صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

day, if we take the interpretation of Raban, and think "that the Divine love implanted in our minds ought to grow till it has changed the whole soul into its own perfection;" and we may every day realize the shelter and secure refuge afforded by the branches of CHRIST'S Church, when we bless GOD, in the words of Gregory, that "Holy souls resemble the birds lodging in the branches of that heavenly tree, when they have raised themselves from thoughts of earth on the wings of the virtues, and breathe again from the troubles of this life, in their words and comfortings."

NOTE. S. HILARY OF POICTIERS.-It is hard to say which of the two eminent men bearing the name of Hilary, citizens of the same country, and belonging to nearly the same period of history, was the greatest ornament to the Church, the Bishop of Poictiers, or the Bishop of Arles: for though the latter was the author of the Athanasian Creed, both were equally eminent in the defence of the Church against the great heresy of the 4th century, Arianism. It is the former of these whose words have been quoted in the preceding Postil.

By birth, Hilary was a Pagan; and was so far singular in his conversion that, according to his own account of it, he had become a convert to the Old Testament before he had studied, or even seen, any part of the New. He happened to meet with that passage in Exodus, in which the Almighty GoD declares Himself under the designation of "I AM." This opened to him, he says, the idea of a future state of existence, implying almost of necessity, a system of reward and punishment. This, again, brought his mind to compre hend the idea of a Judge; and the necessity of mercy, as well as justice, in his own case. Thus predisposed, he sought out the Christian system, as offering that of which he stood in need, and took up the Gospel according to S. John, in which he learned that He who had come on earth to deliver, and He who would come again to judge, was Himself the GOD-the "I AM,"-whose Name had first caught his attention in the Old Testament; Who was from the beginning, and without Whom nothing was made that was made.

This history of the process of his own conversion, and the peculiar working of his mind which led him to Christianity, will fully account for the determined stand which he afterwards made against Arianism. He was naturally jealous of the Divinity of Him Who had thus supplied the peculiar want of his mind which had turned him to the Gospel from the first.

We know but little of his life as a layman, or as a Priest; and what we do know, we gather principally from incidental notices of himself which occur in his own writings. That he was married, is certain; for he speaks of instructing his daughter, Abra, in the elements of the Christian religion; and it is equally clear that this

was no bar to his appointment to the Episcopate: for it is quite certain that he lived with his wife after he became Bishop of Poictiers, in the year 355.

[ocr errors]

By this time, he must have been well trained in the doctrines of the Church, and the controversies of the day. Indeed, many of his twelve books on the Divinity of our LORD, must have been written at that time; for they all appeared in public in the following year,— probably as a sort of pastoral, for the direction of his Clergy in the great struggle which was then at its height. They were, of course, directed against the Arian doctrines, which were then gaining ground in France and thus it was that he drew upon himself the enmity of Saturninus, who, holding the Arian tenets, was then Bishop of Arles.

It so happened, that at this particular time, this heresy was in favour at the court of the Roman Emperor; and Saturninus had interest enough there to procure the banishment of Hilary,—founding his charge on the sentiments expressed by him at the Council of Beziers, which took place the year after his appointment to the Bishopric of Poictiers.

The Emperor Constantius banished him to Phrygia, where he remained three years. But, during that time, he made himself fully acquainted with the doctrines of the TRINITY, as held by the Eastern Churches, which at that time were less tainted with heresy than those of the West; and not only strengthened himself in his own tenets, but also qualified himself to become a defender of Orthodoxy in the Eastern Church.

Hilary proved so formidable an opponent to the progress of Arianism in the East, that he owed his return to his own See to the very same cause that had procured his banishment. His opponents unable to answer him, and unwilling to own their defeat, procured his removal from the East; and thus in the year 360 he was actually banished back again to France.

By this time, however, Julian had come to the throne, and, being anxious for state reasons to restore paganism, which he considered a more manageable religion, really did advance the cause of orthodoxy by removing the court influence which had hitherto upheld that of Arianism; he placed them both on a perfect level by discountenancing both alike.

Here then the cause of Truth, and the talents and zeal of Hilary gave him a decided advantage. Council after council was assembled, and so eminent was the Bishop of Poictiers as a disputant and a theologian, that he procured the condemnation of his old opponent Saturninus, and gave a serious check to the heresy itself from which it partially recovered only to be again refuted some thirty or forty years afterwards by Hilary of Arles.

His greatest triumph took place only a few months before his death. Auxentius, an Arian, had been appointed Bishop of Milan, and Valentinian, who was then Emperor, had issued an edict, commanding all men to acknowledge him as the true Bishop. Hilary presented a petition against him, and Valentinian, who really seems to have been endeavouring to act with justice and impartiality, and to

have erred only through ignorance, declared that the two Bishops should hold a public disputation in his presence. This was eagerly accepted by Hilary, who brought the theological learning he had acquired both in Gaul and in the East, and his own personal experience also, to bear upon the subject. He not only reduced his adversary to silence, but actually made a convert of the Emperor himself, who publicly declared his conviction and his adherence to the communion of Hilary.

There are minor points of doctrine on which this great man was not altogether sound. But this is no uncommon thing with the earlier Fathers. And this shows the real service which the rise of the various heresies afforded to the true and orthodox doctrines of the Church. Many of these doctrines had not in Hilary's time been called in question; and upon these each Father held the opinion which his own unassisted judgment had enabled him to arrive at. The great and leading doctrines were of course preserved with care, and handed down with accuracy; but several minor points, which subsequent discussions have enabled the Church to settle, were then open questions, because they had never been handled at all. We need not, therefore, be surprised that the great champion of ortho. doxy, the great maintainer of the Coequal Divinity of the SON against the Arian heretics, should himself have asserted that the LORD, Whose Divinity occupied his main attention, should in His Humanity have suffered no pain on the Cross; or, in his anxiety to realize the Resurrection, should have declared that the souls of men are palpable and material like their bodies.

THE CHALLENGE OF LUCIUS.

A. D. 373.

Ir was almost noon; and the great quay of Alexandria was crowded. Merchants were discussing the news of the day; captains of trading vessels were coming from or returning to their ships; agents of all kinds were transacting business with traders from every part of the world. Here the Roman citizen, who had never before been out of sight of the seven hills, was marvelling to find another city that so nearly rivalled the Queen of the World. Here the tall, pale Armenian-the American of ancient times-was driving the best bargain he could with the fashionable merchant from Constantinople. There were all religions on that busy piece of ground;followers of CHRIST, worshippers of Jupiter, adorers of

:

fire just as in the huge city close at hand, you might pass, first a domed church, with its great western porch and cross, and then a temple of Jupiter, with the colonnade of Ionic or Doric columns that ran all around it, and then a sanctuary of Serapis, where the old, clumsy Egyptian art still, in some measure, survived. And it was, as it could hardly help being, a place where men were careless about any religion. When Auxentius, the great salt-fish merchant, who professed the faith of Nicæa, and Onomarchus, the corn-dealer, who clave to the old religion, and Agathocles, the builder, who was an Arian, met every day, and every day transacted worldly business together, they gradually contented themselves with that pernicious doctrine of agreeing to differ, and ceased to look for either converting or being converted.

But gradually, as twelve o'clock drew on, the assembly on the quay, and in the great square of Osiris, while it thickened and increased, lost part of those who had previously composed it. Any one who knew the city would have seen that it was now almost entirely made up of Arians and Pagans, and that scarcely here and there was a believer in the Consubstantial to be found. The church of S. Mark, too, where the doctrine was preached which that blessed Evangelist would have held accursed, was open. Look! you may see persons passing in through its great western narthex, and may, every now and then, catch a burst of melody from the interior. But the little church of S. Dionysius, where the faith of Nicea is still held, at the corner of the quay, is closed, and bears traces, in its patched doors and repaired walls, of some outbreak of popular violence.

"What is all this about ?" cried Caius Severus, the master of a trireme just arrived from the Port of Rome. "Business hours are over, are they not? What does this crowd mean ?"

"Do you not know," returned Agathocles, "that our Bishop, Lucius, is to make his entrance to-day? Thank GOD, there is some hope of common sense and reason prevailing at last. While that obstinate wretch, Athanasius, was alive, we had no chance of fair play; but now, no more Catholic Bishops for us!"

"What is Athanasius dead ?" inquired the captain, himself a pagan. "That will be a heavy blow to the Catholics. But how did he die, pray ?"

[ocr errors]

"Die!" cried Agathocles. "Why, after all, he died in his bed. Five times we drove him out of the city, and five times he came back, all the stronger and the more beloved for his banishment. However, he will return no more now; that is certain. Palladius, the prefect, has made short work with Peter, whom they elected to succeed him; and we have Lucius from Antioch, who was here before. A capital Bishop he will make, too. I remember, when he was last here, I had one of the best dinners in his house that I ever ate; on my word as an honest man, sir, it would have done credit to Valens himself. I know that he imported his oysters from that place, what is its name?-Rutupium,-ay, Rutupium, in Britain. A very spirited thing that. A most capital dinner, and an excellent Bishop!"

"But it is odd, too," said his friend; "there seem as many of our way of thinking as of yours here. I am sure half the men I see must be of the old religion."

66

66

Why, yes," replied Agathocles, looking rather foolish, we and they have made common cause, you see, against the Catholics. Sink all differences, say I, except with those who worship the Consubstantial; there, sir, I am firm-firm as a rock; but with respect to others, let each man serve GOD according to his own conscience: that's my maxim."

"A very liberal one," said the captain, "and it does you great honour. But by Castor, sir, I am sick of these disputes, and I wish to my heart there had never been such a place as Nicæa. Why, I declare to you, the last time I was here, I was walking up the street of Bacchus, and feeling rather hungry, I went into a baker's shop. Well, I asked for a biscuit, and the baker-what answer do think he gave me ?" you

"Nay, how should I know ?”

[ocr errors]

"Why, says he, Great is the Only-begotten, but

1 Some readers may need to be told that this anecdote is strictly

true.

« السابقةمتابعة »