Thursday, December 31, 2009

St. Sylvester, Pope, C.

See the Pontifical, published by Anastasius, Rufin, &c. amongst the moderns, Tillemont, t. 7, p. 267. Orsi, t. 4 and 5.

A.D. 335.

St. Sylvester, whom God appointed to govern his holy church in the first years of her temporal prosperity and triumph over her persecuting enemies, was a native of Rome, and son to Rufinus and Justa. According to the general rule with those who are saints from their cradle, he received early and in his infancy the strongest sentiments of Christian piety from the example, instructions, and care of a virtuous mother, who, for his education in the sound maxims and practice of religion, and in sacred literature, put him young into the hands of Charitius or Carinius, a priest of an unexceptionable character and great abilities. Being formed under an excellent master, he entered among the clergy of Rome, and was ordained priest by Pope Marcellinus, before the peace of the church was disturbed by Dioclesian, and his associate in the empire. His behaviour in those turbulent and dangerous times recommended him to the public esteem, and he saw the triumph of the cross by the victory which Constantine gained over Maxentius within sight of the city of Rome on the 28th of October, 312. Pope Melchiades dying in January, 314, St. Sylvester was exalted to the pontificate, and the same year commissioned four legates, two priests, and two deacons, to represent him at the great council of the Western Church, held at Arles in August, in which the schism of the Donatists, which had then subsisted seven years, and the heresy of the Quarto-decimans were condemned, and many important points of discipline regulated in twenty-two canons. These decisions were sent by the council before it broke up with an honourable letter to Pope Sylvester, and were confirmed by him and published to the whole church.1 The general council of Nice was assembled against Arianism in 325. Socrates,2 Sozomen,3 and Theodoret,4 say that Pope Sylvester was not able to come to it in person on account of his great age, but that he sent his legates. Gelasius of Cyzicus5 mentions that in it "Osius held the place of the bishop of Rome, together with the Roman priests Vito and Vincentius." These three are named the first in subscriptions of the bishops in the editions of the acts of that council,6 and in Socrates, who expressly places them before Alexander, patriarch of Alexandria, and Eustathius, patriarch of Antioch.7 St, Sylvester greatly advanced religion by a punctual discharge of all the duties of his exalted station during the space of twenty-one years and eleven months; and died on the 31st of December, 335. He was buried in the cemetery of Priscilla. St. Gregory the Great pronounced his ninth homily on the gospels on his festival, and in a church which was dedicated to God in his memory by Pope Symmachus.8 Pope Sergius II. translated his body into this church, and deposited it under the high altar. Mention is made of an altar consecrated to God in his honour at Verona about the year 500; and his name occurs in the ancient Martyrology, called St. Jerom's, published by Florentinius, and in those of Bede, Ado, Usard, &c. Pope Gregory IX., in 1227, made his festival general in the Latin church; the Greeks keep it on the 10th of January.

After a prodigious effusion of Christian blood almost all the world over during the space of three hundred years, the persecuting kingdoms at length laid down their arms, and submitted to the faith and worship of a God crucified for us. This ought to be to us a subject of thanksgiving. But do our lives express this faith? Does it triumph in our hearts? It is one of its first precepts that in all our actions we make God our beginning and end, and have only his divine honour and his holy law in view. All our various employments, all our thoughts and designs must be referred to, and terminate in this, as all the lines drawn from the circumference of a circle meet in the centre. We ought therefore so to live that the days, hours, and moments of the year may form a crown made up of good works, which we may offer to God. Our forgetfulness of him who is our last end, in almost all that we do, calls for a sacrifice of compunction in the close of the year: but this cannot be perfect or acceptable to God, unless we sincerely devote our whole hearts and lives to his holy love for the time to come. Let us therefore examine into the sources of former omissions, failures, and transgressions, and take effectual measures for our amendment, and for the perfect regulation of all our affections and actions for the future, or that part of our life which may remain.

1 See epist. Synodi Arel. ad Sylvest. Pap. Conc. t. 1, p. 1425.

2 Socr. l. 1, c. 5.

3 Sozom. l. 1, c. 6.

4 Theodoret, l. 1, c. 7.

5 Gelas. Cyz. Hist. Conc. Nicæn. l. 2, c. 5, t. 2, Conc.

6 Conc. t. 2, p. 50.

7 The history of Constantine's donation of Rome is refuted by Pagi, Critic. in Annal. Baron. Papebroke, Act. Sanct. Nat. Alexander, Hist. Eccl. Noris, t. 4. Oper. Mammaclii, Orig. Christ. t. 2, p. 232, &c.

8 Conc. t. 1, p. 1368

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

St. Sabinus, Bishop of Assisium, and His Companions, MM.

Abridged from their acts in Baluze and Baronius.

A.D. 304

The cruel edicts of Dioclesian and Maximian, against the Christians, being published in the year 303, Sabinus, bishop of Assisium, and several of his clergy, were apprehended and kept in custody till Venustianus, the governor of Etruria and Umbria, came thither. Upon his arrival in that city, he caused the hands of Sabinus, who had made a glorious confession of his faith before him, to be cut off; and his two deacons, Marcellus and Exuperantius, to be scourged, beaten with clubs, and torn with iron nails or broad tenters, under which torments they both expired. Sabinus is said to have cured a blind boy; and a weakness in the eyes of Venustianus himself, who was thereupon converted, and afterwards beheaded for the faith. Lucius, his successor, commanded Sabinus to be beaten to death with clubs at Spoleto. The martyr was buried a mile from that city; but his relics have been since translated to Faëaut;nsa. St. Gregory the Great1 speaks of a chapel built in his honour near Fermo, in which he placed some of his relics which he had obtained from Chrysanthus, bishop of Spoleto. These martyrs are mentioned on this day in Ado. Usuard, and the Roman Martyrology.

How powerfully do the martyrs cry out to us by their example, exhorting us to despise a false and wicked world! What have all the philosophers and princes found by all their researches and efforts in quest of happiness in it! They only fell from one precipice into another. Departing from its true centre they sought it in every other object, but in their pursuits only wandered farther and farther from it. A soul can find no rest in creatures. How long then shall we suffer ourselves to be seduced in their favour! be always deceived, yet always ready to deceive ourselves again! How long shall we give false names to objects round about us, and imagine a virtue in them which they have not! Is not the experience of near six thousand years enough to undeceive us! Let the light of heaven, the truths of the gospel, shine upon us, and the illusions of the world and our senses will disappear. But were the goods and evils of the world real, they can have no weight if they are compared with eternity. They are contemptible, because transient and momentary. In this light the martyrs viewed them. Who is not strongly affected with reading the epitaph which the learned Antony Castalio composed for himself, and which is engraved upon his tomb in the cathedral of Florence.2

 That peace and rest, now in the silent grave,
 At length I taste, which life, oh! never gave.
 Pain, labour, sickness, tortures, anxions cares,
 Grim death, fasts, watchings, strife, and racking fears,
 Adieu! my joys at last are ever crowned;
 And what I hop'd so long, my  soul hath found.
      

1 L. 7, ep. 72, 73; l. 11, ep. 20

2

   Quam vivens nunquam potui gustare quietem,
   Mortuus in solida jam statione fruor:
   Passio, cura, labor, mors, tandem et pugna recessit,
   Corporea; et solum mens quod avebat, habet.
 

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

St. Evroul, Abbot, C.

Evroul, called in Latin Ebrulfus, was born at Bayeux, in 517, and was of the most illustrious family of that country. But he learned from his cradle to esteem nothing great but what is so in the eyes of God. The same sentiments he made the rule of his holy and disinterested conduct in the court of King Childebert I., who, being charmed with his accomplishments both of mind and body, raised him to several posts of honour and authority, which he never sought: for all his ambition aimed at goods infinitely surpassing those of the earth, for which he testified a total indifference, even whilst they flowed in upon him unasked. He showed by his example how possible it is for a Christian to live in the world without being of it in spirit, and to possess riches without being possessed by them. But then he made continual use of the antidotes which heaven has afforded us to fence our hearts against that contagious air, which are assiduous prayer, pious reading, meditation, and the mortification of the senses. His friends importuned him to marry, and he chose a virtuous wife, whose inclinations were perfectly suitable to his own. By reading the lives of the saints they mutually inflamed each other with a desire of forsaking the world. In this view they agreed to a separation, and she took the veil in a holy nunnery, whilst he distributed his whole fortune among the poor. It was, however, a considerable time before he was able to obtain the leave of King Clothaire I. (who, after the death of his brother Childebert, was become master of all France) to retire from court. At length, he procured it by reiterated importunities, and without delay took refuge in a monastery in the diocess of Bayeux. By his profound humility, fervour, and all heroic virtues, he gained the esteem and veneration of his fellow monks. But the respect which he met with was to him a true affliction: he regarded it as a snare, and a temptation to vanity. To shun it, he, with three others, privately withdrew, and hid himself in the most remote part of the forest of Ouche, in the diocess of Lisieux, which was only inhabited by wild beasts and robbers. These new hermits had taken no measures for provisions. They settled near a spring of clear water, made an inclosure with a hedge of boughs, and built themselves little huts of branches and mud. A country peasant discovered them in this place, to his great astonishment, and advertised them, that the wood was a retreat of cruel thieves: "We are come hither," said Evroul, "to bewail our sins; we place our confidence in the mercy of God, who by his providence feeds the birds of the air, and we fear no one." The countryman brought them the next morning three loaves and some honey, and was so edified by their conversation, that he soon after joined them. One of the thieves happening to light upon them, saw there was no booty to be expected, and, out of humanity and compassion, endeavoured to persuade htem that their lives would be in danger from others of his profession. Evroul represented to him, that having God for their protector, they stood in fear of no danger from men, who could have no inducement to murder those who sought to hurt no man, and had no other occupation than to lead penitential lives, and to please God. He then powerfully exhorted him to change his life. The robber was converted upon the spot, and going to his companions, brought many of them, in the same dispositions with himself, to the saint, by whose advice they betook themselves to till the land, and labour in the country for an honest maintenance. Several of them chose to remain withi these anchorets, in the practice of penance. They cultivated the land, but it was too barren to yield them sufficient nourishment, even in their most abstemious way of living. But the inhabitants of the country brought them in a little provision. Evroul accepted their alms, but whatever remained he gave immediately to other poor, reserving nothing for the next day.

The advantages and sweets of holy solitude, in uninterrupted contemplation, made him desire to live always an anchoret, without being burdened with the care of others. But fraternal charity overruled this inclination, for he could not remain indifferent to the salvation of his neighbonrs. He therefore received those who desired to live in penance under his direction, for whom he was obliged to build a monastery at Ouche in Normandy, whicb to this day bears his name. His community daily increasing, and many offering him lands, he built fifteen other monasteries of men or women, of which his own always remained the chief, and this he always governed himself. His affability charmed everyone: he seemed to know no pleasure equal to that of serving his neighbour. He used to exhort all to labour, telling them, that they would gain their bread by their work, and heaven by serving God in it. His example sufficed to encourage others: by his indefatigable constancy in labour, his patience in adversity, his perfect resignation to the will of God in all things with equal joy, and his cheerfulness in the most severe practices of perpetual penance. He arrived at a great old age, though always sighing after the joys of eternity. His patience in his last sickness made him seem never sensible to pain. He lived forty-seven days without being abie to take any things, except a little water, and the sacred body of Jesus Christ. He never ceased to exhort his disciples till he bid them adieu with joy, shutting his eyes to this world on the 29th of December, 596. His body was buried in the church of St. Peter, which he had built. His name occurs in Usnerd, and in the Roman Martyrology on this day. See his exact life in Mabillon, sæc. 1. Ben. p. 354. William of Gemblouxs, &c. also Bulteau, l. 2. c* 31.

Monday, December 28, 2009

St. Theodorus, Abbot of Tabenna, C.

On account of the extraordinary purity of his manners, from his very infancy, surnamed by the Greeks The Sanctified. Such was the edification which the whole church received in the fourth and fifth centuries from many great lights of the monastic Order, which then shone in the deserts of Egypt, that Theodoret1 and Procopius2 think the flourishing state of these holy recluses was particularly foretold in those passages of the prophets, in which it is said of the age of the New Law of Grace, that, The wilderness shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise,3 &c. Which interpretation is ingeniously applied to the same purpose by F. Possinus.4 "There" said an ancient writer who had conversed with several of these holy men,5 "have I seen many fathers leading an angelic life, and walking after the example of Jesus." And St. Sulpitius Severus says of them: "For my part, so long as I shall keep alive, and in my senses, I shall ever celebrate the monks of Egypt, praise the anchorets, and admire the hermits." One of the most eminent among the patriarchs of these saints was abbot Theodoras, the disciple of St. Pachomius. This saint was born in Upper Thebais, about the year 314, of illustrious and wealthy parents, and from his expectations in the world, or from the dangers and distractions of its riches and enjoyments, he drew the strongest motives for despising it. When he was between eleven and twelve years of age, being penetrated more than ordinary with the great truths of the gospel, on the feast of the Epiphany he gave himself to God with uncommon fervour, protesting that he had never preferred any thing in his heart to the divine love and service, and begging the grace always to be faithful in this resolution. Not to deceive himself in so delicate a point, he from that moment made it his whole study to belong in his heart and in all his actions wholly to God, fasted sometimes whole days, and spent much of his time in devout prayer. Thus he lived two years at home with his pious mother, going every day to a neighbouring grammar school. At fourteen he obtained her leave to retire from the world, and finish his education in the company of certain holy monks in the diocess of Latopolis. The reputation of St. Pachomius drew him afterwards to Tabenna, where, by his ardour to advance in all virtue, he appeared among the foremost in that numerous company of saints. His mother repaired to Tabenna to see him; but Theodoras, fearing any temptations of looking back again on the world, which he had renounced, with all things in it, in order to follow Christ with his whole heart, entreated St. Pachomius not to allow the interview. The mother was edified at this disposition of her son, and took the veil in a nunnery which St. Pachomius had established, not far from Tabenna, where she strenuously laboured in the great work of the sanctification of her soul, and had sometimes the pleasure of seeing her son in the company of some of his fellow-monks. St. Pachomius made our saint, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, his companion, when he made the visitation of his monasteries; in his thirtieth year caused him to be promoted to the priesthood, and committed to him the entire government of his great monastery of Tabenna, shutting himself up in the little monastery of Paban. St. Theodorus went thither every evening to assist at the daily exhortation which St. Pachomius gave to his monks, and afterwards repeated the same to the community at Tabenna, which he also instructed by his own frequent sermons and conferences. When he was going on a certain occasion with St. Pachomius to his monastery near Panopolis, in Lower Egypt, a philosopher of that city desired a conference with the abbot. St. Pachomius declined it, and sent St. Theodorus, who with wonderful quickness answered all his questions, and solved his problems: but exhorted him to bid adieu to idle subtilties [sic] and barren speculations, and make the science of salvation his great study. St Theodorus was troubled with frequent violent headaches, and St. Pachomius told him, that greater spiritual advantages accrue to our souls from diseases and involuntary afflictions when received and suffered with patience, than from voluntary abstinence and long prayers.

St. Pachomius falling sick at Paban two years before his death, the monks of Tabenna, by importunities and tears, extorted Theodorus's consent to take upon him the care of the whole congregation, when it should please Grod to deprive them of their holy founder. Though Theodorus had acquiesced with great reluctance, and after long resistance, St. Pachomius afterwards reproved him for it, and removed him from his superiority of Tabenna. St. Theodorus accepted this discharge with joy, and voluntarily accused himself of having fallen into vanity and presumption. Theodorus spent two years in the last rank in the community, below all the novices, and with joy embraced in silence every humiliation, and practised the utmost austerities: in which situation his sincere and perfect virtue shone with brighter lustre, than in all the great actions he did during his superiority, and was beyond all comparison more advantageous to his soul, as St. Pachomius used to declare to others.

The holy abbot died in 348, and Petronius, whom he had declared his successor, died thirteen days after him. St. Orsisius was then chosen abbot; but finding the burden too heavy for his shoulders, and his congregation threatened with rising factions, he placed Theodorus in that charge, but was obliged to use compulsion; and also alleged, that it was the express order of St. Pachomius before his death. St. Theodorus assembled the monks, pathetically exhorted them to unanimity, inquired into the causes of their divisions, and applied effectual remedies. By his prayers and endeavours a spirit of union and charity was perfectly restored. St. Orsisius was his assistant in the discharge of his duties; the most perfect harmony reigned between them, because where there was no pride, there no jealousy could arise. They studied who should surpass the other in humility and condescension. St. Theodorus did nothing without the advice of St. Orsisius, and they visited the monasteries one after the other. St. Theodorus instructed, comforted, and encouraged every one in particular: corrected faults with a sweetness which gained the heart, and every one with an entire confidence disclosed to him the secrets of his soul, as to his tender father and skilful physician. If any one transgressed, the saint with mildness endeavoured, in the first place, to bring them to a sense of their duty, and for this he had recourse to God by prayer and fasting, means which he found never to fail him. He wrought several miracles, and foretold things to come. Being one day in a boat on the Nile with St. Athanasius, he assured that holy confessor that his persecutor, Julian the Apostate, was that moment dead, and that his successor would restore peace to him and the church: both which were soon confirmed. Our saint also foretold the monks of Nitria, in 353, that the pride of the Arians would soon meet with a downfal [sic]. This prediction is contained in an epistle which the saint wrote to the monks of Nitria, extant in the continuation of Bollandus.6 We have also another letter of this saint, which is an epistolary exhortation to the devout celebration of Easter, published by Holstenius in his Code of Ancient Monastic Rules. The three letters of pious instructions which he wrote to his monks, mentioned by Gennadius, are lost.

St. Nilus7 and others relate, that once whilst St Theodorus was preaching to his monks, who were working at the same time in making mats, two vipers crawled about his feet. So careful was the saint not to interrupt or disturb the attention of his auditory during that sacred function, that he set his foot upon them till he had finished his discourse. Then taking away his foot, he suffered them to be killed, having received no harm. One of his monks happened to die on Holy Saturday, in 367. St Theodorus left the divine office to assist him in his last moments, and said to those who were present: "This death will shortly be followed by another,- which is little expected." The brethren watched that night by the corpse, and interred it on Easter-day in the morning with singing of psalms. At the close of the octave of that solemnity, St Theodorus made a moving discourse to all his monks; for it was their custom to meet all together in the monastery of Paban for the celebration of Easter. Our saint had no sooner dismissed them to their own monasteries, in the year abovementioned, but he was taken ill, and after a fervent preparation for his last passage, having recommended the care of the community to St. Orsisius,8 he happily expired on the 27th of April, in the year 367, the fifty-third of his age. His body was carried to the top of the mountain, and buried in the cemetery of the monks, with singing of psalms: but it was soon after removed, and laid with that of St Pachomius. St Athanasius wrote to the monks of Tabenna to comfort them for the loss of their holy abbot, and bids them have before their eyes the glory of which he was then possessed. The Greeks commemorate this saint on the 16th of May; the Roman Martyrology on the 28th of December. See the life of St. Pachomius in the Bollandists on the 14th of May, p. 296, especially the Appendix, pp. 334 and 337. Also Tillemont, t. 7. Ceillier, t. 5. p. 373.

1 Theodoret, in Isa. lxi. 3.

2 Procop. in eund. loc. p. 705.

3 Isa. xxxv. 1,2,6,7. Isa lxi. 3,4,&c.

4 Possinus. Proleg. ad Thesaur. Asceticum.

5 Heraclides, a disciple of St. Chrysostom, bishop of Ephesus, ap. Codici mon. Græc. t. 3, p. 172.

6 Bolland. Maii 14, p. 356.

7 S. Nilus, Ora. c. 108.

8 St. Orsisius is honoured by the Greeks on the 15th of June. After the death of St. Theodorus, St. Orsisius resumed the government of the monastic congregation of Tabenna, and acquitted himself of every duty belonging to that charge with great prudence and charity. St. Athanasius and St. Antony on every occasion testified the highest esteem of his person. This holy abbot always closed the exhortation which he made to his monks every evening, after their day's work and their repast, with prayer, because God alone can give the spirit and practice of virtue. The time of St. Orsisius's death is not known: but we have extant a spiritual work, entitled, The Doctrine of Orsisius, which St. Jerom translated into Latin. This holy abbot composed it by way of spiritual testament to his monks. It is an abridgment of the principal rules and maxims of a monastic life. The exhortations are vehement, and the instructions solid and beautiful. The author declares he had made it his constant endeavour to neglect nothing in his power to engage them to render themselves agreeable to the Lord; and in order to render his exhortations efficacious, had accompanied them with his tears. See this work in Bibl. Patrum, ed. Colon. t. 4, p. 92.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

St. Theodorus Grapt, C.

This saint was of the country of the Moabites; but his parents, who were rich and virtuous, went and settled at Jerusalem, in order to procure him the advantages of a holy education. He was placed by them, when he was very young, in the monastery of Sabas, and by his progress in learning, the extraordinary purity of his manners, and the habitual mortification of his senses, attained in a short time to an eminent degree of virtue, and acquired a high reputation in the world. The patriarch of Jerusalem obliged him to receive priestly orders, and when Leo, the Armenian, waged a cruel war against holy images, sent the saint to that emperor to exhort him not to disturb the peace of the church. The tyrant, instead of relenting, caused St. Theodorus to be scourged, and banished him, with his brother Theophanes, a monk of the same monastery, and his companion, into an island in the mouth of the Euxine sea, where they suffered much by hunger and cold. But they had not staid long there before the emperor died, in 882, when they returned to Constantinople, and St. Theodorus published some writings in defence of the truth. Michael the Stutterer, who succeeded in the imperial throne, and is thought either to have had no religion, or to have leaned most to that of the Manichees or Paulicians, was for steering a middle course between the Catholics and the Iconoclasts, he cast St. Theodorus into prison, and afterwards sent him into exile. His son and successor Theophilus, a violent Iconoclast, and barbarous persecutor, who ascended the throne in 829, caused the two brothers to be whipped; then banished them into the island of Aphusia. Two years after, they were brought back to Constantinople, buffeted in presence of the emperor till they fell down quite stunned at his feet, then stripped and publicly scourged. When they had lain some days in prison, and still persisted in their refusal to communicate with the Iconoclasts, the emperor commanded twelve Iambic verses, composed for that purpose by an Iconoclast courtier, to be inscribed on their foreheads. The sense of the verses was as follows: "These men have appeared at Jerusalem as vessels of iniquity, full of superstitious error, and were driven thence for their crimes; and having fled to Constantinople they forsook not their impiety. Wherefore they have been again banished from thence, and are stigmatized on their faces." Though the wounds which they had received by their stripes were yet much inflamed and very painful, they were laid upon benches, whilst the letters which composed those verses were cut or pricked upon their faces. The operation was long and tedious, and interrupted by the coming on of the night; and the confessors were sent back to prison, their faces being still bloody. They were soon after banished to Apamea, in Syria, where St. Theodorus died of his sufferings. From the inscription cut in his forehead he is surnamed Grapt, which signifies in Greek, marked or engraved. Theophilus died about the same time, and the Empress Theodora, a zealous Catholic, becoming regent for her son Michael, St. Methodius was made patriarch, and restored holy images in 842. Theophanes was then honoured for his glorious confession of the faith, and constituted bishop of Nice, that he might more effectually concur in overthrowing a heresy, over which he had already triumphed. St. Theodorus Grapt is named in the Roman Martyrology with his brother Theophanes on this day. The Greeks honour the former on the 27th of December, and St. Theophanes, whom, on account of sacred hymns which he composed, they style the poet, on the 11th of October. See the authentic life of St. Theodorus Grapt, in Metaphrastes, Baronius, and Fleury, l. 47, &c. The twelve iambic verses, which were written on their foreheads, with a red-hot steel pencil, are recited in the Greek Synaxary on this day.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

St. Stephen, the First Martyr

See Acts vi. vii. and Tillemont, t. 2, p. 1, Cave. &c.

That St. Stephen was a Jew is unquestionable, himself owning that relation in his apology to the people. But whether he was of Hebrew extraction, and descended of the stock of Abraham, or whether he was of foreign parents incorporated and brought into that nation by the gate of proselytism is uncertain. The name Stephen, which signifies a crown, is evidently Greek; but the priest Lucian, in the history of the discovery of his relics, and Basil of Seleucia1 inform us, that the name Cheliel, which in modern Hebrew signifies a crown, was engraved on his tomb at Caphragamala.2 It is generally allowed that he was one of the seventy-two disciples of our Lord; for immediately after the descent of the Holy Ghost we find him perfectly instructed in the law of the gospel, endowed with extraordinary measures, both of the interior and exterior gifts of that divine spirit which was but lately shed upon the Church, and incomparably furnished with miraculous powers. The Church of Christ then increased daily, and was illustrious for the spirit and practice of all virtues, but especially for charity. The faithful lived and loved one another as brethren, and were of one heart and one soul. Love and charity were the common soul that animated the whole body of believers.

The rich sold their estates to relieve the necessities of the poor, and deposited the money in one common treasury, the care whereof was committed to the apostles, to see the distribution made as every body's necessity required. Heaven alone is free from all occasions of offence, and the number of converts being very great, the Greeks (that is, the Christians of foreign countries, who were born and brought up in countries which spoke chiefiy Greek, or at least were Gentiles by descent, though proselytes to the Jewish religion before they came over to the faith of Christ) murmured against the Hebrews, complaining that their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. The apostles, to provide a speedy remedy, assembled the faithful, and observed to them, that they could not relinquish the duties of preaching, and other spiritual functions of the ministry to attend to the care of tables; and recommended to them the choice of seven men of an unblemished character, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, who might superintend that affair, that so themselves might be freed from distractions and encumbrances, the more freely to devote themselves without interruption to prayer and preaching the gospel. This proposal was perfectly agreeable to the whole assembly, who immediately pitched on Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Ghost, and Philip, Prochorius, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas a proselyte of Antioch. All these names are Greek; whence some think they were chosen among the Greeks, in order to appease the murmurs that had been raised. But it frequently happened that Hebrews changed their names into Greek words of a like import, when they conversed with Greeks and Romans, to whom several names in the oriental languages sounded harsh, and were difficult to pronounce. Stephen is named the first of the deacons, as Peter is of the apostles, says St. Austin.3 Hence he is styled by Lucian,4 archdeacon. These seven were presented to the apostles, who praying, imposed hands upon them, by which rite they received the Holy Ghost, to qualify them to become ministers of God's holy mysteries.5 Their ordination was made by virtue of a commission, either general or particular, given by Christ to his apostles for the establishment of inferior ministers or Levites for the service of the altar. Whence St. Paul requires almost the same conditions in deacons as in bishops and priests,6 and speaks of their sacred ministry. St. Ignatius, the disciple of the apostles, orders the faithful "to reverence deacons as the command of God,"7 and calls them, "ministers of the mysteries of Jesus Christ." And again, "Ministers not of meat and drink, but of the Church of God."8

St. Stephen had the primacy and precedence among the deacons newly elected by the apostles, as St. Chrysostom observes, and being filled with the Holy Ghost, preached and pleaded the cause of Christianity with undaunted courage, confirming his doctrine by many public and unquestionable miracles. The number of believers were multiplied in Jerusalem, and a great multitude even of the priests obeyed the faith. The distinguished zeal and success of our holy deacon stirred up the malice and envy of the enemies of the gospel, who bent their whole force, and all their malice against him. The conspiracy was formed by the Libertines (or such as had been carried captives to Rome by Pompey, and had since obtained their freedom,) those of Cyrene, in Lydia, of Alexandria, Cilicia, and Lesser Asia, who had each a distinct synagogue at Jerusalem. At first they undertook to dispute with St. Stephen; but finding themselves unequal to the task, and unable to resist the wisdom and spirit with which he spoke, they suborned false witnesses to charge him with blasphemy against Moses and against God. The indictment was laid against him in the Sanhedrim, and the saint was hauled thither. After the charge was read, Caiphas, the high priest, ordered him to make his defence. The main point urged against him was, that he affirmed that the temple would be destroyed, that the Mosaic sacrifices were but shadows and types, and were no longer acceptable to God, Jesus of Nazareth having put an end to them. It pleased God to diffuse a heavenly beauty and a shining brightness on the saint's face, whilst he stood before the council, so that to all that were present it seemed as if it had been the countenance of an angel. According to the license given him by the high priest to speak for himself, he made his apology, but in such a manner as boldly to preach Jesus Christ in the Sanhedrim itself. He showed that Abraham, the father and founder of their nation, was justified, and received the greatest favours of God without the temple: that Moses was commanded to erect a tabernacle, but foretold a new law and the Messiah: that Solomon built the temple, but it was not to be imagined that God was confined in houses made by hands, and that the temple and the Mosaic law were temporary ministrations, and were to give place when God introduced more excellent institutions. The martyr added, that this he had done by sending the Messiah himself; but that they were like their ancestors, a stiff-necked generation, circumcised in body, but not in heart, and always resisting the Holy Ghost; and that as their fathers had persecuted and slain many of the prophets who foretold the Christ, so they had betrayed and murdered Him in person, and though they had received the law by the ministry of angels, they had not observed it.

This stinging reproach touched them to the quick, and kindled them into a rage, gnashing with their teeth at the holy martyr, and expressing all the symptoms of unbridled passion. The saint, not heeding what was done below, had his eyes and heart fixed on higher objects, and being full of the Holy Ghost, and looking up steadfastly to the heavens, saw them opened, and beheld his divine Saviour standing at the right hand of his Father, appearing by that posture ready to protect, receive, and crown his servant. With this vision the saint was inexpressibly ravished, his soul was inspired with new courage, and a longing to arrive at that bliss, a glimpse of which was shown him. His heart overflowed with joy, and in an ecstacy, not being able to forbear expressing his happiness in the very midst of his enemies, he said: Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. Thus divine consolations are then nearest to us, when human succours are furthest from us: but on such occasions we must cleave to God with confidence, and a perfect disengagement of heart from earthly things. If we still hold to them by the least twig, we have not perfectly attained to the dispositions of the saints. The Jews became more hardened and enraged by hearing the saint's declaration of this vision, and calling him a blasphemer, resolved upon his death without any further process. In the fury of their blind zeal they staid not for a judicial sentence, not [sic] for the warrant of the Roman governor, without which no one could at that time be legally put to death amongst them. But stopping their ears against his supposed blasphemies, they with great clamour rushed upon him, furiously hauled him out of the city, and with a tempest of stones satiated their rage against him. The witnesses who, according to the Levitical law, were to begin the execution in all capital cases,9 threw their clothes at the feet of Saul, who thus partook of their crime.10 In the mean time the holy martyr prayed, saying: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And falling on his knees, he cried with a loud voice, and the greatest earnestness: Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. When he had said this he fell asleep in the Lord. This word is used by the Holy Ghost elegantly to express the sweetness of the death of the just, which is to them a rest after the toils of this painful life, a secure harbour after the dangers of this mortal pilgrimage, and the gate to eternal life. St. Austin and other fathers doubt not but the eminent conversion of St. Paul was the fruit of the dying groans and prayer of this martyr, and is a proof of his great interest in heaven.11 The edification and manifold advantages which the church received from the martyrdom of this great and holy man compensated the loss which it sustained in him. Certain devout men took order to inter him in a decent manner, and made great mourning over him, though such a death was his own most glorious triumph, and unparalleled gain. The priest Lucian, who recounts the manner of the miraculous discovery of his relics in the fifth century, informs us, that they were deposited about twenty miles from Jerusalem, by the direction of Gamaliel, and at his expense.12 St. Stephen seems to have suffered towards the end of the same year in which Christ was crucified.13

In the whole life of our divine Redeemer we have the most perfect pattern of meekness. During his ministry he meekly bore with the weakness, ignorance, and prejudice of some; with the perverseness, envy, and malice of others; with the ingratitude of friends, and the pride and insolence of enemies. How affecting is the most patient silence which he held in the courts of unjust judges and through the whole course of his passion! How did he confirm this example which he had given us by spending his last breath in fervent prayer for his murderers! With what ardour and assiduity did he press upon us the practice of this virtue of meekness, and inculcate its indispensable obligation and unspeakable advantage! St. Stephen inherited more perfectly this spirit in proportion as he was more abundantly replenished with the Holy Ghost. No one who is passionate, unforgiving, and revengeful, can be a follower of the meek and humble Jesus. In vain do such assume to themselves the honour of bearing his name. In charity, meekness, and humility, consists the very spirit of Christianity; and scarcely any thing dishonours religion more than the prevalence of the opposite spirit in those who make a profession of piety.

1 Basil Seleuc. Or. de S. Stephano.

2 This name is not properly Hebrew, but Syriac, in which language Chelil signifies a crown, and Chelilael the Crown of God. See Jos. Assemani, p. 509.

3 S. Aug. Serm. 316, ol. 94, de div.

4 Lucian. De Inventione et Translat. S. Stephani c. 8, &c.

5 Some have imagined that the institution of deacons was at first only intended for the dispensation of temporals, though that of the sacred mysteries was soon after committed to them. But the general opinion of the church, fathers, and commentators, is, that the very institution regarded the ministry of the altar in the first place, and is clear from the prayer and imposition of hands used in their initiation. The holy eucharist was then received after supper, 1 Cor. xi. 18. Acts xx. 7. See Baron. (ad an. 34), Pearson (Annal. Paulii, pp. 53, 54.) Bingham (Origines Eccles. b. 2, c. 29, p. 262, t. 1.) In the primitive ages we find that the deacons not only had care of the utensils and sacred vessels of the altar, and of the treasury, and the obligations of the faithful, but also read the gospel in some churches, (St. Jerom, ep. 57, ad Sabin. and Constit. Apost. l. 2, c. 57. S. Cypr. ep. 34 p. 39,) and often administered the holy eucharist to the people, especially in the cup, (S. Cypr. de Lapsis, p. 132. S. Justin, M. ap. 1, ol. 2, p. 97,) though never in the presence of a priest, unless by his order. (Conc. Carthag. 4, can. 88.) They were allowed solemnly to baptize, by the bishop's leave and authority, never without it, (Ter. de Bapt. c. 17. S. Jerom, Dial contra Lucifer. c. 4,) &c.

6 1 Tim. iii. 8.

7 S. ign. ep. ad Smyrn. x. 7, p. 37.

8 Ep. ad Trallian. n. 2, p. 69.

9 Deut. xvii. 7.

10 Acts xxii. 20, and vii. 57.

11 S. Aug. Serm. 382.

12 See on the 3rd of August.

13 It is expressly affirmed in the chronological collections published by Scaliger with Eusebius's chronicle, that St. Stephen's martyrdom happened that year on the 26th of December: and that this was Eusebius's opinion, see Valesius, Annot. in Eus. Hist. l. 2, c. 1.

Friday, December 25, 2009

The Nativity of Christ, or Christmas Day

The world had subsisted about four thousand years, and all things were accomplished which, according to the ancient prophets, were to precede the coming of the Messias, when Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, having taken human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and being made man, was born of her for the redemption of mankind. The all-wise and all-merciful providence of God had, from the fall of our first parents, gradually disposed all things for the fulfilling of his promises, and the accomplishing the greatest of all his mysteries, the incarnation of his divine Son. Had man been restored to grace as soon as he had forfeited it, he would not have been sufficiently sensible of the depth of his horrible wounds, nor have had a just feeling of the spiritual blindness, weakness, and wretchedness in which he lay buried under the weight of his guilt. Neither would the infinite mercy, power, and goodness of God, in saving him, have appeared in such great lustre. Therefore man was left grovelling in his miseries for the space of so many thousand years, only enjoying a glimpse of his future redemption in the promise and expectation of it; which still was sufficient to raise those to it who did not shut their eyes to this light. God always raised several faithful servants; and even when most nations, from following the bent of their passions, fell into the most deplorable spiritual blindness, and abandoned his knowledge and true worship to transfer his honour to the basest of creatures and the most criminal objects, he reserved to himself a peculiar people, among which he was known and served, and many were saved through faith and hope in this promised Redeemer, then to come. All this time the saints never ceased with sighs and tears to beg that this Desired of all Nations1 might speedily make his appearance; and by these inflamed desires they both disposed themselves to receive the fruit of his redemption, and moved God to hasten and most abundantly to pour forth his mercy.

God, who with infinite wisdom brings things to maturity and perfection in their proper season, disclosed this to men partially and by degrees. He gave to Adam a promise and some knowledge of it.2 He renewed the same to Abraham, limiting it to his seed.3 He confirmed it by Isaac and Jacob.4 In the prophecy of this latter it was fixed in the tribe of Judah.5 It was afterwards clearly determined to belong to the posterity of David and Solomon - which was repeated in all the succeeding prophets. In these all the particular circumstances of Christ's birth, life, death, and spiritual kingdom in his church are expressed; the whole written law which was delivered to Moses, consisted of types expressive of the same, or alluding to him. The nearer the time approached the fuller was the revelation of him. The prophecy of turning swords into ploughshares, and lances into pruning hooks,6 &c. expressed that a profound peace in which the world should be, was to be an emblem of the appearance of the Prince of Peace. According to the prophecy of Jacob,7 the sceptre was to be removed from the tribe of Judah, to show the establishment of the new spiritual kingdom of the Messiah, which is to endure to the end of the world. According to Aggæus,8 and Malachi,9 the Messiah was to appear whilst the second temple stood, which was that of Solomon, restored after the captivity. Daniel foretold the four great empires which succeeded one another, the first of which were to be destroyed by the latter, viz. of the Medes, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans, each marked by very distinguishing characters.10 The seventy weeks of years predicted by Daniel,11 determine the time of the coming of the Messias, and of his death. For from the order of King Artaxerxes Longimanus for the rebuilding of Jerusalem seven weeks were to pass in the execution of that work in difficult times; and sixty-two more, that is, with these seven, sixty-nine to the manifestation of Christ, who was to be slain in the middle of the seventieth week ; and his death was to be followed by the destruction of the city and temple; it was to expiate iniquity, to establish the reign of eternal justice, and to accomplish the visions and prophecies. The Gentiles had also receiyed some giimmerings of this great event; as from the prediction of Balaam foretelling a star to arise from Jacob.12 All over the East, at the time of our Saviour's birth, a great deliverer of mankind was firmly expected, as the pagan historians expressly affirm. Suetonius13 writes as follows: "There had prevailed all over the East an ancient and constant notion, that the fates had decreed that, about that time there should come out of Judea those who should obtain the empire of the world." And Tacitus says:14 "A firm persuasion had prevailed among a great many, that it was contained in the ancient sacerdotal books, that about this time it should come to pass, that the East should prevail, and that those who should come out of Judea should obtain the empire of the world." Josephus, the Jewish historian, took occasion from hence to flatter Vespasian, as if he had been the Messias foretold by the prophets,15 and the great number of impostors who pretended to this character among the Jews in that and the following century, is a clear proof of this belief amongst them about the time.16 Hence several among them met with incredible success for some time, particularly Coziba, called Barcokebas, from Barhokeba, "Son of the Star," who drew on the Jews their utter destruction under Adrian.17

When Jesus Christ was born, the seventy weeks of Daniel were near being accomplished, and the sceptre was departed from the house of Judah, whether we restrain this to that particular tribe, or understand it of the whole Jewish nation, so as to give a main share only to that tribe. For Herod, though a Jew by religion, was by birth an Idumean, as Josephus, whose testimony is unexceptionable, informs us, relating how his father Antipas, who chose rather to be called by the Greek name Antipater, was made, by King Alexander Jannæus, governor of his own country, Idumea. Herod was raised to the throne by the Romans, excluding the princes of the Asmonean or Jewish royal family, whom Herod entirely cut off; as he did also the principal members of tha Sanhedrim or great council by which that nation governed itself by its own laws under its kings. This tyrant, moreover, stripped that people of all their other civil rights. Soon after they were made a Roman province; nor was it long before their temple was destroyed, and their whole nation dispersed; so that the Jews themselves are obliged to confess that the time foretold by the prophets for the coming of the Messias has long since elapsed. Christ was born at the time when the Roman or fourth empire, marked by Daniel, was exalted to its zenith by Augustus, who reigned fifty-seven years from his first command of the army at nineteen years of age; and forty-four from the defeat of Antony, his partner in the empire, in the battle of Actium. God had preordained the greatness of the Roman empire, for the more easy propagation of the gospel over so many nations which formed one monarchy. Augustus had then settled it in peace. It was the custom at Rome to shut the gates of the temple of Janus only in time of a general peace; which had happened but twice before the reign of Augustus, and it happened three times under it. First, this temple was shut in the reign of Numa: a second time, after the first Punic war: but during very short intervals. Under Augustus it was shut after his victory over Antony and Cleopatra: again upon his return from his war with the Cantabrians in Spain; and thirdly, in the very year in which Christ was born, when it remained shut during twelve years, the whole empire enjoying all that time a profound peace. Christ was born when Augustus was in the fortieth year of his reign, the twenty-ninth from the battle of Actium, about four thousand years or a little more from the creation of the world, about two thousand five hundred from the flood, almost two thousand from the vocation of Abraham, and a little above one thousand from the foundation of the temple by Solomon. A decree was issued by Augustus, and published all over the Roman empire, ordaining, that all persons with their estates and conditions, should be registered at certain places, according to their respective provinces, cities, and families. It was the custom at Rome to make a census or registration of all the citizens every five years, which term was called a lustrum. This general register of all the subjects of the empire, with tha value of their estates, was probably ordered, that the strength and riches of each province might be known. It was made in Syria and Palestine by Cyrinus. Quintilius Varus was at that time proconsul of Syria, on whom the procurator or governor of Judea in some measure depended, after it was made a Roman province. Cyrinus succeeded Varus in the government of Syria about ten years after Herod's death, when his son Archelaus was banished, and Judea made a province of the empire. Cyrinus then made a second register; but he made the first in the time of Varus, in which he might act as extraordinary deputy, at least for Palestine, then governed by Herod; or this enregistration is all attributed to him because it was finished by him afterwards. This decree was given by the emperor for political views of state; but proceeded from an overruling order of providence that, by this most authentic public act, it might be manifest to the whole world that Christ was descended of the house of David, and tribe of Juda. For those of this family were ordered to be registered at Bethlehem, a small town in the tribe of Juda, seven miles from Jerusalem to the south-west. This was called David's-town; and was appointed the place where those that belonged to his family were to be enrolled.18 Joseph and Mary were perhaps natives of this place, though they then lived at Nazareth, ninety miles almost north from Jerusalem. Micheas had foretold19 that Bethlehem (called by the Jebusites, who first built it, Ephrata) should be ennobled by the birth of Christ. Mary therefore, though with child, by the special direction of providence, undertook this tedious journey with her husband in obedience to the emperor's order for their enrolment in that city; and it is believed that with St. Joseph also Mary and her infant Jesus were enrolled; of which Origen,20 St. Justin,21 Tertullian,22 and St. Chrysostom23 make no doubt. All other characters or marks of the Messias,24 mentioned by the prophets, agree to Jesus Christ.25

To show the divine Jesus's descent from David and Juda, the evangelists, St Matthew and St. Luke, give his pedigree; but designedly different, that this noted character of the Messias might he demonstrated hy his double genealogy. The reason of this difference was at that time public and known to every one, and so was not mentioned. It seems most probable that St Luke gives the natural, and St Matthew the legal line of Joseph, who had been adopted into the latter by the frequent case specified in the law of Moses. St Chrysostom puts us in mind to take notice of the astonishing mercy and humility of our divine Redeemer in this circumstance that he did not disdain, in order to save sinners, to choose a pedigree in which several notorious sinners are named; as much did he humble himself to satisfy for, and to cure our vanity and pride. The same father, upon reading the exordium of St. Matthew's gospel and of this pedigree, breaks out into this vehement pathos:26 "What dost thou say, O evangelist? Thou hast promised to speak of the only begotten Son of God. and dost thou name David? Imagine not that what you hear is low or trifling; but raise your mind, be filled with awe and astonishment, hearing that God is come upon the earth. This was so stupendous, so unexpected a prodigy, that the angels assembled in choir sung praise and glory for the whole world, and the prophets stood astonished at the wonderful mystery. Admire that the natural Son of God who is without a beginning, would suffer himself to be called the son of David, that he might make you the Son of God." The circumstances of the great mystery, and the wonderful manner in which it was performed, ought to attract our whole attention, and be the object of our pious meditations and devotions, particularly on this holy festival.

The Blessed Virgin and St Joseph, after a painful journey of at least four days in a mountainous country, arrived at Bethlehem. There they found the public inns or caravanseras (such as is customary in towns in the East) already full; nor were they able to procure any lodgings in the town, every one despising and rejecting their poverty. Do we spiritually invite Jesus into our hearts, and prepare a lodging for his reception in our affections ? This is the entertainment he is infinitely desirous of, and which he came from heaven to seek. By spiritual nakedness, coldness, sloth, or sin, a Christian soul refuses him admittance. Of such treatment he will justly complain much more than of the people of Bethlehem. Joseph and Mary, in this distress, retired into a cave made on the side of a rock, which is called a stable; because it served for that purpose, perhaps for the use of those who lodged at the caravanseras.27 It is a common tradition that an ox and an ass were in it at that time. This circumstance is not mentioned in holy scripture, but is supported by the authority of St. Jerom, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and Prudentius produced by Baronius; and if the blessed travellers came not on foot, they must have had their own ass with them. In this place, the holy mother when her time was come, brought forth her divine Son without the pain of other mothers; remaining both in and after his conception and birth a pure virgih. With what joy and holy respect did she behold and adore the new-born infant; the creator of all things made man for us! She wrapped him in swaddling-clothes such as her poverty had allowed her to prepare, and with holy awe laid him in the manger. "With what solicitude did she watch him !" says St. Bonaventure.28 "With what reverence did she touch him whom she knew to be her Lord! With what affection, tenderness, and veneration did she embrace and kiss him! With what awe did she look on his face and tender hands! With what gravity did she compose and cover his little limbs! With what pleasure did she present to him her breast to suck!" In like manner are we to admire with St. Bernard, "How the holy man Joseph would often take him upon his knees, smiling at him." We ought also to contemplate how the choirs of angels descending from above in raptures of astonishment, adore their God in this new wonderful state to which mercy and love have reduced him, and salute him with hymns of praise. We are invited to join them in the persons of the holy shepherds. God was pleased that his Son, though born on earth with so much secrecy, and in a state of the most astonishing humiliation, should be acknowledged by men, and receive the first fruits of their homages and devotion upon his first appearance among them. Who are they that are favoured with the honour of this heavenly call? The great ones of the World, the renowned sages among the Jews and Gentiles, the princes who, by their riches, power, pomp, and state, seemed raised above the level of their fellow-creatures, are passed over on this occasion. They are chosen whose character, by their very station, is simplicity and humility, and whose obscurity, poverty, and solitude removed them from the principal dangers of worldly pride, and were most agreeable to that love and spirit of retiredness, penance, and humility which Christ came to recommend. Nor can we doubt but they adorned their state with the true spirit of this simplicity and devotion. These happy persons were certain shepherds, who, being strangers to the sensuality and pride of the world, were at that time keeping the watches of the night over their flock. Whilst the sensual and the proud were asleep in soft beds, or employed in pursuits of voluptuousness, vanity, or ambition, an angel appeared to these humble poor men, and they saw themselved encompassed with a great brightness. They were suddenly seized with exceeding great fear, but the heavenly messenger said to them: Fear not: for behold I bring you good tidings of exceeding great joy, that shall be to all the people. For this day is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign to you: you shall find the child wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. Suddenly then appeared with the angel a multitude of heavenly spirits praising God, and saying: Glory be to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will. After the departure of the angels the wondering shepherds said to one another: Let us go over to Bethlehem, and let us see this word that is come to pass, which the Lord hath showed to us. They immediately hastened thither, and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. Here they did homage to the Messias as to the spiritual king of men; and then returned to their flocks glorifying and praising God.29 Mary was very reserved amidst these occurrences, and continued silent in her deportment, but observed all these things, with secrecy pondering them in her heart. The message delivered by the angel to these shepherds is addressed also to us. In them we are invited to pay our homages and devotion to our new-born Saviour. Devotion gave them wings in hastening to the manger. In like manner with ardour and diligence we most obey this summons, and acquit ourselves in spirit of this great duty. In contemplating this mystery we must honour our God and Redeemer, exulting with holy joy, and paying to him the just homages of adoration, praise, and love.

The angel calls this wonderful mystery a subject of great joy to all the people. Indeed our hearts must be insensible to all spiritual things if they do not overflow with holy joy at the consideration of so glorious a mercy, in which is displayed such an excess of the divine goodness, and by which such inestimable benefits and so high an honour accrue to us. The very thought and foreknowledge of this mystery comforted Adam in his banishment from Paradise. The promise of it sweetened the laborious pilgrimage of Abraham. The same encouraged Jacob to dread no adversity, and Moses to brave all dangers and conquer all difficulties in delivering the Israelites from the Egyptian slavery. All the prophets saw it in spirit with Abraham, and they rejoiced. If the expectation of it gave the patriarchs such joy, how much ought the accomplishment to create in us! Joy is defined [sic] the delight of a rational creature arising from the possession of a desired object. It must then be proportioned to the nature of the possession; consequently it ought to be as much greater in us as the fruition of a good surpasses the promise, possession the hope, or fruit the blossom. This St. Peter Chrysologus illustrates with regard to this difference of the Old and New Law as follows: "The letter of a friend," says he, "is comfortable; but his presence is much more welcome: a bond is useful; but the payment more so: blossoms are pleasing, but only till the fruit appears. The ancient fathers received God's letters: we enjoy his presence: they had the promise, we the accomplishment: they the bond, we the payment." How would those ancient saints have exulted to have beheld with Simeon the completion of this great mercy! for which they never ceased ardently to sigh, weep, and pray. This reflection made St. Bernard say :30 "Very often do I revolve in mind the ardour of the desire with which the fathers sighed for the coming of Christ in the flesh: and I am filled within myself with confusion, and penetrated with compunction; and even now scarce am I able to contain my tears: so much am I ashamed of the sloth and lukewarmness of these wretched times. For who amongst us now conceives so much joy from the presence of this grace, as the promise of it inflamed desire in the ancient saints ? Behold many indeed will rejoice in this festival; but I wish it were on account of the festival, not of vanity"31 Christians who rejoice with a worldly, vain, or carnal mirth, are strangers to the spirit of God, and his holy joy. This arises from a feeling sense of the blessings which we receive, and the love which God bears to us in this mystery; to which souls which are immersed in the flesh and vanity, are strangers. Did they truly weep under their spiritual miseries, and value these advantages, some degree of this spiritual joy would enter their hearts. Some exterior marks of this joy are allowed, provided they be not sought for themselves, but such as suit a penitential state and Christian gravity, both by their nature and extreme moderation that is held in them; and, lastly, provided motives of virtue sanctify them, and they express and spring from an interior spiritual joy, which is altogether holy. If sensuality have any share in our festivals, they are rather heathenish Bacchanals than Christian solemnities, and on them we feed and strengthen those passions which Christ was born only to teach us to subdue. To sanctify this feast, we ought to consecrate it to devotion, and principally to the exercises of adoration, praise, and love. This is the tribute we must offer to our new-born Saviour; when we visit him in spirit with the good shepherds. With them we must enter the stable, and contemplate this mystery with a lively faith, by which, under the veils of this infant body, we discover the infinite majesty of our God; and in this mystery we shall discern a prodigy of omnipotence to excite our praise, and a prodigy of love to kindle in our souls the affections of ardent love of God.

To contemplate immensity shut up in a little body, omnipotence clothed with weakness, the eternal God born in time, the joy of angels bathed in tears, is something far more wonderful than to consider God creating a world out of nothing, moving the heavens, and weighing the universe with a finger. This is a mystery altogether unutterable; to be adored in silence, and in raptures of admiration, not to be declared by words. "How can any one speak of the wonder which is here wrought amongst us?" says St. Fulgentius.32 "A man of God, a creature of his Creator, one who is finite and was born in time of Him who is immense and eternal." Here, He who is wonderful in all his works, has outdone what creatures could have known to be possible to Omnipotence itself, had they not seen it accomplished. Another eminent servant of God cries out upon this mystery:33 "O Lord our God, how admirable is thy name over all the earth! Truly thou art a God working wonders. I am not now astonished at the creation of the world, at the heavens, at the earth, at the succession of days and seasons; but I wonder to see God inclosed in the womb of a virgin, the Omnipotent lain in a manger, the eternal Word clothed with flesh. Ought we not to invite the heavenly spirits to exert their might in praising the Lord for this incomprehensible effort of his power, goodness, and wisdom? to glorify their God in this state of humiliation which his infinite love has moved him to put on to save sinful man? Adore him, all you his angels.34 But these devout spirits have received a strict injunction to acquit themselves of this duty. The eternal Father, when he brought his Son into the world, laid on them his commands, saying: Let all the angels of God adore him.35 Though they neither wanted invitation nor command, their own devotion being their prompter. O! what must have been their sentiments, when they saw a stable converted into heaven by the wonderful presence of its king, and beheld that divine infant, knowing his weak hands to be those which framed the universe, and bordered the heavens with light; and that by Him both the heavens and the earth subsist? Are they not more astonished to contemplate him in this humble, hidden state, than seated on the throne of his glory? In the most profound sentiments of adoration and love they sound forth his praises in the loudest strains, and, with their melody, fill not only the heavens, but also the earth. Shall not man, for whom this whole mystery is wrought, and who is so much favoured, and so highly privileged and ennobled by the same burn with a holy ardour to perform his part in this duty; and make the best return he is able of gratitude, adoration, and praise? To these exercises we ought to consecrate a considerable part of our devotions, especially on this festival, repeating with fervour the psalms, which chiefly consist of acts of divine praises, the hymn of thanksgiving used by the church, commonly ascribed to St. Ambrose and St. Austin,36 and the angelical hymn, Glory and praise be given by all creatures to God alone in the highest heavens; and peace (or pardon, reconciliation, grace, and all spiritual happiness) to men of good-will.37 In our devotions, also, acts of love ought to challenge a principal part, the Incarnation of the Son of God being the mystery of love; or properly a kind of ecstasy of love, in which God strips himself, as it were, of the rays of his glory to visit us, to become our brother, and to make himself in all things like to us.

Love is the tribute which God challenges of us in a particular manner, in this mystery; this is the return which he requires of us for all he has done and suffered for us. He says to us: Son, give me thy heart. To love him is our sovereign happiness, and the highest dignity and honour to which a creature can aspire. To be suffered to make him a tender of our love ought alone to have engaged us not to neglect any means of corresponding with such grace; but we are bound to it upon the title of the strictest justice. God being infinite in all perfections, is infinitely worthy of our love, and we ought to love him with an infinite love, if we were capable of it. We are also bound to love him in gratitude especially for the benefit of his incarnation, in which he has given us himself, and this in order to rescue us from extreme miseries, and to bestow on us the most incomprehensible graces and favours. Man had sinned, and was become tbe associate of tbe devil. God mercifully sought him out, and, by his promise of a Redeemer, raised him from the gulf into whicbh he was fallen. Nevertheless, almost all the nations of the earth had, by blindly following their passions, at length fallen into a total forgetfulness of God who made them, and deified first inanimate stars and planets, afterwards dead men, the most impious and profligate of the human race; also the works of their own hands, often beasts, monsters, and their own basest passions, the most infamous crimes they authorized by the sanction of pretended religious rites; the numbers and boldness of the criminals screened them from the danger of disgrace; and from every comer of the earth vice cried to heaven for vengeance. The Jews, who bad been favoured by God above all other nations, and declared bis peculiar people, were nevertheless abandoned to envy, jealousy, pride, and other vices; so that even amongst them the number of privileged souls which remained faithful to God, appeared to be very small. Are we not affrighted to consider this deluge of iniquity, this monstrous scene of horror! Yet such was the face of the earth when the Son of God honoured it with his divine presence and conversation. Who would not have imagined when he heard that God was coming to visit the earth, that it must have been to destroy it by fire from heaven, as he had done Sodom, and to bury its rebellious inhabitants in hell? But no; whilst the world was reeking with blood and oppressions, and overrun with impiety, he came to save it. How does the ingratitude and baseness of man set off his love! At the sight of our miseries his compassion was stirred up the more tenderly, and his bowels yearned towards us. He came to save us when we deserved nothing at his hands but eternal torments. Also the manner in which he came to visit us, shows yet in a more astonishing manner the excess of his goodness and charity for us. To engage our hearts more strongly, he has made himself like to us, taking upon him our nature. God was seen upon earth, and has conversed with men.38 The Word was made flesh.39 God is born an infinite babe, the Eternal is become a young child, the Omnipotent is made weak, he who is essentially infinite and independent, is voluntarily reduced to a state of subjection, and humbled beneath his own creatures. It is love, and the love of us sinful men that hath done all this. "O strong wine of charity!" cries out St. Thomas of Villa Nova,40 "O most powerful triumph of love! thou hast conquered the invincible: the Almighty is become thy captive. O truly excess of charity!" Can we contemplate this divine infant, or call to mind this adorable mystery, without melting in love? So sweetly do all its circumstances breathe the most tender love: which the church expresses by saying, that on this day the heavens flow with honey. Can we ever satiate the affection of our souls by repeating to ourselves those amiable words, and reciting them every time with a fresh effusion of joy and love? A little One is born to us: a Son is given to us.41 Or, This day is born to you a Saviour.42

St. Francis of Assisium appeared not able to contain himself through excessive tenderness of love, when he spoke of this mystery, and named the Little Babe of Bethlehem. St. Bernard says: "God on the throne of his majesty and greatness commands our fear and our homages: but in his littleness especially our love."43 This father invites all Created beings to join him in love and adoration, and to listen in awful silence to the proclamation of the festival in honour of this mystery made in the Roman Martyrology. "Hear ye heavens," says he, "and lend your ears, O earth. Stand in raptures of astonishment and praise, O you whole creation, but you chiefly, O man. Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, was born in Bethlehem of Juda. O short word of the Eternal Word abridged for us! but filled with heavenly sweetness. The affection of this melting sweetness struggles within, earnestly labouring widely to diffuse its teeming abundance, but finds not words. For such is the grace and energy of this speech, that it relishes less, if one iota in it be changed." In another sermon, having repeated the same words, he adds: "At these words my soul melts, and my spirit boils within me, hastening with burning desire to publish to you this exultation and joy."44 If this love were kindled in our breast, nothing were sweeter to us than to abide in spirit at the feet of Jesus, pondering the motive, that is, the excess of divine love, which brought him from heaven, and contemplating the other circumstances of this mystery. How ought we to salute and adore those sacred hands which are weakened, wrapped in clouts, or stretched on the manger, for love of us, but which move the heavens, and uphold and govern the universe. Also those divine feet, which will undergo so many fatigues, and at length be bored on the cross for us. That blood which purples his little veins, and dyes his blessed cheeks, but which is the price of our redemption, and will be one day poured out upon the cross. How is this sweet countenance, which is the joy of angels, now concealed? But it will one day be buffeted, bruised, and covered with filthy phlegm. How ought we respectfully to honour it? His holy flesh, more pure than angels, even now begins to suffer from the cold and other hardships: do we not desire to defend it from these injuries? But this cannot be allowed. Nor could any one oppose the work of our redemption. Sin is the cause of all that he suffers, and shall not we detest and shun that monster? The loving eyes of the divine Jesus pierce our souls. They are now bathed in tears; though, as St. Bernard says, "Jesus weeps not as other children, or at least not on the same account." They cry for their wants and weakness, Jesus for compassion and love for us. May these precious tears move the heavenly Father to show us mercy; and may they soften, wash, and cleanse our souls. "These tears excite in me both grief and shame," says the same father, "when I consider my own insensibility amidst my spiritual miseries." But nothing in this contemplation will more strongly move us than to penetrate into the interior employment of this divine Saviour's holy soul, and to consider the ardour of his zeal in the praises of his Father, and in his supplications to Him on our behalf; his compassion for us, and the constant oblation which he made of himself to obtain for us mercy and grace. Such meditations and pious entertainments of our souls will have great force in kindling the fire of holy love in our hearts. But all endeavours would be weak, so long as we do not labour effectually to remove all obstaeles to this holy love in our affections. To cure these disorders is the chief end of the birth of Christ; he purchased the grace for us by his sufferings, and he taught us the remedies by his example.

Christ's actions are no less instructions to us than his disoourses. His life is the gospel reduced to practice. It is enough to study it to understand well his doctrine; and to become perfect, we must imitate his example. By this he instructs us in his very nativity, beginning first to practise, then to preach.45 Hence the manger was his first pulpit, and in it he teaches us the cure of our spiritual maladies. The Jews, addicted to their senses and passions, blinded themselves, mistook the prophets, and framed an idea of a Messiah agreeable to their own fancy, who should be a rich and mighty conqueror, and should make Jerusalem the greatest city, and their nation the most flourishing empire in the world. But this was not such a Messiah as we wanted. Gold and silver, and a magnificent city, would only have us more in love with our exile, so as to forget more our heavenly country. Such a Saviour could have only served to nourish, not to heal our corruption. He would have raised our desires and passions, and made himself the instrument to feed and gratify them. He would have been a tempter and deceiver; to have been shunned by those who knew their distempers, and sought their true remedies. But the prophets give the Messiah the very opposite characteristics. The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah alone, not to mention many other prophecies, evinces this truth, and ought to have opened the eyes of the carnal Jews. The saints, who had all learned a spirit of contempt of such goods, would never have languished for the coming of such a Saviour: as gold, worldly honours, or empire were not the presents they asked or expected from him, but the cure of their infirmities, and the abundance of his heavenly graces. He is come such as the holy prophets had desired and foretold, such as our miseries required, our true physician and Saviour. He wanted not on earth honours or sceptres; he came not to taste of our vanities: riches and glory he abounded with. He came among us to seek our miseries, our poverty, our humiliation, to repair the injuries our pride had offered to the Godhead, and to apply a remedy to our souls. Therefore he chose not a palaoe, or a great city; but a poor mother, a little town, a stable. He who adorns the world, and clothes the lilies of the fields beyond the majesty of Solomon in his glory, is wrapt up in rags, and laid in a manger. And this he chose to be the great sign of his appearance. And this shall be a sign to you: said the angel to the shepherds: you shall find the child wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. Are then rags and a manger the wonderful sign of our God appearing on earth? Are these the works of the great Messiah, of whom the prophets spoke such glorious things? This it was that scandalized the Jews in his birth. "Take from us those clouts, and that manger," said Marcion, unjustly prepossessed against the humility of such an appearance.46 But this is a sign which God himself hath chosen, and set up for his standard; a sign to be the contradiction to our pride, covetousness, and sensuality. And do not we wonder at the stupendous virtue and efficacy of this sign, so shocking to the senses and passions, when we see how it drew to it the little and great, the magians and the shepherds, who knew their Saviour by it, and returned glorifying God? How many have enrolled themselves under the same standard! Yet is it still a scandal and a contradiction to many who call themselves its followers, who blush at it, not in Christ indeed, but by a strange inconsistency in themselves, whilst they pretend to walk in his spirit. Would not these nominal Chiistians have rejected Jesus with the Jews, had they been then alive? Do they not now exclude him from their hearts ?

Christ set up this his mark for us: it is our powerful instruction. The grace of God the Saviour hath appeared to all men, instructing us, says the apostle.47 All men, the rich and the poor, the great and the small, all who desire to have a share in his grace or in his kingdom. And what breast can be so stony as not to be softened at this example? Our inveterate diseases seemed almost unconquerable. But Christ is come, the omnipotent Physician, to apply a remedy to them. Our disorders flow from three sources. All that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life.48 What is concupiscence of the flesh, but the inordinate inclination to gratify the senses? Christ, to encourage us to renounce this love of sensual pleasures, and to satisfy his justice hy his own sufferings for our offences in this way, begins to suffer as soon as he begins to live. At his very birth he exposes his delicate body to the inclemency of the severest season of the year, to the hard boards of the manger for a cradle, to hunger, and to privation of the most ordinary conveniences and necessaries of human life. His tender and divine limbs tremble with cold, his eyes stream with tears, and he consecrated the first moments of his life to suffering and pain. He who directs the seasons, governs the universe, and disposes all things, has ordained every thing for this very end. Yet we study in all things to flatter our senses, to pamper our bodies in softness and every gratification, and to remove every thing that is hard or painful. Is this to imitate the model of penance and mortification that is set us? Christ, by these sufferings, and this privation of all things, shows us that he came to satisfy the justice of his Father, and to repair the injury done to his glory by our sins. But by the same he teaches us the remedies of our disorders, and shows us how they are to be applied to our souls; as he came to instruct us in all we want to know and do in order to save our souls, and to reform all our irregular passions and manners. Could he have preached this more powerfully than he has done by the example of his birth? How comes it, notwithstanding, that we are not yet sufficiently persuaded that we cannot be saved at a cheaper rate than by a constant practice of self-denial and penance? "Either Christ is deceived, or the world errs," says St. Bernard.* The former is impossible: the very thought would be blasphemy. It is then clear, that notwithstanding the torrent of the example in the world, a life of softness, intemperance, and sensual delights is the incentive of vice, and the sure road to eternal perdition.

By concupiscence of the eyes is understood the love of riches; the second root of the disorders which reign in the world, and the foundation of its false maxims. This our Saviour teaches us to root out of our hearts by embracing the most austere poverty, and consecrating it in his divine body, to use the expression of St. Bernard. He shows us the danger of riches, and the crime and disorder of a love or eager pursuit of them. Riches are good in the designs of Providence: and what is more noble than to have the means of relieving the distresses of others? This motive all pretend in amassing riches; but seek in them only the interest of self-love. Riches are a fruit which the sin of our first parent has infected with a mortal poison. They make salvation very difficult by the dangers which attend them, and by the great obligations they lay men under, and which are little thought on. The woe which the gospel pronounces against the rich, falls not upon them because they gather the fruits of the earth, but because they seek them with too great eagerness, or set their hearts too much on them. The rich and the poor adore them in their desires. This is the disorder. Men may be poor in spirit in the midst of riches. But this is truly an extraordinary grace. These that are blessed with riches must fear them, lest they find admittance into their hearts. They must watch over themselves against this danger, always bearing in mind that they are things so frail, so troublesome, and such incentives of vice, that reason taught the philosophers amongst the heathens to despise them. They are moreover most frequently either the effect or the cause of iniquity; faulty either in their acquisition or in their use. In their acquisition, in which injustices are so frequent, that Seneca says: "Every rich man is either unjust, or the heir of one who was unjust." And the organ of the Holy Ghost declares: He that maketh haste to be rich, shall not be innocent.49 At least a desire of riches usually attends the acquisition, which is many ways inordinate [sic]; and is always a spiritual fever which destroys the relish of heavenly goods, and consumes the very vitals of the interior life. It is an idolatry, as St. Paul calls it,50 and the same master who commanded idols to be banished out of the world, obliges us to banish the love of riches out of our hearts. The least reserve draws on us the curse of heaven. This desire in the rich is insatiable. The prophet Isaias said to them:51 Wo to you that join house to house, and lay field to fields even to the end qf the place: shall you alone dwell in the midst of the earth? And the Roman satirist reproached one that seemed to design to make all Rome a single house for himself.52 The rich are anxious for superfluities, and are tormented by extravagant desires. The poor have here often as much to correct; the desire of possessions is as criminal as an attachment to the possession; it often exposes to a thousand injustices, under subtle disguises, and shuts the heart to divine grace. Let all labour in the world, but not for the world; and let all inordinate desires and anxiety be cut off. Let the poor place themselves nearest to Jesus Christ, and, learning from him the happiness of their conditicm, study their own sanctification in it. Let the rich look upon their possessions as a burden hard to bear well, and labour to sanctify them by a good use, and by imitating Christ, our model, in a perfect spirit of disengagement and poverty. For in the use of riches there are still greater dangers than in the acquisition. These are, lest a man forget himself and his miseries; feel a complacency in his plenty, and be puffed up with pride; live in pleasures and softness which custom seems to authorize, and in a circle of amusements which flatter the senses; gratify his passions which riches inflame; think himself by riches qualified for everything, and take upon him employments and obligations for the discharge of which he has not abilities; refuse the debt which he owes to the poor of all his superfluities; live in luxury, which damned the rich glutton, and practise neither mortification nor penance. Is not sloth a crime which damns souls, and is the mother of all vice? Yet how many among the rich fly study and labour, as if they thought sloth, vanity, and pleasure the privilege of their rank! Is not the life of a Christian to be penitential? Where is that of the rich such? Vicious inclinations are roused and strengthened by riches; and by incentives and opportunities the passions often reign in the heart of the rich with uncontrollable empire. If they sometimes confess the vanity and illusion of the world, and condemn their own folly, this sentiment is stifled almost in its birth, and in a short time they are again plunged into a forgetfulness of themselves, and by a relapse are more culpable than before. To other dangers we must add the misfortune that the rich are surrounded by flatterers, and that others artfully conspire to blind and betray them amidst their dangers. How often does it happen that ministers of God deceive them, calling evil good, and good evil; soothing their passions or disguising their obligations. But without entering into this detail, do not the curses of Christ suffice to make all Christians tremble at the dangers of this state? This fear alone can render those that are in it secure, by making them always watch over their own hearts, that they be not led into any snares. By this means, though Christ declares riches one of the most dangerous obstacles of grace, many saints have changed them into the means of their salvation, joining with their possession a spirity of poverty and disengagement, and making them the instruments of justice and charity. It is therefore neither to riches nor to poverty that Christ promises the kingdom of heaven; but to the disengagement of the heart from the love of riches in whatever state persons live. But that of poverty he recommends by his own choice, as the easier and happier for the practice of the most perfect virtues. The world indeed abounds with poverty; but not with that of which Christ sets up the standard. Because worldly poor complain and groan under the hardships of their condition, and blush at its humiliations, which they ought to esteem as the means of grace, opportunities of virtue, remedies of their evils, and the livery of their God and Redeemer.

Pride being the third and prncipal source of our disorders, and our deepest wound, humility is displayed in the most wonderful manner in the birth of the Son of God. What is the whole mystery of the Incarnation but the most astonishing humiliation of the Deity? To expiate our pride, and to repair the injury offered to the adorable Trinity by our usurpation, the eternal Son of God divests himself of his glory, and takes upon him the form of Man. Neither is he content with making this infinite descent, but every circumstance in the manner of making it, is carried to the most amazing degree of humiliation. Who would not expect to hear, that when God descended upon earth, the heavens would bend beneath him, the earth be moved at his sight, and all nature arrayed with magnificence? Who would not think that the whole creation would be overwhelmed with the glory of his presence, and tremble with awe before him? But nothing of this was seen. "He came, not," says St. Chrysostom,53 "so as to shake the world at the presence of his majesty: nor did he appear in thunder and lightning, as on Mount Sinai; but he descended sweetly, no man knowing it." While all things were in deep silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, thy Almighty Word came down from heaven, from thy royal throne.54 No one of the great ones of the world is apprized of this great mystery. Those few chosen persons to whom he is pleased to reveal himself are called to adore him in the closest secrecy and silence. If this be the manner in which he comes, what is the appearance which he makes among men? At this sight what must be our astonishment! To what a condition do we see the king of glory reduced! He appears the outcast of the world, is rejected by his own people, who refuse to receive him under their roof, is lodged in a stable, wrapped in rags, and laid in a manger. Is this abandoned shelter of cattle, this crib of beasts, the place where God was to repose on earth? Are these rags the ensigns of infinite majesty? How different was the lodging, the clothing, the attendance of many princes who at that very time were born into the world, laid in down, lodged in palaces, and served by many hands. How comes the King of heaven to make his appearance in such a state of abasement, and so destitute of due honour and every convenience! His birth is, notwithstanding, the masterpiece of infinite wisdom, mercy, and omnipotence. These perfections nowhere shine more admirably than in this mystery; for he came thus to be our physician, to correct our mistaken judgment of things, to heal our pride, to bring, and to encourage us to use the remedy to our grievous maladies, and to overcome our reluctancy to its bitterness by taking it first himself. Therefore humility was to be his ensign, and the angel gave his rags and manger to the shepherds, for the mark by which he was to be known. This shall be to you a sign. Does not the reproach which his example makes to us, open our eyes, and touch our hearts? What do we behold! A God poor, a God humbled, a God suffering! And can we any longer entertain thoughts of sensuality, ambition, or pride?

If this humility of a God be most astonishing, is not the blindness and pride of man, after such an example, something, if possible, still more inconceivable? Christ is born thus only to atone for our pride, to shew us the beauty of humility, and to plant it in our hearts. Humility is his standard; and the spirit of sincere humility is the mark by which his disciples must be known to be his. Can we profess ourselves his followers, can we look upon the example which he has set us, and yet continue to entertain thoughts of ambition and pride? To learn the interior perfect spirit of humility and all other virtues, we cannot make use of any more powerful means than serious and frequent meditation on his nativity and divine life. Placing ourselves in spirit at the manger, after the tender of our homages by acts of adoration, praise, thanksgiving, and love, we must study in him the lessons of all virtues, and must present to our new-born king, our earnest supplications to obtain of him all those gifts and graces which he comes to bestow upon us. Let us learn humility from the lowliness in which he appears, and from the humility of his sacred heart. Let us learn meekness by beholding the sweetness and patience with which this God-man receives all injuries from men and from the elements. Let us learn resignation from the indifference with which he bears cold, wants, wrongs, and whatever is sent him. Let us learn obedience from the most perfect submission of our blessed Saviour to the will of his heavenly Father, from his birth offering himself without reserve even to the death of the cross. Let us learn charity from the ardour of his divine love. Let us learn a contempt of the world and its perishable goods from the extreme poverty which Christ made his voluntary choice. Let not the spirit and maxims of the world reign any longer in our hearts, since Christ has shewn us such powerful motives, and presented us such sovereign remedies against them.55 If we still continue possessed with them, when will our follies be corrected?56 Have we not hitherto been idolaters of ourselves by pride, idolaters ef the world by vanity and avarice, and idolaters of aur flesh by living enslaved to our senses? These idols we renounoed at baptism: but have we not lived in a perfidious violation of these vows? Unless we now sincerely renew these engagements, and banish these idols out of our affections, Jesus can never be spiritually born in our souls, and we can never inherit his spirit, which was the end of his carnal nativity. He is meek and the king of peace, the lover of purity and of chaste affections, and the avowed enemy to every spirit of pride, hatred, and revenge. Bees cannot approach filth and stench: infinitely more Christ flies with abhorrence from souls that are defiled with sinful or earthly affections. In such he finds no place, any mere than he did in the Inns at Bethlehem. We must earnestly invite and entreat him who vehemently desires to be born in our hearts, that he prepare our souls to receive him by his graces, that he cleanse them by his mercy and by inspiring us with sincere compunction, thet he banish every inordinate passion, fill us with his holy spirit, and by it reign in all our affections, thoughts, and actions; that as by his nativity he is become all ours, so we may be altogether his. Without this condition we frustrate in ourselves the end of his coming; he is not born for us, unless by his spirit he be born in us. Let us conjure him by the infinite love with which he came for this very purpose, that he suffer us not wretchedly to defeat this his mercy. For this happiness we ought ardently to repeat that petition which he himself has put into our mouths: Thy kingdom come. The devout Thaulerus teaches us to ask it by the following prayer:57 "Come, O my Lord Jesus Christ, take away all scandals out of thy kingdom, which is my soul, that you who ought, may reign in it alone. Pride, lust, envy, detraction, anger, and other passions fight in my heart, to usurp portions to themselves. Through your grace I watch and resist with all my strength. I cry out that I belong to you alone, and am all yours; and stretching out my hands to you, I say: I have not king but the Lord Jesus. Come, therefore, O Lord; disperse your enemies in your mighty strength, and you will reign in me, because you are my King and my God."

The custom of one priest celebrating several masses on the same day prevailed in many places on great festivals.58 Prudentius, in his twelfth hymn, On the Crowns of Martyrs, mentions, that on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, the 29th of June, the pope said mass first at the Vatican, and afterwards in the church of St. Paul, without the city. The popes on Christmas-day formerly said three masses, the first in the Liberian basilic, the second in the church of St. Anastasia, the third in the Vatican, as Benedict XIV. proves from ancient Roman orders or missals. St. Gregory the Great speaks of saying three masses on this day.59 This custom of the popes was universally imitated, and is every where retained, though not of precept. Pouget60 says, that these three masses are celebratd to honour the triple birth of Christ; the first, by which he proceeds from his Father before all ages; the second, from the Blessed Virgin Mary; and the third, by which he is spiritually born in our souls by faith and charity. That Christ was born on the 25th of December, Pope Benedict XIV. proves by the authority of St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Austin, &c. and answers the objections of Scaliger and Samuel Basnage.61 He doubts not but the Greek Church originally kept this festival on the same day;62 and he takes notice, that among the principal feasts of the year it holds the next place after Easter and Whitsunday.63

1 Aggæus ii. 7.

2 Gen. iii. 15

3 Ib. xxii. 18.

4 Ib. xxvi. and xxviii.

5 Ib. xlix. 8.

6 Isa. ii. 4; Mich. iv. 2.

7 Gen. xlix. 8, 10.

8 Aggæus ii. 3.

9 Malachi iii. 1.

10 Dan. ii. 32; v. 20; viii. 3. See Rollin or Mezengui, or Calmet.

11 Dan. ix. 21, &c. See Nouveau Comment. t. 9, p. 500.

12 Numb. xxiv. 17.

13 In Vespas.

14 Tacit. in Annal.

15 See the life of Josephus.

16 Acts v. 36, xxi. 38. Joseph. Ant. l. 20, c. 2, et 6, l. 18, c. 1. Idem, De Bello Jud. l. 7, c. 31, &c. Read Dissert. sur les Faux Messies, in the new Fr. Comment. t. 11, p. 21.

17 Spartian in Adriano, c. 14. See Basnage, Contin. de l'Hist. des Juifs, t. 2, p. 123. Also Annot. Josephi de Voisin, in two parts, c. 2. Pugioni's Fidei Huet Demonst. Evang. &c.

18 Luke ii. 1, 2, 3.

19 Mich. ii. 2.

20 Orig. hom. ii. in Luc.

21 St. Justin, Apl. vol. 2.

22 Tert. l. 4, cont. Marcion.

23 St. Chrys. in Matt. hic.

24 The word Messiah is derived from the Hebrew Mashach, which signifies, to anoint. In the Greek tongue Christ, or the Anointed, is the interpretation of this name. The word is sometimes applied to kings and high priests, who were anointed among the Hebrews; as 1 Kings (or Sam.) xii. 5, &c. Ps. civ. Hab. v. 15, but by way of eminency it belonged to the sovereign spiritual deliverer and Saviour of mankind, so often and so solemnly promised by God to his people.

25 See Calmet's Diss. sur les Charactères du Messie, suivant les Juifs, at the head of his comm. on St. Matthew.

26 St. Chrys. hom. 2 in Matt. t. 7, p. 21, ed. Ben.

27St. Jerom says, this cave lay on the south side of the city: St. Justin, martyr, (Dial.) and Eusebius (Demonst. Ev. l. 7, c. 2,) tell us, it was without the city, in the fields. Casaubon (Exercit. 2, in Baron, p. 143,) and Krausen, (Diss. cui titulus: Christi locus natalitius in Thesauro Diss. in Nov. Testam. edit. 1732, t. 2,) also among the Catholics Maldonatus (in Luc. c. 2,) and Drexelius, (t. 2, de Christo Nascente, p. 391,) will have it that this cave was situate within the town of Bethlehem. But the contrary assertion of Baronius is confirmed by Natalis Alexander, Tillemont, Calmet, Serry, (Exerc. 30, n. 2,) Card. Gotti, (de Verit. Relig. Christian. t. 4, c. 7, sec. 3,) Honore of St. Mary, (Crit. t. 2, l. 3, diss. 2, art. 2,) and Quaresmius, (Elucid. Terræ Sanctæ, t. 2, l. 5, c. 4.) The cave on the side of a rock is about forty feet deep, and twelve wide, growing narrow towards the roof. To this day there are three convents of Latins, Greeks, and Armenians, all contiguous, each having their several doors opening into the chapel of the Holy Manger. There are also shown at Bethlehem the chapel of St. Joseph, that of the Holy Innocents, and those of St. Jerom, St. Paula, and St. Eustochium. The manger in which Christ was born, the object of the devotion of St. Paula and St. Jerom, (ep. 108, ad Eustoch. § 10,) is of wood, and is kept in the church.of St. Mary Major at Rome, whither it was brought with some stones cut out of the rock in the cave at Bethlehem, not in the year 352, as some say, but in the seventh century, as Benedict XIV. proves, (l. 4, de Canoniz. part 2.) On the description of Bethlehem, see Adrichomius, and principally Quaresmius. Also, Fr. Blanchini, diss. 1, de Præsepe et Cunis Dni. J. C. in basilicam Liberianam translatls. Tillemont, (note 5,) Baillet, and some others think the opinion that an ox and an ass were in the stable, arose from Isaiah i. 3, and Habacuc iii. 2, (which latter passage is, according to the seventy, In the midst of the beasts thou shalt be made known,) both which prophecies the fathers expound metaphorically. But the truth of this tradition is maintained by Baronius, (ad an. 1, n. 3.) Graveson, (de Myster. Chr. p. 156.) Honore of St. Mary, (Crit. t. 2, l. 3, diss. 2, art. 3.) Ayala, (Pictor Christianus, l. 3, c. 1, n. 7.) Sandinus, (Historia familiæ sacræ, c. 1, p. 12.) Quaresmius, (Elucid. Terræ Sanctæ, l. 6, c. 5.) Benedict XIV. (l. 1, de Myster. c 17, n. 37,} &c. See St. Jerom» ep. 106, ad Eustoch. &c. Several ancient paintings in glass and sculptures on sepulchres of the fourth century, and some probably older, represent the ox and the ass present at the birth of Christ. See Bottarius (t. 1, explict. sacrar. pictur. et sculptur. Romæ subterraneæ, tab. 22, pp. 88, 89,) and Gorius, (Observ. de præsepi Dni. N.J.C. n. 13, p. 82.)

28 St. Bonav. Vit. Christi, c. 10.

29 Luke ii. 9, 26.

30 St. Bern. Serm. in Cant. c. 2.

31 "Sed utinam de festivitato, non de vanitate."

32 St. Fulgentius, Serm. 2, de Nativ.

33 Arnoldus Bonnevallis, Serm. de Nativ. inter Opera S. Cypriani

34 Ps. xcvi. 7.

35 Heb. i. 6.

36Berti (in vita S. Aug.) maintains it to be their work: but the style alone seems to disprove that popular opinion, though it is near as old as the age in which they flourished. Bishop Atterbury justly admires the energetic plainness and simplicity of this hymn, far superior to all rhetorical strains, or pompous illustrations and similes.

37The present Greek text reads this passage: Good will to men, so as to make it a third member of the sentence, and to signify, peace or pardon to the earth, and divine favour and grace to men. The sense is nearly the same.

38 Baruch iii. 38.

39 John i. 14.

40 S. Tho. de Villa-nova, Conc. 3. in Dom. 1, Ad.

41 Isa. ix. 6.

42 Luke ii. 11.

43 "Magnus Dominus, et laudabilis nimis: Parvus Dominus, et amabilis nimis." S. Bern. Serm 1, in Nativ. Dom. in verba Martyrol. p. 755.

44 S. Bern. Serm. 6. in Vigil. Nativ. p. 771.

45 Acts i. 1.

46 "Aufer a nobis pennos et dura præsepia." Ap. Tert. 1, adv Marcion.

47 Tit. ii. 11.

48 1 John ii. 16.

49 "Aut Christus fallitur, aut mundus errat." S. Bern. Serm 3, de Nat.

50 Prov. xxviii. 20.

51 Col. iii. 5.

52 Isa. v. 8.

53 "Roma domus fiet"

54 S. Chrysost. in Ps. 50, p. 536, t. 5.

55 Wisd. xviii. 14, 15.

56 Saltem usque ad adventum Filii Dei error vester duraverit. Aug. En. in Ps. iv.

57 "Quando habituri finem fallaciarum?"

58 Thauler. Serm. in Domin. 3, Adventus.

59 See Roma Rer. Liturg. l. 1, c. 18, n. 6. Joseph. Vicecomes, De antiquis missæ ritibus, l. 3, c. 28, &c.

60 S. Greg. hom. 3 in Evang.

61 Instit. Cathol. t. 1, p. 814.

62 De Festis Christi c. 17, n. 45, p. 411. See F. Honoré, Règles de Crit. l. 3, diss. 2, art. 1, and Tillemont, note 4.

63 N. 67, loco cit. p. 429.

64 N. 57. p. 417.