THE LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES FROM SAINT PETER TO GREGORY I THE GREAT

 

LIBERIUS

A.D. 352-366

 

LIBERIUS, a Roman, the son of Augustus, lived in the times of Constantius and Constans. For Constantine, as I said before, engaging unadvisedly in a war against his brother Constans, was therein slain. And Constans himself, having fought with various success against the Persians, being forced by a tumult in the army to join battle at midnight, was at last routed, and designing after wards to make an example of his seditious soldiers, was by the fraud and treachery of Magnentius slain at a town called Helena, in the seventeenth year of his reign, and the thirtieth of his age.

Constans being dead, the old firebrands of the Arian heresy began afresh to make head against Athanasius. For in a council held at Milan, all those that favoured Athanasius were banished. Moreover, at the council of Ariminum, because the subtle, crafty eastern prelates were too hard at argument and disputation for the honest well-meaning bishops of the west, it was thought good to let fall the debate for a time; the Orientalist denied Christ to be of the same substance with the Father.

Liberius was frequently invited to condemn Athanasius, the energetic partisan of the doctrines of Nice; but Liberius, no less courageous, showed the true rock of the Church. Bold against all threats, insensible to all promises, he had to be torn from his flock. Carried to Milan, before the Emperor Constantius, he dared to refuse the condemnation of the holy doctor, because he knew his innocence and the malignity against him of the Arians, and also because such a condemnation would have aimed a mortal blow at the Council of Nice, of which Athanasius was the most zealous defender. Constantius threatened the pope with exile. Liberius replied: "We have already given our last farewell to our brethren at Rome; and we attach more value to the ecclesiastical laws than to our continued residence in that city". The emperor instantly ordered that Liberius should be taken to Berea, in Thrace. Before his departure he was visited by an officer of the prince, who offered him a sum sufficient for the journey. Liberius replied : "Tell the emperor to keep the money to pay his soldiers and to gratify the greed of his ministers". He also refused another sum which was offered to him by the empress, and another sent to him by the eunuch Eusebius, one of the principal officers of the imperial court.

This because Bishop Liberius did at first oppose, and because he refused to condemn Athanasius at the Emperor's command, he was banished by the Arians, and forced to absent from the city for the space of three years. In which time the clergy, being assembled in a synod, in the place of Liberius made choice of Felix, a presbyter, an excellent person, and who, immediately after his choice, did in a convention of forty-eight bishops excommunicate Ursatius and Valens, two presbyters, for being of the Emperor's opinion in religion. Hereupon, at their request and importunity, Constans recalls Liberius from exile : who being wrought upon by the kindness of the Emperor, though he became, as some tell us, in all other things heretical, yet in this particular tenet was on the orthodox side, that heretics returning to the Church ought not to be rebaptized.

It is said that Liberius did for some time live in the cemetery of St Agnes with Constantia, the Emperor's sister, that so through her assistance and intercession he might procure a safe return to the city; but she being a Catholic, and apprehending he might have some ill design, utterly refused to engage in it. At length Constantius, at the instance of Ursatius and Valens, deposed Felix, and restored Liberius. Upon which there arose so fierce a persecution, that the presbyters and other clergy were in many places murdered in their very churches.

When the pontiff was in exile, a council was held at Sirmium, a city of Lower Hungary, of more than three hundred bishops, for the condemnation of Photinus, bishop of that city, who, with his master, Paul of Samosata, maintained that Jesus was not God, but only a man. In this council the Arians drew up a formula of the faith. Some authors say that Liberius, depressed by threats of death, consented to the condemnation of Athanasius, and was reduced to enter into communion with the Arians. Novaes relates, but with a kind of regret, what Baronius says about that "fall" : "No truer history can be found". Natalis Alexander and Tillemont manifest the same feeling. Novaes adds that many modern criticisms go to show that this is false and very false. He quotes the critical dissertation on Pope Liberius written by the Abbé Corgne, who maintains the non-authenticity of the "fall" of Liberius. However, those who believe in the possibility of such fall endeavor to show that the pope did not directly offend the Catholic faith. Sangallo, especially, takes that view. However, if this asserted weakness on the part of Liberius was true (which cannot be admitted), the pope subsequently effaced it by his exemplary conduct, since he has merited the title of saint in several martyrologies. Moreover, it is ascertained that the most distinguished among the Roman matrons demanded from the emperor the recall of Liberius from exile, which Constantius could not refuse.

Some tell us that they were the Roman ladies at a circus show, who by their entreaties obtained of the Emperor this restoration of Liberius, who, though he were of the Arian opinion, yet was very diligent in beautifying consecrated places, and particularly the cemetery of St Agnes, and the church which he built and called by his own name, near the market-place of Livia.

When Liberius returned to Rome, a council was assembled at Rimini, in 359, at which there were present four hundred bishops, eighty of whom were Arians. In that council, which commenced favorably but terminated disastrously, the bishops, who at first had confirmed the profession of faith of the Council of Nice, and condemned and excommunicated Arsacius and Valens and their Arian accomplices, allowed themselves to be ill-treated by Constantius; and, deceived by the intrigues of the Arian bishops, they subscribed the false formula of the Council of Sirmium, which concealed the culpable intention. These bishops thus consented to the omission of the words substance and consubstantial, as the monks of St. Maur observe.

Liberius, who doubtless was no longer in those circumstances in which the most upright intentions are sometimes misjudged, because ordinary men are inclined to believe that one must always submit when unfortunate, Liberius, urged by Constantine to ratify that fraudulent consent of the bishops, not only gave a flat refusal, but actually excommunicated the signing bishops, which at that time could not but make a great impression. Driven forth again from Rome, he concealed himself in the hallowed cemeteries, and remained there till the close of his life.

This pontiff, and John, a Roman patrician, it is said, had a vision, afterwards confirmed by a miraculous fall of snow on the Esquiline Mount, on the 5th of August, which made known the site and the form of the church which the Mother of God desired to be built in her honor. Liberius traced the foundations upon which John built that church, which was consecrated in 353 and called the Liberian. It is also known as Saint Mary Major, to show that among all the churches dedicated to Our Lady it holds the first rank. It is also named Mary al Praesepio, on account of the relic of the manger in which lay the infant Jesus, which is preserved in that same church.

During these calamitous times lived Eusebius, Bishop of Emissa, who wrote very learnedly and elegantly against the Jews, Gentiles, and Novatians. Triphyllius, also bishop of Ledra or Leutheon, in Cyprus, wrote a large and exact commentary upon the Canticles. Moreover, Donatus an African (from whom the sect of the Donatists are denominated) was so industrious in writing against the Catholic doctrine, that he infected almost all Africa and Judaea with his false opinions. He affirmed the Son to be inferior to the Father, and the Holy Spirit inferior to the Son, and rebaptized all those whom he could pervert to his own sect. Several of his heretical writings were extant in the time of St Hierom, and particularly one book on the Holy Spirit, agreeing exactly with the Arian doctrine. And that the Arians might neglect no ill arts of promoting their opinions, Asterius, a philosopher of that faction, at the command of Constantius, compiled divers commentaries upon the Epistle to the Romans, the gospels, and the psalms, which were diligently read by those of that party to confirm them in their persuasion. Moreover, Lucifer, Bishop of Cagliari, together with Pancratius the presbyter, and Hilarius the deacon, were sent in an embassy from the bishop to the emperor; and being by him banished for refusing to renounce the Nicene, under the name of the Athanasian faith, he wrote a book against Constantius, and sent it to him to read. But, notwithstanding this provocation, he lived till the time of Valentinian. It is said also, that Fortunatus, Bishop of Aquileia, had been tampering with Liberius just before his banishment, and endeavouring to bring him over to the Arian heresy.

Serapion likewise, who for his great parts had deservedly given him the surname of Scholasticus, compiled an excellent book against Manichaeus, nor could all the menaces of the emperor make him desist from the open confession of the truth; but on the contrary, hoping to have rendered Constantius more favourable to Athanasius the Great (so called from the constant and unwearied opposition which he always kept up against pagans and heretics), into his presence he boldly goes, nor did the threats of so great a prince cause him to stir one step backward from his constancy and resolution.

It is affirmed that he ordered that, during fast-days, litigation should cease, and that he reprimanded those of the faithful who, during Lent, enforced their claims upon their debtors. It is to one of his precepts that the custom is owing of abstaining from marriage during Lent.

In two ordinations Liberius created nineteen bishops, eighteen priests, and five deacons. He governed the Church fourteen years, four months, and two days, and died on the 9th of December, A.D. 366, and was interred in the cemetery of Priscilla, on the Salarian Way. The Holy See was vacant ten days.

Though we have quite correctly given the date of 366 in the previous paragraph, it will be noticed that in the next heading we go back to the year 359, the date of the accession of Felix, who probably had some intermediate authority during the troubles of Liberius.

 

SAINT FELIX II

A.D. 356

 

FELIX the Second, a Roman, the son of Anastasius, was Bishop of Rome in the reign of Constantius, who by the death of Constans, slain by Magnentius, becoming now sole emperor, sent into Gallia to suppress a sedition arisen there, his cousin-german Julian, whom he had created Caesar; who in a short time, by his great valour and conduct, reduced both the Gauls and Germans; whereby he gained so much the affections of the army, that by universal consent they made him emperor. At the news of this, Constantius, who was engaged in a war with the Parthians, suddenly strikes up a truce with them, and forthwith marches forward to oppose Julian; but in his march being seized with an apoplexy, he died between Cilicia and Cappadocia, at a town called Mopsocrene, in the twenty-fourth year of his reign, and of his age the forty-fifth. The physicians were of opinion that the excessive grief and anxiety of mind which the rebellion of Julian had brought upon him, was the occasion of that fatal distemper to him. He was (excepting always the case of the Christians, against whom he was unjust and cruel) a person of so great moderation and clemency, that, according to the ancient custom, he deserved an apotheosis. Upon his first undertaking the government, at his entering triumphantly by the Via Flaminia into the city of Rome in his golden chariot, he did with wonderful condescension take notice of and salute the citizens that went out to meet him, affirming that of Cyneas, the ambassador of Pyrrhus, to be true, that he saw at Rome as many kings as there were citizens. In one thing only he was the occasion of laughter to the people, viz., that as he passed through the lofty gates of the city, and the stately triumphal arches, though he were a man of very little stature, yet as though he feared to hit his head against the tops of them, he bowed it down low, like a goose stooping as she goes in at a barn door. Being conducted to view the rarities of the city, and beholding with admiration the Campus Martius, the sepulchre of Augustus Caesar, adorned with so many statues of marble and brass, the Forum Romanum, the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, the baths, the porticoes, enlarged like so many provinces, the amphitheatre, built with Tiburtine stone of so vast a height that a man's eye could scarce reach to the top of it, the Pantheon, built with stately arches, of a wonderful altitude, the temple of peace, Pompey's theatre, the great cirque, the Septizonium of Severus, so many triumphal arches, so many aqueducts, so many statues erected here and there throughout the city for ornament; beholding all this, I say, he at first stood astonished, and at length declared, that certainly Nature had laid out all her stock upon one city. At the sight of the famous horse of brass set up by Trajan, he desired of Hormisda, an excellent workman whom he had brought along with him, that he would make such another for him at Constantinople, to whom Hormisda replied that the emperor ought then to build such another stable (meaning the city of Rome). The same Hormisda being asked by Constantius what he thought of the city of Rome, returned an answer becoming a philosopher, that all which pleased him in it was, that he understood that there also men were wont to die.

Felix, who, as we have said, was put into the place of Liberius by the orthodox (though Eusebius and St Hierom, which I much wonder at, affirm it to have been done by the heretics), presently after his entrance upon the pontificate pronounces Constantius, the son of Constantine the Great, a heretic, and rebaptized by Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia, in a little town called Aquilo, not far from Nicomedia. And hereby may be discovered the error of those who accuse Constantine the Great himself of this heresy an imputation which certainly, as appears by history, neither ought nor can be fastened upon that great prince and great favourer of the Christian religion. While this great contention which we have spoken of between Liberius and Felix lasted, the Arian heresy branched itself into two factions. For on the one side Eunomis (from whom they were called Eunomians), a man leprous both in body and mind, and who had a falling sickness as well within as without, affirmed that in all things the Son was unequal to the Father, and that the Holy Spirit had no community of essence with the Father or the Son.

Authors differ as to the exact circumstances under which Felix thus acted. Did he act as the absent pope's vicar? Did he usurp authority? Or was he, with the absent pope's consent, actually, though privately and only temporarily, elected pope, with the understanding that on the return of Liberius, should that ever take place, Felix would retire? Be that as it may, it is certain that when Liberius did return, Felix laid down his authority, and went to practise the Christian virtues in retirement.

On the other side, Macedonius, whom the orthodox had made Bishop of Constantinople before he became erroneous in his opinions, was renounced by the Arians, for holding the Son to be equal with the Father, though he uttered the same blasphemies against the Holy Spirit that themselves did. It is said that Felix held a council of forty-eight bishops, in which it was decreed that all bishops should attend in person at every General Council, or else by letter give a good account why they could not; which decree was afterwards renewed in the Council of Carthage.

In his time lived Acacius, for his having but one eye called Monophthalmus, Bishop of Cesarea in Palestine, who wrote largely upon Ecclesiastes, and who by his fair speech and swimming carriage had gained such an ascendant over Constantius that he himself undertook to appoint Felix, an Arian, to be bishop in room of Liberius. This St Hierom tells us, though I much marvel at it, since, as we have already said, it is evident that Felix was a Catholic, and a constant opposer of the Arians. At length, after Felix had done all that in him lay for the propagation and defence of the true faith, he was seized by his enemies, and together with many orthodox believers, was slain and buried in a church which he himself had built in the Via Aurelia, two miles from the city, November the 20th. He was in the chair only one year, four months, two days, through the means of a sedition raised by Liberius (whom I have in serted into the number of bishops, more upon the authority of Damasus, than for any deserts of his own).

 

In a single ordination he created nineteen bishops, twenty-seven priests, and five deacons. While he held the supreme authority in the Church he had the courage to condemn Constantius as an Arian; and on the return of Liberius, the emperor in revenge condemned Felix II to exile in the little town of Cori, on the Aurelian Way, seventeen miles from Rome. There he suffered martyrdom with great courage. It may not be superfluous to add that even after the triumph of the Church great cruelties were inflicted upon the Christians. As the chief of the state was himself a Christian, there was no longer even the wretched excuse of a mistaken religious zeal; but heretics pursued those whom they deemed enemies as fiercely as any pagans could.

The body of Felix, being brought to Rome, was interred at the baths of Trajan, and subsequently placed by Saint Damasus in the basilica which Felix himself had caused to be constructed on the Aurelian Way, two miles from Rome. From this the body was removed into the Church of Saints Cosmo and Damian. In the reign of Pope Gregory XIII there arose a question between the Cardinals Baronius and Santorio as to whether the name of Felix should be retained in the Roman Martyrology as pontiff and as martyr. San- torio maintained that it was clearly right, and on the 22d of July, 1582, the evening of the feast of Saint Felix, that saint's body was found in the above-mentioned Church of Saint Cosmo and Saint Damian, and the inscription described him as having been pontiff and martyr. Many modern critics erase him from the list of pontiffs, on the ground that that inscription is not authentic.

Some writers maintain that the body is preserved at Padua, in the Church of the Cordeliers, and that the coffin bears an inscription with the title of saint, placed on it in 1503.

Even in our own day there are different opinions as to the legitimacy of the papacy of Felix II. Various authors consider him a legitimate pope, and Bellarmine even wrote an apologetical dissertation in support of that view. On the other hand, there are not wanting some who deny that he was either saint, or pope, or martyr, and consider that he was an antipope, and even erroneous in his doctrines; of this opinion are Natalis Alexander, Sangallo, Fleury, and Christianus Lupus. The celebrated Monsignor Borgia, afterwards cardinal, said upon this subject: "The legitimacy of Felix is demonstrated to those who believe in the fall of Liberius."

Shortly after the pontificate of Damasus I, the successor of Liberius and Felix II, we must place the reign of the Emperor Julian, surnamed the Apostate, son of Julius Constantius, brother of the great Constantine. He was near perishing with his brother Gallus in a terrible massacre of his family by the sons of Constantine, and was only saved by the care of Mark, Bishop of Aristus, who concealed him in the sanctuary of his church, a circumstance which subsequently added to the horror of his apostasy. Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was charged with the education of Julian and Gallus, gave them a tutor named Mardonius, who endeavored to inspire them with gravity, modesty, and contempt for sensual pleasures.

These young princes entered into the order of the clergy, and performed the duty of readers, but with very different sentiments upon religion. Gallus had much piety, while Julian had a secret leaning to the worship of false gods, and his inclinations broke forth when, at the age of twenty-four, he was sent to Athens, where he was addicted to astrology, magic, and all the vain illusions of paganism. It is chiefly to that sacrilegious curiosity about the future that we must attribute the apostasy of that young prince, who gave no reason for suspicion till after the death of Constantius. Julian, being named Caesar by Constantius, distinguished himself in Gaul, and gained a victory over seven German kings near Strasburg. Subsequently his soldiers declared him emperor. He was then at Paris, where he had built a palace, of which the remains are still visible. Subsequently Julian was recognized as emperor in the East, as he already had been in the West. The pagan philosophers by whom he was surrounded persuaded him to annihilate Christianity and to revive idolatry. At first he employed only mild means, but he afterwards ordered cruelty and bloodshed. Iondot says of this emperor that "his character presents one of the most embarrassing problems of history. He was humane and sanguinary, disinterested and prodigal, harsh to himself, and too indulgent to the sophists, his favorites; he combined the contraries, and was at the same time an Alexander and a Diogenes". The Cardinal Gerdil, in his Considerations upon Julian, has well described him. The edict of that em- peror against the Christians is a tissue of false reasonings, of which Voltaire has reproduced the principal traits in his Essay on Morals, with the same logic and the same honesty. With the death of this emperor, the family of Constantine became extinct. In that family Christianity found alike its most generous friend and its most cruel enemy. One sentence, borrowed from Lebeau's Histoire de l'Empire, will complete one's knowledge of Julian: "He is the model of those persecuting princes who try to avoid the reproach of persecution by an appearance of gentleness and equity". Julian died on the 26th June, 363, at the age of about thirty-two years.

 

SAINT DAMASUS

A.D. 366-3846

 

DAMASUS, was born at Guimaraens, in Portugal. Sent to Rome at an early age, he at first was writer and reader, then deacon, and at length cardinal-priest. Damasus has been called a Spaniard, because Portugal was then a part of Spain.

It has been affirmed that, during the exile of Liberius, Damasus was his vicar. While still young, he wrote the acts of the holy martyrs, Peter and Marcellinus, which he had learned from the lips of their executioner, Dorotheus. Subsequently he won the friendship of Athanasius, when the latter came to Rome, under the pontificate of Julius, and perhaps he was ordained deacon by that pontiff. Certainly he was deacon when Liberius was sent into exile. The schismatical author of the prefaces to the Memorial of Faustinus and Marcellinus, after Father Zaccaria, adds that Damasus did not follow Liberius into exile, but only feigned to do so, and then hastened back to Rome and usurped the pontifical authority. But the author of those prefaces, besides being a schismatic, showed himself the partisan of an antipope, named Ursicinus, who then tormented the Church. And therefore we need give no credence to what this opponent says against Damasus.

This cardinal-priest was elected pope at the age of sixty-two, on the 15th of September, 366. He began by using all the means in his power to put an end to the schism of Ursicinus. In 369 he assembled at Rome a synod of ninety-three bishops, confirmed the faith of Nice, rebuked the Council of Rimini, and condemned the Bishop Auxentius, the disseminator of heresy in the diocese of Milan and in the neighbor ing churches. Saint Basil having sent letters to Rome by Dorotheus, deacon of Antioch, the Holy Father, to show himself favorable to the entreaties of the pious bishop, sent to the East Sabinus, deacon of the Milanese church. The latter returned to Rome with letters from Basil, which were not satisfactory to the pontiff. He thought fit to send them back to Basil by Evagrius. Basil then sent again to Rome Dorotheus, recently consecrated priest.

On that occasion the Holy Father, in 374, assembled an other council, of whose acts only a single fragment remains.

Several letters from the pontiff to Paulinus of Antioch then caused some rumors in the East. Those letters contained a tacit but clear protestation by which the Holy Father recognized the said Paulinus as Bishop of Antioch, to the prejudice of Meletius. Basil, the friend of the latter, sent Dorotheus for the third time to Rome, with the view, in concert with other bishops, to procure a retraction of that decision. At that time Damasus assembled a synod, in which he declared that he maintained his decree in favor of Paulinus, but without cutting off Meletius from the communion of the Church. In 377 Saint Jerome consulted Damasus on these questions: 1. May we say that in God there are three hypostases? 2. With which of the two parties, the Meletinian or the Paulinian, were the faithful to communicate? The pope replied that Paulinus was to be communicated with, and that in God three persons and one God were to be recognized.

In the following year, Gracchus, prefect of Rome, to whom is applicable Justinian's law that no one shall be a judge in his own cause, obtained baptism on condition that the authorities should destroy the infamous den of Mythra.

Damasus lived in the reign of Julian, who was certainly an extraordinary person, if we regard his fitness either for civil or military affairs. He had his education under Eubulus the sophist, and Libanius the philosopher, and made such proficiency in the liberal arts, that no prince was his superior in them. He had a capacious memory, and a happy eloquence, was bountiful towards his friends, just to foreigners, and very desirous of fame. But all these qualities were at last sullied by his persecution of the Christians, which yet he managed more craftily than others had done; for he did not persecute at first with force and torture, but by rewards, and honours, and caresses, and persuasions. He seduced greater numbers of them than if he had exercised any manner of cruelties against them. He forbade the Christians the study of heathen authors, and denied access to the public schools to any but those who worshipped the Gentile gods. Indeed, he granted a dispensation to one person, named Prohasresius, a most learned man, to teach the Christians publicly; but he with disdain refused to accept of that indulgence. He prohibited the conferring military offices upon any but heathens, and ordered that no Christians should be admitted to the government or jurisdiction of provinces, upon pretence that the laws of their religion forbade them the use of their own swords. He openly opposed and banished Athanasius, at the instigation of his sorcerers and soothsayers, with whose arts he was wonderfully pleased they complaining to him that Athanasius was the cause why their profession was in no greater esteem. At a certain time, as he was sacrificing to Apollo at Daphne, in the suburbs of Antioch, near the Castalian fountain, and no answers were given him to those things concerning which he enquired; expostulating with the priests about the cause of that silence, the devils replied, that the sepulchre of Babylas the martyr, was too near, and therefore no responses could be given. Hereupon Julian commanded the Galileans, for so he called the Christians, to remove the martyr s tomb further off.

This they applied themselves to with wondrous exultation and cheerfulness, but rehearsing at the same time that of the Psalmist, "Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols". They hereby so heightened the rage of Julian, that he forthwith commanded multitudes of them to be put to death, which he did not before intend. I much wonder that Julian should act after this manner, having had before experience of the vanity of diabolical arts. For entering once into a cave in company with a magician, and being sorely affrighted when he heard the demons howl, in the surprise he used the sign of the cross, at which the demons immediately fled. Upon this, telling his companion that certainly there must needs be something miraculous in the sign of the cross, the sorcerer made him this answer, "That indeed the demons themselves did dread that kind of punishment". By this slight account of the matter Julian became more obstinate than before, so strangely was he addicted to magical allusions, though he had formerly, to decline the displeasure of Constantius, feignedly embraced the Christian religion, publicly read the Holy Scriptures, and built a church in honour to the martyrs. Moreover, this emperor, on purpose to spite the Christians, permitted the Jews to rebuild their temple at Jerusalem, upon their declaring that they could not sacrifice in any other place. By which concession they were so mightily puffed up, that they used all their endeavours to raise it more magnificently than the former. But while they were carrying on the work, the new fabric fell down in an earthquake, by the fall of which multitudes of the Jews were crushed to death, and the prophesy a second time verified, "That there should not be left one stone upon another". On the following day the very iron tools with which the workmen wrought were consumed by fire from heaven; a miracle by which many of the Jews were so wrought upon that they be came proselytes to Christianity. After this Julian undertakes an expedition against the Persians, of whom he had intelligence that they were endeavouring a change in the government; but before he set forth, he spared not to threaten what havoc he would make among the Christians at his return. But having vanquished the enemy, and returning conqueror with his army, though in some disorder, he died of a wound given him near Ctesiphon. Whether he received it from any of his own men or from the enemy, is uncertain; though some tell us, that he was pierced through with an arrow sent no man knew from whence, as also that when he was just expiring, with his hand lifted up to heaven, he cried out, "Thou hast overcome me, O Galilean"; for so in contempt he was wont to call our Saviour, the Galilean, or the carpenter's Son; upon which was grounded that answer of a young man to Libanius, the sophist, asking him by way of derision, "What he thought the carpenter's Son was doing"; to whom the youth replied, "That he was making a coffin for Julian"; awitty and prophetic reply; for soon after his saying so, Julian's dead body was coffined up and brought away.

We are told that this emperor had once been in holy orders, but that afterwards he fell away from the faith, for which reason he is commonly called the Apostate. He died in the twentieth month of his reign, and in the thirty-second year of his age. Him Jovinian succeeded, who being voted emperor by the army, refused to own that title, till they should all with a loud voice confess themselves Christians. This they having done, and he having commended them for it, he took the government upon him, and freed his army out of the hands of the barbarous, with no other composition but that of leaving Nisibis, and part of Mesopotamia, free to Sapor the Persian king. But in the eighth month of his reign, whether from some crudity upon his stomach, as some will have it, or from the faint and suffocating steam of burning coals, as others, or by what means soever, certain it is that he died suddenly.

Damasus being chosen to the pontificate, was soon rivalled in that dignity by Ursicinus a deacon, whose party having as sembled themselves in a church, thither also Damasus's friends resorted, where the competition being managed not only by vote, but by force and arms, several persons on both sides were slain in the very church. But not long after the matter was compromised, and by the consent both of the clergy and people, Damasus was confirmed in the bishopric of Rome, and Ursicinus was made Bishop of Naples. But Damasus being afterwards accused of adultery, he made his defence in a public council, wherein he was acquitted and pronounced innocent, and Concordius and Calistus, two deacons, his false accusers, were condemned and excommunicated. Upon which a law was made, "That if any man did bear false witness against another, he was to undergo the same punishment that the person accused should have done if he had been guilty".

In 379 peace was concluded between Paulinus and Meletius. The former held a council, the acts of which he sent to Damasus.

In 380 the pope held a synod, in which he approved and confirmed the transaction of the two bishops of Antioch, and received Meletius into perfect communion, establishing a confession of faith. The same year the Holy Father declared null the ordination, by some Egyptians, of the ambitious Maximus Cinicus, who dared to pretend to be Bishop of Constantinople, to the prejudice of Saint Gregory Nazianzus, and he constituted, as his vicar in the provinces of eastern Illyria, Acolius, Bishop of Thessalonica.

Priscillian, condemned by the Council of Saragossa, then visited Rome for the purpose of justifying himself to Damasus, but the pope would not even admit him to his presence.

At the solicitation of the Emperor Theodosius, Damasus, in 381, assembled at Constantinople the second general council. It was attended by a hundred and fifty or a hundred and eighty bishops, who gave honorable reception to the Tome of the Western Church, that is to say, the confession of Damasus to Paulinus, or the confession of faith established in the Roman council of the preceding year. The bishops in this council confirmed the Nicene Creed against Macedonius, Aetius, and Eunomius, Arians who, among other errors, denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost. The bishops added to the Nicene Creed the words, "I believe in the Holy Ghost, Lord," etc., to which were added the words "filioque" in Spain, by the Council of Toledo, of 589. It was received by the churches of France and Germany in the eighth century, and by the Roman Church in the ninth.

Maximus Cinicus, usurper of the see of Constantinople, was deposed, and Saint Gregory Nazianzus was restored to his episcopal jurisdiction. But he, from his love of peace, renounced it, and in his place was appointed Nectairus, of the senatorial order, who was only a catechumen. In this council three or four canons were formed, in one of which primacy was given to the Bishop of Constantinople after that of the Roman pontiff. This was disapproved of by Damasus, who was too acute and far-sighted not to perceive the danger which might arise from that probably too hasty declaration. About the same time, when, on every side, measures were being taken to secure the peace of the Church and to destroy heresies, some senators, partisans of the old system of the Gentiles of Rome, attempted to restore paganism by causing the altar of Victory to be re-erected in the senate. In pursuance of that design, they were about to send Simmachus to the Emperor Gratian to obtain his consent. But Saint Ambrose, formally empowered by Damasus, exerted himself so effectively at court that the embassy was not suffered to depart. That same year the Holy Father convoked a numerous council, all the acts of which are lost.

In 383 Damasus wrote a letter to the Eastern bishops against the partisans of Apollinaris, and in 384 another letter to the Emperor Valentinian, in favor of Simmachus, who had been accused of showing his hatred of the Christians, under pretext of obeying the orders of the emperor. Damasus instituted the penalty of retaliation, by which the calumniator was to be subjected to the punishment which the accused would have incurred had he been unable to prove himself innocent. To him also is attributed the custom of chanting the Psalms day and night, but that custom prevailed in the primitive Church in the time of Pope Pontianus. It is possible that it was even earlier. Saint Ambrose introduced into the West the singing of the Psalms by two choirs alternately; it may have been that Damasus, by a decree, confirmed that new custom. On this point Dom Constant refutes those who say that the alternate singing was either invented or confirmed by Pope Damasus. It is not exact to say that Damasus, following the example of the Church of Jerusalem, ordered the Alleluia to be sung at Rome. By the advice of Saint Jerome, he ordered that, as the Alleluia was sung at Easter-time, it should frequently be sung at other times, that is to say, on Sundays. Those who write that the same pontiff ordered that at the end of the Psalms the Gloria Patri should be used, are mistaken, for they base their assertion upon a letter of Saint Jerome, which is now known to be apocryphal. Novaes thinks that the Gloria Patri was in use in the primitive Church. The Council of Nice added to it the words, "Sicut erat in principio," in opposition to the Arians, who said that the Son of God was created in time. In general, the custom of saying it at the end of the Psalms was not usually commanded by the Church as early as is supposed; perhaps it was not ordered previous to the celebration of the Council of Vaison, in the acts of which we, for the first time, meet with a decree that relates to it.

Damasus summoned to Rome Saint Jerome, who served him as secretary, with the duty of replying to the letters which the Holy Father received from the councils and from the churches. By order of the same pontiff, Saint Jerome corrected and translated into Latin the version of the Septuagint, and he did the same for the Hebrew edition, done into Latin. He also most scrupulously corrected the Latin text of the New Testament, carefully comparing it with the Greek text.

In five ordinations Saint Damasus created sixty-two bish ops, thirty-one priests, and eleven deacons. He governed the Church eighteen years and about two months, and died at the age of eighty, in December, 384.

He was a man of brilliant virtue, learned in the Holy Scriptures, illustrious by his writings, and celebrated for the good and constant organization of the acts of his pontificate. This pontiff had also some disposition towards the cultivation of poetry, but excelled less in that kind of study than in all the others to which he devoted himself. Saint Jerome bestows this eulogy upon the continence of Damasus: "He was the virgin doctor of a virgin Church". Tolerant as to offences offered to himself, Damasus would not endure offences against the Church.

The genuine works of Saint Damasus were printed at Paris in 1672. That edition is preceded by the life of the pontiff, which is also to be found in the Bibliotheque des Pères, and in the Ep. Rom. Pont, of Dom Constant. An earlier edition was published in 1639, by Frederick Ubaldini, and there was another Roman edition in 1638. There is also a folio edition by the Canon Antoine Marie Merenda, which was published in 1754.

A host of other authors have spoken of the works of Saint Damasus. The Council of Chalcedon called him "the ornament and the glory of Rome." His intimate union with Saint Jerome is one of the finest acts of this pontiff. To select for his interpreter a writer of such splendid talent and such high renown was to show an admirable modesty. The moral strength of the pontificate was doubled by such a circumstance. So great a head of the Church, learned himself, and endowed with the most eminent literary qualities, still further summoned to his aid the eloquence, the force, the fervor, the calm style, the patience, the erudition that was almost universal, and, finally, the advice of the most eminent doctor of the Latin Church.

It is said that Saint Damasus introduced the use of organs.

We must here say a few words more about the Antipope Ursicinus. At the election of Damasus he did not fear to accept the part of an intrusive pope. Although that election shone with the intervention of the divine judgment, says Saint Ambrose, some priests, seven in number, and three deacons, having placed themselves at the head of the faction opposed to Felix, created Ursicinus pontiff, in the Basilica of Sicinus, situated near the Esquiline, and he was ordained by the Bishop of Tivoli; and then arose a sedition between the two factions, each of which desired the man of its choice to prevail. Juventius, then prefect of Rome, drove Ursicinus and his partisans from the city, but they speedily returned. Again expelled by Pretextatus, successor to Juventius, the Emperor Valentinian confirmed the order of exile, and declared Ursicinus a disturber of the Church, and all the partisans of the intruder schismatics. They attempted a new sedition, still maintaining that in Ursicinus they recognized their legitimate head; but the emperor by a new order sent the partisans to a distance of twenty miles from the metropolis, and banished the false pontiff into Gaul.

On the death of Valentinian, Ursicinus endeavored to return to Rome, and assembled his partisans, with a view to seizing the pontifical authority. He continued his intrigues and his seditious conduct during the whole reign of Damasus, but was unable to expel the noble friend of Saint Jerome. At the moment of the election of Siricius, successor of Damasus, Ursicinus endeavored to oppose it, but he was again repulsed from Rome, to which it seemed he could never return.

Under this reign died Saint Macrina, sister of Saint Basil and of Saint Gregory of Nyssus. Saint Basil, surnamed the Great, was Bishop of Caesarea. The Emperor Valens sent a prefect to Basil to engage him to become an Arian, but he refused with considerable force. The prefect observed that people never spoke to him in that manner, to which Basil cuttingly replied : "Possibly that is because you are never in the habit of speaking to a bishop". The Hexameron of Saint Basil (a work upon the six days of the creation) is looked upon as a masterpiece.

The Basilian religious orders, male and female, take their name from this holy doctor.

 

Damasus, taking great delight in study, wrote the lives of all the Bishops of Rome that had been before him, and sent them to St Hierom. Notwithstanding which, he neglected not to increase the number of churches, and to add to the ornaments of Divine worship. For he built two churches, one near Pompey's theatre, the other at the tombs in the Via Ardeatina, and in elegant verse wrote the epitaphs of those martyrs whose bodies had been buried, to perpetuate their names to posterity. He also dedicated a marble table with an inscription to the memory of St Peter and St Paul at the place where their bodies had once lain. Moreover, he enriched the church which he had built in honour of St Laurence, not far from Pompey's theatre, with very large donations. He ordained likewise, that the psalms should be sung alternately in the church, and that at the end of every psalm the gloria patri should be added. And whereas formerly the Septuagint only had been in vogue, Damasus first gave authority to Hierom's translation of the Bible, which began to be read publicly, as also his psalter faithfully rendered from the Hebrew, which before, especially among the Gauls, had been very much depraved. He commanded also, that at the beginning of the mass the confession should be used as it is at this day. But having at five ordinations made thirty-one presbyters, eleven deacons, sixty-two bishops, he died and was buried with his mother and sister in the Via Ardeatina, in the church built by himself, December the 11th. He sat in the chair seventeen years, three months, eleven days; and by his death the see was vacant twenty-one days.