecht Diirer, and Lucas ■ Cranach, who have all represented the wronged woman and her child in the foreground, whilst St. John is seen grovelling on the ground in the background, wearing, in the engravings by Durer and the Behams, a singularly incongruous halo about his head. Amongst the attributes given to St. John Chrysostom, who is more often introduced in devotional pictures in the Roman Catholic Church than any of the other Greek Fathers, are a pen, the usual symbol of a writer ; a beehive, in allusion, it is supposed, to his honeyed words ; and a dove, in remembrance of the incident said to have taken place at his ordination. When he holds a scroll, it generally bears the words, ' God our God, who has given us for food the Bread of Life,' a quotation from one of his own homilies. St. John Chrysostom is sometimes represented being carried along in a fainting condition by his escort of soldiers, or bound to an ass, with his head drooping from exhaustion. He is introduced with St. Athanasius, St. Leo, and St. Thomas Aquinas, amongst the Latin Fathers in the Chapel of Nicholas V. in the Vatican ; in S. Giovanni Elemosinaro at Venice is a fine composition by Titian, representing the Patriarch of Alexandria as the Almsgiver seated on a raised podium, with a beggar at his feet, and in S. Giovanni Crisostomo in the same city is a grand Altar-piece by Sebastiano del Piombo, considered one of his greatest works, in which St. John Chrysostom is enthroned, attended by numerous saints, including Augustine and John the Baptist. In a chapel Alt iiari photo] \_S. Giovanni Elemosinario, Venice THE CHARITY OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM By Titian To face p. 138 ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA 139 on the left of the choir the golden-mouthed Father appears again, grouped with Saints Andrew, Onofrio, and Agnes. The character of St. John has also been finely interpreted by Rubens in a painting now in private possession, in which the Patriarch holds a chalice in one hand and rests the left on the Gospels, whilst above his head hovers the dove, typical of the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. CHAPTER XIV ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA St. Cyril of Alexandria, whose name is inseparably con- nected with the great controversy on the subject of the Incar- nation of our Lord, waged during his episcopate, was born towards the close of the fourth century, though exactly when is not known. Educated by his uncle Theophilus, then Arch- bishop of Alexandria, he imbibed from him all the most advanced ideas as to the authority of the priesthood, and the necessity for rigorous measures against those who differed from the interpretation of doctrine accepted as orthodox by the Church. Sent to study for a few years under the celebrated Abbot Serapion in one of the monasteries of Nitria, the young Cyril worked with such ardour that he quickly mastered all the learning of the Fathers. ' He extended round his cell,' says Gibbon, 'the cobwebs of scholastic theology, and whilst outwardly engaged in praying and fasting, his thoughts were ever fixed upon the world, to which he longed to return. When the summons came at last, he hastened eagerly back to Alexandria, was ordained priest by his uncle, and his eloquent sermons soon made him famous throughout the city. Of noble presence and with a voice of remarkable sweetness, he soon became greatly beloved, and when Theophilus died he was chosen to succeed him as Patriarch, in spite of the opposition of the military authorities. He began his episcopate with stern measures against all who did not agree with him, for- bidding the so-called Novatians to meet for worship, and expelling the Jews from Alexandria. When Orestes the Prefect complained of the exile of so many wealthy and harm- 140 THE SAINTS IN CHRISTIAN ART less citizens, Cyril refused to rescind his orders, taking no measures to prevent the tumult which ensued, during which Orestes himself was attacked by a band of monks from the desert. A stone flung by one of them named Ammonius wounded the Governor in the face. His guards seized the offender, and he was scourged to death by the lictors. Cyril then ordered the body of the victim to be escorted by a solemn procession of clergy to the cathedral, where it was interred with all the pomp befitting the funeral of a martyr, and in an eloquent oration from the pulpit the Patriarch denounced Orestes as a murderer. The tragedy of the death of Ammonius was soon followed by another, which has left an indelible stain upon the name of Cyril. The beautiful Hypatia, whose character has been so nobly interpreted by Charles Kingsley in his romance named after her, was then in the zenith of her fame, her wisdom and learning attracting crowds to her lectures. Even the great orator and poet, the Bishop Synesius, was content to sit at her feet, and Orestes often consulted her in his political difficulties. She was the idol of the young men of Alexandria, but kept all her lovers at a distance, devoting herself to the care of her old father, Theon, a well-known mathematician. After the death of Ammonius a rumour was spread — by whom originated it is impossible to say, but Cyril himself has been accused — to the effect that the only obstacle to a reconciliation between the Archbishop and the Governor was the influence of Hypatia. In the state of excitement then prevailing a whisper was enough. A mob of monks and priests, led by a lay-reader named Peter, stopped Hypatia's carriage in the street, tore her from it, and dragged her to the church, at the entrance to which she was literally torn to pieces, Cyril, who even at the last might have rescued her if he would, moving not a finger to save her. Terrible as was this crime, and undoubted as was the share taken in it by the Patriarch, it did not, strange to say, lessen his influence in Alexandria, and, rare fact in that day of sudden changes, he retained his position as Patriarch, in spite of having been twice formally deposed by the Emperor, until his death in 444. The latter part of his life was spent in a bitter persecution of Nestorius, the founder of an important sect, who had refused to accept the title given by St. Cyril, ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA 141 at the Council of Ephesus, to the Blessed Virgin of @eoSoxo