AN OLD STORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

THE

HE middle ages have been called the "ages of faith," and their history vindicates their claim to the title. The mysteries of religion and the great dogmas of Christianity were living forces moulding the character and modifying the conduct even of very worldly and very sinful men. To be sure there was sin and crime, as there will be to the end, and not unfrequently the crimes were gigantic. But if men sinned greatly, they repented greatly. A life of lawlessness often changed before its night into a life of heroic expiation. Even in the worst of minds, and in the hardest of hearts, Heaven rarely lost its attractiveness, and still more rarely did Hell lose its overwhelming terror. They were, truly, "ages of faith."

They have also been called "ages of credulity." There is a sort of vague notion, not at all, I may remark, sustained by strict historical investigation, that in those middle ages, a sort of mist obscured the human intellect; that the world sat, if not in darkness, at all events, in a sort of twilight, that men were but children of a larger growth, easily moved, and still more easily deluded, and so credulous as to be at the mercy of any one who could excite their imagination or tickle their fancy. It is no part of my present business to vindicate the middle ages against any such charges; but I may venture to suggest that human nature is very much the same in one age as in another, that tendencies seem to change, when, in reality, there is nothing changed but their expression. The middle ages enjoyed no monopoly for the production of fables on the one hand, and of credulous fools to swallow them, on the other. The age of "Central News Agencies” can vie, in these respects, with any age I know of. It, too, can lieand in those days of the press, the telegraph, and the telephone, can propagate its lie with a facility, and a speed unequalled, heretofore, in the history of the world.

I begin by saying all this, because if I had not said it, the discussion of the story I have chosen as a subject, might well seem to be an impeachment against the middle ages for their too great credulity.

The story I have to tell and to discuss is the marvellous story of the liberation, by the prayers of St. Gregory the Great, of the soul of the Emperor Trajan, from the hell of the damned. The story went that Gregory, passing one

day through the Forum of Trajan, bethought him of an act of signal clemency which Trajan had once performed in behalf of a poor widow who had appealed to his justice. He was setting out for the wars when the widow threw herself at his feet, told him that her son had been foully murdered, and implored that, as he could not give him back to his mother, he would at least avenge his murder. Trajan promised to do so on his return. "But," said the widow, "what if you come back no more?" He answered, "then my successor will do justice." "Ah," said she, "what will that profit you; were it not better do justice yourself and have the merit, than leave to another the good work and its reward?" The Emperor, struck by the justice of her reasoning, postponed his departure, and saw, with his own eyes, that the widow's wrongs were avenged. Thinking of this story Gregory went on to the Basilica of St. Peter, and wept over the pagan blindness of so clement a prince for a day and a night. Then an answer was vouchsafed him that his prayer for Trajan was heard, but that he should never again pray for a pagan.

This was the story that passed from mouth to mouth, from chronicle to chronicle. It was too good a story to be let alone. It offered a boundless field to the imagination, and accordingly, it was improved, and added to, and embellished, after the approved medieval mode of dealing with a legend. It is worth while giving it in the setting of Brunetto Latini in his " Fiore de Filosifi." I take the version, which I here insert, from the notes to Longfellow's translation of Dante :

“Trajan was a very just Emperor, and one day having mounted his horse to go into battle with his cavalry, a woman came, and seized him by the foot, and weeping bitterly, asked him and besought him to do justice upon those who had, without cause, put to death her son who was an upright young man. And he answered and said, 'I will give thee satisfaction when I return.' And she said, and if thou dost not return?' And he answered, if I do not return my successor will give thee satisfaction.' And she said how do I know that? and suppose he do it, what is it to thee that another do good? Thou art my debtor, and according to thy deeds shalt thou be judged. It is fraud for a man not to pay what he owes; the justice of another will not liberate thee; and it will be well for thy successor if he shall liberate himself.' Moved by these words, the Emperor alighted and did justice, and consoled the widow, and then mounted his horse, and went to battle and routed his enemies. A long time afterwards, St. Gregory, hearing of this justice, saw his statue, and had him disinterred, and found

that he was all turned to dust. except his bones, and his tongue which was like that of a living man. And by this St. Gregory knew his justice, for this tongue had always spoken it, so that he wept very piteously, through compassion, praying God that he would take this soul out of hell, knowing that he had been a pagan. Then God, because of these prayers, drew that soul from pain and put it into glory. And thereupon the Angel spoke to St. Gregory, and told him never to make such a prayer again; and God laid upon him as a penance either to be two days in Purgatory, or to be always ill with fever and sideache. St. Gregory, as the lesser punishment, chose the fever and sideache."

Such, in its later form, was the story, first in a much vaguer form, given to the reading world of Europe by John the Deacon, who lived nearly three centuries after St. Gregory. He said he had found the story in some English churches. There is not the slightest reason for thinking that John the Deacon invented the story. He was one of those who, under very great difficulties, catered for the intellectual cravings of the time. He was writing a life of St. Gregory, and was little inclined to criticise too closely any story that seemed to him to redound to the credit of the saint. It was no new thing then, just as it is a very old thing now, that a man who had undertaken to write the life of another, should play the part of an advocate, rather than of a judge. He found this storyand where was he more likely to find a story that added to the greatness of Gregory than in that country which had been so dear to Gregory's paternal heart?

At the very first sight one must say this of the story, that whether true or not, it was, at all events, “ben trovato.” What could be more interesting than a story that dealt with such illustrious personages as Trajan and St. Gregory, and with a subject so fascinating as the release of a soul from that prison, over whose gloomy portal, Dante, and the whole middle age with him, saw written" All hope abandon ve who enter here!"

It would not have been easy to fasten the story on any one more capable of carrying it safely than St. Gregory the Great. One of the greatest of those who had filled the Chair of Peter-a man to whom it had been given to do so much for the Church of God-a man whose writings were the edification of Christendom, and whose known miracles were numerous and undeniable-it did not seem much to the pious and uncritical readers of those not very critical times that Gregory should have had the additional glory of taking a soul out of hell.

Nor did the inventor show much less sagacity in his selection of Trajan. Trajan was not the best of the Pagan Emperors, but then he was very far from being the worst. He had persecuted Christians, but it was remembered in his favour that when Pliny the younger wrote him that famous letter which photographs, for all time, the beautiful and innocent life of early Christianity, Trajan had manifested a desire that Christians should not be too closely looked for, and should be punished only when it was necessary to vindicate the authority of the public tribunals. Of all the Pagan Emperors he was, perhaps, the one whose life and character made the most favourable impression upon the world at large. His life had not been so pure nor his character so exalted as the life and character of Marcus Antoninus; but his more robust nature and his less ascetic virtues were more likely to win for him the suffrages of men. It became a proverb in Rome, in praise of a prince, that he was happier than Augustus, and better, (not than Antoninus) but "than Trajan."

But it was the nature of the story itself that gave it most of its fascination. Hell, and the eternity of hell, are subjects or appalling interest to men who believe in them earnestly. And in those olden times men did believe in earnest. There was no year, scarcely indeed any day, in which the fear of hell was not seen producing marvellous effects in the wicked world. Men, whose deeds of blood and rapine had made the world shudder, exchanged the helmet for the cowl, and the sword for the crucifix, and sought, by an expiation as noble as their crimes had been gigantic, to escape the awful doom of "everlasting fire which was still more awful from the fact that it was proclaimed by the mild lips of Him who would not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. Hence, when it was whispered that one had been in that awful place, and alone of all the miserable millions whose place it is, had been snatched from the burning, it was no wonder that men should read with eagerness, and tell the story one to another, till, after some time, it had almost made itself a home amongst the beliefs of the period.

An attempt was soon made to carry the origin of the story farther back, and thus invest it with greater authority. A treatise was passed about, entitled "De his qui in fide dormierunt," which was attributed to St. John Damascene, and in this treatise mention is made of the story of Trajan. Of course, if this were genuine, it would afford an earlier

and, therefore, stronger piece of evidence in favour of the story, besides giving it the support of a great name. But there seems to be no doubt that this treatise is spurious. It contains many passages which are in striking contradiction to the opinions of the Saint as contained in those works of his that are known to be authentic. No doubt, too, if this treatise had been extant at the time John the Deacon was writing his life of St. Gregory, he would have been only too eager to claim the authority of so great a name for his story of Trajan. We may, then, safely conclude, that though the story may have been told from an early time in some obscure churches in England, it was, for the first time, introduced into the reading world of Europe by John the Deacon.

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One curious result has followed from associating with this story the name of one so specially honoured in the Eastern church as St. John Damascene-it is this, that there is to be found in the Euchology" of the Greek church a prayer which assumes the truth of the story. It runs, "as Thou hast by the earnest intercession of Thy servant Gregory the dialogist, freed the soul of Trajan from punishment," etc.

We next find it in certain "revelations," said to have been made to St. Bridget and St. Mechtilde. Unfortunately the revelations contradict each other. In one it is said that by the prayer of Gregory, "Trajan's soul had been lifted to a higher grade;" whereas, in the other, the statement is that God wished to conceal the disposition He had made in the case of Trajan.

The authority of the Angelic Doctor has been claimed for the story, because in the Summa (sup, quest. 78, art. 5), he brings this story, told, as he supposed, by St. John Damascene, as an objection to the proposition he wished to prove on the question, "Whether suffrages are of avail to the damned?" St. Thomas has not impugned the truth of the story; on the contrary, he carries on his argument as if he admitted its truth. But anyone who would on this account claim the authority of St. Thomas for the story, would only show utter unacquaintance with his methods of procedure. He deals with this matter after his usual fashion as a theologian, not at all as a historian. was no part of his business to make an exhaustive critical analysis of every passage that came under his notice. His business was, when he found a statement historical, or other, made under the name of an author who was entitled

It