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He raised those hallowed walls; the desert smiled, And Paradise was open in the wild.

Much as yet remains to be said of the great St. Bernard, and when once with such a man, it is difficult to tear oneself

from his presence; and if we consent to close our remarks here, it is only on condition that we be allowed to resume the subject of him, to whom has been conceded the distinctive title of THE LAST OF THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH.

TH

Translated for the U. S. Catholic Magazine. HISTORY OF THE PAPACY.

Continued from page 367.

HE reign of St. Anicetus, the successor of St. Pius, lasted seven years and nearly nine months. To him is attributed the regulation which forbids ecclesiastics to wear their hair long, but he only renewed the prohibition already made by St. Anaclete, and which came from the apostles. It is said also that he conferred the sacred orders five times, ordained four deacons, seventeen priests and nine bishops. Under his pontificate, the greatest heretics and the greatest saints appeared at Rome; the former infecting it with errors, the latter maintaining the purity of its faith. We must especially notice the heresy of the Gnostics, who, glorying in the name of Christians, abandoned themselves to the most abominable excesses; and unhappily the Pagans, but imperfectly informed on the subject of religion, confounded them with the true Christians, so that this error, joined to their attachment to idolatry, strengthened their aversion to the disciples of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, a great number of heretics were reclaimed by the testimony that St. Polycarp bore to the doctrine of the Roman Church. This bishop of Smyrna had come to Rome to confer with Pope Anicetus on the proper time of celebrating Easter. At Rome, and throughout the west, it was always celebrated on Sunday; in Asia, on the contrary, they conformed to the custom of the Jews, who celebrated it on the fourteenth day of the first month, on whatever day of the week it fell. Polycarp was the disciple of the apostle St. John, who had

made him bishop of Smyrna, and he followed in this respect the tradition which he had received from him. Although he could alter the custom of

not persuade Anicetus to the western Church, he ceded to him the honor of offering the holy mysteries in his place, and they separated in peace. St. Anicetus was crowned with martyrdom on the 17th of April, 173.

The 14th of May following, St. Soter, a native of Fondi, in Campagna, was elevated to the chair of Peter. During his pontificate of four years, less nine days, he sent consid erable alms to the church of Corinth to aid the persecuted Christians. Dionysius, the bishop of that place, has paid a beautiful tribute to the charity of this Pope and of the Romans. The devil, who had in vain assailed the Church by the lewdness and the disorderly manners of the Nicolaites, Gnostics, and Adamites, then sought to ensnare it by the apparent austerity and hypocritical sanctity of the Montanists, into whose errors, Tertullian, one of the greatest men of Christian antiquity, had the misfortune to fall. The women of this sect having exercised some ecclesiastical functions, St. Soter forbade the deaconesses to touch the pall which covered the chalice, or to offer incense in the Church. It was during the life of this excellent pontiff that the miracle of the storming legion took place in the year 174. The Christian soldiers of this legion implored in prayer the aid of heaven for the Roman army, which (then in Germany) was nearly perishing with thirst, there being no

water near the place where they were encamped. Suddenly a rain fell which supplied the Romans with water for themselves and their horses. The enemy, on the contrary, were overwhelmed by a violent hail storm accompanied with thunder. The emperor, Marcus Aurelius, moved by this event, forbade, under pain of death, the further accusation of the Christians, and thus suspended the persecution for some time. Nevertheless, St. Soter was martyred on the 22d of April, 177.

St. Eleutherius, son of Abundius a native of Nicopolis, who had been deacon under Anicetus, commenced, on the 3d of May, a reign of fifteen years and twenty-three days. The first of these years is celebrated by the glorious death of the martyrs of Lyons; from their prison they wrote to the Pope against the heresy of the Montanists, and deputed to him St. Irenæus, a priest who was afterwards bishop. During the reign of Eleutherius, Lucius, king of England, sent an embassy to Rome, to request for his countrymen, a missionary to teach them the Christian religion. He died a martyr in the year 193.

The first of June of the same year, St. Victor I, an African, mounted the pontifical throne, which he occupied during nine years, one month, and twenty eight days. This Pope wishing all the churches to unite in the solemnities of Easter at the same time, ordered that it should be celebrated by all on the Sunday after the 14th of the month of March, and notwithstanding the objections of the bishops of Asia, who wished to retain the contrary custom, he charged Theophilus, bishop of Cæsarea in Palestine, to assemble a council and to publish his decree. He even menaced those who disobeyed with excommunication; St. Irenæus, who disapproved of this menace as too severe, and which was not indeed executed, did not, however, reproach him with having exceeded the bounds of his authority. The decision of Victor proves that even then this power was exercised in the Church. The Montanists sought to deceive the Pope, by sending him presents, accompanied by apparently Catholic declarations; misled by their exterior virtues and

the severity of their morals, he had addressed to them letters of communion, when Praxeas, who afterwards became himself a heresiarch, having informed Victor of the true state of things, he refused their presents and withdrew his letters of peace. Under the pontificate of Victor arose the heresy of Theodotus the banker, who denied the divinity of Christ, and who was excommunicated by the Pope on that account. The reign of this pontiff, which was closed by his martyrdom in 202, forms the transition from the second to the third age of the Church. This third age commenced with cruelty towards the Christians, because the emperor Severus, who had until then been favorable to them, having suddenly changed, persecuted them so fiercely, from the year 201 until his death, that the reign of Anti-christ was believed to be near; this was the fifth persecution. The most violent tempests which the powers of hell had before excited against the Church were trivial in comparison with that which it suffered in the third age. The most common instruments of death were the wooden horse, the rack, gibbets, iron nails, boiling cauldrons and blazing furnaces. But if the cruelty of the executioners, and the torments which they used, strike us with horror, the constancy of the martyrs excites our admiration and instructs and humbles us. Notwithstanding all the persecutions inflicted on the Christians, their number was so great from the commencement of this age, that Tertullian did not hesitate to say in his Apology, that had they withdrawn to another country, they would have left Rome a frightful solitude-the Pagan priests also complained of the diminution of their revenues and the desertion of their temples. Indeed, how could they be frequented? There was not a Christian who could not draw from the possessed the confession that the true God was the God of the Christians, and Tertullian offered to make the trial before the magistrates. 'And if these 'gods," said he, "do not confess that they are devils, if they dare to lie before a Christian, punish that Christian as an impudent imposter."

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St. Zephyrinus a Roman, who succeeded St. Victor I, on the 28th of August, 202,

reigned seventeen years. His desire of dying for Jesus Christ did not make him unmindful of the wants of his flock, and he accordingly concealed himself during the persecution of the Christians under Severus; but after the death of Plantian, the emperor's father-in-law and the Christians' most bitter enemy, he resumed the public exercise of his functions. This Pope witnessed the sad fall of Tertullian, who became a Montanist in 205, and he was the more afflicted by it because, as St. Jerome relates, it was occasioned by the jealousy of some of the Roman clergy against that great man. In the year 212, the celebrated Origen came to Rome to see this renowned Church. Zephyrinus died the 20th of August, 219: he is said to be the first Pope whose death was not a violent one.

The tranquillity of the Church was in some degree restored by the protection which the emperor Alexander extended to the Christians during the pontificate of St. Callixtus or Callistus I, a Roman by birth, who succeeded Zephyrinus and reigned five years, one month and twelve days. There is even ground for believing that the Christians commenced the building of public

temples thus Callistus built the church at present called "Our Lady's," beyond the Tiber. At least he took advantage of this favorable time to build that subterranean cemetery on the Appian way, known by the name of the Catacombs, where it is said that forty-six Popes and more than one hundred and seventy-four thousand martyrs are interred. The edifying institution of the Ember days is attributed to Callistus, and the prohibition of receiving charges against ecclesiastics from degraded or suspected persons, or known enemies of the accused; a wise precaution calculated to inspire a proper respect for the priesthood. Callistus conferred holy orders five times, ordaining sixteen priests, four deacons, and eight bishops. Notwithstanding the favor which Alexander showed towards the Christians, there were some martyrdoms during his reign, caused by popular excitements, or by the secret persecution exercised by the favorites of the emperor, who did not participate in his sentiments. Callistus himself is a proof of this fact, for he was arrested, and for a long time confined in prison, and was finally thrown into a well, on the 14th of September, 224.

TO BE CONTINUED.

IN

From the Catholic Advocate.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN RUSSIA.

N the seventh article of its last number, the Dublin Review invites the attention of its readers to the late harassing persecutions to which the Catholics of the Russian empire have been subjected by that cruel, tyrannical and intolerant government. The memorable allocution of the present Pope, addressed to the sacred college in the consistory of July 22d, 1842; a work from the pen of an ancient Russian counsellor of state; and yet another from the pen of the learned Dr. Theiner, priest of the congregation of St. Philip Neri, giving a "Modern History of the Catholic Church of the Latin

and Ruthenian rites," afford the occasion for this interesting article.

The persecution set on foot by the Russian government is less one of violence than of cunning. Unlike that of the ancient pagan emperors, wherein the mask was thrown off, the sword unsheathed, and the poison presented openly, with the avowed purpose of destruction, "it is a covert, artful, disguised hatred,-striking with the golden sceptre of an affected clemency, and dribbling out its hemlock under the name of medicine." It aims less to break down, crush, and destroy the body,

than to weary, pervert, and kill the soul. It does not boldly drag its victims to the dungeon, and send them thence to crimson the scaffold with their blood; but under the pretence of disobedience to its imperial edicts, it smites with sentence of exile the faithful bishops who have wisdom enough to perceive its malignant designs, and courage enough to resist them; and in their place it appoints the time-serving instruments of its own unrighteous policy. The affairs of the Catholic Church are by arbitrary assumption made the business of government, and the matter of imperial legislation, while in all cases the interests of the true Church are sacrificed to the unjust claims of that unholy schism, which recognizes the divine right of the czar to rule the Church of God upon earth. And so general, unsparing and pitiless is the scheme of persecution, that the favor of the Turk and Infidel has been courted, and their cooperation purchased with money, to make the poor Armenians and United Greeks, who are subject to the Porte, groan in unison with the persecuted Catholics of Russia.

A power without restraint, and a tyranny which has no soul to feel, have formed alliance with religious hatred to carry out the underhand, double-dealing, and systematic design of rooting out Catholicity from amid the heterogeneous races which constitute the empire of the autocrat. It is not merely the Catholics of generous, but unhappy, dismembered, crushed Poland, that have suffered from the iron rule of this heartless despot, but wherever, under the vast domains that are cursed with his influence and authority, the poor Catholics exist, there is at work the same intolerant, heartless, and insidious influence for the ruin of faith, and the subjection of conscience to the reign of heresy and schism. The persecution cannot, therefore, be regarded as political, but religious. And those who suffer from the lash of despotism, are not merely martyrs in the cause of patriotism-political martyrs, but in the true sense of the word, they are martyrs to their love of the same precious faith, for which, in primitive times, the Christians were accustomed to suffer and die.

VOL. I.-No. 8.

A correct idea of the nature, extent, and horrors of this galling tyranny cannot be gathered from the occasional notices which have appeared in the periodical press. With few intervals of comparative tranquillity it has now endured for near half a century with equal violence. "From the unwomanly reign of Catherine II," says the reviewer, "to that of the present emperor, it has worked with the regularity of a machine, up and down,-ascending to excite hopes, and falling down to crush them,with unwearying perseverance of evil purpose. Cunning has raised it, that cruelty might better impel it down."

The allocution of the Pope is confined chiefly to the later calamities of the Catholic Church in Russia, without presenting any general survey of those numerous tyrannical acts of which history makes record in preceding years: the French work gives enough of these to arouse indignation and excite sympathy, but "it is too much taken up with doctrinal arguments, and a history of the Greek schism." The work of Dr. Theiner is of more value and interest. "It enters most minutely into details; gives the biography of the principal actors in the scenes which it describes; makes use of local memoirs and rare publications, as well as of official documents, and thus presents a full and comprehensive, as well as painfully finished view of the eventful history of religion in Russia." This last work the reviewer takes as his principal guide.

The reviewer contradicts the very prevalent idea, that "the Church of Russia is an offspring of the schismatical Greek Church of Constantinople, and has been, ever since its origin, separated from the communion of the apostolic see." St. Ignatius was the first patriarch recognized by the Russians-and from his time (A. D. 867) till about 1120, no trace of breach of communion between the Russian Church and the holy see is discoverable, although by Greek forgery, attempts have been made to prove an earlier alienation. With occasional interruptions from 1120, down to the fifteenth century, Russia continued in communion with Rome, so that its separation from the rock of Peter may, with historical accuracy,

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be fixed about the opening of the fifteenth century, and was then the product or handiwork of craft, avarice, pride, ambition, and several other vices, as clearly manifested in the conduct of those by whom it was effected. In 1415 a division took place in the Russian Church in consequence of a deposition, by the bishops of a part of Russia, of the worthless patriarch Photias, and an election of Gregory Zamblak in his place. many bishops still adhered to Photias, the Church was divided into two patriarchates, Photias holding that of Moscow, and Zamblak that of Kiew. These were once more united under Isidore, who had been sent out as metropolitan of both, by Joseph, patriarch of Constantinople. In Kiew, Isidore was well and joyfully received, but not so in Moscow. The Prince Wassili III seized him and cast him into prison, whence, after two years confinement, he escaped to Rome, and died in 1463, patriarch elect of Constantinople. Kiew and Moscow were again separated, the former remaining faithful to the holy see, the latter being schismatical. By the year 1520, however, the efforts of Moscow unhappily prevailed, and all Russia was plunged into the same sad condition.

Shortly after, occurred the disgraceful struggle for the see of Constantinople among four competitors, viz., Jeremias II, Metrophanes III, Pachonius and Theolept. This was one of the most shameful contests for Church preferment, "which has disfigured the annals even of that Church, in which, with the exception of those bishops who kept communion with Rome, the most worthless succession of prelates for centuries held sway." Jeremias succeeded by "gaining the interest of the Porte, through the influence of the Haram," but he exhausted the resources of his see, in paying bribes to effect the ends of his unholy ambition. The poverty of his treasury induced him to journey to Russia in search of contributions. And there, in the Kremlin, he bartered off the patriarchal dignity for a large sum of money, and consecrated Job who had been newly appointed archbishop by the czar. The prince, however, himself claimed the right of investing the

new archbishop with the emblems of the patriarchal dignity, and with his own hand put the mitre on his head. The consequences of this simony were, first, "a separation of the southern from the northern bishoprics," and secondly, "a defection of Russia from obedience to Constantinople." This event took place in 1589.

But the brutal tyranny of the monster, Iwan IV, who acted as head of the Russian Church, and in this capacity held ecclesiastical synods, over which he presided and dictated decrees; together with the perceptible progress of those frightful consequences which heresy and schism always bring in their train, had made many of the bishops remember the peace and repose enjoyed by themselves and their flocks while in communion with the holy see, and they began to deplore the existing miseries and sigh again for the return to their former happier condition. They repented, and longed to return to their Father's house. They held an assembly under Michael Rahosa, metropolitan of Kiew, and drew up a declaration of their wishes. This document was dated December 2d, 1594, and signed by the metropolitan, six bishops and an archimandrite. A large body of Ruthenian Christians followed these prelates, and, under the approval of Clement VIII, were re-united to the Catholic Church. But art and violence succeeded, after two hundred years, to sever this union once more.

Those Churches thus re-united are designated by the reviewer, as "the United Greek Church of Russia." When Michael Rahosa had taken this step, "the schismatical archbishop of Moscow, Job, summoned a council, and hurled his impotent censures against the union;" but God blessed the former and smote the latter. Michael enjoyed a peaceful life and tranquil death; Job, having perpetrated crime after crime, and become a mere instrument in the iniquitous hands of the murderer Godunow, whom he crowned as czar, was at length in 1604 imprisoned and strangled. Michael's successor was Joseph Rudski, styled by Pope Urban VIII, "The Athanasius of Russia," who in 1623 was mar tyred by his enemies. But God rendered

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